V.v.a.a. - Words and Music

Words and Music

Liverpool Music Symposium 3

Words and Music

edited by

John Williamson

LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY PRESS

First published 2005 byLIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY PRESS

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Contents

Notes on Contributors vii

IntroductionJohn Williamson 1

1 Mimesis, Gesture, and Parody in MusicalWord-Setting

Derek B. Scott 10

2 Rhetoric and Music: The Influence of a Linguistic ArtJasmin Cameron 28

3 Eminem: Difficult DialogicsDavid Clarke 73

4 Artistry, Expediency or Irrelevance?English Choral Translators and their Work

Judith Blezzard 103

5 Pyramids, Symbols, and Butterflies: ‘Nacht’from Pierrot Lunaire

John Williamson 125

6 Music and Text in Schoenberg’s A Survivorfrom Warsaw

Bhesham Sharma 150

7 Rethinking the Relationship Between Words andMusic for the Twentieth Century: The StrangeCase of Erik Satie

Robert Orledge 161

8 ‘Breaking up is hard to do’: Issues of Coherence andFragmentation in post-1950 Vocal Music

James Wishart 190

9 Writing for Your Supper – Creative Work andthe Contexts of Popular Songwriting

Mike Jones 219

Index 251

vi

Notes on Contributors

Derek Scott is Professor of Music at the University of Salford. Hisbooks include The Singing Bourgeois and From the Erotic to the De-monic, and he is the editor of Music, Culture and Society: A Reader.He is the General Editor of Ashgate’s Pop and Folk Series, and a mem-ber of the Editorial Boards of Popular Musicology and the internetCritical Musicology Journal. He is also a composer whose works in-clude two symphonies for brass band.

Jasmin Cameron is Lecturer in Music Education at the University ofAberdeen. Her research interests lie with sacred Italian and Germanmusic of the late Baroque and Classical periods, analysis (particularlyof texted music and the issues that arise thereof), rhetoric and music,development and transmission of musical conventions, and editing.Her book The Crucifixion in Music: An Analytical Survey of Settingsof the Crucifixus between 1680 and 1800 is being published by Scare-crow Press.

David Clarke is Reader in Music at the University of Newcastle uponTyne. He is the author of two major books on Tippett and editor ofTippett Studies for Cambridge University Press. His current researchdeals with issues of cultural pluralism and uses a variety of techniquesfrom music analysis, psychology, semiotics, linguistics, and philosophy.

Judith Blezzard is an Honorary Senior Fellow at the University ofLiverpool. She has numerous editions of choral music in print fromvarious publishers, and has provided sung translations for many piecesfrom the French and German small-scale and unaccompanied choralrepertories, both sacred and secular. Her books and editions includeThe Tudor Church Music of the Lumley Books, Borrowings in En-

viii

glish Church Music 1550–1950, and German Romantic Part-Songs.

Bhesham Sharma is currently Professor of Music at the University ofWestern Ontario and author of Music And Culture In The Age OfMechanical Reproduction.

Robert Orledge is Professor Emeritus and Honorary Senior Fellow atthe University of Liverpool. Well-known for his books on Fauré,Debussy, Koechlin, and Erik Satie, he has recently completed an edi-tion of the orchestral full score of Satie’s additional music for Gounod’sopera Le médecin malgré lui from the surviving parts in the Library ofCongress.

James Wishart is a Lecturer in Music at the University of Liverpool.He is mainly a composer, whose recent works include pieces in a pro-jected cycle of compositions based on the Orpheus legend, and a mu-sic-theatre work set amidst the mayhem of a mental hospital. He iscurrently engaged in writing a book on the history and practice oftranscription and arrangement.

Mike Jones is a Lecturer in Music at the University of Liverpool, spe-cializing in the music industry. He was the lyricist for Latin Quarterwho enjoyed a top twenty hit with ‘Radio Africa’ in 1986. Continuingsuccess in Europe saw the act release seven albums – five for RCA andtwo for independent labels. His doctoral thesis explored the impact ofmajor label signing and release policies on aspirant pop acts.

John Williamson is Professor of Music at the University of Liverpool.He is the author of The Music of Hans Pfitzner and Richard Strauss:‘Also sprach Zarathustra’, and editor of The Cambridge Companionto Bruckner.

Introduction

Word and Music’ studies today have a new stature in the Humanities.They have a home (the International Association for Word and MusicStudies), with a web site (http://www.goshen.edu/wma/index.html), anew series of dedicated publications of which the first three volumeshave already appeared, regular conferences, and, since 1989, a shinynew term, melopoetics, coined originally by Lawrence Kramer.1 Theorganizers and the moving spirits reflect the birth of the idea in de-partments of Comparative Literature but musicology has come tocontribute its full share in the interdisciplinary movement. As one ofthe founders noted, ‘interdisciplinary’ was the magical buzz word thatsanctioned the expansion of, and growth of confidence in, a move-ment that was initially more than a little apologetic.2 Worries aboutprofessional competence among the practitioners themselves all toooften arose from a reluctance to engage with music theory, particu-larly at a time when the categories of Formenlehre, with which manynon-musicians were reasonably familiar, were being rethought in theterms of Heinrich Schenker.3 As music theory became seized with post-

1. Lawrence Kramer, ‘Dangerous Liaisons: The Literary Text in Musical Criticism’,19th Century Music 13 (1989/90), 159.

2. Steven Paul Scher, ‘Comparing Literature and Music: Current Trends and Pros-pects in Critical Theory and Methodology’, in Zoran Konstantinovic et al. (eds),Literature and the Other Arts: Proceedings of the Ninth Congress of the Inter-national Comparative Literature Association (Innsbruck: University of Innsbruck,1981), p. 216.

3. Lawrence Kramer’s essay on ‘Music and Representation: The Instance of Haydn’sCreation’ is an interesting example of the inventor of the term melopoetics en-gaging with Schenker on ground prepared by that master of the colourful meta-phor Tovey: see Steven Paul Scher (ed.), Music and Text: Critical Inquiries (Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 139–62, in particular pp. 143–8.

´

Words and Music2

modern doubts in the 1990s, as musicologists ceased to read Schenkerand instead agonized over Lacan, so the tracks of analysis and literarycriticism began to converge. In this the explosion in Popular Musicstudies also played an obvious part, though initially melopoetics tookthe canon of ‘high’ European classical music as its inevitable territory.

Steven Paul Scher defined the categories of melopoetics as:

1 music in literature (word music, formal parallels to music in literature,verbal music);

2 music and literature (vocal music);3 literature in music (programme music).4

Partly because of the role of comparative literature, the first cat-egory was well represented in the early growth of the movement. Scher’sown monograph on Verbal Music in German Literature, Calvin S.Brown’s writings on De Quincey’s Dream-Fugue and Mallarmé’s UnCoup de dés, and the same writer’s attempt to define what uses poetrycould make of musical form were notable examples of a certain typeof criticism that looked at music as metaphor for non-musical mo-ments within literary works.5 This was certainly less interdisciplinarythan it seems, for as Claudia Stanger pointed out, the arts of musicand literature were still treated as separate in ‘simple opposition’; thetalk was always of the influence of one art on the other. She proposedanother axis, the metonymic, which read music as a signified withoutsignifier, and literature as a Derridean ‘sliding signifier’ without a nec-essary referent.6 She did not proceed to cases, however, though shenoted that the logic of her thinking led to a study of song (and opera).

4. Steven Paul Scher, ‘Einleitung: Literatur und Musik—Entwicklung und Standder Forschung’, in Steven Paul Scher (ed.), Literatur und Musik: Ein Handbuchzur Theorie und Praxis eines komparatistischen Grenzgebietes (Berlin: ErichSchmidt, 1984), pp. 9–12.

5. Steven Paul Scher, Verbal Music in German Literature (New Haven and Lon-don: Yale, 1968); Calvin S. Brown, ‘The Musical Structure of De Quincey’sDream-Fugue’, ‘The Poetic Use of Musical Forms’, and ‘The Musical Analogiesin Mallarmé’s “Un Coup de Dés”’, reprinted in Jean-Louis Cupers and UlrichWeisstein (eds), Musico-Poetics in Perspective: Calvin S. Brown in Memoriam,Word and Music Studies 2 (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000), pp. 133–60 and 167–89. More recent studies in this area include Hans Joachim Kreutzer, Obertöne:Literatur und Musik (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1994).

6. Claudia S. Stanger, ‘Literary and Musical Structuralism: An Approach to Inter-disciplinary Criticism’, in Konstantinovic et al., Literature and the Other Arts,pp. 223–7.

´

Introduction 3

Later in my paper I shall refer briefly to a position that has been de-fined by Agawu and Lodato, in which song exists as an analyzablecategory distinct from word and music and requiring its own gram-mar.7 This position is already latent in Stanger’s ideas on the associa-tion and combination of music and literature.

Have we not then been analyzing song for a long time? In 1970Brown presented an impressive list of writers in the field whose workstands on the broad highway of musicology, including ThrasyboulosGeorgiades, Joseph Kerman, Frederick Sternfeld, Jack Stein, AlfredEinstein, and quite a few others.8 Gradually it becomes apparent inreading Brown’s report that the literature on words and music of onekind or another was in reality already staggeringly large, and coversthe second and third areas, music and literature and literature in mu-sic, remarkably fully. Admittedly many of the products dealing withthem tended to interpret relentlessly according to readings of the liter-ary text, pushing theoretical and analytical concerns in music to oneside, but this was hardly the fault of literary scholars, since the trendwas just as apparent amongst musicologists and remains so to thisday. How the composer responded to the literary text was more oftenaddressed than the terms in which words and music made their com-bined effect. There was a similar lack of generalized theory such asStanger tried to provide on the foundations of Saussure and Derridaon the one hand, Susanne Langer and Leonard Meyer on the other.9

Here Lawrence Kramer had an important insight, that a body ofliterature had to evolve to a certain critical mass before a disciplinemight be theorized.10 This was reflected in a number of ways. Theproblematizing of specific works or issues was the most obvious andoperated fully in the spirit of those demands so common in the 1960sand 1970s for specialized reports rather than grand projects and syn-theses. Adjacent to these stood the outlines of work to be done, thosehortatory essays that invariably prefaced conference reports. In thework of Scher and Brown there was always the feeling of pioneersaware of how much of the forest needed to be cut down before the full

7. See below, pp. 125–30.8. Calvin S. Brown, ‘Musico-Literary Research in the Last Two Decades [1950–

1970]’, reprinted in Cupers and Weisstein, Musico-Poetics in Perspective, pp.201–33.

9. Stanger, ‘Literary and Musical Structuralism’, passim.10. Kramer, ‘Dangerous Liaisons’, 159–67.

Words and Music4

interdisciplinary vista became apparent. Scher’s list of desiderata inone essay included many of the practical results that I mentioned atthe start but also called for scrutiny of terminology, compilation of adictionary of ‘melopoetic’ terms, a ‘systematic overview’ of differentforms of ‘music in literature’, and analysis of crossover areas includ-ing sound poetry, concrete poetry, and multimedia texts.11 Finally theterm melopoetics had to be defined, since most of Scher’s essays de-fined the field, but not the discipline. It remains debatable whethersuch a process of definition has taken place, however often the callwent out for clarity; word and music studies remains as protean inimplication as ever.

Scher’s three categories have been considerably refined since, nota-bly by Werner Wolf, who objected to the term melopoetics and car-ried out an exercise in displacement.12 His use of the concepts of ‘me-dium’ and ‘intermedial’ have made a fairly convincing case for re-garding the first of Scher’s categories as an overt activity, distinguish-able from the ‘covert’ activities of the other two. Word and musicstudies accordingly moved from being a borderland between musicand literature and entered the covert world of cultural studies, thoughthis was still largely carried out from a literary standpoint.

Following Brown’s review of the literature in 1970, three impor-tant publications helped to map the way forward. The proceedings ofthe congress on Literature and the Other Arts at Innsbruck in 1981contained important theoretical statements by Scher, Peter Egri, andClaudia Stanger.13 Scher’s handbook on Literatur und Musik of 1984enlarged upon some of these concerns, though there is a curious feel-ing to many such conferences and handbooks: the challenge to culti-vate the garden is oddly unchanging and circles round many of thefamiliar suspects. Illumination tends to come in essays that approachspecific repertories. Theory remains in a state of exhortation crossed

11. Steven Paul Scher, ‘Melopoetics Revisited: Reflections on Theorizing Word andMusic Studies’, in Walter Bernhart, Steven Paul Scher, and Werner Wolf, Defin-ing the Field, Word and Music Studies 1 (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1999), pp. 9–24,in particular pp. 20–1.

12. Werner Wolf, ‘Musicalized Fiction and Intermediality: Theoretical Aspects ofWord and Music Studies’, in Bernhart, Scher, and Wolf, Defining the Field, Wordand Music Studies 1 (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1999), pp. 37–58.

13. Peter Egri, ‘On the Historic and Esthetic Relationship of Fiction, Music andPoetry’, in Konstantinovic et al., Literature and the Other Arts, pp. 229–34.´

Introduction 5

with despair: where to start? And how much there remains to do be-fore we can! The third publication in retrospect seems more substan-tial. Scher’s volume on Music and Text: Critical Inquiries (1992) rangedwidely over institutions, issues of form and narrative, representationand semiotics, culture and convention.14 Issues of competence still sur-faced from time to time; when Marshall Brown noted that the finalchord of Das Lied von der Erde was dissonant and that the movement‘refused to come to rest harmonically’, my instinct was to wonder ifhe had really been listening.15 The essay seemed symptomatic of thedifficulties that arose when concepts such as consonance and disso-nance were treated without refinement of analytical technique, a dif-ficulty that particularly confronted literary scholars for whom ambi-guity often seemed a literary attribute to be extended to music withtools of surprising brutality. But one of the chief values of interdisci-plinary criticism is that it may force one to suspend confidence ininstincts, even if only in the short term.

All trends (and a few that looked rather tangential) were present inone landmark event, the conference on Musik als Text at Freiburg in1993, which set out to provide a comprehensive picture of currentthinking on the various ways that words and music might interact.16

Although it made little attempt to consider popular music as yet, itindicated most of the areas in which the study of words and musicmight operate.17 The title of an essay by Harold Powers, ‘Music asText and Text as Music’ virtually ‘defined the field’ for the future ofmelopoetics and indicated something of the likely Catholicism of theundertaking by drawing on Viennese Classicism, Glarean, and Ragato do so.18 Interestingly Powers explicitly omitted such ‘familiar’ as-pects as music as notated text and literature as text to be set in favourof ‘long and honourable traditions’ of personifying musical forces,

14. See above, n. 3.15. Marshall Brown, ‘Origins of Modernism: Musical Structures and Narrative’, in

Scher (ed.), Music and Text, p. 86.16. Hermann Danuser and Tobias Plebuch, Musik als Text: Bericht über den

internationalen Kongreß der Gesellschaft für Musikforschung Freiburg imBreisgau 1993, 2 vols (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1998).

17. There is a short essay by Sabine Ketteler on ‘“I can hardly even call myself asinger …”: Manier und Manie im Werk Bob Dylans’, in Danuser & Plebuch,Musik als Text, 2, 570–3.

18. Harold Powers, ‘Music as Text and Text as Music’, in Danuser and Plebuch,Musik als Text, 1, pp. 16–37.

Words and Music6

describing them in colourful metaphors, topical discourse, and fasci-nating examples of the reversal of music and text in renaissance musictheory. Powers’ essay seems to settle the question, can musicology usethe word ‘text’ in the spirit in which literary criticism employed it, ona positive note, though it ends with a warning against the danger ofanalogies between ‘other musical languages’ and ‘other languages aboutmusic’. Nonetheless there remained the problem (the substance of muchof the present symposium) that Friedhelm Krummacher referred to as‘Text im Text’.19 With few concessions to either traditional musicol-ogy or to postmodern thinkers, he summed up the double-sided na-ture of word and music studies: the gains of intertextuality andreferentiality in clarifying expression, against the dangers of over-ex-tended concepts of the artwork and decline in competence; in a famil-iar manner he called for tighter definitions against general analogies.

From these fundamental questions investigation in the conferenceranged out over intertextuality, the possibility of reading music theoryas a text, the status of the author, the place of transcription and execu-tion of musical texts, and the role of context. How justified is it toconsider music as a kind of language? One writer asked again theancient question as to which was the servant, music or the word.20

Musicologists deplored the chaos of current literary theory. Otherswished to model musicology on linguistics. If the majority of casestook the perspective of the musical work and how it referred to textsin one way or another, there were also papers that considered howliterature might behave ‘musically’. This served as a useful reminderof the origins of melopoetics in comparative literature, since one ofthe first serious studies of the discipline had been Scher’s monographon Verbal Music in German Literature.21 In retrospect this approachseems as limited by the elementary categories of Formenlehre (literary‘fugues’ and ‘sonatas’) as Scher’s work was circumscribed by the theo-ries of German Romanticism. Both approaches were still threatenedby what Brown had described as the ‘loosely metaphorical’ when hereviewed the situation in 1970.22 Most of the writers cited by Brown(Albert Lord, Bertrand Bronson, Joseph Müller-Blattau, Alfred Einstein,

19. Friedhelm Krummacher, ‘Text im Text: Über Vokalmusik und Texttheorie’, inDanuser and Plebuch, Musik als Text, 1, pp. 45–9.

20. Gottfried Scholz, ‘Poesie–Musik: Wer ist die “padrona”, wer die “serva”’, inDanuser and Plebuch, Musik als Text, 2, pp. 205–8.

21. See above, n. 4.22. Brown, ‘Musico-Literary Research in the Last Two Decades’, p. 203.

Introduction 7

Kerman, Sternfeld, Hinton Thomas, Jack Stein, and others) wrote ashistorical musicologists of a traditional kind and tended to eschewquestions of general theory. Yet in the willingness to see the relation-ship of word and music as problematic lay the roots of later theory.With the Freiburg conference, the possible range of issues became plainto all.

Beyond the Freiburg conference lay a steady stream of increasinglytheoretical publications leading to the series issued by the Interna-tional Association for Word and Music Studies. At least two of theseries still included in their titles the words ‘defining the field’, thoughover a few years the problem of definition extended from the song tothe cycle.23 The sensation was still of a discipline that wanted to knowits ‘aims and objectives’ before the real revelations might begin. Tosay again that criticism, analysis, aesthetics, and history had been deal-ing with matters of words and music for a long time before an Asso-ciation became desirable was to become aware that historical musi-cology (if not currently analysis) did not necessarily see a great needto change all of its working methods to meet interdisciplinary pres-sure. There is no greater testimony to this than the very small overlapin contributors (Anthony Newcombe and Thomas S. Grey) betweenthe Freiburg proceedings and Scher’s Music and Text; the impressionis of a body of musicologists set against a discrete interdisciplinarygroup, towards which music analysis, always conscious of its need forallies in the investigation of theory, made increasingly approving ad-vances. To be set against Kramer’s view that a body of literature hasto evolve before theory becomes possible is the mainstream argumentthat music theory had been inherently structural for a long time. Main-stream and group drifted into agreement as structuralism in otherdisciplines ‘caught up’ with musicology about twenty years ago; thesister disciplines then entered a postmodern, post-structuralist mode,leading to an ‘interdisciplinary breakdown of certainties’.24

The by-products of this are many and varied, and as yet subject to

23. Bernhart, Scher, and Wolf, Defining the Field; Walter Berhhart and Werner Wolf(eds), Essays on the Song Cycle and Defining the Field, Word and Music Studies3 (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2001).

24. Jonathan Dunsby, Music Analysis 1 (1981); Krummacher makes the same pointin ‘Text im Text’.

Words and Music8

many caveats. We have only started to look for what Kofi Agawu hascalled ‘a grammar of song’ as it became necessary to think throughthe ‘real’ relationship between word and music.25 That a song couldbe explained by drawing attention to the way in which the musicunderpinned the meaning of the text has been questioned in ways thatKramer has termed ‘right in principle but wrong in practice’.

The very techniques by which song becomes meaningful utterance oftenlead to at least a partial loss of meaning; songfulness makes meaningextraneous, if not downright superfluous.26

In such a debate, new ways of looking at the word–music relation-ship will no doubt continue to arise. There is nothing to suggest, how-ever, that more traditional ways of looking at the relationship arecompletely exhausted. The present symposium took place in the hopethat new ways of viewing familiar problems and topics might arise,but also considers a number of concerns that impinge upon well-es-tablished bodies of theory.

A number of topics that have been central to previous collectionsfeature in these published proceedings: rhetoric (Cameron), mimesis(Scott), and cultural studies (Clarke). My own essay picks up themesthat have been considered in the context of the lied but views themthrough the distorting mirror of Sprechgesang. It is one of severalessays that consider changes in the word–music relationship in thecourse of the twentieth century (Orledge, Sharma, Wishart). The con-tinuing influence of Kramer is perceived in Scott’s essay, while theimportance of Mikhail Bakhtin is seen in his work but also in that ofClarke. Two essays that stand slightly at a tangent to the themes thathave ruled in this field are those by Blezzard and Jones. The formerconsiders aspects of translation, a subject that has tended to appearparenthetically if at all in previous collections. Jones presents the view-point of the lyricist and the problem of his motivation and is accord-ingly the most personal statement in the proceedings. The collectionmakes no attempt to theorize a common viewpoint, though most dealwith Scher’s second category, the perennially fascinating area of ‘textwithin texts’ which constitutes vocal music. Analysis of music inevitably

25. Kofi Agawu, ‘Theory and Practice in the Analysis of the Nineteenth-CenturyLied’, Music Analysis 11 (1992), 3–36.

26. Lawrence Kramer, ‘Beyond Words and Music: An Essay on Songfulness’, inBernhart, Scher, and Wolf, Defining the Field, p. 316.

Introduction 9

takes second place to socio-cultural issues in several essays, thoughClarke makes the most explicit attempt to set them in a fruitful ri-valry. Although his essay appears in a collection that deals with indi-vidual songs and issues of theory, it provides assurance that, for thiscollection at least, an author is still present in the most contemporaryof musical texts.

1

Mimesis, Gesture, and Parody in MusicalWord-setting

Derek B. Scott

This chapter examines, compares, and contrasts three of the differentways in which words can be treated musically. I should remark at theoutset that ‘gesture’ is the overarching term, since it covers anythingthat lends emphasis, intensity, or expression to a communicative act.Edward Cone explained that music might be considered a language ofsymbolic gestures, ‘of direct actions, of pauses, of startings andstoppings, of rises and falls, of tenseness and slackness, of accentua-tions’.1 The word ‘gesture’ usually refers to a bodily movement thateither communicates or reinforces a message. Yet, there is always thepossibility of using an unexpected gesture – for example, smiling whenangry. Moreover, as Keith Thomas has pointed out, the body is notsomething that waits in a neutral state ‘until its owner makes an in-voluntary movement or decides to send out a signal’. He cites thestifling of symptoms of grief as evidence that ‘faces, hands, and limbscan be as significant in repose as in motion’.2 Thus, while gesture canoften function mimetically, it can also be distinct from mimesis (offer-ing different possibilities), and even at odds with mimesis. For thisreason, I think it is useful to have a means of distinguishing mimesisfrom gesture, even though mimesis is, in fact, a particular kind ofgesture. In theatre semiotics, for example, the mimetic (or mimic) signmay be restricted to facial expressions, while the gestural sign involvesother bodily movement (such as waving a hand).3

1. Edward T. Cone, The Composer’s Voice (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London:University of California Press, 1974), p. 164.

2. Keith Thomas, ‘Introduction’, in Jan Bremmer and Herman Roodenburg, ACultural History of Gesture (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992), pp. 1–14, n. 1.

3. See Erika Fischer-Lichte, The Semiotics of Theater, trans. Jeremy Gaines and DorisL. Jones (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1992, originally publishedas Semiotik des Theaters [Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1983]), p. 14.

Mimesis, Gesture and Parody in Musical Word-setting 11

In this chapter I am using ‘mimetic’ to refer to a composer’s at-tempt to provide a sympathetic expression of the words and to revealtheir emotional content, employing musical signifying devices thatsometimes operate at the level of individual words. An example wouldbe Schubert’s ‘Der Wanderer’. I am describing a song as ‘gestural’where there is an attempt to provide an overall mood vehicle for thewords. Of course, there are overlaps, and there are songs I wouldplace in the gestural category, like Schubert’s ‘Die Forelle’ (‘The Trout’),that contain mimetic features. However, a gestural setting need not bedirectly expressive of the words – it may complement or even contra-dict their meaning. That thought leads me to the special case of pa-rodic settings in which the coupling of music and words is designed tocreate an ironic or satirical effect. For example, the music may appearto add exaggerated expression to words, or it may deflate the contentof the words, adopting a style that is perceived as oppositional tothem in character.

In drawing an initial contrast between mimetic and gestural inter-pretations of texts, we should bear in mind a distinction between theway words are combined with music and the way words are treatedmusically. Words may be combined with music by being sung, halfsung, or spoken; but each of these combinations may then be sub-jected to differing kinds of treatment. To emphasize the point, we canconsider briefly two examples of music involving spoken text. InMorning Heroes (1930), Arthur Bliss includes a setting of Homer’saccount of Hector’s farewell to his wife Andromache from the Iliad,book 6, in which the fear of the couple’s young son and the heroicbravado of Hector himself are characterized by mimetic devices in themusic accompanying the narration (Examples 1a and 1b). Whenemploying mimesis in this way, instrumental expressive devices oftenanticipate vocal and verbal expression, as in Iphigenia’s narration ofher dream in Act 1 of Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride.4 This is a techniquetaken up by Mozart in certain dramatic scenes. Words succeeded by‘word painting’ can be too predictable, even unintentionally amusing.

For a contrasting example of narration against a musical back-ground, we turn from little Astyanax, Hector’s son, to Red Sovine’stale of little Rosa. Sovine was a star of the Louisiana Hayride radioshow in the early 1950s and an accomplished exponent of storytelling

4. ‘Cette nuit j’ai revu le palais de mon père’, Act 1, scene 1.

Words and Music12

against a background of country-style music. That being so, one wouldexpect to find differences between his ‘Little Rosa’ (written with WebPierce in 1955) and the Morning Heroes example. Indeed, Sovine’sspoken monologue is accompanied by a musical gesture of the broadkind rather than a selection of mimetic devices. The accompanimentconsists of a melody employing the falling chromatic semitones foundin early Tin Pan Alley ballads, while the ensemble has a timbre sug-gesting Nashville. This combination conveys a mood to its expectedaudience of ‘honest sentiment’ (though listeners occupying other sub-ject positions may find it anything but that). Sovine also uses aparalinguistic sign in ‘Little Rosa’ – that is, a sign located in the waywords are delivered. Such signs often involve an emphasis or pitchgiven to them by the voice, but here it is a pseudo-Italian accent.5

"in dread at the bronze and horse-hair crest that he beheld nodding fiercely"

(a)

(b)

mf

3

3

"O Zeus and all ye gods, vouchsafe ye that this my son may likewise prove even as I, pre-eminent amid the Trojans"

fp

fp

fp

fp

fp

p

Example 1: Bliss, ‘Hector’s Farewell’ from Morning Heroes. (Novello, copyright MusicSales Group.)

5. RCA LSA 3286; also to be found on Red Sovine, Greatest Hits, Vintage VaultCollection, DCD 7828.

13Mimesis, Gesture, and Parody in Musical Word-setting

The effectiveness and affectiveness of a single broad musical ges-ture that envelopes the general mood of a poem (despite the variety ofpoetic sentiment that may be present) is illustrated by strophic song.The eighteenth-century music critic James Beattie noted that the rep-etition of the same air to every stanza of a long ballad required onlythat ‘the general tenor of the music should accord with the generalnature of the sentiments’.6 Here he is close to Edward Cone, whodeclared that a strophic song suggests ‘that a piece of music allows awide but not unrestricted range of possible expression’.7 One mightcompare, say, the reading of a lament by a performer wearing a tragicmask: the music, like such a mask, indicates an overall mood. It is truethat the possibility exists of using a blank mask – such as BusterKeaton’s – into which a whole variety of emotions can be read. Satie’sscenic ‘backcloth music’, designed to suit any text, might be consid-ered akin to the blank mask.8

Masks are especially effective in those poetic and dramatic works(usually of ancient provenance) that offer a loosely defined subjectposition, avoiding a ‘knowing’ form of audience address. For example,it is often difficult to tell whose side we are supposed to be on whenwatching the plays of Euripides – just as it is in some old British bal-lads, such as ‘Little Musgrave’. Masks are sometimes asked for byBerthold Brecht in his ‘epic theatre’. His characters are drawn so thatthey invite comparisons with archetypal persons of a particular soci-ety. Brecht distances the audience from the world of bourgeois illu-sionistic theatre and a psychological identification with characters byemphasizing theatrical artificiality. In the opening scene of the DieDreigroschenoper, an attempt at ‘epic opera’, a street singer announcesto the audience that they are going to hear a street ballad about therobber Macheath, known as Mackie Messer (Mack the Knife).Macheath’s archetype is the violent robber, and Brecht contrasts this

6. James Beattie, Essay on Poetry and Music as They Affect the Mind (1776),excerpted in Edward A. Lippman (ed.), Musical Aesthetics: A Historical Reader,Vol. 1 From Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century (New York: Pendragon Press,1986), pp. 215–42, n. 232 (italics as in the original).

7. Cone, The Composer’s Voice, p. 166.8. Robert Orledge, ‘Rethinking the Relationship Between Words and Music for

the Twentieth Century: The Strange Case of Erik Satie’, see below, Chapter 7,pp. 168 and 187.

Words and Music14

socially and culturally produced type with one of nature’s killers, theshark – the shark has teeth and shows them; Macheath has a knife butnobody sees it.9

We find immediately in this well-known first song of the opera,‘Die Moritat von Mackie Messer’ (‘The Ballad of Mack the Knife’),an example of what Brecht would call ‘gestic’ music. The opera’s com-poser, Kurt Weill, does not try to heighten Brecht’s text emotionally orto interpret it musically; instead he finds a style and form that in-creases the impact of the words by contrasting sharply in musicalmood (Example 2). Neither Weill nor Brecht ever gave a systematicdefinition of gestische Musik (in his plays, Gestus meant for Brecht astylized presentation of social behaviour).10 In general terms, both wereagreed that, as in the last musical example, the music should functionas a medium for communicating the text without trying to add psy-chological insight into the character singing the song or attemptingthe musical representation of emotions and deeds within the song.Weill’s task is to achieve a musical Verfremdungseffekt (a ‘makingstrange’ or distantiation effect) equal to those used by Brecht, such asmasks, explanatory posters, or deliberate highlighting of theatricalartificiality by use of an on-stage narrator. An alienating effect can beachieved musically, for example, by accompanying harsh words witha sentimental tune. Instead of the song becoming a catalyst for melan-choly self-indulgence, the jarring that results keeps the listener alert.

In the Moritat, the music functions to some degree as a mask; thestyle of music contradicts what might be expected from verses aboutmurder, robbery, arson, and rape. The accompaniment is marked tobe played in the manner of a barrel-organ; the prominent added sixthsin the harmony function as a sign of popular music vulgarity (notehow often the sixth degree – the note A – is present),11 and the two-

9. ‘Und der Haifisch, der hat Zähne / Und die trägt er im Gesicht / Und Macheath,der hat ein Messer / Doch das Messer sieht man nicht.’

10. See Michael Morley, ‘“Suiting the Action to the Word”: Some Observations onGestus and gestische Musik’, in Kim H. Kowalke (ed.), A New Orpheus: Essayson Kurt Weill (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986), pp. 183–201.

11. The prominence given to the sixth of the major scale in both melody and har-mony had become a hallmark of the popular style in the nineteenth century, andraised the hackles of high-minded critics. The sixth was crucial to the develop-ment of what Peter Van der Merwe terms ‘parlour modes’, in Origins of thePopular Style: The Antecedents of Twentieth-Century Popular Music (Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 224–5.


bar melodic phrasing and tonic-dominant bass as a sign of banality.Weill varies the instrumental arrangement from verse to verse, andconcludes by varying the accompaniment to include a parody of TinPan Alley sentimental descending chromatics. Weill’s music underlinesBrecht’s satirical purpose, since it conceals the violent lyrical contentjust as Macheath conceals his knife and covers his bloodstained handswith gloves (‘Drauf man keine Unstat liest’ – on which no trace of hiscrimes is left). The real target of Brecht’s satire is, of course, capital-ism, and in the larger social context Brecht has in mind the ‘out ofsight’ tanks and guns of capitalist society.

A sense of irony can also be conveyed by parodies of different styles.Brecht had experimented along these lines in the songs he created –usually with borrowed tunes – before collaborating with Weill.12 Parodyand irony are cited by Mikhail Bakhtin as examples of ‘double-voiced’discourse, which contains the intention of the character speaking aswell as ‘the refracted intention of the author’.13 Bakhtin remarked

(h = 66)

Undmf

der

Blues-Tempo

Hai

fisch,

-

der

hat Zäh

ne

-

Und

die

6

trägt

er

im

Ge sicht

-

Example 2: Weill, ‘Moritat von Mackie Messer’. (© Universal Edition A.G. Viennaand European American Music Corporation, New York. Reproduced by permission,all rights reserved.)

12. For example, ‘Erinnerung an die Marie A.’ (c. 1905). It can be heard in English onRobin Archer Sings Brecht, Vol. 2, EMI Records, EL 27 00491 (1984), track 9.

13. Mikhail M. Bakhtin, ‘Discourse in the Novel’ (1934–5), in Michael Holquist(ed.), The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, trans. Caryl Emerson and MichaelHolquist (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1981), pp. 259–422, n. 324.

Words and Music16

that in parodic stylization, ‘the intentions of the representing discourseare at odds with the intentions of the represented discourse; they fightagainst them’.14 A musical example would be the trio ‘So muss alleinich bleiben’ from Act 1 of Die Fledermaus. Johann Strauss’s musicplays ironically with signs. This is evident when, at ‘O je, O je, wierührt mich dies!’ (‘Oh dear, how this moves me!’), the musical signsassociated with sorrow are suddenly exchanged for those of pleasureand excitement, thus revealing the continuing expressions of sadnessto be hypocritical (Example 3).

This irony is for the audience to perceive. However, it is somethingthat only seems to work in comedy. If Saint-Saëns in his opera Samsonet Dalila had given Delilah music with associations far removed fromthe words she was singing in her aria ‘Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix’ it

O

Moderato espressivo

Gott,

wie rührt

mich

dies!

Allegro moderato

O

pp

p

pp

5

je, o je,

wie rührt

mich dies,

o je,

o je,

S 'S i i i '

Example 3: Johan Strauss d.J., ‘So muss allein ich bleiben’

14. Bakhtin, ‘Discourse in the Novel’, p. 364.


would have struck us as absurd for Samson not to notice. In thatcontext, we need to feel the strength of Delilah’s seductive power inorder to sympathize with Samson’s plight. Yet, it does create prob-lems in reception. If we are moved by this aria, how can we perceive itas false and dissembling?15 Here, we can call upon linguistic philoso-phy to assure us that no sign is available in language to guarantee thetruth of an assertion, and it would therefore be vain to suppose itmight exist in music. If, indeed, there were any kind of ‘assertion sign’,then, to paraphrase Donald Davidson, actors would use it when ‘onlyacting’.16

The ‘double-voiced’ effect can be produced by use of a mask atapparent odds with the content of the words. In music, this may beachieved by adopting a style with associations that differ from thesung words. The result may be syncretic rather than that of awkwardhybridity. The rage suggested by the words of the song of Pirate Jennyin Die Dreigroschenoper, for example, was delivered with a childlikeinnocence and amoral equanimity by Lotte Lenja on her original re-cording of 1930.17 It was a reading fully compatible with Weill’s mu-sic, and allowed her to project a character of psychopathic instabilityrather than one twisted by a desire for vengeance. Weill can employ amusical gesture that depersonalizes in a manner akin to donning amask, examples being the Moritat from Die Dreigroschenoper andthe ‘Alabama Song’ from Mahagonny. It does not have to be the mu-sic that wears the mask. One might argue that in the aria ‘Le calmerentre dans mon cœur’, from Act 2 of Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride,Orestes’s words are an attempt on his part to mask his true feelings,whereas Gluck’s music unmasks his agitation with its anxious, synco-pated viola part.

Another kind of what might be thought of as a double-voiced effect– though perhaps not by Bakhtin – can be produced when words areinterpreted by a composer in an unexpected yet complementary manner.

15. See Ralph Locke, ‘Constructing the Oriental “other”: Saint-Saëns’s Samson etDalila’, Cambridge Opera Journal 3 (1991), 261–302.

16. Donald Davidson, Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (Oxford: ClarendonPress, 2001), p. 270.

17. Aus der 3-Groschen-Oper, Lewis Ruth Band, dir. Theo Mackeben, TelefunkenGesellschaft, A752–755 (7 December 1930), re-released on CD by Teldec Clas-sics International, 9031–72025–2 (1990).

Words and Music18

In the song ‘D’amour l’ardente flamme’ from Part Four of La Damna-tion de Faust, the bright flame of love might be consuming Gretchen’s‘beaux jours’, but it does not sound like that in Berlioz’s setting (Ex-ample 4). The slow tempo, the soft dynamic level, the instrumentalcolouring and the rhythmic sign of the heartbeat restrain the hyper-bolic text with music that displays a power of understatement to equalthat of Dante, who wrote in La Vita Nuova that his reaction on firstencountering Beatrice was ‘frequenter impeditus ero deinceps’ (‘I shalloften be troubled from now on’).18 This is not a means of expressionfavoured only by composers who have a predilection for classical re-straint. Another example of the complementary musical gesture is foundin the Parisian chansonnier Aristide Bruant’s ‘La Villette’. In that chan-son, the jog-trot banality of the tune seems to run counter to the harsh-ness and bitterness of Bruant’s verse on one level but, on another, itaptly suggests the banality of the life of the doomed ‘anti-hero’ of thesong.

18. La Vita Nuova, Capitolo 2 (see http://www.crs4.it/Letteratura/VitaNuova/Cap02.html).

D'a

Andante un poco lento

mour

- l'ar den

- te

- flam

me-

Con

-

Strings

pp

pizz.

su

me- - - mes

beaux

jours.

Example 4: Berlioz, ‘D’amour L’ardente flamme’


To conclude these remarks on the unexpected and untypical inmusical word-setting, I want to introduce the concept of ‘markedness’,which Robert Hatten, drawing in particular upon the work of linguistEdwin Battistella, has reworked insightfully in his musical analyses.19

A marked term is one that asserts its difference or, at least, itsuntypicality. For instance, the term ‘dog’ is unmarked (it can refer todogs or bitches), but the term ‘bitch’ is marked. There is often a qual-ity of the unexpected about a marked term in music, as in an inter-rupted cadence, when a minor chord sounds where a major was an-ticipated. As examples of markedness in songs, we can look at BuddyHolly’s ‘Peggy Sue’ (Allison/Petty/Holly, 1957) and, in some ways, itsparody by Blondie ‘Denis’ (Levenson, 1978).20 The drums in both aremarked. Drums are not usually found to be a significant feature of apop song unless they are marked. In ‘Peggy Sue’ markedness is achievedby the drummer playing paradiddles non-stop throughout the entiresong. This certainly has an effect on the way the words are perceived– the excess of percussion casts an unusual light on them and, to thelistener, may convey a feeling of body over mind, racing heartbeats, orthe urgency of desire. In Blondie’s version of ‘Denis’, the drums comeacross as too rigid, too aggressive, too militaristic for the ingenuousconfession of love found in the lyrics. The result is that it sounds likeparody – a ‘jackboot’ kicking at romantic naïvety and encouraging acharacteristic punk sneer. The intention, perhaps, was to make clearthat the ‘blank generation’ of the punk years was not to be duped by,or find solace in, soppy love songs.

This leads me to the final section of my chapter, as I ponder thewords of ‘Denis’ and wonder if they are deliberately awful or acciden-tally awful. I do not know the answer to that, but the issue of the songwith trite lyrics is worth our consideration. It is by no means a recentphenomenon: ‘For music any words are good enough’, wrote JamesRobinson Planché in his translation (1846) of Aristophanes’s The Birds.Yet, in certain genres (for example, French chanson) and in historicalcertain periods (Elizabethan England) words seem to matter more than

19. See Robert S. Hatten, Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correla-tion, and Interpretation (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994), es-pecially pp. 34–50; Edwin L. Battistella, Markedness: The Evaluative Super-structure of Language (New York: State University of New York Press, 1990).

