Zeitschrift der

Z MTH esellschaft für Musiktheorie

Nicholas McKay
»Ün Topics Today«
Z MTH 4 /1 2 2007)
Hildesheim u a : Olms
S 159-183
 n opics oday
Nicholas McKay

This article surveys the state of so-called topic theory today. lt charts its development through
two 'generations' of 'topic theorists'. The first is constructed around three influential texts:
Leonard Ratner's seminal book that established the discipline in its own right, Classic music:
expression form nd style (1980); Wye Allanbrook's Rhythmic gesture in Mozart: Le nozze di
igaro nd Don Ciovanni (1983); and Kofi Agawu's Playing with signs: a semiotic interpreta
interpretation
tion
of classical music (1991). The second comprises significant advances in topic theory essayed
through two further pairs of texts: Robert Hatten's Musical meaning in Beethoven: marked-
ness correlation nd interpretation (1994) and lnterpreting musical gestures topics nd tropes:
Mozart Beethoven, Schubert (2004); and Raymond Monelle's Linguistics nd semiotics in music
(1992) and The sense o f music: semiotic essays (2000).

Susan McCiary's caricature of musicology (read old musicology; a. k. a. formalist analy

sis as an autistic discipline suffering from Asperger syndrome 1 is not so far removed from
the truth. Formal analysis is, by its very nature, disinclined towards-if not incapable
of-reading expressive intentions encoded in music's gestures or voices. Like those af
flicted with Asperger syndrome, its practit ioners ar
are
e generally 'blind to social meanings'
and create instead their own networks of correlations 'that bring to mind the elaborate
pseudos cientific sysyst
stems
ems of numerology and astrology'. 2 Whereas this is considered a
pathological disorder in neurological science, such insensitivity to socio-semantics be
came in twentieth-century musicology not only the norm, but something of an ideologi
cal virtue. Under the legacies of Hanslick 1986), Schenker 1979) and Stravinsky 1924;
1990; 1994), modern musicologists developed a post-Wagnerian, structuralist conceit
to scoff at those who would impose affective significance on to [abstract, geometric]
musical patterns. 3
O f course, this was not always the case. Nor is ali music equal in this respect. Certain
repertoires invite or demand greater sensitivity to expressive meanings. Works of music
theater and those setting music to text are obvious cases. They come with an automatic
and, one might imagine, inextricable semantic component. Yet even these works can
display a further layer of narrative comment encoded in the music; much as Noske finds
in Mozart's deployment of the aristocratic minuet as a social weapon in he arriage

McCiary 2001, 326.

2 McCiary 2001, 326 citing Oliver Sacks.
3 McCiary 2001, 326.

ZGMTH 4 /1 2 2007) 1159

 N I C H O L A S MCKAY

o Figaro. Conversely, they can be made to abandon their referential associations alto
gether. Expression has never been an inherent property of music , said Stravinsk
Stravinsky,
y, 5 who
set about converting his
his Rite o Spring from a theat
theater
er ballet into pure concert hall
hall music
in an act of aesthetic abstraction that was a mere overture to his neoclassic project. 6
So too different stylistic epochs inevitably invite and reward differing musicological

sensitivities. Newcombe, for example, reminds us that Any analy

analysis
sis of Romantic music
which ignores the semantic and narrative aspec
aspects
ts is simply unhistorical. 7 Likewise, musi
cologic al climates change over time. The harsharshh winter of the twentieth-century's formalist
discontent with outmoded expressive attitudes to music thawed to usher in the spring
of a new contextual musicology. lt blossomed in a poststructuralist climate-one in
which McCiary's caricature of autistic musicology thrives-and is now more prone to
scoff at those who do not read affective significance in musical musical pat
patterns,
terns, whe the r that
expressive meaning is hermeneutically constructed or historically reconstructed. 8
Today's
Today 's post mode rn musico logy thus once a again
gain values music's elusive seman
tic qualities. Running in the wake of Barthes and Derrida's impact on literary theo
ry it attempts to construct multiple subjective visions of what a musical work might
mean through diverse act actss of creative reader-oriented interpretation; situating expressive
meaning firmly in the eye of the beholder and not in the work itself.9 Alternatively-but
with a related eye on new historicism 10 i t attempts to reconstruct music's expressive
meanings in context, valuing a humanist engagement with music for what it is (inclu
sive of its so-calle d extramu sical ideas
ideas),
), over and above the constr uctivis t mechanics
of how it's done.
The subjective and plural in terpretation s arising from thesthese
e postmodern readings,
however, areare notab ly different to the shar
shared
ed expressive meanings offere d by musical
topoi: familiar, expressive, rhetorical gestures encoded in referential musical patterns.
These conventional musical signs or commonplaces of style, are distilled f r o m - o r

4 Noske asser
asserts
ts that the three 'aristocratic' minuets ( Se vuol bailare, signor contino; Signore cos'
e quellstupore? and Tutto e ranquillo e placido ) sung by the lower ranking servants, Figaro and
Susanna, assume the function of a social weapon as expressions of mockery or bitternbitterness
ess that ape
the musical manners of the aristocracy (1990, 32-5).
5 Stravinsky 1990, 53.
6 In a bold aestheti
aesthetic
c conversion of he Rite o Spring from what Stravinsky termed an anecdotique
work (i. e. an ethnic, primitivist ballet conveying an explicit narrative story, originally conceived
as a musical image of a sacrificial dance) to an architectonic work (i. e. one of absolute music
conceived as a purely musical construct), Stravinsky, with formalist intent, uprooted his narrative
ballet from the theater, divorced it from its affective significations and transplanted it to the pure
music world of the concert hall and gramophone recording (see Taruskin 1995). In a similar vein
Stravinsky exploited his rejoicing discovery (i.e. his realisation that words could be atomized into
mere syllable
syllables
s of sound with complete abandon for their linguistic and semantic protocols) to deter
the listener from importing the meaning of his texts to his pure music (see Taruskin 1987).
7 Newcombe 1984; cited Monelle 1992, 220.

8 Cook (1996, 109) draws this distinction in his review of Hatten (1994) and Tarasti (1994).

9 e.g. Ker
Kerman
man 198
1980,
0, 1985; Kramer 1990, 1995; McCiary 2002; Subotnik 1988.
10 e.g. Taruskin 1996, 1997.
Taruskin 2003, 276.

160 I ZGMTH 4 /1 2 2007)

ON TOPICS TODAY

grafted onto (depending on one's criticai stance)-the rhetorical surface of music in the
analytical/interpretative process known as topic-theory. 2 lts aim is to explicate the
expressive
express ive quali ties of ostensibly abstract (and typically) classical music. The motivation
of the scholars who practice it stem
stems s primar ily from a de
desire
sire to help ( autistic ) musicol
ogy to recover from the re repress
pression
ion of expressi
expressive
ve discourse by a formalist aesthetics. 3
Both in this respect, and with regar
regardd to th e degree of cre tive interpretation necessary to
make sense of music's referential signs, it occupies common ground with both the new
historicism and reader-oriented approaches of current musicology. Yet at the same time,
it continues to be somewhat marginalized as a curio of music semiotics; a sub-discipline
that has yet to gain fui I entry into the hegemonic club of musicology.
In the Anglo-American tradition, five scholars in particular have proved central to
the emergence and development of so-called topic theory 4 as a recognizable force
in contemporary musicology built on the influence both of earlier theorists like Koch,
Kolmann, Riepel, and Sulzer 5 and more recent twentieth-cen tury theorists su such
ch as Tovey
and Rosen (see Figure 1 . The first generation trio of Leonard Ratner (1980)-topic
6

theory's founding father-and his two disciples, Kofi Agawu (1991) and Wye Allanbrook
(1983), established this mode of analysis or interpretation a contentious distinction)
as a new branch of music semiotics. The second generation, headed by the work of
Robert Hatten (1994; 2004) and Raymond Monelle (2000), has subsequently sought to
address some of its semantic, expressive, semiotic, and socio-historical shortcomings.
Their later work highlights the need f or - and offers compelling demonstrations o f -
more refined acts of interpretation. lt probes deeper into the cultural and historical un
derpinnings of the complex sign functions of expressive gestures, considers the utility of
these gestures for analysis/interpretation and performance, and considerably broadens
the scope of the Agawu-Ratner universe of topic s to encompass a wider range of ex
pressive
press ive gest
gestures
ures.. Together they offer an intriguing glimpse into the future of what today
we still conservatively call topic theory.

