Music as Drama

7/29/2019 Music as Drama

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Society for Music Theory

Music as DramaAuthor(s): Fred Everett MausReviewed work(s):Source: Music Theory Spectrum, Vol. 10, 10th Anniversary Issue (Spring, 1988), pp. 56-73Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society for Music TheoryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/745792 .

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M u s i c a s D r a m a

FredEverettMausIntroduction

Recent professional music theory and analysis have tendedto avoid certain large questions. Theorists have written little,explicitly at any rate, about the value of music, or the nature ofmusical experience. Stanley Cavell has noted that,whatever the cause, the absenceof humane musiccriticism .. seemsparticularly triking againstthe fact that musichas, amongthe arts,the most, perhapsthe only, systematicandprecisevocabulary or thedescriptionandanalysisof itsobjects. Somehow thatpossessionmustitself be a liability;as though one undertook to criticize a poem ornovel armedwith completecontrol of medieval rhetoricbutignorantof the modes of criticismdevelopedin the pasttwo centuries.1Joseph Kerman has also expressed regret at the limitations ofprofessional theory and analysis. Kerman suggests thatthe appealof systematic analysiswas that it providedfor a positivisticapproachto art, for a criticismthat could draw on preciselydefined,seeminglyobjectiveoperations and shunsubjectivecriteria.2

The following have given me valuable advice and encouragement n re-sponse to earlier versions of thispaper,and I amvery grateful o them: MiltonBabbitt, Edward T. Cone, Joseph Dubiel, PatrickGardiner,Eric Graebner,MarjorieHess, KatharineMaus, Alan Montefiore,James K. Randall, EricWefald,PeterWestergaard,and RichardWollheim.1StanleyCavell, Must We Mean WhatWeSay? (Cambridge:Cambridge

UniversityPress, 1976), 186.2JosephKerman, ContemplatingMusic (Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress, 1985),73.

Cavell and Kerman agree that the precision, definiteness, andclarity of theory and analysis have worked to discourage thestudy of more obscure and demanding aspects of music. Itwould be hard to relinquish the precision and detail that musicalanalysis can offer; the problem is to integrate theory and analy-sis somehow into a more comprehensive understanding of mu-sic.

At times theorists seem simply oblivious to such issues. Al-len Forte, in a paper on Schenker that is probably the best intro-duction to Schenker's late work, concludes with a list of un-solved problems in music theory, suggesting that Schenker'swork might contribute to solutions. He mentions, for instance,the lack of a theory of rhythm in tonal music, and the lack ofhelpful analytical techniques for music outside the standardeighteenth- and nineteenth-century repertoire. Forte does notask whether Schenker's work can lead to a better understandingof the importance of music, or to a convincing account of musi-cal experience. In this Forte is more reticent than Schenker him-self, whose writings are full of evaluations and speculations thatgo far beyond Forte's range of concerns. But Forte is silentabout Schenker's broader claims, except for a footnote in whichhe tersely dismisses "Schenker's frequent indulgence in lengthyontological justification of his concepts."3 Forte's paper as-sumes that one aspect of music, its "structure," can be distin-guished from other aspects and studied separately. Other formsof inquiry might concern themselves with other aspects of mu-sic, but music theory and musical analysis, as the study of"structure," can progress independently of those other fields.Some theorists are more explicit than Forte in acknowledg-ing areas of aesthetic inquiry that they have set aside. Fred Ler-dahl and Ray Jackendoff write that

3Allen Forte, "Schenker'sConception of MusicalStructure," n MauryYeston, ed., Readings n SchenkerAnalysisand OtherApproaches(New Ha-ven:Yale UniversityPress,1977).Kermanhas commentedon Forte'spapertoshowthe self-imposedrestrictionsof professional heoryandanalysis.

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Musicas Drama 57

anartisticoncern hatwedonotaddress ere stheproblem fmusi-calaffect-the interplay etweenmusic ndemotionalesponses .likemostcontemporaryheorists,wehave hiedawayromaffect, oritis hard o sayanythingystematiceyond rude tatementsuchasobservinghat oudand astmusic ends o beexciting.Toapproachanyof thesubtleties f musical ffect,we assume, equires betterunderstandingf musicaltructure.4DavidEpsteinwritesthat"thematterof 'expression' nmusic sbeyond the confines of these studies ... the questionof whatmusic 'says'is vast and complex and deservesseparatestudy."Like Lerdahl and Jackendoff,Epstein suggeststhat an under-standing of "expression" presupposes an understandingof"structure":"in attacking hisproblemit is firstof all essentialclearlyto perceive, to recognize, andto comprehendwhat it iswe hear, free of external or misconstruedmeanings."5Thesetwosources mplytheexistence of adichotomybetween,on onehand, issues of musical"structure,"and on the otherhand, is-sues of "affect" or "expression."In referring o "affect,"Ler-dahl andJackendoff inkthatpartof the dichotomy o emotion.Epstein, more cautiously,relies on two different ormulations,referring o" 'expression'"and to "whatapiece 'says,' "usingscare-quotesandcommenting hatthe terms areimprecise.Butevidently Epstein sees a dichotomy between, on one hand,"structure,"and on the other hand, an aspectof music analo-gous to the meaningof humanlanguageor gesture.Whether or not they acknowledgethe existence of largeraesthetic issues, theorists generally defend the autonomy oftheirown studies. Even Kerman,while castigatinganalysts or

4FredLerdahl and Ray Jackendoff,A GenerativeTheoryof TonalMusic(Cambridge:MIT Press, 1983), 8. In a footnote they add a furthercomment:"Theaffectivecontent of music,we believe, lies in its exploitationof the tonalsystemto builddramatic tructure."Thissuggestion s in accordwithmyargu-ment in this paper, though Lerdahl and Jackendoffwould probablyfind mypresentationunacceptably nformal.5DavidEpstein, BeyondOrpheus Cambridge:MITPress,1979), 11.

theirnarrowness,seemsto leave roomforsuch anindependentareaof inquiry:Theirdoggedconcentrationn internal elationswithin he singleworkofart sultimatelyubversives farasanyreasonablyompleteviewof music sconcerned.Music's utonomoustructuresonlyoneof manyelements hatcontributeo itsimport.Alongwithpreoccu-pationwith tructureoes heneglect fothervitalmatters-notonlythewholehistoricalomplex.. butalsoeverythinglse thatmakesmusic ffective,moving, motional, xpressive.6According o Kerman,analysishasusurped heplaceinmusicalinstitutionsand educationthat should be occupied by a moreambitiousmusiccriticism.But Kermanwritesof the "autono-mous structure"of music as though such a componentcan beisolated unproblematically:t is one, though only one, of mu-sic's "elements." Criticism,then, would supplementdescrip-tions of "structure"with considerationsof historicalcontextandwith-again-an areaof concerns inkedsomehowto hu-manemotion.Intrying o understandwhatmusic heorycancontribute o amoregeneralunderstanding f music,itwouldbe natural o be-gin with this well-entrencheddichotomybetween "structure"and "affect"or "expression."Many musiciansand writers onmusicbelievethatsome suchdichotomyexists.Iftheyareright,thenanunderstanding f thedistinctionbetweenthesedifferentaspectsof music,and-once they areclearlydistinguished-anunderstanding f the relationbetweenthem, wouldbe acrucialstep in integrating he insightsof musictheoryinto a largerpic-ture.

In reflectingon this dichotomy, theoristscan now turn towork by the philosopherPeter Kivy, who has recentlydistin-guished between "technical"and "emotive" descriptionsofmusic,arguing or the musical mportanceof emotivequalities.6Kerman,ContemplatingMusic,73.