20. ‘Peggy Sue’, Coral Q 72293 (1957); ‘Denis’, Chrysalis CHS 2204 (1978).

Words and Music20

in others. In the late nineteenth century, Andrew Lang announced, ‘ev-ery one admits that most of our popular songs, with the exception ofDibden’s [sic] and a few others, are, considered as poetry, worthless.’21

Beattie considered that good music set to bad poetry was inexpres-sive and absurd – though ‘bad’ words have often been found persua-sive or, at least, non-jarring in certain musical settings.22 Offering areason for this, Susanne Langer has argued that it is because wordslose their individual identity in song.23 Lawrence Kramer, on the otherhand, insists that a poem continues to retain its own life, since it is‘never really assimilated into a composition; it is incorporated’.24 Yet,how far do the music and poem maintain an independent existence ifyou are familiar with a song combining the two, but have not firstencountered the poem as a separate entity? Why is it that, if you knowa song by heart, you can remember the poem only by going throughthe song mentally, and it is difficult to recite the words without thataid? As a personal illustration of this, I confess I can recite RudyardKipling’s ‘Mandalay’ only by ‘singing’ Oley Speaks’s song ‘On theRoad to Mandalay’ silently in my head. Moreover, I have found thateven the content of the words registers on my mind in an odd fashion.I was once introducing this song to an audience and forgot completelyin which country Mandalay is located – even though Burma is men-tioned in the third line of the first verse. Yet, when singing the song, Ihave always felt that the music is functioning as an emotional vehiclefor the words, and that I am ‘serving’ the words dutifully, giving themfull meaning and expression. This surely illustrates that the sung poemregisters in the unconscious in a manner distinct from that of the spo-ken poem.

It can, no doubt, be explained partly using Edward Cone’s idea thatthe composer appropriates a poem by turning it into music. However,the bulk of Cone’s argument is directed to showing that the composerprovides one reading among many. In a well-known and admired cri-tique along these lines, he discusses Schubert’s transformation of

21. Andrew Lang, ‘Introduction’, in Edmund H. Garrett, collector and illustrator,Elizabethan Songs in Honour of Love and Beautie (London: Osgood, McIlvaineand Co., 1891), p. xxi. The reference to ‘Dibden’ is, recte, Charles Dibdin.

22. See Beattie, Essay on Poetry and Music, p. 233.23. Susanne Langer, Feeling and Form (New York: Scribner, 1953), pp. 149–68.24. Lawrence Kramer, Music and Poetry: The Nineteenth Century and After (Berke-

ley, CA: University of California Press, 1984), p. 127 (italics as in the original).


Goethe’s detached narrator in ‘Erlkönig’.25 My argument, here, is thatthe music of a song (whether the composer wishes it or not) exerts akind of cognitive dominance over the poem, which appears strangebecause music acts upon the mind through perception rather thancognition. Somehow, the content and meaning of the words seem toregister fully only in the course of the song’s performance if, and Irepeat this point, the poem is unknown before an acquaintance withthe song. When that is the case, then in order to appreciate the poemas a separate entity and to interpret it in a new way, considerableeffort is needed to suppress the memory of the song.

The commonality that Lawrence Kramer finds in both poems andcompositions is the mediation of rhythm that turns time into form.26

Since songs mainly involve poetry, Bakhtin’s assertion that the major-ity of poetic genres require a unified language system from the poetand tend to be ‘single-styled’ lends persuasiveness to Kramer’s theoryof structural rhythm in song.27 Kramer, himself, notes that poetry or-ganizes time in a different way to the novel, mentioning the latter’sfondness for enigma-making, multiple narrators, and manipulationof time frames.28

Some singers are prepared to disrupt the structural rhythm of amelodic setting of words by breaking a phrase to take a breath. ElvisCostello sings ‘a hundred [breath] different ways’ on his recording ofCharles Aznavour’s ‘She’, and Paul McCartney sings ‘mist rolling infrom [breath] the sea’ on his recording of ‘Mull of Kintyre’.29 Howcan a singer do this, at the same time as appearing to pour consider-able emotion into the delivery of the words? Is it that the words aremerely a vehicle for musical-emotional display, rather than the musicbeing a means of deepening the meaning of words? Put another way,does musical-emotional gesture override the need to communicateverbal meaning? After all, an actor could not treat words in this waywithout being considered incompetent. Neither could some singers inother cultural contexts. In the French chanson tradition, with its literary

25. Cone, The Composer’s Voice, pp. 24–6.26. Kramer, Music and Poetry, p. 10.27. See Bakhtin, ‘Discourse in the Novel’, pp. 264–6.28. See Kramer, Music and Poetry, p. 10.29. ‘She’, Mercury 562 2682 (1999); ‘Mull of Kintyre’, Parlophone 6563776.1

(1977).

Words and Music22

emphasis, this treatment of lyrics is exceedingly rare. It is evident thatwords matter more in certain songs, and in some song traditions, thanin others. It is well known that people react very differently to wordsin combination with music than to words alone. A plausible reasonfor the moral anxiety some feel about music accompanying ‘unwhole-some’ words might be found in Kierkegaard’s argument that music,unlike words, is not part of a moral domain.30 It is a rarity, for ex-ample, to hear anyone complain that a play or a novel deals with thesubject of gangsters, but not uncommon to hear complaints about themoral reprehensibility of ‘gangsta’ rap.

Returning to the matter of poor lyrics, perhaps we need to ask ifmusic can sometimes be held to blame on the grounds that the waymusic ‘turns time into form’ encourages lyrical banality and predict-ability. For all its flexibility, musical rhythm tends to favour regularityof stress, especially when tunefulness is required. In this connection,we may compare instructively two more or less identical songs by thenineteenth-century entertainer and songwriter Henry Russell: ‘We HaveBeen Friends Together’ (words by Caroline Norton) and ‘The HappyDays of Childhood’ (words by George Pendrill). Russell clearly be-came dissatisfied with his musical setting of Norton’s poem, and de-sired to replace her words with newly tailored verses by Pendrill. Thereason for his discomfort is to be found, no doubt, in the conflictbetween the shifting stresses of the lines of Norton’s stanzas and theregular stresses of his melody. Here, for example, is the final stanza ofNorton’s poem.

We have been sad together,We have wept with bitter tearsO’er the grass green graves where slumber’dThe hopes of early years:The voices which are silent thereWould bid thee clear thy brow;We have been sad together,Oh! What shall part us now.

To add to the stress problems he encountered in this verse, there isenjambment (‘with bitter tears’ in line two needs to run straight on to

30. His best-known exposition of this idea is in his essay ‘The Immediate Stage ofthe Erotic, or The Musical Erotic’; see Either/Or, Vol. 1, trans. David F. Swensonand Lillian M. Swenson (London: Oxford University Press, 1944), pp. 35–110,especially p. 59.


‘O’er the grass green graves’ in line three); it is a poetic technique thatcomposers often find difficult to mould into convincing musicalphrases. A poet is unlikely to wish to retain the same stress patternsfrom one line to another or from one stanza to another – variety ofstress is, of course, a means of bring richness to verse. Yet, look nowat the words Pendrill provides for his final stanza; these not only pre-serve the stresses intact of his first stanza, but also possess a rhythmicregularity that pervades almost every line.

Then bless the steps of childhood,And let their sports be gay,That they, at least in memory,May live to bless the dayWhen they were blithe and happy,In palace or in cot;–O! the happy days of childhoodCan never be forgot.

Russell was so satisfied with the rhythmic fit of his replacementtext that he did not mind it contradicting the mimetic devices he hadcomposed to suit Norton’s words. The second half of each of Norton’sstanzas introduces a melancholy contrast between past and present, towhich Russell responded by moving to the minor key. In the reworking,he retains that conventional device for expressing sadness even thoughit is inappropriate for some of his new words, such as ‘When theywere blithe and happy’ in the verse quoted above (Example 5).

To explain the ‘good song despite bad lyrics’ phenomenon, we needto investigate further the question of structural rhythm and exploresome of the differences between the structural rhythm of a poem andthat of a musical composition. No doubt, the awkward and irregularmetrical feet of the poem ‘Baldovan’ by that archetypal purveyor ofexcruciating verse, William McGonagall, are found irrational andabsurd to someone listening to its being spoken aloud. Yet, while ir-regular poetic stresses can create difficulty, music can iron out irregu-larities of scansion by taking action at the level of the bar, the phrase,or the musical metre.

Let us take the first and final stanzas of ‘Baldovan’ as an illustra-tion.31

31. William McGonagall, Poetic Gems (1890; repub. London: Duckworth, 1989).

Words and Music24

The scenery of BaldovanIs most lovely to see,Near by Dighty Water,Not far from Dundee.

Then there’s the little loch near by,Whereon can be seen every dayNumerous wild ducks swimmingAnd quacking in their innocent play.

It may seem as if McGonagall has decided wilfully that his versemust not scan, though every other line must rhyme. However, musicdoes not face the same scanning problems as poetry. A melisma can beused to extend a poetic foot deficient in one or two syllables, andnotes of short duration may be employed where excessive enthusiasmhas swollen a foot with a rash of syllables. Thus, a melody can bedevised that can accommodate both of these stanzas, although admit-tedly the fit may not be described as elegant (Example 6). A melismamay be used to give emphasis to the word ‘lovely’ in the first stanza,and then the notes of that melisma are available to absorb the extrasyllables in the equivalent place in the final stanza. The single note forthe word ‘Not’ in the last line of the first stanza, can be preceded inthe final stanza by an anacrusis and then broken down into notes of

Then

Andante Affetuoso

bless

the

steps

of

child

hood,

-

And let

their

sports

be

gay,

That

6

they, at

least

in

memo

ry,

- May live

to

bless

the

day.

When

10

they were

blithe

and

hap

py,- In

pa

lace

- or

in

cot;

O! the

14

hap py

- days

of

child

hood- Can

ne

ver

- be

for

got.

-

Example 5: Russell, ‘The Happy Days of Childhood’


shorter duration to accommodate the words ‘And quacking in’. In thesetting I provide, a further attempt is made to mask the awkwardnessof this line: bar 3 of the song’s introduction is revealed at this point tohave been not just a gratuitous splash of local colour in the form of‘Scotch snaps’, but also an anticipation of the quacking ducks forwhom it now functions as ‘word-painting’. A musical device such asthis, of course, only has implicative power with the benefit of hind-sight.

Not all is successfully accomplished, however. We return to prob-lems created by stress. English poetry relies more on accent than quan-tity – on the way words are stressed rather than the length of theirvowel sounds. In spite of the Russell song discussed earlier, it is fair tosay that music is generally flexible in handling verbal stresses and canoffer plausible solutions to awkward changes of stress in verse. All thesame, there sometimes seems to be a musical need to stress the ‘wrong’word or syllable, as I have done by placing a musical accent on ‘Not’rather than the word ‘far’ in the first stanza. Here, my reason was thatthe exact repetition of the previous phrase seemed musically morepleasing. The importance given to verbal stress does vary from cultureto culture. Quantity took precedence over stress in Latin and Greekprosody. Settings of the French language can be very fluid in the treat-ment of stress: one has only to think of Bizet’s melody for Carmen’s‘L’amour est un oiseaux rebelle’.

However, if the setting I have provided for ‘Baldovan’ is in any waypersuasive, it is owing to the cohesive power of a musical gesture thatprovides associations appropriate to the poem as a whole – here a 6/8metre joined to a pentatonic melody typifies a pastoral topic. Thus itis that verse of dubious quality may help reveal to us the composi-tional processes, techniques, and expressive devices involved in musi-cal word-setting.

Words and Music26

Example 6: Baldovan

2

Rhetoric and Music:The Influence of a Linguistic Art

Jasmin Cameron

Introduction

Interrelationships between music and the spoken arts – artes dicendi(grammar, rhetoric, dialectic) – are at once obvious and unclear.1

The idea of music as a rhetorical art rests on the metaphor of music as alanguage.2

The ‘conversion’ of a linguistic system, such as rhetoric, to a musicalone would appear to be a logical step in theory: after all, music, too, isconsidered to be a kind of language. Working on this assumption,what could be more natural to apply a system originating in one kindof language to another? However, it is only when the consequences ofsuch an adaptation process are reviewed that it becomes evident howmany points of comparison arise: while some of them bring out thesimilarities between words and music, others highlight the differences.One aim of this paper will be to examine these issues by specific refer-ence to the relationship between rhetoric and music. The paper willprovide insight into the role of rhetoric in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century culture and suggest how it was absorbed into the musicaltheory and practice of the day. The second section will offer an evalu-ation of our modern attitude to, and understanding of, rhetoric. In thethird and final section I will attempt a rhetorical critique on a shortsection of vocal music from this period in order to demonstrate how arhetorical analysis of music from this time, if undertaken with care,can remain appropriate and relevant.

1. George J. Buelow, ‘Rhetoric and Music’, in Stanley Sadie (ed.), The New GroveDictionary of Music and Musicians, 1st edition, 20 vols (London: Macmillan,1980), vol. 15, p. 793.

2. Mark Evan Bonds, Wordless Rhetoric: Musical Form and the Metaphor of theOration (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), p. 61.

I Representation of the Text as Conceived by Theorists of theSeventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

The Relevance of Rhetoric to Musical AnalysisAlthough some modern commentators are sceptical about the linksbetween rhetoric and music, it is important not to underestimate therole played by rhetoric in Renaissance and Baroque culture and theinfluence that it had on many of its ‘sister’ arts.3 Rhetoric was origi-nally a linguistic ‘art’, ‘the art of speaking or writing so as to persuadepeople’.4 It was a discipline that prescribed not only a structure butalso a style for oratory in the public life of the ancient civilizations ofGreece and Rome. It is believed that the tradition of rhetoric wasintroduced to Greece by the sophist Gorgias in about 428 BCE. Thedevelopment of this art was a gradual process and was aided by thecontributions of several different philosophers, who includedProtagoras, Antiphon, Lysias, Isocrates, and Plato.

From the start, rhetoric was conceived, particularly by Gorgias him-self, as a type of power: the power of persuasion. Already then, the artof persuading the listener no longer depended solely on the principlesof argument, since it also encompassed any other method that wouldmove the hearer, including forms of prose. Here we see the beginningsof elocutio: the careful use and arrangement of phrases and words foreffect. However, Plato, in his books Gorgias and Phaedrus, voiced hisconcerns about the power that rhetoricians held over their audiences.He held back from classifying rhetoric as an Art, claiming that it wasnot centred on knowledge: the orator merely had to convince his au-dience through the powers of speech that he ‘knew more than theexpert’.5 In a situation like this, he says, there is a danger that the ill-informed or ignorant will be easily influenced, and as a result, justiceor opinion may be corrupted. Of course, Plato’s belief that a rhetori-cian should not be able to exercise as much power as a philosopherprobably contributed to his stance in this matter.

Rhetoric and Music: the influence of a linguistic art 29

3. Brian Vickers is among the more forceful sceptics: ‘… how far can the terms ofrhetoric be applied directly to music? How far can one aesthetic system, a lin-guistic one, be adapted to another, non-linguistic?’ ‘Figures of Rhetoric/Figuresof Music?’, Rhetorica 2 (1984), 2.

4. Paul Procter (ed.), Longman New Generation Dictionary (Harlow: Longman,1981), p. 586.

5. M. L. Clarke, Rhetoric at Rome: A Historical Survey (London: Cohen & West,1953), p. 3.

Words and Music30

Aristotle, a pupil of Plato, formed a different opinion on the sub-ject. His main work on the subject, The Art of Rhetoric, is regarded asone of the foundation stones of the discipline. In this treatise Aristotleidentifies three distinct areas of persuasion: ethos (arising from thespeaker’s own characteristics); pathos (arising from the audience’semotions); and logical proof, which is dependent on the particularargument. The actual nature of the speech is dependent on the eventin question. Speeches intended for the courts of law are termed foren-sic (judicial), those concerned with politics are deliberative; and thoserelating to occasional events are epideitic. Aristotle also recognizesthe importance of the role of the listener:

The kinds of Rhetoric are three in number, corresponding to the threekinds of hearers. For every speech is composed of three parts: the speaker,the subject of which he treats, and the person to whom it is addressed, Imean the hearer, to whom the end or object of the speech refers.6

The importance of oratory in ancient Greece must not be underes-timated. In Athens, and in many other cities, both public speakingand activity in the law courts were part of everyday life. As a conse-quence, teachers of oratory were in great demand, and rhetoric be-came an essential part of the curriculum.

What is notable about the eventual adoption of rhetoric in Rome isthat most of the treatises there were practical rather than abstract:whereas Aristotle’s treatise is more abstract, those of Cicero (except-ing his final two works) and Quintilian tend to be more prescriptive.Not only are an ideal form and layout suggested but, in addition,numerous figures calculated to add to the persuasive power of a speechare identified. In Rome both judicial and deliberative oratory had amore prominent role than epideitic oratory.

The links between music and rhetoric have their roots already inAntiquity. Quintilian recognized the similarities:

Music has two modes of expression in the voice and in the body (musicincludes dancing); for both voice and body require to be controlled byappropriate rules … Now I ask you whether it is not absolutely necessaryfor the orator to be acquainted with all these methods of expressionwhich are concerned firstly with gesture, secondly with the arrangementsof words and thirdly with the inflexions of the voice, of which a greatvariety are required in pleading … But eloquence does vary both tone

6. Aristotle, The Art of Rhetoric, trans. by John Henry Freese (London: Heinemann,1926), p. 33.


and rhythm, expressing sublime thoughts with elevation, pleasingthoughts with sweetness, and ordinary with gentle utterance, and in everyexpression of its art is in sympathy with the emotions of which it is themouth-piece. It is by the raising, lowering or inflexion of the voice thatthe orator stirs the emotions of his hearers, and the measure, if I mayrepeat the term, of voice and phrase differs according as we wish torouse the indignation or the pity of the judge. For, as we know, differentemotions are roused even by the various musical instruments, which areincapable of reproducing speech … an orator will assuredly pay specialattention to his voice, and what is so specially the concern of music asthis?7

Following the revival of interest in Antiquity during the Renais-sance and the rediscovery of the works of the Classical writers, rheto-ric became such a fundamental part of education and cultural lifeduring the Renaissance and Baroque that its influence permeated manydifferent areas. Rhetoric may appear false and cumbersome to us to-day, but in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was so deep-rooted that educated society found nothing strange in embodying it inall modes of life: ‘rhetoric as a model of composition, extemporisingand evaluation was an ingrained habit of thought’.8

George J. Buelow comments:

The humanistic basis of education aspiring to teach every student the artof rhetorical eloquence permeated musical thought for centuries. As earlyas the first decades of the sixteenth century Italian musicians sought acloser tie between rhetoric and music.9

These comments help us to understand why musicians and composerssteeped in this cultural tradition would embed rhetorical concepts asa matter of course in their music. But while rhetoric provided a readyvocabulary for the composer, learning (and using) it merely by imita-tion must also have occurred. Composers as if instinctively employedrhetorical devices: they were apt to reproduce rhetorical effects with-out necessarily comprehending the potential of the tools they wereusing. Leopold Mozart comments on the instinctive use of rhetoricaldevices in his Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule:

7. Quintilian, The ‘Institutione Oratoria’, trans. by H. E. Butler, 5 vols (London:Heinemann, 1920), vol. 1, pp. 171–3.

8. Elaine R. Sisman, Haydn and the Classical Variation (Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 1993), p. 19.

9. George J. Buelow, ‘The Loci Topici and Affect in Late Baroque Music: Heinichen’sPractical Demonstration’, Music Review 27 (1966), 16.

Words and Music32

The Appoggiature are little notes which stand between the ordinary notesand are not reckoned as part of the bar-time. They are demanded byNature herself to bind the notes together, thereby making a melody moresong-like. I say by Nature herself, for it is undeniable that even a peasantcloses his peasant-song with grace notes … Nature herself forces him todo this. In the same way the simplest peasant often uses figures of speechand metaphors without knowing it.10

Vocal music, naturally, was a prime candidate for the application ofrhetorical ideals and concepts. In its function as an oration it enjoyedthe additional dimension of music, which could serve to underlineand comment on the words and further persuade the listener.

… in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries persuasive speech rootedin the instruction of Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian became synonymouswith the Baroque composer’s purpose in writing vocal music. Just as allgood oratory must stir the emotions, so too in Baroque vocal music,emotion – or affect – became a composer’s goal.11

Within a culture so steeped in rhetoric it was natural to apply theprinciples of this discipline to the other arts. Rhetoric, therefore, be-comes an important, indeed inescapable, issue to consider whenanalysing music of this period. A musical-rhetorical analysis will ulti-mately help us to understand further the composer’s aims: which emo-tions was he trying to stimulate in the listener and how did he goabout it? From this starting point further issues arise: how aware wasthe listener of the musical-rhetorical structure and devices, and how,exactly, were these perceived and understood?

A second major influence on the thought process of musical theo-rists of the time (and one that had, in fact, a reinforcing effect on theuse of rhetoric in music) was the work of the French mathematicianand philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650):

What characterizes the men of the generation of Descartes is above allthe will to dominate, to control events, to eliminate chance and theirrational. This attitude was present in every field …12

10. Leopold Mozart, A Treatise on the Fundamental Principles of Violin Playing,trans. by Editha Knocker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1948), p. 166; quotedin Sisman, Haydn and the Classical Variation, p. 20.

11. Buelow, ‘The Loci Topici and Affect in Late Baroque Music’, 161–2.12. René Descartes, Discourse on Method and the Meditations, trans. and with an

Introduction by F. E. Sutcliffe (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968); this citation istaken from the Introduction, p. 21.


This description mirrors the aims of musical rhetoric and the inten-tions of composers of the day: to control the feelings of their audi-ence. Descartes is credited with founding rationalism (knowledge ac-quisition through reasoning or rationale). His philosophical theory isconcerned with ‘dualism’; he defined the differences between res extensaand res cogitans – physical space or ‘objects located outside the mind’and mental space or ‘objects located within the mind’.13 One of hislater works, Passions de l’âme (1646), attempts to explain some ele-ments of human behaviour within this framework of dualism; thiswork was to have a profound influence on Baroque musical thought:

… the soul may have pleasures of its own, but as to those which arecommon to it, and the body, they depend entirely on the passions, sothat the men whom they can most move are capable of partaking mostof enjoyment in this life.14

Thus:

… perception is a ‘passion’ since it involves the soul’s taking in or‘receiving’ some representation.15

Naturally, rhetoric was the ideal vehicle whereby to rouse the ‘pas-sions’ and ‘affect’ the soul. Hence, whenever rhetorical devices wereemployed for affect in music, the listener became a co-participant viathe act of perceiving these gestures. A double effect of ‘passions’ occurshere. Passions such as joy or sadness are invoked by musical affect inaddition to perception, which Descartes classed as a passion in itself.

This climate of philosophical thought, coupled with the educationalenvironment, explains in part why there is such a profusion of musi-cal literature referring to ‘affect’ in music. However, the effect of rhe-torical devices would have been lost without an audience that had atleast some understanding of such a system. As mentioned earlier, thelistener needs to be able to perceive the meaning in order to have hisemotions moved accordingly. There is, admittedly, a problem withcarrying out rhetorical analysis on music from this period, since it isnever possible to state conclusively what the composer ‘meant’ (it isimpossible, in general, to state conclusively what a composer ‘meant’

13. Thomas B. Sheridan, ‘Descartes, Heidegger, Gibson, and God: Toward an EclecticOntology of Presence’, Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 8(1999), 552.

14. René Descartes, The Philosophical Works, trans. by Elizabeth S. Haldane and G.R. T. Ross, 2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), vol. 2, p. 427.

15. John Cottingham, Descartes (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986), p. 153.

Words and Music34

by analysis alone – but even less so in this case), each individual lis-tener having a different understanding of what he or she is hearing.

In addition, within a culture so deeply permeated by rhetoric a formof classical conditioning (or conditioned response) would have oper-ated. Classical conditioning is a form of associative learning that sug-gests that a particular response to this type of music will occur: througheducation or training, the listener is conditioned to understand rhe-torical gesture and respond to the gestures in a certain way.16 To someextent, each Baroque listener would have perceived rhetorical ges-tures in a similar vein. However, our modern understanding of musicof the era is bound to be very different from that of a contemporarylistener because we are not conditioned to ‘respond’ to the music inrhetorical terms. Even with a new-found awareness of rhetoric and itsrelation to music of the time we must still be wary of our own rhetori-cal interpretation, since our rhetorical ‘conditioning’ will never be thesame as that of a Baroque listener.

Rhetoric and MusicSo far, only the general connections between rhetoric and music havebeen examined: that is, their common aim of attempting to persuadethe listener of the contents of the oration or music. However, the linksgo much deeper. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century musical treatisestestify to this: they show the musician absorbing and encompassingthe theories of Classical rhetoric to produce a musical theory derivedfrom this ancient discipline. The Art of Rhetoric is an ancient tradi-tion, dating back beyond the fifth century BCE, and was associatedwith the judicial system. The system was concerned mainly with thepresentation of an argument: that is, the persuasiveness of a speech.The Art of Rhetoric is still very much in evidence in our law courtstoday: the presentation of a case to gain the sympathy of the listener,in this case, the jury.

The Phases of Composition:Classical writers laid down a process for composing an oration. Itscomponents were commonly described as follows:

inventio Inventiondispositio Arrangement

16. Rita L. Atkinson et al., Introduction to Psychology (Fort Worth: Harcourt BraceJovanovich, 1993), pp. 254–5; what psychologists refer to as classical condi-tioning relates to the philosophers’ rationalism: associative learning.


elocutio Expressionmemoria Memorypronuncio Delivery

Quintilian gives a clear account of these five stages:

The art of oratory, as taught by most authorities, and those the best,consists of five parts: – invention, arrangement, expression, memory,and delivery or action (the two latter terms being expressedsynonymously). But all speech expressive of purpose involves also asubject and words. If such expression is brief and contained within thelimits of one sentence, it may demand nothing more. For not only whatwe say and how we say it is of importance, but also the circumstancesunder which we say it. It is here that the need of arrangement comes in.But it will be impossible to say everything demanded by the subject,putting each thing in its proper place, without the aid of memory. It isfor this reason that memory forms the fourth department. But a delivery,which is rendered unbecoming either by voice or gesture, spoils everythingand almost entirely destroys the effect of what is said. Delivery thereforemust be assigned the fifth place.17

This process of invention is frequently referred to by music theoristsof the Renaissance and Baroque, immediately illustrating that musi-cians were profoundly influenced by rhetoric.

Johannes Lippius (1585–1612) was one theorist who commentedon the many parallels between rhetoric and music in his treatises, andwho drew on rhetorical theory to support and construct his musicalpremises.18 Discussion of the compositional process using oratoricalterminology occurs also in Mattheson’s Der vollkommeneKapellmeister (1739).19 What is interesting to observe is that Matthesonis in fact rather selective in his matching up of the rhetorical and mu-sical equivalents. Memoria has no great significance for the musical‘oration’ (at least, when the latter is not improvised), so it is silentlyomitted from the parallel.

Structure:In Classical Rhetoric an oration was organized according to a struc-ture (the dispositio phase of composition) that prescribed a pattern

17. Quintilian, The ‘Institutione Oratoria’, 1, 383–5 (italics as in the original).18. A detailed discussion of Lippius’s rhetorical and musical ideas is found in Benito

V. Rivera, German Music in the Early Seventeenth Century: The Treatises ofJohannes Lippius (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI, 1974), pp. 167–85.

19. Ernest C. Harriss, Johann Mattheson’s Der vollkommene Capellmeister (AnnArbor, MI: UMI, 1981).

Words and Music36

for presenting a case. An outline of Classical oratorical structure isgiven in Table 1.20 Again, for the musician, with his ingrained rhetori-cal training, it was a natural and logical progression to translate thisstructure into an ‘organised compositional plan based on rhetoricaltheory’.21 The quotations included in Table 2, originally used as guide-lines for the translation of oratory to dance, reveal further the simi-larities between music and oratory.22

Table 1: The Structure of a Classical Oration

Element Description

exordium An introduction where the speaker may attempt toingratiate himself/herself with the audience:‘The rhetorical manoeuvres this involved are stillrecognisable by connoisseurs of the after-dinner speech:flattering allusion to the eminence of the auditors (‘thisdistinguished company’), the speaker’s confession of hisown inadequacy (‘ill qualified as I am’), the appeal forgoodwill and a fair hearing (‘if I may ask you to bear withme’) …’

narratio Where the speaker generalises about the case, provides anoutline and perhaps background information.

confirmatio Supporting arguments are introduced, together withevidence.

confutatio The speaker takes this opportunity to anticipate anyarguments against his case, thus further persuading hisaudience that he has a solid grasp of the case he ishandling.

peroratio Conclusion, summing up.

20. The number of sections in an oration varies, depending on which treatise isbeing referred to. For example, Rhetorica ad Herennium cites six parts – divisiobeing included between narratio and confirmatio. The quotation in Table 1referring to ‘connoisseurs of the after-dinner speech’ is taken from Walter Nash,Rhetoric: The Wit of Persuasion (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), p. 9.

21. Peter Seymour, ‘Oratory and Performance’, in John Paynter et al. (eds), Com-panion to Contemporary Musical Thought, 2 vols (London and New York:Routledge, 1992), vol. 2, p. 916.

22. Patricia Ranum, ‘Audible Rhetoric and Mute Rhetoric: The 17th-Century FrenchSarabande’, Early Music 14 (1986), 28–30.


Table 2: The Application of Oratorical Guidelines to Dance

Element Description

exordium The orator should speak gently and peacefully on rather alow pitch. His face and gestures should be restrained,modest and slow. He should not gesture with his handsuntil he has uttered several sentences.

narratio Any figure of rhetoric used in this section should beemphatic (e.g., an exclamation); increasing emotion shouldnot lead to vehement speech or exaggerated gestures thisearly in the oration. Instead, the orator should addemphasis by introducing a new speech rhythm and tone ofvoice, at the same time moving his hands moreexpressively than before. Phrase lengths are more variedand the speed of words is increased.

confirmatio Here the orator employs his most powerful rhetoricalfigures, as he struggles to ‘unsettle the minds’ of hisaudience. To make his arguments ‘strong and invincible’,he employs exaggerated figures of speech. Abruptlyvarying the rhythms of his words he assumes the vehementtones of voice suitable for the figures and mimes them withhis hands to increase their impact.

peroratio The orator abruptly changes his voice. He usually cannotkeep a note of triumph and pomposity from his voice, forhe realises he has convinced his audience. His increasinglyhasty words, interspersed with emphatic short units, arereinforced by the rapid and forceful motions of his entirebody, as he ends his argument with an emotional statementof ‘his doubts, his thoughts about what may happen, andhis hopes and fears’.23

German music theorists of the period based their recommendedmethods of organising a composition around rhetorical theory. JoachimBurmeister, in his Musica Poetica of 1606, refers to a compositionalplan that is clearly derived from the structure of the oration:

23. R. Bary, La rhétorique françoise, 2 vols. (Paris, 1665), i, 237.

Words and Music38

Sectioning the piece into affections means its division into periods forthe purpose of studying its artfulness and using it as a model for imitation.A piece has three parts: (1) the exordium, (2) the body of the piece, (3)the ending.The exordium is the first period or affection of the piece. It isoften adorned by fugue, so that the ears and mind of the listener arerendered attentive to the song, and his good will is won over. Theexordium extends up to the point where the fugal subject ends with theintroduction of a true cadence. This is seen to happen where a new subjectdefinitely different from the fugal subject is introduced. However,examples do not confirm that all musical pieces should always beginwith the ornament of fugue …

The body of the musical piece is a series of affections or periods betweenthe exordium and the ending. In this section, textual passages similar tothe various arguments of the confirmation in rhetoric are instilled in thelistener’s mind in order that the proposition (sententia) be more clearlygrasped and considered.

The body should not be protracted too much, lest that which isoverextended arouse the listener’s displeasure. For everything that isexcessive is odious and usually turns into a vice.

The ending is the principal cadence where either or all the musicalmovement [modulatio] ceases or where one or two voices stop whileothers continue with a brief passage called supplementum. By means ofthis, the forthcoming close in the music is more clearly impressed on thelistener’s awareness.24

Mattheson, similarly, has clear ideas about the structure of a composition:

Our musical disposition is different from the theoretical arrangement ofa mere speech only in theme, subject or object: hence it observes thosesix parts which are prescribed to an orator, namely the introduction,report, discourse, corroboration, confutation and conclusion. Exordium,Narratio, Propositio, Confirmatio, Confutatio, and Peroratio …

The Exordium is the introduction and beginning of a melody, whereinthe goal and the entire purpose must be revealed, so that the listeners areprepared and stimulated to attentiveness …

The Narratio is so to speak a report, a narration, through which themeaning and character of the herein-contained discourse is pointed out.It occurs with the entrance or beginning of the vocal part or the mostsignificant concerted part, and relates to the Exordium, which haspreceded, by means of a skilled connection.

The Propositio or the actual discourse contains briefly the content orgoal of the musical oration, and is of two sorts: simple or compound,wherein also belongs the varied or embellished Propositio in music, ofwhich nothing is mentioned in rhetoric …

24. Joachim Burmeister, Musica Poetica, trans. by Benito V. Rivera (New Haven,CT and London: Yale University Press, 1993), pp. 203–5.


The Confirmatio is an artistic corroboration of the discourse and inmelodies is commonly found in the well conceived repetitions which areused beyond expectations …

The Confutatio is a dissolution of the exceptions and may be expressedin melody either through combining, or even through quotation andrefutation of foreign appearing ideas: For through just such antitheses, ifthey are well stressed, the hearing is strengthened in its joy, and everythingwhich might run against it in dissonances and syncopations is smoothedand resolved. Meanwhile one does not find this aspect of disposition inmelodies as much as in other things: yet it is truly one of the mostbeautiful.

The Peroratio finally is the end or conclusion of our musical oration,which must produce an especially emphatic impression, more so than allother parts. And this occurs not only in the course or progress of themelody, but especially in the epilogue, be it in thorough bass or in astronger accompaniment; whether or not one has heard this ritornellopreviously. Custom has established that in arias we close with almost thevery same passages and sounds with which we have begun: consistentwith which then our peroration is replaced by our Exordium.25

So, as in an oration, the theorists’ ideas concerned the presentationand development of an idea – in this case a musical idea. Sonata ‘form’reflects this layout:

One can easily see how such a layout transfers to sonata form with theexordium, narratio and (perhaps) propositio becoming the expositionof the latter form, the confirmatio (and possibly the confutatio) thedevelopment, and the confutatio and peroratio the recapitulation.26

Figures:The area of rhetoric adopted by music which has been the subject ofthe closest appraisal is that of musical figures (Figurenlehre, literally‘Doctrine of Figures’, is the name German scholars of the early 1900sgave to the general corpus of prescriptive and interpretative statementsabout musical figures found in theoretical sources of the seventeenthand eighteenth centuries). The problematic nature of Figurenlehre isexamined later in this paper. Such musical figures were based on theconcept of the ‘figures of speech’ used by the orators. The develop-ment and importance of these figures of speech can be traced back asfar as Aristotle. Both Quintilian and Cicero refer to them, emphasisingtheir use as decorati, as this extract from Quintilian’s De InstitutioneOratoria demonstrates:

25. Harriss, Der Vollkommene Capellmeister, pp. 470–2.26. Seymour, ‘Oratory and Performance’, p. 916.

Words and Music40

What the Greeks call frásin, we in Latin call elocutio or style. Style isrevealed both in individual words and in groups of words. As regardsthe former, we must see that they are Latin, clear, elegant and well-adaptedto produce the desired effect. As regards the latter, they must be correct,aptly placed and adorned with suitable figures.27

The anonymous Rhetorica ad Herennium (which is thought to be con-temporary with Cicero’s work) lists forty-five such figures, shown inFigure 1.28 These figures of speech were used for the embellishment ofan oration, to ‘decorate’ the ideas and so further persuade and movethe emotions of the listener. The ten so-called ‘Special Figures of Speech’later became known as ‘tropes’. What sets them apart from the otherfigures of speech is the fact that the language ‘departs from the ordinarymeaning of words and is with certain grace applied in another sense’.29

The following quotation gives definitions (Classical) and examples(sixteenth-century) of a specimen figure of speech and a specimen trope:

Gradatio (climax): [figure]Quintilian: Schema: A more obvious and less natural application of art[than acervatio] and should therefore be more sparingly employed. It …repeats what has been already said and, before passing to a new point,dwells on those which precede.Puttenham: Peace makes plenty, plenty makes pride,

Pride breeds quarrel, and quarrel brings war.Nominatio (Onomatopoeia)Quintilian: Trope: The creation of a word … scarcely permissible to aRoman. It is true that many words were created this way by the originalfounders of the language who adapted them to suit the sensation whichthey expressed.Peacham: 1. A hurliburly, creaking.

2. The roaring of lions, the bellowing of bulls.3. Luds-town of Lud, now London.4. Scholarlike, thickskin, pinchpenny, bellygod (glutton),

pickthank (flatterer).30

27. Quintilian, The ‘Institutione Oratoria’, vol. 4, pp. 194–5.28. Rhetorica ad Herennium, Book 4, quoted in James J. Murphy, Rhetoric in the

Middle Ages (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California, 1974), p. 21.29. [Ab usitata verborum potestate recedatur atque in aliam rationem cum quadem

venustate oratio conferatur. ad Herennium IV xxxi.42.], quoted in Murphy,Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, p. 20.

30. Lee A. Sonnino, A Handbook to Sixteenth-Century Rhetoric (London: Routledge &Kegan Paul, 1968): Gradatio, quoted at pp. 101–2, Nominatio, quoted at pp. 132–3.


Figures of Speech

1. repetitio (epanaphora)2. conversio (antistrophe)3. conplexio (interlacement)4. traductio (transplacement)5. contentio (antithesis)6. exclamatio (apostrophe)7. interrogatio (interrogation)8. ratiocinatio (reasoning by

question and answer)9. sententia (maxim)

10. contrarium (reasoning bycontraries)

11. membrum (colon)12. articulus (phrase)13. continuatio (period)14. conpar (isocolon)15. similiter cadens

(homoeptoton)16. similiter desinens

(homoeteleuten)17. adnominatio (

paronomasia)18. subiectio (hypophora)19. gradatio (climax)20. definitio (definition)21. transitio (transition)22. correctio (correction)23. occultatio (paralipsis)24. disjunctum (disjunction)25. coniunctio (conjunction)26. adiunctio (adjunction)27. conduplicatio

(reduplication)28. interpretatio (synonomy)29. commutatio (reciprocal

change)30. permissio (surrender)31. dubitatio (indecision)32. expeditio (elimination)33. dissolutum(asyndeton)

Figure 1: Devices for Achieving Dignitas in Style

34. praecisio (aposiopesis)35. conclusio (conclusion)

Special Figures of Speech (‘tropes’)

36. nominatio (onomatopaeia)37. pronominatio (antonomasia)38. denominatio (metonymy)39. circumitio (periphrasis)40. transgressio (hyperbaton)41. superlatio (hyperbole)42. intellectio (synecdoche)43. abusio (catechresis)44. translatio (metaphor)45. permutatio (allegory)

Figures of Thought

1. distributio (distribution)2. licentia (frankness of speech)3. diminutio (understatement)4. descriptio (vivid description)5. divisio (division)6. frequentatio (accumulation)7. expolitio (refining)8. commoratio (dwelling on the

point)9. contentio (antithesis)

10. similitudo (comparison)11. exemplum (exemplification)12. imago (simile)13. effictio (portrayal)14. notatio (character delineation)15. sermocinatio (dialogue)16. conformatio (personification)17. significatio (emphasis)18. brevitas (conciseness)19. demonstratio (ocular

demonstration)

Words and Music42

By the Renaissance, writers on rhetoric were admitting a furtherproliferation of figures.31 The emphasis had shifted from form to style,hence the greater importance of figures within rhetoric:

The accretion of schemes was such as to suggest a trivial ingenuity, andindeed led to numerous overlaps not convincingly explained away; in manycases the distinctive value of the figure might elude all but the most exactinganalyst. It was not simply that the emphasis in rhetorical studies had shiftedfrom structure to style, or had relegated taxis to the domain of logic, inorder to concentrate on lexis. That certainly happened; but what alsofollowed was of consequence, observable in fields, of developing a meta-language – a terminology – in excess of practical functions, so that theterminology itself displaces the proper concerns of the subject.32

By now there was a bewildering array of figures, writers defining eachterm as they wished. With our fondness for classification and group-ing, this has proved a problem for modern writers on the subject.Figure 2 shows a selection of figures, together with definitions and thesimilarities between each term.33

Renaissance music (sacred and secular) abounds in musical decora-tion whose aim is to illustrate the text: a musical figure of speech. Some-times referred to generically by the modern phrase ‘word-painting’, theseare recognized as part of the family of musical-rhetorical devices.Burmeister, in his Musica Poetica of 1606, was the first theorist to includea detailed account of musical figures. He refers to these figures in rhetori-cal terms, using their Greek and Latin names, which can be misleading;often, one receives the distinct impression that Burmeister is hard pushedto find an exact musical parallel to a figure of speech bearing the samename.34 This certainly seems to have set a precedent for future theorists

31. For example, Susenbrotus, Epitome Troporum ac Schematum (1541); J. C.Scaliger, Poetices Libri Septum (1561), Vives, De Ratione Dicendi (1533).

