Musicology and Meaning

Author(s): Lawrence Kramer

Source: The Musical Times, Vol. 144, No. 1883 (Summer, 2003), pp. 6-12
Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3650677
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 Musicology
and meaning
'New' or 'ageing'? LAWRENCE KRAMER clears away some
misconceptions surrounding postmodern musicology
Notes T HE NEW MUSICOLOGY' SEEMS ledge that take a sceptical (but not dismissive)
1. James R.
view
here to stay. The New York Times of conceptual synthesis and aesthetic auto-
even
Ostreich: 'Beethoven
seen as musician,
says it has 'swept the field'.l Well
nomy. It treats culture itself more as a fragment-
not hero', in and good: but what, exactly, isary,
it?quasi-improvisatory process than as a
The New York relatively
A phantom, for one thing. The term is more an fixed body of values and traditions;
Times (Monday, 23 annoyance than a convenience; it sticks
more like a
as a proliferation of forking and often
December 2002),
cobweb with just as little usefulness.crossing
Whatpathsthe (between the 'high' and 'low' in art
section E., p.11,
column 1. and society,
term refers to, however, is worth clearing away the Western and the non-Western,
the cobweb to examine. the musical and the non-musical) than as a
The label 'new musicology' refers to a researchsystem of boundaries and distinctions; and more
programme developed largely in the English- as a vehicle for the production of individuals, the
bearers of subjectivities in which certain ideals
speaking world during the 1990s. Its round-up of
usual suspects includes the likes of Philip Brett -are realised or thwarted, than as a warehouse of
whose untimely death last year deprived thecommon customs. Music bears directly on all of
musical world of one of its keenest, most these matters, but especially on subjectivity, and
humane, and bravest voices - Susan McClary, it seems fair to say that cultural musicology is
Richard Leppert, Rose Subotnik, and myself. The above all a continuing effort to understand
aim of these authors, among numerous others on musical subjectivity in history. Like 'culture',
both sides of the Atlantic, is surprisingly modest, however, the term 'subjectivity' here requires
given the fuss, bother, and downright venom some further explanation.
their work has sometimes elicited. The idea is to The term does not refer to the condition of the
combine aesthetic insight into music with a fuller self regarded as a private monad, but to the
understanding of its cultural, social, historical, process whereby a person occupies a series of
and political dimensions than was customary for socially defined positions from which certain
most of the twentieth century. This is not as easy forms of action, desire, speech, and understand-
as it sounds, and working at it has sometimes ing become possible. The subject is not a nugget
of inner being that extends itself outward to
involved conceptual tools whose complexities are
not musical. It has also involved a principled others whom it never quite reaches. The subject
resistance to over-idealising music, which is not is a disposition to incessant and multiple
to be confused with a resistance to loving it. The relationship.
hostility this project has sometimes provoked For most of the twentieth century, subjectivity,
seems to come from resentment of its emphasis in the sense of the private monad, was regarded
on the worldly engagements of music on the one as an obstacle to both musical experience and
hand and of its resort to critical theory (instead musical knowledge. Too much emphasis on feel-
of, or along with, music theory) on the other. It is ing or ascription of meaning could only obscure
not always possible to reason with such hostility, what was truly musical about music, its articu-
but it is at least possible to clear away the lation of style, form, and structure. Musical
misconceptions that the hostility tends to knowledge was knowledge of the variety and
perpetuate. history of these qualities; musical experience
The name best suited for the fast-ageing 'new came from following them with rapt attention.
musicology' is probably 'cultural musicology'. But These principles, of course, were violated almost
the term 'cultural' here should not be taken in its as often as they were upheld, even by those who
traditional sense. Cultural musicology often upheld them most strongly, and they were rarely
draws largely on postmodernist models of know- applied to popular (as opposed to high art) music.