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58 MusicTheorySpectrum

Kivy's essay TheCorded Shellbegins by noting a "paradoxofmusicaldescription":Eitherdescriptionf music anbe respectable, scientific"nalysis,atthefamiliar ost of losingallhumanisticonnotations;r it lapsesinto ts familiar motive tanceat thecostofbecoming, ccordingothemusicallyearned,meaninglessubjectivemaundering.7Kivy distinguishes wo kinds of musicaldescription,and he as-sociateseach kindwithadifferentreadership:rainedmusiciansprefer technical description, while "musically untrained"music-loversarelikelyto findemotivedescriptionattractive.Soin evaluatingemotive description, Kivy not only addresses ageneral aesthetic issue, he also addresses a practicalproblemabout criticism.Professionalmusiciansmay enjoy "thehealthyatmosphereof amphibrachs nd enhanced dominantrelation-ships,"but such technicaldescriptionleavesa largeandworthymusical ommunityut n thecold.Music,afterall, s not ust ormusicians ndmusicalcholars, nymore hanpaintings justfor arthistorians, rpoetry orpoets.It seemsbothsurprisingnd ntolerablehatwhileonecanreadwithprofithegreatcritics f thevisualand iterary rtswithout eingaprofessor f En-glishor thehistory f art,themusically ntrained uthumanisticallyeducated eem to facea choicebetweendescriptionsf music ootechnicalor them o understand,relse decried s nonsense ytheauthoritiesheireducation as aughthem orespect.8

How shouldone address his issue?According o Kivy,Whatneedsdoing,rather han o takecheap hotsat technicalan-guage, s to makeemotivedescriptionnceagain espectablen the

7PeterKivy, TheCordedShell:Reflectionson MusicalExpression Prince-ton: PrincetonUniversityPress, 1980),9. Kivyexpectsthathisdichotomybe-tweenwaysof describingmusicwillnot be novel for his readers.As he putsit,musicianswritetechnicallyat a "familiar" ost;the alternatives the "familiar"emotive stance.8Ibid.,8-9.

eyes of the learned, so that it can stand alongside of technical descrip-tion as a valid analytic tool.9So Kivyintends his defense of emotivedescriptionas a defenseof the criticism hat amateurs an read-at anyrate,thoseama-teurs who are "humanisticallyducated."But Kivy s not only,perhapsnot primarily, oncernedwith the needsof musicalam-ateurs.Kivyargues hatascriptions f emotionalproperties anbe intelligible,objective,and relevant o aestheticevaluation. fKivyis rightthat emotionalpropertiesoften contribute o thevalue of a composition, then anyone who cares about musicshouldwantto know about them.The emotive description hat interestsKivyhastwo definingtraits. It ascribesemotionalexpressiveness o the piece, ratherthan ascribingemotions to the composer or listener,?0 nd itshould be taken literally, not as "nonsense" that somehowguidesthe listener'sperception."Kivyassociatesemotivecriti-cismespeciallywiththe writingsof Donald F. Tovey, whose fa-mous Essays in MusicalAnalysis originatedas programnotesfor concerts n whichTovey appearedas conductoror pianist.12Kivy s astute n choosing Toveyto exemplifypopularcriticism:not only are Tovey's essays accessibleto readerswith diversemusicalbackgrounds,butmanyprofessionalmusiciansandmu-sicalscholarsconsiderToveyone of the mostinsightful nalysts,in hisprogramnotes no less thanin his moreprofessionally ri-ented works.13Manymusicianswouldgrant hat aninterpreta-tion and defense of Tovey'scriticism s a valuableundertaking.

9Ibid.,9.l?Ibid.,6-7.1Ibid., 9-10.12Kivyntroduces the discussionof emotive criticismby quotingsome of

Tovey's analyticalwriting p. 6), andat theend of hisessayhe indicates hathisargumentshave vindicatedTovey's criticalpractice(p. 149). Kivy mentionsonlyone othercontemporarywriter,H. C. RobbinsLandon,as a practitionerof emotive description p. 120).13Accordingo JosephKerman,"forrichness,consistency,andcomplete-ness, Tovey'sBeethoven standsout as the mostimpressiveachievement,per-



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Musicas Drama 59

Thoughone is grateful or Kivy'sclarity,hisproject s muchtoo simplyconceived. IfKivysucceeds ndefendingemotivede-scriptionso that it can "standalongside of technicaldescrip-tion," he is left with an obvious puzzle about musicalexperi-ence. When he concludeshis defense of emotive description, tseems that music can be described n two very differentways.These twowaysuse quitedifferentvocabularies,andmanypeo-ple canonly understandone kind of description,althoughbothwaysof describingmusicconstitute"validcriticism."Assumingthat the two kindsof descriptionbringout differentaspectsofmusic, what is the relation of these aspects?What is it like tohear a compositionthathas such diversequalities?How mightthe experiencesof listenerswith differentvocabulariesdiffer?Do the two vocabulariesrecord two completelydifferentwaysof experiencingmusic? Or do perceptionsof musicalstructureand perceptionsof emotional expressionsimply"standalong-sideof' eachother in musicalexperience?Or is there somewayof unifying hese differentaspectswithinasinglecoherentexpe-rience?At several points Kivy's essay touches on the relation be-tween emotionalaspectsof music andotheraspects. Kivywon-ders whether it is possibleto listen to music withoutperceivingitsexpressiveness:Somepeopleclaim o, and supposewe shouldake heirword or t.I suspect, hough, hat hemostplausiblewayof lookingat it is asamatter f selectiveattention.A listener an,I think,decide o focusontheexpressive ualities fmusic,ortofocuson someotheraspectinstead.Whether necantotally xtirpate ne'sperceptionf musi-cal expressiveness tendto doubt,but ampreparedo believe fbroughto it.14

haps, yet produced by the art of music criticism." (Kerman, "Tovey'sBeethoven," in Alan Tyson, ed., BeethovenStudies2 [London:OxfordUni-versityPress, 1977],191.)14Kivy,TheCordedShell,59.

This is an intriguing uggestion,but Kivy'sclaim that one canfocus selectivelyon differentaspectsof musicdoes not commithim to any view about the way a listenermight integrate hoseaspects.WhenKivypresentshis theoryof musicalexpression,he ar-gues thatvarious eaturesof pieces, identifiableunder echnicaldescriptions,arenaturallyorconventionally xpressive.Forex-ample,he connectsmusicalcontourwithexpressive nflection nspeech, the diminished triadwith restlessness,and the minortriadwith"thedarker ide of the emotivespectrum."15utsuchcorrelations eave the relationbetweendifferentaspectsof mu-sicobscure,for it seems thatemotive andtechnicaldescriptionsinterpret he samefeatures of a piece in quitedifferentways.Aconventionalmusicalanalystmight try, for instance,to under-stand the motivicrelationsamongthe details of the piece, andhe or she mighttry to place the details in a largermusicalpro-gression described in technical vocabulary. Kivy's approachtakes the detailsone byone andassociates hem withemotionalstates,presumablynterpretingheirsuccession n termsof aco-herentlydevelopingseriesof emotionalstates.This eaves a var-iant of the originalpuzzle about Kivy'sposition: can the twokinds of descriptioncome togetherin a singleunifieddescrip-tion of a piece, or do they reflecttwo fundamentallydisparatewaysof regarding he samedetails?No accountof music as a loose conjunctionbetween,on onehand,ingeniouslypatternedsounds,andon the otherhand,ex-pressionsorevocationsof variousemotionalstates,willbeplau-sible. A better account must consider, much more centrallythan does Kivy'sessay, the extent to whicha compositioncanunify ts differentaspects.Given the confusing, fragmented mage of music in Kivy'streatment, t is easy to see whytheorists ike LerdahlandJack-endoff, or Epstein, have suggestedthe priorityof theory and

15Ibid., 6-56, 71-83.



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analysisovermorehumanizingormsof interpretation.EdwardT. Cone has argued similarly: "If verbalization of truecontent-the specific expression uniquely embodied in awork-is possibleatall, it mustdependon closestructural nal-ysis."16Ratherthandismantlingmusic ntolooselyrelatedcom-ponents, these writersargue,one shouldbeginwith what s sol-idlyestablished-the insightsof theoryandanalysis-buildingfrom thisknowledgetowardan understanding f "affect,""ex-pression,""content,""meaning,"...

