Lippman - The Dilemma of Musical Meaning

8/6/2019 Lippman - The Dilemma of Musical Meaning

1/10

Croatian Musicological Societyhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/836560 .

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless

you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you

may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at .http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=croat. .

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed

page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Croatian Musicological Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to

International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music.

http://www.jstor.org
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=croathttp://www.jstor.org/stable/836560?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=croathttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=croathttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/836560?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=croat


2/10

DISCUSSIONS, IRASM, 12 (1981), 2, 181-202

DISCUSSIONS

THE DILEMMA OF MUSICAL MEANING

Meaning has doubtless been the chief object of musical speculation inour century. For good or for ill it has largely replaced older philosophicand aesthetic concepts such as beauty, imitation, expression, and content.The replacement seems very much to the good as far as content is con-cerned, for it is not at all clear that music >contains


3/10

DISCUSSIONS, IRASM, 12 (1981), 2, 181-202182pointed out three alternatives to such an interpretation: a formal descriptionin technical and statistical terms, the uncritical adoption of a summarycharacterization, and a flight of poetic fancy, all of them unsatisfactory,although for different reasons.Kretzschmar undercut his hermeneutic enterprise, however, by intro-ducing a pedagogical purpose. His proqposal was literally one of a curric-ulum for beginners in music, for untrained listeners. Musically giftedpeople, he proposed, will be able to skip over much of his course. Whetheror not Kretzschmar's plan would have pedagogical value for any group ofpeople we need not consider here; but words of course cannot faithfullyconvey any non-verbal experience. They may characterize music, butneither descriptive words nor the concepts represented by them are de-noted by the music, and it is difficult to imagine a connotation without adenotation. Nor can music be reduced to a means of communication, espe-cially not for a message that can be stated in language. With respect toan essential musical meaning, then, Kretzschmar's hermeneutics must beregarded as inadequate. It is clearly to be used in alternation with themusic itself, a practice that amounts to lan implicit acknowledgment of itsinadequacy. It has the further defect that Kretzschmar's descriptions arein his own view the same as those of the Baroque Affektenlehre; there isno indication that hermeneutics may be a historical variable.The chief musical representative of Cassirer's views of symbolism isSusanne Langer, who like Arnold Schering, attempts to define musicalmeaning in terms of the conception of symbolism. She tries persistently toarrive at a satisfactory definition of musical symbolism, continually revis-ing her terminology and her conception. She employs paradoxical notionssuch as ,presentational(< symbol and >>unconsummated< symbol. The mu-sical symbol is fused with its meaning, she maintains, but finds subse-quently that music has no meaning: it has import instead. Or again, musicbecomes a virtual image of inner experience. But if the inner experiencein question has no existence separate from or independent of the image,how can it be represented or referred to by the music. Finally symbols aresaid to formulate as well as to refer, and formulation is logically prior toreference; musical symbolism formulates only. But how, then, can musichave meaning?Schering's difficulties are equally evident. After his valuable studiesof Bach's symbolism, he begins to find external reference where there isno evidence of it - an understandable tendency for some one convincedof the universality of symbolism. Both his theoretical position and his con-fusion can be examined readily in two important articles published in theJahrbuch Peters for 1935 and 1936 respectively. The motif that opensTristan, to take a conspicuous illustration, may have the antecedents thatSchering proposes, but in what sense are these antecedents symbolic? Sym-bolism in vocal music does not appear to represent a problem, for thequestion can simply be transferred to the text, where the imponderablesconveniently seem to disappear. Even though the transfer is actually not a