12 Topic theory has come to be associated primarily as an analyti

analytical
cal tool honed on eighteenth-century
eighteenth-century
classicism. This is perhaps not surprising given the highly convention-bound nature of the era's ar
tistic practice and social conduct. But the eighteenth century only marks the epitome of common
practice repertoire that propagated the growth of topics as rhetorical commonplaces bec a use their
precedents are found in earlier music: the sixteenth- and seventeenth-ce ntury madrigal and tragedie
seventeenth-century
lyrique, for example.

13 Hatten 1994, 228.

14 The not unproblematic ascription of the term theory (with its unhelpful connotations of objective
positivism) to what is essentially a semiotic process of interpretation, is perhaps symptomatic both
of the 1980s American i mate in which the 'subfield' emerged and of Agawu's influential allying of
referential topics with structural Schenkerism through his concepts of extroversive [i. e. referential
topo ] and introversive [i. e. the pure signs generated by a work's musical structure] semiosis
15 Hill 1981, 64.

16 These antecedent musicologists are representative of just some of the influences underpinning the
emergence of present day topic theory. More recent continental theorists have also contributed to
the growth of the practice but these li e larg ely outside of the Anglo-American tradition on which this
article is focussed.

ZGMTH 4/1-2 (2007) 1161

 N I C H O L A S MCKAY

lnfluentia l early theor

theorists
ists:: lnfluentia l twentieth -century theor
theorists
ists::
Koch, Kolma
Kolmann,
nn, Riepel, Sulzer, etc. Tovey and Rosen

Topic theorists:
Ratner (1980)

Agawu (1991) Allenbrook (1983)

Hatten (1994; 2004) Monelle (1992; 2000)

Figure 1: The (concise) universe of topic theorists

theorists on which the Anglo-American tradition is built

"Topic theorists," then, are the intended exception to McCiary's caricature of autistic,
is
formalist musicology.
cate analytical But altogether.
formalism
it a common
Thesemisconception that topic
scholars navigate theory se
a precariousseek
eks
s to
path eradi
through
semantic "interpretation" nd structural "analysis." Cook is right to observe that what
is at stake" in their endeavors "is nothing less than the rehabilitation of music as mean
ing, which a generation of formalism did its best to repress, but failed." 7 But Whittall is
also on the na o topic ttheory
heory when he observes that Hatten's (1994) objective "is not
a complement ary 'repre
'repression
ssion'' of formalism" but "a dialogue between it and 'expressive
discourse'." 18
This dialogue is the established arena of topic theory, something that Hatten and
his fellow topic theorists "construe as involving both structuralist and hermeneutic ap
proaches to the relationship of sound and meaning." 9 Despite a common misapprehen
sion, topic theory is not simply the art of appending style labels to musical moments.
lts hermeneutic elegance lies in its ability to explore the interplay of style nd structure.
Topic theory flirts with formalism while simultaneously repudiating it. lt addresses "the
'problem' of meaning in music," not through the insensitivity of the quasi-scientific "for
2
malist correspondences" that plague Nattiez's (1 (1975;
975; 19
1982)
82) rigorous "neutra levei" ap
(1987) distrib utiona l charts, 2 but through a heightened cultural sen-
plication of Ruwet's (1987)

17 Cook 1996, 123.

18 Whittall1996, 116.
19 Hatten 1994, 2.
20 McCiary 2001, 326.
21 McCiary caricatures Nattiez's distribution al analysis as the paradigm of autistic musicologists who
"often restrict the scope of their inquiries to formalist correspondences-as though they were trying
to decipher texts in an unknown tongue without the benefit of a Rosetta stone" (2001, 326).

162 I ZGMTH 4/1-2 (2007)

ON TOPICS TODAY

sitivity to the inbuilt intertextuality of the clas

classica
sicall st
style.
yle. Topic theory, in othe r words,
belongs to what Cumming (2000) calls calls the semantic or referential brand of semiotics
in contradistinction to Nattiez's
Nattiez's more infamous structuralist brand. But the semanti
semanticc
insights afforded by topic theory are rarely the result of extram usical reference alone.
They emerge through the interaction of topics and syntax; through processes Agawu
3
demarcates, with jakobson's industry standard terms, as extroversive (the referential
signs o topo and introversive (the pure sign signss o music syntax
syntax)) semiosis 4
One reason why the introversive formalism of topic theory is often overlooked, rela
tive to its referential extroversive dimension, may be to do with the respective inclusion
and exclusion o Nattie z and Agawu from the last o the core an analys
alysis
is tex tbo ok primers. 25
The sudden collapse of the how to do analysis book market-a victim of the 1990s
new musicological devaluation of analysis as an outmoded formalist pr act ice
entombed Nattiez's (1975;
(1975; 11982
982)) taxonomic-emp irical, neutral levei method in the
analysts coll ecti ve p psyche
syche.. lt became the third of the holy trinity of old testament
analysis methods along with Schenker's (1979) voice-leading and Forte's (1973) pitch
class theory. 26 The collapse enabled an emerging topic th eory to de fine itself iin n the 1990s
1990s
as the work not of analysis (something one mig ht fin d in core anal analysis
ysis text books), but
of hermeneutics. 27 This future-proofing of Rat Ratner'
ner's 'so ft' semio tic 28 topic theory in
the new testament of interpretation was to a considerable extent symptomatic of the
trumping of struct
structuralism
uralism (including Nattiez'
Nattiez's
s ' hard' semiotic
semioticss ) with the zeitgeist cal I for
more culture-sensitive readings of music. Topic theory, despite the theoretical implica
tions of its name, has thus managed to side-step Kerman's (1980) cal I for us to get out of
analysis
analysi s by recourse to its softer hermeneu tics of extroversive semiosis. lntroversion,
let us not forget, is a classic symptom of autism. The referential link with the exterior

22 Allanbrook 1996, 134.

23 jakobson 1971, 125.
24 Agawu 1991, 23.
25 i. e. Dunsby and Whittall1988; Cook 1992.
26 Even though Nattiez (1990) would go on to retract much of the linguistic rigour and formalist stric
tures of his distributional charts and neutral levei ideais in his later writing; a point Cook also ob 
serves while noting that Nattiez nonetheless remained committed to the analysis of music's syntactic
structure while topic theory sought to interpret its semantic expression (1996, 106).

27 Agawu
readings(1999, 145)and
of music)
draws a distinction in music semiotics between hermeneutics (topic theory
analysis (i. e. neutral levei, distributional music semiotics). lt is a manifes
tation of music's ultimately false, extrinsic-intrinsic dichotomy (i. e. music's polarity between
referring outside of itself [the domain of hermeneutics] vs. its self-referential tendency [the domain
of analysis]). Agawu further lists rough equivalents of this extrinsic-intrinsic opposition: seman
tic-syntactic, subjective-objective, extra-musical-musical, extroversive semiosis-introversive
semiosis (Jakobso
(Jakobsonn 1985), extra-generic-congeneric (Coker 1972, 60-88 and 144-70), and ex
osemantic-endosemantic (Dahlhaus 1991, 11).

28 Agawu (1999, 154) distinguishes between the hard semiotics of pitch-based structuralism [i.e.
Nattiez] and the broader perspectives of soft semiotics that stem from a more anthropological
view of the musical work; a view he divides into three categories: music and the emotions, topo ,
and song.