The discussionso farpointstoward an attractivebut inade-quate position on the relation between music theory and thebroader ssues of music criticismand aesthetics.The positioncan be summarized n fourclaims: 1) Music heoryand musicalanalysisconstitute an autonomousdiscipline,capableof estab-lishing its methods and achievingresultswithout drawingonotherwaysof interpretingmusic. (2) Theoryandanalysis tudyone aspectof music,namely ts"structure."3)The "structure"of a composition s only one of its aspects. Among the others,one is particularly rucial or criticismand aesthetics.It is hardto name, because the common designations-"expression,""affect," "content," etc.--all imply controversial commit-ments.But this otheraspect s closelylinked n somewayto hu-manfeelingor emotion, and it mayalso have affinitieswith lin-guistic meaning. (4) An attempt to articulatethis unnamedhumanisticaspectof musicmustdrawon the solid achievementsof theoryandanalysis.Ignoring he findingsof theoryand anal-ysis will lead to a fragmentary,unconvincingaccountof otheraspectsof music.I amin partialagreementwith thisposition. Certainly t im-proves upon Kivy'sviews. Theoryand analysishave achievedmany insights nto tonalmusic, and a more ambitiousaesthetictheorymust drawon thoseinsightsandplacethem in a convinc-16EdwardT. Cone, "Schubert'sPromissoryNote," NineteenthCenturyMusic 5/3 (1982):233.

ing relation to its own claims.But I find the receivednotion ofmusical "structure,"as an aspect of music that can be distin-guished rom"meaning," o be vagueandobscure.Further, hepositionthatI have summarizedplacesfar too muchweightonthe role of emotion in musicalexperience.It will take considerableexpositionto clarifyand motivatethese pointsof disagreement.Reflections n aPassageby Beethoven

To move toward a more generalunderstanding f music,itwill be helpfulto reflect at lengthon aparticularmusicalexam-ple. The beginning of Beethoven's StringQuartet, opus 95,(Ex. 1) is richlycomplex, invitingclose scrutiny.In this sectionI begin with detailed descriptionof the first seventeen mea-sures, interrupting he description wice for some preliminarycommentary.I have not restrictedthe description o the lan-guage provided by conventional music theory;rather, I havetried to articulatemy understandingof the passageas clearlyandflexiblyaspossible,usingmusic-theoreticalanguagealongwith otherkinds of description.After the Beethovenanalysis,Imove to a more general considerationof the kind of musicalthought nstantiated n the description.17Analysis. Loud, aggressive,astonishinglybrief,surroundedbysilence-the initialabruptoutburst eaves much unresolvedcomplexity, even confusion. It is strangelytimed as a whole,arriving orcefullyand apparentlydecisively-no uncertaintyamong the instrumentsabout the propercourse-but endingso quickly,as thoughthatgesturecould feel completeandself-sufficient.It is palpably ncomplete.The clumsinessof the pas-sage, itsawkward ncompleteness,comeslargely rom tsinter-17Byworkingfroma detailedanalysisto more generalclaims,obviouslyIrun the risk that some readerswilldisagreewith some or much of the analysis.Suchreadersmaystill find nterest n thegeneralizationshatfollow, provided

theybelieve that therearesatisfactoryanalyses hat conform o mygeneraliza-tions. (In any case, the analysis s offered as one way of hearingthe passage,one option among manyfor me or foranyotherlistener.)



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Musicas Drama 61

Example 1. Beethoven, StringQuartet, opus 95, beginningof firstmovementAllegro con brio) A ,: _.-- :--.

Violino I

Violino II

Viola

Violoncello

~f~ ~~~ ,'ibtbIbi " "_ '" -' r_..-".

K^*bbbb W ^ " ^ Y' r89 Ji

I I Ij 0 I)l:Ir ' r. bM I I I 1-. 1 i .1 1 IfI - 1 -

10

tt 0i L-- ,--

| Bbbbr rj1 bo ii,,.,f- ,t cj bbibLr j_ bJ. [-'. o. el'(f - p

^ *- w LiweL w

I -ILl -~rZc



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Example1, continued15

i rrr-Sifcresc.

ten. ten.

,-..,.b t- ^. fc^ re.,f ^ G~5f 7 cresc.

cresc.

nal timing. The change from sixteenthsto eighths articulatesthe openingstrangely; heplacingof Dl and Ccreatesrhythmicconflictand confusion.The sixteenthnotes, alongwiththerep-etition of the opening F, suggest a quarter-notepulse, and tosome extent that pulse gives greater weightto the Dl than tothe C. But this creates a bizarreneighboringmotion, the elabo-rated note alteringbetween its two appearances!The pitchesare easier to understandas a line descendingfrom F to C andreturning o F, passing throughthe pitches that most conven-tionally appear n ascents and descents in minor. But this latterpitchconfiguration ives specialweightto theC, contrary o theimpliedquarter-notepulse.Rhythmicambivalence comes along with harmonicuncer-tainty. Heard as rhythmicallystressed, the Db creates somesense thatD[, rather han C goes togetherwith the emphasizedFs and the top ANto make a background riad for these twobars;this sense is muddled or contradictedby the D in the as-

cent to F-muddled rather hanwipedout. C, takenaspartof abackground riad,wouldgive a secondinversion,that is, a dis-sonant,unstable orm,of theF-AkI-C triad.Perhaps he C canbe heard asresolvingDI, but asstanding or a V chord(extend-ing througha consonantE at the end of thebar).This astmightbe the most satisfactoryharmonyfor the passage, but still therhythmic ocation of the implied V is vague, and the passagedoes not in itself suggestsuchimportance or the E; so this in-terpretation eels more like the listener'sdesperate mpositionof a familiar tereotypethan ike areporton the harmoniespro-jected by thisvery passage.Commentary. The analysis uses traditional music-theoretical vocabulary and relies on traditionalassumptionsabout tonal music-that pitch and rhythmgo together mostsimplywhen their hierarchiesalign,thatneighboring tructuresnormallybeginandendwith the samepitch,notwith an alteredversionof the same scale-step,and so on. Correct abellingus-

f



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Musicas Drama 63

ing theoreticalvocabulary,and comparisonof the Beethovenpassageto the commonproceduresof musicalsuccessionsum-marized in theoretical generalities, are essential parts of theanalysis.But the analysisbegins by callingthe openinga loud,aggressive, abrupt outburst, calling it clumsy, incomplete.These are not technical terms of music theory. Nor do theyname emotional qualities, though they do anthropomorphizethe passage somewhat, describing t as one might describe apersonor a human action. In the analysis heyfunction as gen-eraldescriptionsof the music, the theoreticaldescription erv-ingto amplifyandsubstantiate.The clumsinessor incomplete-ness of the music is not hard to hear, but it is heard morepreciselywhen one is sharplyaware of the disproportion re-ated by the sixteenth notes, dividing the music into a shortspan-but not an upbeat!-set againsta muchlonger, slowerspan, or when one is sharplyaware of the particularack of fo-cus createdby skewingof pitchstructureand meter. Both sortsof description-"technical" or music-theoretical,"dramatic"or anthropomorphicallyvocative-belong, interacting, o theanalysis.If the "specificallymusical"descriptionsdo notsupplant heothers, then the more animisticor anthropomorphicdescrip-tions, attributing o the piece qualitiesof human action-"anaggressive, abrupt outburst, forceful and apparentlydecisive"-need furtherattention and reflection.