4/10

DISCUSSIONS, IRASM, 12 (1981), 2, 181-202 183legitimate one, the falsification it entails is readily overlooked.1 But theproblem of instrumental music cannot be disposed of quite so easily. Oneimportant approach is certainly to trace meaning to some explicit verbalconnection. Just as a title or a program can specify meaning, so can instru-mentally performed melodies or motifs acquire meaning if they are sungelsewhere in the same work, or if they are well known to begin with asvocal music. Or alternatively, meaning may be bestowed by a visible dra-matic action or event. The vocabulary of symbols derived in these waysfrom explicit connections is obviously very different in different spheresof musical practice - very different for Bach than for Beethoven or forWagner. And it is apparent that the contents and even the existence of anolder symbolic world will be known only to some one conversant with thestyles and documents and pictorial evidence relevant to a given problem,even if familiarity with the symbols was relatively common at the timethey came into existence. In this respect Schering cannot be criticised;he was particularly sensitive to the historical career of musical symbols.For that very reason, however, there are times when we cannot easilydistinguish unfounded speculation from insight in his case. Demonstratingthe presence or the exact nature of musical symbolism, particularly of anesoteric or purportedly suppressed symbolism, can obviously be a difficultif not insuperable problem. Did Beethoven really have to provide a keyto the question and answer of >Mu13es sein?< or was the symbolism suffi-ciently well known at that time to. make explanations unnecessary? Oragain, were the portentous questions asked in terms of the same motivicfamily by Liszt and Wagner recognized as such even apart from theirprogrammatic and dramatic context? Or to take a difficulty directly in-volved in Schering's work, when is instrumental lyricism symbolic of sing-ing? If the lack of precision in Schering's thought is added to the problemof obtaining evidence for his contentions, it is not at all surprising that hisprotracted and provocative effort to convert symbolism from a particulardevice to a phenomenon accounting for musical meaning in general fellshort of his goal.Semiology has been still less productive for music than hermeneuticsand symbolism. Its generality, like that of all schemes for a universallanguage, has been more promise than fulfillment. It has been based for themost part on linguistics, so that its application to music - which has beenundertaken most prominently by Jakobson, Ruwet, and Nattiez - consistslargely in searching for similarities between music and language. Thesimilarities, unfortunately, are outweighed by the differences.To be sure, the distinction between an individual musical work (or animprovisation) and the musical system it is grounded mirrors the dis-tinction between an individual literary work (or an improvised discourse)and the systematic structure of the language it employs. And tones can becompared, with some degree of accuracy, to phonemes, just as successive

The falsification is a simplification, for the symbolism of vocal music is actual-ly the resultant of the symbolism of the sung text and that of the accompaniment.


5/10


musical motifs, themes, phrases, and so on (in an articulated style) can becompared to morphemes, words, linguistic phrases, and so on. Cadences arecomparable to junctures, the scalar system to the phonological system,melodic grammars to linguistic grammars. But resemblances such as thesedo not appear to advance our understanding and analysis of music in anysignificant way; they seem simply to provide fashionable rubrics for prob-lems that can be handled just as well with traditional terminology. Evenworse, they pretend to be sufficient in themselves,, and thus succeed ineliminating the historical study of style, which is their true competitor indefining musical meaning. The question is really how thoroughgoing thesimilarities are. Double articulation in music, for example - if it existsat all - is certainly different from double articulation in language, for therelationship of tones to themes is really not the same as the relationshipof phonemes to words, which differ from one another much more sharply.But even the comparable aspects of music and language belong almostentirely to the province of structure; a comparative consideration of mean-ing yields a completely different and much more negative result. In theend, semantics may be no more than a new word for the familiar referen-tial aspects of musical meaning, and syntax a new word for form or forstructure.The value of replacing >formsyntax< and >se-manticsstructural meaning(< is relatively inconspicuous.The various inadequacies of hermeneutics, symbolism, and semiologyas accounts of musical meaning - at least as they have so far been con-ceived - prompts a return to musical experience itself in a renewed effortto discern features which would explain the unmistakable feeling thatmusic makes sense and that it is meaningful. Now we can sometimes dis-tinguish in music an instance of meaning in its proper sense of externalreference. There may be a duplication or an imitation of external sounds,