6 THE MUSICAL TIMES / SUMMER 2003

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 2. Michael
Nonetheless, the overall trend in their favour was This is a subject to be addressed a bit at a time.
Kimmelman: 'The
very dominant, despite the almost universal un- But the defensive side can be dealt with at once.
first modern', review
derstanding that music appeals to the emotions, I see no reason to reject or resist the habits of of Lewis Lockwood:
moods, the senses, the whole array of interior listening that make music available for enjoy- Beethoven: the music
states of mind and body, with unmatched imme- ment without reference to its meaning. There are and the man, in
The New York
diacy and power. Music's appeal seemed to shim- many such habits, all of them part of the history
Times Book Review
mer like a veil of illusion around musical reality; of listening, some of them basic to learning to
(Sunday, 19 January
one had to be heedless of it to grasp the truth. listen. At their best, they have enriched the lives 2003), p.11.
Cultural musicology tries to pay more heed. It of a great many people, not least by providing a
takes that appeal as a sign that music both reflects temporary safe haven from meaning itself, with
and helps to produce historically specific forms all its sometimes harassing uncertainties and
of subjectivity in the sense of lived positions. Far demands. And yet: those same habits are based
from being an obstacle, subjectivity is the medi- on historically specific sets of values, not on the
um in which music works, and through which it intrinsic nature of music. Although it appeals to
reveals its cultural significance. Music, indeed, concepts, the rationale for just listening to the
because of the immediacy of its appeal, is one of music, letting it 'speak for itself', is fundament-
the primary media in which western subjectivity ally a set of instructions and prohibitions. There
has mirrored and fashioned itself in the long is something to be lost as well as gained by
modern era from the sixteenth (or fourteenth?) following them. Not following them, of course,
century until today. may also incur a loss - but this need not be the
loss of musical enjoyment, or of something
xW x THAT FOLLOWS is a series of re- uniquely musical, to the interloping rule of lan-
flections on the assumptions and guage, thought, 'theory', or mere whimsy.
purposes of cultural musicology,
which are meant to modulate II

into reflections on music and musical experience

more broadly. The numbered form in which the INFORMAL interpretations of music, phrases
individual segments appear is a tribute to a group
just blurted out, unsystematic, freely metaphor-
of thinkers whom I like to take as models of ical or epithetical, not especially articulate, are
important far in excess of their apparent lack
rigour without system: Nietzsche, Wittgenstein,
of substantive weight. They activate shared
Barthes. The form seems especially appropriate
assumptions about subjectivity and foster feel-
because rigour without system is the main theme
of these remarks. ings of alliance and identification. Such informal
ascriptions, bearers of the hermeneutics of every-
I day life, carry with them our intuitive, precritical
sense of the world. Sharing in them is a form of
CULTURAL musicology is first and foremost world-making. And it is also a form of music-
about musical meaning. This concern fosters two making, a portion of the music of that sphere.
kinds of scepticism, the second of which tends to These ascriptions, these semantic improvisations,
fan the flames of the first. There is, to begin with, are not only habitual, they are inevitable; it is
an intellectual objection that regards the proposal hard to imagine music itself without them. The
of complex 'extra-musical' meanings - anything strange thing is why we've so often tried. (Ima-
beyond generic expressiveness or fuzzy allusive- gine, a la Wittgenstein, a people that had music
ness - as arbitrary or 'subjective'. And there is a but was unable to speak about it, either aloud or
defensive objection that seems to come from a in thought. In what sense would such people
feeling that if music has complex meaning, if it really 'have' music? And how many other things
means too much or too loudly, one's subjective would the lack of musical speech take away?)
freedom in listening to it will be compromised. Critical interpretations, which cultural music-
The two objections coalesce when we are told, ology aims to foster (and of course did not invent),
say, that 'music [is] part of a larger world that are continuous with informal ones; there can be no
situates but can never explain its particular clear-cut separation between them. Nor would that
distinction: [...] the music ultimately speaks for be desirable. Critical ventures should not be
itself.'2 The underlying impulse seems to be to bound by received wisdom or apparent common
preserve the subjective dimension of music by sense. But they should retain or establish close ties
confining it to the sphere of personal experience with common experience and its urgencies and
and intuition, while demanding that public energies. Critical interpretations of music extend
discussion of music stick to objectifiable topics. the meanings grasped intuitively by informal
The intellectual side of this impulse has a ascriptions into the sphere of reflection and
broad commonsensical appeal that is very historical understanding where our intuitions may
successful at hiding its underlying incoherence. be continued, elaborated, revised, or revoked.