Analysis, continued. The next outburst (mm. 3-5) invitescomparison to the first: again, loud, aggressive, and sur-roundedby silence, but this second attack s not quiteso brief;indeed, it is long enough to seem very repetitious by the end,even while it sustains the sense of frustratingly altingsucces-sion. The increasedduration eels like a responseto the exces-sivebrevityof the firstpassage,whilethe repetitiousnessmarksthe response as less thansuccessful.In otherrespectsaswell the newpassage registersan aware-ness of peculiaritiesof the opening and an effort to clarify,butagainthereis abruptness hroughout,and newpeculiaritiesap-

pear. Response to the earlierproblemscomes in variousways.Therhythmic omplexitiesof the openingyieldto an almostob-sessionalclarificationandsimplification. n m. 3 the firstviolinrefersto the stressed second beat of m. 1, but now the emphasisbelongsto what isobviouslyanoffbeatpattern,clearlysubordi-nated to the strongerbeats stressedby the lower instruments.The lower instrumentsalsoemphasizea divisionof the bar ntohalves, responding to the uncertain articulationof the thirdbeat in m. 1. In the next measureall four instruments oin todivide the bar neatly in half. And when, in the next bar, theearlier stresson the second beat appears, t no longersubvertsthe strengthof the firstor thirdbeat, ratherappearingas an af-tereffectto the strongdownbeat, almost an echo. The pulling-in of the registerand move from a full triad o a bare octave notonlysubordinates he second beatto the first,but the silenceonthe thirdbeat is a naturalcontinuationof thisfadingaway.Thislast effect, then, refers to the opening bar, dividedinto 1+3beats, reproducing he disproportionbutrendering t appropri-ate andundisturbing.Thepassagealsorefersto the pitch-related bscuritiesof theopening, offeringclean, simplereworkingsof the pitchmate-rial. The whole three-barpassage harpson the dominant riad,vaguely suggested at the opening;and in particular, he outerparts pound on the pitchC on strongbeats (even the firstvio-lin's offbeatpatternplacesCinstrongerpositionsthan nm. 1).Earlier here was an obscuresuggestionof a second-inversionFtriad;now such a triad appearsunequivocally,emergingfromandresolvinginto V chords.The definitenessof the dominantharmonies,withsubordinated onicharmoniesdistinctly nter-posed, makes the possibleglimpseof V in m. 1 seem, in retro-spect, too dim to be believable. To some extent this second out-burstreshapes the firstas essentiallya long tonic chordto besucceeded by a long dominant. However, the sound of thattonicremainsclutteredwithintimationsof otherharmonies.

Throughout hereis, strangely,no hintof the Dl, norof theDt whichwas at odds with it. And even more disturbings the



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registral discontinuitybetween the two outbursts,the seconddisregarding ntilquitelate the lowerregisterof the first,whileopeningwithouttransitionan areaextendinga tenthabove theoriginalupper boundary.Thisupperregioncontainsonly firstviolinCs, whichperhapsassociates hepitchandregistralpecu-liaritiesof thisresponse especiallywithsomething ike hysteriaon the part of the first violin. More generally,the completelyunmediated contrastof textures-octave-doubled theme fol-lowed by tunelesschords-gives the two passagesa mutualre-pulsionthatkeeps them fromsettling ntoanypersuasiveconti-nuity.

So far, then, the events of thispiece are a rough, abrupt ni-tial outburst, and a second outburst which respondsto manypeculiar eaturesof theopeningbut alsoignoressomeof its sali-ent aspects, matching the roughness and abruptnessof theopening and combining urgent response to the first passagewith a straineddisjunction.Commentary.The analysiscontinues to includespecificde-scription n music-theoretical erms, again in interactionwithgeneral descriptions hatdo not use specificallymusicalvocab-ulary. A crucial element becomes prominent:events are ex-plained, the analysis gives reasons for their occurrence.Theanalysis reats the second passageas in many waysa reasonedresponseto the first. The firstpassage was rhythmically on-fused; that gives a reason for the second passage to respondwith correspondingrhythmicclarifications; hythmic eaturesof the secondpassageareexplainedby citingsuch reasons.Thefirstpassagewas harmonicallyobscure;thatgives a reasonforthe second passage to respond with correspondingharmonicclarity,retrospectively implifying he harmonic eel of the firstpassagesomewhatand integrating he two passages nto a sin-gle clearharmonicsuccession,or trying o.Analysisof the next few measureswill show a continuationof this dramaof abruptaction andresponse,confirminghe ap-propriatenessof the analysis so far but introducingno newmodes of interpretation.

Analysis,concluded.The nextpassage,fromm. 6 to the firstbeatof m. 18, retraces heprecedingevents: thereis a return othe motive of the opening, thensomethingwhich s likethe sec-ond outburst in amountingto a long, decoratedV chord. Asmm. 3-5 responded o mm. 1-2, mm. 6-18 respond,more ade-quately, to all the precedingevents. The passage is long andcontinuous,continuallypurposeful,neitherabruptnor repeti-tious.Addition of an explicitchord to the cello's repetitionof theopening motive makes the harmony unambiguous.Becausethe harmony s clear, and becausea meterhasalreadybeen es-tablished, the placement of a passingtone on the third beatraises no special problems. In the present setting the motiveseemsmuch more straightforward.That second-beatchord hardens he break betweenthe six-teenthnotes andeighths n the cello motive,revivingand nten-sifying the earlier disproportion. But relatively unemphaticsyncopations mm. 8, 10, 12)referquietly o thechordalattack,placingsofter attacksin a metricallystraightforwardontext,absorbing he blowuntilbym. 14rhythmsalignsimplywiththemeter-a gradual,tactfulprocedure.The previously slighted D[, now exerts its influence: theopeningreturns n Gb major,whichbears the samerelation tothe tonickey thatDb bears to C, and a key in whichDb is partof the tonic triad, as the firstviolin demonstrates.From thisstarting-point here is a slow move to the dominant.Not onlydoes the move to V (mm. 8-9) spell out the semitonerelationbetween the keys of Gb andF (theirdominantsare connectedby anutterly iteral semitonedescent),butthe Db to C connec-tionis singledout asspecialby delaysof bothpitches.Thestrat-egy: sincepreviously here was an outburstwith a problematicDb, anda responsethat seemed to ignorethe Db, compensateby imitating he firstoutburstbut doingsomethingwilder hanthe Dl, was (but like the D,), andresolveit explicitly o some-thinglike the initialresponse.The beginningof the response sa littlestartling; t creates anothersharpbreak betweencontig-



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uous gestures, havinglittle to do with the tonic and dominantchords that immediatelyprecede it; but since its motive andharmony ink it primarily o the firstgestureof the piece, thislocaldisjunction s not asdisturbingasthecontrastbetweenthefirstand second outbursts.Explicitresolutionof the Db to Ccontinues nthe firstviolintune(mm. 12-15), twiceby puttingDb ina muchweakerrhyth-micpositionthanC, once byputting he D, on the thirdbeatofthe bar andresolving t unambiguously o C. The firstviolininthis passage sticks to the new registerit opened in bar 3; thehighregisterwasabruptlyandirrelevantly pened, but nowthefirst violin assimilates it to the other registersthat have beenusedby repeating n thisregister he featuresof lowerregisters(an F triadwith C as the lowest note, Csneighboredby D[,s).Mm. 13-15 refer back to the earlier alternating onic anddominantchords,butslowly, smoothly.And rather han elimi-nating the problematicDb, these measures include it, alongwithD1, in clearrelationto the primary hords.And then, re-callingthe possibleminglingof Dl and F triadsat the opening,m. 16 places a D6 triad in the position that might have beenoccupiedby F minor, leadingthe Dl up to D1 while placingachromatic ower neighborto C, as if to diminish he importofthe Dl by providinga symmetrical emitoneneighbor,the twoclosingin on the structurallyocal C. Inplaceof the earlierdis-regardof the problematicD 6, here is elaborate,lucid acknowl-edgement of the pitch, placing t in vivid, definite relation to Fminor.TheDb triadalsodoes muchto assimilate he Gbsound,absorbing t andplacing t in the governing onality.The presentpassageoccupiesthe combinedregistral preadof the openingoutbursts, ormingone seamlessspacefromreg-isters thathadcontrastedsharply.Thepiecenow seems to haveopened a wide registralspanby successivelyopeningtwo sub-spans.Withinthisspacethe cello has a specialrole. Havingbe-gun the passage by retrievingthe opening motive, the cellomaintainsa specialconcernwith the beginningof the piece: itsremarkableascent and descent (mm. 10-17) occupythe regis-

tralspreadthat was occupied at the opening by the entire en-semble, referringto those boundaries but showing them tohave been narrow.The earliertexturaldiscontinuity s absorbed into a singledeveloping process. What felt like a jarring succession ofextremes-line versuschords-now appearswithina processof increasingly ndependent instrumentalparts. Stages of theprocess: octave doubling;chords, with some rhythmicdiver-sity; ineandchords;polyphonically ndependent,rhythmicallydiverseparts.The return to the opening motive and texture in m. 18groups he firstseventeenmeasures ogetheras aseparatestageof the action, and the analysisof those measures has alreadyprovidedsufficientbasisfor the followingdiscussion.However,it is worthnoting brieflythat the issues arising n the openingmeasuresremainfundamentalconcerns n the continuationofthe piece. The abruptreturnto the opening raises new ques-tionsaboutthe statusof Dl andnow G6 aswell, and the subse-quenttonicizationof Db attemptsto drawthe disheveledpitchmaterials nto a new stability.The major-modereturnof thismaterial n the recapitulation eenacts he suppressionof Db inmm. 3-5, givingurgencyto the finalreturnof F minor. Con-cernaboutthe metricalplacementandresolutionof Dbpersiststo the last measures of the movement. Of course, to explorethese laterdevelopments ullywouldrequirealengthyanalysis.

