Subotnik_Notes_Toward a Deconstruction of Structural Listening

8/13/2019 Subotnik_Notes_Toward a Deconstruction of Structural Listening

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3Toward a Deconstruction ofStructural Listening: C ritique ofSchoenberg, dom o and Strav insky

The hish- criticism is tbatwhich leaves an ~ession identicalwiththe one called fotthby tb e thitlg ditidzed._Robe:rt~l

W e 'h f w e a l \V .a V $ tw o iJniversa ofd~tl~ phys:ical and'1>hen~, or w~youwiH--one~ingWith qu:_itmtIofquantiQtiveand ~ 8tMit,ute, ~otherwith th~qualig,es that eonstitutea w o r t e Computational representadons ... C Q lJ J d l~er.of th~ves,cQnstitute iconi.c representatiQns. these reptesentationswhich are the very

threadand s tu ff c i li.fe... ~ is nQtP Q S s i b l e until it iso~izediconieally;action isnot p o s s i b l e unle8l\it is otganlzed iccmically...The final form of cerebra n:pr~taticm m1.l$tbe; er aUow, an--the attful scenet:yandmelodyof experienceand action....: .o liv er Sacks~

Emotion andmeaning are cotning out of themusicological cleset, The under-gtOundp ~ out of uncrhical fottnalism.,which Leonard Meyer began techattmore than thirtv .yearsago. are in the process of being dlscevered by~tican musicologyat latge. This developing critique of musical forrnaliSlliwouldbe facilitated by areexamination ofwhat 1wouldUke to call struct\,lrallistenlng, allle.thod that concentrates a~ntiQn primarilyon the formal rela-tionshipSestahli.hed over the course of a singlecomposition.The generalprinciple ofstructurallis~'~ becotne sowell establi$hedasa norm initbeadvacedstudv and teacbingof music,at least in this counttv,dlat.tisall tOo -vfot us to assume tts value _ selfevident and univet$alandto ovetlook tts birth out of pan:tcularhist~calcircumstances an,dideological


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theobject of sttUctul'allis~ing.a .sttueMELthat is.msome Mll$eabstract.CQnStitutesonly one pole o E a mo~ ~al,dial~~~k'ln whichmedem Western conceptiOfl$.ofm_~.~ ,~()t*l.3 Theothupole-medium-isll historical ~.i(~,~theongoingrelationship of any COIll.PQSitionoa~'~.fIJf._'_.cWtUl'e,. ftom. the time of itsinitial~ceuptq ~~.:~~;ts~pr~i~pally tlu-cugb,.thepreseQ:tatioo..f..soon ~bv;~~()t dar,aetuistic usage6. into parttcu1ar conbgun ltiOtls,aI~stfl l$ obi~' .f aphysicalyet eulturallv conditioned perception. The ptcc.isenat\Stt ~,.ma..tionshipbetween sound and. sty le is an. interesting problemthat ~.begiven 'll,ttention beee, lnthe. discussionthat follows .the tenns ~'an.dstyle, ' < : 1 intertwmedaspectsof the common ,parameterofmediwn Wi l l .be ~ted8$ moreor less interchangeable.The presentdiscwlsi~ whicili de.velopedttOlll amuch' sh.ortercritique inanearlier article, has resultedunmtendonally in somerhingy,eryelose to aQecONltUcti.Qn. eccgniziPg a hi~oppQlIitton betw~ st11l,C~_mediumas fundatnentalto,theQOllCelltohmrotutallistening.1 havein. effectttiedto reverse.the conv~lrllSllUJ.tled priotities .in this hterarchy, toundeteutthe distinctwn berwemitspolel br presentingthe .tnOdean.


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150 Towarda Deconstruction of Structural Listeningburcaa in fact be read as a defense of Schoenberg . Thus the lim ited philo -sophica l jU$ti fi ca tion that S cho en berg pro vid ed fo r stru etu ra l listening ts eon-sistendy and persuasively grounded by AdorhO 's m o re am p le account, and forpresen tpu rposes the tw o concepts w ill be considered as one here, Schenl ce rianconceptions of struc tu re and perception . such as Felfx Salz er's s tru cn rra l h ea r-ing , w ill not be considered here, hence the Tow ard of m y tide.T his co ncept of s tru cru ra l Hs ten tn g , as Schoenberg and A dorho presentedit, wasintended to describe a pro ce~ wh erein the_ltsten er fo llow s a nd c otn J:Jte .hendsthe un fold ing realization , w ith all of its d~ed inner relationsh~, .of agenetating m u sical concepti0Th or w hat Schoenbetg caU slUl idea . 6 Based onan :;$um p tion that valid struc tu rallog ic is aeeesstblete any reason ing person .such struc tura llis ten ing d iscOU tap~ds of LU:lderstand~ m at ~uire cy -tu rally spedficknow ledse of thipm externalto tI;le com eitional structu re,s ' t1chas ~ventionai assoc iations ortheoretica l m tem s. This indudes thetw elve ..tone system and the conm tu tionofany particu lar raw , though itdoesnot, and indeed canaot, exc lude cu ln ttal fam U iarity w ith the dynam icof tonality . 71n A dom o 's form u lation , m o wing eventhe natneof the com poseror thecom .l*ition in question cou ld m u ddy the purity of the desiredprocess)Struc tura llis ten ing is: an activem ode m att w hensu .cceaafu l, g ives the listenerthe sense. o f cotn po$ing the ptece as It ac tu aH zes itself in tim e.T he conceptof stn lc tu ra llisten ing hascom p lex. too tS in O erm .an tnusica l,cu ltu ra l, and philosophical trad itions.w ith . w hich. bo th Schoenberg andAdom o fele a strang sense ofh istoncal continu ity .The orig insof the conceptc an u sefu lly be traced to the final phase of theEn liihten tnent. _~t h im selfr emamed faitbful to a tepresen tational no tion of art and never drew the fullrange cf aestbetic conclusions to m ich his ow n w ork. po in .ted .N everthel~his CritiqW of}udgm ent , w ith its c on ceptio n cf d is in teres ted a esth etic p lea su reand especia lly itsptesen tation of ae$thetic judgm en t as a con c ep tles s p ro ce ssinvolv ing the tnetaPhorof a sttuctu1iU congtUence between f acu l ti e~ , l ll a rksactU


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Towarda Deconstructionpf StrocturalLi$tening 151eensmsed as a self-eonsciouscritique of earlier Classical musical conceptions.Arguing musically for autonomcus stNcturalvalues, sometimesthrough aphysically thick ru;tdtonally extrin$ie rhetorical emphasis, sometimes througha revisionist. treatment of inherited struct\1ral conventions, Beethoven suc-ceeded in underm.iningthe abstract securityof the verycon.ditionofautonomyhe sought to establish, and suggestedmusical structure 88. st bottoma contiu.-gent consttuct, subject teeoncreteculnaal limitations on itscbaracter andsigni6cance.

Likewise,the nations ofabsolute ftWsicasdeveloped bysuch ear lyRoman-tictigures 3$. W ilhebn Heinrich W~andLud.Wig Tteck, and 3$tmlted in the mUSlC criti~m of E . T ..A H dffm ann, earl Mafia von Webet,and SchlJlllat\n, are of a rieh and.conerere sott. Attending (in the caseof thethreemusicetitics) with 'coosiderabledetail to sttuctural relationshipswithinmosie, andat thesame time affirmingthe irueparability of amusical structurefrom. thepoetic and spiritualassociationsand imagery that thisstruetuteevokedintE.eimagillation,'lb)' 'uanticwriting encourageda kind of listeningthat was atonce sttuc~f,at.~.,~fQllof cootent. The critic EdwardRomstein hassuggested.~;~,,.


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Towarda Deconsnuction ofStructural Listening52are>tI\)heara~Vinem.gfortn, ~ustact asfreely .as poem ~o~-~c paciti~-.....or, fot thatrnattet. from his praise of Berliozas similar to'*}_&ul, whom someone called a bad.logicianand' agteat philosopher. 12 IffWls.kpro~ redueillg themusicalobject of ctitieism to its phenomeno,logical essentials, heattivesat thispoitlt through rotleepts of the aesrhencandof SttUctUre :hat idealite htunJnl cultutal and spiritual capacities, If Hansliekencourages areinterpretation of the musically formal as eennotmg-somethiagessentially negative-say, mere, or empty. form, form as predsely that inmusicwhich does notexptess----the metaphysicalspititof the German tradi-tionsthat fonned his eultural ccntextcan andshould still be dtscemed in hisargument as what eouldbe called, in Demdean terms.an important absentpresenee or traee. uThis h'ltertWiningof German intellectual tradition With pllrelystructuralva ues continues to eharactetize the formalism ofSchoenberg and Adomo.14 Itmarb an itnPOrtant difference' between their aesthetic theories and Stra-vinsky's .as set forth in the latter's P oetics of Music , theodes that otherwiseconverge. on a nu.r of more or less charaeteristie twentieth~eenturV West-ern musicalpositions,including a. comtnOninsistence on the need rot someSOrtof sttUetural listetling. Both .Schoenberg and Stravinsky, fot example,definemusic asa field for the tnasterv of nature by eulture, the latter of whichis va ued for its scientificand speculative capacities. n Both Wi8h to subjectmusic to a governing .$bjeetive,and essentially universal ptinciple of rationalnecessity, wruch would counteract the ca.pnciousness of personalself-gratinca-tiotl,prejudice, and tafte.16 Both would (theoretically)su.pportan open-endedvariety ofmusical worb, which, solQngas they wel'e fonnallycohetent, wouldhaveno needto'justify their kind or existe1lce; 7 the intemal neeessity o f thework, so to. ~)'would sufficiently guatantee for both m en the outwardnecessity f a r it.