THE MUSICAL TIMES / SUMMER 2003 7

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3. 'Connoisseur of III all times; this Janus-faced presentation is what
Chaos', 1.17, in constitutes it as music. 'Music' is the name
Collected poems of
Wallace Stevens SHOULD our approaches to understanding figuratively given to anything that produces the
(New York: Alfred expressive behaviour, say that of music, favour irresolvable ambiguity of sense and non-sense
A. Knopf, 1954), such qualities as system and structure, object- (which is not nonsense), as well the name
p.215. ivity, detached observation, hard evidence, and literally given to the acoustic phenomenon that
4. Musical meaning: literal description, or should they favour process embodies this ambiguity in something like its
toward a critical and practice, subjectivity, participant obser- primal form.
history (Berkeley: vation, suggestive evidence, and metaphor? Are
University of V
we more interested in understanding as science
California Press,
or as art? The distinction, like most, is untenable
2002), pp.1-10.
in the long run; in particular the systematic terms ON 'relative autonomy'. Contrary to anxious
tend to collapse into subjectivity when historical critiques of reductionism, none of those who
changes erode their authority to regulate and have rejected the idea of musical autonomy ever
contain subjectivity. Yet the distinction, again like proposed to take music as a mere symptom of
most, is constantly rearising from the ashes of its something else. What they did - do - propose is
collapses. It is always full of consequence. that music is inclusive of the social, conceptual,
The reason for preferring the 'subjective' is and cultural categories and forces that it has
that complex communicative acts have a commonly been supposed to exclude. It is there-
powerful tendency to change the structures that fore not autonomous. But because it is still, none-
regulate them. They often do, and always may, theless, music and not something else, it is not
exceed their appointed boundaries, both formal merely a transparent medium for those categories
and semiotic. In regard to form, complex com- and forces. Rather it is a substantial means of
municative acts cannot be fit into a typology or negotiating and interacting with them. In other
system of conventions without being rendered words, the non-autonomy of music just is its
too rigid. There is no formal schema that can relative autonomy. Once music is even relatively
fully contain their metamorphic impetus. In autonomous, there is no nonmusical reality from
regard to meaning, complex communicative acts which it can, in principle, be protected, though at
cannot be decoded without being rendered too the same time there is no musical reality to
simple, even in their contradictions. No semiotic which, in every instance, it must be in principle
system can contain their semantic energies; sig- exposed. But the defensive ideal of 'relative auto-
nifying practices always run ahead of signifying nomy', the relative autonomy that somewhere
systems. In sum, to quote one of my favourite preserves pure music, music in itself, music
lines from Wallace Stevens, 'The squirming facts uninsulted by the world - that relative autonomy
exceed the squamous mind'.3 Both the forms and is a chimera. Like the stuffed parrot in Flaubert's
the meanings in any complex utterance are slip- tale 'A simple heart', it is a dummy masquerading
pery, incessantly slithering across all the scaly, as the holy ghost.
armour-like borders that may be set for them. In
VI
a sense, an empirical theory of communication is
a set of prior constraints on communication. The
typologies and taxonomies, the semiotic grids MEANING, whether in music, image, or text, is a
and diagrams, may have their fascinations, but product of action rather than structure. It is more
they have about as much to do with music as the like a gesture than like a body. The criterion for
Sunday crossword puzzle with the world news. viability or credibility in interpretation (it's better
not to speak of validity, much less of truth) is
IV response in kind. Meaning is not produced via a
linear derivation from a core of certainty, whether
MUSIC has an a priori: so runs one of the theses semiotic or hermeneutic. Nor is it produced via a
of my book Musical meaning: an a priori ambi- one-to-one matching of less certain interpretive
guity.4 On the one hand: music as organised claims with more certain evidential ones. Mean-
sound independent of textual and circumstantial ing comes from negotiation over certain nodal
involvements. On the other: music as inter- points that mobilise the energies of both text
relationship, something readily intermixed with (image, dramatic action, musical unfolding) and
other media and with social occasions both context. I once called these points hermeneutic
public and private. On the one hand, musicwindows as - partly to counter the idea of music
aesthetic, disinterested, beyond good and evil; as
onpurely self-sufficient and self-reflective, a
the other, music - that is, the same music -windowless
as monad - and the term seems to have
social, conditioned by human interests, a medi- had some currency
um of ethical responsibility and recognition.These 'windows' or switching points are what
make
Music does not simply present both these faces at it neither necessary nor possible for