32. Nash, Rhetoric, p. 14.33. Definitions taken from Richard A. Lanham, A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms

(Berkeley, CA and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991).34. Burmeister’s definitions of terms such as anadiplosis bear scant resemblance to the

original linguistic figures (compare the definitions in Figures 4 and 5). Dietrich Bartelsuggests that Burmeister’s intention was to establish a rhetorical-musical system ofterminology based on linguistic terminology rather than proposing musical figuresthat were exact musical replicas of linguistic figures. Dietrich Bartel, Musica Poetica:Musical-Rhetorical Figures in German Baroque Music (Lincoln, NE and London:University of Nebraska Press, 1997), pp. 180–1. Similarly, Brian Vickers argues that‘the formation of musical rhetoric takes the form of a theorist looking at a rhetoricaltextbook in order to find a figure in rhetoric that applied to, or could be adapted to,a musical effect or structure’ (‘Figures of Rhetoric/Figures of Music?’, 2).


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GIA

Gr.

‘rec

apit

ulat

ion’

Rep

etit

ion

for

vehe

men

ce o

r fu

llnes

s.

AN

AD

IPL

OSI

SG

r. ‘r

epet

itio

n, d

uplic

atio

n’T

he r

epet

itio

n of

the

last

wor

d of

one

line

or c

laus

e to

beg

in t

he n

ext

RE

DU

PLIC

AT

IO

DU

PLIC

AT

IO

GR

AD

AT

IO

AN

AB

ASI

SG

r. ‘g

oing

up

from

’

ASC

EN

SUS

Lat

. ‘as

cent

, clim

b’

○

○

○

○

Figure 2: Figures of Speech

Words and Music44

(for example, Scheibe, Lippius, Nucius, Walther, Bernhard, and Kircher),who all used the same Greek and Latin terminology in profusion, but tomean or represent quite different figures (see Figure 3; compare withFigure 2 for parallels between linguistic and musical figures).35

With Burmeister, there is an emphasis on structural musical-rhetorical devices (most notably fugal), which, according to GregoryG. Butler, was a legacy of the relationship between language and music:

… music came to be viewed more and more as a highly effective form ofartful expression imbued with all the learned artifice and persuasivequalities of its sister art, poetry … In the late sixteenth century … thetrend toward the application of rhetorical precept to music manifestsitself in a particular predilection on the part of theorists to refer to certainmusical structures and compositional techniques in terms of specificmusical figures. From the very beginning of this movement, fugue isconspicuous as the most frequently mentioned of these techniques …

This whole movement was largely highly learned and intellectual, evenacademic, in nature, and of course fuga was looked upon as a highlylearned element of composition. Secondly, the fuga was a structure ofgreat artifice and at the same time a highly expressive and affective musicalforce, and therefore highly valued as a powerful musical-rhetorical device.Thirdly, poetry deals largely with verbal imagery, and there is growingevidence that the fuga was thought of in terms of a highly artificial image,and was therefore a prime ingredient of musica poetica.36

However, Vickers suggests that this attention to structural devicesoccurred because Burmeister was still working with the rhetorical sys-tem of the Middle Ages, where:

questions of content were treated as questions of form, and where figuresand tropes were mere verbal devices, unconnected with the feelings andpassions. In [the] Renaissance rhetoric[al] form and feeling cohere again.37

Specific references to fugue tend to occur in the earlier treatises, buteven with the demise of fuga, musical rhetoric still relied on structuraldevices, as well as textual imagery, for effect. Later in this paper, I willargue that the underlying structure of music is inseparable from thesurface effects and that structural devices therefore form an intrinsicpart of ‘effect’.

35. Definitions taken from Bartel, Musica Poetica, passim.36. Gregory G. Butler, ‘Fugue and Rhetoric’, Journal of Music Theory 21 (1977),

49–50.37. Vickers, ‘Figures of Rhetoric/Figures of Music?’, 38.


CL

IMA

X, G

RA

DA

TIO

(Bar

tel)

: (1

) a

sequ

ence

of

note

s in

one

voi

cere

peat

ed e

ithe

r at

hig

her

or l

ower

pit

ch;

(2)

two

voic

es m

ovin

g in

asc

endi

ng o

r de

scen

ding

par

alle

lm

otio

n; (

3) a

gra

dual

inc

reas

e or

ris

e in

sou

ndan

d pi

tch,

cre

atin

g a

grow

th i

n in

tens

ity.

Bur

mei

ster

: T

he c

limax

rep

eats

on

sim

ilar

note

sbu

t on

pit

ches

one

ste

p ap

art

…

Nuc

ius:

It

occu

rs w

hen

two

voic

es p

rogr

ess

upw

ards

or

dow

nwar

ds i

n pa

ralle

l m

otio

n, f

orex

ampl

e, w

hen

the

sopr

ano

and

bass

pro

ceed

in

para

llel

tent

hs o

r th

e ba

ss a

nd t

enor

in

para

llel

thir

ds.

The

use

of

this

fig

ure

is m

ost

freq

uent

at

the

end

of a

com

posi

tion

, to

whi

ch w

e st

rive

to

enga

ge t

he l

iste

ner

who

eag

erly

aw

aits

the

conc

lusi

on.

Wal

ther

: T

he c

limax

or

grad

atio

is

(1)

a w

ord

figu

re,

for

exam

ple,

whe

n th

e w

ords

are

set

as

follo

ws:

Rej

oice

and

sin

g, s

ing

and

glor

ify,

glo

rify

and

prai

se;

(2)

a m

usic

al f

igur

e w

hich

occ

urs

whe

n tw

o vo

ices

pro

gres

s up

war

ds a

nddo

wnw

ards

by

step

in

para

llel

thir

ds;

(3)

whe

n a

pass

age

wit

h or

wit

hout

a c

aden

ce i

s im

med

iate

lyre

peat

ed s

ever

al t

imes

at

prog

ress

ivel

y hi

gher

pitc

hes;

(4)

thi

s te

rm c

an a

lso

be g

iven

to

a fo

ur-

part

can

on in

whi

ch, a

s th

e fi

rst

two

voic

es r

e-en

ter,

each

tim

e on

e no

te h

ighe

r, th

e ot

her

two

voic

es r

emai

n in

the

pre

viou

s ke

y an

d ye

t st

illha

rmon

ise.

AN

AD

IPL

OSI

S(B

arte

l):

(1)

a re

peti

tion

of

a m

imes

is;

(2)

are

peti

tion

of

the

endi

ng o

f on

e ph

rase

at

the

begi

nnin

g of

the

fol

low

ing

one.

Bur

mei

ster

: A

n em

belli

shm

ent

of t

he h

arm

onia

,an

d is

con

stru

cted

out

of

a do

uble

mim

esis

. T

his

orna

men

t is

sim

ilar

to t

he m

imes

is,

for

it r

epea

tsth

at w

hich

was

fir

st in

trod

uced

thr

ough

am

imes

is.

Vog

t:

The

ana

diap

losi

s oc

curs

whe

n w

e fo

rm a

begi

nnin

g ou

t of

the

pre

cedi

ng e

ndin

g.

Mat

thes

on:

The

epa

nale

psis

, ep

istr

ophe

,an

adip

losi

s, p

aron

omas

ia,

poly

ptot

on,

anta

nacl

asis

, pl

oce,

etc

., as

sum

e su

ch n

atur

alpo

siti

ons

that

it a

lmos

t se

ems

as if

the

Gre

ekor

ator

s bo

rrow

ed t

hese

fig

ures

fro

m t

he a

rt o

fm

usic

al c

ompo

stio

n.

For

they

are

pur

ely

repe

titi

ones

voc

um,

repe

titi

ons

of w

ords

, w

hich

are

appl

ied

to m

usic

in

vari

ous

diff

eren

t w

ays.

AN

AB

ASI

S, A

SCE

NSU

S(B

arte

l):

an a

scen

ding

mus

ical

pas

sage

whi

ch e

xpre

sses

asc

endi

ng o

r ex

alte

dim

ages

or

affe

ctio

ns.

Kir

cher

: T

he a

naba

sis

or a

scen

sio

is a

mus

ical

pas

sage

thr

ough

whi

ch w

eex

pres

s ex

alte

d, r

isin

g, o

r el

evat

ed a

ndem

inen

t th

ough

ts,

exem

plif

ied

in M

arol

e’s

Asc

ende

ns C

hris

tus

in a

ltum

.

Spie

ss:

Ana

basi

s or

asc

ensu

s or

asc

ent

occu

rs w

hen

the

voic

e al

so r

ises

as

dire

cted

by

the

text

, for

exa

mpl

e:

He

asce

nded

int

o he

aven

.

PAL

ILO

GIA

(Bar

tel)

: a

repe

titi

on o

f a

them

e ei

ther

at

diff

eren

tpi

tche

s in

var

ious

voi

ces

or o

n th

e sa

me

pitc

h in

the

sam

e vo

ice.

Bur

mei

ster

: T

he p

alilo

gia

is a

rep

etit

ion

of e

ithe

rth

e en

tire

or

only

the

beg

inni

ng o

f th

e st

ruct

ure

ofth

e m

elos

or

them

e on

the

sam

e pi

tch

in t

he s

ame

voic

e, o

ccur

ring

wit

h or

wit

hout

int

erve

ning

res

tsin

all

even

ts i

n on

e vo

ice.

Wal

ther

: T

he p

alilo

gia

refe

rs t

o an

all-

too-

freq

uent

rep

etit

ion

of t

he s

ame

wor

ds.

AU

XE

SIS

(Bar

tel)

: Su

cces

sive

rep

etit

ions

of

a m

usic

alpa

ssag

e w

hich

ris

e by

ste

p.

Bur

mei

ster

: T

he a

uxes

is o

ccur

s w

hen

the

harm

onia

gro

ws

and

incr

ease

s w

ith

a si

ngle

twof

old,

thr

eefo

ld,

or f

urth

er r

epet

itio

non

ly o

f co

mbi

ned

cons

onan

ces

[noe

ma]

usin

g on

e an

d th

e sa

me

text

.

Wal

ther

: T

he a

uxes

is o

ccur

s w

hen

apa

ssag

e or

mel

ody

is r

epea

ted

twic

e or

thre

e ti

mes

, w

hile

at

the

sam

e ti

me,

how

ever

, al

way

s ri

sing

hig

her.

Figure 3: Musicial Figures of Repetition

Words and Music46

It is interesting to note that almost without exception the treatiseson musical rhetoric from this time are of German origin. The Italiantradition of musical rhetoric (whose existence is evident from Italianmusic) is largely undocumented. Irving Godt has proposed severalkey questions concerning this subject:

How did rhetoric enter the education of composers who were notGerman? Did they favour particular musico-rhetorical theorists? Didthey – as Unger humorously conjectured about the Italians – compose‘with their rhetoric [texts] in their hands?’ Do national preferences biasthe choice of figures? the mechanics of their musical realization? thedimensions of their application?38

Dietrich Bartel suggests that:

The Italian rejection of music’s numerological and cosmologicalsignificance in favor of its direct affective and aesthetic effect led to aform of musical expression which focussed on a modern aestheticprinciple of expressing and stirring the affections rather than explainingthe text. Although the text was central to musical composition, it becamethe springboard for musical expression rather than the object of thecomposition. The expressive musical devices which characterize the Italiannuove musiche were developed with an aesthetic rather than exegeticprinciple in mind. Instead of introducing an intermediate level of linguisticand theological significance to the musical phenomena as was done inLutheran Germany, the Italians sought to speak directly and immediatelyto the senses.39

Again, this comment indicates a culture steeped in rhetoric, the goalbeing to move the listener; however, judging by this comment and thelack of documented evidence, the Italians seem to have taken a more‘direct’ approach to the expression of the text. With the modern re-vival of interest in this area of music, attempts were made to set up a‘standardized’ Doctrine of the Affections – which had never been inhistorical existence:

38. Irving Godt, ‘Italian Figurenlehre? Music and Rhetoric in a New York Source’,Studies in the History of Music 1 (1983), 179.

39. Bartel, Musica Poetica, p. 59. The pre-eminence of Germans in the applicationof rhetorical terminology and theory to music must also be connected with thepresence, side by side, of grammar and music in the obligatory syllabus of theLutheran Lateinschule. See Paul Mark Walker, Theories of Fugue from the Ageof Josquin to the Age of Bach (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press,2000), pp. 130–6.


Problems arise only when the theorists from Burmeister onwards arescanned today in order to erect a system of Affekten, a rhetoric supposedlyfollowed by important composers of that period.40

Attempts by writers such as Brandes, Unger and Schmitz to organize themultitude of musical figures into a few categories have not provedsuccessful.41

Therefore, if an analysis of music from this period is carried out, whileit is important to consider the role of Figurenlehre, the whole areamust be approached with a strong dose of caution. To achieve a suc-cessful result, some background knowledge is needed. The extent towhich composers recognized and used these figures in their music gen-erally must first be established. Some knowledge of the treatises incirculation at the same time must also be gathered.

While there are certainly similarities between language and music,there are also differences that cannot be ignored. Music will never beable to express autonomously an ‘idea’ since it does not employ wordsas a vehicle: a musical ‘idea’ is going to be a very different conceptfrom a linguistic idea – music cannot communicate a concrete state-ment in the same way as language. Notes cannot be strung together tocreate the equivalent of words. A musical sentence will not be under-stood in the manner of a linguistic sentence where the words have anatural hierarchy, are both referent and logical and ultimately haveconcrete meaning. While both music and language are temporal arts(that is, they exist in time), music is in effect two-dimensional in com-parison with language. It depends on a different set of criteria for thecreation of its meaning:

The meaning of music can be specified – in a crude over-simplificationthat neglects the emotional characteristics – as inner coherence of therelations among the tones constituting a work … Musical meaning isintentional; it exists only in so far as a listener grasps it.42

40. Peter Williams, ‘The Snares and Delusions of Musical Rhetoric: Some Examplesfrom Recent Writings on J. S. Bach’, in Peter Reidemeister and Veronika Gutmann(eds), Alte Musik: Praxis und Reflektion (Winterthur: Amadeus, 1983), p. 231.

41. Buelow, ‘Rhetoric and Music’, p. 795. The works referred to are: Brandes, Studienzur musikalischen Figurenlehre im 16. Jahrhundert; Hans-Heinrich Unger, DieBeziehungen zwischen Musik und Rhetorik im 16.– 18. Jahrhundert (Würzburg:Triltsch, 1941); Arnold Schmitz, Die Bildlichkeit in der wortgebundenen MusikJ. S. Bachs (Mainz: Schott, 1950).

42. Carl Dahlhaus, Esthetics of Music, trans. by William Austin (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 1982), p. 12.

Words and Music48

translated literally in musical terms, others may express certain con-cepts in musical terms perhaps better than in linguistic ones. So, onceagain, an element of caution must be exercised when undertakinganalysis in rhetorical terms, especially in relation to the parallels thatexist between language and music.

II A Comparison of Modern Views on Rhetoric with those of theEighteenth Century

The work of present-day theorists that is relevant to this study en-compasses a variety of areas, from textual representation to linguistictheory and models. However, given the focus of this paper, I shallconcentrate on the theorists who seek to present their own ‘updated’views and interpretation of musical rhetoric as discussed in seven-teenth- and eighteenth-century treatises. This subject has already beendiscussed to a limited extent in the preceding section; the present sec-tion will continue the investigation and will seek to offer an evalua-tion of the significance and worth of such present-day views.

Towards a Modern Interpretation of RhetoricIrving Godt makes the point, in an unpublished work on textual rep-resentation, that many modern theoretical works on rhetoric focus onthe application of rhetoric to instrumental music, that ‘our trainingbiases us in favor of abstract, non-verbal, non-interpretive – that isinstrumental – schemes of analysis’.43 It is indeed evident that a num-ber of modern works on rhetoric focus extensively on the instrumen-tal application of the art. The current perception that instrumentalmusic holds more interest for analysis than vocal music traces its ori-gin back to the late eighteenth century:

By 1799, an anonymous reviewer of four symphonies of Mozart couldgo so far as to proclaim that a composer displays the greatest geniusonly in instrumental music, ‘for there he is limited solely to the languageof sounds. His thoughts have clarity in themselves, without beingsupported by poetry’.44

Leonard Ratner’s celebrated study of music of the Classical period

43. Irving Godt, ‘Music about Words: Madrigalisms and other Text Influences inMusic’ (manuscript, 1990), p. 19.

44. Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung 1 (1799), col. 494, cited in Bonds, WordlessRhetoric, pp. 9–10.


accordingly concentrates on instrumental music. As the previous quo-tation implies, the so-called Classical era was a period when the bal-ance between vocal and instrumental music began to shift decisivelyin favour of instrumental music.

Ratner’s aim is to establish how expression was created in music ofthis time by drawing on the arguments presented in eighteenth-cen-tury treatises and then analysing music of the period in accordancewith them. In his book the emphasis remains very much on instru-mental works. Vocal music is not completely ignored, but when Ratnerventures to discuss various vocal genres, he takes an ‘instrumentalist’approach. True, he recognizes the historical reality that:

Classic vocal music had a rich and extensive repertory. It was performedmore often and by greater numbers of people than pure instrumentalmusic … vocal music in classic times retained the superior position ithad enjoyed in the earlier eighteenth century.45

But whereas he acknowledges the necessity of the text for vocal mu-sic, Ratner seems to be most interested in the general compositionalstyle and the details of the accompaniment (both of obvious impor-tance when setting a piece, but only two among many considerations).Any reference to narrativity or textual influences is usually non-spe-cific. Ratner recognizes the occurrence of word-painting in vocal mu-sic and uses the same term as Koch (pictorialism) to describe its equiva-lent in instrumental music.46 Koch makes the following comment aboutpictorialism:

When certain sounds and motions out of inanimate Nature, such as therolling of thunder, the tumult of the sea, the rustle of the wind and such,are imitated in music, this is called tone painting. Some such similaritiesexist between natural phenomena and musical tones and one can transferthem to music; but music betrays its nature when it takes over suchdescriptions, since its one and only object is to depict the feelings of theheart, and not the picture of inanimate things. Most devices for tonepainting are objectionable, even though they allow the imagination freeplay, since they divert the attention from the principal content to accessorythings, and therefore deprive the feelings of that which will maintain

45. Leonard G. Ratner, Classic Music: Expression, Form and Style (New York:Schirmer, 1980), p. 157.

46. Word-painting can be considered a part of the musical-rhetorical language ofthe time. It can be defined as a more literal representation of the content of thetext, another strategy for ‘persuading’ the listener.

Words and Music50

them musically … However, occasionally there are instances in whichtone paintings are immediately related to the state of the soul or where itcan express the stirring of feelings.47

Koch’s stance is clear and in line with contemporary thought – hiscomments reflect the philosophy of Descartes in Passions d’âme (seesection I).

In our own day and age, an understanding of rhetoric easily be-comes reduced to an exercise in simple labelling: it is thought possibleto understand whatever we want to understand from the writings ofthe time without searching for any deeper meaning. And this is ex-actly what Ratner has done. His section entitled ‘Rhetoric’ draws inmany components that belong specifically to the dispositio and elocutiodivisions of the art subsumed under this non-specific heading.48 Thusrhetoric is made into an all-embracing term, used to describe the ‘whole’Art of Eloquence. The word should not be used merely to refer to itsconstituent parts, such as Figurenlehre, since this is how many mis-conceptions about the subject have arisen.

Ratner provides a list of terms used to describe melodic relation-ships without acknowledging any specific sources. He fails to catego-rize rhetorical terminology clearly, and as a result, his list contains aconfusing mixture of musical figures, components of oratorical/musi-cal structure and stages of composition.49 For example, he describesthe musical-rhetorical figure anaphora merely as a ‘repetition’ with-out elaborating further or stating his source. In contrast, Bartel’s defi-nition (condensed from a variety of sources that include Burmeister,Kircher, Walther, Mattheson and Forkel) runs as follows:

ANAPHORA, REPETITIO: (1) a repeating bass line; ground bass; (2) arepetition of the opening phrase or motive in a number of successivepassages; (3) a general repetition.50

Ratner also admits to the list melodic relationships that are not actualfigures. For example, peroratio and narratio are components of thestructure of an oration. If Ratner’s own analytical example is exam-ined, one discovers how idiosyncratically he interprets rhetorical

47. Heinrich Koch, Musikalisches Lexikon (Frankfurt am Main: Hermann d.J, 1802),p. 924, quoted in Ratner, Classic Music, p. 25.

48. Ratner, Classic Music, pp. 31–206.49. Ibid., pp. 91–2.50. Bartel, Musica Poetica, pp. 184–90.


terms.51 He labels one phrase-ending peroratio (conclusion), in effectturning what is treated as a structural term by Baroque theorists intoa mere figure. He also includes dispositio in his list: dispositio wasactually one of the phases of composition, a process of invention. Tomake matters worse, Ratner also refers to the ‘Doctrine of Affections’as a concrete ‘existence’. In fact, this never existed as an accepteddoctrine in the eighteenth century.52

A further shortcoming of Ratner’s book is the author’s confusinguse of the terms ‘figures’ and ‘topics’:

From its contacts with worship, poetry, drama, entertainment, dance,ceremony, the military, the hunt and life of the lower classes, music inthe 18th century developed a thesaurus of characteristic figures, whichformed a rich legacy for classic composers. Some of these figures wereassociated with various feelings and affections; others had a picturesqueflavor. They are designated here as topics – subjects for musical discourse.Topics appear as fully worked-out pieces, i.e., types, or as figures andprogressions within a piece, i.e., styles. The distinction between typesand styles is flexible; minuets and marches represent complete types ofcomposition, but they also furnish styles for other pieces.53

Ratner views ‘topics’ (and ‘styles’) as separate from ‘melodic’ rhetoricand segregates the latter from the former in his book. Word-paintingis treated as a category of ‘styles and topics’, and is likewise discussedin isolation from melodic figures. Ratner would have done better toshow that these same ‘topics’ and ‘styles’ were in fact a continuationor extension of musical-rhetorical figures. For nothing in music is everstatic: the use of rhetorical figures, like everything else, has undergoneconstant development and transformation. If a selection of seventeenth-and eighteenth-century works on the subject is examined, the applica-tion of rhetoric can be seen to evolve as time passes. It is fair to recog-nize, however, that Ratner is aware of this, even if he does not drawout its full implications:

Classic Music inherited its expressive attitudes from the baroque era,but modified the formalized sustained unity of baroque expression bymeans of frequent contrasts …54

51. Ratner, Classic Music, p. 105.52. See George J. Buelow, ‘Affections, Doctrine of the’, in Sadie (ed.), New Grove,

1st edition, vol. 1, pp. 135–6.53. Ratner, Classic Music, p. 9.54. Ibid., p. 30.

Words and Music52

In general, there seems to be a divide between modern historians spe-cializing in Baroque and Classical music respectively. While many re-cent writings on Classical music are admirably comprehensive andacknowledge its connections with rhetoric, they fail to grasp the truemeaning of the discipline or to explain exactly what its relationshipwas to musical form and textual expression. Baroque specialists seem,on the whole, to have the greater understanding. Naturally, one wouldnot expect a clear break between Baroque and Classical practice inrespect of their dependence, or non-dependence, on rhetorical modelsand concepts. Music was, and is, a constantly evolving process; aswith anything that evolves, elements of old and new are fused to-gether.

Despite this apparent neglect (and also misrepresentation) of rheto-ric, the widespread recognition of so-called ‘topics’ in Classical music(pioneered in Ratner’s own work, and continued in studies by otherpresent-day theorists) constitutes an acknowledgement by them thatvarious musical devices recur significantly in music for expressivepurposes. ‘Topics’ are, indeed, the modern equivalent of the rhetoricalconcept of Figurenlehre.55

Mark Evan Bonds’s Wordless Rhetoric: Musical Form and the Meta-phor of the Oration is concerned largely with the relationship be-tween musical form and rhetoric, or with how oratory relates to mu-sical form. Bonds concentrates on sonata form, and his discussionconcerns only instrumental music. While this area of study has initself little relevance for the present paper, the background researchon rhetoric that Bonds has undertaken is extensive and provides manyvaluable insights. The author himself comments on the fact that musi-cal rhetoric has largely been ignored in writings on Classical Music:

Another common objection to interpreting Classical form through theimagery of rhetoric is the notion that this approach represents anoutmoded vestige of Baroque thought. In point of fact, the applicationof this image specifically to the idea of large-scale, movement-lengthform did not gain widespread acceptance until the second half of theeighteenth century. What little attention has been given to musical rhetoricin the Classical era has tended to focus on one rather specific element ofthe field, the device of musico-rhetorical figures.56 And while there can

55. Kofi Agawu is another musicologist who refers to musical ‘topics’ in Classicalmusic: Playing with Signs: A Semiotic Interpretation of Classical Music (Princeton,NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991).

56. Here Bonds cites Ratner’s Classic Music as one such example; others include WyeJamison Allanbrook’s Rhythmic Gesture in Mozart (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1983).


be no question that the use of figures and topics survived well into theClassical era, it is clear that this practice, important as it may be,constitutes only one facet of the broader idea of music as a rhetoricalart.57

This last statement is essentially the concept that section I attemptsto communicate. I do not agree in full with Bonds’s claim that Ratner’swork focuses primarily on musical-rhetorical figures. Ratner’s sec-tion on rhetoric appears, rather, to encompass a range of subjectsthat conform to the broader concept of music as a rhetorical art,whereas his section on Figurenlehre is in fact very limited and limit-ing. True, there is a current obsession with Figurenlehre, and Bonds’scomment that modern theorists concerned with the Classical Erafocus too narrowly on musical-rhetorical figures can be extended tomodern writings on Baroque Music as well:

Greater enthusiasm for the third part of rhetoric, style and expression,led to a wide-ranging application of figures and tropes to music bytheorists of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries … a task takenup with equal enthusiasm by their musicological counterparts of thefirst half of the twentieth century – Schering, Brandes, Gurlitt, Ungerand Bukofzer.58

As briefly discussed in section I and also earlier in the present sec-tion, the authors just mentioned attempted to categorize and sortfigures into a fictive ‘Doctrine’ that had in reality never existed.These initial forays into the history of musical rhetoric have pro-voked a spate of later writings on (mainly) musical-rhetorical fig-ures in an attempt to correct this line of thought or to play downthe effect of rhetoric in the eighteenth century. Peter Williams andBrian Vickers are two representatives of what could be termed

57. Bonds, Wordless Rhetoric, p. 8.58. Sisman, Haydn and the Classical Variation, p. 21. Sisman refers to the follow-

ing works: Arnold Schering, ‘Die Lehre von den musikalischen Figuren’,Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch 21 (1908), 106–14; Heinz Brandes, Studien zurmusikalischen Figurenlehre im 16. Jahrhundert (Berlin: Triltsch & Huther, 1935);Willibald Gurlitt, ‘Musik und Rhetorik’, Helicon 5 (1943), 67–86; Hans-HeinrichUnger, Die Beziehungen zwischen Musik und Rhetorik; Manfred Bukofzer, ‘Al-legory in Baroque Music’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 3(1939–40), 1–21.

Words and Music54

musical-rhetorical sceptics, the former’s message being similar to thepoint I attempted to make in the first section of this chapter. Contraryto Sisman’s understanding of Peter Williams’s article, ‘The Snares andDelusions of Musical Rhetoric’ (she writes, ‘Williams argues scath-ingly that unless one can document a composer’s intentions, labelingfigures accomplishes virtually nothing’), I would claim that Williamsis merely concerned to warn the reader that Figuren were not a set orestablished collection of musical figures, which once applied can giveus the complete and absolute meaning of the piece:59

Of all musicians, young performers need to be warned away from easyanswers or from a doctrinaire adoption of any oblique angle-of-attack.One such angle that is summed up by the term Rhetoric … A key, atempo, a tessitura, a pattern of notes: such elements in a late Monteverdimadrigal or an early Bach cantata are examined as exempla of a theoryformulated by such-and-such a writer, and the conclusions are presentedas if they are actually saying something more about the music thanlabelling its parts … I hope to show that there are positive benefits froma study of figurae …60

Of course, no playwright or poet uses a dictionary in order to constructhis piece from it; nor did a composer use a theory book from which tomake his motet or his fugue. It is rather that the theorists list, insofar asthey understand them, the devices already used. The better the theorist,the more he sees the implication of the figura he is discussing; and thebetter the composer, the more he extends the figura and its potentialbeyond the dreams of the most imaginative theorist.61

Williams obviously recognizes the significance of Figuren. His workin this field includes a set of articles on ‘Figurenlehre from Monteverdito Wagner’ (quoted above) and a book, The Chromatic Fourth dur-ing Four Centuries of Music, that deals specifically with the descend-ing chromatic fourth in music and recognizes it correctly as a musi-cal figure.62 If, as Sisman infers from Williams’s work, labelling fig-ures deemed by him is such a pointless exercise, why does he pro-ceed to trace the use and development of this figure and others in hiswork?

59. Sisman, Haydn and the Classical Variation, p. 22.60. Williams, ‘The Snares and Delusions of Musical Rhetoric’, 230.61. Peter Williams, ‘Figurenlehre from Monteverdi to Wagner’, The Musical Times

120 (1979), 476.62. Peter Williams, The Chromatic Fourth During Four Centuries of Music (Ox-

ford: Oxford University Press, 1997).


What is becoming apparent during the course of this discussion isthat modern historians and theorists not only hold very divergent opin-ions about rhetoric but also interpret each other’s writings in a mark-edly ‘personal’ way.63 Bonds’s reading of Ratner is not correct – thelatter’s work does not reflect such a concentration on Figuren as hesuggests. Similarly, Sisman’s interpretation of Williams’s work doesnot appear to be fair. Brian Vickers, too, is identified by her as a mu-sical-rhetoric sceptic, when he writes:

Rhetoric, like language, can never – and probably never wants to – escapefrom the constraints of significance, that interplay between the sign-systemof the individual and that of society which constitutes our shared,negotiable but still ultimately agreed and exchanged meanings.64

But again, like that of Williams, Vickers’ message is intended partly asa caution: Vickers warns that musical-rhetorical devices are not nec-essarily indicative of expression, since the direct translation of a lin-guistic figure into a musical figure is a difficult thing to accomplishsuccessfully. Vickers points out:

If we examine in detail the music theorists’ account of the rhetoricalfigures we see that in all cases the literary effect has to be narroweddown, or fundamentally transposed. Where anaphora in rhetoricdescribes the repetition of a word at the beginning of clauses andsentences, in Burmeister it involves ‘the imitation of a musical subject inonly some of the voice parts’.65

The application of rhetoric to music must ultimately be understoodin the context of music alone. Literal ‘translations’ of Figuren do notwork, and this was indeed not the aim of the composers of the eigh-teenth century: their aim was, rather, to create an overall affect thatcould be interpreted and understood by the listener – not a case of ‘thecomposer saying something specifically’.

Interest in musical rhetoric has grown steadily over the past fewdecades. This becomes evident if the articles on ‘Rhetoric and Music’from the first (1980) and second (2001) editions of the New Grove

63. This is not unusual: all rhetoricians from the Rhetorica ad Herennium andQuintilian through to Koch disagree with each other and sometimes (it seems)with themselves. Modern writers, who have aims very different from those ofthe old rhetoricians, are not specialists in the art. They tend to select those sourcesof material that will best support their modern preoccupations.

64. Vickers, ‘Figures of Rhetoric/Figures of Music?’, 44.65. Vickers, In Defence of Rhetoric, p. 364.

Words and Music56

Dictionary of Music are compared.66 While the main body of the article,originally by Buelow, has been retained for the more recent edition, thesections on music and rhetoric pre- and post-Baroque have been extended.The bibliography to this updated version is much more comprehensiveand testifies to the continuing research in this area during the past twentyyears. The weakness of the recent version lies in its retention in unalteredform of the examples of musical-rhetorical figures:

The author, George J. Buelow, rightly notes that ‘in this basically Germantheory of musical figures there are … numerous conflicts in terminologyand definition among the various writers, and there is clearly no onesystematic’ doctrine (p. 794). He also notes that attempts so far ‘toorganize the multitude of musical figures into a few categories have notproved successful’ (p. 795). Having made these sensible caveats, he thenproceeds to give the “most frequently cited musical figures in an equallyarbitrary’ group. Yet his grouping is not just arbitrary, but also confused.He lists sixty one figures, with many musical examples, an impressive-looking detailed demonstration. However, it runs together definitionsby seven or eight theorists between 1601 and 1788, including the eccentricNucius, whose bizarre confusion of homoioteleuton and aposiopesis isnow enshrined in this authority for the next century.67 What is any onewho knows rhetoric to make of the following entry?

Complexio (Nucius) = Symploce (Kircher) = Epanalepsis (Gottsched) =Epanadiplosis (Vogt). The repetition at the end of the melody or a wholemusical section from the musical section from the beginning (p. 795).

Here three different musical figures are identified with each other, andgiven a musical definition vague enough to apply to two of them, atleast. What the user cannot know is whether the theorists from Nucius(1612) to Gottsched (1754) all refer to the same musical effect, eventhough using totally different rhetorical figures to describe it.68

The identification and categorization of musical-rhetorical figures inthe New Grove is far too general and thus a cause for concern. Thepublisher promotes the dictionary as an authoritative source of infor-mation, yet this section of the article both misinforms the reader and

66. George J. Buelow, ‘Rhetoric and Music’; George J. Buelow, Peter A. Hoyt, andBlake Wilson, ‘Rhetoric and Music’, in Stanley Sadie (ed.), The New GroveDictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd edition, 29 vols (London: Macmillan,2001), vol. 21, pp. 260–75.

67. This is literally now so, since this information has been re-used for the 2001edition of the New Grove.

68. Vickers, ‘Figures of Rhetoric/Figures of Music?’, p. 39.


omits critical information in its overly general descriptions of musi-cal-rhetorical figures. The shortcomings of this article may be recog-nized only by those who have some knowledge of the field; since areference work is there to assist those requiring knowledge, it shouldat least be accurate. There is a final irony in all this: Vickers’ ‘critical’article (quoted above) is actually included in the updated bibliogra-phy in the second edition of the New Grove.

Possibly the best reference work on the subject of musical rhetori-cal figures is Dietrich Bartel’s Musica Poetica, translated into Englishfrom his original Handbuch der Musikalischen Figurenlehre.69 A num-ber of descriptions by various theorists are provided for each musicalfigure, making it possible to assess the difference between the variousdefinitions. Several appendices are provided, allowing the cross-refer-encing of figures according to their varying definitions and associa-tion with different theorists. Interestingly, Bartel bases one of his ap-pendices on Buelow’s categorization of figures. However, where Buelowfails, Bartel succeeds, mainly on account of his careful attention todetail, which results in a better system of classification.70

III A Rhetorical Analysis

Zelenka: ‘Crucifixus’ from Missa Paschalis ZWV 7The following case study constitutes an attempt to discover exactlyhow heavily steeped in rhetoric the music of the chosen period was.After just one analysis it is naturally impossible to draw any definitiveconclusions, but nonetheless, this is a useful exercise since it high-lights both the advantages and the pitfalls of an ‘immanent’ analysisof this type.71 At this point it is important that the distinction betweenword-painting and rhetorical figures should be reiterated. Musical

69. Dietrich Bartel, Handbuch der musikalischen Figurenlehre (Laaber: Laaaber-Verlag, 1985); see above, n. 33.

70. Bartel, Music Poetica, pp. xiv and 444–8.71. While an ‘immanent critique’ (in Kantian terms, a critique conducted within a

system recognised by the creator of the object studied) is always valuable, it isvital that when presented in a study such as Ratner’s, it should maintain itsintegrity. There is always a lurking danger of incoherence and confusion wher-ever old (in many versions!), semi-modernized and modern concepts and termsare allowed to mingle promiscuously without careful distinction.

Words and Music58

rhetoric is similar to ‘linguistic’ rhetoric in that it actually employsstructural devices in order to create the desired effect. For example, inlanguage rhetorical effect might be achieved by repetition of a par-ticular word or phrase: maybe directly after the first statement, maybeat some later stage in the text (See Figure 2 for examples of theseFigures of Speech). A similar effect can be attained in music by apply-ing the same principles. Word-painting, however, is concerned withthe more literal expression of the text. Structural rhetorical devices, aswe shall see, may or may not contribute to word-painting in part, oras a whole.

AnalysisThis short section of the Mass has been selected as subject for a rhe-torical analysis for a number of reasons. First, because of constraintson length, it seemed sensible to select a section of music that wasfairly compact (even though this created problems for some aspects ofthe analysis: see below, ‘Deep Level: Analysis of Rhetorical Structure’),and the chosen ‘Crucifixus’ setting met this criterion. The text, thoughshort, offers relatively great potential for word-painting, thereby per-mitting an evaluation of this rhetorical feature. The final reason wasthat in its original context, this case-study formed only one of severalcomparable analyses of ‘Crucifixus’ settings, so there was backgroundinformation on which I could draw in order to argue for the value ofthis method of analysis.72

Zelenka’s ‘Crucifixus’ from his Missa Paschalis ZWV 7 is typicalof the genre in many ways (see Table 3). The mode selected is minor,as befits music that attempts to describe the tragedy of the Crucifix-ion (B minor moving to F sharp minor). The open tonality of thissection arguably creates the impression of incompleteness: it impliesthat the Crucifixion, death and burial of Christ was not final, but thatthere was something more to happen – the death of Christ was astarting point for another event. The setting as a whole is chromatic

72. The study entailed the collection and examination of over one hundred settingsof the ‘Crucifixus’ produced by German and Italian composers during the pe-riod 1680–1800. The purpose of the study was to provide evidence to supportthe view that there was a tradition of ‘Crucifixus’ setting handed down fromcomposer to composer; see Jasmin Cameron, ‘The Crucifixion in Music: AnAnalytical Survey of Settings of the “crucifixus” between 1680 and 1800’ (Ph.D.thesis, University of Liverpool, 2001, publication forthcoming, Scarecrow Press).


Table 3: Crucifixus Conventions

Crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Pilato, passus et sepultus est.He was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried.

Category Convention

‘CONTEXTUAL’ • Minor tonality(conventions that help • Often tonally opento provide a back- • Slower tempo marking*ground to the setting • Reduced scoring*itself or occur as part • Often distinct section within the Credoof the surroundingCredo) * within the context of the Credo

‘DIRECT’ Action Phrases(conventions associatedwith the words them- ‘Crucifixus’selves) • the musical sign of the cross (zig-zag

arrangement of pitches)• ‘excruciating’ intervals, such as diminished or

augmented fourths and fifths• use of sharps (in original notation taking the

form of a cross); the German word for sharp is‘kreuz’, which means ‘cross’

‘passus’ suffering is endured over time,therefore methods of musical depiction include:• longer, melismatic phrases, including long-

drawn-out notes, syncopation, andsuspensions

• syllabic setting on two notes of exceptionallength

‘et sepultus est’• downward movement of lines to symbolize

burial• the repetition for emphasis of ‘et sepultus est’:

a similar device is to have a final a capellastatement (in the context of settings employinginstruments)

Words and Music60

in nature, bordering at some points on the extremes of dissonance.The tempo is slow, and the vocal scoring for this setting is SATB,representing a collective (rather than individual) commentary, as onemight expect for this section of text. The choice of many of the mo-tives is, again, typical for a setting of the ‘Crucifixus’; these will bediscussed in more detail at a later stage of this analysis.