,Both Schoenbergand Stravinsky celebrate the aetivity of musieal eon-sttUction and \Vould conb.ne tnusiealmeaningwithinthe boundaries of theindividual com.position.. exc1usive of contextuall'elationships and (at least intheory)of intent. 18 Both considet recepti01l snd effectexttitlsic to the con-cept of composition-the.fund:ionalist craftsman Stravinskv no less rhan theendlesslyexplaining Schoenbe;rg;W Adorno'sposition on these matters is sim~ilar.though alwaysmore eemplicated.: Although he sees no actual way ofextricating musiCal stnIctute from itsemboditnent of soda values, andrecoils from the hypostatUing of objects as a symptomof ideological dishon-esty; he nevertheless maintains theachievement of a totally autonomousmusical stru.ctureas a lltopian ideal.w AU three men end by locating musical


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V4 luc whllv wi'rh in s rn efortnalS4) otpatameter. te \\'h ieb it i$th e lis tener'sbusiness toattend.T here is ad ifferen .ce. however,inthe,kmdt'Offtmrtal ~chosen,wlli


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154 TQward Dec nstru tti n o f S ttu c;tu ra l Listeningeite the teae ofhiSown workiS in.strlking conttast to Sclloenbetg's attitudeitowatd suchmattets.29 In effect, Stravinsky redefines musicalfonn. tom~style. oreven high style, in OUt eurrentlyfashionable yuppie sense. Indoing so he transforms musiefrom lpotentiallv universal symbol.of integrity .inte a eultutaUyspedalized pleasure, leavingits fate te exaetly thosearbi~stand~ of taste that his formaliStieprinciples of appreciation were designed'to esc lpe.30Sehoenbergand Adorno try to effect this same escape bydistinguishingtheformal paratneter of musie frorrimere sound or style}l Iastead, Schoenbetgand Adorno de6nethe fortnal patametet ofmusic as aninterconnectedness of

( sttucture that is bothtempotally establiShed, and thus eoncrete, and alsoobjectively determinable. Consequently, they define structurallisteningnot asa sensibility to ehicbut a&attentiveness to coneretell' unfolding logic thatcan vouch for the valueof the music. Ptacticed in tb.e wal' ptescribed bySchoenberg and Adorno, sttuttutallistening plunges us into the middle ofwhat cou1dbe ealled the musicalargument, aUowingus to understand. ftomthe IQition ofan insider,not juStthe litles butthe totaHtyof theliltgurrierIta&it unfOlds.Canftonting atevery moment the rationaleof mecotnpOSitionfrotn its.own point of view,so to speak,the liStener iSideally eo be precludedfromexetcising negativeprejudiees er forming adversejudgments on,the basisofstvlistic uncongeniality or, in asense,even (within moral limits) of philo;sophic1l1difference.Adorp.0. to Oe sure, -who is in mosr respects farmote preoccupied thanSchoenberg with thephilosophiealand ideologieal.implieations of musiealstructure, iS.notonly prepared but dete:rtninedto rejecr.rnusiche findsmorallyoffensive, including thatofStravinskyrs~tenoire, Wagner,.and of course,that of Stravinsky himself. SignmmntlYtbowever1Adomo never seeshimsetfas having eo choosebetweenstruetutal and meral vslue, because for Adornothe tWo areessentially synonymous; no music has the slightest estheticworth, he asserts. if it isnot sodativ true.',)~From Adorno's standpeint, thevirtues ohhe rationalitythatstructuralautonomv represents, and thatrenderautonomy the highest condition of art,arenotjust logicaHyabstract hut his_toticallv concrete a&weIl.Themorea.musicalsttuctureapptoximatestheself.contained itltelligibilityeharacteristic of logic,.the moreit canand does fteettself from whatAdomo sees asthe dec:eptionsor falsehoods invariab1vfos~tered through socialideology'inorder to maintain the power of existing insti~tutions.33 Conversely, the greater the distance of music.frotn the logieal para-digm thegreater. its entraprnent in me special interests served bytheconventions ofsocial ideology, and thesrnaller its claim to the essentially


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Toward a Dec on stru etio n f Sttuctural Listening 155moral condidon of aesthetic value. In other words, Adorno's characterizationof a philosophical attitude in music as morally offensive is neverseparablefrom his perception of grave sttuCtural weaknesses indmt rausie.

The concept of structural value offered py Schoenberg and Adorno, liketheir concept of the struetural listening thatcan dl.see~ such value, is at onceexacting and genereue. Demanding an unagging~ell~t concentrationon the part of the listener, these men require ofthe ~'. and mQl'egen-erally of themselves, a no less stringent ..$tQnd.d ..fdilt.ipline. The seIf-conscious consistency, the sense of int~ty. ~ i~ tp..qpe withwhich Schoenberg tried ro regulate every .~s ~~i-tional domain-the inner COfl3. 'hiJ ownsrylistic progress, and the ~ .~t>-tion as a kind of seered trtl$t: ~

.. ...... :. '< .. : . . . :~~ UC lt~_

Western composer. A i. inread as an enlargetnent c i'hi, .....is far more replete,'

Anti correspondinllf,~,..~~~.~~lineresultsina.con:cept of musical stru~~:~~-lBt~tdng, that isfar more positiveand conereee illc~t~~formalism. Just as it is usually pos-sible for any educatetJ an.


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156 Towatda Deconsttue tion o f SnucturaiListeningauch ..~ $ 'f llUIletr ic a lph ras ing andrefrains (which in ~toften entail red.un. .dmcy ) , as loreigp to the generating idea 01 a composition.l5 Such renunda,tion, it shouldhestressed, is not to be cenfused with ehe simultaneOU$8C'ceptm ce .and l iquidation.-.. .or, tO use Heg e 's terntinology, Au/hebung ofartis tic ally tran sm itted tra ditio n, w hieh bo th . men demanded intheir c am ,mtttnentto historiealeontinuity and rcsp()1Uih il ity . F\llthennote.as a way ofd istillin gm u ctu ta l su hsta nc e.bo th men plaee. par tiular ilnpor tance on theself,developlng capac ity Q l a lllPt;lvjc..them atic kernel, .o r onw hat they ealldeveloping;v.lJ;natiOtlt a process ther often though not exclusivelv ~i9,tewith. Brahm:&.lli

The notion of development Rpresents,ofCO\1t$e, ac:ontinuationohtrw:,tutal ~and values ~t otigina~ in.\Tiennese Classicism.(Ac_llv.&.b.oenberg, w tth soroe~pportfrom Adam o, lOCates its o rig \$ in&ch,Y7tb.is notion was l ikewise pmed by Han$lick,whois cited asa pattieularlv~eptphlCtitioner ofstructutall is tening in rOlle.ofthe mo$t:detailed _eri,.-tions that Schoenbergg jves oE this m ~ od.$$ A lthoughA dorn o is dearlv.moresensitivetbanSch.oen~ t:othe self .ntgatingporentiali t iesof devel-~p~ in PQSttonalmusic, he is'even. more emphatic than Schoenherginiieali,z ing Beethoven. fot his dev~lopm.enta l ~ ; and~thmen admiteBtahm s's tendeney to ttam form cetn~ition in tow hat Adarno calls to taldevelopm.ent. J9At. tts ~tj r : Sc~hetll'S an d A dorn o's co ncept ofstru ctu ta llis ten in g~. a st$ 'Ag case, ;and.certainly a m c e e , CAlnSis.tentQ Se than Stravimky'sYsiondoes, for the valuesit wishes to~in..Evoki:ng as its i dea lthe 'poss i.bilityof teasonedm ,us.ic~l discQU~and thus. by ex.~onthepo$$ibilitV of1'e~ disc~itselt>. a~ d if fe rently s ttu a ted ind iv id J .ll lls .their eom:ep tdoes1l.ot hold~.formaecountQbleonly fo tthecon tlection of its owne lements 1 ;0 a ta tion ally govem ingptinC : ip le . In addition, th eit c on cept uld-matel.vdemandub:atmQSic;;alf~.thtoughits ur tcompromis ing integrityandrenunciation oEsensuOU$ dlstractif)1ls. OOnlr ibute mditect ly bu t concretely,as.wellasmetaphoricaIly,to the hettftrnteut cf soCiety,lneffect. Scb:~hetg artdAdOmo0ffers t ructutal l i s tening.as nothing less Ul1hitjous thanamethodJordefining and~ the moral soun.dness feveryte l.a tionship that.bears ont m : I 6 i e .

lt isasa scm'icetoj\tttsomesuch .i dea l, 1 bel ieve, th.at We in tn u sic olo g ytodav would at lxmotn justifv out : ,band c:ominuingCl1.Uilinnent to var ious.form&o f m u cO Jral l is t;en in g. A nd ve~. fo t a ll Adorno's self . .consciousacuity,tb# concep t is not wi~what Pau l de M an might. ,cal l its areas of critic:alblin dn ess to itsowa epis (emo log ic :a l w .m e ss es .'IO


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Toward a Deconstruction of Structural Listening 5 7The G ase A gainst Stru.ctural Listening

Cultural InappropriatenessThe concept of structurallistening Imagines bothcomposition and 'listeningto be govemed by a quasi-Kantian structure of reason that, by virtue ofits uni-versal validity, makes possible, at least ideally, the (presumed)ideological neu-tralitv and, hence, something like the epistemological ttansparency of music.This assumption of a eongruence between the underlying principles of compo-sition and those of listeningis what lends force to themetaphor of listening tothe musical structure from within, In actuality, however, in ways that Iopewill become elear, the metaphoricallistening positien that structurallisteningencourages is less that of Schoenberg's and Adomo's structural insider thanthat of the extemally situated, scientific observer. Indeed, it is very elose tothat of the empirically oriented (anti)hero of Stravinsky's Poetics.

This shift in metaphoricalposition might at first glance seem too slight tojeopardize the go. of ~~listening;~>$cientific observation, .after all,.isou r cultural Patlildigm oi Q\~,~~tlFalol:>jectivtty~B~Byconceptsandvalues that areassl.lmc:d,.~.~.~~ .:~#:t~.~ablJ~~t from sub-jective distottion, such~~~~k~~ . '''.~rto {rn;:usintensely on a mliSical Object_ k'Y ..~.~~.~~ a.~turallis-tening modeled on scientmcobsetv~nai.t ~l'll to .~\.lS9\lrbest: shotat a relativistic, ideologically neutralcondition of toletaneeln.musie,encour-aging society Cohonor the music of a11timesand cuitures equallYI on terms setby.the music itself.

But just a S Western science Q a s increasingly been criticized as a culturallylilUitedand limiting construct, ~t toe, there 1 S a$trOng argument to be madethat the terms on which structurallistening operates originate fat less in uni-versal conditions of rausie than in our own specmcculturalpredilections.Even at first glance it seems clear that this method does not lend itself withequal.ease to all musical repertories, even in the West. Just as .tonaltheo.ry hasbeen more fully developed than any oth~ Western systemof theo.ry, so, 1:00,structurallistening seems to work most smoothly whenappliedto. the com-m on practice repertories of Oermanyand ltaly, say, between CoreUi andMahler, which form the basis of the Western cano.n.