It would be naturalto call the quarteta conspicuouslydra-maticcomposition, andthe analysismakes the sense of dramaconcrete by narrating a succession of dramaticactions: anabrupt,inconclusiveoutburst;a second outburst n response,abruptand coarse in its attemptto compensatefor the first;aresponse to the firsttwo actions, calmerand more careful, inmanywaysmore satisfactory.I suggestthat the notion of action scrucial n understandingtheBeethoven passage.A listener ollows themusicbydrawing



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66 MusicTheory Spectrum

on the skills that allow understanding of commonplace humanaction in everyday life. In transferring those skills from the con-text of ordinary human behavior to the more specialized con-text of musical events, a listener can retain some forms of inter-pretation relatively unchanged, while other habits of thoughtmust be changed to fit the new context.18 In order to under-stand the use of these skills in hearing music, it will be helpful tobegin with some generalizations about nonmusical contexts.The related notions of action, behavior, intention, agent,and so on, figure in a scheme of explanation or interpretationthat applies to human beings (also, more controversially orproblematically, to some animals and to sophisticated ma-chines, for instance, chess-playing computers). The schemeworks by identifying certain events as actions and offering a dis-tinctive kind of explanation for those events. The explanationsascribe sets of psychological states to an agent, states that makethe action appear reasonable to the agent and that cause theaction. The explanatory psychological states can be dividedroughly into epistemic states (beliefs and the like) and motiva-tional states (desires and the like). Ascriptions of psychologicalstates are constrained by the need for the agent to shape up asan intelligible person: fairly coherent, consistent, rational, andso on. Besides beliefs and desires, one important class of ex-

18In focusing on musical action, and most obviously in my discussionoffictional"musicalagents,"I havebeen influencedby EdwardT. Cone'sexcel-lent study The Composer'sVoice (Berkeley: Universityof CaliforniaPress,1974).The importanceof that book has notyet been sufficiently ecognizedbymusictheorists.To trace the precisepatternof agreementand disagreementbetween Cone's ideas and mine would requirea separateand rather ntricateessay; here I can only record my indebtednessto his work. I encounteredRoger Scruton's ine essay "UnderstandingMusic"(in his The AestheticUn-derstanding London:Methuen, 1983])afterformulating he claims andargu-mentsof thispaper,but I ampleasedbythesimilaritybetweenhispositionandmine. Three other models that were influential orme: workbyFlint Schier naesthetics,and the artcriticismof Adrian StokesandMichaelFried.

planatory states includes charactertraits, moods, and emo-tions. These function n avarietyof ways:theycan affectepiste-mic and motivational states, and they sometimes help toexplainfailuresof consistencyorrationality.19What shows that an event is being regardedas an action?Somewords areconsistentlyassociatedwithactions; o saythatsome event is a theftis always o classify hat eventasanaction.Other words sometimes designate actions, sometimes not;knockingdown a snowmanmightbe an action, but if I sliponthe ice, bumping the snowman by accident, and it falls, myknocking t down is not an action. Moregenerally, t is a neces-saryconditionfor an action that tcanbe explainedbyciting heagent's reasons, by ascribingan appropriateconfigurationofpsychologicalstates.20The Beethoven analysis ncludessome termsthatalways n-dicate actions. An abruptoutburst, for instance, is alwaysanaction, and so is a reasoned response. But also, the explana-tions the analysisgives for events in the piece, beginningespe-ciallyin the descriptionof mm. 3-5, cite reasonsconsistingofpsychologicalstates, explainingthe events of the piece just asactionsareexplained.Consideragainthe analysisof mm. 3-5:manyfeaturesof the second outburstareexplainedbyascribingan intention to respondto the firstoutburstand beliefs about

19For areful and influentialexplorationsof the point, see Donald David-son, Essayson Actionsand Events New York:OxfordUniversityPress,1980).My accountdraws argelyon Davidson'sviews. Along withDavidson'swork,G. E. M. Anscombe, Intention(Ithaca:CornellUniversityPress, 1957)wascrucial n establishing he studyof action as a centralpreoccupationof currentanalytic philosophy. Sophisticated, engaging, recent work includes DanielDennett, Brainstorms(Montgomery: Bradford Books, 1978); ChristopherPeacocke, HolisticExplanation New York: OxfordUniversityPress, 1979);Adam Morton, Framesof Mind(New York: OxfordUniversityPress, 1980);and JenniferHornsby,Actions(Boston: Routledge& KeganPaul, 1980).20These eneralizations implify,but not in waysthataffectthe musicalap-plications.For discussionof necessaryand sufficientconditions or aneventtobe an action, see Davidson, Essays, andPeacocke,HolisticExplanation.



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the precise points of unclarity n the opening gesture. For in-stance, the descriptionpointsout that thepassagepresentscer-tain pitch material, which was more obscurely presented be-fore, and in depicting this as a response, it ascribesthoughtswhich refer to the opening, that is, thoughtsthat the openinghad certainfeatures which make a compensatingactionappro-priate. Somethinglike this:"Thatoutburst eft a vague, equiv-ocal sense of a dominant triad.That is unsatisfactory,and oneway to deal with the situation is to present a dominant triadmorestraightforwardly,eavingno doubt aboutwhat I mean."The thoughtis ascribed o explainan action,the actionthat thethought shows as rational. More formally, one can identifybeliefs-"There was something vague about the harmonyatthe opening; a straightforward lternationof tonic and domi-nant would be much clearer"-and a desire-"I want to re-place the sound of the opening with something clearer"-combiningto give a reason for acting.Sayingthat the passage harpson the dominantsuggeststhatthe response is repetitious and perhapsa little out of control.While the contents of mm. 3-5 warrant his description,thereis a furthersuggestionthatthe same mood orcharacterrait hatled to the initialoutburstcontinuesto operate, infecting he re-sponsewith a certainclumsiness,both internallyandin itsrela-tion to the firstoutburst. As with theascriptionof thoughts,theascriptionof mood or character o explainevents resemblesex-planationof actual behavior.In general, the descriptionof the Beethoven passage ex-plains events by regarding hem as actionsandsuggestingmoti-vation, reasonswhy those actions areperformed,and the rea-sons consist of combinationsof psychologicalstates.But to whom are these ascriptionsof action and thoughtmade? It mightbe thoughtthat these descriptionsare straight-forward accountsof what the composer did in composingthepiece, or what performersdo in performing t. Two consider-ationsshow that these suggestionsare too simple.

