Society For Music Theory
Society For Music Theory
Society For Music Theory
Music as Drama
Author(s): Fred Everett Maus
Source: Music Theory Spectrum, Vol. 10, 10th Anniversary Issue (Spring, 1988), pp. 56-73
Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society for Music Theory
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/745792
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Music
as
Drama
FredEverettMaus
Introduction
Recent professional music theory and analysis have tended
to avoid certain large questions. Theorists have written little,
explicitly at any rate, about the value of music, or the nature of
musical experience. Stanley Cavell has noted that,
whateverthe cause, the absence of humanemusiccriticism... seems
particularlystriking against the fact that music has, among the arts,
the most, perhapsthe only, systematicand precise vocabularyfor the
descriptionand analysisof its objects. Somehow that possession must
itself be a liability; as though one undertook to criticize a poem or
novel armedwith complete control of medieval rhetoricbut ignorant
of the modes of criticismdeveloped in the past two centuries.1
Joseph Kerman has also expressed regret at the limitations of
professional theory and analysis. Kerman suggests that
the appeal of systematicanalysiswas that it providedfor a positivistic
approachto art, for a criticismthat could draw on precisely defined,
seemingly objective operations and shun subjectivecriteria.2
The following have given me valuable advice and encouragement in response to earlierversions of this paper, and I am very gratefulto them: Milton
Babbitt, Edward T. Cone, Joseph Dubiel, PatrickGardiner, Eric Graebner,
Marjorie Hess, Katharine Maus, Alan Montefiore, James K. Randall, Eric
Wefald, Peter Westergaard,and RichardWollheim.
1StanleyCavell, Must We Mean What We Say? (Cambridge:Cambridge
UniversityPress, 1976), 186.
2JosephKerman, ContemplatingMusic (Cambridge:HarvardUniversity
Press, 1985), 73.
Musicas Drama 57
58
MusicTheorySpectrum
eyes of the learned, so that it can stand alongside of technical description as a valid analytic tool.9
7PeterKivy, The CordedShell: Reflectionson MusicalExpression(Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1980), 9. Kivy expects that his dichotomybetween ways of describingmusic will not be novel for his readers.As he puts it,
musicianswritetechnicallyat a "familiar"cost; the alternativeis the "familiar"
emotive stance.
8Ibid., 8-9.
9Ibid., 9.
l?Ibid.,6-7.
1Ibid., 9-10.
12Kivyintroduces the discussion of emotive criticismby quoting some of
Tovey's analyticalwriting(p. 6), and at the end of his essay he indicatesthat his
argumentshave vindicated Tovey's critical practice (p. 149). Kivy mentions
only one other contemporarywriter, H. C. Robbins Landon, as a practitioner
of emotive description(p. 120).
13Accordingto Joseph Kerman, "for richness, consistency, and completeness, Tovey's Beethoven stands out as the most impressiveachievement, per-
Musicas Drama 59
60
MusicTheorySpectrum
ing relationto its own claims. But I find the received notion of
musical "structure,"as an aspect of music that can be distinguishedfrom "meaning,"to be vague andobscure.Further,the
position that I have summarizedplaces far too muchweight on
the role of emotion in musicalexperience.
It will take considerableexposition to clarifyand motivate
these points of disagreement.
Reflectionson a Passageby Beethoven
To move toward a more general understandingof music, it
will be helpful to reflectat length on a particularmusicalexample. The beginning of Beethoven's String Quartet, opus 95,
(Ex. 1) is richlycomplex, invitingclose scrutiny.In this section
I begin with detailed description of the first seventeen measures, interruptingthe descriptiontwice for some preliminary
commentary. I have not restrictedthe descriptionto the language provided by conventional music theory; rather, I have
tried to articulatemy understandingof the passage as clearly
and flexiblyas possible, usingmusic-theoreticallanguagealong
with other kindsof description.After the Beethoven analysis,I
move to a more general considerationof the kind of musical
thoughtinstantiatedin the description.17
Analysis. Loud, aggressive,astonishinglybrief, surrounded
by silence-the initial abruptoutburstleaves muchunresolved
complexity, even confusion. It is strangelytimed as a whole,
arrivingforcefully and apparentlydecisively-no uncertainty
among the instrumentsabout the proper course-but ending
so quickly, as though that gesture could feel complete and selfsufficient.It is palpablyincomplete. The clumsinessof the passage, its awkwardincompleteness,comes largelyfromits inter17Byworking from a detailed analysisto more general claims, obviously I
run the risk that some readerswill disagreewith some or muchof the analysis.