This is hardIysurprising,sincestructurallisteningis generallv conceded tohave arisen from the tonal canon.But why should -this allegedly ebjeetivemethod ofperceptian, which is supposed to eoaeera itself with thestructure ofindividual composittons, be usedso regulatly to ennrm the aesthetic supen-


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T ow ard a D econstruction ofStn lctural Li$ten in g5 8ority af w hole sty l~, particu larlv V iet\neSe C lassic ism . to o ther sty les? (Andhow . for that m a tter, does the supposed object:iv ity of Sttav inskV 's form a l per-ception , un less his very conception of structure is in form ed by sty listic preiu-diees, account for his den ig ration of W ~er's sym phonicism ?) l W hV , if altm usie is equal in the ears o f the sttuetu rallistener, do som e sty les nun out. tobe1 llOre equal. than o thers? And why (except perhaps teserve out ow n in ter .ests a s m a sters ci the spec ia lized tta in ingan< d~o .l fsetha t: snuctu ral lis ten inginptactice nearly alw avs requ ires) shou ldw eaeaden lies su ppose su ch listen ingapplicable to m u sie tha.t falls ou tside the canon?+2In fact, the concept of SttU etu rallisten ing is eonsiderably less w idely applic-able ~d objective a m ode cfperception than it seem s, The eh iceof thistn ethod. asw ett as t:he iden tity o f.t:he m u sic it p t'e ;f er s,r ef le cts .ou r own cu ltu r -a lty cond itioned sty l~tieorien tation as its users. Like Strav insky 's goodfOtln . what s truc tura ll is ten ing in all its varian t;s offers us 1 S less the con cep-tual attribu teS ofobjectiv ity than the sry listk im pression of objectiv ity . W heteas it.pu tp ttStb exam ine m u stein term s of an iiltnnsie and poten tia llyUn iV 'ets al m u sic al c onditio n....--s tru ct\ln ll a lltc :m ()m v -:-th e n atio n its elf o f th iscond ition 1s f(j{ eign tom uch, if not tnOst,m u sic .O tre can Ofcourse decide toim pose m w conditiori as an ideal onanym usic oneeh~ But before eneclabns the basis fo t this ideal as un iversaland i.n trin$ic . one needs som eevi-dence thatthe m usie in question ispresen ting its ow n structu te as fundam en-rally au to nom ou s. o r a s fu ced in v ariou s ~sA fucedstructu re isd i$creteand w hole; It has dearlydelineated boundaries.w hich w o~ld be v io latedby anyconception ofthis struet;Ure asa fragm ent. Afixed stlUC tu re isalso . u nc b.an gea ble; its in tern al compon en ts a nd rela tio nsh ipsare p~m ed te haveattained som ething likeastltUSofnecessitv that d isal-low s alternative versiOns. Neithel' of these conditionscan persuasivelv bec .a lled charaeteristic , ev ellas a projected .id eal, a r W estern attrnusic up untilthe eighteen th eentu ty . Ir cou ld even be .argued that thev did not obtain fu llyun tilthat po in t in ~ n ineteen th century when im prov isation w as decisivelyexduded ftom theeoncept of artcom position and: acom positional ideal o fptecisin at()Se. I m ean here pteeis ibn not just o fpitch (w hich .$01 'il.eW hatparadoxically , thetela tiv istic tonal notion of ker h . : . d alr.y estahlished tothe detrim ent of m ode) but also of no tation and instn tm en tation .To be persuasively au tonom ous, m ,oreover, a structu te m u sr show sam e evi~deute oftty in .g to denne itself w hoUy throug hsom e im p licit .1m d in teU ig ibleprinciple oE unity , In m u sic this requ it'e$ rhat a com positiQ J\ have sam e tech-rlique fo r p ro tec tin g iudf Q self determ in ing over tim e. W hetheror .not sucha ted .m iqu eis su gg ested by Schen 1cet's con cept of lin ear org an izatio n, w iththe


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U IO Toward aDet:onstructionof Structural Listeningti e. C ODlpOs itiona l f o r < : l t (Adom o 's w ords), o r through what Schoenbergtertn san orig inality { du tt} is in separahlefrom ... profound personality ; ' ' + 3 Insuch m pec .ts, bo t:h .m enaredeeply com m i tted ro the govern ing status of orig~in atin g in ten tio n .+4This is not thesam e aS say in g tha t adv ocates ofev en a replete sttttetu rallisten irtg ord in arily reserv e their h ig hest praise fert:h .e m u sie that is m ost eora-m tm ly charaeterized as in div idu al in the sen se of person ally expreSsiv e--thatis, R om an tic m u sic . Even the .m o st .a rden t Oertnan . advocaees of a K repleteform a lism are seldom prepared te idealtze rnusiC th at v alu es p erso na lex pres~sivenessover developm e ntal au to trom y . C ertain ly A dom o does not; h isg tea t~e$treverence i $ fo r th at m eta ph oric ally pOwerru l m ome nt o f in div id ua lity --B c eethover'l. 'Sm i ddle~petio d s ty le-in W 'h ic h he tlluS lc al s ub jec r, d eterm in in gits ow n ac tio n th ro ug h u ncomp ro tllisin g o bjectiv e sta nd ard s o f d ev el p tller'l.ta lu nity , tu rn s itself in to a lecu s of theu niv ersal,M oSt of usin the W estern tlluSica lw orld , at least un ttlrecen tly , have takenro r g ta nted s am e reIa :ted ir'l.S ep ara bility o f m u sic al g rea tn ess a nd in div id ua lity ,w hichin tum w e equate w ithm u sical valoe. Y et even exc1uding non~W esterntrad itions, it w ou ld be difficu lt to charactem e w it:h .con fidence m o st artm u sicbeforethe cornm o n~practice period through reterenceto ideals of ind iv idua l .ity or even to a d ia leettc of ind iv idual and soc iety . Even chrom a tic ism . w ruchweo.fte n in terp ret 38. sig .n ify in gtesis tan ce to prev ailin g so cblln on ;n s, do es n otseem chara \=teristically to be w ied bV earlier rausie to place the pow er of ind i-\ id ua lity a r it$ ow n ideo log ical cen teJ :'. W e recogn ize as m u ch. w henw e rele-gate G esua ldo , w ho m ight w ellhave been a cu ltu J :'a lhero in M ahleJ: tjV ietm a .to a po cket o f.h lsto rical ~en tric ity .The. appafen ta~. of an illd iv idual~k. ideal of strt.lC tu rala ,l,Ito :Q .om vhe fOte ehe ti rm .es tab li shm en t o f . tonaltty as a cu ltu ra l norm , tQgether ,ith ou tow ncom m itn len t tosuch an ideal. in m y judgm en t helps:ilccoun tfor a certait'tl~kQHocus.that can som cetim es be sensedin o ut stu dy aru .:t tea cll.in g o f ea rly~~, ..~ .fo r a .c~it't ..uneasiness thatste1 ll$ frOU ,lthe d itlic lilty of distin .gu ishm c fon 'Q ..n ..o tllsty leinearlY lusic (see below . the text leadm g t note73). O nehe O lle han4 , g ivenour reluctal\cc to attribu te. the preservation .o f~ ~ieValatl.d, ten .a ls$ance m usic to either the overt pow er or the~te v ircue of. Chris tian .ity ,m .uch less tosheer happetlStance, w e w an t to~m ethepr:im a rilvm u ctu ralvalue(and theteby the g rcatneSS ) oftheearlym u sie w eteac h.B ut o nth e O th et. h an d.lackin g a ny n on co nteX ttia lattern ativ eto ideals ofstruetu ta l au tonO m y ;w esom e titnesallow the teaching of m e dievaland R enaissance m u sic :: .;w hich doesnotsttong ly support OUt ownstructural


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T ow ard a D econ stru ction of Structu ral L isten ing 161biases, to disintegrate into the uncrttical presentationof shifting stylistic hall-marks that eanbe named and dated on an exam.

The absence of a clear ideal ofautonomy in early music may underlietheotten noted aHure of modem scholars to produce a persuasive theorv of pre-tonal music (as, indeed, ofany pritnarilytened music); ' coneeivablyehe verynotion of such a theory, at least in any structural sense, is self


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Toward a Deconstruction of Structural Listening62and allows rhe social neutralization of structural individuality. Thus the sta-tus Adomo accords this manifest [as opposed to latent ) lal'er is not privi-leged, to sal' the least. This explains his imparience with rhe archeologicalrestoration of earll' musical sound to its original purity. 47 It also helps ex-plain his low estimation of Romanric music, which calls explicit attentionto the epaqueness of its own sound and style. To Adomo this concretenesssignines not an honest admission hl' Romaneie music of its own social andideological conereeeness huta capitulation to the powerand modes ofsoei-ety-an abandonment of the effort. however quixotic, to define universal in-dividuality in mus i c ,By Adorno's account., in fact, mature musie, which eoncems irself withthat subcuran.eous sttucture where individual integrity can hope to resist oreven transcend. social ideology, becomessuspicious of real sound as such.Turning color into a function ()f total stfUctutalinterrelatedness, such musicmakeseolor in itself essentially su~uous. Adorno praiaes Schoenberg'sascetk. negation of all tacades/' which he likens rc that. of late Beethoven,and projects a time when the silent. imaginative readingof music could ren-der act.ual playingas superiluous as speak:ing is made hy tbe .reading of writtenmaceriaL 48

Adomo's clwacterization of.Schoenberg i8echoed byPiette Boulez's refer-ence to Schoenberg and Webern as eomposers for whom the ide.aof timbre isalmostab$tract, an< who neverc.aredat all about the physical eonditions ofsound emission. 4? In his wtings, Schoenberg himself consistently subordi-nates thevalues of sound eothose of sttucture, asserting in what mal' be thekey passage of S ty le and Id.ea.mat the responsiblecomposer w i l l never startfrom a preconceived image of a style; he will be ceaselessll' occupied with< oinl justice te the tdea, He issure that, everything done which the ideademan


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Towarda Deconstruction ofStructural Listening 163tessential foe of ahistoricalabstraction,tak.ethesame positton as Derridadoes when he interprets Aristotle'$ categories as evidence rot thepriority ofabstract thought over eoncrere langu,age.51 $travinskv, at bot rom, dtaws theopposite conclusion, thQugh in identifving essentially s ty lis tic par am e te rs o Erausie as fo rmal . he obs.cures the implicat iOll$ of bis argrunent and restricts itsU$efulness.

Butbwevet characteristic thisteJ)$'tClttij1~Yba:\>ei ~orne. in WesternInusic, it has seldom beenresh,ed thtoUI~'~~~\~~d. Chlti)e.etmtr


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Twarda Deconstruction ci Sttuctutal ListeningThe Needfor Nonstructural Knowledge

We attach roo much ~d too little importance to sensations. We do not seethat frequen.dy they a ffec t u s not merelyassensattons, but as signsor images,an.dthanheir motaleffettS also bave moral causes.

-JeM~JtU:qUe$ Rousseau53Given Adomo's idealtzadon of structurallistening, the actual eharacter of bislll.usical writings might seem surprising, His entire outpur as a music critic canbe viewed as .illuminating the irredudbility of the concrete medium oi music,Actuallv, it was onlV through such criticism that Adorno could fulfill what hesawas the cride's ptincipal obligation: to expose the destrucnve values of soci-ety as thev manifest themselves in the publie and convennonal aspeets oflI).usic.candto disentapgle music from the earrupting power and effects oEinsti-tUtionalideology. Thisobligatin required him to engege ineontinuous crid-eismof the musical medium (therebyperforming much the same service that hepralsedin Schoenberg's and Webem's recasting of 6ach's instrumentation).'