I have attempted to apply a rhetorical analysis to this setting. Theanalysis is not intended to be exhaustive, and there are reservationsabout this analytical method that will need to be expressed as an inte-gral part of this case study. Some of these caveats have already beenmentioned during the first section of this paper, while others have

Category Convention

‘DIRECT’ Contextual Phrases‘etiam pro nobis’ (harbours little potential forword-painting)‘sub Pontio Pilato’• narrative, speechlike setting• dactylic rhythms highlighting the rhythmic

vitality of the words

‘INDIRECT’ • chromatic harmony(overall expression • chromatic harmony.lamento bass line (aof text) descending, chromatic line spanning a fourth)

• chromatic harmony.choral rather than soloscoring, in order to represent a collectivecommentary (by the community of Christians),as befits the subject of the text

‘STRUCTURAL’ • a strong sense of beginning-middle-end,(organizational corresponding to the rhetoricalstrategies) exordium … peroratio

• settings tend to begin with ‘Crucifixus’ andend with ‘et sepultus est’, even though theintervening text may be ‘jumbled’

• some form of climactic point• a structure driven by words


only come to light during the practical application of the analyticalprocedure.

Deep Level: Analysis of Rhetorical StructureThis proved very difficult to apply to a mere section of a whole Mass.Even given an understanding of the classical structure of an oration anda knowledge of how music theorists of the day based their methods ofstructure on it, it proved difficult to relate the discrete stages specificallyto this (or other) settings of the ‘Crucifixus’. The exordium and peroratiostages were fairly straightforward to pinpoint within the setting: natu-rally, the beginning and the end (the peroratio is here most definitely theconcluding statement following the rest in all parts in bar 11). How-ever, any attempt to match the various structural middle stages to thecontent of this ‘Crucifixus’ proves very difficult indeed, especially if, forexample, Burmeister’s guidelines (Section1) are employed. Here,Burmeister refers to the structure of a piece governed by fugal techniqueand proceeds to describe the various sections in this light. Mattheson’sschema (Section 1), which has six sections, is equally difficult to apply,but I think that this is largely because such a short section of music hasbeen put under the microscope. Mattheson refers to six ‘sections’ ofcompositional structure: in a piece consisting of a mere thirteen bars, itwill be difficult to accommodate all these sections. It is impossible tofind all the traits that Mattheson describes, such as ‘the entrance orbeginning of the vocal part’, which signifies the narratio, or the ‘wellconceived repetitions’ that constitute the confirmatio. This setting issimply not on a large enough scale to accommodate either of theseelements. It is interesting that of the two descriptions of rhetorical struc-ture, Burmeister’s is the more straightforward, and, interestingly, matchesthe concept of tri-partite structure: the beginning–middle–end paradigm.Also, the fact that this is a vocal piece that is bound so closely to theword setting obviously has an effect on the musical-rhetorical structureof the movement, since the organization of the music is driven, to alarge extent, by the words. Conversely, the rhetorical structure and or-ganization of the words cannot dominate the setting completely, sincethe musical organization and structure also have a major role to play. Acertain amount of common sense needs to be exercised when carryingout an analysis of this kind, and the analyst must be prepared to use hisor her discretion and apply what is sensible, and also to ignore anythingthat would cause the entire analytical procedure to become distorted –by attempting to ‘see’ what does not actually exist.

Words and Music62

Surface Level: Analysis of Rhetorical FiguresAgain, this part of the analysis highlighted some interesting points.The analysis succeeded in proving that the music was steeped in rhe-torical devices that would cumulatively ‘affect’ the listener. In the fol-lowing text I have used the more general descriptions of various mu-sical figures identified by Bartel in his Musica Poetica. The justifica-tion for this, together with other relevant discussion, will be presentedafter the analysis itself. See Example 1 for a labelled version of thissetting.73

1 exclamatio/salto semplice: bar 1, bass notes 2–3, to the ‘-ci-fi-’ of‘crucifixus’. The exclamatio was literally a musical exclamation, the saltosemplice a consonant leap. Here the leap in the vocal line occurs inconjunction with ‘he was crucified’.

2 syncope: for example, bar 2, soprano, notes 1–2; bar 3, tenor, notes 1–2;bar 4, alto, notes 2–3. The term syncope was used to describe an ordinarysuspension.

3 saltus duriusculus: bar 3, bass, notes 2–3, bar 3, notes 2–3. A dissonantleap: in this case, a leap of a diminished fourth.

4 heterolepsis and hyperbaton/exclamatio/salto semplice, bar 2, notes 2–3,tenor. Here, Zelenka writes another musical exclamation underlining theword ‘crucifixus’. The leap of an octave can be described as the musical-rhetorical figure hyperbaton, which Bartel describes as ‘the transfer ofnotes or phrases from their normal placement to a different location’.74 Itcan also be described as the salto semplice. This leap also causes an overlapbetween the alto and tenor ranges; this is known as heterolepsis.

5 palilogia/ mimesis: this occurs between the initial bass statement of ‘etiampro nobis’ in bar 2, and the appearance of the same words in the tenor inbar 3. Palilogia is the reiteration of a phrase, either at the same pitch in thesame voice, or a phrase that is passed to different voices, to appear atdifferent pitches. Mimesis or imitatio is, literally, the imitation of a phrase,where that imitation is not exact, so both the bass and tenor statements of‘etiam pro nobis’ on the third beat of bar 3 could be classed as this. Mimesisalso occurs between the upper voices, the alto echoing the soprano on thesecond beat of the third bar. The first two syllables of this statement of‘etiam pro nobis’ are an augmentation of the rhythm of this motive in thebass. The effect that Zelenka creates in this setting, by using these devices,is one of overlap. He makes a point of overlapping each of the motives, indifferent ways.

73. J. D. Zelenka, Missa Paschalis ZWV 7, GB-Ob Ms. Tenbury 749.74. Bartel, Musica Poetica, p. 441.


6 epizeuzis: the general description for this is ‘an immediate and emphaticrepetition of a word, note, motif or phrase’.75 Epizeuzis is evidentthroughout this setting, but more in the context of a literary-rhetoricaldevice. There are many repetitions of various parts of the text; ‘etiam pronobis’ is repeated, and so is ‘passus’. The concluding statement (bars 11–13) of ‘passus et sepultus est’ is an evident epizeuzus. The quasi-responsorialsetting of ‘sub Pontio Pilato’ (bars 4–6), the soprano leading the lowerthree voices, is another instance of emphatic repetition.

7 noema: a noema is described as a chordal passage that appears within thecontext of a contrapuntal section or piece of music. The responsorialimitation of the lower three voices in bar 5 might be described in this senseas a noema. However, this is not a strict noema, since not all the voicesparticipate in the homophonic texture.

8 palilogia: this occurs exactly between the soprano and alto statements of‘sub Pontio Pilato’ at bars 4 and 5.

9 passus duriusculus (pathopoeia): the passus duriusculus consists of apassage of stepwise chromatic movement (or contains some element ofchromatic alteration). There are two examples of the rising passusduriusculus evident in Zelanka’s ‘Crucifixus’.76 The soprano begins thispassage on a c 2 on the third beat of bar 3, rising to an f 2 in bar 7, beat 4.The bass begins on an f (bar 5, beat 2) and rises via a series of semitonesto b in bar 8. The chromatically rising bass line offers many opportunitiesfor colourful harmony, which Zelenka proceeds to exploit. The two linesoverlap, the soprano beginning the passus duriusculus on the words ‘subPontio Pilato’, which, as already noted, acts as a ‘call’ to the lower voices,which then respond. The bass has exactly the same rhythm as the soprano,but with a delay of half a bar. The passage that makes up the passusduriusculus also fits the description of pathopoeia: a passage that useschromaticism to express the words or, according to Burmeister, is ‘a figuresuited for arousing the affections, which occurs when semitones that belongneither to the mode nor to the genus of the piece are employed andintroduced in order to apply the resources of one class to another’.77 It isinteresting to see that most of this passus duriusculus is used to set theword ‘passus’, and the chromatic harmonies that are a result of this figurelikewise express the word ‘suffering’. Does Zelenka intend, perhaps, asubtle pun between the two meanings of ‘passus’: ‘suffered’ and ‘step’?

75. Ibid.76. Janice B. Stockigt comments that the ‘passus duriusculus descending over the

interval of a perfect fourth’ was ‘a figure that Zelenka usually attempted to incor-porate into “crucifixus” settings’; see Jan Dismas Zelenka: A Bohemian Musicianat the Court of Dresden (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 255.

77. Burmeister, Musical Poetics, p. 175.

Words and Music64

10 synaeresis: the musical rhetorical term for syncopation. Althoughsyncopation is abundant throughout this setting (as a result of theoverlapping techniques that Zelenka uses) its most notable occurrence isin bars 6–8, mainly in the soprano line, where it is used to express theword ‘passus’. As we have already seen, syncopation has the effect ofprolonging a line, which is eminently suitable for the musical depiction ofa word that invites a representation of the passing of time.

11 syncope/prolongatio: a 4–3 suspension occurs between the soprano andbass at bar 10, beat 1. This suspension, in addition to being a syncope, isalso a prolongatio. The latter term was used to describe a suspension inwhich the duration of the dissonance is longer than that of the resolution– here a ratio of two beats to one.

12 aposiopesis: this silence, considered to be representative of death, occursin all parts on the first beat of bar 11. This musical-rhetorical figure appearsin a number of ‘crucifixus’ settings, for example, Haydn employs it togood effect in his Missa Brevis in F.

13 epizeuzis and catabasis: Bars 11–13, all parts: an emphatic reiteration ofthe text that has just appeared before the aposiopesis forms the peroratioof this ‘crucifixus’ setting. Catabasis is evident in the soprano line – adescent from a b1 to an f 1 over these two bars – to express the burial ofthe body. Another syncope/prolongatio occurs between the alto and bass,from bar 12, beat 4, to bar 13, beat 2.

14 cadentiae duriusculus: this figure was used to describe cadences in whichdissonance occurred in the approach chord to the cadence. Here it occursin the form of an unstable 6 chord on the fourth beat of the twelfth bar,and the addition of a dissonant passing note in the tenor line (note 5 in thisbar).

15 paragogue or supplementum: these were terms used to describe some formof elaboration in the upper voices over a pedal point at the end of a pieceof music. Zelenka introduces a pedal note, c , which is held for four beats,while the upper voices have changing harmonies over it.

For a setting of this length, an exceptionally large number of musicalrhetorical figures are present. As stated at the outset, the figures iden-tified here are not intended to form an exhaustive list.

This analytical procedure has uncovered a number of interestingpoints. When I embarked on this analysis, I was all too aware of theprofusion of rhetorical terms in existence. This proliferation of termi-nology proved problematical for the development of an analytical strat-egy for a rhetorical study. One salient problem was that a single termcould easily be used to describe more than one figure. Figure 3 pro-vides examples of this. The opposite problem, that of too many differ-ent terms being used to describe a single figure, also existed. One

4


J. D. Zelenka (1679-1745)Adagio

S.

A.

T.

B.

Org.

Cru

con tutte le Voce e Stromentici

- fi

syncope -

xus

- e

-

Cru

ci

- fi

-

heterolepsis

- - - - -

Cru

ci

- fi

exclamtio/salto semplice

-

hyperbaton

- - - -

Cru

exclamtio/salto semplice

ci- fi

-

saltus duriusculus

xus- - e

ti

- am

palilogia (tenor,bar 3)- pro

6

§5 4

3 6

5

3

S.

A.

T.

B.

Org.

palilogia (soprano and alto)

ti

- am

- pro

no

bis

- - - sub

xus

- e

ti- am

- pro

no

bis,

- -

xus

-

palilogia (bass bar 2, tenor, bar 3)

e ti

- am

- pro

no

bis,

-

no

bis,

saltus duriusculus

- e ti

- am

- pro

no

bis,

-

9

8 7

6

4

#

Example 1: Crucifixus from Missa Paschalis (ZWV 7)

Words and Music66

5

S.

A.

T.

B.

Org.

Pon

passus duriusculus (pathopoeia)

ti

- o

Pi

la

- to,

- pas

synaeresis

sus,- - -

sub

Pon ti

- o

Pi

la

palilogia (soprano and alto) - to,

- pas

- -

epizuezis

sub

Pon ti

- o

Pi

la

-

to,

- pas

-

sub

Pon ti

- o

Pi

la

- to,

- pas

- -

passus duriusculus (pathopoeia)

#

noema (not strict)

6#

5

¾ 6 6

5

65

8

S.

A.

T.

B.

Org.

pas

synaeresis

-

- sus et

syncope/prolongatio

se

pul

-

tus

- est,

sus

- et

se pul

-

- tus- est,

sus

-

et

se

pul

- tus

- est,

sus

- - et

se

pul

- tus- est,

passus duriusculus

6#

4 54 #

§7

6 5 7

#

64

54

6#

#65

2


11

S.

A.

T.

B.

Org.

pas

pp

sus

epizuezis, catabasis

- et

se

pul

-

tus- est.

pas

[pp]

sus

- et

se

pul

-

syncope/prolongatio

tus

- est.

epizuezispas

[pp]

sus

- et

se

pul

- tus- est.

pas

[pp]

sus

- et

se

pul

-

tus

- est.

aposiopseis [pp]

65

64

65

cadentiae duriusculus

¾#

paragogue

#54

#

example is the word hypotyposis, which Burmeister uses as a genericterm for word-painting devices (in this case, I have drawn on a termthat is used in connection with a group of devices). Other terms usedto refer to the same family of figures are assimilatio and homoiosis:

The homoiosis or assimilato is a musical passage through which theattributes of a certain thing are actually expressed, for example whenindividual voices in a passage depict different elements as in the text‘Tympanizant, cytharizant, pulsant nobis fulgent stolis coram summaTrinitate.’ In such a composition the bass represents the mighty tympanumwhile the other voices represent all kinds of other instruments.78

Hypotyposis is that ornament whereby the sense of the text is so depictedthat those matters contained in the text that are inanimate or lifeless arebrought to life. (Burmeister, Musical Poetics)79

78. Bartel, Musica Poetica, p. 208, citing Athanasius Kircher, Musurgia Universalis(Rome, 1650).

79. Burmeister, Musical Poetics, p. 175.

Words and Music68

Thus the most straightforward approach for this analysis was to adoptBartel’s general descriptive overview of various terms and to analyzethe music using this system. It must be emphasized that the resultantanalysis is of necessity a general one. If one were to be more accuratein a rhetorical analysis, one would perhaps attempt to conform strictlyto the rhetorical terminology or system of a single theorist contempo-rary with the composer examined. One might even establish whichparticular theoretical texts the composer in question knew and thenproceed to carry out an analysis on that basis. Table 4 lists the rel-evant theorists of the period, together with their dates.80 Note thatthese overwhelmingly come from the German-speaking areas ofEurope.

There remains the issue of how musical conventions change overtime. It is possible to witness the changing nature of rhetorical termi-nology if the different treatises are compared. Over the passage oftime theorists observed that certain devices were widely used and wouldthen attempt to document them. This shows that the musical vocabu-lary was never static but was constantly evolving. A case in point isBurmeister’s and Nucius’s descriptions of ‘fugal’ figures, which tendnot to feature in later treatises:

During the course of the eighteenth century, fuga is dropped from thelists of musical-rhetorical figures. Not only is the device increasinglyunderstood as an independent musical genre, but it no longer fits intothe affection-oriented emphasis of the late-Baroque concept of the figures.As the figures are increasingly understood and defined according to theirtext expressive and affective potential, fuga loses its place to moreexpressive, rhetorical devices. The class of figures which were minusprincipales and superficiales in the seventeenth century now become themore significant ones.81

This exercise has also illustrated some of the parallels between rhe-torical and semiotic analysis. One striking similarity is the relation ofsurface musical figures to a deeper ‘whole’, which can be likened tothe relation of extroversive (surface) to introversive (deep) semioticanalysis. In the case of semiotics the two are inter-dependent. Withrhetoric and music, the surface devices are likewise inseparable froma deep underlying structure. Musical figures have a specific musical

80. Compiled from Bartel, Musica Poetica.81. Ibid., p. 283.


Table 4: Musical-Rhetorical Theorists81

Name and Dates Title of Treatise Date of Treatise

Joachim Burmeister Hypomnematum musicae Rostock, 1599(1564–1629) poeticae

Music autoschediastike Rostock, 1601Musica Poetica Rostock, 1606

Johannes Nucius Musices poeticae sive de Neisse, 1613(1556–1620) compositione cantus

Joachim Thuringus Opusculum bipartitum Berlin, 1624(dates unknown)

Athanasius Kircher Musurgia Universalis sive ars Rome, 1650(1601–1680) magna consoni et dissoni

Christoph Bernhard Tractatus compositionis Not printed in(1628–1692) augmentus; Bernhard’s

Ausführlicher Bericht vom lifetimeGebrauche der Con- undDissonantien

Wolfgang Casper Phrynis Mytilanaeus oder Dresden/Leipzig,Printz (1641–1717) Satyrische Componist 1696

Johann Georg Ahle Musicalisches Frühlings-, Müllhausen,(1651–1706) Sommer-, Herbst-, und 1695–1701

Winter-Gespräche

Mauritius Johann Vogt Conclave thesauri magnae Prague, 1719(1669–1730) artis musicae

Johann Gottfried Musicalisches Lexicon Leipzig, 1732Walther (1684–1748) Praecepta der musicalischen Ms. 1708

Composition

Johann Mattheson Critica Musica Hamburg, 1713(1681–1764) Das neu-eröffnete Orchestre Hamburg, 1739

Der vollkommene Kapellmeister Hamburg,1722–25

Meinrad Spiess Tractatus musicus Augsburg, 1745(1683–1761) compositorio-practicus

Johann Adolf Scheibe Compendium musices c. 1730(1708–1776) theoretico-practicum

Der critische Musikus Leipzig, 1745

Johann Nikolaus Allgemeine Geschichte der Göttingen, 1788Forkel (1749–1818) Musik

Words and Music70

function and therefore play particular roles within the music: some de-vices are purely structural and therefore have a natural correspondenceto the structure of the piece. Examples of this are the cadential figureparagogue, which theorists describe as appearing at the end of a com-position, and the ‘fugal’ devices, which are employed at particularstages in a composition. There is also evidence in the writings of theo-rists that the Art of Rhetoric was applied to music as a ‘whole’ in thisrespect. The terminology that Burmeister and, more importantly,Mattheson use in their application of the structure of an oration tomusic confirms this (see section 1). Burmeister refers to ‘fugue’, whichnaturally relates to the fugal figures that he has already described.Mattheson uses terms such as ‘repetition’, ‘dissonance’, ‘syncopation’and ‘emphatic impression’ to describe the characteristics of varioussections of musical rhetorical structure. The figures that appear inZelenka’s setting of the ‘Crucifixus’ can be classed as representativesof the various groupings of these figures.82 Palilogia and mimesis areexamples of repetition. The humble syncope is a figure of dissonance.Synaeresis is an example of syncopation, while epizeuzis gives ‘em-phatic impression’. The use of paragogue at the end of the settingcertainly conforms to our expectations of a peroratio figure, as doesthe cadentiae duriusculus. Interestingly, Burmeister calls the paragogue‘supplementum’ and classes it not as a figure as such but rather as partof the structure.

Conclusion

A number of questions are raised by this case study. First, it is clearfrom our analysis that rhetorical figures and structure came instinc-tively to a composer of the time. These features formed an inherentpart of the musical language of the day. It is interesting to discoverthat our modern understanding of compositions of Zelenka’s time toa certain extent recognizes these rhetorical devices — maybe not interms of the exact rhetorical description that composers of the dayused, but in our preferred terms. For example, bars 4-5 provide uswith an example of responsorial imitation, in which the soprano be-

82. Both George. J. Buelow and Dietrich Bartel attempt to group musical rhetoricalfigures into various categories, such as ‘repetition’, ‘silence’ etc. See section II foran evaluation of both attempts at the classification of musical rhetorical figures.


gins a phrase and is answered by the lower three voices. In rhetoricalterminology the contrast of a chordal texture with mainly imitativetechnique is described as noema, and the repetition of this motive indifferent voices but at different pitches is known as palilogia. The useof a suspension, which occurs many times in this setting, is recognizedby us as such, but was known in the eighteenth century by a differentterm, syncope. A comment that Hans-Heinrich Unger made about theItalians springs to mind here: Did they compose “with their rhetoric[texts] in their hands?”83 This same speculation applies equally to theGerman tradition. How mechanical and calculated was this composi-tional process? From the examples that I have collected, it really doesseem that the inclusion of rhetorical devices was so innate that theseemingly rule-bound compositional process in no way hampered thespontaneous inspiration and musicality of these settings.

An ‘immanent critique’ such as the analysis conducted here canprove a valuable contribution to our understanding of music of theseventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is true that rhetoric has beenapplied to this study as an analytical tool rather than being left in itsmore common passive role as a ‘theory’, but the act of analysing hasprovided us with a small insight into the extent of its application tomusic. It should also be remembered that the music of the periodunder discussion had a focus different from that of the present day:texted music. I would suggest that one major, if obvious, reason thatit was such a natural step to apply rhetoric to music was becausemusic with words possessed an extra dimension absent from instru-mental music — a dimension shared with rhetoric itself. Thus theargument for the importance and worth of rhetorical analysis isstrengthened: musical rhetoric inherited from a linguistic system istherefore closely akin to music with words.

My final point deviates slightly from the prime focus of this paper,but nonetheless remains relevant. This analysis has established thatrhetorical figures are clearly evident within Zelenka’s setting. But how-ever prolific they are as individual figures, they rarely make up a com-plete set of topoi that together form the ‘Crucifixus’ tradition. So it isimpossible to state that the word ‘‘crucifixus’’ would or should havebeen set exclusively as a pathopoeia, or an exclamatio or a saltus

83. Unger, Die Beziehungen zwischen Musik und Rhetorik, p. 124; quoted in Godt,‘Italian Figurenlehre?’, 179.

Words and Music72

duriusculus. It is in practice most likely to be a combination of these.For instance, the ‘‘crucifixus’’ subject at the opening of the Caldara’ssixteen-voice setting is a ‘composite’ rhetorical figure consisting of anexclamatio between the first and second notes, a saltus duriusculusbetween the second and third notes, and use of pathopoeia betweenthe third and fourth notes (See Example 2).84 A similar comment canbe made about the word ‘passus’. The section of text ‘et sepultus est’,however, can be equated with one specific device, the catabasis, whichappears to have been reserved specifically for passages of music ex-pressing some element of downward movement. That figure would beclassed as a word-painting rhetorical figure (hypotyposis). This find-ing highlights the fact that the use of rhetoric in music was very mucha unified, integrated operation, the aim of which was to create anoverall effect that would ‘move’ the listener in such a way that thewhole became more significant than the mere sum of its parts.

84. Antonio Caldara, ‘Crucifixus’ a 16 Voci, ed. Charles H. Sherman (Stuttgart:Carus, n.d. [1987]).

1

S. I

S. III

Cru

exclamatio

ci

-

saltusduriusculus

fi

-

pathopoeia

xus

-

Cru

ci

- fi

- xus

-

Example 2

3

Eminem: Difficult Dialogics

David Clarke

Difficult Others and Cultural Pluralism

Bitch I’ma kill you! Like a murder weapon, I’ma conceal youin a closet with mildew, sheets, pillows and film you

My words are like a dagger with a jagged edgeThat’ll stab you in the headwhether you’re a fag or lezOr the homosex, hermaph or a trans-a-vestPants or dress – hate fags? The answer’s ‘yes’

Slim Shady does not give a fuck what you think.

The outpourings of white rapper Eminem (Marshall Mathers III) havenot met with universal acclaim. Women’s groups, gay activists, and USpoliticians have been loudest within the refrain of unnumbered indi-viduals deploring the degeneracy displayed by his malign lines. My epi-graphs, quotations from The Marshall Mathers LP (2000),1 offer clearenough signs of what the trouble is: the usual intractable tropes ofhardcore hip-hop: violence, misogyny, homophobia, and foul language.Such vernacular extremes might breach the decorum of an academicsymposium, but, however sensationally, the incongruous juxtapositionperforms precisely one of the principal points I plan to explore: thequestion of how we liberals are to deal with words and music (or forthat matter any cultural form) that we identify as Other – especiallywhen, as is likely in this case, that Otherness is radically problematical.

My thanks are due to Philip Bohlman and Richard Middleton, who read and help-fully commented on earlier drafts of this paper.

Music reproduced in this chapter is copyright Joel Martin, Eight Mile Style.1. The quotations are taken respectively from the songs ‘Kill You’, ‘Criminal’, and

the album’s opening ‘Public Service Announcement 2000’.

Words and Music74

Of course these days the Other has almost become a platitude ofthe new historical, the new musicological attitude; and pluralism hasfound recognition as a facet of that condition called postmodernism.We’re waking up to a world where any set of truth claims, or aestheticclaims, has to be understood as relative to any other. But relative inwhat sense – and on whose terms? How are we to construe the rela-tionship between the plural coordinates of the postmodern map? Onestarting point might be an idea advanced by Gary Tomlinson in hisarticle ‘Cultural Dialogics and Jazz’, which he calls a ‘parallactic con-ception’:

Parallax is a metaphor for … a way of knowing in which all vantagepoints yield a real knowledge, partial and different from that offered byany other vantage point, but in which no point yields insight moreprivileged than that gained by any other … [T]he deepest knowledgewill result from the dialogue that involves the largest number of differingvantage points.2

It would be grudging not to want to join with Tomlinson in his episte-mological generosity. Yet his picture suggests to me a peaceable king-dom of dialogic exchange that is somewhat utopian. While his ensu-ing analysis of Miles Davis uncovers a fusion of styles and culturalperspectives in support of his argument, other performers, other prac-tices, at other historical junctures might suggest less congenial kindsof difference. Gangsta rap, with its violent imagery and ‘guerrilla raids’on the language of the hegemonic Other which it resists, is one perti-nent example of the enmity that can exist between cultural spaces.Such practices rightly remind us that the business of relativizing some-one else’s cultural framework can be aggressive as well as creative,and that being relativized can be profoundly discomfiting as well asenlightening. However, I raise this point not to dismiss the idea ofcultural pluralism. The very opposite in fact: I am right behindTomlinson in seeking a ‘mode of thought that attempts … to theorizethe space between itself and others – to keep sight, so to speak ofother modes of thought around it by keeping them above its hori-zon’.3 But how are we to proceed when what rises above the horizonhere is the thought – the words and music – of a Difficult Other who

2. Gary Tomlinson, ‘Cultural Dialogics and Jazz: A White Historian Signifies’,Black Music Research Journal 11 (1991), 240.

3. Ibid., 231 (original emphasis).

75Eminem: Difficult Dialogics

probably couldn’t give (to use his own vernacular) ‘two squirts ofpiss’ about being admitted into the space of liberal thought?

Sometimes I wonder about my own fascination with Eminem. (Itseems more than an ocean apart from, say, writing about the tran-scendental aesthetics of Michael Tippett.)4 As a gay-identifying classi-cal musician, I maybe oughtn’t to be messing with him – except tojoin those who would critique the rap star into submission. Yet de-spite the political dubiousness of many of his songs and their at timescoruscating anger, like many fans I can’t help also finding them funny,slick, artful, articulate, entertainingly satirical, and above all stun-ningly performed. I have to admit, then, that on some level I – what’sthe right word? – like? enjoy? this stuff. (Is there a verb meaning to besimultaneously repelled and attracted?) Now, it would clearly be anoutrageous indulgence to work through these private contradictionspublicly – were it not for the fact that they could in some way beparadigmatic of the more general, and I would say urgent, politics ofcultural pluralism just outlined. Like Tomlinson, then, I approach mysubject here with both a strong sense of difference and a sense of ‘thepotential dialogical richness of … interlocutions from outside’.5 Andit may well be that, notwithstanding the more problematic Other inquestion, dialogism still holds a valuable model for negotiating cul-tural pluralism.

Dialogics

As is well known, dialogism’s principal exponents were the Russianliterary theorist Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (1895–1975) and hiscircle.6 If this seems another incongruous juxtaposition alongside hip-

4. See my The Music and Thought of Michael Tippett: Music, Modernity, Meta-physics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Maybe the distance isonly apparent: my oceanic metaphor alludes to Paul Gilroy’s The Black Atlan-tic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (London and New York: Verso, 1993),

5. Tomlinson, ‘Cultural Dialogics’, 230.6. Works by some members of the circle – Voloshinov’s Freudianism: A Marxist

Critique, and Medvedev’s Marxism and the Philosophy of Language – havesubsequently been attributed to Bakhtin himself – though not without conten-tion: see Simon Dentith’s outline of the issues, in his Bakhtinian Thought: AnIntroductory Reader (London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 8–10.

Words and Music76

hop, its pertinence lies in the fact that Bakhtin understood the Word –in contradistinction to the formalism of Saussure – as primarily a dy-namic agent, located within actual utterances determined by theirparticular social and historical nexus, and voiced always in responseto a prior word and in anticipation of a future one:7

The living utterance, having taken meaning and shape at a particularhistorical moment in a socially specific environment, cannot fail to brushup against thousands of living dialogic threads, woven by socio-ideological consciousness around the given object of an utterance; itcannot fail to become an active participant in social dialogue. After all,the utterance arises out of this dialogue as a continuation of it – it doesnot approach the object from the sidelines.8

And this seems to be of no small relevance to rappers such as Eminem,whose wor(l)d draws its very life from altercations with prevailingsocial standpoints and mentalities, and with what others have saidand sung. As Elizabeth A. Wheeler points out:

Like the hip-hop DJ, the Bakhtinian novelist brings ‘together ideas andworldviews, which in real life were absolutely estranged and deaf to oneanother, and force[s] them to quarrel’ … The DJ literally makes dialogueout of ‘preceding utterances – his own and others’ – with which hisgiven utterance enters into one kind of relation or another’.9

Like other commentators, Wheeler negotiates the possibly yawninggap between the historical situation of Bakhtin and that of contempo-rary black performers by establishing a connection with the more id-iosyncratically African-American trope of Signifyin(g) – as formulatedby Henry Louis Gates Jr in his seminal book The Signifying Monkey:

7. See V. N. Volshinov/Bakhtin, ‘Critique of Saussurian Linguistics’, in Pam Mor-ris (ed.), The Bakhtin Reader: Selected Writings of Bakhtin, Medvedev, Voloshinov(London: Edward Arnold, 1994), pp. 25–37.

8. Mikhail M. Bakhtin, ‘Discourse in the Novel’, in Michael Holquist (ed.), TheDialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin, trans. Caryl Emersonand Michael Holquist (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1981), pp. 276–7.

9. Elizabeth A. Wheeler, ‘“Most of My Heroes Don’t Appear on No Stamps”: TheDialogics of Rap Music’, Black Music Research Journal 11 (1991), 196. Wheeler’sreferences are to Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, ed. and trans. CarylEmerson (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), p. 91; andidem, ‘The Problem of Speech Genres’, in Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist(eds), Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, trans. Vern McGee (Austin, TX:University of Texas Press, 1986), p. 69.


A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism.10 Essential to thelink between Bakhtinian dialogism and Signifyin(g) – indeed one madeby Gates himself – is the idea of double-voiced discourse. This tropemakes audible beneath the ostensible signification of an utterance asecond voice, with a different semantic orientation that may actuallyrun counter to the first, as in the case of parody or satire. This in-volves, then, the re-use of an existing word or utterance to give it adifferent take (sometimes comically so) – repetition with a difference.A case in point would be the use of the word ‘nigga’ by black hip-hopartists,11 or ‘queer’ by gay activists (though latterly mostly by academ-ics), which Signify as a parodic, empowering inversion on an origi-nally abusive term. Thus the voice of the subaltern might work frominside the language of a dominant social group in a politicized act ofresistance.12

What all these facets of dialogism share, then, is the idea of register-ing the presence of Others within the horizon of a text, be it musicalor verbal. In what follows I propose to apply and develop these termsof reference to consider how Eminem, and by implication rap musicmore generally, could be seen to do cultural work beyond merely pro-viding material for alienated teenagers to exact revenge on their par-ents. This exploration relates to the theme of this symposium mostobviously by engaging with a musical genre in which the word has aspecial place, but also by examining the usefulness of models of lan-guage to the study of musical practices. This kind of language modelhas a role to play not only in charting a social dimension to musicalsignification, but also, I argue, in helping us think through some ofthe more unsavoury aspects of Eminem’s (and other rappers’) ver-nacular. Not necessarily to vindicate them, though: rather to get be-yond a monological reading and thereby to get a fuller sense of thecomplexity of the situation in which such utterances are made.

10. Henry Louis Gater Jr, The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-AmericanLiterary Criticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985); the concept ofSignifyin(g) is also extensively deployed by Tomlinson in his ‘Cultural Dialogics’article.

11. On the politics of this usage, see Robin D. G. Kelly, ‘Kickin’ Reality, Kickin’Ballistics: Gangsta Rap and Postindustrial Los Angeles’, in William Eric Perkins(ed.), Droppin’ Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), pp. 136–40.

12. See for example Russell A. Potter’s account of ‘guerrilla Signifyin(g)’ by DaLench Mob, in his Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip-Hop and the Politics ofPostmodernism (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1995), pp. 77–9.

Words and Music78

And what are some of those ‘living dialogic threads’ aroundEminem’s words and music? That sublime vernacular medium, theinternet (albeit self-selecting of those with the necessary material re-sources and inclination to use it) offers a valuable window onto theinnumerable utterances his words and music have stimulated, and Ihave exploited it shamelessly in my intelligence-gathering.13 Whileputting the term ‘Eminem’ into a search engine generates hundreds ofthousands of hits, making comprehensive and systematic analysis im-possible, an initial foray suggests that reactions tend to fall into arather smaller set of categories. The following sample constitutes thefirst of several passes in this essay at the discursive situation surroundingEminem. On this occasion, taking my cue from Bakhtin, I ‘orches-trate’ this dissonant social polyphony, blending my voice with thosesampled, but basically allowing these representatives to speak for them-selves:14

1 Performers like Marshall Mathers pose a threat to the children of America.It’s astonishing that he could have received an MTV award for his hate-filled songs. Companies who produce and distribute such music are re-sponsible for creating a debased and violent culture that has a real effecton children’s behaviour.

2 Eminem’s songs are a highly crafted kind of performance poetry that con-tain various kinds of irony. It’s true that his lyrics have caused contro-versy, but you have to remember that the narrative voice in a poem isn’tnecessarily that of the poet himself.

3 Eminem is a misogynist and homophobe, and critics who ply subtle liter-ary readings of his lyrics are misguidedly endorsing what is ultimately areactionary politics. He’s not a rebel – just a bully and a thug. No point intrying to censor him (the First Amendment is cynically exploited anywayby the major corporations, for whom Eminem serves as a whore); but let’sat least try and distinguish the marketing of his hate from real politicalradicalism.

4 Eminem is brilliant. Just because we’re faggots doesn’t mean we have tohate him. His critics – including those from the gay community – are stuckin their predictably clichéd arguments. They miss the ambiguities in hislyrics. They ignore how he offers some kind of insight into disaffected

13. I have drawn encouragement here from a recent project of Allan F. Moore,which explores the internet as a means of investigating popular music reception– as expounded in his paper ‘Reading Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”’, presentedat the IASPM UK and Ireland Conference, University of Newcastle, July 2002.

14. For ‘orchestrate’ in this sense, see Bakhtin, ‘Discourse in the Novel’, p. 263.


culture, how he puts himself on the line to reveal himself as a fucked-upstraight man.

(5) Eminem’s mega-popularity is a disaster for all women and those who careabout them. To claim that there are more sophisticated ways to hear hissongs is to endorse a whole swathe of questionable assumptions underwhich some men construct their masculinity. The way Eminem tells his lifestory perpetuates a damaging mythology about abusive men.

(6) Gay and feminist protest groups who attack Eminem are evading the com-placency of their own, largely white, middle-class situation. They’rescapegoating a figure who’s expressing the justified rage and anti-elitismof his own working-class culture. Let working-class people themselves dealwith his misogyny and homophobia. Meanwhile, middle-class protestersought to back off from criticising Eminem and get on with what should befor them the higher priority of fighting for economic and social justice.15

It would be bogus to seek to render these several positions withacademic disinterest. A character like Eminem demands dialogue, forces

15. These positions are abstracted from the following sources: (1) Lynne Cheney,testimony to US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation,13/9/1999, http://www.senate.gov/~commerce/hearings/0913che.pdf; (2) [Un-signed tutorial article], ‘The Music of Poetry’, http://www.worc.ac.uk/englishonline/access/Poetry/languageofpoetry.html; (3) [Unsigned editorial],‘Swift, Twain, Browning? Nah, it’s Eminem’, Counterpunch, ed. AlexanderCockburn and Jeffrey St Clair, 20/2/2001, http://www.counterpunch.org/eminem.html; (4) Gus Cairns, ‘Why Eminem is Brilliant’, Outcast Magazine,April/March 2001, http://www.outcastmagazine.co.uk/archive.htm; (5) JacksonKatz, ‘8 Reasons why Eminem’s Popularity is a Disaster for Women’, http://www.fradical.com/Eight_reasons.htm; (6) Emi Koyama, ‘In defense of Eminem’,http://eminism.org/interchange/20010225-tfo.html.

I should add that between first writing this paper in Summer 2002 for theLiverpool Words and Music Symposium and proofreading the revised version in2005 there have been interesting shifts in Eminem’s self-representation. For ex-ample, Curtis Hanson’s quasi-biopic 8 Mile (2003) starred Eminem as rapperJimmy ‘Rabbit’ Smith – a relatively sanitized version of himself whose gay-positivebehaviour seems scripted as an overt dialogical response to earlier accusations ofhomophobia; and his first Anger Management tour was accompanied by com-mentary on his increasing maturity (no doubt only coincidental with his contem-poraneous attainment of mainstream popstar status). Disappointingly, though,his 2004 album Encore shows little creative innovation, unless you count an ever-deepening vehemence towards George Dubya. On the one hand, these variousshifts situate the pattern of reception delineated in this essay at what now appearsto be a particular micro-historical moment – the years immediately around 2000.On the other hand, the larger issues under discussion remain relevant to a ratherlonger, arguably still ongoing, historical, and cultural conjuncture.

Words and Music80

us – forces each one of us – to articulate a position in response to hisword. Yet is it just liberal dithering to hesitate to side unequivocallywith one of these standpoints? I would hope that this might instead bea symptom of something more strenuous: a resistance to monologism,a refusal to register only a single perspective. Rather than being anattitude of value neutrality that accepts all views as equally valid,dialogism demands that the individual discursive position we mustnecessarily formulate admit a moment of accountability, in the face ofothers who speak from different situations arising from different indi-vidual and social histories. As Michael Holquist points out, dialogismdoes more than note the co-presence of a subject’s utterances and thoseof his or her others; there is also a vital third term: the relation be-tween them.16 To adapt another notion from Bakhtin, the complexdialogical relations here together constitute an architectonics.17 And ifwe are to understand how these often incommensurable utterancesrelate within a larger discursive situation, we shall need to sketch outsome of the personal, social, and generic contexts from which theyemanate. This will constitute a second – this time more interpretative– pass at our material.

Situation

Eminem’s situation is fundamentally that of being a white performerin a black genre. This is not to essentialize, but rather to point to hip-hop’s historical emergence from substantially (though not exclusively)black traditions.18 Polarized against a dominant white culture, its toneis characterized by: attitude (which Russell A. Potter characterizeswith the succinct words of female gangsta rapper Bo$$: ‘I don’t give afuck, not a single fuck, not a single solitary fuck, motherfucka!’),19

16. Michael Holquist, Dialogism: Bakhtin and his World (London and New York:Routledge, 1990), p. 38.

17. See, for example, Bakhtin, Toward a Philosophy of the Act, trans. VadimLiapunov, ed. idem and Michael Holquist (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press,1993), p. 54ff.

18. The exclusion here of references to, among other things, Latino culture, anotherimportant strand in hip-hop and its origins, is a pragmatic abbreviation hope-fully not detrimental to the present discussion.

19. Potter, Spectacular Vernaculars, p. 71.


competitiveness (as in the practices of boasting, playing the dozens, ordissing), and polemic (in which misogyny and homophobia play apart, however questionable). All these aspects could be understood asbeing motivated by a resistant stance which is implicitly, or – in thework of black gangsta rappers such as Dr. Dre (Andre Young), IceCube (O’Shea Jackson) and Tupac Shakur – explicitly, political – revo-lutionary even. For white rappers like Eminem to display attitude, toboast, and to diss need not be considered cultural appropriation, asthese behaviours can be seen as pretty much common property (al-though an ethnic outsider might feel the need for even greater over-determination of these verbal practices in order to establish credibility– which would partly explain some of the more graphic images inEminem’s songs.) The question of politics, however, is more delicate.