Such readersmay still find interest in the generalizationsthat follow, provided
they believe that there are satisfactoryanalysesthat conformto my generalizations. (In any case, the analysis is offered as one way of hearingthe passage,
one option among many for me or for any other listener.)
Musicas Drama 61
,:
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62
MusicTheorySpectrum
Example 1, continued
15
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Musicas Drama 63
64
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Musicas Drama 65
tral spread that was occupied at the opening by the entire ensemble, referring to those boundaries but showing them to
have been narrow.
The earlier textural discontinuityis absorbed into a single
developing process. What felt like a jarring succession of
extremes-line versus chords-now appearswithin a process
of increasinglyindependent instrumentalparts. Stages of the
process: octave doubling; chords, with some rhythmicdiversity;line and chords;polyphonicallyindependent,rhythmically
diverse parts.
The return to the opening motive and texture in m. 18
groupsthe firstseventeen measurestogetheras a separatestage
of the action, and the analysis of those measures has already
providedsufficientbasisfor the followingdiscussion.However,
it is worth noting briefly that the issues arisingin the opening
measures remain fundamentalconcernsin the continuationof
the piece. The abrupt return to the opening raises new questions about the statusof Dl and now G6 as well, and the subsequent tonicizationof Db attemptsto drawthe disheveledpitch
materialsinto a new stability. The major-modereturn of this
materialin the recapitulationreenactsthe suppressionof Db in
mm. 3-5, giving urgency to the final return of F minor. Concern about the metricalplacementand resolutionof Db persists
to the last measures of the movement. Of course, to explore
these later developmentsfullywould requirea lengthyanalysis.
It would be naturalto call the quartet a conspicuouslydramatic composition, and the analysismakes the sense of drama
concrete by narrating a succession of dramatic actions: an
abrupt, inconclusive outburst; a second outburstin response,
abruptand coarse in its attempt to compensate for the first;a
response to the first two actions, calmer and more careful, in
many ways more satisfactory.
I suggest that the notion of actionis crucialin understanding
the Beethoven passage. A listenerfollows the musicby drawing
66
fictional"musicalagents," I have been influencedby EdwardT. Cone's excellent study The Composer's Voice (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1974). The importanceof that book has not yet been sufficientlyrecognizedby
music theorists. To trace the precise pattern of agreement and disagreement
between Cone's ideas and mine would require a separate and ratherintricate
essay; here I can only record my indebtedness to his work. I encountered
Roger Scruton'sfine essay "UnderstandingMusic" (in his The Aesthetic Understanding[London: Methuen, 1983]) after formulatingthe claims and arguments of this paper, but I am pleased by the similaritybetween his position and
mine. Three other models that were influentialfor me: work by Flint Schierin
aesthetics, and the art criticismof Adrian Stokes and MichaelFried.
planatory states includes character traits, moods, and emotions. These functionin a varietyof ways:they can affectepistemic and motivational states, and they sometimes help to
explain failuresof consistencyor rationality.19
What shows that an event is being regarded as an action?
Some wordsare consistentlyassociatedwith actions;to say that
some event is a theft is alwaysto classifythat event as an action.
Other words sometimes designate actions, sometimes not;
knocking down a snowman might be an action, but if I slip on
the ice, bumping the snowman by accident, and it falls, my
knockingit down is not an action. More generally,it is a necessaryconditionfor an actionthat it can be explainedby citingthe
agent's reasons, by ascribingan appropriateconfigurationof
psychologicalstates.20
The Beethoven analysisincludessome termsthat alwaysindicate actions. An abrupt outburst, for instance, is always an
action, and so is a reasoned response. But also, the explanations the analysisgives for events in the piece, beginningespecially in the descriptionof mm. 3-5, cite reasons consistingof
psychologicalstates, explainingthe events of the piece just as
actions are explained. Consideragainthe analysisof mm. 3-5:
manyfeaturesof the second outburstareexplainedby ascribing
an intention to respond to the first outburstand beliefs about
19Forcareful and influentialexplorationsof the point, see Donald Davidson, Essayson Actions and Events(New York: OxfordUniversityPress, 1980).
My account drawslargely on Davidson's views. Along with Davidson's work,
G. E. M. Anscombe, Intention (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1957) was
crucialin establishingthe study of action as a centralpreoccupationof current
analytic philosophy. Sophisticated, engaging, recent work includes Daniel
Dennett, Brainstorms (Montgomery: Bradford Books, 1978); Christopher
Peacocke, Holistic Explanation(New York: Oxford University Press, 1979);
Adam Morton, Framesof Mind (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1980);
and JenniferHornsby, Actions (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980).