Adomo seomed the very netien of an actaal nOllideological muste. Insis-tence on the aonexistence of ideology in tllUSicwas tadically different for himttom a cantinuing sensitivity Coideology as aforee to be resisted, a sensidvitythat he dlscemed in the. uncompromisingstructuralintegrity of the lateBeethoven quartets and Schoenberg's music. Certainly he was no lessadamant than Barthes has beea in condemning as a He anyattempt by amusical sign, so to speak, to hid.eits:own cuttural artifidality, and to presentitselfas either a socially and historically isolated abject.or an ideologieallyinnocent, neutral, er quasi.natUral construct, for merely formal analysis.55Such self.deceptively nonideologicalanalysis was farmore consistent withthe spirit of Stravinsky's P a e t t c s wbicb can be shQWl'lto project a wtde rangeof ideologieally loaded,evenantihumanistic subt~ts.~ And, indeedtAdorno'soWl'lcriticism of Stravinslcy's music shows bimevery bit as sensitiveas morereeenr, ul'lIl).istak:ablyantiformalist critics such as Terry Eagleton to the ehasmthatseparatesnarrowly formal intentions from a purely formal character,effect. or signincanee,whether in art or incriticis.m itself.s 7

Adomo's constant preoccupation withsocial ideology,then, led him to acontinuous engagement with that Iayer ofmusic which he least valued, $Odtothe establ~nt of an ongoing,relatively explicit oonnection between hisown valuesand those of the various .cultUres represented in the composition,performance,orre


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'Iowarda Deconsttuctionof SttuctutalListening 165rhcse 6guresin eurrent litetary debau:,such asEdwardSaid, Fredric [amesen,Marsludl Blonsky, and Eagleton. who likewise stress the conerete social andhistorical responsihilitiesof criticism.58Furthennor.e,becauseAdomo viewedmusic as a part of a historicallyopen-ended .context of concrete .soda telationships, his principal focusas a crlticwas not the isolatedWOtkhutthe hroader category of style, This, teo, eneoar-aged him to developcriticism asa mode ofstylistic' rathet than structuralanalysi$,even when dealing with elements of strIlcture. In fact, what Adomoaetually didin hismusicalwritings wasStylisticcriticismof the highest caliher.Bythidmean critieism ofa kindthatbad nothingto do with the .rnerelistingofchanacteristie musical devices buttathet demo~d thecapaclty ofarig.orouslyfashionedctitiqdhquagetoan.al~ .t.vle\~velY.~D lIabilityto findrid\ly.evocativeyetsuccinct &1id,.p~'~~'~eqt#iva.lents fot $truetural'at)d:nQ~tutat.e_.$_~)~~.to,characterQe.pe~velytheWlt lndi.and;~,~ft~mdiWdual.. '\ .,'.workscmdstyles.is~'~~~ . .....\( ,. .ltis~metask_.~~~~~~,~.i~ua\dv h eis~ t,() _.foti~ '\~j J.~~.treq1iireofthe. Ht~turalanal_k~~ ~'~IYused.chatt l'anddiagramsaswelt S$ tM.~o~ I~~academic$tl'UCtutal analysis;and Adotnohinlse1f_dtid~~:e1lty:W'~ thefonnalcomponents asasign of competence in:SI:lU.


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6 6 Tow atd a Decon$tr\1ction of Structural LtsteningcretelencoUlpassing,or replete. But here itmust be explicitly acknowledgedthatthe concept of repletestrllCtunlllisllening is itself a conctete, metaphoti-cal account ofpereeption, not a logicalprinciple.Not only does the conceptoft eptetestructure itselfpOint to a condition that is characteristiconly ofmusicin eertain styles, and thus first toa stylistic ratller than toa structural condi-tion'. In addition, this concept depends, no less than Sttavtnsky's chic formal-istndoes, on acultunllly dettned. stylistie sensibility in the listener for itsintel-ligibility,persuasiveness, and usefulness.This stylistic particularity of repletestructurallistening as a principlehelps explairr how this coneept can readilybe misinterpreted bythose of us frem outside Adomo's culture andnot ptivy toits stylistic nuance as justifying far narrower practices of structural listening.But the fundamental sense in which Adorno's concept ef structueal Hsteningas well as Schoenberg's compositional choices were both govemed by needsmorestylistic thansttuCrural in character was something Adorno did not andptobably could not recognize---any more than he could assessthe degree C Owhich hisown aesthetic convictionsrepresented cultural preferences,61Nor,th~,was Adorno Willing,any more than Schoenberg was, tot1ndets~Jkewtdespread unresponsivene~ to Schoenberg's musie relativis-tically, .~ection ofsomething otherthan an immature unwillingnessorinteUecMd:Bflipuity onthe part of the public to master the technicalt:lettu.ndsof~allistening (see nete 64). Grounding structural1isteningona$Up~_AlIrSalmtiOMl.arpacityl Adomo wasuttetly unable to ctit-icUe as~ideal~ _ elite sodal sranding and the long yeats of educationthat were ordinarilYRtquJred forthe exetcise of this capacity. He could notbring himselfto ch~zeeither Sthoenbergsunpopularity Ol'nonstrue-turallllodes of listeningastUnc.tions oElegitilllate differences, among listeaers,in cultutal or stylisticorlentation.Thisis.not to say that Adomo was oblivious to 3.Ctualcharacteristics andeffects of his orSchoenberg's st:yle.~On theconttary, Adomo explicitly con-sidered irreducible stylistic difficulty1'necessaty tothe structuring and valueof hoth meti's WOtk.Ftom Adorno'sstandpoint, a ~jaggedphysiQgnorny didnot onlysignify rhe resisraneeof individual wage 1 :0 the conventions of idecl-ogy. ltwas also needed to preserve the integrity of subcutaneous argumentfrom $OCial neutralization. Such tntegrity requtred a refusal by structure tocornpromise ttself by IO smoothing over:'as Adomo aecused Brahmsofdoing,ot by obscllting a dehumanizing COfltradictionbetween the rational Idealsofseructure and the ongoing antirational force of society, as represented in them\l$icalllledium.63Where Adomo's self-cemea]capacity faHedh.im.wasborh in bis atttibution


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TowatdaDeconstruct ion f Structural Li.stening 167efa Utliversalnecessity eo sodal analysis and theconviction that explainedsuchstyli&ticchoices, and in his inahility to imagine alternative, equally hon-est, styli&ticdehnitions of or solutions to the soeial problems surroundingmusie , What drew Adomo to Schoenberg's rtwsic was not jUStits structuralidealism but also the ugliness, by conventional standards, of its sound. Butwhile it i8true that Adomo valued thi&ugliness for .its negative capacity toscorn the ideologicalblandi&hmentsof affinnativeOrte wouklbe:'bam:;~to6nda COmposerwhose work ismore fullyand. }_lv~ .byeleu.tentsofDerrida's trace -or fot that matter actitiewa.. iAtelligihitity dependsmorethm. Adomo's does ona knowledge of .ab&ent:.ubtexts. In both Case8,these traces anti sobtexts consist precisely in ideas and values dettned ina sur-rounding culturalcontext. Thev are functions notof a literallypresent strue-tute but ofa mere open-ended style.Both Schoenberg's workand thal' of Adorno provide massive evidence ofthe degtee to which the.communication ofideas depends on conerete culturalknowledge, and on the power of signs to convey a dchty conerete.open-end-edness of meaning through a vadet)' of cultural relationships.67Their work


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6 8

sup~ tbe.thesisthatstyleisnt extrirtsicto stt'UCtUteootratherdefinenheconditions roractual .sttuctural possibilities,Btld that structuteis perceived asa function ostyle more than as itsfoundation. Even inacrude sense Iwouldargue that ifwe.QTeforeed in musicalanalysisto grab hold of one end or eheotherof the dialectic between a style and a structuferhatare alwaysaffectingeach other, it.makes most sense to de6.nethe :eotnposersStllrtingpoint. a&hisor her enttance into.apreexisting musital >style.Certainly suchanation ha$largecurrency inourown cultute,whereitsstatu.sas a cliah~( themedium.,isthemessage )no doubt accounts inlarge measure ror our perception ofStravinslc:yasmore modem (ioe.,lessdated) thanSchoenberg.6a And.cettainlyfOfthose\\'ho begin interpretingeither Schoenberg's or Adorno's work iromthevantage, p.'>mcofa ttylooc outSider, any relatively abstract:.'stroeturallyrational argumen.tls likel, to c:onstitutenot the mostoot the leasucCleSSibleparameterofmeming.This isprecisely thesitu.ation thatconttOt'lts us withany culturall, dist:an.tmusic..Dtd medieval music, for insta:nc.e,onc:e detine structurallythe va1ueand power of'individuality?Perhapsitwouldbe . 11U I6 t accurate tollaythattoomuehdistance front thewealth ofassociationsthat eaee informedmedieval~ prevents us from BtlSweringthis question.condusively. Tothe elCten.ttht our perception of.medieval cultureand its S'ignsremains.,what anthropol~ogists eall ~etk - tbati$,external andmerely physic:al)ratherthan emic


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Towarda Deconstruction ofStructural Listening 169which drown out; or erase various responses that could have originally beenintended or anticipated, while adding others. This condition of difference anddelay, which Derrida has termed differance, calls increasing artennon overtime or distance to the irreducibility of style, both in its concrete physicality

-'and in the ever-changing face it presents to new contexts of interpretation, asa source of signification.F In. other words, the more culturally distant themusic is,_the more inescapably aware we become of its style-of its style as abarrier to understanding, and also as a condition of any structural perceptionswe may form.

The overtones of which I speak are in actuality so inseparable from a11com-munication, even within a single culture, as to suggest themselves as essentialto the very possibility of comrmmication; without the possibility of misread-ing, as some poststructuralists have argued, reading itself becomes an incon-ceivable act. And such a situation seems nowhere more explicitlv to obtain _than when we are faced with interpreting an object that to most of us seems asdirectly dependent on the concreteness of a medium as music does, or as pow-erful in its ability to express, project, or evoke a good deal besides a commit-ment to its own logic. Invoking our own cultural disposition to label certainmusic Art after a time lapse is no proof of an acquired ability to hear musicalstructure in its original sense. If anything, the use of this label probably signi-fies the degree to which we remain excluded as interpreters from the originalinner dynamic of most music,

What limits the application of structurallistening to Schoenberg's music isnot the technical difficulty of this method but its misdirectedness. For mostlisteners, the barriers of Schoenberg's style, which in many ways seem to simu-late a condition of great cultural distance, are simply too formidable to be pen-etrated and discounted as secondary by a focus on structure. Most listenersstand a chance of becoming engaged by Schoenberg's music only in the sense

. that by gaining sufficient access to the usages and characteristics of his stylethey might come to recognize its affinities with their own twentieth-eenturvcultural experience (much as they recognize such affinities when contempo-rary music accompanies a film).

According to the Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhrin, theories of lit-erature thar take into account only those aspects of style conditioned by fun-damentally formal demands for comprehensibility and clarity, while ignoringthe culturally interactive aspects of style, take the listener for a person whopassively understands but not for one who actively answers and reacts. 74Applied to music generally, such an argument would suggest that structurallistening reinforces not active engagement but passivity on the part of the


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Toward a Deconstruction of Strootural Listening 171in music, where we hegin with asound that can to some extent be analyzedinto a style and a structure, intuition is epistemologically valuahle and inmany respects indispensahle. Certainly without such lntuirion (honed alwaysbVfact) there woutd be no hope of distinguishing responsihlyhetween musicthat resisrsideologicaldeception and music \:hat 5elbshlyrefusesto partieipateIn . the disoourse of society.No antount of fotmal analysisbVitself ceuldeverartiveat a rational basisfor making such a distinetion. And vet the distinctionisworm making, or at least attempting.Bur this isnotaU. To place emphasis in listening and analysison sound andstyle as prior to musical strueture dees not abselve the setious critie from aneed for rigorous,self-critical discipline in the developmentofcritical meth-ods or of a criticallanguage. Such an emphasis does not remove the historica1responsibilityof trying tosort out the meaning and valuesthat may have beeninitially imprinted orsuh5equendy impo$ed on a composition, even if,as Ibelieve, this ean bedone onlY through some sort of dtalecncal interacncnwith the preset1t, history heing lt10W as well as then, Likewise, such anemphasis doeilnot tenlOve theneed foran exacting examinationof one'sresponse tn the~ot,mdw:nas


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7

although such an emphasis doesquestionan uncritical reverencefor sttucturalautonomv. or even cotnplexity, 0self,justifying virtues, it does not deny theimportance of trying tpunderstand as fully as possible the ongoing dialecticalinteraction between styli$tic m~ anti possibilities on the one handandstructural choices on the other.