While Eminem’s hip-hop style is in one sense highly individual andeclectic, its more definitively hard-core aspects draw at least ellipti-cally on the genres of gangsta or reality rap. Yet how to do this withauthenticity? To invoke the associated discourses of black culturalresistance would look dangerously disingenuous. His way of ‘keepingit real’ is to create his own narrative of the ’hood: to invoke his work-ing-class, trailer-park origins (avoiding at all costs the embarrassingdemise of forebear Vanilla Ice, rumbled as being a middle-class subur-ban boy [Robert Van Winkle] after all), and to foreground the auto-biographical tales of his dysfunctional family relationships, which(rightly or not) are implicitly equated with social and economic disen-franchisement. These portrayals – of his father who walked out onhim in his childhood; of his allegedly drug-taking mother and herlitigation against him for publicly making the allegation; of his turbu-lent relationship with his girlfriend, then wife, then ex-wife Kim; ofhis adoring relationship with their daughter Hailey (almost redemp-tive amid this otherwise fractious picture) – all these tales represent akind of inverse cultural capital used to underwrite the authenticity ofthe self he constructs through his performances. The cynicism andflagrancy of this tactic, and the dystopian representations themselves,seem almost deliberately calculated to inflame the sensibilities of middleAmericans and politicians who (arguably no less cynically) have iden-tified the family as the lynchpin of a conservative politics. Thus thefamily becomes the site of a political struggle in which Eminem isable to manoeuvre identification with an American underclass, andthereby suggest his alignment with the radical political aspirations

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of black hip-hoppers. His professional association with establishedblack gangsta rap artists such as Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg (CalvinBroadus), and more recently his co-promotion with Dre of black rap-per 50 Cent (Curtis Jackson), further authenticate these credentials.

And authenticity sells; hard-core rap is closely and paradoxicallyintertwined with capitalism.20 Swiping at the establishment is simul-taneously a way to pitch for a market, to appeal to a fan base with arange of anti-establishment feelings, from those who just like thefrisson, to those with real desires for social change. And commercialsuccess – to which Eminem meteorically rose after signing with Dre’sAftermath imprint in 1998 – in turn gives empowerment of a poten-tially political kind. Through his high-profile and best-selling perfor-mances Eminem has occasioned the same kind of moral panic asgangsta rappers by daring to give the lie to the equation between whitedomination and civilized values.21 And as politicians’ wives add theirvoices of protest, so the dialogical screw turns again. Like other rap-pers, Eminem has fallen foul of Future Second Lady Syndrome. Justas in the 1980s Tipper Gore (wife of yet-to-be vice-president Al Gore)assailed black gangsta rap, so in September 1999 Lynne Cheney, wifeof vice-president-to-be Dick Cheney, singled out Eminem for specialmention in the US Senate’s Committee on Commerce, Science, andTransportation (a second indictment to the Committee by SenatorOrrin G. Hatch followed a year later).22 But this only raised the rapper’sprofile further, empowered him still more, provided more material forcombative dialogue, and further helped along CD sales.

This much has, I hope, given some indication of how the differentstances towards Eminem initially outlined are closely intertwined. Evenat their antagonistic extremes – the Eminem–Cheney polemic – theserelations reveal how one subject needs its Other(s) in order to articulateits own position in an ongoing public contest of ideologies. This does

20. See for example Nelson George, Hip Hop America (New York: Penguin, 1998),pp. 154–75.

21. On moral panic, see Potter, Spectacular Vernaculars, pp. 90–1. On dominationand civilisation see bell hooks, Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations (NewYork and London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 199–200.

22. See James Haskens, The Story of Hip-Hop: From Africa to America, Sugarhillto Eminem (London: Penguin, 2002), p. 78; also Potter, Spectacular Vernacu-lars, p. 89; Cheney’s testimony is referenced in n. 15, above; Hatch’s can be readat http://www.senate.gov/~commerce/hearings/0913hat.pdf.


not of course resolve the differences between them: the positions aretoo extreme for any harmonious Hegelian synthesis to issue from theirinteraction. But it does show how, to adapt Bakhtin, ‘these distantlyseparated ideas [can be projected] by means of a dotted line to thepoint of their dialogic intersection’: a shared, albeit conflicted, socialand historical space.23

‘White America’

What is striking about Eminem’s song production is its acute dialogi-cal attentiveness to its own reception – as if that reception were con-sciously orchestrated. His words are shot through with a knowingnessof both prior and anticipated words of his highly heterogeneous Oth-ers. We need only turn to a song such as ‘White America’, which openshis 2002 album The Eminem Show, to see how the sociological situa-tion analyzed above is written deeply into the musico-verbal utter-ance. Exploring the dialogical dynamics here offers a third descriptivepass at that situation, this time determined by the perspective of theartistic utterance itself.

Although ‘White America’ constitutes The Eminem Show’s first songproper, it is not actually the first track, since the album, like its twoprecursors, begins with a short framing skit: not a public service an-nouncement this time, but the imaginary curtain up to the show.Though radically different in tone, this track, ‘Curtains Up’, reallycannot be considered separately from ‘White America’ – not least dueto the segue between them; so I will consider them as a pair here.24

The conceit of songs presented in the context of a show sets up adouble perspective: as if to say with one voice ‘don’t take any of thisseriously, it’s just entertainment’, while with another voice frontinglyrics calculated to be politically polemical. While the performance-

23. Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, cited in Morris, The Bakhtin Reader,p. 100.

24. Eminem exploits the segue in all his albums as a device for maximizing disorien-tation between subject and listener positions; consider, for example, the segueon The Marshall Mathers LP from the vicious misogynistic sentiments of ‘KillYou’ to the sympathetically contextualized sample of Dido’s ‘Thank You’ at thestart of the next song, ‘Stan’, discussed later in this essay.

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within-a-performance idea could be a reference to The Beatles’ Sgt.Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the liner of The Eminem ShowCD, which pictures a stage set with red curtains is more likelySignifyin(g) on the cover of ABC’s 1982 album Lexicon of Love.25

Eminem is depicted pensively seated behind the gaping curtain, as ifoblivious to the waiting mic and spotlight; a second image (on theinside-rear CD liner) shows him on the same set, presumably a fewseconds later, nervously tapping the mic, looking out at the audience.

Whereas these visual images imply that the viewer is located in theauditorium, every sonic aspect of ‘Curtains Up’ – like a sound-trackanimating the sequence of visual stills – is designed to engineer thereverse perspective: a point-of-view shot which situates the listener inEminem’s shoes.26 The opening sound of stage machinery, quite loud,places us clearly on stage; the applause, out there, dies down. Thepedal note of the non-diegetic music (which connects this track withthe next, incidentally) is expectant, but also ominous. The poignant,minor-mode celesta motif suggests a kind of childlike innocence, but,like the pedal, also hints at the uncanny, as if giving us informationnot available to the protagonist. This makes us seem powerful andhim seem vulnerable – an unexpected reversal which is played on fur-ther as we hear his footsteps cautiously approaching the mic. Havingbotched his timing as the curtains went up, the performer seeminglylets his inexperience show again, first by getting feedback on the soundsystem, and then by loudly clearing his throat before drawing breathto perform – is he going to fluff his opening lines too?

As ever, the timing is brilliantly calculated. With absolutely no tran-sition we segue into ‘White America’ and a complete overturning ofthe previous situation. We are now firmly back in our seats and Eminemis in command on stage. Except that the imagined scene has changedunrecognizably. This is no longer some second-rate theatre, but a the-atre of war, fighter planes flying overhead, Eminem delivering his open-ing lines through a megaphone.

So in a dramatic embodiment of double voicing we get shown twoversions of Eminem as subject, constructed through two different ver-sions of his relationship with his audience. First the persona presented

25. A point gleaned from the ramblings of reviewer ‘Ethan P.’ at http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/e/eminem/eminem-show.shtml.

26. On the importance of point of view for dialogism see Voloshinov/Bakhtin, ‘Cri-tique of Saussurian Linguistics’, p. 33.


as a non-persona. Is this the real Marshall Mathers, as sold to us inthe iconography on Eminem’s previous album, The Marshall MathersLP? – the thoughtful, vulnerable working-class kid, a bit nerdy, justfooling around, but not really badly intentioned towards anyone, de-serving our empathy rather than all that nasty criticism. Marshall func-tions as a kind of alibi for Eminem’s alter ego, the psychotic SlimShady, the aggressive, bad-mouthed, arrogant rapper who doesn’t givea fuck what his audience thinks, just says what he has to say. What isdisorientating in the jump-cut between the two tracks is that the twoperspectives offered do not add up to a whole. They represent incom-patible discursive spaces which closely mirror the stand-off betweenEminem’s admirers and detractors.

Double-voiced discourse also operates within ‘White America’ –not least in the ironic intent of its introduction: ‘America! (Hahaha!)We love you! How many people are proud to be citizens of this beau-tiful country of ours?’ The subdued manic laughter after the initialappellation betrays a second voice (as if we hadn’t guessed already)behind the ostensible content of the words. And multi-tracking makespossible a further dissenting Eminem-voice, well down in the mix,which gently exhorts ‘Yo, I want everybody to listen to the words ofthis song’. The casual ‘street’ salutation is a foil to the impersonationof the voice of state authority, and provides a good if fleeting exampleof what Bakhtin termed heteroglossia, in which the official languageis dialogized by, and made to appear relative to, vernacular types ofspeech.27 But for most of the song, the dialogization is much moreaggressive in tone – enacted by Eminem in Slim Shady persona. Hisvehement appellation ‘White America!’ at the beginning of each lineof the chorus Signifies on the militaristic tone of the appellation –‘America!’ – of the introduction. Through the additional epithet ‘white’(repetition with a difference) the second voice parodically exposes whatis hidden by the first: that the supposedly universal democratic prin-ciples embodied by the sign ‘America’ in practice obtain only for alimited subset of its people. And now Eminem flaunts the fact thatthrough the agency of mass culture aimed at a youth market he is ableto offer a nihilistic alternative to the official ideological state

27. Cf. Morris: ‘Only a relativizing of one language against the outlines of anotherallows one to construct the image of a language and so break the bonds of anylanguage’s absolute authority’; The Bakhtin Reader, p. 113.

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apparatus:28 ‘I could be one of your kids! … Little Eric looks just likethis … Erica loves my shit!’

The three verses of the song add up to a self-aggrandizing autobio-graphical documentary – in the hip-hop tradition of boasting. Verse 1tells of even Eminem’s surprise at the turnaround in his fortunes, hismass-cultural success now perceived as a threat to the established or-der: ‘And now they’re sayin I’m in trouble with the government – I’mlovin it! / I shoveled shit all my life, and now I’m dumpin it on /[chorus] White America!’ Verse 2 broaches questions of race, makingthe claim that his whiteness can now (unlike earlier in his career) beused to commercial advantage: ‘Let’s do the math – if I was black, Iwoulda sold half’. This should probably be read less as a claim tosupremicism and more as a cynical critique of socio-economic actual-ity. Certainly Eminem is quick to pay his dues to Dr. Dre, with whomhe also duets later in the album in the song ‘Say what you say’ whichimplicitly presents their collaboration as paradigmatic of racial soli-darity. In the last verse Eminem analyzes what is at the root of histurbulent reception. His crime has been to bring rap into the safehavens of bourgeois suburbs (‘I speak to suburban kids who other-wise would of never knew these words exist’). He goes on to protest hisscapegoating for using the politically incorrect conventions of hip-hop:‘So now I’m catchin the flack from these activists when they raggin /Actin like I’m the first rapper to smack a bitch or say faggot …’ Finally(or nearly so), in the song’s outro Eminem/Shady works his rage upinto a torrent of direct abuse at his establishment antagonists: ‘Fuckyou Ms. Cheney! Fuck you Tipper Gore!’ (So perhaps a bit less in theway of double-voicing here.)

Having spent some time discussing verbal content, I want now toconsider some of the song’s musical features – a discussion that willnecessarily bring us back to considering the text, since one of rap’scharacteristics is to shift the balance and blur the distinction betweenverbal and musical poetics. As with many of Eminem’s songs, the musictrack here is simple yet effective – composed using the standard raptechnique of layering. As Adam Krims puts it, this is ‘the practice ofbuilding textures by overlapping multiple looped tracks’, which is anaspect of the sequencing and sampling technologies so essential to the

28. The terms ‘appellation’ and ‘ideological state apparatus’, of course, come fromLouis Althusser; see his ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses’, in Leninand Philosophy (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), pp. 121–73.


genre.29 Example 1 diagrams the key elements of the mix and theirdistribution. These features signify in various ways, such as formally,emotively and connotatively.

The lower three layers on the diagram indicate instrumental tracksthat are constant (silenced only in the coda – still to be discussed) andthat bear little internal differentiation. One of these is a pedal on thekey-note C (a link with the preceding ‘Curtains Up’), whose onlypoint of relief is an upbeat skip from the dominant, G , on the lastbeat of every fourth bar (played glissando, which foregrounds the bassguitar as the sound source). Superimposed onto this is a drum trackwhich accumulates during the introduction to a subsequently con-stant alternation between bass drum downbeat and snare drum rim-shot backbeat, connoting rock music and with it a certain kind ofmale power.30 This compounds the slightly ominous and, more to thepoint, intransigent quality of the pedal, reinforcing the belligerent stanceof the lyrics. Adding to the cluster of signifiers of power that Eminemgathers round him, the third continuous track, labelled ‘pulsation’ inExample 1, mediates between the instrumental layers and the fighter-plane sounds heard over the introduction. While its source could beinstrumental, it sounds more like a manipulated sample of helicopterrotors, slowed down to articulate an uninterrupted quaver beat. So onthe one hand, this signifies extrinsically, its militaristic connotationsbolstering similar sentiments in the text and suggesting oppressivesurveillance; on the other hand it signifies intrinsically, serving theimmanent musical role of a rhythmic constant against which the sa-lient rhythmic features of the text are brought into relief (more on thispresently).

The two layers which are intermittent rather than constant wouldseem to be intended to complement the pugilistic tone of the lyrics.One is a quiet string-synth chord on tonic and dominant, whose highregister extends the phenomenal space of the song. The other com-prises male vocals (actually Eminem’s voice multi-tracked) which gentlysing a wordless, syncopated, mildly melancholic melody whose pathbasically descends from G to C via E.

29. Adam Krims, Rap Music and the Poetics of Identity (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2000), p. 54.

30. The drum track here corresponds closely to what Allan F. Moore defines as the‘standard rock beat’, in his Rock: The Primary Text: Developing a Musicologyof Rock, 2nd edition (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), p. 38.

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Example 1: ‘White America’ (The Eminem Show): Layering Structure


Above the pedal, still in the lower register, is an arch-shaped ostinatoin the minor mode, moving by step in repeated minims: ¦ C –C ¦ D –D ¦ E–E ¦ D –D ¦.31 As well as contributing to the minimal melodiccontent of the song, it also has a middleground rhythmic function,establishing a four-bar periodicity. These four-bar ‘hyperbars’ furtheraggregate into fours to yield a 16-bar ‘macrobar’ periodicity (indi-cated as the second layer down in Example 1). Whereas the hyperbarswere embodied by an audible ostinato, the macrobars are less tangi-bly articulated, tending to be reflected in the formal organization ofthe text, as shown at the top of Example 1. (Note, however, that theeight-bar extension to Verse 3 temporarily moves the verse/chorusstructure out of kilter with the macrobar structure, until rectified by asimilar extension to the outro.)

This essentially simple quadratic structure provides a frameworkagainst which to measure (or to feel) the work of the words, some-times conformant with the musical metrics, sometimes artfully out ofsync with them. In the middleground, for example, the hyperbars ofthe ostinato figure throw into relief the contractions and enjambmentsof lines of text. And in the foreground, which demands the most at-tentive listening, the periodic structure of individual bars makes evi-dent the complex cross-accentuations of the lyrics. There is space herefor just one example, which coincides with ostinato-hyperbars 35–6(at 3’38” on the CD track). At this point (Verse 3) Eminem rants backat those who rant against him:

All I hear is: lyrics, lyrics, constant controversy, sponsors working roundthe clock, to try to stop my concerts early

surely hip hop was never a problem in Harlem only in Boston, after itbothered the fathers of daughters startin to blossom

The accumulation of rhymes and half rhymes is an obvious part of theartistry. The succession of ‘o’ and ‘œ’ sounds counterpointing therhymes in the first line – ‘constant controversy, sponsors working …stop my concerts early’ – spills over into the second – ‘hip hop wasnever a problem’ – and overlaps a second scheme of rhymes and halfrhymes based on the alternation of ‘o’ and ‘a’: ‘never a problem inHarlem only in Boston, after it bothered the fathers of d(au)ghters

31. The same loop, speeded up, is used in the next track, ‘Business’, to Signify onthe theme tune to the 1960s TV series Batman.

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startin to blossom’. But also important is a further, rhythmic struc-ture, which, to pick up on the preceding point, energetically counter-points the underlying musical metre in a polyrhythmic tour de force.The ranting tone of these lines (from ‘lyrics, lyrics, constant contro-versy’ onwards) is captured by the unremitting delivery in quavers,one per syllable (what Krims would term ‘percussion effusive’ flow),and this locks into the unremitting quaver pulsation of the quasi-heli-copter track, discussed above.32 But while we hear the latter as regulargroups of four quavers nested within the minim beats of the underly-ing metrical structure, the vocal track – which I have transcribed andanalyzed in Example 2 – sets up completely different patterns.

To be sure, the first of the lines quoted above reads out as obses-sively trochaic: pairs of quavers configured strong–weak. But thesecoalesce into irregular bar lengths: first 2 (‘lyrics, lyrics’), then 3 (‘con-

32. Krims, Rap Music, pp. 50–3.

Example 2

4 4


stant controversy’), then 2 × 4 (‘sponsors working round the clock, totry to stop my concerts early’). The layering of this sequence over theunremitting 4 of the pulsation track adds one degree of complexity;matters are compounded by the fact that the whole superstructure isalso a quaver out of sync against the underlying crotchet pulse. Inother words, every stressed (on-beat) quaver of the lyrics is alignedagainst an unstressed (off-beat) quaver of the music track. Then anew rhythmic configuration obtains as we move to the second of thetwo lines quoted above (‘Surely hip hop …’). Whereas the previousline was set in divisive rhythm (where crotchet beats, even thoughgrouped together irregularly, were always split into pairs of quavers),we now move to an additive structure: the combination of textual feetresults in quavers grouped unpredictably in twos and threes – for ex-ample: ¦ ‘Surely hip hop was ¦ never a problem in Harlem’ ¦ = ¦² + 3 ¦ +¦³ + ³ + ² ¦ – all this still counterpointed against the regular 4 of thepulsation track.

Sidenote: Aesthetics and Politics

Readers may have detected a shift to another voice as we have movedfrom discussing the lyrics’ semantic content to what makes them po-etically and musically engaging. This might be seen as a drift intoformalist analysis at the price of a loss of grip on socio-cultural issues.But it could also be that the music forces this polyphonic response outof us. If we are to come up with the kind of utterances that representan adequate dialogue with it – adequate in the sense of accounting forall those dimensions that imbue it with its cultural significance – weneed to include an appreciation not only of its contextual discourses,but also of its immanent aesthetic qualities (what Krims terms rap’spoetics).33 Certainly there is plenty of mediation between these spheres.For example, the jump from one polyrhythmic structure to another inthe passage just analyzed reflects a shift in intention: from describinga situation in the first line, to commenting critically upon it in the

33. Cf. Krims, Rap Music, p. 40: ‘One must, at some point, work through [rap’s]musical poetics … not to aestheticize it or abstract it away from social life, butprecisely to factor in that the people one is studying are taking the music seri-ously, as music – and that their cultural engagement is mediated by that “musi-cal” level’ (original emphasis).

4

4

8

8 4

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second – a situation and a critique which are profoundly social. But inreal-time listening, such homologies most likely remain entirely sec-ondary (if noticed at all in the heat of the moment) compared to thenugget of pleasure drawn from the sheer artistry of the lines – honedand fixed as composed text maybe, but still stamped by traces of thespontaneous, the mark of one who can also cut it as a freestyler.34

This autonomous moment is essential to hip-hop’s socialillocutionary force. Wit, skill, and ingenuity add up to a rhetoric de-signed to excite our admiration while simultaneously getting us toimbibe unpalatable sentiments that we might nonetheless be compelledto recognize as related to real social antagonisms in need of redress.And these opposed modes of feeling work in a negative-dialectical way:the often grizzly social attitudes that go with the poetic dimension put abar on its consumption for mere culinary pleasure. (All of which beginsto look something like an aesthetics of modernism, notwithstandingmany persuasive accounts of hip-hop as a postmodern phenomenon.)

This, however, is moving towards an idealized account which forthe moment has suspended mention of Eminem, and may ultimatelybe more relevant to West Coast gangsta rap of the earlier 1990s. DoesEminem’s artistry relate to any genuine wider political purpose, or ishe just out for financial return? Characteristically the messages areambiguous. On the one hand he flaunts a cynical commercial strategy,as in the hit ‘Without Me’: ‘I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley, todo Black Music so selfishly / and use it to get myself wealthy.’35 On theother hand several other tracks on The Eminem Show (e.g. ‘When theMusic Stops’) make a strong apologia for being ‘real’ (‘I’m see-sawbattlin’ / but there’s way too much at stake for me to be fake’) in songsthat often reflect on hip-hop as a kind of social work, offering analternative cultural space to escape into. Similarly, while the ostensi-bly more explicit political content of his songs might amount to notmuch more than just ‘so much anger aimed in no particular direction’

34. Jonathan Walker, in his review of Krims, Rap Music, makes a related pointabout real-time listening in his critique of Krims’s analysis of Ice Cube’s ‘TheNigga Ya Love to Hate’; Music Theory Online 7 (2001), http://www.societymusictheory.org/mto/issues/mto.01.7.4/mto.01.7.4.walker.html(para. 13).

35. Though a more subtle, indeed dialogical, reading is possible here, in that Eminem’svoice could be heard to be indirectly quoting the voices of his critics – actual oranticipated.


(‘White America’), they have the potential for being co-opted towardmore focused ends. Witness for example the commissioning by theradical American website GNN (Guerrilla News Network) of a videoto accompany ‘White America’ (subsequently used for Eminem liveshows) with the expressed intention of ‘actively seeking to divert theemphasis from the cult celebrity of Eminem and … [to] be a platformfor a broader and hyper-visual critique of America itself’.36 Here theextension of Eminem’s musical and verbal tactics might represent theeffect of what Bakhtin called ‘internally persuasive discourse’, whichis ‘tightly interwoven with “one’s own word”… [and] is further, thatis freely, developed, applied to new material, new conditions’.37

The elusiveness of Eminem’s own intent is made vivid in the codaof ‘White America’, which disowns both the content and the serioustone of the song. Without warning, everything stops, and we get aparody in close-up of the syncopated male vocals that were previouslydiscreetly embedded. Eminem sings the riff in the parallel major, but(almost) a semitone too low, and missing the final key-note (which atleast brings him out somewhere near the tonic). Finally, with a (ridi-culing?) laugh, he makes his retraction: ‘I’m just playin America, youknow I love you.’38 Yeah, right.

Authorship: ‘Stan’

Although we might raise a sceptical eyebrow at Eminem’s attempt toevacuate his authorial position (and hence to abrogate responsibility for

36. For details see http://www.guerrillanews.com/white_america/; the most conten-tious aspect of this animated cartoon video appears to have been a reference tothe Columbine High School shootings at Littleton, Colorado in April 1999.This could be seen as aesthetically congruent with Eminem’s own disregard forindividual sensitivities, and/or as Signifyin(g) on the moral tone of Lynne Cheney’s1999 testimony to Senate, mentioned above, which includes the imputation of acausal connection between popular music and social violence: she cites the factthat the two high school killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, were reportedlyfans of Marilyn Manson.

37. Bakhtin, ‘Discourse in the Novel’, p. 345.38. This Signifies on the game he plays at the equivalent place in his previous album

– the end of the track ‘Kill You’. After a song containing some of his mostviolently misogynist lyrics, he makes the same evasive verbal manoeuvre: ‘I’mjust kiddin’ ladies, you know I love you.’

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the words emanating from it), his reminder not to read him monologicallyremains salutary. His dividing up of his self into three overlapping perso-nas, Eminem, Slim Shady, and Marshall Mathers, could be seen as aconvenient ruse (always at least one persona for the others to hide be-hind), but it also reflects an insight into the status of the author thatsurfaces in several of his songs. Perhaps the one that illustrates this best ishis hit ‘Stan’, from The Marshall Mathers LP. Here he orchestrates sev-eral voices in a manner reminiscent of Bakhtin’s concept of the poly-phonic novel, where each voice in the narrative retains independence fromthat of the narrator or author.39 (In this respect, the song is no less inter-esting than Schubert’s ‘Erlkönig’, which Edward T. Cone analyzed in his1974 essay The Composer’s Voice, as a way of answering the seminal,perhaps unwittingly Bakhtinian question, ‘who is speaking?’)40

Psychosis only partly explains why Stan, the song’s protagonist,misconstrues his relationship with rap star Slim; it’s just a more ex-treme version of what fans – and for that matter detractors – do allthe time. Eminem gives us a story with a moral: don’t mistake thepersona you see and hear in performance for the real me. (If he were aMarxist he might say: beware of reification, the idea, literally sold toyou, that the constructed image of the artist and the relation you havewith them is natural or real.) The song presents both Stan and Slim/Eminem as characters in an epistolary narrative. The medium of aletter means we already hear their voices as mediated; it neverthelessalso allows those voices to speak independently both of each otherand of the narrating presence (the author) that we construct out of thesequence of messages. The stylization of Stan’s speech evokes the social

39. Other commentators have picked up on this aspect of the song too. For ex-ample, Giles Foden’s appreciative literary analysis of the lyrics, while not explic-itly mentioning Bakhtin, nevertheless touches on similar questions of voice andauthorship to those discussed here. See Foden, ‘Just How Good is He?’, TheGuardian, 6 February 2001 (accessed at www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4131548,00.html).

40. Edward T. Cone, The Composer’s Voice (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: Uni-versity of California Press, 1974). Carolyn Abbate’s critique of Cone famously re-jects his concept of the ‘complete musical persona’, formulated in response to thisquestion, as overly monological. With a more or less explicit nod to Bakhtin, Abbatefavours a dialogical ‘vision of music animated by multiple, decentered voices’ overCone’s ‘centering and hegemonic authorial image of “the Composer”’; see CarolynAbbate, Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), pp. 11, 13, 252–3 (n. 7).


world of blue-collar unemployment, and suggests why songs likeEminem’s have a compensatory role in it:

I can relate to what you’re saying in your songsso when I have a shitty day, I drift away and put ’em oncause I don’t really got shit else so that shit helps when I’m depressed

The irony is that the dialogue Stan imagines himself having with Slimis entirely one-sided. He gets no reply, and his letters accordingly getmore heated in each verse, rising to psychotic rage in his last messagewhich he records onto cassette tape during his suicidal (and homi-cidal) car journey. When Slim finally gets round to replying (the song’sfinal verse) it’s too late – long after the deranged Stan drove the carover the bridge, his pregnant girlfriend tied up in the boot. The sce-nario is the climax of a series of misplaced identifications which Stanmakes with Slim/Eminem’s dysfunctional family: the murdered girl-friend in the car boot recalls the song ‘’97 Bonny and Clyde’ (fromEminem’s previous album The Slim Shady LP), narrating the car jour-ney to dump the body of his murdered wife, and the prequel ‘Kim’(from The Marshall Mathers LP), dramatizing the murder itself (whichsong purportedly precipitated the divorce of real-life Marshall andreal-life Kim).

The letters from Stan and Slim are not read silently, of course, butperformed by Eminem himself. That is to say, these voices – includingthat of his own character (for once calm and placatory) – are embed-ded into his performing voice. So from this perspective Eminem-performer could be conflated with Eminem-author, from whom thetale is heard to issue. There is also another voice in the song, however,which suggests Eminem-author at another possible site, outside theEminem-performance. This site we might call Eminem-composer andis almost certainly a composite of not only Eminem-the-actual-person(Marshall Mathers?), but also his entire creative team of writers, pro-ducers, sound engineers, co-performers and so on.

To this Eminem, the Eminem responsible for the final constructionof the track as a whole, we can attribute the creative decision to addto the polyphony the voice of English pop singer Dido (DidoArmstrong), in a sample from her ballad ‘Thank You’ (2000). Whatthis song has in common with Stan’s words to Slim is its appreciationof an Other who compensates for a grotty existence (‘but your pictureon my wall / It reminds me, that it’s not so bad …’). In Dido’s case thisfalls recognizably into the genre of the love song; and interestingly this

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is not utterly distinct from Stan’s feelings for Slim, which shade intosame-sex love (‘I love you Slim, we coulda been together’). The juxta-position of two different genres – pop ballad and rap – has thought-provoking implications, which ultimately throw a spanner in the worksof any monological judgement on Eminem. These genres invoke twodifferent social and cultural spaces which are kept separate in the song(as discrete ‘voices’) but nevertheless cross over on some levels (like theone just described). Into the foul-mouthed, conflicted, male-dominatedworld of urban US reality rap Eminem-composer admits the song of ademure, classically trained English chanteuse which is the very oppo-site of edgy: it’s very nice, even – dare one say – a bit girly.

What’s more, the sample is treated without irony; in fact its ambi-ence suffuses the entire song. Not only does the first verse of ‘Thankyou’ serve as the chorus of ‘Stan’, but everywhere else Eminem-composer deploys its instrumental tracks as the background over whichEminem-performer raps the (would-be) dialogue between Stan andSlim. In one sense, then, this functions as more than a mere sample,and perhaps marks a departure – on this occasion at least – from theSignifyin(g) conventions of black hip-hop.41 Instead it comes close toa particular species of Bakhtinian novelistic double-voicing, the inten-tional hybrid: ‘an artistically organized system for bringing differentlanguages in contact with one another, a system having as its goal theillumination of one language by means of another, the carving-out ofa living image of another language’.42 So, by analogy, one kind ofmusic here is no longer heard as being a unitary language, an unchal-lenged, normative medium of communication, but is instead turnedinto an image: made to be heard as relative, and thus be illuminated,by the co-presence of a second type of musical language. Hence theeasy-going, lilting beat of the Dido track serves as a stable emotionalreference point against which the rising emotional temperature of Stan’smissives is measured (as well as two different cultural spaces, then,we also have in effect two contrasting constructions of musical time).43

41. This is not to essentialize, but to suggest that Eminem’s signifying practices maynecessarily differ in order authentically to articulate a different, albeit related,cultural situation from that of black hip-hoppers.

42. Bakhtin, ‘Discourse in the Novel’, p. 361 (original emphasis).43. These constructions might be suggestive of Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope;

see his ‘Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel’, in The DialogicImagination, pp. 84–258.


And as against the misogynistic mistreatment which Stan levels againsthis girlfriend in the diegetic structure of the song, Dido is not beingrepresented as a ‘bitch’ or a ‘ho’ at the authorial level by Eminem-composer. Rather her voice and the gendered connotations of the popballad are admitted into the song with equanimity, as a relativizingrepresentation of the feminine.44

Unsurprisingly, there is one last dialogical twist. As the Eminem/Slim character nears the end of writing his tragically belated reply toStan, the truth dawns on him that the news story he heard a whileback about ‘Some dude [who] was drunk and drove his car over abridge’ was about Stan himself: ‘Come to think about it, his namewas … it was you / Damn!’ To my ears tragedy turns to comedy inthat last expletive. It is possible of course that Eminem-performer justmesses up his timing,45 but the casual delivery and the uncharacteris-tically restrained nature of the word ‘Damn!’ could point to anotherinstance of double voicing. There is, as it were, an unstated, second,much more dramatically delivered expletive, which is what we oughtto have heard if Eminem-character had stayed in role. Instead he isupstaged at the very last moment by Eminem-author who insinuateshis voice into the former’s word, undermining its illocutionary force.And the message smuggled in through the resulting laid-back toneseems, in classic dialogical fashion, to be already an answer to theanticipated attack from his critics for presenting such violent scenes:I’m just playin (again); it’s just a story; fiction.

Off the Hook?

Hip-hop is an edgy kind of music because it pushes the word intogritty relief, where it is prone to abrade social consciousnesses.

44. Regrettably, this dialogical treatment is lost in the video of the song, whichportrays Dido in the role of Stan’s girlfriend. In other words, her voice nowbecomes diegetical, a presence in the time-space of the narrative, as opposed toan alternative, external perspective on the musical sociolinguistics of the narra-tive. But to me, the self-apparent untruthfulness of the conception of the videoto the conception of the song only testifies, albeit negatively, to the inherentlydialogical nature of the latter.

45. A point made to me by Philip Charles.

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Dialogical analysis is unlikely to protect against injury (nor should itnecessarily seek to), but it may encourage us to hear the word as know-ingly as those who speak it. Consider the way Eminem cunningly pre-orchestrates his own defence by dialogizing his words and music sothat alongside his crudely provocative self there is usually at least oneother Eminem already primed to answer provocatees on the counter-attack. For example, around Eminem/Slim, the character who voiceshomophobia towards Stan’s insinuations, he leaves the trace ofEminem-author who imaginatively allows Stan those feelings. Indeedthe numerous gay references on Eminem’s albums (to which he placeshimself usually at only one degree of separation), more than merelyrefracting accusations of homophobia, even tease listeners with thepossibility that …46 Here again, he is no doubt ‘just playin’ (let’s keepthose marketing options open). Perhaps what really niggles his criticsis his refusal to say straight out – i.e. monologically – what he reallymeans and hence who he really is (‘Will the real Slim Shady pleasestand up?’).

At this point poststructuralists might be subpoenaed. Eminem’sdetractors, they would point out, have missed the news about TheDeath of the Author: they have naively mistaken the object of theirrevilement as an actual person, as opposed to a field of meaning – inFoucault’s words, ‘a projection, in more or less psychologizing terms,of the operations that we force texts to undergo’.47 Yet for Kim Mathersthe person who authored the musico-dramatic representation of hermurder may seem more than a textual projection. And Douglas Dail,on whom Eminem allegedly pulled a gun in real life, might be disin-clined to read the gun-toting machismo in a song like ‘Soldier’ as justpart of an extended literary metaphor. These particular individuals,profoundly material witnesses, together with victims of homophobicor misogynistic violence might justifiably insist that there is some-thing and someone hors du texte.

46. The rendition of ‘Thank You’ which Eminem performed with Elton John(Reginald Kenneth Dwight) in Dido role at the 2001 Grammy Awards ceremonyis just such a case of psychological (or in Elton’s case, possibly actual!) flirtation– no doubt a mutually beneficial arrangement on various levels.

47. Michel Foucault, ‘What Is an Author?’, in David Lodge (ed.), Modern Criticism andTheory: A Reader, 1st edition (London and New York: Longman, 1988), p. 203.


Dialogism arguably represents a more ethical episteme in that itcalls us to answer for our word. While like poststructuralism it seesselfhood, or subjectivity, as a product of language (or, more broadly,of signifying systems), it does not draw the conclusion that the subjectis thus deconstructable into a play of signifiers.48 Just the opposite: itsees the word, the utterance, as utterly enmeshed in the polyphony ofdiscourses that constitutes human social life. As Holquist puts it, para-phrasing Bakhtin, ‘The world addresses us and we are alive and hu-man to the degree that we are answerable, i.e. to the degree that wecan respond to addressivity … The dialogue I have with existencebegins to assume the form of a text, a kind of book.’49 In other words,our consciousness as subjects arises exactly to the extent to which weauthor utterances (not only verbal, but also, for example, musicalones) in signifying exchanges with Others. Aesthetic authorship, then,is only a more developed version of what we all must do in order toestablish and maintain our existential and social position.

Several corollaries follow from this realization – and constitute myfinal (and most theoretically toned) interpretative pass at the kind ofdialogics which Eminem so vividly represents. (1) Aesthetic texts, whileachieving a measure of autonomy from their authors, do not lose theirauthorial ‘shadow’ any more than do utterances authored in everydaycommunication. This is because (2) authorship, on whatever level, isnot just a neutral condition, but an act of agency. Bakhtin reminds usthat we make our utterances from a given social place at a given histori-cal moment – which may not be a place or historical situation we arecontent to occupy, and which may therefore strongly inflect those utter-ances with a desire to make a difference. Clearly this is the case withreality rap, which of all musico-verbal types of utterance is least in-clined to draw a clear borderline between aesthetic usage of the wordand everyday vernacular types of utterance and attitude. No surpriseperhaps, therefore, if unreconstructed attitudes of misogyny and ho-mophobia get shipped along in the process. But this surely cannot mean

48. David Lodge makes a salutary comparison: ‘Barthes says: because the authordoes not coincide with the language of the text, he does not exist. Bakhtin says,it is precisely because he does not so coincide that we must posit his existence.’David Lodge, ‘After Bakhtin’, in After Bakhtin: Essays on Fiction and Criticism(London and New York: Routledge, 1999), p. 99.

49. Holquist, Dialogism, p. 30.

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that those attitudes should be endorsed or be immune to robust critiquefrom other agents – a point that Ernest Allen Jr makes when he qualifieshis generally positive analysis of message rap with criticism of ‘a moralrelativism that repudiates responsibility for one’s own actions’.50 Hence(3) the agency of authorship – an aesthetic action – brings with it a callto ethics, and it may be that dialogism offers a path between the Scyllaof moral universalism and the Charybdis of poststructuralist anti-foundationalism: the possibility of working out an ethics in the inter-change of particular dialogical encounters. A key Bakhtinian notionhere would – again – be the answerability we are all mandated to findfor our acts (which might well be verbal and/or musical) in the actualconcrete situations in which we make them.51 But (4) dialogue is (at

50. ‘Making the strong survive: the contours and contradictions of message rap’, inPerkins, Droppin’ Science, p. 160.

51. Bakhtin’s earliest known work, Toward a Philosophy of the Act (c.1920–24),foregrounds an ethics that would underpin all his later, more linguistically ori-entated writing. Sceptical of the abstraction (the ‘theoreticism’) of universaliz-ing philosophical systems, he argues for an understanding of an incarnated self‘in unique and concrete, never-to-be-repeated actuality’ (p. 73). That ‘I occupya place in once-occurrent Being that … cannot be taken by anyone else’ (p. 40)is what places me under an ethical obligation: ‘I [must] assume answerabilityfor my own uniqueness, for my own being’ (p. 42). The notion of answerabilityalso presupposes a relation – and obligation – to the Other that will featuremore strongly in Bakhtin’s later works, but is adumbrated clearly enough here:‘to live from within oneself does not mean to live for oneself, but means to be ananswerable participant from within oneself’ (p. 49). ‘Answerable participation’would seem to imply responsible interaction with an Other. Indeed Bakhtinstates that my recognition of the Other from my own unique place in Being ispartly what enables that Other to determine his uniqueness: ‘[t]hat I from myunique place in Being, simply see and know another … that for me, too, heexists – that is something only I can do for him at the given moment of Being:that is the deed which makes his being more complete … and which is possibleonly for me’ (p. 42). This relation of Self and Other through reciprocal answer-ability is clearly proto-dialogic.

Making a tentative initial application of these ideas to the present argu-ment, we might conjecture that to the extent that Eminem ‘owns’ his life story,to the extent that he seeks to be ‘real’, to the extent that his art seeks to articu-late his own uniqueness in Being as a series of lived aesthetic acts, he meets thecriterion of answerability. On the other hand, to the extent that his utterancesaffirm disregard for Others he has abdicated answerability. But equally, it couldbe argued – as in point (4), following – that some of his Others likewise fail intheir answerability to their own Others.


least) a two-way process, and if rappers, including Eminem (whoeverhe ‘really’ is), do not get off the hook under a dialogical analysis, thenneither necessarily do their assailants. The breathtaking acts of rapartists at their most dazzling – the brilliance and spontaneity of theirpoetics, and even (let’s risk saying it) their sometimes objectionablesocial attitudes – fill the moment with an injunction that is not de-tached from ethics: their lived performances (rather than any abstractethical system) forcibly remind us that, as Bakhtin would put it, wehave ‘no alibi in Being’: we must act; in this case, we must find aresponse to them that is fully ours and for which we should likewisebe fully answerable.52 Fully: perhaps part of the rhetoric behind thoseunsavoury attitudes is to remind white middle-class liberals that theirword issues from a position of privilege and dominance which is inturn open to scrutiny. One of the scariest things about hardcore hip-hop is its exposé of the non-universality of bourgeois humanist values.