ZGMTH 4/1-2 (2007) I 163

 N I C H O L A S MCKAY

world that topic theory supplies thus ensures its survival in a post-analysis climate.
29

Viewed more radically, this may ultimately ensure the survival of analysis itself.
Topic theory's distanced relationship with structuralism then is something of a di
vorce of convenience: it is far more reliant on formalism than is apparent from its rhetoric
of expressive musical meaning. By maintaining a public distance from its introversive

aspects, however, it is tolerated in, if not wholly accepted by, the fashionable circles
of contemporary musicology. In many respects this has occurred in spite of the criti
cai responses to Agawu's Playing with Signs (1991 - t h e text that first sought to build
an analytical method out of Ratner's taxonomy of topics, and in the process brought
it to a much wider audience. Drabkin's largely positive verdict on this landmark text is
duly muted by his rating of Agawu's project as little more than simplified Schenker plus
style: welcome news for scholars who see themselves neither as pure theorists occu
pied with the nature of musical composition noras simply historical musicologists who
excavate its sources, but as something of a hybrid of the two, for whom every aspect of
musical knowledge is potentially of concern. 3 Hatten 3 critiques on similar grounds:
Agawu draws short of interpreting the expressive significance of topics, focusing instead
on meaning derived ffrom
rom ththe
e play of referential topics extroversive semiosi
semiosis)
s) with the
pure signs introversive semiosis) of musical syntax. And though this critique prepares
the ground for Hatten's own (1994) project-which demonstrates a far greater degree
of expressive interpretation-Cook in turn faults Hatten for being a closet absolutist: 32
he seeks to add an express
expressive
ive dimensio n to analytical practice , but in practice, if not
in theory, expression emerges for the most part as a supplement to structur
structure.
e. 33 Striking
the right balance between style and syntax, then, has become the benchmark for any
topic theory. Agawu succinctly formulates the problem: topics point to the expressive
domain, but they have no syntax. 34 This prompts Caplin to pose the fundamental ques
tion behind every topic theory: what motivates or constrains the succession of various
topics within a work. Are there, in fact, rules or motivating forces
forces that guide the ordering
o topics? . 35

The value of Ratner's seminal text, Classic Music: Expression, Form, nd Style (1980),
lies less in any analytical balance it seeks to strike between style and syntax and more
as an outright index or vast thesaurus of the materiais of a musical language that, he as-
serts, was understood by eighteenth-century composers, performers, and listeners alike.
Referential topics are thus presented rather passively as objects of historical authenticity
that offer insights for the analyst and performer into the poietic intentions of the com-

29 jakobson 1971; cited Agawu 1991, 23.

3 Drabkin 1991, 387.
3 Hatten 1992, 88.
32 By which Cook means, someone who believes 'that musical meaning is based exclusively on the
relationships between constituent elements of the work itself, ' i.e. that ' musical meaning is inher
ently musical ' 1996, 110; citing Nattiez 1990, 108; and Hatten 1994, 276).

33 Cook 1996, 112-3.

34 Agawu 1991, 20.

35 Caplin 2005, 113.

164 I ZGMTH 4/1-2 (2007)

ON TOPICS TODAY

poser. For a
poser. analy
nalysis
sis,, the recognition of these expressive qualities, explicit or implicit, is
illuminating, often providing a clue to a striking aspect of structure; for performance,
such recognition is essential, since it points to the poetic implications of the music. 36
But the formulation of such
such a mu
musica
sicall lexicon, however illuminating, merely compounds
the prob lem: suc
suchh topic al referen
references
ces are not arranged into coherent syntagms, as are
the words of a language. 37 lnstead of addressing this semantic shortcoming of topics,
however, Ratner is largel
largely
y con tent with pursuing their historical
historical auth enticity and utility.
In a concise article on the role of topical content when Performing Mozart's Music, 38
he lists a trichotomy of trichotomies (highlighted below in italics). These offer useful
frames of reference for topics in terms of their historical grounding, utility, and signifi
cation. First, topical references are particularly prevalent on fortepiano repertoire be
cause the instrument is a private, domestic surrogate designed to replicate the ensemble
sounds o the theater church and chamber. 39 Second, topics have have different relevancies:
for composers they comprise the stock in trade material to be iden tifie d and selected
in a given compositi on, the subjects tto o be incor pora ted in a discourse. Fo Forr listeners
or scholars they present a kind of informal iconography-figures that have direct or
symbolic meaning, and for performers for whom recognition and projection of topical
content is of the greatest
greatest impo rtan ce, they offer materiai
materiais
s to be sharply profiled and
subtly nuanced. Third, topical referereferences
nces can signify every le levei
vei of dignity from the
highest to the lowest styles, every /oca/e, from the church to the countryside, and every
degree of specificity from the descriptive pictorialisms (such as Turkish music, battle mu 
sic and pastoral musettes) to characteristic dances, general affective stances, and even
°
small figures that had gestural profile. 4 Combin ed, RatnRatner
er a
argue
rguess that these spe
spectra
ctra of
associatio
assoc iations
ns thus represe
represented
nted the eighteenth-century trend toward codification, to ward
the ordering of materiais and processes, putting them into clear and accessible arrange
ments for ready use and immediate understanding. 41
Agawu offers a far more systematic approach to the integration of style and syntax,
constru cting topica l narrati
narratives
ves charted eithe r through referential plot s 42 or the play of
syntax and style foun d in structural rhythm s. 43 He achieves this by a fusion of Schenker
and Ratner that is compelling in its simplicity. The second chapter's exposition of extra-

36 Ratner 1980, 30.

37 Monelle 1992, 227.
38 The subtitle of the edition of arly Music Vol. 19 No. 4 in which the article appeared.
39 Ratner explains that the fortepiano compensated with lively action for what it lacked in fui I body
or sound, thus explaining the rapid-fire juxtaposition of topics on the musical surface. When
the fortepiano takes up stances that are modelled on theatrical altitudes, it tends to touch upon
them briefly and succinctly, creating (particularly in the music of Mozart) a kaleidoscopic con
tinuity. The effect is analogous to cartoon sketching as contrasted with full-colour filled-in art
(Ratner 1991, 616).
40 Ratner 1991, 615-6 my italics.
41 1991, 615.
42 Agawu 1991, 33-4.
43 Agawu 1991, 38-9.

ZGMTH 4/1-2 2007) I 165

 N I C H O L A S MCKAY

versive semiosis lays out his universe of topics. 44 Each topic offers
offers a form of associa
tive signification.
signification. Collectivel
Collectively,
y, they ar
aree grouped under two broad categories: music l
types (various dances such as minuet, passepied, sarabande, siciliano, march etc.) and
styles o music ( a heterogeneous collection of references to militar y and hun t music,
fanfares, horn calls, singing style, brilliant style, French overture, Turkish music, Sturm
und Drang, sensibility,
sensibility, learned sstyle
tyle etc.). Both
Both present stylistic opport unit ies 45 that can
operate within more or less any given form. They are therefore inco rpor ated in to Class Classic
ic
music rather than structured by it. Topics thus mirror certain expressive stances, but
they never assume the role of fundamentally structuring Classic music. 46 This expres
sive
sive vocabulary 47 relierelies
s on a learned compet ence of sensitivity to these conventions.
From this competence, the analyst can construct a plot ( a coherent verbal narrative
that is offered as an analogy or metaphor for the piece at hand ). This is not an explicit
program but what Agawu call calls
s a sheer
sheer indulgence arisarising
ing from the historically minded
analyst's
analys t's engag ement with one aspect of a work' s possible meaning. Refer Referential
ential topics
are thus suggestive poi nts of depa rtur e that dyna mica lly sha shape
pe ou r rrespons
esponse e to Clas
Classic
sic
music. 48
Chapter three exposes the idea of introversive semiosis through Agawu's beginning
middle-e nd paradigm, a none-too-subtle con conversion
version o SchSchenk
enker'
er's
s 1- V -I Ursatz. These
are pure s signs
igns,, structural tonics and dominan ts acting as signifiers of the dynamic func
tion of a musical discourse that can operate on numerous hierarchical leveis. They con
stitute the syntactic background to the referential foreground of the musical surface-
though referential topics can also exist in differing hierarchies. This point is attested by
Agawu's earlier extroversive reading of the opening of Mozart's piano sonata K. 332
as a background minuet (mm. 1-12) dramatized by an aria, musette (mm. 1-4
and learne d style (mm. 5-8 prior to the default emergenc emergence e of a foreground minuet
(mm. 12-22), newly fused .. n hunt style, breaking free from its forme r subservience.subservience. 49
lndeed referential
referential topics have a ttenden
endency,
cy, par ticularly in Mozart, to occu r frequently in
both superimpositi on and rapid juxtapositio n, ter terms
ms that highlight a curious com-
plementary relationship between the p r t ctic discourse of the rhetorical surface of
Classical music and the hypot xis of its underlying organic structure. See for example,
Agawu's observation on the opening of Mozart's piano concerto K 467: When the

44 Agawu's universe of topics comprises a provisional list of ali the topics, twenty-seven in total,
found in the works analyzed in his book. He acknowledge
acknowledges
s both the high degree of selectivity
involved in this list and the inevitability that the universe will expand as later research uncovers
more topics 1991, 30). As well as uncovering more topics, we might also add, with the benefit of
the hindsight of Monelle's work, that many of the topics will undergo expansion by subdivision and
by casting their referential net far wider than Ratner or Agawu envision. See for example Monelle's
enlightening discussion of the web of references (semiotic, cultural, historie, contextual etc.) sur
rounding the horse and the pi nto topics 2000, 41-80 .
45 Pestelli 1984, 136.
46 Agawu 1991, 32.
47 Allanbrook 1983, 2-3.
48 Agawu 1991, 33-4.
49 Agawu 1991, 45.