Such an emphasis does require a constant effort to recognize and .intetpretrelationships between the elements of a musical configuration and the history,conventions, technology, social conditiollS; charac.teristic patterns, responses,and values of the various cultures involved in thatmusic. Andsuch an eft'ottaltnost invariablyrequites a \Vlingness to recogMe at least.the possibiliry of'SOmepositive value in the kinds of itntnediate.though oftendif:fuseand frag,me.nr.ed,setUethatsound.and style havefor nearly all m\,JSicallisteners. Thts isa recogn.itionthat.Adorno and even &hoe.nberg. despite his wistful desIre tobe likedand eve.n despite various eft'orts to defend his own intuitions,cannotpennit}7 In part they cannot permir it because judgment on groundsofstyle,without attempts to understand assoetated particularities of argument;canbe~. to ;usti'fv an. unlimited trrationalism in human interactioni Though 1dispqtethe ptiotity of structure in communication, I0 not d~y the notionofmuctute t the Vlllueofefforts to gJve8 rational account of the .dialecticbetWeettmediqm andsti:ucture-if. thatis, those efforts are morally aswellasintellectually tigorousin tbe sense of beinggenqinelyself~ritical. FOI ; ' ether ..wise .the ~jbility of.anotherabuse ari$es:stylistic biases that are dentedtatherthanc


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Toward a Deconstruction of Structural Listening 173tiallv positive as weH as negative aspects of human experience that enableevery listener, culture, and generanon to interpret, and even to perceive andidentify, differently the particular elements through which metaphorical dis-tinctions are formulated between something called structure and somethingcalled style. This means acknowledging the ability of any listener to regardas highlighred foreground elements of music that others have dismissed orignored as inconsequential background, And it therefore means acknowl-edging the posslbilitv of legitimate differences in the ultimately moral valuesthat can be ascribed to the same music. It is precisely this sott of eternal inde-terminacy that constitutes the poststructuralist concept of text, (There mayeven be some cultural significance to the choice of opposing metaphors, in thisconnection, by Adorno-and Schenker-on the one hand, and the poststruc-turalists on the other: whereas for the former the principal bearer of meaningis the subcutaneous layer, not the surface, of a construct, for the lauer, inter,pretation focuses on the foreground rather than looking through it.)

But in any event, it is precisely such indeterminacy that Schoenberg triesto forestall by marking certain musical voices Haupts t imme (principal voice)or Nebens t imme (principal subsidiary voice). Such a tactic is tellingly futile,for even such explicir stage directions cannot guarantee that the listener willbe able, even with strenuous effort, to share the composer's own perception ofa structure. The struggle of humans to live together is thoroughIy pervaded byhonest as weH as dishonest dlfferences in the perceptions on which interpre-tations are built,The reluctance to acknowledge such indeterminacy characterizes and Um,its not only Schoenberg's and Adorno's concept of structurallistening bu t alsothe many versions of this concept that focus more narrowly on suWO$edlyfixed musical structures. This limits the capacity of current formalistic edu-cational methods to develop a new paradigm for the relationship betweenmusical responsibilitv and society. As one counterbalance to such limitations,the poststrucnrralist perspective is surely useful, and it is interesting to notethat Roland Barthes has given explicit attention to the reintroduction o Eaffect into both musical listening and performance.P And it may weH be arecognition of such limitations that has led an increasing number ofWestemcomposers in recent years to reject ideals of structural autonomy, and to con-centrate instead on a redeflnition of the musical medium as replete with con-nections to many elements in the cultures of the twentieth century.8OIn concluding, I would like to note a few of the ways in which my own educa-tion in structurallistening has convinced me of its limitations. My first secend


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Toward a Deconstruction of Structural Listening74language was Roman numerals, In my college harmony course, use of theplano was forbidden. Whereas scoreless listening was unheard of in mv univer-sity education, soundless keyboards were fairly common,

As a rausie major I was required to take a course on Beethoven and pres-sueed to take a seminar on Bach; onlynonmajors were advised to study Italianopera, Performance was-never a matter forseriousintellectual analysis in mveducation(except as it pertained to the authenticity of early performancepraettee). In numerous seminars on early music I ttahSCribed reams 'of manu-SCtipts, ofwhich I never hearda note er discussedthe musical value. As amusic major, and later asa teacher, listening to serarehed and otherwise dreed-ful monophonie recordings, I developed a strategy of listening that I havenever entirelv shaken, wherebyl mentally eorrect for inadequacies of soundor performance that distraet from my structural ccncentratton. These experi-ences, if not universaUy shared bV musicologists of mv generation, are not, Ibelieve, altogether exceptionaI.

Yet I am not at all sure that any of thisstructural diseipHne has made me amore competent listener than my btother, who travelseight hotltS a weektethe opera hauses ofNew York to hum the tunes and listen to certain sopranos.I'm not even sure matthe composers whose works I teaeh would necessartlyprefer me asa listener. '

I have heard it argued that Structural listening is beneficial because irrequitesrepeated liStenings to thesame worle, But even ifrepeated listening iscon.s.idered an unqualified good~in fact, it may exaet some cast in terms of aivingmusical cultute'--


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not be trying in the classroem to develop intellectually rigorous.waysofana-ly:tmgsound and style as weUas sttucture] Is it not po$$iblethat encouraginglessdependence en the score whenwe listen. and on waysof perceiving thatthessere itself suggests.tnight help us to developnew andrieher waYIiofspeaking about mosic? And might nOt such aneXpanded lan.guageenhanceeVenour eonception ofhowStfUcture opetates. andwhat itsignifies, in music

1 1 : 1 .the end, the cone.eptof structtttallistening,de$pite the rigarous C O N i s . -tency with which Schoenberg and Adomo sought to define it, isdeeplyflawedby inconsistencies between what it promises and what it delivers. Designed toproteer musie as a preserve of individualintegtity wimin society, and merebyultimately to contribute to the betterment of the individual's postnon withinsociety, this concept in Schoenherg's and Adomo's version hegs off its secialresponsibilities no less than the stylistic snobbishtl.essof Stravinsky's formal-ismdoes. Becausethey make no effort to Overtome the cultursl narrownessoftheir own convietions. me distinetions Schoenberg and Momo drawbetween rq:>letestntcture 'andmedium can be usedto justifythe Sa~ resultsthat Stravmsky's doctr~ .m ~ . the .adherence to. a positivistic andsocia lynarrow concept offcmtt~,,~practices of sttucturallisteningthatfallbetween the extreme~~,~~ bythesemasters.Onlvsomemusics.ttivesfar~;~'~~i~'~_.'~ a .style.Onlv same peaple listen $tructuratl~,;~~~~~l~~unalresponses.to mosie. These chatact~:~ ,..' . ~~ .rimmutablebut as diverse, unstable, andope.~ '~' oi con.texts in whichmusicdennes itself. And yetrme .' ...~~emduP to us by acknowledging ehe bases ofthisindeterndP.~Yil$thf:~tionfor our conceptf musie is far more encoll\pass.ingthanthe dotnaththatthesupposedly universal prlndple of struetural listening can hope tO contro}without violating er exceeding Itself. For whereas a restnetten of knowledgeto detertninatestructures provides no access to erueial aspects of music as Ittakes part in histoty and as itis actuallv elCperienced,an admission of thoseaspeccs as the starting point of tn.usicalknowledge precludes neither a eon-eomitant analysiSf structureno.r an extension of rational thinldng t anever-greaterarea o E thac domain oEexperience wnere the signincanceandvalue of musicare ultilnatelv, andcontinuously, denned.All ofus who studytn.usiCare caugh.tin the Westetndialectic. To an exeene,alt olus in the West 'who studyanything aeecaught in that dialectic. Againstthevalueswe can protect. by insulating abstractmodes ofthinking fromthecontingenciesof concreteexperienee. wehaveto measurethe risle.wellsym-bolized bySchoenbetg's paradoxical easeer, ofcoatsening through over-

175


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176 Toward a Deconstruction of Sttuctural Listeningreu.nement oursensitivity to other responsibilities of knowledge, But musicffers a specialopporrunity to learners, for it confronts us always with the ac-tualtty of a medium that remains stubbomly resistant to strategies of abstractreduction. Inthis respect, it provides an ideal laboratory fot testing the fot ..malistic elaims of any knowledge against the limits of history and experience,Td ignore such an opportunity is to handicap musical stUdy needlessly, andtocnsignmusic itself to a status of seclal irrelevancythat it does not deserve.


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Notes to Chapter 3 245here rem ains congenial to w hat E ric H offsten, one of m y b rightest B row n stu dents, once called m yown ragjng humanism , I cannot denv that many of my colleagu es have moved into a post-m odem ist perspective that no langer valu es this vision.

169. Q uoted b y T rilling, Sincerity, p. 133. Since Trilljng him self feels ob ligedar this point todefend K unz's ow n last w otds from the charge that they are a characterization of im perialism , Ishoukl stress thatit is Trllljng, not Kunz, who moves me here. Still, we shou ld not desist fromexploring the degree to w hich W estern lib eral ideals of the su bject are inextricab le from W esternim perialist ideologies. (A nd m ay have b een so from their inception: on the interconnectednessof im perialism and dem ocracyin landend A thens, see G arry W ills, L incoln at G ettysb urg: TheW ords That Remade America [N ew York, 1992], p. 296, note 2, and also p. 212.) See also m y noteon Edward Said and Joseph Conrad, chapter 1 , note 96.

3 . T ow ard a D eco nstm etW n o f S tructural U sten ing:A C ritiq ue o f S ch o en berg , Adomo, an tI S tTav insky1. Qu oted in O liver Stru nk, ed., Sou rce Readings in Mu sic Hlstory (N ew Y ork, 1950), p. 743.

T he passsge.conrinu es, In this sense jean Pau l, w ith a poetic com panion-plece, can pethapa COJ:l-trib ute m ore to the u nderstanding of a sym phony or fantasy b y B eethoven w ithou t evm speakingof the music, than a dozen of those lirtle critics of the arts who lean their ladders against theC olossu s and take ib exact m easu rem mb . A slighdy differeJ:lt version of the present chapterappeared earlier inE ugene N aQ IlO Ut a ndR uth A . Solie, eds., Explorations in M usic, the Ans, andld ea s: E ssa -y s in Hono r o f L e cma rdB . Me :y er ( Stu yv esan t, N .Y ., 1 988 ), pp . 8 7-1 22 .2 . O liv er S ac ks, The Man W Iw Mistook His W ife for a Hat ant i O the r C lin ical Tales (N ew York,19 85), pp. 1 20, 1 40-41 .

3. On Nieesche see Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's preface to her translanon of jacquesDerrida, OfGt-ammato logy (Ba lt imo te , 1 976),p p. x xix -x xx iii,

4. See T he C hallenge of C ontem porary Mu sic in m y earlier collection of essays, D evelopingVariations: Style anti l lk%gy in Western Mus ic (MmneIlPOHs. 1 991), p p. 2 65 .9 5.