These dialogical dynamics contain a cautionary tale too for thosewho see the pluralist tendencies of postmodern culture as a cue forunproblematized celebration. There is a danger of co-opting Bakhtininto this tendency: of interpreting our relativistic contemporary cul-ture as a carnival admixture of high and low, a hedonistic blurring ofself and Other. But this would be not to take to heart Bakhtin’s under-standing of heteroglot culture: ‘[t]he word, directed towards its ob-ject, enters a dialogically agitated and tension-filled environment ofalien words, value judgments and accents’.53 Cultural pluralism meansthe convergence onto a shared social space of many utterances withoften conflicting vectors of social agency. As Holquist reminds us,‘dialogism is based on … the assumption that all meaning is achievedby struggle. It is thus a stern philosophy.’54 Simon Dentith takes asimilar view:

Bakhtin cannot … be co-opted as a simple advocate for relativism … If‘polyphony’ points towards pluralism, it is not of a laissez-faire kind,but one which enjoins the double injunction both to engage others andto allow them their difference. In that difficult negotiation, finallyunresolved by Bakhtin himself, can be traced the outline of the difficult,

52. See ibid., p. 40ff. I am grateful to Anthony Gritten for drawing my attention tothis concept in early Bakhtin.

53. Bakhtin, ‘Discourse in the Novel’, p. 276 (emphasis added).54. Holquist, Dialogism, p. 39.

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exciting, and sometimes explosive cultural negotiations of the modernworld.55

The practices of performers like Eminem foment precisely such adifficult and explosive dialogics, and present a real challenge to lib-eral constructions of cultural pluralism. There’s no denying the bleakerside of this situation: the sheer militancy of some of those DifficultOthers (not in all respects unjustified) might break the frame of evendialogical models of cultural negotiation. And no less disheartening isthe commoditization of those attitudes, their reification under massmarketing as non-specific alienation and emotional de-sensitization.On the other hand, if dialogical engagement with those Others, how-ever difficult, could be kept alive and mutually open, this might fosternew, not-yet-nameable structures of feeling – profoundly ambivalentstructures that might in some perverse way be cognitively valuable inthe unceasing, unsettling dialogue with our times.

55. Dentith, Bakhtinian Thought, p. 102.

4

Artistry, Expediency or Irrelevance? EnglishChoral Translators and their Work

Judith Blezzard

Why Offer Translations?

One result of the increase in choice and availability of vocal music toa widening cross-section of the nineteenth-century English-speakingpublic was the desire for English translations of vocal texts. It washardly surprising, therefore, that publishers in England and elsewheresought to capitalize on this, equipping vocal music composed withforeign-language texts (including Latin) with English singing texts or(less commonly) English prose or poetic paraphrases. The spate ofactivity in this field of publishing is remarkable, not only for its diver-sity, but for its ingenuity, resourcefulness, and sometimes even for itsaudacity in modifying, broadening, or subverting the intent or pur-pose of the music as it originally stood. The comparatively lowly sta-tus accorded to translated texts, and by extension to the music whichhas become their vehicle, is perhaps a symptom of an attitude en-trenched in the approach of music historians: if a piece of music is ahybrid, for example of French origin but with an English text substi-tuted for the French one, then it cannot be a complete musical entity.It is therefore perhaps worthy of notice, but hardly of detailed consid-eration. This raises questions about how concepts such as plagiarism,arrangement (in the musical sense), and authenticity have been viewedin the past, how these views have changed, and how they affect present-day judgements of musical value. The fact remains that translation ofvocal texts, particularly when associated with increasing ease of ac-cess to relatively cheap printed music as the nineteenth century pro-gressed, brought vocal music within the reach and relative understand-ing of several times the number of listeners and performers than wouldhave been the case had the sung texts remained in their original lan-guages only. Whether or not this was a good thing is a separate issue,

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though perhaps some of the examples to be cited may raise questionsin the minds of those who take a particular stance on the conceptscited above.

One of the first things to recognize about the nineteenth-centuryspate of translations is that it was not an isolated or unique phenom-enon. Although some of the elements that stimulated it, and the re-sults that came from it, were strongly associated with particular cir-cumstances and individuals, there are important precedents in a tradi-tion of translation that goes back in England to the sixteenth centuryat least, and forward to the present day. A few of the more significantexamples will serve as reminders and illustrations of this, in additionshowing how, even at an early stage, translators were aware of theissues involved, seeking different ways of addressing them in theirwork.

Missionaries and Madrigalists

In sacred music, translations of the psalms from Latin into the ver-nacular became a principal means of congregational participation inProtestant services in the sixteenth century. The provision, startingaround 1520, of vernacular psalms in metrical multi-verse settings,rather than in prose, was the obvious next step. This facilitated theappropriation of well-known melodies to carry the verses, or the com-position of new tunes in a similar style. Versification was an aid to thesinger’s memory, and further developments included the addition ofpolyphony and the proliferation of numerous versions of metrical psalmtexts and their settings, some of which were specially compiled forlocal or domestic use. Psalms were translated into German, Dutch,French and English, and migrations of European Protestants from onegroup to another helped to disseminate various translations and mu-sical settings, chiefly of psalms. Protestant refugees fled to Englandfrom Roman Catholic countries during the reign of Edward VI (1547–53), and were permitted to form congregations, of which the Dutchwere among the more musically significant. French psalms were trans-lated into English, partly because of the enforced exile abroad of manyEnglish Protestants, particularly during the Roman Catholic QueenMary Tudor’s reign (1553–58). The exiles’ acquaintance with succes-sive editions of the Genevan Psalter led to the incorporation of severalGeneva tunes into the English repertory after the accession of Elizabeth

105Artistry, Expediency or Irrelevance? English Choral Translators

I, modified for use with English texts, often in a way that regularizedsome of their characteristic irregular rhythms. A similar fate later be-fell many of the Lutheran tunes that were borrowed in the 1530s forEnglish translation. Some of these German versions even came intothe English repertory by way of the Genevan Psalters. In many cases,the origins of these tunes had been with secular words, and in manymore, words to a different English psalm were substituted for theoriginal German, French, or Dutch psalm. Was this deplorable plagia-rism, artistry or expediency? Does treatment like this condemn musicas unworthy of serious attention? If so, a large proportion of the Chris-tian church’s musical repertory is condemned at a stroke.1

In secular music, there were similar developments in the sixteenthcentury, though under different circumstances. Many Italian-textedsecular pieces with overlaid English texts, or with no texts at all andpossibly for instrumental use, circulated in England, drawn predomi-nantly from Flemish sources.2 Nicholas Yonge’s Musica Transalpina,published in London in 1588, consisted of six partbooks containing57 madrigals ‘chosen out of divers excellent Authors, with the firstand second part of La Verginella, made by Maister Byrd, upon twoStanz’s of Ariosto and brought to speake English with the rest’. Thededicatory letter to Gilbert, Lord Talbot, explains how Yonge obtainedthe pieces from ‘a Gentleman’ (unidentified, still) who had translatedthem ‘for his private delight’, seeing them as ‘an idle man’s exercise,of an idle subject, written only for private recreation’, and who thoughtit inappropriate that they should be printed. Evidently he consideredit wrong to envisage financial or personal gain from this exercise (andperhaps some still see translation for singing as an idle pursuit), butYonge had other ideas. Hearing that copies were circulating morewidely and were likely sooner or later to be printed, Yonge seized thechance to do so himself. This was without the prior knowledge of ‘theGentleman’, but Yonge’s stated excuse was that he was not near enoughto be given rapid notice, and that in any case he would surely bepleased to have his work dedicated to a nobleman and published in

1. Robin A. Leaver, ‘Goostly Psalmes and Spirituall Songes’: English and DutchMetrical Psalms from Coverdale to Utenhove 1535–1566 (Oxford: Oxford Uni-versity Press, 1991), pp. 272–80; Judith Blezzard, Borrowings in English ChurchMusic 1550–1950 (London: Stainer & Bell, 1990), pp. 36–41.

2. Linda Hamessley, ‘The Tenbury and Ellesmere Partbooks: New Findings onManuscript Compilation and Exchange, and the Reception of the Italian Mad-rigal in Elizabethan England’, Music and Letters 73 (1992), 177–221.

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‘correct’ copies by Yonge, rather than risk ‘false or incorrect’ publica-tion by others! The music has English singing texts only, but the con-tents list gives English titles, Italian titles, and composers’ names: theseinclude Luca Marenzio (the main composer represented), AlfonsoFerrabosco, Giovanni Ferretti, and others such as Orlande de Lassusand Giaches de Wert who were not native Italians. Some of the origi-nal texts were French, not Italian. In the English versions, rhyme andmetre are maintained, and the verses seem no more contrived thanmany native English madrigal verses; indeed, several of the versespublished by Yonge were later given different settings by English mad-rigalists who must have considered these translations worthy of theirmusical attention and labour. Yonge brought out a further volume in1597.3

Thomas Watson’s Italian Madrigals Englished, published in Lon-don in 1590, which contains 28 pieces, adopts a different and appar-ently somewhat more thoughtful approach to the translation proce-dure than Yonge or his mysterious ‘Gentleman’ author seem to havedone. Whereas Yonge was primarily a musician, Watson was prima-rily a classical scholar, poet, and playwright, well thought of in hisday, who saw the role of translator not merely as functional but asdidactic, a creative art rather than a recreative craft. This seems to bean early sign of recognition that a translator has to try to resolve aconflict: that between presenting contrived verse that reflects as closelyas possible the meaning of the original text, and presenting a poemthat is good in its own right but that may depart substantially fromthe meaning of the original text. Watson chose the latter, showing anawareness of the subtle correspondence between words and musicdeveloped by Marenzio (the main composer represented), though evenWatson could not take account of the intricacies of ‘eye-music’ thatgraced many an Italian text-setting at this time. The full title of Watson’spublication makes his approach clear: ‘The first sett, Of ItalianMadrigalls Englished, not to the sense of the originall dittie, but afterthe affection of the Noate’. Watson interpreted the idea of poetic ‘trans-lation’ in an Elizabethan scholarly sense, which meant respecting thetheme of the original spiritually rather than literally, treating the pro-cess as an exercise in creativity rather than literal accuracy. The outcome

3. Nicholas Yonge, Musica Transalpina (London, 1588) facsimile published by DaCapo, New York, 1972; Richard Charteris, ‘Newly identified Italian MadrigalsEnglished’, Music and Letters 63 (1982), 276–80.


is a series of verses that are not translations at all in the modern sense,but rather lyrics whose emotional and pictorial imagery is very accu-rately matched to that of the music. He apparently intended to pro-vide a cross-section of the latest Italian madrigals so that English com-posers would be able to study Italian methods. Like Yonge, Watsondid not reproduce the Italian underlay, but the modern edition pro-vides parallel Italian and English texts, showing that Watson’s settingsof syllabic and melismatic writing, like his poetic interpretations, aresometimes extremely divergent from their Italian originals.4

Translation or Recomposition?

A similar approach to Watson’s, that of translation into English as ascholarly art, seems to have been pursued by Henry Aldrich in hisrecompositions of works chiefly by Palestrina and Carissimi in thelate seventeenth century, though probably for personal edificationrather than financial gain. Aldrich (1648–1710) was a distinguishedclassical scholar, theologian, collector, and composer who, as Dean ofChrist Church, Oxford, was keen to promote a wider variety of worth-while music for use in the English church, and who considered thatItalian composers had much to offer in this respect. His tastes werelargely conservative; even so, he held musical meetings weekly at thedeanery to try out music he had discovered or collected, as well as hisown numerous original church compositions. For his recompositions,Aldrich applied the principles of ‘translation’, in its early sense, notjust to texts as Watson had done, but also to music, which Watsonseems to have been content to leave intact except for variants in un-derlay. Aldrich espoused a threefold theory of ‘translation’ put for-ward by John Dryden in 1680: that the process consisted first of fol-lowing (sometimes direct copying of material, as Aldrich frequentlydid, in order to assimilate it), then imitating (redolent, to many, of‘harmony and counterpoint’ and studies of Latin and Greek), and lastlyof emulating. (Whether or not this last goal could ever be accom-plished is perhaps another matter for debate but not in the presentcontext.) Aldrich’s application of this educative method to musical

4. Albert Chatterley (ed.), Thomas Watson: Italian Madrigals Englished (1590),Musica Britannica, vol. 74 (London: Stainer & Bell, 1999), especially pp. xix,xxv, xxvi.

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composition was apparently unique in its time and context, and helpsto explain the nature and extent of his recompositions which, withhindsight, risk being dismissed as no more than plagiarism and inau-thentic misuse of better composers’ originals.

Clearly Aldrich conceived many of his recompositions as new works,even to the extent of emulating their models, while in no way at-tempting to claim the original sources of these works as his own. Themodels were not widely known in England. Not only did Aldrich sup-press the original Italian texts, he substituted English texts that borelittle or no resemblance to the style or sentiment of the originals. Themusic was modified largely by means of cuts and insertions, some-times combining several exemplars, as in the anthem ‘For Sion’s sake’which is based on three separate Carissimi models. Where material isinserted, it is usually based on ideas reworked from elsewhere in themodel, as in his second version of ‘Hold not thy tongue’ based onPalestrina’s ‘Nativitas tua’, where intercalated material renders thewhole piece more like a conventional English full anthem in form andtexture. Purposeful and skilled work like this goes far beyond mereediting or trifling interference, but it also serves to illustrate the con-cept of ‘translation’ as a more profound exercise than it might havebeen viewed as, say, a couple of centuries later. It also helps to explainthe attitudes of some nineteenth-century translators, especially thosewho approached existing works from primarily a literary or devo-tional, rather than a musical, standpoint.5

The examples quoted so far illustrate another important feature oftranslation, in whatever sense, associated with vocal music and itstexts: that in practice it is not easy to separate it from a group of otheractivities that are themselves often not mutually exclusive. These in-clude editing, contrafactum, parody, recomposition, reworking, andeven performance. The purpose of all these activities is to increaseaccess to musical material and to widen its use. The motives may vary.They may be commercial (surely the most likely, whatever high-mindedprinciples may ornament a prefatory declaration), moral or religious(to enhance devotion), or social (to provide novel material for convivial

5. Robert Shay, ‘“Naturalizing” Palestrina and Carissimi in Late Seventeenth-cen-tury Oxford: Henry Aldrich and his Recompositions’, Music and Letters 77(1996), 368–400; Robert Shay (ed.), Henry Aldrich: Selected Anthems and MotetRecompositions, Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era 85 (Madi-son, WI: A-R Editions, 1998).


music-making or listening). The problems and dilemmas facing prac-titioners of all these activities are manifold, for they all entail somedegree of compromise. Even if translation (in the narrower, modernsense) is the focus, and even if the enormous areas of opera and solosong are for the moment set aside, the rendering into English of thesung texts in non-English choral pieces alone raises issues that will notgo away, however expert the translator. These include treatment of textrhythm in English as it relates to rhythm in the original text and music.This entails regard for emphasis and melodic shape; the matching ofsyllables, as appropriate, in terms of number, metre, rhyme and allitera-tion in the original; word-painting and (probably more importantly)mood-painting; the meaning of each text, the poetic integrity of thetranslated text; as well as rather more specialized issues such as treat-ment of archaic and biblical text, onomatopoeia, and approach to texts(such as Russian ones) in unfamiliar alphabets. Another issue is thetreatment of texts (such as those in the nineteenth century concerning,for example, the Devil) that have been acceptable in one age or culture,but possibly not in another. In choral music, amateurs rather than pro-fessionals have often been the predominant participants, and transla-tors have had to reconcile their own approaches to the needs of userswhose enthusiasm may well have outweighed the combination of theirabilities and the limited rehearsal time at their disposal.

Accessibility and Idealism

Nineteenth-century translators faced these problems just as their fore-bears did, and their successors still do. Like them, their purpose wasto increase access to musical material and to widen its use. Like them,their motives were commercial, moral, social, or a combination of allthese. Translation was, and to a large extent still is, seen as hackworkto which little credit need be attached, a means purely of selling moremusic or perhaps of evading copyright on an earlier edition. Some-times it is actually very difficult to find out the identity of a particularnineteenth-century translator, who may be not named in an edition,and still more difficult to construct an overview of his or her career inthis field. But perhaps this was always the case, and it is only the moreconspicuous translators of the sixteenth and seventeenth centurieswhose work marked them out as individuals: many more may haveworked anonymously.

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One feature that tended to characterize nineteenth-century transla-tors was also a significant aspect of the whole era: that of the culturedamateur, accomplished in more than one field, to whom music was amatter of broad cultural interest rather than specific training or ex-pertise. Women, for whom literary pursuits may well have been viewedas safe and respectable, were conspicuous among nineteenth-centurytranslators. Many cultured amateurs (the term has no derogatory con-notations) were interested in literature and language, and some were,or became, distinguished poets whose distinction also enhanced theirwork as translators. There was widespread involvement with churchmusic and in particular with hymns, one of the biggest growth areasin nineteenth-century choral music which brought with it concern incultured quarters about the quality and literary propriety of texts, aswell as the types of tunes that carried them. Although it would behard, and perhaps foolhardy, to establish a direct link with Aldrich, itis not difficult to see how a similar approach influenced translatorssuch as Catherine Winkworth, John Mason Neale and Robert Bridges,three from a large number of distinguished hymn translators whoseworks merit further investigation.

Hymns as Poetry

Catherine Winkworth (1827–78) was one of the best and most pro-lific of several female translators of German hymns at a time whenthere was growing interest in German language, literature, and theol-ogy, with links between factions in the Anglican and Lutheran churches.She lived in Germany for a time, and was encouraged in her transla-tion work by Baron Karl Josias von Bunsen, Prussian Minister in Lon-don 1841–54, who provided her with many texts. Although primarilyintended as a means of private devotion, Winkworth’s verses weresoon brought into congregational use, set in many cases to the choraletunes that had carried the German texts. Sometimes, in the light ofthis, Winkworth modified her own verses so that they could carryparticular tunes which then entered the hymn repertory. But her ap-proach was primarily that of a poet, recreating the verse rather thandirectly translating it. The transfer from German carried inherent prob-lems. For example, the high proportion of ‘feminine endings’ and in-ternal rhymes resulting from the numerous inflected forms present inGerman but not in English meant that these features often had to be


jettisoned in translation. This occurs in one of Winkworth’s best-knownhymns, ‘Christ the Lord is risen again’, where the metre is modified,reflecting the sense rather than the sound of the original, and where aselection of suitable tunes was available, any of which could appro-priately have carried her translation. Some idea of the volume of ac-tivity in hymn translation can be gained from the observation that bythe end of the nineteenth century no fewer than 65 English versions ofthe hymn ‘Ein’ feste Burg’ were available. However, unlike many oth-ers, Catherine Winkworth’s translations endured in the repertory, be-ing subject to only minor modifications by the compilers of later col-lections of high quality, including The Yattendon Hymnal (1899) andSongs of Praise (first published 1926).6

John Mason Neale (1818–66) used his outstanding abilities as ascholar in antiquarian texts, combined with his personal dislike ofsubjective hymns that seemed to him to convey false or dilute doc-trines, to enrich the hymn repertory with translations from pre-Reformation Latin, and even from Eastern Orthodox Church Greek.His translations followed the original metre and rhyme wherever pos-sible, but sometimes his gift for assonance and clarity of expressionallowed him to transcend the original verse form and provide, with-out compromise of quality, a hymn of universal and enduring appealto English-speaking congregations. ‘Blessed city, heavenly Salem’ (from‘Urbs Beata Jerusalem’) is a good example, with rhymes that are actu-ally closer than those of the Latin, and a heightening, in the English,of the sense of climax in the final verse of the Latin text. Neale’s moraltext ‘Good King Wenceslas’, manufactured to fit a spring carol tunefrom the Piae Cantiones collection (1582) met with disapproval insome quarters because the lively tune was felt to be unsuitable to carrya godly text, yet it has survived all attempts to give it greater supposedpropriety. But it serves as an illustration of Neale’s accurate and memo-rable (if not always elegant) way with words, as well as a reminder of theabsence of any firm boundary between translation, adaptation, appro-priation, arrangement, and possibly plagiarism.7

6. Ronald W. Thomson, Who’s Who of Hymnwriters (London: Epworth Press,1967), pp. 2, 15, 31, 100; John S. Andrews, A Study of German Hymns inCurrent English Hymnals (Bern and Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang, 1982), pp. 2–3, 14–27; Ian Bradley, Abide with Me: The World of Victorian Hymns (London:SCM Press, 1997), pp. 92–3.

7. Thomson, Who’s Who of Hymnwriters, p. 72; Maurice Frost, Historical Compan-ion to Hymns Ancient and Modern (London: William Clowes, 1962), p. 383; JudithBlezzard, ‘The Piae Cantiones Tunes’, Organists’ Review 84 (332) (1998), 294–9.

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Robert Bridges (1844–1930), who became Poet Laureate in 1913,was concerned to promote the highest literary and musical quality inhymns, even to the extent of including historical notes for the mate-rial he chose and edited for The Yattendon Hymnal (1899). This vol-ume was important as a source of material for early twentieth-centuryhymnals that were widely used by congregations as well as choirs.The Yattendon Hymnal itself was not designed to facilitate congrega-tional participation or even to promote an active role for an organist:it was intended as music for unaccompanied choir. The aims of itseditors were based on the notion that what could be heard in churchshould be distinct and separate, not just in the sentiments it stated butin the means of transmission also, from what could be heard else-where. Accordingly, Bridges produced translations, adaptations andoriginal hymn texts which were often good poetry in themselves, butwhich in some cases lacked the directness and appeal (to singers) ofJohn Mason Neale’s work. A moral tone persists: the first line of PaulGerhard’s hymn ‘Nun ruhen alle Wälder’, for example, is rendered as‘The duteous day now closeth’, the esteemed nineteenth-century con-cept of duty, absent in Gerhard’s version, being emphasized by Bridges.The rest of the Bridges version is on the whole less subjective in toneand sentiment than the Gerhard original, though some of the sameallusions are made to woodland, stars, and so forth. Archaic endingson words such as ‘closeth’, ‘reposeth’, and even ‘disesteemeth’ (to rhymewith ‘dreameth’) serve as useful substitutes for German inflected end-ings but are by no means exclusively used: many ingenious rhymes areutilized by Bridges with no lapses into bathos. His hymns ‘O sacredhead sore wounded’ and ‘Ah, Holy Jesu, how hast thou offended’were written to carry chorale melodies in The Yattendon Hymnal.The latter hymn, and the well-known ‘All my hope on God is founded’,illustrate great aptitude on the part of Bridges in incorporating linesof different lengths, and the rhymes they encapsulate, into a succinctbut satisfying whole that makes overall sense but nevertheless giveseach line its due weight.8

8. Bernard Braley, Hymnwriters 3 (London: Stainer & Bell, 1991), pp. 100–3;Bradley, Abide with Me, pp. 204–6; Judith Blezzard, The Yattendon Hymnal:Hymns Ancient and Modernised?, Church Music Society Ninety-Third Report(1999), 9–12; Andrews, A Study of German Hymns, pp. 234–5; Frost, Histori-cal Companion, p. 145.


Biblical Texts

Understandably, poets were less interested in translating the texts oforatorios and associated forms such as cantatas into English becausethe preponderance of recitatives and arias gave them less scope fortheir expertise in crafting the kind of individual, free-standing cre-ations afforded by hymn translations. Furthermore, some publicationsdemanded translations or adaptations that bore little relationship tothe original text or usage. Examples of the latter included the enthusi-astic plunder by Novello of snippets from the nineteenth-century con-tinental choral repertory to supply ‘Responses to the Commandments:Beethoven in C; Gounod in D, G; Hummel in B flat, Mendelssohn inG, A; C. M. von Weber in E flat; F. Schubert in C, G, C, F, E flat, Aflat’, all in inexpensive leaflets for church use.9

Translators, even of large-scale works established in the Englishchoral repertory, are seldom well known. Among the better-knownones is William Hayman Cummings (1831–1915), a singer, choralconductor, author, scholar, and editor whose adaptation of ‘Hark, theHerald Angels Sing’ from a section of Mendelssohn’s secular Festgesangassured his fame.10 The younger Sabilla Novello (daughter of Vincentand Mary Sabilla Novello) achieved some prominence as a writer andtranslator. John Troutbeck (1832–99) was responsible for many op-era as well as choral-music translations for Novello publications, andlater on, Ivor Atkins (1869–1963) produced, with Edward Elgar, anEnglish version of Bach’s St Matthew Passion that remained the stan-dard edition for many years.

William Bartholomew (1793–1867), scientist, musician and writer,was the translator and text author most strongly associated withMendelssohn’s works in England. He also composed hymns andchildren’s songs, as well as translating texts from other composers’works. Bartholomew was married to the composer, organist, and pia-nist Anna Sheppard Mounsey (1811–91), who gave a series of perfor-mances in London under the title of ‘Classical Sacred Concerts’. Dur-ing the composition of Elijah for the 1846 Birmingham festival,Mendelssohn was in contact with Bartholomew, who was to providethe English translation. However, the primary text in the early stages

9. Judith Blezzard, Borrowings, pp. 56, 71.10. James D. Brown and Stephen S. Stratton, British Musical Biography (Birming-

ham, 1897, reprinted New York: Da Capo, 1971), p. 111.

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was the German one, and this caused some problems in translation.Mendelssohn, who spoke and wrote fluent English, supervisedBartholomew’s translation activities meticulously, and it is clear fromsurviving correspondence that the composer was anxious to followthe Authorised Version of the English biblical text as closely as pos-sible, even to the extent of altering the music to fit it. Whether thisstance meant that the requirements of the German text were to be subor-dinated, or whether the composer was aiming at a compromise betweenEnglish and German, is not clear: perhaps he even envisaged two parallelbut separate versions. After the first performance in 1846, further revi-sions were made before London and regional performances in 1847.11

The converse was the case in Mendelssohn’s setting, in 1844, ofWilliam Bartholomew’s text ‘Hear my prayer’, an adaptation of thetext of Psalm 55. This was composed especially for the Classical Sa-cred Concert on 8 January 1845, long before Bartholomew’s mar-riage to Anna Mounsey (1853), yet she is seldom remembered as itspromoter.12 The German version, ‘Hör’ mein Bitten’, produced shortlyafterwards, was dedicated to the conductor Wilhelm Taubert. I can-not help wondering if this dedication was a pun on Taubert’s name(‘Taube’ means ‘dove’ in German) in view of the best-known sectionof the piece beginning ‘O for the wings of a dove’. Bartholomew wasalso associated with other Mendelssohn works, editions of which werepublished in England chiefly by Novello, but also by other firms, andone particular point of interest is that he had personal and amicablecontact with the composer whose works he translated, rather thanworking at some distance of time or location, as is often the case withtranslators. Not only native English speakers were involved: the Ger-man diplomat Karl Klingemann, one of Mendelssohn’s friends, trans-lated some texts for music. It is also important to remember that Ger-man publishers such as Simrock produced editions with English trans-lations, sometimes simultaneously with their German counterparts,or with parallel German and English texts.13

11. F. G. Edwards, Preface to vocal score of Mendelssohn, Elijah (London: Novello,1903), pp. iii–vi; F. G. Edwards, The History of Mendelssohn’s Oratorio ‘Elijah’(London: Novello, 1896).

12. Brown and Stratton, Biography, p. 33.13. Friedhelm Krummacher, ‘Composition as Accommodation? On Mendelssohn’s

Music in Relation to England’, in R. Larry Todd (ed.), Mendelssohn Studies (Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 80–105, especially 95, 100; PeterWard Jones, ‘Mendelssohn and his English Publishers’, op. cit., pp. 240–55.


The composite volumes of Mendelssohn’s works edited by JuliusRietz and published between 1874 and 1880 provide examples ofparallel underlaid German and English texts. This edition of St Paul,in full score, even includes an English translation of the contents page,but there is no preface, no note of which versions of the Bible (ineither language) were used, no record of which verses of the Acts ofthe Apostles and other sections of the Bible supplied the texts, and noname of any translator. In general, the sung translation is clearly anattempt to reproduce the musical rhythms as closely as possible whileapproaching Authorised Version biblical language in spirit, if not re-producing it exactly. There has been some regard for musicalpracticalities, such as placing open syllables on long high notes, alsofor matching some syllables such as the first one in ‘Freudigkeit’, un-derlaid as ‘joyfulness’ in English. But there are some casualties. Forexample, the characteristic dotted-quaver-semiquaver rhythm on ‘wi-der’ in ‘Herr, wi-der dich und’ is smoothed out to a crotchet, one offour carrying ‘Lord! A-gainst thee’ in the translation, which takes muchof the rhythmic ‘bite’ out of the passage.14

A Novello edition of St Paul, from which the German text is absentwith the result that note-values for its underlay are suppressed, pro-vides further interesting comparisons and highlights some of the prob-lems of translation. On the basis of some trial sections it seems thatthe German text is near to the Lutheran version but expands andmodifies it slightly. The English text is near to the Authorised Versionbut with elaborations, particularly in recitatives. In both cases, there-fore, archaic language is retained. A sample passage follows from theActs of the Apostles, chapter 5 verse 28, which Mendelssohn sets forchorus:

Lutheran Bible: Haben wir euch nicht streng geboten, in diesem Namennicht zu lehren?Mendelssohn: Haben wir euch nicht mit Ernst ge-[two quavers on firstsyllable]boten, dass ihr nicht solltet lehren in diesem Namen?Mendelssohn, English translation: Did we not enjoin and straitlycommand you, that ye should not__ teach in the name ye follow?Authorised Version: Did we not straitly command you that ye shouldnot teach in this name?

14. Julius Rietz (ed.), Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s Werke: Kritisch durchgeseheneAusgabe (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1874–80), Paulus: Oratorium nachWorten der heiligen Schrift op. 36, series 13, vol. 85, example from p. 33.

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Both languages show elaboration of the biblical texts, but the Englishentails some slight modifications of rhythm. Sometimes the only waythe English translator can cope with the German ‘feminine endings’ isto resort to almost self-conscious archaism, as (for example) in ‘[Blessedare they who have] endur-ed’ for ‘erduldet’ in Mendelssohn. (The nextsection of this chapter shows further examples of a similar practice.)Repetitions of English words sometimes fill out melismas in the Ger-man, and ‘infill’ words such as ‘yea’ abound, sometimes to ensurethat the most significant English words coincide with their Germancounterparts at musical climaxes. Additional words can enhance adramatic moment, as in the following example from Leviticus chapter24 verse 16, where both German and English biblical versions use thepassive voice: ‘He that blasphemeth … shall surely be put to death’,but Mendelssohn’s setting, for chorus, has the active imperative‘Steiniget ihn’, amplified in English as ‘Stone him to death’. Not sur-prisingly, recitatives show the greatest rhythmic divergence betweenGerman and English, chorales the least. However, the latter show muchgreater divergence of meaning.15

Some Pitfalls of Archaism

Attempts to use archaic language in English translations, perhaps toconvey an air of supposed propriety or archaism, sometimes go wrong,textually or musically. An example of each will illustrate the prob-lems. The text of Psalm 150 by Anton Bruckner in the Schirmer edi-tion of 1969 is underlaid in both German and English. The Englishapproximates to the Authorised Version without slavishly followingit. There are several ‘infill’ words, dotted slurs and similar contriv-ances, giving the edition a confusing appearance overall. But the mostconspicuous problem occurs at ‘All creatures that hath breath’, re-peated several times. Undoubtedly this rendition has been used be-cause the text ‘Let all things that have breath’ or ‘Let everything thathath breath’ would not fit the emphases in Bruckner’s setting. How-ever, this hybrid solution attempts to fit a singular verb with a pluralnoun, with uncomfortable results.

15. Saint Paul: An Oratorio in Vocal Score Composed by F Mendelssohn Bartholdy,the Pianoforte Accompaniment Arranged by the Composer (London: Novello,Ewer and Co, n.d. [c.1880]).


The musical phrasing and emphasis in the 1714 setting by J. S.Bach of an anonymous chorale melody to a text (‘Es ist vollbracht!’)by Johann Eusebius Schmidt defies an attempt to supply it with anarchaic English translation. This setting, until recently used on Pas-sion Sunday in York Minster, is difficult to track down for referencebecause no publisher is given, the translator is anonymous and (as inmany such choral leaflets) the German text is suppressed. However,the latter is available elsewhere, and shows the relative clumsiness ofthe contrived ‘archaic’ English, which is here followed by a moremodern possibility which reflects the musical contours:

– – – – –Es__ ist voll- -bracht! Ver- -giss ja__ nicht,It is fin- -ish- -ed! Ah! Grant, O Lord,It__ is ful- -filled!

The ‘archaic’ setting places undue emphasis on ‘-shed’, reinforced insubsequent verses as ‘accomplish-ed’, ‘o’er my head’ and ‘Jesus said’,and by the repetition of the opening text line at the end of each of thethree verses. Although this observation makes a musical point, it isimportant to remember that the German texts at Bach’s disposal werealready archaic when he set them. Therefore, should translations re-flect this archaism? Even so, the repeated emphasis on syllables suchas ‘-shed’ seems unmusical here.

Changes in Fashion, Form and Meaning

What happened to Latin underlaid texts where the source materialwas not biblical? A Novello edition of Mendelssohn’s Lauda Sion,composed early in 1846 for a church festival at Liège, using the text ofthe Latin rhyming sequence to commemorate the 600th anniversaryof the Feast of Corpus Christi, is one example. This piece shows hownot only rhythm, assonance and shades of meaning, but also the matchof musical and poetic form, can be compromised by translation. Notranslator is named, either in the edition or in The British LibraryCatalogue of Printed Music to 1980. The popularity of the piece inEngland is attested by the cluster of versions for different forces, allavailable from Novello. All texts are given at the front of the vocalscore, and the music gives parallel English and Latin underlay, so di-rect comparison is possible. Throughout, the rhyme-scheme of the

^^ ^

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Latin is maintained in the English, which is a notable achievementconsidering the brevity of each line and the overall sense and unity ofeach version. The English is much more picturesque, with colourfulimagery and allusions. Also, its ‘Praise Jehovah’ opening sets the tonefor the remainder: an adulatory and supplicatory text that transcendsthe narrower focus of the Latin poem.

But that is not all. For many sections, the English text is muchlonger than the Latin, so verbal repetitions in the Latin are filled outwith additional text in the English. In the final chorus, which startswith ‘Bone pastor, panis vere’, a reprise of these words is given a de-gree of tonal and thematic recapitulation. This means that the form ofthe text in this movement is A B A, and that of the music is A A A(varied) B A (with coda). However, the English text form is A B C D E,so that the musical recapitulation is no longer matched by the text.The treble solo aria ‘Caro cibus, sanguis potus’ behaves similarly, withtwo Latin verses set musically as six sections: A A B A B A (minus itsfirst line). The English also has six sections but each is different, sothat the musical form above is carrying a text form of A B C D E F.The main musical recapitulation, exact only at the start, is at D in thisscheme. There are internal repetitions in the lines of both Latin andEnglish texts. Why did the translator or editor go to the trouble ofcontriving all this extra English text? Was it perhaps to make the poemmore picturesque, subjective and moral in tone? Was it to make itmore like a hymn with several verses, rather than a rounded musicalaria? Was it to sustain interest in a beautiful but at times rather pro-tracted solo? This approach must have been the result of a deliberatedecision rather than merely a matter of expediency or compromise.16

The two Mendelssohn examples, in particular, show how transla-tion can affect the interpretation and perception of music, perhaps toa greater extent than is sometimes realized, and not always in obviousways or for obvious reasons. There must be hundreds of other workswhose translations, often familiar and entrenched in use, would oninvestigation reveal similar and other ploys. No value-judgement onthese ploys is offered here, perhaps only a raising of awareness ofsome of their implications. In certain cases, the reasons behind thechanges brought about in translation are clear. Barbara Mohn has

16. Felix Mendelssohn, Lauda Sion (London: Novello, n.d. [c. 1895]), especiallynumbers 8 and 6.


shown how the problem of English distaste for allowing Jesus to bepersonified as a dramatic character was circumvented in successiveeditions of Beethoven’s Christus am Oelberge (The Mount of Olives),the first performance of which in England took place in 1814. Theproblem was that Jesus was given a singing role. In the 1842 Novelloedition, entitled Engedi or David in the Wilderness, the setting wasswitched to the Old Testament, the central character was changed,and cuts and adaptations were made due to ‘the objectionable natureof the libretto’, as stated by Henry Hudson in the edition’s preface. InWilliam Bartholomew’s adaptation of 1855, the disciple John assumedthe central role, and some passages were turned into commentary onJesus’ agony as if from a narrator’s point of view. Louis Spohr’s DesHeilands letze Stunden was given similar treatment for the Englishmarket, apparently with Spohr’s approval, and other works were simi-larly modified. It was not until the 1870s that oratorios with Jesus asa character (such as Sullivan’s The Light of the World) began to ap-pear. The increasing popularity of Bach’s St Matthew Passion in En-gland from around this time may have been a factor in this change ofattitude. Certainly for a period in the late nineteenth century, vocalscores of Engedi and of The Mount of Olives were on sale concur-rently, as the Novello catalogue demonstrates.17

Aspects of Secular Texts

Secular choral music was not neglected, and many examples withEnglish translations were published not only by Novello and otherEnglish publishers, but by German firms too. Mendelssohn’s partsongswere among the favourites, many translated by Sabilla Novello andWilliam Bartholomew. The partsongs of Peter Cornelius, much un-derrated in my view, were translated for Breitkopf and Härtel by aMrs B. Shapleigh, of whom I have yet to find further trace. The fa-mous Cornelius ‘Three kings from Persian lands afar’ translation waslater, by H. N. Bate (1871–1941) for The Oxford Book of Carols,first published in 1928. Several pieces by Brahms were translated byJohn Troutbeck and Paul England, in both cases with much adaptation

17. Barbara Mohn, ‘Personifying the Saviour? English Oratorio and the Represen-tation of the Words of Christ’, in Bennett Zon (ed.), Nineteenth-Century BritishMusic Studies (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), pp. 227–41.

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but no particular artistry. In some editions the German text was ab-sent, along with any attribution to a translator or even to the Germanpoet whose work Brahms used. The translations in a Simrock editionof Brahms’ Liebeslieder Walzer Op. 52 were what first drew my at-tention to the problems of this kind of work. Daumer’s text lines tendto be short, with a high frequency of rhymes. This must have entailedan enormous degree of difficulty and contrivance for the translator(anonymous in the edition). The result, though in many ways com-mendable, was so precious and ‘twee’ that none of us in a choir I rancould get far into the music without breaking into laughter. This wasnot conducive to efficient rehearsal, but nor would have been the pros-pect of singing the pieces in German: it was not what our potentialaudience wanted and it would have taken us too long to learn. This wasa dilemma, replicated in English-speaking choirs whenever they are facedwith ineffectual translations or no translations at all.

Enormous latitude in translation is possible, greater even than insacred music. There are two kinds of setting, however, that entail someelements of translation but which in the present context do not countas such. First, those where sacred texts are substituted for secular ones,and vice versa, are contrafacta rather than translations. Second, thosein which a composer has set a pre-existent translation cannot really bereckoned alongside translations of underlaid texts. Examples in-clude the Elgar ‘Serenade’ Op. 73 no 2 for unaccompanied mixedchoir (Novello, 1914), the text ‘adapted from the Russian of Minskyby Rosa Newmarch’. Elgar is likely to have set the English transla-tions without reference to their Russian originals. He adopted asimilar approach in his Op. 27 partsongs Scenes from the BavarianHighlands.

But there are many translations of secular texts that raise problemsof their own, particularly with respect to onomatopoeia in Frenchtexts. Examples include partsongs by Debussy (the Trois Chansons deCharles d’Orléans, published 1908) and Ravel (the Trois Chansons of1914–15), in which the sounds of the words are as important as theirmeanings. In the third of the Ravel pieces, the English translator hashad a hard time finding equivalents for all the monstrous, fantasticand threatening beings found in the dark woodlands, but the real thrustof the music lies in its portrayal of the writhing tumult of creaturesrather than their individual identities. In the partsong Avril (1866),Delibes sets verses by the sixteenth-century poet Rémy Belleau in whichsix different nouns are used to convey the idea of fragrance. This


subtlety in the underlaid text is extremely difficult to match, or evenapproximate to, in any other language.