First,if the analysiscontainsdescriptionof an actionor mo-tivationthatcannot be ascribed o the composerorperformers,andif this fact does not show thatthe analysis s wrong,then itseems the analysis nvolvesthe ascriptionof at least one actionto animaginaryagent. Consideragainthe accountof mm. 3-5:the second outburstis an abrupt, clumsyresponse to the firstoutburst. But that does not mean that Beethoven penned theopening, noticed its unresolved complexities, and hastilypenned a rough response. (Maybehe did, but that is indepen-dent of what the analysis claims.) Neither is it the case thatBeethoven pretendedto respond roughlyand hastily;there isno sense of playor pretenseabout thatresponse,which soundsearnest. Nor does the analysisdescribethe actualresponseofthe members of the stringquartet.An essentialpartof the pas-sage is the feeling that the first outbursthas taken someonesomewhat by surprise, and that the roughnessof the secondoutburstcomes fromunpreparedness.But the membersof thequartetknow what is comingnext.A second considerationis more general. In listening to apiece, it is as thoughone followsa seriesof actionsthat areper-formednow, before one's ears,not asthoughone merely earnsof what someone (Beethoven) didyearsago. And in followingthe musical actions, it is as though the future of the agent isopen-as though what he will do next is not already deter-mined. But then the actions are not straightforwardlyhose ofthe composer,whose (relevant)sections are all in the past, norof the performers,whose future actions arealreadyprescribed.But these considerations are not conclusive.They indicatethatsome kind of imaginativeactivityor constructionof fictionfigures n understandingmusic. Thatmightinvolve the ascrip-tion of actions and psychologicalstates to fictionalcharacters;but it might equally, for all these argumentshave shown, in-volve the creation of fictionalizedversions of the composerorperformers.For instance, if I follow musicalactions as thoughthey arepresentlytakingplace, I couldbe followingthe actions



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of imaginaryagents, but I could rather be imagining hat thecomposer s presentlyperforming hose actions. Or if I followactions of which the future is open, I could be followingtheactionsof imaginaryagentsor I could be imagining hattheper-formersareimprovising.The analysisdoes not answer hese questionsaboutagency;indeed, atmany pointsthe Beethoven analysis s evasiveaboutspecifyinganagent.Forexample, "the nextoutburst .. regis-ters anawarenessof peculiaritiesof theopeningandan effort toclarify .. The whole three-barpassageharpson the dominanttriad."The firstsentence mentions an outburst,an awarenessof something and an effort, without identifying anyone towhom these thoughtsandactionsbelong. The second sentenceseems to saythat a passagedoes something:butperhaps hisisa way of sayingthatthe passageis a harpingon the dominant,againwithoutspecifyinga musicalagent.Such evasionsmightseem to be omissions,gapsthat a fulleranalysiswould fill. I suggest, however, that the gapsbelong inthe analysis,that they record an aspectof musicalexperience.The evasionsreflecta pervasive ndeterminacynthe identifica-tion of musicalagents.Sometimes t seemsappropriateo thinkof the whole texture of apiece as the actionof a singleagent. Inother contexts a differentiationof agents within the texturemaybe morenatural,conspicuously n concertostyle, where asolo part interactswith an orchestra,but also in manyless ex-treme contexts. For instance: "the first violin refers to thestressed second beat of m. 1 . . . The lower instruments alsoemphasizea divisionof the bar into halves." What questionsabout individuationdoes such a passage answer?Does it, forinstance, show that the first violin part in this passage corre-spondsto the activityof a singleagent, determinately et apartfrom the rest of the ensemble? But why not think of the firstviolinpartas somewhat ike one limb of an agentwho has sev-eral limbs and can do severalthingsat once? And what aboutthe other three instruments-are they three agents cooperat-ing,or a single agentproducing hords?Further, he distinction

betweenfirstviolin and lower instrumentsssharp n m. 3 of theBeethoven (as describedby the excerptjust quoted), but de-creases in the followingmeasures;the firstviolin retainsindi-viduality n that it contributesonly Cs, while the other instru-ments play more different pitches, but the rhythmicunisonsuggests a single chord-producingagent. And-whatever isshown by the dissociation of the first violin from the otherinstruments-this is only a smallpartof a piece in whichthefour instruments continue to play; what does the temporarydistinctnessof the firstviolin meanfor the dramatis ersonaeofthe restof the piece?Indeed, what is the relation, in terms of the identityof theagent, between the openingoutburstandmm. 3-5? The inde-terminacyhere is reflectedby anotherevasionin the languageof the analysis:nowhereis it clear whether the responseto thefirstoutburst s madeby the same agentor agents.If the conti-nuityin the performing orces suggestscontinuityof the musi-cal agency, the registral discontinuity and utterly differenttreatmentof the ensemble maysuggestthata distinctagentoragentshave enteredto respond.(Consideralso theprominenceof the firstviolin in m. 3; at the opening, the firstviolinmerelydoublesthesecond,so at m. 3 the firstviolin enterssomewhatasa new character.)Questionslike these arisenaturally,and they do not invitedeterminateanswers. The actions that a listener follows in lis-tening to the Beethoven passage do not belong to determi-nately distinctagents. More precisely, as the listenerdiscernsactions and explainsthem by psychological tates, various dis-criminationsof agentswill seem appropriate,but never with adeterminacy hat rules out other interpretations.The claim isnot that different istenersmay interpretthe musicdifferently(though they undoubtedlywill), but rather hat a singlelisten-er'sexperiencewillinclude aplayof variousschemesof individ-uation, none of them felt asobligatory.If this is correct,then the thoughtsconnectedwith musicarenot justa matterof imagining he composer'sactions as occur-



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ring in the present. Were that the case, indeterminacyaboutthe musicalagent would not be possible; there would be oneagent, whose actionsgive rise to the entire musical exture,de-terminatelycontinuousfrom beginningto end of a piece. Nordoes a listenersimply imaginethat the performersbefore himare improvising,or otherwise cast them in dramaticroles likeactors n a play;once again, a determinateset of agentswouldresult.However, it remainspossiblethat the playof interpreta-tions within this indeterminacywould include interactions n-volvingfictionalizedrepresentationsof the composerandper-formers.As indicated in the commentaries, the analysis minglesstandardmusic-theoreticalvocabularywith other sorts of de-scription. The anthropomorphic anguage, I suggested, be-longsto the analysisbecause the analysisreportsanexperienceof the music as a successionof actions. A crucialquestionre-mains: what is the relation between the actions I havediscussed-outbursts, attempts to resolve-and the music-theoreticallanguageof the analysis?The musicalterminologyincludes some phrases (e.g., "measures 7-10") that servemainlyto locate partsof the score, but also phrases(e.g., "thechangefromsixteenths to eighths,""arhythmic trongpoint,""the pullingin of the registerand move from a full triadto abareoctave") whichdescribe the waythe music sounds in per-formance.It is the latterlanguage,andits relationto the moreovertlydramatic anguage, that is interesting.The firstpoint to observe is thatthe technical anguageandthe dramaticlanguage offer descriptionsof the same events.Thatevent at the openingof the quartet,according o the anal-ysis, is an outburst and it is also a unison passagewith an ob-scurerelationbetween metricalhierarchyandpitchhierarchy.The technicalvocabularyof the analysisdescribes the actionsthat make up the piece.To develop this point into somethingmore interesting,fur-ther reflectionon ordinarynon-musicalactionwill be helpful.Suppose I write an address on an envelope. That action has

many differentdescriptions; or example, I have addressed aletter, usedsome ink, misspelledpartof the address,embossedthe addresson one page of the enclosedletter, movedmyhandin an elaborate pattern, and so forth. Some of these descrip-tions, butnot all of them, arepertinent n understandingwhyIwant to performthe action;or to put the point differently,theaction is intentional under some descriptions,but not underothers. I intentionallyaddress a letter, I do not intentionallymisspellsome words.Again, myactioncan be evaluated nvar-ious ways according o variouscriteria,andgivencertaincrite-riasome descriptionswill be pertinentto evaluating he actionwhile others will not. Descriptionsthatbear on evaluationwillnot necessarilybe the same as those under whichthe actionisintentional.For an evaluationof my socialskills,it maybe im-portantthat there are misspellingsand that the pen has madeindentationson the letter in the envelope.Much of the theoretical anguageof the analysisnot onlyde-scribes he actions of the piece, but describes heminwaysthatshow the intentionwith which the actionis performed.To ex-plainthe second outburst,the analysis mpliesan intentiontorespondto harmonicobscuritywithaclearalternationof domi-nantand tonicchords. Other anguage,notprovidingadescrip-tion of an act as intentional,nonethelessprovidesdescriptionsthat pertain to evaluations that motivate subsequentactions.Themetricalandharmonicobscuritiesof the firstoutburst,asitis depicted in the analysis,seem consequencesof its haste andabruptness, not features intended by the musical agent oragents.21Those obscurities,though, are recognizedand moti-

21This oint dependson a crucialdistinctionbetween Beethoven'shistori-cal intentionsandthose of the agentsin the piece. Supposea dramatistwritesthat a character houldtripand fall at a certainpoint in a play. The dramatistintendsthe clumsiness,but in animportant ense it is not his or herclumsiness,and within the world of the play the clumsiness s not intentional. A similardistinction holds for the quartet.PerhapsBeethoven intended the passagetobe clumsy. Still it makes sense to say that this is not Beethoven's clumsiness,and thatit is not intentional n the worldof the quartet.