166 I ZGMTH 4/1-2 2007)

ON TOPICS TODAY

singing style emerges [m. 5] as a melody-biased topic, it does so as an additional layer

superimposed on the march. 50 The interaction between what is ultimately a syntactic
background and a stylistic foreground enables Agawu 5 to modify his indulgent notion
of an extroversive plot into one depende nt on the interaction between refe
referent
rential
ial and
pure signs. His concept of structural rhythm -borrowed from Kramer52 i s thus used
to describe a musical discourse that emerges from the dyna mic transitions betwe en
musical parameters as they progress through topics.
Semioticians know that meaning reside
resides
s not in th e sig
signs
ns themselves
themselves but in the relation
among signs. For Agawu, the relation between referential and pure signs is frequently
one of non-congruence. 53 lndeed, as Monelle observes, classical for form
m is at its most
expressive when the two leveis [extroversive and introversive] are in disagreement the
basis of any expressive structure must be premised on the noncoincidence of domains. 54
Agawu's case study in the noncongruence of introversive and extroversive discourse is
the first movement of Beethoven's String Quartet in A minor Op. 132. 55 Monelle56 eru
ditely summarizes
summarizes the non- coincide nce of structural landmarks with the fanfare, sensibil
ity and cadenza topics that Agawu 57 identifies in bars 19 22 (i. e the fanfare is ill-placed
on a Neapolitan chord; the appoggiaturas of the sensibility topic are displaced to just
after the bass move from B flat to A; and the cadenza sets in just before the arrival on the
second inversion). This microcosm of noncongruence is symptomatic of Agawu's find
ings
ings for the whole movement, characterized by such dialectical events as the intrusion of
a gavotte (m. 40) in the progression to the second subject and the failure of a march to
reach its expected harmonic goal, thwarted both by the introduction of a new theme and
its frequent lame presentation with a missing
missing harmonic downbeat. 58 Op. 132 is one of
three such extended examples of string quartets Agawu presents respectively in chapters
four, five and six. Mozart's C Major Quartet K 515 demonstrates the normative synchro
nization of topical surface with background structure, Haydn's D Minor Op. 76, No. 2
represents a triumph of pure signs over referential signs, 59 and Beethoven's Op. 132 is
a constant struggle between referential signs and musical structure. Compelling though

50 Agaw u 1
1991,
991, 38.
51 Agawu 1991, 38-9.
52 Kramer 1984, 9-11.
53 Agawu is surely indebted here to Meyer's concept of parametric non-congruence (1973, 81); as
Hatten also observes (1992, 91).
54 Monelle 1992, 229.
55 Agawu 1991, 110-26.
56 Monelle 1992, 229-30.
57 Aga wu 1991
1991,, 114.
58 The impact on musical continuity of such noncongruence resonates with j. D. Kramer's concept of
gestural time, where time gest
gestures
ures are
are removed from their original context and become autono
mous (for example, beginning as ending. Kramer defines gestur gestural
al time as species of multiply
directed musical time in which the conventional meanings of gestures (beginnings, endings, struc
tural upbeats, etc.), rather than the literal succession of events, determine the logic of continuity
(1988, 452).
59 Agawu1991,109.

ZGMTH 4/1 2 2007) I 167

 N I C H O L A S MCKAY

these analyses are in calibrating the dialectic between rhetorical surface and structural
background, Hatten prepares the ground for his own substantial contribution to topic
theory, raising the critique of Agawu's covert formalism:

The beginning-middle-end paradigm allows Agawu to coordinate deeper voice-lead

ing and motivic structure with a dramatic musical surface-or rather to interpret the
dialectic between the two .. lronically,
lronically , despit
despite
e the much richer analysis that such an
interaction makes possible, the enterprise is disappointingly formalist; we simply have
a more
more complex formal hierarchy with distress
distressingly
ingly little expressive interpretation of
either topical or syntactic functions. Agawu identifies drama, and the interactions
which help produce it; but with his limited signifieds, he never reveals the interpretants
that arise from, and help us appreciate, the expressive significance of the interaction. 6

irst major contributio n to topi c theory Musical Meaning n Beethoven: Marked-

Hatten's ffirst
Hatten's
ness, Correlation, nd lnterpretation (1994) addresses (indirectly) the formalist shortcom
ings of Agawu through his notion of expressive genre interpreted with a hermeneutic
tool bag containing concepts of markedness theory, troping, and emergent meaning.
These concepts enable Hatten to arrive ata far greater degree of expressive interpretation
than Agawu approaches in his pla y of extroversive and introversive sign signs.
s. The promise
of Hatte
Hatten's
n's contribu tion to second generation topic theor y is abundantly clear in his
eloquent review of the polarized schools of hermen eutic (Agaw (Agawu)
u) and structuralist
(Nattiez) semiotics/semiology. 61 He articulates the irony of the distinction: 62 Agawu's
topics have
have far more potential for abdu ctiv e interpre tation in the vein of Peirce's
semiotics a system that includes semantic [and pragmatic] interpretation ) than his al
legiance to Sau
Sauss
ssur
ure
e migh t sugges
suggest;
t; conversely Nattiez's ded ucti ve meth od of distribu
tional analysis is far more akin to Saussure's semiology a metho dolog y that requires as
its comp lem ent a ssemantic
emantics s to supply reference ) than is suggested by Nattiez's allegiance
to Peirce. The irony is crucial for Hatten. Both Nattiez and Agawu are criticized for offer
ing semiotic th theories
eories that underprivilege exprexpressi
essive
ve interpretation; Agawu neglect
neglectss to
fully interpret his topic
topics,
s, thus ignoring Peir
Peirce
ce an
and
d produci ng impoverished signifieds;
Nattiez in turn relegates interpretation to an activity that occurs only after the analysis of
the neutral levei, thus overlooking the full implications of Peirce, namely abduction,
the role of the interpretant at every stage of the analysis, the final interpretant. 63
Agawu's underprivileging of express
expressive
ive content thus falls short for Hatten on two
counts:
count s: he does not fully define or categorize the topics he analyzes, nor does he go
64

very far in interpreting the topical signs he decodes. These two critiques are particu
larly pertinent to both Hatten and Monelle who addr
address
ess these respective shortcomings.
Monelle offers a much deeper cultural engagement with the definitions and categoriza-

6 Hatten 1992
1992 9 0.
61 Hatten 1992.
62 Hatten 1992 88.
63 Hatten 1992 97
64 Hatten 1992
1992 89.

168 I ZGMTH 4/1-2 (2007)

ON TOPICS TODAY

tions of such topics as the horse and the pianto 65 than anything found in Ratner,
Allanbrook or Agawu; and the hermeneutic insights arising from Hatten's interpretation
of emergen t meanings in troped topics 66 embrace a far
far more replete noti on of musi
cal signification than that found in Agawu.
Hatten views Agawu's attem pt to transcend an astylistic Schenkerism as ultimately
compromised by a focufocus s on tthe
he identification , not expressive interpretation, of topicsY
In semiotic term
terms,
s, the signifieds of Agawu's topics are are har dly more than their label
labels,
s, or
a few of their identifying charac
characterist
teristics.
ics. A topic t heory that confines itself to the iden
68

tification of referential labels without attempting to extract their expressive meaning(s) is

an impoverished theory; a point McCiary deftly makes:

The mere labeling of topics in masterworks produces in me the kind of dismay I would
feel if an art critic were to explicate Picasso's uernica by proudly identifying the
horsie, without somehow noticing the creature's anguished grimace or the other fig
ures on the canvas. 69

Agawu's analysis of the first movement of Mozart's F major Sonata K 332 70 is to some
extent guilty of this bland labelling, though he does attempt to articulate the relation
among his found topics. 7 He charts, for example, the opposition between mm. 1-4 and
mm. 5 - 8 as one betwe en aria
aria's
's song and learned style
style's
's unsingable melody (en

coded in the form of a parody of counterpoint, replete with hemiola effects and large
melodic skips). Similarly, having identified the generally unstable topics of Sturm und
Drang and fantasia in the aptly unstable location of transition (mm. 22-40 , he goes on
to note the suitability of the topic to its location. Such observations can form the basis of
an indulgent interpretative plot or structural rhythm but Agawu (in this example, inter
ested primarily in demonstrating the referential nature of extroversive signs) leaves this
observation underdeveloped-a case of pointing to the horsie and the expression on its
face but ultimately leavi
leaving
ng sem anti c interpreta tion to the indivi dual reader listener.
listener. lt is
thi
this
s pulling -up short of expressive meaning (particularly in instances where the suitability
of the topic to its structural location s brought into question) that Hatten's topic theory
addresses.

65 Monelle 2000, 41-80.

66 Hatten 1994; 2004.
67 Hatten 1992, 90.
68 Hatten 1992, 90.
69 McCiary 2001, 326.
70 Agawu 1991,44-8.
7 Agawu is explicit about this structuralist pursuit of finding meaning, not just in the identification
of, but in the differe nce between and and relation among signs/top ics. The ident ity of a topic is least
dependent on the name of that topic. What matters, following the structuralist idea of relationality,
is the differenc e between various topics ... o llo wing Barthes
Barthes ... opics may be read
read or heard as at least
second-order semiotic systems, since they take a musical sign (or set of musical signs), drain it of
signification, and
and then refill i t with meaning 1991, 49).

ZGMTH 4/1-2 2007) I 169

 N I C H O L A S MCKAY

He argu
argues
es that indiv idual topics are organiz ed into expressive
expressive g enres. 72 By way
genres.
of exampl
example,e, hihis
s opening hermeneutic reading of the slow movement of Beethoven's
ammerklavier Piano Sonata Op. 106 employs the expressive genre of the tragic-to
transcendent. 73 This is signale
signaled
d in the music by the strategic (i. e. work-specific) and
stylistic (i. e. intertextua l) unde rcutt ing o resolution, resul
resulting
ting in transcend ence through
a positiv ely resigne
resigned d acceptance. ExpExpress ive meaning for the work is thus troped as
ressive
abnegation -a positive surrender of the will to a higher power. 74 Cook draws a helpful
analogy here, noting that expressiv
expressive genres funct ion rather like the key of a sonata. 75 A
e genres
work in A major, for example, is not continuously n A majo r in a any
ny literal sense but the
overall key coordinates the diverse tonal contents of the music and so provides a means means
for interpreting them. 76 In Hatten's words, once a genre is recognized or provision
ally invoked, it guides the listener in the interpretation of part icula r features ... h at can
help flesh out a dramatic or expressi
expressive
ve scenario. 77 This process of guided interpretation
based on the initial hypothesis of an expressive genre reveals Hatten's indebtedness to
Peirce
Peirce's's no tion of abduction : 78 a form of interpretative reasoning that proceeds from an
initial suppositio n. 79 Fo
supposition. Forr Hatten, then, music e mbodie s expressive p proces
rocesses
ses... much as
it embodies structural ones. 8
justas a key modulates, only to return to its tonic home,
so too expressive genres
genres contr ol the overall express
expressive
ive contou r of a work, even if at times
they are challenged by conflicting expressions.
Hatten achieves this extra levei of expressive meaning through his device of trop
ing; something akin to a purely music musicalal metaphor. The opening o the finalefinale o Op. 101,
for example, conflates heroic and pastoral topics. Hatten reads this as a heroic victory ..
within the realm of the pastoral. lf the pastoral is interpreted .. n the context of the
spiritual, he furt her surmis
surmises,
es, then tthe
he victory will be understood as an inward, spir
itual one. 8 This emergent meaning arise arises
s from the ( strong ) trop ing of the heroic and
pastoral topics. However, as Cook argues, suc 82 such
h meanings constitute a form o creative
interpretation that goes goes beyond the bounds of mere historic al reconst ruction , the mast

72 Hatten 1994, 11

73 Hatten 1994, 28.

74 Hatten 1994, 20.
75 Cook 1996, 108.

76 Cook 1996, 108.

77 Hatten 1994, 89; cited Cook 1996, 108.
78 Peirce 1958, 89 164.

79 Abductive reasoning is the interpretative process personified by William of Baskerville, the central
character of Eco's The ame of the ose 1998). lt is an interpretative strategy (one proceeding
from an initial, speculative hypothesis that governs ali further reasoning) that is defined in contradis
tinction to the deductive processes of syllogistic logic. Deduction, of course, is the prototypical
sleuthing tool employed by Sherlock Holmes, the character with whom Eco's novel invites compari
son through the obvious intertextual parody of Baskervil
Baskerville's
le's name.
80 Cook 1996, 108.

81 Hatten 1994, 171.

82 Cook 1996, 109.

170 I ZGMTH 4/1 2 2007)

ON TOPICS TODAY

to which Hatten, li ke most topic theorists, nails hi

his
s colors from the outset.83 lndeed much
as the criticai response to Agawu centers upon his balance between the extroversive
style of hermeneutic interpretation and the introvers
introversive
ive structure of analysis, so the criti
cai reception to Hatten orbits two musicological poles: that of historically re onstru ted
meaning and the onstru ted meaning that arises from acts of creative interpretation. At
times Hatten's flair for creativ
times creative
e interpretation draws him u ncomfor tably close to a new
musicology he is keen to distance himself from.
Hatten's
Hatte n's interpretative the ory fur ther utilizes other paramet
parameters ers of music as signs that
support or undercut his notion of expressive genres. These parameters include discrimi
nations of dynamic leveis, major/minor oppositions, types of key relationship e. g. the
prospective direction of dominant-sided modulations vs. the closural properties of sub
dominant sided modulations), and the direction of melodic motion. These are broadly
articulated through binary oppositions that Hatten reads through a theory of marked
ness, developed from Shapiro (1976; 1983). This theory of asymmetry between paired
opposites holds that mark ed terms have a narr ower ran range
ge of meaning relative to un
mar ked ones. ThusThus,, as Cum ming (1994
(1994)) sum
summarize
marizes,
s, the major mode is unmarked in
relation
relation to the more specific affective connotations of the minor and a 'middle' stylistic
register is unmarked in relation both to 'high' and 'low' stylesstyles.. Hatten als
also
o ext
extends
ends the
concept to modulation-the home key is normative and modulation is marked. Even
basic semiotic opposition between type and token succumbs to markedness ratings:
the basic
the type is to be understood as unmarked and the token marked. 8 Add to this a divi
sion of materi
material
al types into thematic/presen tational, transitional /developmen tal, and
cadential closural 85 a trio not entirely unrelate
unrelatedd to Agawu's beginn ing-mid dle-en d
paradigm-and Hatten can can creatively interpret the typicalit y of material type to its given
location.

When presentational material occurs at an opening, or harmonically unstable material

in a development section, it is unmarked because it conforms to the conventions of
sonata form, but if any type of material is displaced to a location that is stylistically sen
sitized
sitized for another function, it is then marked by its incongruence. 86

Hatten is thus able to distinguish betwe en stylistic markedne

markednessss whe n ge
general
neral st
style
yle
types appear in incongruous locations a transitional fanfare,
fanfare, for example) and strate
gic markedness when suc such
h incongruen ce becomes foregr ounde d within an individual
work's expressive genre. Through this, Hatten develops his sophisticated hermeneutic
reading of Beethoven's music with his metaphor of abnegation a positive surrender to
a higher power) arising from the integration of opposed impulses e. g. yearning me
lodic direction troped with yielding harmonic struc
structure).
ture).