8 THE MUSICAL TIMES / SUMMER 2003

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meaning to be built up in a strict inductive or the intelligibility of local propositions is both 5. Roger Scruton:
Aesthetics of music
organic fashion from lower to higher levels of independent of the intelligibility of a larger (Oxford: Clarendon
significance. Meaning is always irruptive, always discourse and no guarantee of it. Press, 1997), p.344.
the product of a short-circuit. Meaning arises The latter point is the one I want to stress here.
6. 'Subjectivity
where interpretation does. It thrives, or not, on Put concretely, it doesn't matter that Hamlet
rampant! Music,
what might be termed the contexture of inter- has an extensive substrate of propositions and hermeneutics, and
pretation, the capacity to draw together a variety Chopin's G minor Ballade does not. The fact that history', in The
of semantic sources - tropes, tones, phrases, I can paraphrase the words 'To be or not to be, cultural study of
music, edd. Martin
images, ideas - into a sustainable discourse that that is the question' does not mean that I can say
Clayton, Trevor
resembles the way sense is made within a certain unequivocally what the whole soliloquy is about, Herbert & Richard
social, cultural, or intellectual milieu. The best much less the whole play. The fact that I cannot Middleton (New
justification for the critical interpretation of say that the Ballade's shifting between incongru- York: Routledge.
music is that music simply does make sense in ous themes in third-related keys is 'about' a 2002), pp.124-35;
this way as a practical fact, and that it is widely specific narrative does not mean that it lacks Musical Meaning,
pp.11-20.
felt as integrated with, not remote from, the narrative import.
general atmosphere of meaning in which daily The Ballade has enough narrative import,
life is lived. The only plausible limit to the inter- narrative impact, for scenes of its performance,
pretive process is the requirement that the inter- featuring lengthy extracts, to play pivotal roles
in two recent films of utterly contrary genre.
pretation not assume that it works on behalf of
a fixed esoteric order - that it not make theJames Lapine's Impromptu (1990) enlists the
structurally dogmatic assumption that there isBallade
a to help portray the romance between
hidden, wholly organised meaning to whichChopin it and George Sand as a breakthrough to
(alone) holds the key. That does not require authentic
the identity in the face of social pretense
articulation of meaning to be timid or tepid and personal anxiety; it emphasises the difference
between the numbing repetitions of the first
rather than lively and forceful. It just requires
that we leave a few windows open. theme (in G minor) and the self-transfiguring
restatements of the second (in Eb). Roman
VII Polanksi's The pianist (2003) details the unheroic,
purely arbitrary chain of events that allows one
I'VE often pondered over Roger Scruton's pun-lone Jew to survive the Holocaust; it omits any
gent claim that 'The meaning of a piece of music reference to the second theme and concentrates
is what we understand when we understand it on the combination of the first theme and the
as music.'5 This seems to enunciate an article of
furious pounding of the coda. One film binds the
faith for many people involved with music, or atmusic's narrative drive to hope and human
least with classical music. The claim is tanta- aspiration; the other exposes that drive in its
mount to saying that any meaning not express- rawest state, but also clings to it, as what remains
when hope and human aspiration have been
ible in the jargon of musical technique is limited,
systematically annihilated. The Ballade may
secondary, superficial, or less than musical. That
little 'as' packs a wallop. It makes music mean
equally well be 'about' both possibilities - histo-
just about nothing as 'meaning' is usually con-
rical possibilities, recognised as such by the films
ceived. - and about others besides.
This claim must serve some deep-seated need The quality of 'aboutness' is not necessarily
to be so resilient, because its conceptual legs are dependent on propositions. It comes from the
spindly at best. The notion, overt or covert, that way a discourse- - a succession of communica-
music per se means nothing (or nothing one can tive actions - goes 'about' its business. Similarly,
say, what one can say being always too little my knowledge of what a picture depicts does not
or too much) rests on two fallacies that I have guarantee or even necessarily determine my
elsewhere sought to dismantle. The first, en- sense of what the picture does. Even to articulate
countered here already, is that meaning-claims that sense I have to interpolate a description of
about music are unwarrantably subjective. The the picture that implicitly or explicitly acts as an
second is that the lack of musical semantics intermediate form, partly that which is inter-
renders meaning-claims fatally moot, since theypreted and partly that which interprets. In the era
cannot be grounded in the semantics of utter- before slide photography, such descriptions were
ance.6 The first fallacy misconstrues subjectivity,
the primary tool of art history. Unless I want to
defining it as an unregulated private fantasy- restrict meaning artificially to the more or less
machine rather than as a disposition to engage
explicit content of propositions and depictions,
in specific social and historical practices. The
meaning is relatively underdetermined every-
second misconstrues the relationship between where that words or images express it. It is there-
semantics at the level of utterance and semantics fore subjective everywhere, and in no invidious
at the level of discourse, failing to recognise that sense.