184


6/10


or an approximate formal similarity to some external object or event, orto some narrative or dramatic action. Through its formal properties or thefeeling it evokes, or through both at once, music may refer to some emo-tional experience known outside of music or to some general conceptionsuch as heroism. References of these kinds during the Baroque era couldmake use of a conventionalized vocabulary of figures. In general, however,references such as these would not be grasped without a descriptive titleor narrative to guide the performer or listener. Indeed program music soincreases the range and precision of every type of external reference, thatmusic is given a deceptive versatility of meaning which suggests the cap-ability of language. On the other hand, even purely instrumental music willrepresent the society or culture in which it had its origin. And there isfinally what we may call associative meaning, which consists in the imagesor ideas entertained by various listeners in response to music, although theseare always private reactions or reveries that can be entirely unrelated tothe music that evokes them.

External reference may also be musical in nature. One work mayrefer to another - one of Brahms to one of Schumann, for example. Ora work may refer to an older style in general - to the imitative polyphonyof the Renaissance, or to the style of Bach. Even without the composer'sintention, a musical work will normally represent the composer's own style,and the styles of its genre, nation, historical era, and so forth. Somewhatsimilar to this is the reference of functional music to the occasion of itsuse: of liturgical music to a religious service, or a wedding march to awedding.Meaning can also be based on the division of the musical experienceitself, with one part or aspect becoming the meaning to which the otherpart refers. This division can occur with composite musical arts such assong, dance, and opera. The melody sung will point to the meaning of thetext as its own meaning, or to the text itself. The music of a dance willrefer to the dance, even if this is not present. A general type of division isthat of the sound of music from its acoustic sources. This is a fundamentaltype of perceptual meaning: the tones represent the singers, or the instru-ments being played; they are in fact part of their sounding sources.

A very important type of internal meaning is the reference of a part ofa musical composition to other parts and to the whole. The meaning ofthe opening of a work is made up to some extent of anticipation or inti-mation; it often becomes charged, in addition, with the meaning of thewhole. Recurrences of themes refer to their earlier or initial appearance;cadences of various kinds signify the end of sections and of the work;indeed each distinguishable phrase contains some reference, however poorlydefined, to the whole, especially after repeated hearings; and in its melodicand harmonic characteristics, the phrase defines its particular position andits status with respect to the movement or work as a whole. Each phrasealso contains some reference to its predecessors, particularly to the phrasedirectly before it. It may be a repetition, for example, or begin as a repe-

185


7/10


tition, only to diverge as it ends, like the answering phrase in the balancedstructures with half and full cadences that are so familiar to us. It mayform a contrast having relatively little resemblance to what precedes it,as in the Abgesang of a Bar form. Or it may have a complex relationshipmade up of both similarity and difference, as in the second section ofBaroque dances. Extremely common also are motifs, themes, melodic phra-ses, or whole melodies that differ from their initial form in some way, dec-orating, inverting, augmenting it, or changing the rhythm or key or mode.It is not difficult to see in instances of any of these how the meaning of therepetition or transformation or novel configuration depends on what pre-cedes. Indeed in a larger framework, even the meaning of the individuaistyle of a composer or of a work is constituted by departures from thepast or from the style of some other composer or the style of a givengenre. This alteration of what is past is not only the source of meaning butthe source of the precise quality of the meaning. Matched against the given,the new brings a difference into existence that is measured accurately bythe mind, which closely compares the moving specious present of the newwith the retained trace of the original. This is the basis of the composer'sconstruction of the new as well as the listener's reception and constitutionof it. Anticipation similarly is not limited to the opening of a work, but ismore or less present throughout, and in crescendos, accelerations, or tran-sitions to significant restatements of themes, can reach a dramatic intensity.Thus meaning can best be defined by form; the two are paired aspects ofthe same totality.2