5. O n su pplem enr see D em da, O f ~ , pp. 141-64. and Jonathan Cu ller, OnDeconstruction: Theory andCriticismafter S ln iC tUfa lism(lt haca ,J 982) , pp. 102,,( ;.

6 . S ee especially Am old S choenb erg, Style and ldea, ed. L eonard Stein (B erkeley, 1984), pp.120-21 and 377-82, and Theodor W . Adorno, Im rodu ction ro the S o c i g J o f Mu sic, trans.E . B . A shtan(N ew Yod, 1976), pp. 4-5. Schoenb erg's reference to idea is on pp. 122-23 of hisb ook. (A ll su bsequent references to Schoenb erg as an au thor are to Stylt and ldea; for reasons ofspare, tides of individu al articles in that collection w ill not b e cited.)

7. On the row see, for example, the letter from Schoenb erg quoted in Amold W hittall,S c h o e n b e r g ChambeT M usic (London, 1972), p. 46; Theodor W . Adorno, Amold Schoenherg1 87 4-19 51 , P rism s, trans. S am u el and S hierry W eb er (L ondon, 1 96 7), p. 16 7; and C harles R osen,A mo ld Sch oenbeT g (N ew Y ork, 1975), p. 78.8. S ee especially W . A dom o, The Radio SytlIphony, R adio R e s e a r c h . 1941, ed, Pau lE Lasarsfeld and FtankN . Starnon (N ew Y ork, 1941),pp. 128-33.9 . Leo T reu ler, M ozart and the Idea of A bsolu te M usic, M usic anti the Historicallmagination(C am b ridge, Mass., 1 989 ), p. 1 85.

10. O n phenom enology see T . W . A dorno, P h i l o s o p h y o fModem Mu sic, trans. A nne G . M itchella nd We sle y V B lom ster (N ew York , 1 97 3), pp . 1 36 ,1 39 -4 2.1 1. Edua rd Hans lic k, TM Beau tifu l i n Mus ic , e d, Mo rris We it% ,t ra ns, Gu st av Cohen (.In dia n:.wo lis.1 95 7), p . 6 6. S ee also p p. 5 0, 1 22 , e tc., for th e n otio n o f re plete fo rm . F ot a more re ce nt tran sla tio nof H aI:lslick 's w ork, see Geo{{rey Pa~ trans. and ed., On r it eMus icall, Beau t if u l: A Contribwtionroward s the ReWion o f r lte A e$ th etic o fMu s ic (Ind ia nap olis, 1 986 ). A mare sch olarly en re rp rise m an


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246 Notes to Chapter 3the Weitz-Cohen edition, Payzant's version provides a great deal of useful explanation and sup-plementarv historical material. I have read both editions carefuIly and compared them to theninth revised edition of Hanslick's original German version (Vom Musikalische-Schnen: EinB eitra g z ur R w is W n d e T Aeslhetik d e T Tonkunst [Leipzig, 1896]). Because I find Cohen's rranslationitself (though it is less literal) clearer and more helpful in understanding Hansliek, I shaU eite pagereferences to that edition tirst, with the eitations to Payzant'S edition in parentheses. (To the pagescited at the starr of this note, the corresponding pages in Payzant's edition are 42 ( Somethingspontaneous, spiritual, and therefore incalculable ], 30 [ fiIled instead of replete ], and 122 [ ful-filled instead of replete ]. The German word translated by replete is erfa/lte, pp. 79 and 213 inthe German edition.)

12. Robert Schumann, A Symphony by Berlioz, in Hector Berlioz, Fantasr:ic S:pnphony, ed.Edward Cone (New York, 1971), pp. 232 (quoting Ernst Wagner), 233.

13. On trace see Spivak, rranslator's preface toOfGrammaro ogy, pp. xv-xviii, and Culler, OnDeconstruction, pp. 94-96 and 99. On Hanslick see Carl Dahlhaus, Es lh er:ic s o f Music, trans.William W. Austin (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 52-57; and also Carl Dahlhaus, Between Romanticismand Modemism : Fovr Stvdies in Ih e Music o f Ih e Later N ineteem h C entury, trans. Mary Whitrall(Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1980), p. 38: Hanslick was opposed to metaphvsics (though not asIndependent ofHegel as he claimed to be).

14. Schoenberg's writings, to be sure, invoke the inteIlectual tradition far less explicitly thanAdomo's do, and his notion of the potential relationships between rausie and politics is consid-etably less sophtsncated than Adomo's (see especiallv Schoenberg, pp. 249-50). On the otherhand, his exclusion of cultural associations (ibid., pp. 377-78) as weIl as semantic content(pp. 126-27) from musical autonomy does not differ from Adomo's ideal of autonomy, and heconsiders sttucture implicitly expressive (see ibid., pp. 257 and 415-16). See also this chapter,notes 34 and 47.

15. See Schoenberg, pp. 253 and 220; and Igor Stravinskv, Poelics of Music in Ih e Form o f SixLessons, rrans. Arthus Knodel and lngolf Dahl (Cambridge, Mass., 1970), chaprer 2, pp. 23-24and27; chapter 3, p. 49, and chapter6, p. 17. (All references to Srravinskywill beto this work.)In my earlier published version of this essay, I referred to an earlier edition of Srravinsky's P o e t i c s(New York, 1960)by the same translators, The two translarions are identical, but the paginationunfortunately differs. In the present version, I mall provide chapter numbers for each reference,with the pages for the older edition in parentheses. Where the passage in question may not beinstantly identitiable, I shall also provide some key words from Srravinsky's text, (The cor-responding references in the older edition tO the pages cited above are 2: 23-24 and 28; 3: 50;and6: 124.)

16. On taste or caprice see Schoenberg, p. 247, and Stravinsky, 3: 54 and 63 (55 and66) and 4:73 (75). See also this chapter, notes 28-31. On necessity and objectivity, see Schoenberg, pp. 53,133, 220,244, 256,407,432, and 439; and Srravinsky, 2: 32 (33: true solidarity ) and 35 (37);3: 47 (47),61-62 (64), and 64-65 (67-68); and 6: 127 (133: freedom in extreme rigor ). See alsothis chapter, notes 30 and 78. For Stravinsky on sttucrural processes of listening see Stravinsky,2: 24 (24) and 6: 133-34 (140).

17. For example, Schoenberg, pp. 257 and 285, and Srravinsky, 3: 48-49 (48-50) and 4: '86-87(90). On necessity, see rliis volume, chapter 2, note 9.

18. See Schoenberg, pp. 127 and 254 (see also below, note 44); and Stravinsky, 3: 47-48 (48:''utilitarianism, rightness ) and 4: 86 (90: ''face value ).

19. See Schoenberg, pp. 50, 104, and 135, despite, for example, 215 on comprehensibility: andStravinsky, 5: 102-3 (106-7: end in itself ) and 6: 131-32 (137-38: mere opinion, publictaste ), despite 4: 75-76 (78) on usefulness.

20. See my essay Adomo's Diagnosis ofBeethoven's Late Style: Early Symptom of a FaralCon-dition, in Develcp in .g Var ia tions, pp. 37ff.; also Martin Jay, The D ia le ctic al Imagination: A Histery of


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Notes to Chapter 3 247the Frankfurt Schooland the In stitu te o {S oc ia l R e se ar ch , 1 92 3- 19 50 (B oston. 1973), p. 179. See alsothis chapter, note 33.

21. E lliot Hu rw itt , who was a candidate for the M .A . in music at Hunter when he stu diedwithme.

22. O nem pirical process see Sttavinsky, for exam ple.I. 4 (4: d o or m ake ), 7 (8), and 12 (13);3 : 5 0-5 6 (51 -57), inclu ding 53 (54-55: invent, lu cky find, stu mb le u pon ) and 55 (57: gru bab ou t ); and Epilogu e: 140 (145: on the search for sensation and its Iim its). On crafr see 3: 51(53: hom o fabd ; 4: 75-76 (78);and 6: 132 (138: converse of improv~tion ). See also thischapter, note 29.

23. See especially Sttavinsky, 4: 84-85 (87-88), on the u se of variou s.sou rces anti m aterials asneeded.

2 4. T his is so d esp ite S ttav insky 's shared preference w ith S cho enb erg fot e vo lu don over rev -olu tion (see Schoenb erg, pp, 91. 270.409, and passim , and Sttavinsky, 1: 10-11 [11-13. The b eau tifu l co ntin uity o f h isto ty as S trav in sk y d escrib es it (4 : 7 1-7 2 [7 3-7 4]) is actu ally ch aracter-ized b y considerab le discontinu ity (and not ju st b ecau se, u nlike Schoenb erg's concep t ofhistory, itrejects ehe notion of progress). Com pare also Sttavinsky on posttonal chotds that throw off a nconstrainr to b ecom e new entines free of all t ies (3 : 38 [4O ll aru B4-35 (36-37, a passage thataccepts dissonance b ecau se it 's there, so to speak) to Schoenb erg on his ow n relanon to tonaliry(pp. 25 6 and 283-84). S ee also this chapeer, text leadin g to no te 6 6. O n S ttavinsky'sop end ogm a-tism see Sttavinsky, 1: 5 -6 , 8 and 16 (5-7, 9 ,andJ8), and 2: 25 (25: lnstinct is infallib le ) , thou ghsee also this chapter, note 78, on Schoenb erg's dogm atic certainty.25. The single paragraph appeats in Stravinsky,2: 37 (39-40), despite a constanc em phasis onrightness and on ru lesthat are never specified (fQ r e xam ple, 2: 24 [25J and 3: 48 (48I, b oth on rig htn ess ; an d 3 : 6 5 [6 8-6 9: arb it tarin ess o f th e co nstrain t, ru les ]).

26 . Fot exam ple, Snavinsky, 2: 42-43 (46),4: 77 (79), and 6: 125 (130).27 . Ir is interesting to note th at S trav insk y's fam ou s description of ehe realm of necessity that

delivers ru m from ehe ahvss of fteedom gives a prioriry over ru les solid and concrete ele-m ents ofsou ndand rhythm (3:63-65 [66-69]). See chapter 4, onA llan B loom , notes 67 and157.The convergence of Sttavinsky's em piricism (see this chapter, note 22) and M ilton Bab b itt 'svision of m usic~ifically, his erstwhile call on universities to s\lb sIdize new rau sie as a form ofqu asi-sctentific research-reinforces the sense that these tw o m en share a n,le o f o bjectiv ity . n om atter how d ifferen t their rnethods o f com posinon, F or .B ab bitt 's proposal.see h o Cares if YouL isten ? (1 95 8), rep rin ted in T he American Composer Speoks: A HistoricalAmlwloeJ, 1770-1965 ,ed, G ilb en Chase (Baton Rouge, 1966), pp. 242-43. A llUhstantial portion of this essay, whichB ab bitt considered entitling The C om poser as Specialist, is repriated Q Y Piero W eiss andRichard Tatu skin in their collecnon M usic in the WesfmI Worid: A History in Documen.t s (N ewY olk, 1 984), pp. 52 9-3 4.