20Thesegeneralizationssimplify, but not in ways that affect the musicalapplications. For discussionof necessaryand sufficientconditionsfor an event to
be an action, see Davidson, Essays, and Peacocke, Holistic Explanation.
Musicas Drama 67
the precise points of unclarityin the opening gesture. For instance, the descriptionpoints out that the passagepresentscertain pitch material, which was more obscurely presented before, and in depicting this as a response, it ascribes thoughts
which refer to the opening, that is, thoughts that the opening
had certainfeatures which make a compensatingaction appropriate. Something like this: "Thatoutburstleft a vague, equivocal sense of a dominant triad. That is unsatisfactory,and one
way to deal with the situation is to present a dominant triad
more straightforwardly,leaving no doubt about what I mean."
The thought is ascribedto explain an action, the actionthat the
thought shows as rational. More formally, one can identify
beliefs-"There was something vague about the harmony at
the opening; a straightforwardalternationof tonic and dominant would be much clearer"-and a desire-"I want to replace the sound of the opening with something clearer"combiningto give a reason for acting.
Sayingthat the passage harpson the dominantsuggeststhat
the response is repetitious and perhaps a little out of control.
While the contents of mm. 3-5 warrantthis description,there
is a furthersuggestionthat the same mood or charactertraitthat
led to the initial outburstcontinuesto operate, infectingthe response with a certainclumsiness,both internallyand in its relation to the firstoutburst.As with the ascriptionof thoughts,the
ascriptionof mood or characterto explainevents resemblesexplanationof actual behavior.
In general, the description of the Beethoven passage explains events by regardingthem as actionsand suggestingmotivation, reasons why those actions are performed, and the reasons consist of combinationsof psychologicalstates.
But to whom are these ascriptions of action and thought
made? It might be thought that these descriptionsare straightforward accounts of what the composer did in composing the
piece, or what performersdo in performingit. Two considerations show that these suggestionsare too simple.
First, if the analysiscontainsdescriptionof an action or motivationthat cannot be ascribedto the composeror performers,
and if this fact does not show that the analysisis wrong, then it
seems the analysisinvolves the ascriptionof at least one action
to an imaginaryagent. Consideragainthe accountof mm. 3-5:
the second outburst is an abrupt, clumsy response to the first
outburst. But that does not mean that Beethoven penned the
opening, noticed its unresolved complexities, and hastily
penned a rough response. (Maybe he did, but that is independent of what the analysis claims.) Neither is it the case that
Beethoven pretendedto respond roughly and hastily; there is
no sense of play or pretense about that response, whichsounds
earnest. Nor does the analysis describe the actual response of
the membersof the stringquartet.An essentialpartof the passage is the feeling that the first outburst has taken someone
somewhat by surprise, and that the roughness of the second
outburstcomes from unpreparedness.But the membersof the
quartetknow what is coming next.
A second consideration is more general. In listening to a
piece, it is as though one follows a series of actionsthat are performednow, before one's ears, not as thoughone merelylearns
of what someone (Beethoven) did years ago. And in following
the musical actions, it is as though the future of the agent is
open-as though what he will do next is not already determined. But then the actions are not straightforwardlythose of
the composer, whose (relevant) sections are all in the past, nor
of the performers,whose futureactionsare alreadyprescribed.
But these considerationsare not conclusive. They indicate
that some kind of imaginativeactivityor constructionof fiction
figuresin understandingmusic. That might involve the ascription of actions and psychologicalstates to fictionalcharacters;
but it might equally, for all these argumentshave shown, involve the creation of fictionalizedversions of the composer or
performers.For instance, if I follow musicalactions as though
they are presentlytakingplace, I could be followingthe actions
68
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Musicas Drama 69
70
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Musicas Drama 71
25TzvetanTodorov, Introductionto Poetics, trans. RichardHoward (Minneapolis: Universityof MinnesotaPress, 1981). Todorov has contributedsome
of the best work toward the constructionof a "grammar"of narrative,analogous to the grammarof a language. Some other crucialworks in this areas are
Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folktale, trans. Laurence Scott (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1968); Claude Levi-Strauss,"The StructuralStudy
of Myth," in his StructuralAnthropology, trans. Claire Jacobsen and Brooke
GrundfestSchoepf (Garden City: Anchor Books, 1967);Roland Barthes, "Introduction to the StructuralAnalysis of Narrative," in his Image-MusicText, trans. Stephen Heath (London: Fontana, 1977), and S/Z, trans. Richard
Miller (New York: Hill and Wang, 1974). These studies are by now somewhat
dated: theoretical work on narrativehas recently concentratedmore on politi-
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Musicas Drama 73