83 Hatten 1994 1

8 Hatten 1994 44.

85 Hatte n 1994 115.
86 Cumming 1994.

ZGMTH 4/1-2 (2007) I 171

 N I C H O L A S MCKAY

Hatten thus presents a topic theory with far more emphasis on creative interpretation
by offering a framework for integrating ( tropin g ) opposed topics as, in effect, meaning
ful me taphors. This ta
takes
kes place both o n the extroversive leve
leveii of semiosis e. g. the heroic
superimposed or juxtaposed with the pastoral) and on the introversive levei where top-
ics are trop ed in relation tto
o st
structural
ructural landmarks and oth er pure sigsigns.
ns. Unli ke Agawu,
however, Hatten encampasses the clash of topics under overarching expressive genres
that help to make sense of music's expressive discourse. (The [same] Sense o Music to
which Monelle (2000) turns his attention.)
Although Hatten's theory is initially confined to Beethoven (later expanded to
Schubert), 87 the hermeneutic framework he builds in his his topic theor y offe
offers
rs a much wid-
er utility beyond the classical repertoire. I, for one, have found this mode of reading-
coupled with an adaptation o Bakhtin's (1981; (1981; 1984) literary theories o doub le-v oici ng
in Dostoevsky's noveis to be highly productive on the early post-Rite o Spring works
of Stravinsky.88 These works encode radical ( marked ) oppositions in the music that
call out for a similar mode of hermeneutic interpretation. And though the ges gestur
tures
es that
encode such oppositions in Stravinsky's syntax appear removed from the conventional
commonplaces of Agawu's universe of topics, their distanc distance e is often achieved through
a willful negation of organic conventions that makes possible a reading of Stravinsky's
rhetorical surface as referential through the absent signifiers of classicism. This enables
one to construct a universe of antithetical topics in a parodie musical discourse; one that
se
seek
ekss to inve rt the conventional marked-u nmarked identities that Hatten teas teases
es out of his
readings of Beethoven.
The middle piece of Stravinsky's Three Pieces for String Quartet, for example, fore
grounds what I have termed a death of the the me strateg y. 89 This is achieved diachroni-
strategy.
cally, by usurping what should be prospective thematic locations with closural cadential
gestures, and synchronically, by the absence of theme from accompanimental gestures.
The work thus becomes one in which punctuation replaces statement. Whereas these
intrusive punctuative gestures would be mark ed in the class classical
ical style rhetoric that Hat
ten studies, in Stravinsky's post-Rite world, they are so pervasive as to constitute the
unmarked norm. In this sense Stravinsky's music can be said to have instigated what I cal I
a markedness reversal (relative to cla classic
ssical
al repertoire). Semiotically, the work relies on
antithetica l gest
gestures
ures e. g. cadential themes) frequently conveyed through absent signifiers
e. g. miss
missing
ing thematic state
statements
ments).
). As this brie f example demonstrates
demonstrates,, Hatten's model of
creative interpretation thus opens the door of topic theory to a far wider repertoire than

the confines of his own Beethoven and Schube rt studies

studies might sug
sugges
gest.
t. His he rmene utic
approach, in other words, works justas well in such
such marked , contexts as Stravinsky's
anti-classical discourses, as it does in its unma rked Beethovenian home.
The ever broadening remit of topic theory becomes yet more apparent in the two
seminal works of Monelle (2000) and Hatten (2004), which I have loosely defined as
marking a second generation of topic theory. Here Hatten offers a continuation and

87 Hatten 2004

88 McKay
McKay 1998 2003.
89 McKay 2003 500

172 I ZGMTH 4/1 2 (2007)

ON TOPICS TODAY

development of the inte rpretati ve ideas se

sett out in his earlier book (signaled by the reprise
reprise
of these ideas at the outset). He begins with a powerful vindication of his continued
attempt to situat
situate
e interpretation in a topically-i nformed historical context against the re
lentless tide of Kramer's (1995) pervasive new musicology. His defens defense
e is worth citing
at length as a paradigm of the continuing territorial struggle to locate topic theory in
contempora ry musicology.

In seeking to establish a basis for musical meaning in a given composer's output (style
types, their expressive correlations, and their further interpretation in musical w o r k s -
within the context of strategic events) one's role is analogous to that of a trial lawyer
who must make a case, by creating plausible generalizations or narratives, that ac
counts for ali the available evidence. Postmodernist approaches may consider this to
be a flawed enterprise, impossible from the start, but I have found the results to reward
to the effort. lt is less a leap of faith for me to approach Beethoven's meanings in this
way than it is for me to accept some of the associative leaps of a facile New Musicol
ogy, especially when they go beyond plausible intentions by historical individuais, to
the unwitting psychological and cultural biases in which cultural subjects are inevitably
trapped. I want to understand what Beethoven might have wanted to mean, not to psy
choanalyze his efforts or to reduce him to a pawn of cultural forces beyond his contrai.
Though my approach recognizes the stylistic and intertextual relationships that guaran
tee coherence of types and strategies from one work to the next, it also acknowledges

the ways in which a composer can create works whose individuality lead to growth (or
even change) of cultural value
values
s or mean
meanings.
ings. T
Thus
hus I wou ld no t dissolve
dissolve the
the autono
mous wor k into a mere node at the intersection of cultural practice, viewed through
the peephole of present-day subjectivity, but rather reconceive the individual work as
emerging from a dialectic of stylistic and strategic motivations as grounded in an his
torical context. 90

McCiary is a notable target of Hatten's distancing of himself from the reader-oriented

interpretation of postmodern musicolog
musicology.
y. Her infamous reading 9 of Beethoven's Ninth
Symphony (published the same year as Playing with Signs) through feminist codes of
sexual aggression and the vio len ce of the patriarchically in invest
vested
ed male is an obvi-
ous example of the kind of impl ausi ble attempts to rea
92
read
d Beethoven
Beethoven to which Hatten
objects. Unlike his hermeneutic, such readings are rooted in frames of reference employ
ing codes and conventions e. g. constructs of gender, sexuality, and sociopolitical ques
tions) that are decidedly not contemporary with the music studied. Part one of Hatten's
book thus embellishes the idea of hermeneutics as historical reconstruction that he laid
out in his earlier book. He develops his notion of troping to embrace what he terms a
trope at the levei of genre; evidenced in the Andante third movement of Beethoven's
Op. 130 as a creative fusion of the playfulness and rhythmic drive of a Scherzo with

90 Hatten 2004 33-4.

9 McCiary 2002 112-31.

92 McCiary's article was originally published in 1987 and substantially revized in 1991. Her reading
provokes musicology in to getting down off the beanstalk; a provocation
provocatio n prompting van den Toorn
to riposte sharply in an impassioned defence of the so-called Music Academy 1995, 11-43).