Simultaneously with the production of meaning by partition, anothertype of division will also reveal relationships of meaning in a fashion thatis more continuous and that is not dependent upon the relative similaritiesand the properties of parts. The inner course of musical feeling can beseparated from the audible physical process that accompanies it. The soundthen will refer to the feeling that it embodies as an outcome of the processof composition or the process of performance, and to the feeling it provokesthe performer and the listener to constitute. All of these inner experiencesare ideally the same, but will differ substantially from one another whenthe performer and listener belong to a later or distant culture or to adifferent social class than those connected with the work when it wascomposed. The inner experience follows every detail of the flow of sonority.It is compounded of the sensational and sensuous quality that is directlyattached to the sound, the concomitant course of emotive and volitionalexperience, the dynamic feeling of forward motion, which ranges fromlanguishing to propulsive, and perhaps also of associated ideas and visualimages, which represent an external type of meaning. The qualities,feelings, volitional properties, and propulsion are not fully separable fromone another; they tend to fuse and interpenetrate. Each instrument and2 Even the material representedby the musical system possesses formand mean-ing, which can be connected ;(somewhatabstractly) with the nature and history ofsociety.

186


8/10

DISCUSSIONS, IRASM, 12 (1981), 2, 181-202 187each range of pitch and loudness and rapidity contributes its own sphereof feeling to the totality. The trombone, for example, possesses an intrin-sic quality to which the characterization )>reverential and awe-inspiring


9/10

DISCUSSIONS, IRASM, 12 (1981),2, 181-202this inner meaning is a product of cultural modes of musical perception.'There is a basic constituent of meaning that is universal: the continuityand self-identity of consciousness, the kinesthesis connected with audiblerhythm, the variety of auditory and vibratory qualities connected withdifferences in pitch. But any tonal pattern whatsoever builds on thesefoundations a cultural mode of organization, a musical style specific totime and place, and may add to this cultural style a further specificity ofgenre, of person, and of instrument and type of vocal tone. The style of theculture may be entirely foreign to our own, and from this circumstancethere arises the necessity of hermeneutics.The value of hermeneutics, however, is another matter. For the mean-ing of music is so idiosyncratic that it cannot be conveyed in language.Words can at best give us a very approximate description, a kind of locusof meaning rather than the meaning itself. And the universally intelligiblefeatures of music are only a small part of the whole; their relevance isappreciable only as they enter into the culturally specific meaning of thestyle. But if verbal description is taken together with the music rather thanin place of it, the musical meaning is really changed and made precise.It is impossible to give a description of the meaning without making themeaning conform to it - so eager is music to cling to every suggestionfrom the outside. This is not to say that the meaning of instrumental musicin itself is not precise. It is just that this precision is not amenable to inter-pretation of whatever kind; a new precision created by the descriptionsuppresses it and replaces it.

Still another approach to musical meaning is provided by a knowledgeof other aspects of the culture in which the music was created. These willhave some familial similarity to music, they will present kindred modesof thought and expression, and at the same time they will doubtless beeasier to comprehend. Ultimately we must rely on the music itself: onlistening and perhaps on performing and composing as well. Indeed theperformance of some one sensitive to the style of a work is nothing lessthan a non-verbal hermeneutics. The meaning of music - taken now asthe consummation of the experience implied and initiated by its perform-ance - will yield at least in part to a combination of approaches. Butfull comprehension is possible only to the extent that we can enter intothe culture, in imagination if not in fact.There is finally a pragmatic conception of meaning, which looksbeyond the original context of the musical work to its subsequent perform-ance and use, to the changing institutions and varied social settings thatbecome its context in turn. And there is another pragmatic determinationof meaning in the history of the criticism of the work, in which the insuffi-ciency of verbal description is somehow dignified by its inclusion in a his-torical succession of attitudes, probably because we then almost auto-

5 I have treated the interrelationship of form, meaning, and style in detail in AHumanistic Philosophy of Music, New York 1977, Ch. 3-5.

188


10/10

Date post:	07-Apr-2018
Category:	Documents
Upload:	picsafing
View:	222 times
Download:	0 times

Lippman - The Dilemma of Musical Meaning

Documents