THE MUSICAL TIMES / SUMMER 2003 9

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7. 'Theorizing The relationship between music and meaning absence of meaning. The very condition of pos-
musical meaning',
is far different from what is commonly supposed. sibility for actual meaning has been mistaken for
in Music Theory
Spectrum 23 (2001), meaning is uncertain once one moves beyond
All proof of its non-existence.
pp.170-95. its most explicit and literal grounds, but this is
not a movement away from meaning but towards IX

it. Meaning expands and enriches more the more

it departs from its point of origin. Music's seem- RECENT analytical writing has sometimes tend-
ingly non-referential character brings this para- ed to compartmentalise musical understanding
dox to the fore, but the paradox is not musical per into semantic, formal, stylistic, and analytical
se; it is hermeneutic. Although music stands - is niches, as if to acknowledge a plurality of under-
stationed - outside the sphere jointly occupied by standings, a polity of equals. But the plurality is
texts and pictures, its interpretative situation actually a hierarchy, lightly veiled if veiled at all.
forms a model of theirs, not a contrast to it. I say It goes without saying that analytic knowledge is
as much in Musical meaning. What I want to em- first, the basis of the rest. What probably would
phasise here is the sheer ordinariness and every- be said, if the inquiry were pressed, is that only
dayness of this model, which is experienced, analysis can tell us to what, exactly, meaning or
perhaps, through music above all, as our freedom its production is being ascribed.
to interpret, speculate, dream, think for our- My position here is exactly the opposite. With-
selves. out ascriptions of meaning, formal and analytical
knowledge is inert, unactualised, imperceptible.
VIII This is not to create a hierarchy of meaning over
form; without form, meaning is at best a hunch,
NICHOLAS Cook has proposed that there are at worst sheer vapourising. Both terms are neces-
two distinct modes of musical meaning, one sary, and one can start the process of under-
potential, the other actualised, one sensory, the standing anywhere from within either. But there
other verbal.7 What I value most about this model are consequences to this alliance, and they do
is its recognition of the experience of pure diminish the cognitive power and authority tradi-
potentiality, of meaning on but not yet across thetionally claimed by analysis. Although the loop
threshold of recognition, that music so often between them is or should be continuous, in the
seems to convey. I've often recorded this experi- last instance analysis is the means and meaning
ence with the wry self-observation that I can't say the end. And although some readings achieve the
what the music I'm listening to means, even status of something like knowledge, in the last
though I know what it means very well. At the instance the effect of a reading is to produce
same time the potential meaning always leaves others, not to produce closure around a set of
something of itself behind as a remainder when- determinations that are granted the status of
ever an actual meaning is specified. For me this something like fact.
remainder registers as an incitement to interpret
further without either hope of or desire for an X