Sixteenth-century French programme chansons, such as those byJanequin, present similar problems with their characteristic repeatedsyllables imitating the sound of anything from a barnyard to a battle-field. Some element of humour is clearly intended, as is also the casein songs incorporating dialect, such as ‘Matona mia cara’ by the cos-mopolitan Lassus. The text is in a dialect of Italian, and a Germanprose edition also to hand is in a form of German dialect. The idea isto convey fairly crude sentiments, perhaps as expressed by an unedu-cated peasant. The refrain ‘don don don, diri diri don don don don’rounds off the lively verses. One English edition of the piece starts‘Matona lovely maiden …’ and ends ‘… Dong derry dong’, far toogenteel a substitute for the original. But what would happen if dialectsuch as Geordie, Scouse, or broad Yorkshire (the native speech of thepresent author) were used to convey the impression of peasant speech?Would it be regarded as offensive? There is a corpus of good poetryand prose in each of these dialects of English (as there is, for example,in Plattdeutsch), and it would be erroneous to suppose that they rep-resent only rough or peasant speech.

Originating from further back than the sixteenth century, the cat-egory of macaronic settings (in which vernacular texts alternate withLatin) presents particular problems in translation. The Latin is per-haps best left alone, and the vernacular texts translated into anothervernacular language. But should this be a modern form of the lan-guage, or a contrived pastiche such as that discussed above for Bach’ssetting of ‘Es ist vollbracht!’? Whatever approach is adopted, it isimportant to retain the macaronic element because it often serves toemphasize the difference between a personal sentiment or observation(in the vernacular) and a more formal or corporate expression (inLatin).

Much of the interest behind the concept of text translation for musiclies in the multiplicity of purpose, approach and outcome, and howthese change, develop and diversify. But there seems to be no unanim-ity whatsoever, probably an entirely healthy state of affairs. This isillustrated by the completely divergent opinions expressed by two criticson adjacent pages of the Summer 2002 issue of Mastersinger, thejournal of the Association of British Choral Directors. The first, re-viewing a Schubert choral arrangement, commented that its editorhad ‘resisted any temptation to further the distortion with an English

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translation’. The second, reviewing an edition of predominantly main-land-European madrigals and partsongs, said:

The one down side is the lack of an English singing text, translations(and indeed very good ones) are included but no attempt has been madeto make them fit the music. A case can be made … that the whole pointof this repertoire is the communication of the text through the music,and some may feel that non-English words can be a barrier for audiences.The challenge then is, I suppose, to ensure that translations are availableto the listeners (is it time for surtitles, do you think?) or alternatively forthe singers to create their own, tailor-made versions in English.

From the observations made earlier in this chapter, it is perhaps clear thatthe latter process is not quite so straightforward as this critic suggests.18

The Search for Solutions

How do people react to translations? Much depends on attitudes tosources of music. Some people would disapprove of the spate of trans-lations of sung texts, especially that of the nineteenth century, believ-ing that it created a false impression in the minds of performers andlisteners, especially if original texts had been suppressed. Perhaps eventhe commercial aspect itself could be considered as a slur on the integ-rity of a publication. But was this spate really such a bad thing? Was itbetter for music to be performed in what might now be regarded asunscholarly and inadequate editions, or not to be performed at all?That is the dilemma, not whether scholarly editions should have beenchosen rather than (possibly cheaper) workaday ones. Then there isthe question of latitude: at what point does a translation turn into anadaptation? Is there a borderline? Are editions that might be regardedas adaptations by virtue of their translations of any interest in them-selves, or are they an irrelevance? Is translation, by its nature, inad-equate? (Please note the careful avoidance here of the word ‘authen-tic’!) As editorial scholarship has gained greater depth and breadth,bringing with it an increase in status for the editor, so the status of thetranslator has decreased. If the editor’s aim is to transmit music fromchosen sources as faithfully as state-of-the-art scholarship allows, thena translator’s work on underlaid texts inevitably detracts from this.

18. Jonathan Willcocks, ‘Schubert, arr Carlo Marenco: Die schöne Müllerin’, re-viewed in Mastersinger 44 (Summer 2002), 6; Philip Redfern, ‘ed. [Clifford]Bartlett: Madrigals and Partsongs’, reviewed in ibid., 7.


All kinds of compromise are possible, but the importance of clearpurpose and procedure is paramount. There is huge divergence of prac-tice, still, in choral editions, although some trends are detectable. Thefollowing ideas are tentative and based on fortuitous rather than pre-meditated observations, but there seems to have been a trend awayfrom using or imitating the Bible’s Authorised Version language, alsofrom trying to create self-sufficient English poetry for use in translat-ing rhyming texts, and from deliberate archaism and preciousness.Sentiments or allusions are sometimes toned down, ostensibly to in-crease access and usage (such as modifying references to the BlessedVirgin Mary or to feasts specific to one denomination), but some-times perhaps in the cause of political correctness. Statements of edi-torial policy are increasingly found, though sometimes tantalisinglyscant. A policy on translation, used lately with some success, is tounderlay a translated text that matches the parallel original as closelyas possible in rhythm, metre, rhyme and so forth but perhaps diverg-ing somewhat from its meaning, and also to provide a prose summaryof the original text that gives its meaning more precisely. This prosesummary can be used in programme notes where performers prefer totransmit the music in its original language. On reflection it seems aparadox that, when knowledge of modern European languages is pre-sumed to be increasing and that of Latin decreasing, some publishers,performers and audiences are prepared to accept untranslated Latinsung texts but not those in, say, French or German.

A brief survey of the editorial history of some Latin pieces by En-glish composers revealed certain trends. In the early twentieth cen-tury, Latin-only editions were much in favour, whereas by the mid-twentieth century Latin and English parallel underlay seemed to pre-dominate. As the twenty-first century approached, Latin-only editionsbegan to predominate again, sometimes with prose summaries. Therecould be many reasons for these changes in fashion, not necessarilyconnected with liturgical practice in various denominations, nor withthe decline of Latin in schools, but perhaps with the increasing use ofthis music in concerts and recordings as well as in services.

However, observations from a working cathedral music collection(that at Chester) in the late nineteenth century present a different pic-ture, with a much more cavalier approach to composers and texts.19

19. Further details in Judith Blezzard, The Music Collections at Chester Cathedral:A Handbook, (London: Church Music Society, forthcoming, 2007).

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There is no reason to believe that other cathedral collections from thisperiod would portray a different state of affairs. It seems that not onesingle piece in a language other than English was performed at ChesterCathedral from c. 1860 to c. 1918. Moreover, foreign and Latin piecesin translation were indexed, catalogued and filed under the names oftheir editors and arrangers, not their composers. For example, thecomposer commonly referred to nowadays as Palestrina might havemusic filed under the name Henry Leslie (the editor) or John Hullah(the series editor). Extracts from pieces by Haydn or Handel might befiled under Gardiner (the arranger) or Judah, the composite oratorioGardiner concocted from these extracts. This is the opposite situationfrom that sometimes also found in the collection, where foreign orLatin texts and titles were suppressed but no translator or editor wasnamed. Thus, for example, ‘Palestrina’ might be recognized as thecomposer, but the user of the edition would be left with no clue as towhich of Palestrina’s pieces had been utilized. Perhaps these issues didnot matter to the musicians who performed this music on a routinebasis with little time to think about its history or origins.

As a choir trainer, programme planner, editor and translator I amoften faced with these and similar issues, and have become increas-ingly aware of the influence translation can have — even, at the mostbasic level, on whether or not someone books tickets for a concert orbuys a CD. This chapter can do little more than provide the start ofwhat promises to be a fascinating investigation, perhaps with widerconsideration of other vocal forms such as opera and solo song. Thereis always a risk that an investigation like this will degenerate into aseries of anecdotes that are nevertheless valuable in showing the di-versity and omnipresence of this subject. However, here is just onethat shows how resilient music with a translated text can be, even indisguise. At Montserrat monastery near Barcelona recently I bought achoral CD containing 15 works in Latin and Catalan, including pieces(with Catalan titles) by Mendelssohn and Schubert. I could guess theorigins of some of the pieces, but Mendelssohn’s ‘Cantar vol laGrandesa’ defeated me until my arrival home to play it. It turned outto be a wonderful Catalan version of the famous Lobgesang extract ‘Iwaited for the Lord’.

5

Pyramids, Symbols, and Butterflies:‘Nacht’ from Pierrot Lunaire

John Williamson

Theoretical Issues

A central issue in ‘Words and Music’ studies is the complex of ideasrelated to analysis of lieder that have been categorized by Kofi Agawuand amplified by Suzanne M. Lodato. These have mostly been dis-cussed in relation to the nineteenth-century repertory, though clearlythey have the capacity for extension, since Lodato’s attempts to ex-plain and refine Agawu’s taxonomy makes comparatively little refer-ence to specific lieder (unless in the context of methodologies) anddeals largely with general issues. This chapter will consider a ‘vocal’work that has a notional resemblance to a lied in proportion, that issituated within a ‘cycle’, but which contains no singing voice (apartfrom one word) – ‘Nacht’ from Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire – with aview to considering what the Agawu-Lodato scheme might indicateabout it as melodrama. Although Pierrot Lunaire as a whole is a dra-matic work, the level of surface and structural integration exhibited isnot strikingly greater than in certain nineteenth-century song cycles,and certainly less than in a post-Wagnerian opera; it tends to rest(according to current analysis) on associations rather than deeper pat-terns and correspondences. ‘Nacht’ on the other hand takes structuralintegration to an extreme point for Schoenberg in his atonal period.As a special case, it remains particularly open to investigation in itsown right, in much the same way as a song from Winterreise.

Theory is of particular importance to the historical repertory ofwhich ‘Nacht’ is a part. It has the capacity to act as a kind of substi-tute for ‘meaning’ where the ‘sense’ of the verbal text is at least asmuch musical as literary, depending as it does to some degree on soundto transcend the semantic banalities and obscurities of the words; inthirteen lines the poem says the equivalent of ‘Night falls – man sleeps

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fitfully’, but dresses it in a variety of deliberately strained symbols; itis as much stage direction as lyric. Pierrot as a whole has been takenas a case study of ‘resistance to theory’, not so much in the area ofpitch organization but in a broader sense that would make some sortof theory of melodrama useful in much the same way as Agawu’stheory of song.1 ‘Nacht’ in this context is an extreme case: copioustheory about pitch, comparative reticence about the whole.

In the theories of Agawu-Lodato, four models are proposed for theanalysis of song: assimilation (the text loses its identity in music),incorporation (a meaning is generated from the interaction of textand music), pyramid (the verbal meaning is paramount and supportedby the various levels of the music), and tripartite (an overlap of text,music, and song, which is granted an existence separate from, thoughrelated to, the constituent parts). Lodato is of the opinion that inter-esting analyses have tended to be written in recent times on the basisof the pyramidal approach, though she is aware that Agawu has pro-posed the tripartite approach as closer to an ideal. In this last, musicalanalysis itself generates metaphors, which combine with the composer’sreading of the poem (not the poem itself, which remains beyond reach)in order to explicate intrinsic relationships in the song that are thencapable of combination with contextual (i.e. cultural or biographical)factors.2 Whether this is truly tripartite is questionable. Agawu himselfdistinguishes five stages, three based on analysis of the music (informaldata gathering, use of an explicit method to refine data and generatemore, and development of metaphors from the analysis); two on read-ing the text contextually and comparing it with the analysis of the mu-sic; and a final explicit interpretation that may involve ‘external’ fac-tors (a ‘super-profile’).3 The broad outlines of this are present in Lodato’sinterpretation of Agawu although she is noticeably more insistent onthe nature of the reading of the text, but broadly speaking it is possiblyto see this as a coherent position in ‘Words and Music’ studies.

1. Jonathan Dunsby, ‘Pierrot Lunaire and the Resistance to Theory’, Musical Times130 (1989), 732–36.

2. Kofi Agawu, ‘Theory and Practice in the Analysis of the Nineteenth-CenturyLied’, Music Analysis 11 (1992), 3–36; Suzanne M. Lodato, ‘Recent Approachesto Text/Music Analysis in the Lied’, in Walter Bernhart, Steven Paul Scher, andWerner Wolf (eds), Word and Music Studies: Defining the Field (Amsterdamand Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1999), pp. 95–112, in particular 98–101.

3. Agawu, ‘Theory and Practice’, 11.

127Pyramids, Symbols, and Butterflies: ‘Nacht’ from Pierrot Lunaire

In spite of the prevalence of the pyramid approach in practical analy-sis of song, this paper will tend towards the model in which consider-ation of the music precedes the explication of musico-literary rela-tionships and cultural factors. This possibly instinctual preference isreinforced by certain aspects that stem from the composition historyof ‘Nacht’, certain conclusions as to the status of the vocal part, andthe degree to which the composer’s own theories of the relationship ofliterary texts to music display internal dissonance. It is possible that acertain analytical insight concerning pitch relationships that I feel hasbeen overlooked in the literature has drawn me to ‘Nacht’ in the firstplace. If so, it has led to a desire to clarify why an abstract statementof musical relationships frames an exercise in the grotesque. There isan additional set of signifiers at work throughout Pierrot Lunaire thatincludes ‘melodrama as parody’, ‘melodrama as means of dramaticintensification’, and melodrama as historical echo.4 ‘Nacht’ subjectsabstract symbolic presentation of musical material to a set of alienat-ing shocks through the ancestry of the vocal medium. That is not tomaintain that the abstract statement does not extend to embrace thesmallest detail of the work’s musical processes, merely to note that thedisparity between the precise organization of pitch and the garishpoetic-visual spectacle eventually distorts the musical relationships inodd but predetermined ways. Abstraction plus parody and satire jointogether at the point where the pre-compositional arrangement ofmaterial seems to become part of the musical events themselves. Aquasi-geometric pitch matrix is smuggled into a text-setting that hasat least elements of mischievous intent. Later in Schoenberg’s twelve-note period, the presentation of abstract relationships is often accom-plished at an initial stage, as in the Violin Concerto, where the combi-natorial relationship is rendered explicit in the opening bars with di-dactic thoroughness. That is a simpler matter, however, than the pitchmatrix with which Schoenberg begins ‘Nacht’.

In Lodato’s essay, the pyramidal model is particularly character-ized by the presumption ‘that the music in the lied translates seman-tic textual meaning and structure and that this poetic/musical

4. See Monika Schwarz-Danuser, ‘Melodram und Sprechstimme bei FerruccioBusoni’, in Heinz-Klaus Metzger and Rainer Riehn (eds), Musik-Konzepte 112/113: Schönberg und der Sprechgesang (Munich: Edition Text+Kritik, 2001),pp. 40–2.

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correspondence lends the song its essential meaning’. What happenswhen ‘semantic textual meaning’ may be a function of structure andsound is not discussed, although it is implicit in her discussion ofSchoenberg’s George settings and Reinhold Brinkmann’s interpreta-tion of them: ‘structure and sound constitute meaning’.5 This is anissue in ‘Nacht’, whose imagery is among the most famous or noto-rious in Pierrot Lunaire , painting in fairly crass symbolic terms apicture that owes as much to the images as to any conceivable narra-tive (see Table 1).

In setting this poem as melodrama, Schoenberg seems to be pre-senting an extreme case of music’s capacity to extend the limit of ver-bal expression at the point where it tails off into meaninglessness,what one writer on melodrama refers to as the ‘“Unsagbarkeit”-topos’.6

This seems a crude measure of its effect, however, even if it is deeplyembedded in the history and theory of melodrama. What the strainedverbal images are saying is actually something rather simple. The con-tortions of the music have something of the same quality, but expressedso consistently in music’s own terms as to raise the eternal question asto which of the two, text or music, called forth the other.

If the tripartite model is taken as a starting point, on the otherhand, analysis begins with sound and structure in musical terms be-fore addressing the verbal imagery; but genre too can become a factorin generating metaphors in ‘Nacht’, if only because of the description‘Passacaglia’ that Schoenberg attached to it. This is a factor that ispresent at all stages, most obviously in the musical analysis. It mayalso generate tension with any reading that seeks to locate a referen-tial literary meaning as an initial stage in interpreting the melodrama.The term ‘Passacaglia’ may itself be expressive in this context; theidea of a recurring ground is interpreted musically in such a way thatthe form generates its own sense of dissolution and decay that is not aresponse to precise details of the words, though the melodrama thatimmediately follows in the cycle turns to exactly that idea:

Das Bild des GlanzesZerfloss – Zerfloss!

5. Lodato, ‘Recent Approaches’, p. 102; Reinhold Brinkmann, ‘Schönberg undGeorge: Interpretation eines Liedes’, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 26 (1969),1–28.

6. Sjoerd van der Meulen, ‘Empfindsamkeit und Melodrama’, in Musik als Text:Bericht über den Internationalen Kongress der Gesellschaft für MusikforschungFreiburg im Breisgau 1993, 2 vols (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1998), vol. 1, p. 381.


Table 1: Text and translation of ‘Nacht’

Finstre, schwarze RiesenfalterTöteten der Sonne Glanz.Ein geschlossnes Zauberbuch,ruht der Horizont – verschwiegen.

Aus dem Qualm verlorner TiefenSteigt ein Duft, Erinnrung mordend!Finstre, schwarze RiesenfalterTöteten der Sonne Glanz.

Und vom Himmel erdenwärtsSenken sich mit schweren SchwingenUnsichtbar die UngetümeAuf die Menschenherzen nieder …Finstre, schwarze Riesenfalter.

Dark, black giant butterflieshave deadened the sun’s radiance.A closed magic book,the horizon sleeps – secluded.

Out of the smoke of lost depthsrises a scent, murdering memory!Dark, black giant butterflieshave deadened the sun’s radiance.

And from heaven towards earthsink with heavy wingsinvisibly the monstersdown on to the hearts of men …dark, black giant butterflies

The more general objections to referential ‘literal’ meanings pro-vided by writers such as Lawrence Kramer also bear on this area,since the text concerned is so obviously resistant to a literal interpre-tation.7 The temptation to ‘ignore the problematic relationship be-tween the literal and figurative levels of the verbal matter’ and ‘totreat the verbal text as a fairly easily discernible literalist statement’is negated when the verbal text resists literalism by its choice oflanguage, form, and imagery.8 Many commentators confronted withthis problem here or in other works have sought to find meaning inthe text’s relationship to a wider cycle. As a result, as Lodato hasnoted in a further paper, the pyramidal approach has been even morefavoured in that the placing of a text in a wider narrative is a usefulstrategy to generate possibly allegorical meaning when much remainsveiled in obscurity at the level of the individual poem or melodrama.Unfortunately all too often the broad narrative has proved morenourishing than the analysis: ‘It is when these two steps [establish-ing a narrative and tracing it in the music] fail to reveal a large-scale

7. Lawrence Kramer, Music and Poetry: the Nineteenth Century and After (Berke-ley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984), pp. 150–61.

8. Hayden White, ‘Commentary: Form, Reference, and Ideology in Musical Dis-course’, in Steven Paul Scher (ed.), Music and Text: Critical Inquiries (Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 292.

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musical plan that would enable the group to be designated as a “songcycle” that they turn to a third step, that of invoking hermeneutic ele-ments such as biographical or other contextual information in order toexplain the musical inconsistencies …’9 Whether this is to be evaluatedpositively or negatively, it remains a potent factor in what follows.Hermeneutics seems inescapable in all approaches, and biographicalinterpretation is an almost inevitable part of the final contextualization.

Analysis

‘Nacht’, the eighth movement of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire , is oneof the most analysed pieces in the cycle and in Schoenberg’s atonalperiod in general. As is well-known, much of its pitch content arisesfrom a handful of motivic ideas: the set 3-3 in the specific form E–G–E (the ‘generating motive’, as Kathryn Bailey calls it), a descendingchromatic scale-segment of variable length (that can be viewed as adownward extension of the semitone in 3-3), a whole-tone segment,and a diminished seventh.10 Strictly speaking, it is difficult to writewith confidence about whole-tone segments when they are seldom ofmore than three pitches in duration: in the passacaglia theme the pitchesare G –F –D, which is one way of filling in the ic4 of the generatingmotive. It amounts to a detail, however, that escapes from the near-universal obsession with the other elements. All are present in succes-sion in the main passacaglia theme of the movement. Of these motives3-3 is the most immediately apparent, being used as a melody and aschords (both in itself and in combination with transpositions of it-self). Transposed, inverted, and used in retrograde and retrograde in-version, it resembles the future concept of the note-row but also em-ploys forms that have been thought less characteristicallySchoenbergian, such as permutation; the arrangement of 3-3 in linkedchromatic succession and overlap (thus reinforcing the impression thatthe chromatic scale segment should be related to 3-3) anticipates

9. Suzanne M. Lodato, ‘Problems in Song Cycle Analysis and the Case ofMädchenblume’, in Walter Bernhart and Werner Wolf (eds), Words and MusicStudies: Essays on the Song Cycle and on Defining the Field (Amsterdam andAtlanta, GA: Rodopi, 2001), p. 104.

10. Kathryn Bailey, ‘Formal Organization and Structural Imagery in Schoenberg’sPierrot Lunaire’, Studies in Music from the University of Western Ontario 2(1977), 102.


features of Webern, while certain procedures, such as using 3-3 todefine the boundaries for chromatic segments, seem to go beyond stan-dard expositions of later twelve-note technique in the Second VienneseSchool. The various analysts who have considered it have usually takencare to unravel the pyramid-like constructions that begin and (moreelliptically) end the piece. All such analyses have tended to stay at thelevel of pointing out how the pyramid (as I shall call it, though it isobviously unfinished) is constructed from 3-3 presented in a risingsuccession of minor thirds: ‘In this way multiple, crystal-like reflec-tions are created from the single basic form.’11 At this modest level,metaphors already flow from the musical construction.

This compressed account of familiar features of ‘Nacht’ is a pre-liminary to analytical features that have been less discussed, sincethere is considerably more to the pyramid structure than the thirdsand semitone of 3-3. Both ‘pyramids’ contain features that bear onaspects of apparently secondary importance. One is the right-handpiano writing that begins at the increase of speed in bar 11 (Example1). Mark Delaere worries about this (it is largely ignored by Simmsand Straus) and devotes some time to a misleading explanation.12

‘The chords in the right hand in bars 11–13 are laid out in parallel, sothat the passacaglia motif appears as though in triplicate.’13 The par-allel motion is partly an illusion, however: 3-3 is certainly presentedin parallel in the outer parts (b 1–d 2–a1 and c 1–d1–b ), but the innerpart is f1–a 1–e 1 and clearly not a transposition of 3-3. The discrep-ancy prompts Kathryn Bailey to suspect a misprint but ReinholdBrinkmann describes the e 1 of bar 12 as ‘unambiguous’ in the manu-script.14 Delaere wants to consider the chords as deriving from thevarious statements of E, A, and E that appear prominently at thestart of each of bars 4–10, but this seems unnecessarily convolutedand distant from the compositional surface in the absence of clear

11. Alan Philip Lessem, ‘Text and Music in Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire’, CurrentMusicology 19 (1975), 111.

12. Bryan R. Simms, The Atonal Music of Arnold Schoenberg, 1908–1923 (Ox-ford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 136–7; Joseph N. Straus, Introduc-tion to Post-tonal Theory, 1st edition (London: Prentice Hall, 1990), p. 25.

13. Mark Delaere, Funktionale Atonalität: Analytische Strategien für die Frei-atonaleMusik der Wiener Schule (Wilhelmshaven: F. Noetzel, 1993), p. 155.

14. Bailey, ‘Formal Organization’, 103; Arnold Schönberg, Sämtliche Werke, PartVI, Series B, vol. 24, Melodramen und Lieder mit Instrumenten, Part I, PierrotLunaire, Kritischer Bericht, ed. by Reinhold Brinkmann (Mainz and Vienna:Schott, 1995), p. 75.

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rules of prolongation. Nor does Kathryn Bailey’s idea that the chordsconstitute a linear version of the passacaglia motif in an expandedform seem to be in the spirit of Schoenberg’s procedures in this piece.15

Yet the composer’s laying out of the passage suggests that he wantedthe listener to be aware of the chords in their own right, quite apartfrom possible relationships to 3-3. They are all either transpositionsor inverted transpositions of 3-5.

The set from which they derive is of further importance in thepiano part of bars 17–18. Although the motif of bar 17 in the righthand is based on 6-Z44 generated by a combination of two differentforms of the all-important 3-3, one in the characteristic form of thepassacaglia motif, the other in a permutation that places the semitonebefore the third, it also contains two statements of the subordinate3-5. This buried reference is then made explicit in the following bar,

pp

Example 1: ‘Nacht’, bars 11–13, piano. (Copyright Universal Edition A.G. Vienna.Reproduced by permission. All rights reserved.)

[6-Z44]

[3-3: 3 4 7; 9 10 0]

[3-5: 3 4 9; 3 8 9][3-4: 3 4 8; 0 7 8]

3-3

3-4

3-3

3-5

Example 2: Piano chords, bars 17–18. (Copyright Universal Edition A.G. Vienna.Reproduced by permission. All rights reserved.)

15. Bailey, ‘Formal Organization’, 105.


where the four quaver chords are 3-3, 3-4, 3-3, and 3-5; 3-4 is alsocontained twice in 6-Z44. This intriguing exercise in derivation is heldtogether by the presence of 3-3 in the outer parts of the first threechords as a means of determining their sequence as well as their con-tent. There are also enough further references to 3-3 (indicated inExample 2 by the slurs and arrows) to enable the analyst to integratethe seemingly aberrant 3-4 within the nexus of references to 3-3. Thefinal statement of 3-5 is less easily integrated into the chain of referencesto the ‘generating motive’ (the C does not belong in an immediatelyadjacent statement of 3-3). The analyst is left with the conclusion that3-5 has a distinct role, however subordinate, in the melodrama as awhole, whereas it would be less easy to say the same for 3-4.

Equally mysterious is the wonderful succession of fourths chords inbars 25–26. After a movement obsessed with thirds and semitones,the piano sinks to rest on two fourths chords that make up a cycle offourths that can be extended into the cello part: F – B – E – A – D – G(– C). Here too Delaere is justifiably intrigued but has no real answerto their appearance, claiming that they do not derive from theKlangmaterial of ‘Nacht’.16 In this he is mistaken, however, as theinitial pyramid demonstrates, with a little extension of its numericalsuccession. All commentators remain obsessed with the rising succes-sion of ic3 that initiates each statement of the passacaglia motif andthat contains the diminished seventh (the complementary ic9). Theycan be plotted against the falling semitones as in Chart 1, where the

Example 3: ‘Nacht’, bars 14–15, piano LH. (Copyright Universal Edition A.G.Vienna. Reproduced by permission. All rights reserved.)

16. Delaere, Funktionale Atonalität, p. 156

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logic of Schoenberg’s thinking is extended by the inclusion of a fewadditional (bracketed) notes not present in the music but clearly com-pleting the abstract pattern from which the pyramid is derived. If thediagonals give the cycles of ic3 (and also of ic4), and if the rows givethe chromatic steps, the columns supply the cycles of ic5/7, from whichthe fourths chords ultimately derive. The arrows illustrate the deriva-tion of 3-5, the set of which all three of the right-hand chords of bars11–13 are transpositions. It is also noteworthy that this version of thepyramid includes all of the pitches used in the right hand of bar 17;that they were arranged there to generate in succession ic5/7, ic1/11,and ic3/9 also accords with the use of these intervals in the pyramid.The abstract pattern is only pursued until it generates the complexfive-note chord of bar 3 (5-Z38). Analysis already encourages meta-phor. The ‘crystal’ structure is obscured: ‘Finstre, schwarze Riesenfaltertöteten der Sonne Glanz’. When that line is repeated in bars 14–15,the left hand of the piano alludes to the basic idea of the pyramid, thestacked minor thirds and the falling semitones (Example 3). The sug-gestion is that the first line is to be associated at some level with thepyramid, possibly formally, possibly semantically.

The closing pyramid is more complex, largely because the chro-matic descents are allowed to continue for a little longer, thus remov-ing the need to extend the cycles of semitones to complete the abstractpattern; thus there is a real, as opposed to a theoretical, moment whena chord of fifths is generated, between D, A, and E in piano and bass

Chart 1


clarinet. The voice also insinuates itself into the texture while complet-ing the poetic refrain. An additional complication is an underlying part(B – A) that does not substantially change the analysis, although it addsto the opacity of the sonority. (It is arguable that A’s importance isalready established in bar 23, where it is the lowest note of a long chro-matic descent.) In Chart 2, the heavily outlined area more or less repro-duces the initial pyramid, although the apex (G) is delayed, the start ofa process of compression that renders bars 25–26 more complex.

The retention of pitches in the pyramid leads to a chord at the startof bar 25 that fuses G – C – F with E – A – D (enharmonic C ). Thischord (6-Z26) expands to 7-35 when the theoretically possible B isadded, and this also contains 6-32. The latter (G – C – F – B – E –A ) is the fourths-cycle that the piano then reproduces transposedby a semitone downwards in the mysterious progression. Indeedwhen the cello’s C is added to the piano’s cycle, 7-35 is inevitablygenerated again. Only the E that the bass clarinet sustains through

Chart 2

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the whole progression and that theoretically completes a cycle ofsemitones otherwise in the piano is foreign to the second statement of7-35, and even this fits into the overall ‘cadential’ effect, as cycles ofics1, 3, and 5 intersect (Example 4).

It also fits into the background cycles of both thirds and fourths(see Chart 3), since the two cycles of fourths are obviously comple-mentary, part of the greater circle of fifths that Schoenberg placednear the centre of his Harmonielehre. Once again the abstract perfectionof the structure is rendered obscure in the music, in which the voiceassists by shadowing the cello and piano on ‘Riesenfalter’. For Lessem,the opening and conclusion are a ‘magic structure’. They might equallybe described in the words of Gilbert (‘a static musical symbol, weightedby the inclusion of tetrachords containing more than one perfect in-terval’), though he is talking about the chords that open and close‘Die Kreuze’.17 Appropriately ‘Nacht’ and ‘Die Kreuze’ stand as senti-nels around the central group of seven melodramas in Pierrot Lunaire.

Cycle of ic3

Cycles of ic5 (containing 7-35, 6-Z26, and 6-32) separated by ic1

E l 4 'N ht' fi l h dExample 4: ‘Nacht’, final chords. (© Universal Edition A.G. Vienna. Reproducedby permission. All rights reserved.

17. Lessem, ‘Text and Music in Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire’, 111; Jan Gilbert,‘Schoenberg’s Harmonic Visions: A Study of Text Painting in “Die Kreuze”’,Journal of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute 8 (1984), 120.


Here in short is one of those ‘fascinating pitch relationships to bestudied in Pierrot which, perceptually, one only wishes could be seizedfrom the act of listening’, as Dunsby tendentiously put it. That theabstract underlying structure (the incomplete pyramid) gives impor-tance to fourths as well as thirds and semitones only finally becomesapparent (in spite of the clues provided by the occasional presence of3-5) at that moment when the piano wrests a seemingly foreign mat-ter from the obscurity into which the pyramid breaks down in the actof performing and listening. For Dunsby, this is one of those ‘forlornconflicts’ that stand in the way of acceptance of theory, an attitudethat may explain why his handbook on Pierrot Lunaire took such adeliberately modest stance in relation to analysis of the music anddealt with the work from a ‘pyramidal’ point of view.18

Chart 3

18. Dunsby, ‘Pierrot Lunaire and the Resistance to Theory’, 733.

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In contrast to the importance of cycles of ic1, ic3, and ic5 in ‘Nacht’,cycles of ic2 and ic4 are clearly less important and should be consid-ered where they occur as the inevitable by-product of other processes.The whole-tone scale segments in the passacaglia theme play a lessprominent part than the other cycles and the sets 3-3 and 3-5. This ishardly surprising since 3-3 and 3-5 are of far-reaching importance inthe first atonal works of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern. The latter’sMovement for String Quartet Op. 5 No. 1 is a good example of theprominence of these cells: its climax is a transposition of the generat-ing motif from ‘Nacht’ (see Example 5), while Op. 5 No. 3 is alsolargely concerned with 3-3 in combination with 3-4. Stylistically, there-fore, ‘Nacht’ is hardly an exceptional work.

Its structural procedures are altogether more novel. Even the generictitle ‘Passacaglia’ has provoked considerable discussion. Delaere’s com-ments remain at the level of technique and form: he sees the work as thetriumph of the passacaglia’s technical level (ostinato repetition) ratherthan form (variations); this is also Bailey’s position when she notes that‘definite structural expectations’ are not fulfilled but that ‘the incessancyso characteristic of the form is surely realized’.19 Watkins regards thedescription as another mystery and thus almost a metaphor, along withthe unique use of singing at the all too suggestive word ‘verschwiegen’.20

Susan Youens produces the most interesting point when she notes that‘Schoenberg, who told his students “Bach is the father of us all,”… setNacht – the beginning of the nightfall of anarchy – as a passacaglia …’21

ff

ff

fff

Example 5: Webern, Movement, Op. 5 no. 1, climax. (Copyright Universal EditionA.G. Vienna. Reproduced by permission. All rights reserved.

19. Delaere, Funktionale Atonalität, p. 158; Bailey, ‘Formal Organization’, 101.20. Glenn Watkins, Pyramids at the Louvre: Music, Culture, and Collage from

Postmodernists (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), pp. 283–4.21. Susan Youens, ‘Excavating an Allegory: The Texts of Pierrot Lunaire’, Journal

of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute 8 (1984), 114.


In this view ‘Nacht’ represents a dissonance between technique andexpression that deserves closer scrutiny in the light of the fantastic over-determination of its structure. Its technical procedures encourage meta-phors of secrecy, mystery, muteness, and anarchy, as well as a discourseof historicism by virtue of its anticipation of features of twelve-notewriting. These already look suggestively towards the reading of the textthat Schoenberg provides. But at this point theory intervenes once more,since uncovering the ‘composer’s reading’ is problematic and tenden-tious. Not the least of the problems is that Schoenberg himself providedconflicting evidence as to his own views of reading texts in music.

The Composer’s Reading

Any consideration of words and music in Schoenberg starts from thewell-known essay on ‘The Relationship to the Text’, first published in1912 in Der Blaue Reiter and thus contemporary with the compositionof Pierrot Lunaire . The distinction involving outward and inward cor-respondences between poem and music found there is, like the similardistinction between style and idea, of fundamental importance toSchoenberg’s view of the writing of vocal works. It is not designed todiscourage investigation of word-painting, ‘declamation, tempo anddynamics’, merely to subordinate these to ‘parallelism on a higher level’;what such a parallelism might be is left deliberately vague, apart fromthe famous description of the impact of the ‘first direct contact with thesound of the beginning’ of the poem.22 Later Schoenberg was driven,possibly under the pressure of fashionable modernisms, to note that hehad not meant to suggest in the preface to Pierrot Lunaire that ‘expres-sion and illustration were out’; the composer could not ensure that ‘musicdoes not express … something provoked by the text’, and music at thevery least could ‘heighten the expression’ of the text of a song (or opera,or oratorio).23

The problems posed by the extreme position taken up in 1912 can beexplained away, as Dahlhaus did, by noting that Schoenberg’s ‘aesthetictheory … is one-sidedly determined by instrumental music’ and by point-ing to cases where the claims of ‘The Relationship to the Text’ can be

22. Arnold Schoenberg, ‘The Relationship to the Text’, in Leonard Stein (ed.), Style andIdea, trans. Leo Black, revised edition (London and Boston: 1984), pp. 144–5.

23. Schoenberg, ‘This is my Fault’, in Stein, Style and Idea, pp. 145–6.

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shown ‘to be blatantly untrue’.24 Yet there is a contrary position that notunreasonably points to vocal music as the driving force of his developmentat key moments.25 It has been plausibly maintained that the composers ofthe Second Viennese School, Schoenberg and Webern in particular, wereplaced in an aesthetic dilemma by their subscription to a view of absolutemusic derived from Schopenhauer on the one hand, and by their frequentinsistence that music was a language, a problem that has been clearly setout by Elmar Budde; for a movement like ‘Nacht’, the situation that hedescribes has particular relevance, the problem of communicating througha music that is ‘structurally hermetic’.26 Schoenberg himself put forward theview that in Verklärte Nacht he had tried ‘to express the idea behind thepoem’, and his picture of song-writing seems to encourage a similar defence.27

The idea behind the poem (what composers of Liszt’s and Schumann’s gen-eration would have called the ‘poetic idea’) communicates itself as sound(rather than symbol) to the composer who reacts to this rather than to indi-vidual verbal felicities (in a similar spirit Liszt talked of the symbolic impor-tance of characters rather than of events in a narrative). The example thatSchoenberg provides, however, is not particularly helpful. The ‘idea behindthe poem’ in the discussion of Verklärte Nacht turns out to be a tangibledouble motif, but it seems clear that this affects merely a section of the poemand that Schoenberg is talking about the composer’s solution of local difficul-ties in working-out rather than some global Einfall such as Schoenberg be-lieved in with ‘monstrous optimism’ near the time of Pierrot.28

24. Carl Dahlhaus, Schoenberg and the New Music, trans. Derrick Puffett and AlfredClayton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 85.

25. Albrecht Dümling, ‘Public Loneliness: Atonality and the Crisis of Subjectivity inSchönberg’s Opus 15’, in Konrad Boehmer (ed.), Schönberg and Kandinsky: anHistoric Encounter, ed. by (Amsterdam: Harwood, 1997), p. 112; a resolutionof the two positions is attempted in Reinhold Brinkmann, ‘The Lyric as Para-digm: Poetry and the Foundation of Arnold Schoenberg’s New Music’, in ClausReschke and Howard Pollack (eds), German Literature and Music — an Aes-thetic Fusion: 1890–1989 (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1992), pp. 95–129.

26. ‘Musik als Sprache und Musik als Kunstwerk: Über einige Widersprüche und derenHintergründe im kompositorischen Denken Schönbergs und Weberns’, in HermannDanuser, Helga de la Motte-Haber, Silke Leopold (eds), Das musikalischeKunstwerk: Geschichte — Ästhetik — Theorie (Festschrift Carl Dahlhaus zum 60.Geburtstag) (Laaber: Laaber, 1988), p. 661.

27. Schoenberg, ‘Heart and Brain in Music’, in Style and Idea, p. 55.28. See Ullrich Scheideler, ‘Einfall — Material — Geschichte: Zur Bedeutung dieser

Kategorien im Musikdenken Pfitzners und Schönbergs um 1910’, in AndreasMeyer and Ullrich Scheideler (eds), Autorschaft als historische Konstruktion:Arnold Schönberg — Vorgänger, Zeitgenossen, Nachfolger und Interpreten(Stuttgart and Weimar: J. B. Metzler, 2001), p. 183.


There remains a further problem in evaluating Schoenberg’s rela-tionship to his chosen poems, since his view of the ‘idea behind’ thetext generates dissonance with what is known of the process of com-position in relation to ‘Nacht’. An important secondary factor here isthe sketch material for ‘Nacht’, which Brinkmann has described as‘the melodrama in which, according to the appearance of the sketches,perhaps the most compositional effort must have been invested’.29

Nonetheless, the claim that something in the initial sound of the poemwas often the starting-point for the musical work must be considered,especially when early sketches exist for the pyramid that is, to allintents and purposes, the compositional matrix for ‘Nacht’.30

Another difficulty associated with Dahlhaus’s remark that relatesspecifically to Pierrot Lunaire is the degree to which the voice is ‘part’of the pitch content: is ‘Nacht’ in reality an instrumental work with arecitation at approximate pitch? There is no shortage of debate as tohow the pitches of the voice part affect the totality, though there seemslittle reason to deny the general truth of Dunsby’s statement that the‘singer’ cannot avoid noticing that ‘many of [her] pitches … are in aclear musical relationship to the instrumental material’.31 ‘Nacht’ by-passes any such difficulties, however, at least on paper. The voice partderives almost entirely from the various elements of the passacagliatheme or of the initial pyramid: chromatic scale segments of three tosix semitones, semitones, the diminished seventh, sets 3-3 and 3-5,and a final descending fourth that one writer wants to relate to clo-sure in Baroque recitative.32

There remains the possibility, however, that the voice part mighthave been created retrospectively from the highly organized instru-mental parts, a feature that Brinkmann considers in discussing thegreat difficult experienced by Schoenberg in creating the last few bars:‘All these writings out and corrections were made without the recitation

29. Brinkmann, Pierrot Lunaire, Kritischer Bericht, p. 195.30. See, for example, Reinhold Brinkmann, ‘On Pierrot’s Trail’, Journal of the Arnold

Schoenberg Institute 2 (1977), 42–8.31. Dunsby, ‘Pierrot Lunaire and the Resistance to Theory’, 733; see also Friedrich

Cerha, ‘Zur Interpretation der Sprechstimme in Schönberg’s Pierrot Lunaire’, inMusik-Konzepte 112/113, 70.