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vate later attempts to compensate. The theoreticallanguageprovidesa descriptionthat bears on an evaluation of the pas-sage;thatdescription hen figures n the thoughtsof the agentsof thepiece whentheyevaluate thefirstoutburstand formulatea response.22In short, the music-theoretical anguagein the Beethovenanalysisgives descriptionsof the actionsin the piece, bringingout aspectsthat are pertinent n describingandevaluating heeventsas actions. Thispointisnot trivial: t shouldnot be takenforgrantedthat descriptionsof actionshappento be pertinentto theirexplanationand evaluation.Consider, orinstance,thedescriptions hat a physiologistmightgive of my bodilymove-ments in addressinga letter, sealing t, andwalking o the mail-box. The physiologistmight produceaccurate anatomicalde-scriptionsof my actions,butthose descriptionswouldnot showhow I thoughtof the actionsin decidingto performthem, norwould they be relevant for most criteria of evaluating myactions. Because of the relevance of the theoreticaldescrip-tions in explanationandevaluation,that languagealso figuresin attribution f thought o the musicalagents.While the theoretical language of the analysismost obvi-ously designates actions, a furtherindeterminacyconcerningagency enlargesthe possible dramatic unctions of theoreticallanguage.In everydaycontexts, there is a sharpdistinctionbe-tween agent and action. Agents and actions are differentsortsof things:an agent is, for instance, me, an animalof a certainsize, shape, andhistory,whilemy actions are transientevents.But in musicalthought, agentsand actionssometimescollapseintoone another.An Fminortriador theopeningmotiveof theBeethoven quartetmightbe regardedas actions,perhaps ypi-

22The last three paragraphsare indebted to Davidson. See especially"Agency,""TheLogicalFormof Action Sentences,"and "TheIndividuationof Events," in Essayson Actions and Events. Davidson'sviews are controver-sial. Otherpositionson the individuationof actions andeventswould allow meto makethe samepoints, butin a more cumbersomeway.

cal actions of some recurring haracter;but they might nsteadbe regardedas agents, as characterswithin the composition.This issue does not arise n the languageof the Beethovenanal-ysis, except perhaps n its evasiveness,but Schoenberg, or in-stance,writesthat "apiece of musicresembles n somerespectsa photographalbum,displayingunderchangingcircumstancesthe life of its basic idea-its basic motive,"23 nd similarde-scriptionsarecommon. InSchoenberg'sdescriptiona motiveistreated as a dramaticcharacter.This indeterminacybetweensounds as agents and as actions is possible because a musicaltexture does not provide any recognizableobjects, apartfromthe sounds, that can be agents. If the sound is regardedasaction,the listenermayalso, seekingaperceptibleprotagonist,attribute those actions to the sounds as agents. In music,Yeats'senigma-how to tell the dancer romthe dance-arisescontinuouslyandvividly.I will summarize hese points about the Beethoven analysisbycomparing he Beethoven passageto astage-play.Compari-sons betweendramaandmusic,especiallymusicof the classicalperiod, arecommonplace,but the Beethoven analysismakes tpossible to specify the comparison n considerabledetail.24 twill be useful, for purposesof comparison,to sketch a some-

23ArnoldSchoenberg, Fundamentalsof Musical Composition(London:FaberandFaber,1967),58.24Tovey nd Rosen have written nfluentiallyaboutthe dramatic haracterof the classicalstyle. For characteristicpassages, see Donald F. Tovey, "So-nata Forms,"in his MusicalArticles rom the EncyclopediaBritannica Lon-don:OxfordUniversityPress,1944),208-232, and CharlesRosen, TheClassi-

cal Style (New York: W. W. Norton, 1972), 70-78. Stanley Cavell, "TheAvoidanceof Love: A Readingof KingLear,"in his MustWe MeanWhatWeSay? (New York: Charles Scribner'sSons, 1969),267-353, includes nsightfulsuggestionsabout musicanddrama.Cavell writesaboutmusicon pp. 320-22and 352-53, but the point of his remarksdependson muchof the rest of theessay.ElliotCarterdescribeshisownmusicasdramaticnconception.See, forinstance, his remarkson the Second StringQuartet, in Else Stone and KurtStone, eds., The Writingsof ElliottCarter Bloomington:IndianaUniversityPress,1977),278-79.



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what simplified, idealized notion of a "normalstage play."Fourpropertieswill be relevant:(1) a play presentsa seriesofactions; (2) the actions are performedby fictional characters(or fictionalized representations of mythical or historicalfigures);(3) forthe audience,it is asthoughthe actionsareper-formed at the same time as the audience'sperception of theactions;and (4) the seriesof actionsformsaplot thatholds theactionstogetherin aunifiedstructure. havesuggested hatthequartet, like a stage play, presents a series of actions, per-formedby imaginaryagentsandperhapsfictionalizedversionsof the composer and performers, and that these actions areheard astakingplacein the present. Regarding he fourthprop-erty of a "normalstage play," the structuringof events into aplot, it mayseem obvious that the issue arisesonlyfor anentiremovement or multimovement composition, rather than theopening fragmentof a piece. but in fact a definiteplot structureisdiscerniblewithinthe openingbarsof the quartet.For aperti-nent account of plot one canturn to the work of the contempo-rary iterary heorist Tzvetan Todorov. According o Todorov,anidealnarrative eginswith a stable ituationhatsome orcewillperturb. romwhich esults stateofdisequilibrium;ythe action fa force directed n a conversedirection,the equilibriums re-established;he second quilibriumsquite imilarothefirst,but hetwo arenot identical.25

25TzvetanTodorov, Introduction o Poetics, trans. RichardHoward(Min-neapolis:Universityof MinnesotaPress,1981).Todorov has contributed omeof the best work towardthe constructionof a "grammar" f narrative,analo-gous to the grammarof a language.Some other crucialworks n this areas areVladimirPropp, Morphology of the Folktale,trans. LaurenceScott (Austin:Universityof Texas Press, 1968);ClaudeLevi-Strauss,"The StructuralStudyof Myth," in his StructuralAnthropology,trans. Claire Jacobsenand BrookeGrundfestSchoepf(GardenCity:AnchorBooks, 1967);RolandBarthes,"In-troduction to the StructuralAnalysis of Narrative,"in his Image-Music-Text,trans.StephenHeath (London:Fontana, 1977),andS/Z, trans. RichardMiller (New York: Hill and Wang, 1974).These studies areby now somewhatdated:theoreticalworkon narrativehasrecentlyconcentratedmore on politi-

Todorov's remarksare very suggestivefor the generalissue ofmusicalplot;musicianswill find t easyto thinkof manyways nwhichcompositionscan conformto Todorov'sschema.(A par-ticularlyobvious exampleof an "ideal narrative"wouldbe so-nata form.) In applying the schema to the opening ofBeethoven's quartetone should remember hat Todorov s de-scribingan ideal narrative n whichthe plot structure s simpleandcomplete. The Beethovenpassagecan be understoodasin-volving a modificationof Todorov's schema, in two respects.First, the opening gesturecombines the functionsof establish-ing an initialstate of stabilityand introducingan imbalanceof"disequilibrium":o put it in a very generalway, the first twobarsestablisha certaintonalityandmeter, butthey do so in anobscure or confusingway, thereby introducinga problemthatneeds to be resolved. A second modification of Todorov'sschemaappears n the occurrenceof two attemptsto establishstability,one (in bars3-5) that is only partlysuccessful,and asecond (in the rest of the passage)thatrespondsmoresuccess-fullyto the opening five bars. The existenceof such condensa-tion and overlappingsuggeststhat the Beethoven passagenotonly organizes ts events into aplot, butdoes so in aparticularlysophisticatedway.The analogy between the opening of the quartet and the"normalstage play"holds up fairlywell. Two points that em-erged earlierqualifythe analogyin importantways. First, theactions in the musicare not as close to everydayactions as arethe actionsof nonmusicaldrama.Inastage play,characters er-

cal, psychoanalytic,or rhetorical ssues rather hanthe narrowly ormal ssuesof structuralist nalyses.However,the structuralist ccountsremainpromisingfor work on musical narrative.Typicallysuch accounts abstract romspecificactions and individual characters while generalizingabout the patterns ofevents within "well-formed"narratives:accordingly, his approachseems pe-culiarlywell-suited to bringingout similaritiesbetween musicaland nonmusi-cal narratives.