exhaustive discovery. I want something to keep

on eluding me in way that texts or pictures can WHY is Chopin so invulnerable to critical de-
never quite do, and not half so pleasurably flation? And why is Mendelssohn so vulnerable
Of course this distinction of modes can't be to it? The choice of composers in these questions
maintained rigidly; it virtually deconstructs itself is neither casual nor arbitrary. Even in his own
at first peep. And it's doubtful that the potential lifetime, Chopin was 'classical' music's exhibit A
meaning is as pre-verbal as Cook would like to of the combination of artistic refinement and
have it. Of course there's an impulse to escape emotional sincerity, while Mendelssohn became,
from language and of course (some) music serves soon after his death, the converse persona whose
it, but escaping from language is very hard to do. example proved that emotional sincerity could
The same holds true in the world of objects, a not guarantee full artistic success. So the
world soaked and saturated with language, aquestion is not just about the history of classical
world on whose objects words are often literally music, but about the way this music acquires a
inscribed, and whose field of action is a field of history that gives it its very identity.
language games. Objects always appear to us in Part of the answer lies with the historical
the halo of the ways we can, may, or must talkaccident of Mendelssohn's Jewishness, which the
about them. But these reservations only tend to anti-Semitic Chopin would have understood as a
enrich the model, which exemplifies the a priori problem, small 'p', and which the far more anti-
ambiguity of music also theorised in Musical Semitic Wagner turned into a Problem, capital 'P',
meaning. Both models lead directly to the recog- that has covertly shaped the reception of Men-
nition that, where music is concerned, potential delssohn ever since. But Chopin, too, fits certain
meaning has traditionally been mistaken for the pariah stereotypes: of effeminacy, sickliness, even

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 XI 8. From
degeneracy. It's just that he routinely sh irugs them
off like snakeskins. Prufrock and
other observations
A larger part of the answer, most lis 3teners not IT'S worth pursuing this issue further. It so (1917), in TS Eliot:
being historians, lies in the music itself : not in its happens I heard Mendelssohn's 'Spring song' the Collected poems,
form but in its demeanour. Chopin's mu isical man- other day and had to wonder: how did this sono- 1909-1962 (New
ner is always aristocratic, Mendelsso hn's bour- rically inventive, skillfully wrought piece become York: Harcourt,
Brace & World,
geois. The one is refined, full of implication, averse a cliche of simpering bourgeois sentimentality -
1963), p.8.
to excess of means but at times extreme in feeling; and worse yet a dead cliche, detached even from
the other is direct, always explicit, mor re comfort- the context that gave it a semblance of life? One
able with energy than with emotion but abundant, thing for sure: the answer cannot be based on the
even to excess, in technique. These trait :s play into formal features of the music, and in particular of
the legends through which the music is heard, the the infamous melody. I could supply as much
informal personifications that associat< e a certain such evidence as I liked, either pro or contra the
sound with the composers' bodies ar id person- music's standard identity, and if some other
alities and even encompass their ear rly deaths, listeners came along who wanted to hear the
Chopin's a fate, Mendelssohn's a misforl tune. music as, say, ironically self-subverting or, again,
But none of this was inevitable. It t could all as a display of narcissistic aggressiveness, I could
no change do nothing to stop them - and they, too, would
have been the other way around with
in musical manners. The meanings ttha
accrue to have plenty of evidence from the notes.
Mendelssohn and Chopin and that playI about As I've said elsewhere, and often, the absolute-
their most famous or characteristic
pieces are ly wrong conclusion to draw from this is that the
style and music is independent of any such meaning or
contingent on the details of musical
m. This is description. The problem is not something to be
structure but not determined by thei
;ent in its solved, but something to be recognised as the
so because such meaning is conting
does not medium of both listening and understanding:
essence. All meaning is. Music alone
suffice to interpret the music itself. something to work with, not work against.
So try an exercise in what-if. What if Chopin's
i Some additional perspective can be gained by
demeanour were, had been, read asymptom a s) of posing the 'Spring song' question of another work,
bourgeois aspiration to refinement,a as denial of and in the negative: how did the opening of
the material basis of class comfort and I privilege, Beethoven's 'Spring' Sonata for violin and piano
as a parade of finicky elegance meant to signify escape the bourgeois fatality that overtook the
the dominance of spirit? The what-if is not all Mendelssohn? Again, nothing in the formal
that outlandish, at least by the stand;ards of TS features of the music could produce either immu-
Eliot's 'Portrait of a lady': nity for Beethoven or susceptibility for Mendels-
est
We have been, let us say, to hear the latz Pole sohn. But it is possible to locate something in the
Transmit the Preludes, through his hairand music that nonetheless accommodates the mean-
finge br-tips. ings ascribed to these pieces once those meanings
'So intimate, this Chopin, that I think h is soul have been put in circulation, for whatever reason -
Should be resurrected only among frien ds from the canonical images of their composers, to
Some two or three, who will not touch 1
the bloom habits and contexts of performance, to reasonable
That is rubbed and questioned in the cc
ncert- descriptions, of any kind, in any number, of the
roon