ZGMTH 4/1-2 2007) I 173

 N I C H O L A S MCKAY

the tunefulness of an Andante." 93 He employs Kramer's notion of "expressive doubling 94

as a marker of "self-reflexive shifts in the levei of discourse" 95 and develops new ex
pressive genres. Foremost among these is his "textu ra strategy " of plenitude : "an im 
"textura
plied saturation or repleteness," the "prototypical state" of which is "suffused, contented
fulfillment."96 Hatten's exemplar is the Adagio of the Ninth Symphony. He further finds
it in both euphoric (the Andante of Op. 130) and "dysphoric" (the Presto of Op. 130)
states-terms reflecting the "state" of topics that Monelle also employs in his detailed
interpretations of the horse topic. 97 Hatten's discussion thus broadens that of his earlier
oppositional
opposit ional the ory of markedness in the direction of Rosch's (1976) so-called proto
typicality theory." 98
Much of the insightful recent work of both Hatten (2004) and Monelle (2000) is thus
engaged with a much closer scrutiny of the typical effects and states of topics as they
would typically appear in their "unmarked" or proto-type state) in relation to their (of
ten "marked" or deviant) concrete realizations as expressive tokens. This work represents
a notable corrective to McCiary's obj ection that (ea (earli
rlier)
er) topic theorists simply point out
the horsie without noticing the grimace on its face or its relation to its surrounds. Hatten
and Monelle not only analyze the expressive gestures of music (with a detailed cultural
and historie sensitivity more attuned to the diverse meanings of topics), they further
draw illuminating meanings from their disposition among their surroundings. Through
terminology indebted to Kramer's concept of the "structural trope," 99 Hatten achieves
this through his familiar notion of "emergent meaning," refining his concept through what
he calls "the troping of topics;" a process that can occur both at the levei of theme (the
merging of two voices in contrasting topics) and g m (where ali voices participate in
the fusion).
He illustrates the distinction-helpfully for explicating the work of two books si
multaneously-by borrowing Monelle's 100 example of Bach's Fugue in Ab (WTC 11 . lts
subject is a galant theme borrowed from the world of the trio sonata. lts countersubject
is a passus duriusculus lament
lament,, typica l of sixteenth-century expressions of the "pathetic,
painful, distressed, tender, sorrowful, anxious." 101 Hatten thus summarizes the "tropolog
ical signification of this combination of a cheerful, positive subject and a lament-based
countersubject" as an example of thematic troping, perfectly illustrated by Monelle's
reading of the incongruity as "a positive subject that 'dispels' the 'obscurity and neuras
thenia of the countersubject'." 102 The Gigue from Bach's first French Suíte in D Minor, on

93 Hatten 2004, 37

94 Kramer 1990, 22; cited Hatten 2004, 39.

95 Hatten 2004 , 52.
96 Hatten 2004, 43.
97 Monelle 2000 62-3.

98 Fo
Forr a discussion of Rosch s prototypical ity theory, see Lakoff (1990, 39-114).
99 Kramer 1990, 1O
100Monelle 2000 198-206.

101 Monelle 2000 198; cited Hatten 68.

102 Monelle 2000 198; cited Hatten 68.

174 I ZGMTH 4/1-2 (2007)

ON TOPICS TODAY

the other hand, offers an example of troping at the levei of genre: a clear example of the
use of French overture and fugue as topical treatments of a gigue":

The dotted rhythms and flourishes of the ceremonial

ceremoni al French style, and the fuga treat
ment associated with the faster section of the French overture, so completely character
character

ize the opening that one might ask in what sense the gigue is still present in the trope.
But if one plays the dotted rhythms with the "swing" of a gigue, as opposed to the
double-dotted French overture, and in a tempo that is faster than a ponderous overture
but slower than a quick gigue, then the blend between the topics begins to emerge-
energetic yet seriou
serious
s ... Ba
Bach's
ch's trop e is thus an ingenious way to enhance the expressive
weight and closural force of the last dance, in keeping with the seriousness of the entire
suite. 103

As well as exemplifying the type of expressive meanings both Hatten and Monelle read
through their enhanced versions of topic theory, the last example points to another di
mension in which Hatten has sought to develop the practice, one that curiously harks
back to Ratner's suggestion that for the performer .. an awareness of referreferentia
entiall implica 
104
tions can
can hav
have
e a profound influence u pon decisions for performance." The major de
velopment of Hatten's thought in his later book is thus a broadening of his remit of topics
to take account of wider expressiv
expressive
e "gestures;" a deve lopm ent that attempts to realize his
longstanding
longstandi ng belie f that performance of the gestural con tou r of music can radically affect
our interpretation of its expressive components.
Hatten traces the origins of this new approach to a moment of revelation when his
initial (Brahms-influenced) interpretation of the second movement of Schubert's Piano
Sonata in A Minor, D. 845 as simplistic and harmonically "formulaic," gave way under
the influence of hi
his
s piano tutor's performance. Through a formerly unimagined delicacy
of touch and rubato this performance brought "the stylized Uindler .and Schubert's
musical world to life" capturing "an implied inner agency's poignant evocation of lost
innocence." 105

My teacher's gesturally realized performance was composed of the very elements I had
analytically treated as separate components. The difference was in their synthesis their
continuity beyond the mere sequence of enchained pitches and rhythms, which fos
tered an emergent expressive interpretation far richer than I had been able to achieve
in my own playing. lt is this synthetic gestalt and its emergent expressivity that will be
central to my study of musical gesture. 106

This offers a foretaste of Hatten's development of a hermeneutic of expressive gestures

and agency, the fui I extent of which cannot be explicated in the confines of this article. 107
In essence, expressive gesture is, for Hatten, the translation o cultural gestural com-

103 Hatten 2004, 68-9.

104Ratner 1991,616.
105 Hatten 2004, 111.
106Hatten 2004, 112.
107 See Hatten's summary of his notion of gesture (2004, 124-6).

ZGMTH 4/1 2 2007) 1175

 N I C H O L A S MCKAY

petency to achieve a basic leve/ of musical understanding e. g. meter and tonality are
analogous to gravitation or dyna mic vectoral spa
space
ce ... making possible the e xperien ce of
em odied motion . .comparable to those affecting the body in a natural environment. 108
es are thus ch aracterized 109 as analogue, continuous, articulate, hierarchical, pos
Gestures
Gestur
sessing a significant envelope (pre
(pre-- and pos
postmov
tmovement
ement);); contextually constrained and
enriched (stylistically and strategically), typically foregrounded, eyond precise notation,
amenable to type-token relationships, potentially systematic (i. e. organized opposition
ally by type). Musical gesture is movement implied, virtual actualized) interpretable
as a sign. lt is classifiable according to Peirce's categories of firstness, secondness, and
thirdness etc., etc. 110
An example o what Hatten achieves with his synth synthesis
esis o topi c the ory and gesture c
can
an
be economi cally conveyed in hi his
s brief explanation of the finale of Beethoven's Op. 101.
Here conflicting gestural agencies demand an interpretative shift shift from the dialectal inte
gration of the troping of topics to a dialogical conflation of multiple agencies.

How might we interpret contrasting gestures when their tropological fusion does not
appear to be warranted? Such gestures may imply more than one agency, and may
be interpreted as dialogical
dialogical.. ..When musical events are heard as gestural, then the im
plication of agency is inescapable. ln ... Op. 101 we sense an agent who not only ex
periences an inner, spiritual victory, but also, in a performative sense ... achieves
achieves it by

affirmative uttera nce ... t is not enough that we hear the opening of the finale played
utterance
with deter minat ion; we also nee need
d to he
hear
ar the imitat ion that triggers
triggers the learned
learned style;
then, after the shift to a softer contrasting ge sture in m. 5, we must recognize the
gesture
pedal point and continuous swirl of sixteenths that cue the pastoral through the musette
topic. In other words we still need to be able to identify topics, as well as the details of
harmony and voice-leading, rhythm, and meter that support their cueing in the context
of a musical phrase. And we must recognize the stylistic expressive correlations which
these topics bring to the creative synthesis of a musical trope. Not ali of these elements
of musical meaning are necessarily communicated through the Firstness or Secondness
of gesture as performative realization, but they may depend on our knowledge of style
conventions at the levei of Thirdness. 111

In other words, certain gestures do not merge into a single agency but instead maintain
their separate roles. 112 They constitute what Hatten terms
terms a tro pe at the levei of dis-
course: their opposite meanings interact dialogically, and rather than fusing metaphori
cally into a third meaning, they may create a trope ata higher levei, as ironic wit emerges
from thei r unassim
unassimilat
ilated
ed friction . 113 With this
this,, Hatten broadens his theor y to embrace a
more pluralist conception of musical meaning than is possible with the singularsingular dialect i
cal synt
synthesi
hesiss obta ined through metap hori call y tro ped topics. This opens hi his
s theo ry to

108 Hatten 2004 124.

109 Hatten 2004 124-26.
110 Hatten further summaries the distinction between stylistic and strategic gestures 136-7).
Hatten 2004 224.