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form actions that occur in everydaylife: they make promises,argue, marry,murder,andso on. IntheBeethovenpassage,theactions have generaldescriptionswhichcan be satisfiedby eve-rydayactions: or instance,there are two outbursts t thebegin-ningof thepiece, and the second one is an attempt o respond othe firstandcompensate or it. But these actionsalso have moredetailed descriptions that are "specificallymusical": for in-stance,the secondoutburstresponds o the firstby establishinga straightforwardmetricalpattern, by clarifying he pitchstruc-ture, and so on. Second, a stage play normally involves adefinite number of fictional characters hat can be reidentifiedas the same characters t differentpoints n theplay.Hamlet s adifferentcharacter rom Gertrude,and Hamletin Act V is thesame character s Hamlet nAct I (otherwiseone could not con-templatethe extent to which Hamletmighthavechanged n thecourse of the play). But the agents nthe Beethovenpassageareindeterminate.It may seem strangeat first to think of music as a kind ofdrama that lacks determinate characters. The position mayseem less strange if one recalls that Aristotle, in the Poetics,considers he traitsof individualcharacters o be less importantfor a tragedythan the intelligibilityand unity of the series ofactions n the plot:themost mportantf all s thestructuref the ncidents. orTragedyis an mitation, otofmen,butof anactionandof life ... Dramaticaction, herefore,s not witha viewto therepresentationf charac-ter:character omes n assubsidiaryo theaction,andof theagentsmainlywitha view o the action.26ForAristotle, the imitationof agents ntragedy ervesthe moreessentialpurposeof imitatingan action.PerhapsAristotle'sre-markscan help one graspthe suggestion hat music can be dra-

26Aristotle,Poetics, trans. S. H. Butcher (New York: Hill and Wang,1961),62-63.

matic without mitatingor representingdeterminate haractersat all.MusicalStructure s DramaticStructure

In lightof the precedingdiscussion,what is the structureoftheBeethoven passage?The analogy o drama uggests hat thestructure of the music is its plot. The structure could besummedup asthreelargeactions,the secondresponding o thefirst and the thirdrespondingto both earlier actions. Or, fol-lowing Todorov, one could describe the structure n termsofequilibriumandimbalance, ntheslightlycomplicatedwaythatI indicated. But these structuresdo not imply any distinctionbetweenstructureand otheraspectsof the music,for all the de-tail of the analysis simply provides fuller specificationof itsplot. Nor does this accountof structurepermita distinctionbe-tween "structure"and a more "humanistic" r "emotive" as-pectof the music:humanisticaspects,moreprecisely he dramaand anthropomorphismthat I have discussed, are alreadypresentas aspectsof the plot.But this notion of dramaticstructure s differentfrom thenotion of "structure" hat appeared n the first section of thispaper.There, Icitedwriterswho agreed ndistinguishing par-ticularaspectof music, "structure," hat is studiedin isolationfrom other aspects by theoristsand analysts.How would oneisolate the structure, n that sense, of the Beethoven passage'?In particular,does the dramaticor anthropomorphicanguagecontribute o a descriptionof "structure"?Or is it closer to thepole of "meaning"and "expression"?Thisquestion s hardto answerwithanyconviction.The no-tion of "structure" eems stablewhen it is vaguelyspecifiedassome sort of "patterning f sounds"andplaced nopposition o"affect," "emotion," and so on. When the picture iscomplicated-and given greater verisimilitude-by introduc-tion of the dramatic aspects I have presented, the contrastbreaksdown.



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Musicas Drama 73

The contrastbreaks downat both ends. Inlightof a detailednarrationof musicaldrama, it becomes very implausible hatemotion occupies a privilegedrole in musical experience. Awriterwho believes that emotion is the onlylink betweenmusicandordinaryhuman life will stress emotion heavilyin explain-ingthe importanceof music.But the Beethovenpassage s con-nected to everydaylife by action, belief, desire, mood, and soon.27In short, the quartet analysis, along with my subsequentcommentary,does little to support he notion of musicalstruc-

27Kivy'sThe CordedShell, as I indicatedearlier, relies uncriticallyon asharpdistinction between technical and emotive descriptionof music. Curi-ously, however, there is a brief passagein which one can glimpsea promisingunification of his account of musical experience, along the same lines that Ihave been exploring.Kivy observes that to regarda piece as expressive s toregard t animistically.In order to defend the ascriptionof emotionalexpres-sion to music, he arguesthat ascriptionof emotionto musicfigures n a muchmoregeneralpatternof animisticconstrual:onlya moment's eflection nthewaywe talkaboutmusicwillreveal,I think,howdeeply"animistic" urperception f itreally s. A musical heme s frequently e-scribed sa "gesture."A fuguesubjectsa "statement";t is"answered" tthefifthbythe next"statement" f thetheme.A "voice"s stillwhatmusicians allapartn apolyphonic omposition, ven if the part s meantto be playedon an instrumentrather hansungby a voice. ... we must hear an auralpatternas a vehicle ofexpression-an utterance ragesture-before we canhear tsexpressiveness.Pp.58-59)Accordingto Kivy,the vocabularyof technicaldescription eveals that musicalevents are sometimesconstrued as utterancesor gestures,and it is such utter-ances or gesturesthatprovidethe basis for the ascriptionof emotion.The dichotomy between technicaland emotive aspectsof musicgovernsKivy'sthinkingso powerfully hathe can even sketchapositionthateliminatesthe dichotomy,withoutbeing led to questionthe fundamental mportanceofthe dichotomy.

ture as a patterningof sounds, the appropriate ubjectmatterof a technical discourse that remains aloof from aesthetic is-sues. For at least some music, a satisfactoryaccountof struc-turemustalreadybe an aestheticallyorientednarrationof dra-matic action.Evaluationand elaboration of the claims I have made cancome from two obvioussources:furtherdetailedanalyses,andclose interpretationof majortexts in musictheoryandaesthet-ics to see whetherdramaticmodelsoperate in these texts. Thelattertask is both importantandpromising: n fact, it turnsoutthat some of the finest and most influential heoristsunderstandmusic as a drama of interacting agents. I mentioned Schoen-berg's dramaticconstrualof motivic patterning;more gener-ally, Schoenberg'sHarmonielehreconstruespitches and har-monies as agents, struggling or supremacy,and it is notablethathislanguagebecomesmoreanimisticallydramaticwhen headdressesthe most crucial foundationalconcepts. Schenker'searly work depends on a similardramatizationof pitch rela-tions, and his later work remainspervasivelyanimistic n thecontext of a very differenttheory. Tovey is perhapsthe mostobviousexampleof amajoranalystwho explainsmusicbypro-vidinga dramaticnarrative. Ironically,Kivy'scentralexampleof an emotiveanalystturns out not to be predominantlycon-cerned with emotion, but ratherwith narratives n whichdra-matic and technical languagemix freely, as in my Beethovenquartet description.)28 he prerequisite or such furtherexplo-rations is a clear, if provisional,exposition of the conceptsofmusicalagency, drama,and so on, whichthe presentpaperhasattempted o provide.

28Thesebriefcommentson majortheorists summarizedetailedinterpreta-tionsthatI hope to publishshortly.


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Music as Drama