1n1918 mood and texture of the pieces. It does not matter

that no single description is necessary or in-
And what if Mendelssohn's demeanoui r had been evitable; that's true of any such description,
read as an understated aristocratic co llecting of musical or not. What matters is that the de-
combined scription be coherent with and within a certain
rich material and good workmanship,
with a casual refusal to be ostentatious s in refine- cultural context, a context introduced into the
ment? What if we'd been hearing the Taltzes
v and situation of understanding by means of the de-
ss cabinet, scription itself.
mazurkas as china figurines in a glas
h furnish- In the case at hand: Mendelssohn's melody
and the songs without words as lavis
ings without vulgar display? forms a self-contained, cadentially closed unit, a
It could have happened; it just did In't. Either little garden of its own. Its spring-like innocence
way, the music of either man is pen meated by seems blind (or deaf) to external circumstances.
gs that are Beethoven's melody, which is similar in design -
social, cultural, and historical meanin~
.1 qualities. calmly moving longer notes linked by iridescent
inextricable from its specifically musica
And either way, as the metaphor of )ermeation
F bursts of shorter ones - begins in the same way,
suggests, these meanings are both de 'finite and when the melody is in the violin. But the comp-
indeterminate, equally hard to descri be and to lementary statement with the melody in the piano
deny, however much the difficulty of lescription explicitly breaks down the closure and introduces a
has historically been allowed to make nial
de easier. series of contrasts and tensions that get worked out

THE MUSICAL TIMES / SUMMER 2003 11

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 through the ensuing sonata form. Beethoven's more so than Chopin's. But the contrast itself
melody reflects on, and thus distances, its own does circulate as a trope, and even just as a con-
innocence, and hence its precariousness, in a way vention that requires no particular credulity to be
that suggests the working of a critical intelligence. accepted as a momentary premise. And this circu-
The suspension of that intelligence, perhaps with a lation installs these pieces firmly, and even
certain disingenuousness, may, on the other hand, rightly, in a field of meaning to which each may
seem what Mendelssohn's piece seeks to accomp- have contributed in a small way, but from which
they receive far more than it would have been
lish. And this contrast of criticality with something
like complacency fits readily into nineteenth- possible for them to give.
century models (with their many later replicas) of Once again: the absolutely wrong conclusion
the antagonism between art and intellect on the to draw from this is that the music doesn't really
one hand and bourgeois values on the other. have these meanings, or that its real meanings are
Lawrence Kramer is
To be sure, in historical terms this contrast just musical, and impervious to, beyond or above,
Professor of English
and Music at is problematical, if not false. Mendelssohn's bour- all this semantic jockeying. On the contrary: this
Fordham University, geois program is precisely to support art and is the way meaning happens, and not just to
New York. intellect, no less so than Beethoven's, and far music. And to this process, nothing is impervious.