28. Fo r his elitism see, fot instan ce, S ttavin sky, 3: 56 (57-58: acq\lired cu ltu re, inn ate taste ),and 6: 133 (139-40). Intetestingly, w hereas m etaphorso f taste are u su ally.em plo yed in a deroga-torv sense by Schoenberg ( spicy as opposed to functional dissonances, p . 247) and Adom o( cu linary listening, Schoenb erg, Prisms, p. 154, and c\llinary menrs, ~ , p. 126),Sttavinsky revels in su ch im agery ( appetite, 60w of saliva, kneading ehe dou gh, 3: 51[51-52J; see also 2: 24 [24: appetite ]; and see this chapter, notes 30 and 78). Thisdifference isco nsisten t w ithAdorn o's ch aracteristic d en ig nltio n o f mu sie as a co nsumer g oo d. S ee also P ierreBoulez, No te s o f a n Appre ntic esh ip , trans, Herb en W einstock (New Yon, 19(8), pp. 249-50, onSttavinsky's hedonism , and this chapter, notes 31 and 68.29. See Stravinsky, 1: 10 (l2). See also note 30. O n Schoenb ergsee this chapter, notes 50 and 64.

30. Especially relevant here is S travinsky's invocation, 1: 6 (7), I shall call u pon you r fa:lingand you r taste for order and disciphne, See also this chapter, notes 16 and 78; A dom o, P I t O O w p hp, 140 andpassim on Stravinsky and specialization ; and Schoenb erg,pp. 387-88.


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248 Notes to Chapter 331. The tradirion of German music-as it includes Schoenberg-has been characrenzed since

Beethoven, both in the positive and the negative sense, by the absence of taste (Adomo, Philos-o p h . pp. 153-54). Adomo contrasts this absence of taste favorably with the primacy of taste inStravinsky's music (ibid., p. 154), though he does concede that Stravinsky's taste, as opposed tothat ofhis followers, involves a power of renunciation and a perverse joy in self-denial (Ibid.,p. 153). At this moment indeed, though citing Hegel's suppen fo r the view that taste is super6.cia~metely private, and rberefore ltmited in value, Adomo nevertheless admits that toa very largedegree, taste coincides with the ability to refrain from tempting artistic means (ibid., p. 153).This observation links Stravinsky's taste, at least, with Schoenbetg's ascetic antitaste, whichAdorno praises for its maturity (see this chapter, notes 48, 63, and (4). Ir also evokes the refusal ofcomfott that Trilling (see this volume, chaprer 1, notes 28 and 63) associates with authenticity, aterm that actually figures in this passage by Adorno p. 153). (See also this volume, chapter 4,note 116.) At the same time Adorno's reference, however proud, to both positive and negativeaspects of the German absence of taste, like his criticism of Schoenberg's lack of discrimination inhis choice of texts, as in Schoenberg, Pmms, pp. 162-63, points a bit uncharacteristically to stvl-istic limitations in Adorno's own culture. See this chapter, notes 61, 63, and 68, and also 77; andpp.166-67, the text connecting references to notes 63 and 64. See also Schoenberg, p. 247, on thedictatorship of taste.

32. Adorno, Sociology, p. 197. See also rhis volume, chapter 2, note 14. Of intetest is Bakhnn'srelated assertion that insight also involves a value judgment on the novel, one not only attistic inthe narrow sense bur also ideological-for there is no artistic understanding without evaluation ;see Mikhail M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imaginat ion, 00. Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl Emerson andMichael Holquist (Austin, 1981), p. 416, note 65.

33. Though Adorno regularly uses the term ideology in its negative Marxist sense, he doesspecifv that it is not ideology in Itself which is untrue but rather its pretension to correspond toreality ( Cultutal Ctiticism and Society, Pnsms, p. 32). See also this chapter, text leading tonote 20; this volume, chapter 2, notes 14 and 17, and chapter 4, note 146.

34. The quotations come from Style and Iclea, pp. 454 and 450 (both on Mahlet). See also ibid.,pp. 75, 215, 254-57, 321, 438; and Rosen, Schoenberg, p. 100; and thts chapter, notes 43 and 77.Schoenbergs notions here can be contrasred with the formalistic nature of the underlyingappetite evoked by StravinSky 1: 2+{24]).35. Fot example, Schoenberg, pp. 101, 102, 104, 114-17, 246, 257, 266-67, and 414-15; andAdomo, Schoenberg, Prisms, p. 152 (Schcenberg's music is structutal down to the last tone ),and p. 168 (on the task cf eliminating the apocryphal elements in rwelve-tone technique ).Nonredundancy indicares a need not only for avoiding repetition or reinforcement cf a pitch, lesttonal hierarchy be evoked, but also for economy, variation, arid musical prose as weil as for his-torical originality. The analogy with computer imagety is obvious even though the informanonalvalue of redundancy is not highly valuedfrom this compositional perspective, On the relation ofart and information see the discussion ofYuri Lotman in Terry Eagleton, UteTary Theory: An Intro-duction (Minneapolis, 1983), pp.Il-Z, and Leonard B. Meyer, Music, eheAns, and I deas : Pa tt ernsand PredictiDns in Twerttiedt-Gmtury Culture (Chicago, 1967), especially chapter 11. chapters 1-3,andp.262.

36. See Schoenberg, pp. 129, 279, 397, and passim; also Adorno, Schoenberg, Pmms, p. 154.OnBrahms see, for example, Schoenberg, pp. 80 and 129. For a full-scale account of this conceptsee Walter Frisch, Brahms and th e Principle o f D fW e lo pin g Variation (Berkeley and Los Angeles,1984). On Aufhebung see this volume, chapter 2, note 18.

37. See Schoenberg, espectallv p. 118; and Adomo, Bach Defended against his Devotees,Prisms, 139.

38. See Hauslick, p, 125 (82), and Schoenberg, pp. 120-21. See also this chapter, note 61.39. See Adomo, Schoenberg, Pmms, pp. 160-61; and Rosen, Schoenbel'g, pp. 96-102.; the


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Notes to Chapter 3g reat resp ect among mu sico lo gists fo r S choen berg 's E1 W4TIUng stem s largely from its musical recog-nition of these negative potentialities. T his seem s to b e m usic as self-negated logic or pu re trace,a condition that is nodoub t related to its projection of extrem e anxiety. On Beethoven, seeAdomo, P h i I o s o p h y pp. 163-64; on totaldevelopm ent see ib id., pp. 56-57.

40. Pau l de M an, B l i n d n e s s and lruigh t: E ssa ys in th e R h eto ric o f C on rem pa ra ry Criticism , 2nd rev .ed. (M inneapolis, 1983), especially pp. 105ff. N ore also A dom o him self, in C ultu ral Criticismand Socie ty , P T i s m s p. 27, on the b lindness ofcu ltu rai criticism . .

4i. Sttavinsky, 4: 79 (81). On judgingwholestyles, see chapter 4, p. 188.42. O nedu cation as the m astery of a privileged discou rse see Rob en Scholes, Is There a Fish in

T his T ex t? in On Signs, ed. M arshall B lonsky (Baltim ore, 1985), pp. 308-20; and Eagleton,Literary Theqry , p. 201.

43. Adorno, SoQology , p. 74 (on B erg, especially the su ccess ofWo~eck); Schoenb erg, p. 133,also 454. See especially this chapter, notes 44 and 77.44. Schoenb erg in his w ritings and letters .gave su bstantial recognition to the m bconsciou s 00-gins of com position, B ut he also. s tressed the diseoverahle stru ctu rallogic in su ch. origins and theneed for consciou s eontrol (see, for example, Schoenberg, pp. 92, 217-18.244, and 423-24).Schoenbet g's description ofhis mental tortu res inret;Uning a ~. in the fu st Cham ber Sym-phony that he w as not ahle to ju st fy stN ctu rallvfot another tw enty years is rem atkab le (ib id., pp.22 2-23). Ir is h ard to im ag ine S ttavinsk ym . soch apOsi,tio n(th ou gh .seeS ttavinsk y, E pilo gu e: 1 40(1 45]: Ie seem s that the u nity w e areseeking is forged W i\\hou tom ' knoW ing it ). lt is also hard tooverstate the intim idating effect C >fthis .piISS$ie 90. tbe w ou ld-lie stru ctu ral listener, See alsoAdomo, P h i l o s o p h pp. 138-4J, and this ~,noted8 and n.

45. See joseph Kerman, ~ Music: CIta/1enges to Musico ogy (Camb rid ge, Mass.,1 985 ), p p. 71 -7 2.46. Im manu el K ant, T he CritUpIe o f J~t, ttans. J . H . B etrtard (N ew Y ork. 1951), section45, pp, 1 49 -50.47. See A dom o, Schoenb erg, PTisms, pp. 142-46. See this volum e, chapter 2, note 17.

48. For the entire qu otation see Adom o, Schoenberg, P T i s m s p. 169. See als '>ib id., p. 157(Schoenb erg's is m usic for the intellectu al ear ): and A dorno, Philosoph p. 15 ( Only in a soci-ety which had achieved satisfaction [i.e., for the free individu al) wou ld the death of art b e possi-b le ). For different view s of silent reading see R oland B arthes, The Respoos ib il it: y o f orms Crit:icalEssays on Music, Art, and R epresentation, trans, R ichard H ow ard (N ew Y ork, 1 985), pp. 264-65;an d Jacqu es A ttali, Noise: T he Political .& onomy o f M u s:, ttans. B rian M assu mi (M inneapolis,1985); p. 32. See this chapter, notes 31, 63, and 64.

4 9. Bou lez, Notes o f an Appren tic esh ip , p. 252. Su ch assertions do not deny Schoenb erg's extra-ordinary coloristic achievem enes as a com poser (often associated w ith, thou gh b y no m eans lim -ited to, the third piece in the F W e Pieces {ur Orch eS Il'a , Op. 16, and Pierre Lunaire) b u t ratheremphasize th at colo r a s such , as opposed to color as stnICture, had no place in Schoenb erg's theoryof m usical valu e. See also R osen, Schoenberg, p. 48.

50 . S ch oen berg , S ty le antI Id ea , p. 121. See also ib id., pp. 56, 132, and 240, on sound, and com-pare Sttavinsky, 2: 26 (27), on the sensation of the m usic irself as an indispensab le elem enr ofinvestigation ; and this chapter, nores 29, 64, and also 22. _

51. JllIi:QUe5 D errida, The Su pplem ent of Copu 1a: Philosophy befure Linguistks, in TtxtualStrattgies: Perspectiw sin Po~t- Stnu; tuTa iist C riticism , ed. Jos~ V . H arari (lthaca, 1 979 ), pp. 82-120.

52. A notab le b realcthrou gh in theform alizing of a techniqu e characteristically associated w ithmedium was the article by Janet M . l.evy entitled Textu re as a Sign in Classic and RomaneieMusic, ]oumalo f the AmericanMusicological Sociery 35 (1982) ,482-531 .

53. From the Essa, on the Orig ino fLanguages , qu oted in D errida, OfGranuntJtology, p. 206. Ofinterest also is the passage abou t music and poetry in ancient Greece that is quoted on p. 201: Incu ltivating the art of convincing, that of arou sing the em otions w as lost.