2 Hatten 2004 225.

3 Hatten 2004 225.

176 I ZGMTH 4/1-2 2007)

ON TOPICS TODAY

more dialogical theories of interpretation that are less prone to privilege and marginal
ize certain voices or agencies at play in music.
music.114 Hatten concludes his hermeneutic of
topics and gesture with an acknowledgment that topics offer only a constituent element
of expressive interpretation:

Although topics provide benchmarks for interpretation, much more is required to prop
erly interpret those movements whose topics are far from prototypical. What we have
observed in the finale of Op. 132 is a greater concern with continuity, and a perhaps
compensatory move from the foregrounding of topics as subjects of discourse to the
foregrounding of marked moments in themes that are less characterized by underlying
topics.115

This is not to signal the death knell for topic theory as a mode of hermeneutic enquiry.
Rather it is to signal that other forms of expressiv
expressive e gestures must be added to topica l
discourse and, with a nod to Monelle's exemplary work in this field, to signal that there
remains much detailed semiotic work to be done in evaluating the varying prototypical
ity ratings of topical references.
In conclusion then, let us turn briefly to the work of Monelle's The ense o Music
2000). Though it addaddre
ress
sses
es topic th eory e xplicitl y only in chapters two and three, this
text, perhaps more than any other, signals the future of topic research and interpreta

tion. Theory no longer seems an apt word. As with Dr. Strabismus (the fictional music
theorist, who at the onset of Monelle's book realizes the futility of his failed attempts to
produce a comprehensive theor y of music ), The ense o Music leaves us with a sense
of the futility of attempting to produce a closed theory of topics that can synthesize
what is an ever-expanding and neanearr infinite universe of topics with anything remotely
resembling systematic rules governing their paradigmatic meanings and syntagmatic de
ployments. His opening discussion of the subtle sign functions of (iconic or indexical)
topics operating through ratio facilis (i. e. conventional learned codes), as opposed to
the uniqueness of signs that operate through ratio difficilis i. e. where every detail of
the signified is mapped on to the signifier), highlights the evolutionary nature of signs-
something that most topic theories fail to convey when they fix in print taxonomies of
topics, each with their seemingl
seeminglyy fixed associations:

Eco sees ... hat there is an irresistible interpretive landslip from ra io difficilis towards
ratio facilis Through habit, complex signs beco me stylized .. hough ... a sign may con

tain many unique features, we immediately recognize this large-scale configuration as

i it were an elementary feature... he expressio
expressionn is recognized as being conventionally
linked to a certa n content ...Through
...Through stylization, ratio difficilis may, by force of con
tinuous exposure to communication and successive conventions, become a ratio facilis
Since music theorists are usually concerned wit h repertoire music ( classical music),
the defence of ratio difficilis may seem like a battle against the Philistines, against a

114 These themes of dialogical interpretation relate closely to Bakhtin's (1981, 1984) literary theory
concepts of double voicing. For a discussion of the possible hermeneutic utility of these dialogical
concepts in music, see Korsyn (1999) and McKay (2001; 2003).
115 Hatten 2004, 286.

ZGMTH 4 /1 2 2007) I 177

 N I C H O L A S MCKAY

threat to lower ali music to the levei of a radio call sign or signature tune. Such a de
fence easily turns into fundamentalism, an anxious blindness to obvious aspects of mu
sical expression. 6

Once again we return to the metaphor of Asperger-like blindness to musical expression,

symptomatic of formalism in the face of topic theorists' heightened sensitivities. M o

nelle's work, however, takes those sensitivities to a higher plane, moving from topics via
historical investigation to cultural criticism. This is evident in his intricately detailed in 
vestigation of the horse topi c. H e opens up an intriguing world of military and equestri
equestrian
an
history that discriminates between the colle cted horse, valued for it its
s balle t and dr
dress
essage
age
skills in seventeenth-century French cavalry riding schools, and the nineteenth-century
battle-ready, savage, galloping horse.
horse. Th
Thus
us nineteenth-century musici
musiciansans turned to the
evocation of the [ noble ] galloping horshorsee both as a sign of mili tary suc
succes
cess,
s, recalled
historically through the medieval destrier [a. k. a. war-horse ] and because modern
wars were being won by cavalry charges. 117 The sign, Monelle reveals, was motivated
by a literary topic that wwas
as mediev
medievalal and legendary in origin. 118
That the noble hors
horse
e is a male symbol offers furth er intrigui ng insi
insights
ghts into its use
in The Ri de of the Valkyries in ie Walküre (even though the riders and some of their
mounts are female). 119 We later learn there are in fact two discrete forms of the Noble
horse : the euphoric, heroic destrier and the dysphoric, witches' ride; the latter of
which is built from the association of the horse with death that stem
stemss from the medi
eval image of Death as warrior 120
and links witches with Valkyries as female harbingers
of death. With this insightful cultural history in place, Monelle shames any hack topic
theorist who has naively- labelle d gallo ping music simply
simply,, hors e and proceeds to link
a chain of signifying associations between the witches' Sabbath of Berlioz's Symphonie
fantastique the Brocken in Goethe's Faust and Wagner's Valkyries-some of whom, we
now discover, ride mares because:

just as the female gender was dysphoric, so the witch, being female, was not normal
ly allowed to ride on a stallion, which was male, euphoric, positive, heroic; she was
therefore condemned to ride a mare, a goat, or a broomstick. Nevertheless, her music,
at least in nineteenth-century works, recalls the rhythm of the horse s hooves. 2

Ali of this intriguing cultural history and intertextuality ripens the semiotic potency of
topics and their hermeneutic implications. But, to end full circle by returning to Ratner,
the primary function of such investigation isto highlight the shortcoming Monelle finds
in Ratner's
Ratner's topic theory. Ratner's mist
mistake
ake wa
wass to announ ce a bas
basis
is in the writings of

116 Monelle 2000, 16.

117 Monelle 2000, 53-4.
118 Monelle 2000, 52.
119 Ortlinde's horse is a Stute amare (Monelle 2000, 52).
120 Monelle 2000, 62.
121 Monelle 2000, 62.

178 I ZGMTH 4/1-2 (2007)

ON TOPICS TODAY

contemporaries, that is a historical basis for his ideas. 122 As Spitzer argues, Monelle
demonstra
demon strates
tes that the contemporar y (historica/) sources Ratner cites to support his topics
at best
best prove to be dubious. Monelle achieves this critique of Ratner by out-historicizing
the historians; he exposes RatnRatner's
er's arguments as little more than a swindle, but only
so s to place topics on a firmly theoretical, rather than historical, foundation. 23 lndeed
Monelle keenly observes that some of the most important topics [including sensibility
(Empfindsamkeit) and storm and stress (Sturm und Drang)] find no support at all. 124
And as if that were not enough, Monelle goes on to observe: finally, the theoretical
idea itself-the notion that certain musical styles and figures were understood to signify
particular cultural units, wherever they occurred-is almost specifically denied by the
authors. 125
Again this is not to strike
strike the death
death knell for topic t heory but to celebrate the new ho
rizons
rizons for it that Monelle's work has undoubtedly opened
opened.. In the final analysis, Monelle
charts the way forward-in light of his exemplary demonstration with the horse. The
future of topic theory is one of cultural criticism grounded in a great deal of historical
foraging:

Ratner should not be blamed for offering a fruitful idea without doing his homework
properly. His musical instincts are true, and he must be thanked for bringing this idea
to ou r notice. But contemporary writers are no good as buttresses of topic theory.
theory. Each
topic nee
needs
ds a fui I cultural study. There is much work here for future doctoral programs. 126
study.

Perhaps this new generation of doctoral students will erradicate the last vestiges of As
perger syndrome-like insensitivity to music's expressive meanings, thereby releasing
much fo rmalist analys
analysis
is from its p
past
ast afflictions. This will surely be achieved only through
a careful recalibration of hermeneu tics and history. Topic theory will come of age only
when it finds its footing more sensitively in its cultural contexts, from whence it can en
gender evermore perceptive reader-ori
reader-oriented
ented acts
acts of creative interpretation.

Notes

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122 Monelle 2000 24.

123 Spitzer 2002 507.
124 Monelle 2000 24.
125 Monelle 2000 28.

126 Monelle 2000 33.

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