g l,,, L ' 'S i ^1 ,,^ i L | ! i | i b;

The Dream of Gerontius in London distance certainly lent charm to much sensuous beauty of voice with dramatic
(MT July 1903) of the music, but on the other hand insight, and it would be difficult to
the more massive choral effects lost imagine more completely satisfying
AFTER waiting for an undue time, duringsomething. The choral and orchestral renderings of their respective parts than
which it has been heard in many parts forces, though thoroughly efficient, were they, who are now familiar in the work,
of the world, Dr. Elgar's 'The Dream not numerous enough for so large an are able to give. As for the work itself,
of Gerontius' has at last found its way auditorium. The chorus numbered repeated hearings help to convince
to London. The circumstances of its only about 200 voices, but insufficient one of its power and of the absolute
introduction to the Metropolis - at numbers proved the only fault greatness of its not infrequent moments
Westminster Cathedral on the 6th ult. - chargeable to the exceedingly well- of real inspiration. One who heard it
were, it must be admitted, appropriate drilled singers of the North Staffordshire for the first time on this occasion would
enough, if from a practical point of view District Choral Society. The finish and hardly realize its full impressiveness, and
they left something to be desired. The precision of their performance and their to this extent it may be said that less
setting of Cardinal Newman's poem by excellent intonation deserve high praise, than full justice has even now been done
one who in religion and temperament and these virtues were intensified in to 'The Dream of Gerontius' in London.
is in perfect sympathy with it should the semi-chorus, though for the reason With this reservation, however, the
naturally come under the special already mentioned the refined singing of performance, which was conducted by
protection of the Roman Catholic these twenty-three picked members was, the composer, was one of exceptional
community, and it was fitting, if only at least for the majority of the audience, sympathy and finish in all its details.
from the point of view of sentiment, that refined away to an almost imperceptible
it should be given in the great building point. The Society's conductor is Mr. DR. Edward Elgar has been the recipient
which, when completed, is to be the James Whewall, and to him is due of a very remarkable gift which well
cathedral church of their Archbishop. a share of the honour belonging to represents the esteem in which he is held
Even in its gaunt incompleteness, this very practised chorus. The band in North Staffordshire. It consists of a
destitute of the wealth of colour which consisted of well-known London splendid specimen of the potter's art
is meant to adorn it, the interior of musicians, and was thoroughly up executed by Mr. C. J. Noke, a resident of
Bentley's spacious building is immensely to its work. Stoke-on-Trent, an artist and designer
impressive, and seems a fitting place for The novel feature of the performance well known in the district. The gift, a
the 'Solemn Musick' of which Milton was the appearance of Dr. Ludwig loving cup over twelve inches in height,
wrote. Unhappily its acoustic properties Wullner in the title-role, for the first was executed at the Doulton Works as a
are, at least in its present condition, of a time in this country. Dr. Wullner was remembrance of the performance of the
somewhat capricious kind, and one has obviously handicapped by the English 'Dream of Gerontius' given at Hanley.
to be very favourably placed to form a words, but his reading was characterized The cup is enriched with a portrait of Dr.
clear judgment of the music performed. by an intensity of feeling which atoned Elgar in his academic robes, surrounded
From some positions the details were for this, and also went far to atone for with symbolic bays. The prevailing tint is
fairly distinct, but I doubt whether in the marked absence of purely vocal a rich brown, and the whole design is
any portion of the church the weight charm. His two colleagues, Miss Muriel well thought-out and suggestive to a
of tone was sufficiently felt to be as Foster and Mr. Ffrangcon-Davies, high degree.
impressive as it should be. Delicacy and combine to a remarkable degree [unattributed]

12 THE MUSICAL TIMES / SUMMER 2003

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