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250 Notes to Chapter 354. See Adomo, Schoenberg, Prisms , p. 146; and also this volume, chapter 2, note H.55. On Barthes see Eagleron, UteTar y Th e qr y, p. 136, and also pp. 170 and 187. See also this vol-

ume, chapter 1, notes 50 and especially 51 (on Wagner), and chapter 2, notes 14 and 119.56 . ave attempted to do prectselv this in an unpublished paper delivered at Queens College,

New Yode, November 5, 19 86 , at the kind inviration of [oseph Straus.57. See Eagleton, U teT ary T h eo ry, pp. 49, 207, and passim. My own response to AnthonyBarone's paper The Critical Reception of Verdi in Paseist ltaly at the annual meeting of theAmerican Musicological Society inCleveland (November 8,1986) addressed the same theme.

58. See,for example, Edward Said, The Text, the World, the Critic, in Harari, TextualStT Iregies, pp. 161-88; Fred ric Jameson, The Realist Floor-Plan, in BIOt)Sky,On Signs, pp. 373-83;Blonskv, Introduction: The Agony of Semiotics, ibid., pp. xiii-li, especially starting at p. xix, andEndword: Americans on the Move, ibid., pp. 507-9; and Eagleron, U tz ra ry T h eO ry, pp. 194-217.

59 . Adomo, Sociology , p. 195; on naming the formal components, see ibid., p. 4.60. Ibid., p. 152.61 . See especially Adomo, Schoenberg, Prisms , pp. 152-53, on Schoenberg's compositional

methods as an outgrOwth of necessity rather than temperament; and also ibid., p. 154, onAdomo's characteristic equation of nonstructurallistening with musical stupidity. See also thischapter, note 31.

Worth noting, in terms of this argument, is Hanslick's insistence that onlv themes of a particu-lar kind lend themselves to logical.unfolding (T h e B ea utifu l in Mu.sic, p. 1 25 [8 2]). Though hecompares such a theme to a self-evident truth (p, 124 [or logical axiom, Payzant trans., p. 81-the German is selbststndige Axiom, p. 216]), he notes on rhe same page that the theme can onlybe conveved by playing it. Hansliek concedes in his own way that themes that are open to logicalunfolding in fact have the concreteness of a particular culture rather than a universal absnacmess.Indeed, he explicitly associates the higher, logical type of theme with German orchestral music(overtures by Beethoven and Mendelssohn), as opposed to the low music hall rhemes of operaovertures by Donizetti and Verdi (p. 125 [or neighborhood pub themes, Payzant trans., p. 82-Kneipe in German, p. 218]). See also this chapter, note 38.

62. See notes 31 and 68. One has to disringuish, of course, between the effect of Adorno's styleas culrural ethos andthe sensibility that wem into the formation of his own personal style.THbugh Adomo would no doubt argue that the extraordinary cate he took in laying out his lan-guage so as to avoid falseness amounted to a series of structural dectsions, one experiences theintegrity of Adomo's writing as fundamentally a matter of style. In this respect he honored in hisown work the demands he made on orhers concerning style (see this chapter, note 63); see alsothis volume, chapter 4, note 173. .

63. On '~agged physiognomy see Adomo, P h i l o s o p h p. 136; on Brahms see his Schoenberg,Prisms, p. 156. See also the latter, pp. 144 and 153; and Adomo's P h i l o s o p l r y p. 133: Modemmusic ... [has] all of its .beauty in denying itself the illusion of beauty. An important formulationof Adomo's attitude toward smoothness of style, and its relation to socierg utopia, and ideology,appears in Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adomo, Diakc ic o f E n lig h te nment, trans. johnCumming (New York, 1972), pp. 13031 . See alsothis volume, chapter 2, note 14. In the presentchapter see notes 31 and 64,20 and 33; see also note 62, on Adomo's own style. the greatestinterest in this connection is Lionel Trilling's characterization of authenticitv in Sincerity a n t iAuthenticity (Cambridge, Mass., 1972). See, for example, p. 11 (on the strenuous moral expert-ence of authenticitv] andp. 94 ( NoWadays out sense of what authenticity means involves adegree of rough concreteness or of extremitv, ). See also chapter 1 of this book, Whose MagieF l u t e ? notes 28, 29, and 63-65; and chapter 4, notes 1 16 , 1 28, and 134.

64. On this whole topic see, for instance, Schoenberg, pp. 235 (on the chtldlsh preference ofthe primitive ear for colours ), 401 ( an alert and well-trained mind will demand to be told themore remote matters ... land] refuses to listen ro babv-talk ), and 408 ( Marure people think in


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Notes to Chapter 3 251complexes ), on style versus idea see especially ibid., pp. 118and 120. See also ibid., p. 378, whereSchoenberg dismisses culturallv associarive modes ofl.istening as directed only at ehe perfume of awork, that narcotic emanation of music which affects ehe senses wirhout involving ehe mind. Seealso this chapter, p. 166, and notes 29, 31, 48, 50, and 63; and this volume, chapter 4, note 142.

65. For examples of ehe shift in paradigm see Schoenberg, pp. 38, 101. 256, 283, 380, and 435.See also Carl Dahlhaus, Real ism in N in ete en th -C en tu ry M u sic , trans, Mary Whittall (Cambridge,1985), p. 11. On Adomo's derivation from Hegel of ehe view that truth is ehe vocation of art, see,for example, ehe review of Adomo's Aesthet ic Thwry by Raymond Geuss in]oumal o f P hilo soph y 8 3(1986),734ff.

66. For example, Schoenberg, pp. 49-51, 91, 284, and 288. Schoenberg's notion of liquidation(p, 288) is also suggestive in this connection, See also this volume, chapter 2, note 53, on ehe rela-tion between trace and Aufhebung .

67. See especially Blonsky, Introduction, On Signs, pp. xvi-xvii.68. Adomo did indeed recognize this difference in general perception, and scomed it as a mark

of mtellectual (and moral) inferiority. See his Schoenberg, PTisms , p. 152, on Stravinskyand ... all those who, having adjusted better to contemporarv existence, fancy themselves moremodern than Schoenberg. (See also Boules, Notes of an Apprent icesh ip, p. 252, where a similardistinction is made between Wagner and Mussorgsky, though not on Adomo's grounds.) Adornomight perhaps have linked Stravinsky more aptly to postmodern culture. See especially Tnlling,Sincerity , p. 98, note I, on ehe end of ehe alienation and resistance that characterized modemart: in post-modern culrure ehe faculty of 'taste' has re-established itself at ehe center of eheexperience of art, (The terms modern and post-modern here are both Tnlling's.)

69. That there are grounds for developing a somewhat different definition of individuality fromjust such a perception, however, is Suggested by this observarion of Bnmo Nettl's conceming (pre-Islamic) classical Persian music from ehe latter part of ehe first millennium: Similarly, individual-ism, another central cultural value, is reflected in ehe importance of ehe exceptional. (T he S tud yof EtImomusico/ogy: Twen ty -n in e Issu es and Conceprs [Urbana, 19831, p. 207). I am grateful to KenMoore, who as a doctoral candidare in ethnomusicology was my student at ehe CUNY GraduateCenter, for calling this discussion to my attention.

70. For always alreadv see Dernda, OfGtammawlogy , p, 201.71. Wolfgang Hildesheimer, Mo:rtlrt, trans.Marion FabedNew York, 1983), pp. 4,11-12.72. On d i f f e r C t l 1 C e see Spivak, translators preface to Of Gtammaro logy , pp. xxix and xliii; Culler,

On Decansf. ' l1lcdon, pp. 95-99;and chapter 2, How Could Chopin's A-Major Prelude Be Decon-structed? notes 25 and 52. The concept is defined andanalyzecl by JaCQUesDerrida in his M argins o fPhilosophy, trans. and ed. Alan Bass (Chicago, 1982), in ehe chapter D i f f e r a n c e . pp. 1-27:

73. Strong support for this assertion is provided in Bakhtin, DiaIogic Imaginat ion , for example,pp. 283-84,289,417, and 420-21.

14. Ibid., p. 280.75. This discussion appears in my essay The Challenge of Contemporary Music, as does ananalysis of various difficulties connected with ehe mastery of srructurallistening. See DevelopmgVariat ions , pp. 277-83, especially 281. Ofinterest in this connection is Herbere Lindenberger'sobservation in Opera ; The Ex tramgan t Art (Ithaca, 1984), pp. 226-27, that modem ballet (evenwhen accompanied by difficult musical scores) may enjoy a large public today in part becauseballet is sufficiently abstract that audiences do not fee tempted to panic if they fail to understandehe 'meaning.' It would be interesting to compare Lindenberger's notion of abstraction here withehe view taken throughout ehe present essay.

76. See especiallv Stanley Rosen, The Limits of Analys is (New York, 1980), pp. 216-60. I am deeplvlndebted to the late David Bain, who was my student while a doctoral candidate in music at eheCUNY Graduate Center, for calling this book to my artennon and, beyond this, for his darifyinginsight into .tvery aspect of this essay, especially those issues taken up in my conduding paragraphs.


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252 Notes to Chapter 477. .Again, although Schoenberg's acknowledgment of the role played by intuition in music is

not to bedenied, neither is the uneasy relationship of this acknowledgment to his essentially dis-cursive senseof musical value. See this chapter, note 44, especially on the first Chamber Sym..phony, and note the exernon needed to defend his response to Mahler (pp. 449-60). Schoenbergjustittes this response on grounds, such as Mahler's profound originality and his high level of cul-tute, that for rum confirm Mahler's structural greamess, See especially bis remarks on p. 454 con-cerning Mahler's mode of expression, material, and construcnon, See also this chapter, note 34.

78. See especially in this connection Schoenbetg, p. 38, on the reasons for his unpopularity:An artist ... knowing that those parts which were found ugly could not be wrong because hewould not have written them if he bimself bad not liked them, and rememberingthe judgementof some very understanding friends and experts in musical knowledge who havepaid tribute to hiswork, ... becomes aware that he himself is not to blame. See also p. 218. on theartist's need tobe convinced of the infallibility of [his] own timtasy.A kind of counterpart to Schoenberg's moral cettainty (rhe term infallible connotes moral asweIl as cognitive certainty) can be found in Sttavinsky's ftat assertion that my experience andinvestigations are entirely objective (Sttavinsky, 1: 7 [8]). On its face, the ability implied here toavoid Kant's subject-object dtcboromy and the cognitive dilemmas of the post-Kantian philo-sophical Ioop seems nothing short of extraordmarg If, however, one supposes, as I do, thatSttavinksy construes objectivity asan eesthetic-style rathetthan as an epistemological condition,the content of bis statement becomes oddly plausible (though of course its bjecrive styleremains quite different from Schoenberg's willing of infallibility). Certainly an aesthetic readingof this statement is congruent with Sttavinsky's own easy association of taste and discipline(see this chaprer, note 30).

79. See Batthes, Responsibilit: pp. 252-60 (on listening) and 269ff. (on performance): and alsoLouis Matin, Tbe 'Aesop' Fable-Animal, in Blonsky, On Signs, p. 337 and passim, Such a l:3P-prochement in therealm of neurology is a principle theme of Oliver Sacks's book, T he Man WhoMistook His Wife for a Hat, which concems itself extensivelv with music. See this volume, ehapter2, note 41.

S O . Compare also the following excerpr from a letter by a contemporary poer, BrooksHaxton.to the New York Times Book Review Oanuary 11, 1987), 37: For various reasons

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Subotnik_Notes_Toward a Deconstruction of Structural Listening

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