32. Anselm Gerhard, ‘Farben und Formen in einem “Totentanz des Prinzipien”:Arnold Schönbergs Pierrot Lunaire und das “Zerfliessen” der Tradition’, inAutorschaft als historische Konstruktion, p. 228. The fourth in question canalso be explained as part of 3–5 (with the immediately preceding D ).

Words and Music142

having been notated. Does that mean a prior instrumental conception(at least for this piece)?’33 In ‘Nacht’, the impression is of a vocal workthat in performance poses problems severe even by the standards ofmuch of the rest of the work; that the initial conception may havebeen instrumental in character seems entirely plausible.

In accordance with Youens’s ‘nightfall of anarchy’, the text itselfhas been generally described in terms of violence and the grotesque.This can be interpreted as part of its inheritance from the melodrama,its ‘topos of the frightful’, albeit ironically exaggerated.34 Yet in onesense it is comparatively restrained. Time has perhaps obscured thedegree to which Hartleben’s translated verses seemed obscure and dif-ficult in their day. To recapture this flavour it is useful to consult aGerman metrication primer of the period that notes:

Recently a Berlin writer (O. E. Hartleben) has translated the moon rondelsof Albert Giraud’s Pierrot Lunaire into five-foot, sadly unrhymed trochees.Thirteen lines break down into three small strophes (4+4+5 lines), ofwhich the second ends with the first two lines, but the third with onlythe first of the entire poem … In this form the rondel resembles evenmore the Triolett with which Poggel had once confused it.35

The verse scheme of the German text, in short, was interpreted as ahybrid, lacking in the rhyme that is one of the distinctive features ofthe poetic form. Holding to the universal form of the poems chosenby Schoenberg, ‘Nacht’ combines its thirteen lines with a very austereapproach to syllable-count: 8 7 7 8; 8 8 8 7; 7 8 8 8 8. The openingpoems of the cycle have much greater disparity of line-length (e.g. thefirst stanza of ‘Mondestrunken’, which contains lines of nine and sixsyllables), but the expressionistic extravagance of the language of‘Nacht’ is conveyed with the same metrical restraint that character-izes the whole group of melodramas from ‘Valse de Chopin’ onwards.Only after ‘Nacht’ do the shorter, jerkier line lengths of ‘Gebet anPierrot’ break in with laughter. In choosing the idea of a passacaglia,Schoenberg may have had such constraints in mind.

33. Brinkmann, Pierrot Lunaire, Kritischer Bericht, p. 198.34. Andreas Meyer, Ensemblelieder in der frühen Nachfolge (1912–17) von Arnold

Schönbergs ‘Pierrot Lunaire’ op. 21: Eine Studie über Einfluss und ‘misreading’(Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2000), p. 102.

35. Jakob Minor, Neuhochdeutsche Metrik: ein Handbuch, 2nd edition (Strassburg:K. J. Trübner, 1902), p. 503.


The setting of the text is of a similar austerity. Much of the recita-tion takes place to chromatic stepwise descents into an ungratefulregister. Even where the cell 3-3 is used, Schoenberg is often inclinedto fill in the thirds by chromatic motion. This is clear at ‘Eingeschlossnes Zau –(berbuch)’, where the minor third is filled in, andat ‘Und vom Himmel erdenwärts’, where the minor third is partly,and the major third completely, filled in by chromatic scale segments.This is complemented by the unadorned thirds themselves and theoccasional whole tone. Large leaps of the kind that come to mindwhen considering the rest of the cycle are presented very sparinglyand associated with the diminished seventh and the major seventh.When they occur, the intention is obviously to heighten the extrava-gance of the images at the first ‘Riesen-(falter)’, at ‘Duft’, and at‘Erinnrung mordend’. Having distorted ‘Riesen’ on its first appear-ance, however, Schoenberg later varies the procedure. On its secondappearance, the leap is from the final syllable of ‘schwarze’ to the firstof ‘Riesenfalter’. The final appearance of the first line integrates theword almost completely into the motivic context of the work, fash-ioning it entirely from 3-3, the chromatic descent, and the closingfourth. Facile word-painting is not Schoenberg’s intention, as is con-firmed at ‘steigt ein Duft’, where the large upward leap is on the ‘scent’(a rare melisma), rather than the rise. A final distorting leap takesplace at ‘auf die Menschenherzen nieder’. The text is dominated hereby the descent of the butterflies on the hearts of men, and sinkingmotion is encouraged twice: ‘erdenwärts senken sich’ and ‘nieder’.The first is the excuse for a chain of descending statements of 3-3, thesecond for the most explicit melodic statement of 3-5 in the entiremovement at ‘Menschenherzen’. The leap to the first syllable of thatword is necessary for one image of descent to be supplanted by an-other. The placing of the higher note of the leap on the first syllable of‘Menschenherzen’ serves to emphasize this sudden introduction ofhumanity into the fantastic picture, though the rising major seventhsat ‘Erinnrung mordend’ already hint at man’s presence. ‘Nieder’ itselfis set as a falling semitone, and the failure of this to descend further inaccordance with the many chromatic scale segments corresponds tothe manner in which the text tails off.

From this setting, the conclusion would seem to be that the ideathat gripped Schoenberg in this song was the notion of descent. Notthe scent arising from the depths but its settling down, with the sight-less butterflies, on humanity is what seems to have dictated the

Words and Music144

(generally downward) motion. Not ‘aus der Tiefe’ but back to thedepths is the message of the voice part. At the lowest point, the sung‘verschwiegen’ promises a mystery that can only be solved in a ‘closedmagic book’. In this context, an early sketch for ‘Nacht’ is instructive.Reproduced by Brinkmann, it shows a musical setting of the openingtwo lines that exhibits little relationship to the final melodrama savefor a (possibly sung) voice part that takes a downward course into aformidably deep register. There are serious arguments against refer-ences to a composer’s ‘first thoughts’ intruding into analysis of vocalmusic, but here they point to an idea that is pertinent to the melodrama’sbasic motion, independent of the details of the material.36 Brinkmann’scomment that certain features also ‘anticipate’ the final version seemsto me otherwise to be unsustainable. There is little to suggest explicituse of 3-3, which may weaken the case for considering Bailey’s ‘but-terfly’ shape of the generating motif as the idea behind the whole thatimpelled Schoenberg to compose; it is surely a ‘trope’ on the descentof night, as the generating motif is sited decoratively on a longer de-scent. Only by making an equation between a musical descent, whichin the final version became completely chromatic, and the sightlessoppression of the text does one begin to grasp what Schoenberg’s ‘read-ing’, which presumably flows from that first impression, might be.

Having established the basic insight, Schoenberg then distributedthe musical material with a rising contour in such a way that verbalimages are underpinned but in sometimes indirect ways. Thus thematerial of bars 17–18, particularly in bass clarinet and cello, seemsto catch the essence of the miasma arising from the depths, but intro-duces it at the last possible minute before it sinks to earth, some fivebars after the line that it seems to paint. Similarly the edgy leaps of aseventh with which memory is murdered already have been heard incello and bass clarinet and will be heard again in bar 19 as the heavywings bear the sightless monsters downwards. It may be that here isfurther evidence of a voice part added to an instrumentally conceivedtexture, but it is at least as likely to be an example of that ‘structuraldissonance’ of which Kramer and Lodato speak.37 The idea of descentgathers together other motivic references into a complex that ties theverbal text together more closely than mere sense would dictate. A

36. See Agawu, ‘Theory and Practice’, 10.37. Lodato, ‘Recent Approaches’, pp. 102 and 107; Kramer, Music and Poetry, pp.

146 and 150–161.


polyphonic mode of organisation reorders and renders musical thesuccession of verbal images. Something similar happened earlier at‘Duft’, where the pre-echo of ‘Erinnrung mordend’ in the bass clarinetpermits a moment of bizarre musical imitation, the rising major sev-enth of ‘mordend’ set against the rising diminished seventh of ‘Duft’.The juxtaposition of the two similar but different musical events helpsto establish the relationship between the verbal images. As the imagesof the poem pile on bizarre detail to a single monotonous picture, sothe music gathers them together into motivically organized contra-puntal complexes. In such a way, something resembling the composer’sreading, however tendentious, starts to appear.

Contextualising Intrinsic Relationships

If the analytical conclusions to be drawn from ‘Nacht’ are set along-side the reading of the poem presented above, it would appear appro-priate that Schoenberg established his compositional matrix on a de-scending chromatic segment, to which the other interval cycles appearas complex tropes. The passacaglia ground bass is thus the chromaticscale rather than simply 3-3. It becomes easier to see the first state-ment of the ground and its canonic elaboration in bars 4–8 (with 9and 10 as a link made out of fragments), and the second in bars 11–15

Chart 4

Words and Music146

as in Chart 4. These divisions correspond with what other writers callcanons or strophes (for obvious musical and poetic reasons).38

The third poetic division, from ‘1.Tempo’ in bar 16, is less easy toexplain. There is no shortage of chromatic descents nor of importantpitches from which the ground might begin, and one is suggested inChart 5 that preserves the quadruple canon, but the impression is of anotional ground that is so overgrown with imitation, elaboration, anddiminutions that the passacaglia form dissolves into that poetic ‘mist’that ‘murders memory’. Only by presenting something ‘like’ a formalpassacaglia could its ironic negation, as described by Heinz-KlausMetzger, be conveyed.39 Only the final A of the ground persists underthe complex of bars 25–26.

It is my contention that consideration of these and other intrinsicrelationships make the use of the term ‘passacaglia’ less mysterious,even if the passacaglia itself is deeply imbued with poetic mystery.How it may be related to contextual factors is also slightly puzzling.That these should not be avoided is evident from the sung‘verschwiegen’, a ‘clue’ planted at an important division that is ca-pable of many interpretations, including Richard Kurth’s engaginglyparadoxical fancy that ‘In relation to the surrounding Sprechstimme,singing here in effect becomes a trope for muteness.’40 It is hardlysurprising that theories ‘explaining’ Pierrot Lunaire as a whole arefrequently brought in at this point, in line with Lodato’s argument. Inthis context, the melodramas may become a near-ecological allegorywith ‘Nacht’ as the onset of the pollution of a variously interpretableenvironment as in Kurth. At another extreme, meaning in Pierrot as awhole becomes a matter of elliptical hints and fantasy without a ‘quasi-operatic structure’ apart from ‘an unsystematic but cumulative inter-play of action and reflection’.41 In this context ‘Nacht’ becomes a mo-ment of extreme disruption exceeded later only by ‘Rote Messe’. It isthe key ‘black’ moment in Pierrot that is prefigured in ‘Der Dandy’and stands apart from the pale ‘moonstruck’ pieces and the red-dominated poems that speak of blood, rubies, and sacrilege.

38. E.g. Bailey, ‘Formal Organization’, 102–6.39. Heinz-Klaus Metzger, ‘L’Art Contre l’Art’, in Musik-Konzepte 112/113, pp. 215–16.40. Richard Kurth, ‘Pierrot’s Cave: Representation, Reverberation, Radiance’, in

Charlotte M. Cross and Russell A. Berman (eds), Schoenberg and Words: TheModernist Years (New York and London: Garland, 2000), p. 213.

41. Jonathan Dunsby, Schoenberg: ‘Pierrot Lunaire’ (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-versity Press, 1992), pp. 53–4.


Pierrot Lunaire as a play of colours rather than an allegorical nar-rative is thus one view that explains something of the atmosphere of‘Nacht’, a view moreover with some support from Schoenberg him-self.42 It also has the additional advantage of allowing the musician toescape from the embarrassment of talking about verses often dispar-aged for their mediocrity. Instead the figure of Schoenberg the paintermoves towards the centre of the stage, and the commedia dell’ arterecedes, as in the interpretation of Anselm Gerhard. The need to insiston satire and parody gives way to a more avant-garde and expression-ist viewpoint: ‘The clownish figure apparently only interests him in itsidentification with the isolated artist suffering from the world and his“spleen”’, a ‘French’ contextualization of Pierrot that owes much tothe work of Susan Youens and also accords broadly with the interpreta-tion of Brinkmann. Parody in such a view is more of a technical aspect(as in the borrowing of such figures as passus duriusculus and saltusduriusculus as well as the genre of passacaglia from the Baroque).43

Chart 5

42. Reinhold Brinkmann, ‘The Fool as Paradigm: Schönberg’s Pierrot Lunaire andthe Modern Artist’, in Schönberg and Kandinsky, pp. 140–1.

43. Gerhard, ‘‘Farben und Formen’, pp. 227–36, in particular 227; Brinkmann,‘The Fool as Paradigm’, p. 146.

Example 6: ‘Nacht’, cello, bars 17–19. (Copyright Universal Edition A.G. Vienna.Reproduced by permission. All rights reserved.)

Words and Music148

Such a reading opens paths to both biography and to historicistdiscourse. The biographical element enters in the image of the alien-ated artist, and receives further confirmation from the similar themesin Die glückliche Hand, where colour and isolation draw together inthe image of the light-storm. In this perspective, ‘Nacht’ broods onthe aftermath of the Gerstl episode, setting it in a positive, forward-looking aesthetic that has risen above ‘spleen’ and personal tragedy.44

At the same time, it sends out hints of traditions that have grown fator are in a state of flux: the pyramids of ‘Nacht’ have been too un-thinkingly set up as monuments to historicism and the progress to-wards a serial universe; they also turn towards visual perspectivesthat are linked again to Schoenberg the painter; they should be viewedas crystals rather than pitch matrices.

Lurking at the heart of ‘Nacht’, however, is the ‘secluded’ image ofthe ‘closed magic book’ that Gerhard has also compared to StefanGeorge’s Der siebente Ring. From here perspectives open to the mys-terious pyramid, to ‘the fate of men’, and to the theories of thosewriters who read the numbers as hermetic expression of Schoenberg’slife and ideas.45 It is a minor curiosity that the pyramid of Chart 1, ifcompleted, can yield a version of the ‘Pythagorean’ pyramid that Sternementions in passing in his analysis of the first melodrama but does notrelate to ‘Nacht’.46 That the opening gesture of ‘Nacht’ points to nu-merology at least as much as to musical structure is a further contextthat is not unfamiliar from other members of the Second VienneseSchool. In this, the pyramid itself becomes the ‘magic book’ whoseunlocking would presumably open horizons. That the whole cycle ofmelodramas ends in such an unlocking of the horizon by a differentscent, ‘aus Märchenzeit’, has been noted by, amongst others, Youens.47

If there is a symbolic dimension to that ending, however, it involves adifferent set of musical signifiers, to which equal-interval cycles areless important. There is an interpretative conundrum here, in that the

44. See Manuel Gervink, ‘Einsamkeit und Isolation: Interpretationsansätze für dieInnovationen im Werk Arnold Schönbergs’, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 53(1996), 171–3.

45. Meyer, Ensemblelieder, p. 179.46. Colin C. Sterne, Arnold Schoenberg: The Composer as Numerologist (Lewiston,

NY: Mellen Press, 1994), p. 109.47. Youens, ‘Excavating an Allegory’, 109.


historically ‘advanced’ passacaglia has been viewed as the embodi-ment of the excesses and breakdown of tradition, while the ‘regres-sive’ hints of tonality in the final melodrama reincarnate tradition in anever-never land. The latter seems to be achieved by a reordering ofthe relationship between third and semitone, both equally insistent,but breaking from pure cycles towards a freer, more improvised suc-cession that turns into the tenuously related triads of the close. In suchan interpretation, the pyramid of ‘Nacht’ seems analytically the keyto musical procedures but more of a seal to meaning. It is the embodi-ment of the magic book, the keeper of the secrets that ‘Nacht’ obsti-nately refuses to disclose, save at the technical level.

A final political context exists that hardly fits with Gerhard’s pointof view. That Schoenberg himself at times saw anarchy as a virtueemerges from his background and from his letters.48 The combinationof a dissolving form with a rigorous pitch structure expresses not de-spair over the breakdown of tradition (leading to the familiar clichéof the ‘conservative revolutionary’) but a sense of liberation. Of thetraditional signifiers of melodrama, it is parody rather than ‘frightful-ness’ that truly expresses the essence of ‘Nacht’. The bizarre in ‘Nacht’is in this context part of that anarchic liberation from constraints.The murdering of memory is to be celebrated with all of the composi-tional exuberance that Schoenberg can muster. That theory shouldremain content with pitch structures is appropriate in the light of thesubversive undercurrents that Pierrot represents as melodrama, but ifthe pyramid should itself be as much parody as compositional matrix,then the joke would be on theory and the seeker after meaning inwords and music.

48. Dümling, ‘Public Loneliness’, 132–3.

6

Music and Text in Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw

Bhesham Sharma

A Survivor from Warsaw (Op. 46) ranks among Schoenberg’s mostdramatic and controversial works. Completed in 1946 and scored fornarrator, male chorus, and orchestra, the composition is based on anarrative Schoenberg heard directly and indirectly from survivors of aNazi concentration camp. Schoenberg turns the narrative and the fi-nal section, a chorus, into the primary focus of the composition. Hesupports the narrative and voices through lucid dodecaphonic tex-tures in the orchestra. At times, dodecaphonic conventions seem to beabandoned as whole-tone and chromatic passages appear in the score.Underlying Schoenberg’s musical accompaniment, however, is not anabrogation of self-imposed twelve-tone praxis but rather its expan-sion. This chapter highlights the ways in which Schoenberg expandsserial technique to dramatize the narrative elements of A Survivorfrom Warsaw; it explores, sometimes through semiological discourse,the ways in which Schoenberg manipulates pitch, rhythm, and otherparameters to complement the text. First, I highlight the key tech-niques in Schoenberg’s compositional approach, and then discussthe work from a semiological perspective.

Towards the late 1940s, Schoenberg’s compositions began to ex-hibit a more liberal use of dodecaphony. In A Survivor from War-saw, not only does one find certain techniques developed in previ-ous works, but also what René Leibowitz calls ‘new principles ofvariation’. Schoenberg uses pitches from rows as constellations ofsounds. He fragments and overlaps rows. He even selects pitch-classes from related hexachords to create whole-tone phrases. Asin Schoenberg’s earlier works, A Survivor from Warsaw reliesstrongly on hexachordal combinations rather than sets. Althoughthe composition is based on the following row, F , G, C, A , E, E ,B , C , A, D, F, B, rarely is it presented in its entirety. It is only in

Music and Text in Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw 151

Figure 1: Row matrix of A Survivor from Warsaw

Figure 2: Cyclic combinations 1.1 and 2.1

Words and Music152

the third and final section, the Š∂ma ( Yisro )el (bars 80–99), thatone encounters definitive statements.1

Schoenberg organises the composition around primary rows andrelated inversions. The row is presented in Figure 1.

The hexachords of P0 and I5 are combinatorial in the classic man-ner seen in other works by Schoenberg (e.g. the Violin Concerto), andSchoenberg exploits this particular combination throughout.2 The com-poser also uses ascending groups of primary rows in cycles of foursemitones along with their related inversions: P0–I5, P4–I9, or P8–I1(which I shall refer to as ‘1.1’) and P0–I8, P4–10, P8–I4 (which I shallterm ‘2.1’: Figure 2).3

Example 1*

*All music examples in this chapter are copyright 1949 by Bomart Music Publica-tions, Inc.; assigned 1955 to Boelke-Bomart, Inc. Revised edition © copyright 1974by Boelke-Bomart, Inc. Used by permission.1. For a discussion of the Š∂ma ‘Yisro’el see Charles Heller’s ‘Traditional Jewish

Material in Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw, Op. 46’, The Journal of theArnold Schoenberg Institute 13 (1979), 68–74.

2. Joel Lester rightly notes that most of Schoenberg’s dodecaphonic works rely on com-binatorial series. The composer often employs the P0–I5 relationship. See his AnalyticApproaches to Twentieth-Century Music (New York: Norton, 1989), p. 211.

3. For a complete listing of all possibilities available to Schoenberg under theseparameters, see Jacques-Louis Monod’s Prefatory Notes in the Boelke-Bomartedition of A Survivor from Warsaw (New York, 1974), ii-iii.

´ ¯

´ ¯

P0 (x): Fƒ G C Aß E EßI5 (x): B Aƒ F A Cƒ D

3

3

P0 (x): Fƒ G C Aß E EßI5 (x): B Aƒ F A Cƒ D

P0 (x): Aß E EßI5 (x): A Cƒ D

3

3

3

3


One reason that Schoenberg conceptualizes groups such as 1.1 and2.1 is the resulting recurrence of the augmented triad C–E–A . In otherwords, Schoenberg can move from one row to another within a groupsuch as 1.1 or 2.1 and still achieve a certain degree of continuity.4

Such a conceptualization permits other combinations that are not ex-plicit in the main matrix. The step-wise whole tone fragment, E , F, G,A B, C becomes material as does the strip of dyads read in a similarmanner.

The augmented triad (with its emotional associations of uneasi-ness) surfaces significantly in the first two sections: bar 5 (harp); bar10 (bassoons, xylophone); bars 16–17 (violas); bars 38–41 (xylophone);bars 44–46 (violas); bars 51 (trombones) etc. The triad acts as a uni-fying, even centralizing force against the sometimes fragmented pre-sentations of related hexachords, sets, and set collections.

Example 2

4. This technique is common in Schoenberg’s dodecaphonic works. See RenéLeibowitz, Schoenberg and his School (New York: Da Capo, 1970), p. 130.

P0 (x): Fƒ G CI5 (x): B Aƒ F

3

3

kept you a

3

wake- the whole

night.

You had been se

par- at- ed-

3

3

3

P0 (x): Aß E EßI5 (x): A Cƒ D

3

3

3

Words and Music154

Free use of related hexachords is evident at several points in A Sur-vivor from Warsaw.5 In bar 27, for example, Schoenberg combinesdyads, trichords and tetrachords of P0 (x) and I5 (x) to achieve atwelve-tone collage (Example 1).6 In bar 28, he combines single pitches

5. In later works different ordering of a source hexachord as opposed to a com-plete row determines different sections of works. See Silvana Milstein, ArnoldSchoenberg: Notes, Sets, Forms (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992),pp. 154–9.

6. One can also find this technique in Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte, Op. 41. Lesterreconciles the dichotomy between technique and artistic conviction in the fol-lowing manner: ‘These types of reorderings are not necessarily contradictory toSchoenberg’s twelve-tone method because of those series’ properties that aredetermined by content and not by ordering’, Analytical Approaches, p. 237.

Example 3

1.

ff

P0: Eß

I8: F

P4: G

I0: A

P8: B

I4: Cƒ

fp

P0: C Aß E

I8: Gƒ C E

P4: E C Aß

I0: C E Gƒ

P8: Aß E C

I4: E Aß C

P0: Fƒ G C Aß E Eß

I8: D Cƒ Gƒ C E F

P4: Aƒ B E C Aß G

I0: Fƒ F C E Gƒ A

P8: D Eß Aß E C B

I4: Bß A E Aß C Cƒ

pizz.ff

P0: Fƒ G

I8: D Cƒ

P4: Aƒ B

I0: Fƒ F

P8: D Eß

I4: Bß A


from P0(x) and I5(x), and juxtaposes them with the trichordal formula-tion of bar 27 (Example 2). The composer’s unencumbered approach,however, goes beyond manipulation within related hexachords.

In the following examples, Schoenberg draws notes ‘vertically’ fromthe row collection, 2.1. In bar 11, the order of the clarinet phrase isderived from the sixth (ordered) pitch of each set in 2.1. The order ofthe first and second violins’ phrase comes from the first dyad of eachset. The augmented triad utilizes all the pitch-classes left in the firsthexachords of the 2.1 collection (Example 3).

At measure 51, he also uses the opening dyads of each set withinthe collection to create phrases in the strings (Example 4). Ratherthan starting with the first two pitches of P0, he begins with I8. Inother words, instead of proceeding vertically F , G, D, C , A , B, F ,F, D, E , B , A, he begins on D, C , and circles back to the F , G. Bar

Example 4

ff

P0: C Aß E

I8: Gƒ C E

P4: E C Aß

I0: C E Gƒ

P8: Aß E C

I4: E Aß C

P0: Fƒ G

I8: D Cƒ

P4: Aƒ B

I0: Fƒ F

P8: D Eß

I4: Bß A

fp

ff

P0: Eß

I8: F

P4: G

I0: A

P8: B

I4: Cƒ

Words and Music156

51 adopts a similar compositional approach to bar 11. The phrase inthe violins (bar 51) is stepwise, drawn from the whole-tone fragmentand comes from the sixth pitch in the first hexachord in each row ofthe collection.

Such freedom in using pitch-classes, dyads, and trichords opens upnew structural possibilities. More importantly, it allows the composerto develop the dramatic effects of the musical accompaniment. Froma theoretical perspective, however, the results are phrases that seemquite unrelated to the initial row, and ironically, a return to a latenineteenth-century idiom.7

The last principle discussed emerges as the most innovative in ASurvivor from Warsaw. No longer do pitch-classes obey their ordered

7. Below is a list of the hexachords, rows and row collections Schoenberg uses inthe composition.

Bars: Hexachords; Set(s); Collections1–5: P0 (x); I5 (x)5–10: P011: Collection 2.112–17: P0/I518–21: P4/ I9 (x)22–24: P4/I925–33: P0/I534–37: P3; I838–43: P0(x)44–47: P4(x); I948–49: P3(x); I950: P0/I551: Collection 2.152–54: P0/ I555: P3(x); P4(x); P5(x)56–59: P4(x); I9(x)60–61: P0(x); I5(x)62: P4(x); I9(x)63–64: P8 (x)65–68: P0(x); I5 (x); P8 (x); Collection 1.170: P4 (y); I9 (y)71–72: P0 (y); I5 (y)73–74: P0/I575: I7 (x) – P2 (x) – I10 – (Sequence) P9 – I9 – P4 – I4 – P10 – I280–89: P4/I990: P0/I591–95: P8; I8; P1; I4;96–99: P0/I5


positions. Instead they are abstracted vertically from row collectionsto create more conventional sounding passages. Rene Leibowitz writesthat in A Survivor from Warsaw, ‘twelve tone technique is … handledin a radical way, and it leads to [what] … I would be inclined to call‘athematic’.’8

While such innovations are revealing in themselves, they seem tohave been adopted not so much by an intent to expand technique asby a profound intention to marry music and text. Through the use ofdescriptive prose, I will suggest how Schoenberg’s creative impulsesseem to dictate the concessions he makes.

A Survivor from Warsaw is divided into three sections: an orches-tral introduction (bars 1–11); the Sprechgesang narration (bars 12–70); the ‘chorus’ (bars 80–99). Between and within these sectionsSchoenberg juxtaposes outward order (strict rhythmic figures) andinternal chaos (woodwind: bars 26–27), dominance and subservience(bars 38–39), oppression and hopeful defiance (the ‘chorus’).

Section I (bars 1–11) establishes musical and psychological motifswhich become the basis for the remaining sections. The compositionbegins aggressively with martial rhythms played on the military drumand a brash fanfare in the trumpets (bar 1: Example 5).

Later, other instruments prolong the aggression of the drum rollsthrough stagnant, pulsating repeated notes or tremolos and trills (e.g.,xylophone, bars 9–10: Example 6).

Tr. 1

ff 3

Tr. 2

3

ff Mil. Dr.fpp

sfp

Example 5

8. ‘Arnold Schoenberg’s Survivor from Warsaw of the Possibility of “CommittedArt”, Horizon 20 (1949), 122–3. While C. M. Schmidt does not discuss thetechniques presented herein, his observations are worthy of perusal. See his ar-ticle entitled, ‘Schoenbergs Kantate, “Ein Überlebender aus Warschau”, Op.46’, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 33 (1976), 261–77.

Words and Music158

This musical figure associated with military music is integrated intothe orchestral texture. Against these forceful rhythms and brash tex-tures we hear fleeting athematic fragments. These musical fragmentsare psychologically uneasy and aim to capture the victim’s pathologyin response to the violent brutality. This is evident, for example, withinbars 2–3 in the jagged contours and atonal pitch collection created bythe bassoon, clarinets and flutes. Presented in their dismal low regis-ters, the aggressiveness of the drums and trumpets in the opening isinternalized in the woodwinds’ musical fragment (Example 7).Throughout Section I, displaced rhythms contribute to the feeling oftime suspended (e.g. bars 9–10).

Overall, Section I exhibits the oppressive physical and emotionalsetting of the camp. This is suggested through the general lack of senseof uniformity in rhythm.

In Section II (bars 12–79), the narrator is heard for the first time. Inthe dream-like, nightmarish screams and shouts of the Sprechgesang,rhythmical configurations take precedence over natural stresses ofconsonants and vowels. The sentences, ‘You had been separated fromyour children, from your wife, from your parents. You don’t know

Example 6

Fl. 1 & 2

Cl. 1 & 2

f

f

fp

sfp

Bsn. 1 & 2

f

f

Example 7

Xyl.

pp


what happened to them … How could you sleep?’ (bars 28–31) ispresented in an abrupt fashion and in a rhythmical manner at timesunnatural to conventional speech patterns. Similarly when the ser-geant counts, ‘one, two, three, four’, it is unnatural, thereby adding tothe surrealistic context (Example 8).

Throughout section II, the text images of the Sprechgesang are il-lustrated and contextualized by the orchestra. ‘They began again, firstslowly; one, two, three, four, became faster and faster, so fast that itfinally sounded like a stampede of horses’ (bars 71–2), is illustratedby the woodwind with duplet contour patterns crossing their tripletswhich gallop like horses. The narrator’s statement, ‘Much too muchnoise, much too much commotion; and not fast enough’ (bars 38–9)is contextualized by the indifference and rigidity of repetitive musicalfigures played on the military drum, bass drum, and xylophone. Un-relenting rhythmical patterns, and textual and pitch repetitions, af-forded through Schoenberg’s more relaxed approach to dodecaphony,deepen the atmosphere and set off the callous attitude of the sergeant.Bars 38–9 are ultimately moving because of the irony created by thesergeant’s pettiness (enhanced by the low tessitura and his callousambivalence to the developing tragedy).

Unlike Section II which is morbid and hopeless, Section III is defi-ant and hopeful. The Š∂ma ( Yisro )el theme on which Section III isbased is first heard in Section II as a fragment in the horns in bars 18–21 in conjunction with the words, ‘They all started to sing the oldprayer … the forgotten creed’. This fragment, which seems out ofplace in its initial setting, later becomes the most significant phrase ofthe composition (Example 9).

In the narrative, defiance is achieved by the overt assertion of thesinging of the Hebrew prayer within the setting of the ghetto, but it isalso achieved in the accompaniment. Isolated musical fragments whichcreate uneasiness in Section II are replaced by the single cantus firmus(unison chorus and trombone) of the prayer (Example 10).

one,

two,

three, four

Example 8

´ ¯

Words and Music160

In the final half subsection of Section III, the martial trills and tremo-los which dominate Sections I and II gradually cease and the orchestraends in a triple forte. The ending is unified, hopeful, and strong. In thefinal section, timelessness is replaced by the metrical faithfulness ofthe men’s chorus. The focal point of power shifts from the militarymusical figures to the Jewish prayer. Angst and despair in the first twosections are overcome by the Š?ma ( Yisro )el, resonant in its own Jew-ish character and significance.

To transform pitches to fit with the words of A Survivor from War-saw, Schoenberg uses arpeggios, broken chords, trills, and tremolos.Schoenberg also uses drums and trumpets to create the atmosphere of amilitary setting. While such techniques draw on Romantic descriptivemusical practices, in his adaptations of such techniques, Schoenbergprovides fleeting segments. This helps to create a sense of dissociationso integral to the plight of the character in the first two sections. In thiscomposition, the technique is not a means to an end but rather, a meansto elicit a myriad of moods. At times, these ways of manipulation pro-vide Schoenberg with possibilities to create whole-tone, triadic, atonal,and twelve-tone passages under the guise of dodecaphony, the better tocapture the essence of the text.

Hn. 1

Example 9

Men

[text omitted]

3

3

etc.

Example 10

7

Rethinking the Relationship Between Wordsand Music for the Twentieth Century:

The Strange Case of Erik Satie

Robert Orledge

Few composers have been as fascinated by the relationship betweenthe spoken or unspoken word and music as the iconoclastic Erik Satie(1866–1925). His literary production was almost as important as hisforward-looking compositions, and at least as extensive. While mostof Satie’s contemporaries, from Rimbaud to Joyce, were jealous ofmusic’s advantages over words and tried to recreate its emotive pow-ers and even its forms in their poetry, Satie’s main fear was that thatprinted music could ‘never achieve the same “published” qualities asliterature’.1 His quest was to find new ways of linking words andmusic and his originality lay in his fundamental rejection of Romanticexpressiveness and any concept of nineteenth-century thematic devel-opment or musical ‘direction’. The musical form in some of hisRose+Croix pieces of the 1890s was derived from literature, as weshall see, and on other occasions he adapted medieval models to thetwentieth century in an effort to find solutions that would be entirelydifferent in form and content to those of his contemporaries. On therelatively rare occasions when he set words to music, he went to ex-traordinary lengths to perfect his tiny settings of the most recent po-etry available and his approach was completely at odds with compos-ers of the bourgeois mélodie such as Gounod or Massenet, for whomthe supremacy of the voice and the subsidiary role of the piano ac-companiment were seldom challenged.

At the same time, Satie was a composer of paradoxes. While heremained acutely concerned with the ‘exteriorisation’ of his musicalthought, especially when words were involved, he invented a genre ofincidental music in the 1890s that was completely at odds with the

1. In ‘Edition’, Catalogue, 3 (30 May 1922), 3; cited in Erik Satie, Écrits, ed. OrnellaVolta (Paris: Editions Champ Libre, 1988), p. 55.

Words and Music162

theatrical texts it was supposed to accompany. While he introducedhumorous texts into his piano music from the Gnossiennes of 1890 tothe Sonatine bureaucratique of 1917, in 1914 he forbade them to beread aloud .2 And who else would have begun a literary career with anadvert for an acrobat published under the pseudonym of VirginieLebeau?3 Or created a letter from a provincial housewife to extol thevirtues of his Ogives and Troisième Gymnopédie as cures for an eight-year-old nasal polyp!4

The Rose+Croix Compositions (1891–95)

The strange case of Erik Satie begins with the guiding literary prin-ciples behind his so-called ‘Rosicrucian’ compositions. According to aclose friend of Satie’s bohemian years, the Spanish poet PatriceContamine de Latour:

His musical education was decidedly incomplete, but he put together allthe things he knew and devised a private formula, declaring everythingelse to be non-existent and even a barrier to worthwhile musicalexpression. He was in the position of a man who knows only thirteenletters of the alphabet and decides to create a new literature using onlythese, rather than admit his own inadequacy. For sheer bravado, itremained unsurpassed at the time, but he considered it a question ofhonour to succeed with his system. ‘I’m obliged to make tours de forceto get down a single bar’, he confided to me.5

Satie’s system began with tiny musical cells, juxtaposed, transposed,or even overlapped and reversed in a piece like the Fête donnée pardes Chevaliers Normandes (c. 1892).6 This short prelude is constructed,coincidentally, from 13 two-chord progressions, like letters makingup words. As in everyday speech, letters and words are repeated, so

2. Before its publication by Demets, Satie rejected the text about ‘an old Will-o’-the-wisp’ created to accompany his Première Nocturne in August 1919; seeBibliothèque Nationale de France (hereafter BNF) MS 9609(2), pp. 2–6.

3. ‘Hurrah! pour Smith’ in La Lanterne Japonaise 1 (4) (17 novembre 1888), 3;cited in Satie: Écrits, p. 111.

4. Supposedly from Femme Langrenage, Journalière à Précigny-les-Balayettes toSatie on 20 février 1889; published in ‘Salade Japonaise’ in La Lanterne Japonaise2 (15) (23 mars 1889), 3 and cited in Satie, Écrits, p. 113.

5. From ‘Erik Satie intime, souvenirs de jeunesse’, Comoedia (3 août 1925), 2.6. See Robert Orledge, Satie the Composer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1990), pp. 186–8 for further details.

163The Strange Case of Erik Satie

Example 1a: Fête donnée par des Chevaliers Normandes. Compositional systemwith 13 harmonic cells divided into melodic categories in Houghton Library,Harvard University, b ms Mus 193 (64), f. 2r and v (c. 1892). The cell numbers areadded by the author.

Words and Music164

each cell overlaps the next: cells 1–2 repeat as 11–12 and cell 13 is atransposition of cell 5. But only cells 11–13 are called ‘terminationsor points of repose’ (Example 1a), and they are hardly cadences in anyconventional sense. An extract from the result can be seen in Example1b, with the longer palindromic constructions marked ‘a’ to ‘f’. Trueto form, Satie makes palindrome ‘e’ overlap the melodic sub-structureA1 to A3 of this central section, in which each phrase begins with cell11 (perhaps Satie’s equivalent of ‘The’ or ‘So’ to start a series of sen-tences).

An even more fascinating case is what Patrick Gowers has chris-tened musical ‘punctuation form’.7 This occurs most noticeably in thetwo Préludes du Nazaréen (1892) and the Prélude de ‘La Porte héroïquedu ciel’ (1894). To bring order to his assembly of motifs, Satie tookthe ingenious step of turning to literature for a solution. The resultcan be seen in the first Nazarene prelude, where the musical ‘prose’ isconstructed from four homophonic motifs in contrary motion (Ex-ample 2: A–D), which are articulated at irregular intervals by a dis-tinctive and harmonically sensuous ‘punctuation’ phrase at three dif-ferent pitches (Example 2: 1–3). The phrase and its two transposi-tions recur four times in strict rotation like commas, with a double

Example 1b: Fête donnée par des Chevaliers Normandes, central section, constructedfrom the cells shown in Ex. 1a (Houghton Library, b ms Mus 193(64), f. 3v).

7. Patrick Gowers, ‘Satie’s Rose Croix Music (1891–1895)’, Proceedings of theRoyal Musical Association 92 (1965–66), 18.


statement of 1 as a full stop at the end. The prelude divides into foursections plus a brief coda, and what appears to be a repetitive, mean-dering piece proves to be a tightly organised and logical creation ofrestrained beauty. Just as punctuation phrases 2 and 3 are transposi-tions of 1 down a perfect fourth and up a tone, and 3 equals 2 up aperfect fifth, so the only transpositions of motifs B–D involve pre-cisely the same intervals. In this way the punctuation is at one withthe musical prose. To keep the musical sentences distinct from each

Example 2: First Prélude du Nazaréen (1892), showing motifs and punctuationphrases (BNF MS 10037).

Words and Music166

other, B transposes only up a fourth, D transposes up a tone and up afourth, while C adds transposition up a fifth to include all three pitches.Motif A alone remains untransposed, and only appears in the outer-most sections. But all four belong together stylistically (as in goodprose) by being undulating, hieratic and plainsong-derived. Continu-ity is assisted by the oscillating (and internally repetitive) figures markedby square brackets in Example 2. Palindromic sub-structures againappear: economy of means and restraint are everywhere apparent.

It is possible that Satie derived his idea for literary music fromJoséphin Péladan’s play Le Fils des étoiles the previous year. As Gowerssays, Péladan was ‘a fanatical Wagnerian and used one genuine oldtext in various places and with cunningly altered interpretations as anattempt at a literary equivalent of the leit-motiv’.8 When Jules Claretierejected the play for the Comédie-Française Theatre on 3 March 1892,he told Péladan that Le Fils des étoiles ‘is something like literary mu-sic’.9 Doubtless Péladan passed this information on to Satie, who wasthen the official composer and chapelmaster of his Ordre de la Rose-Croix Catholique, du Temple et du Graal, and it is possible that thisinspired the chain of thought that led to the two Nazarene preludesthat June. Another example of Satie’s adaptation of literary principlescomes in the Danses Gothiques of 1893, where a large chunk of mu-sical prose is divided into nine unequal pieces, like chapters in a novel.But to add his own touch of originality, Satie begins Dances 4 and 7–9 in mid-motif.

An even more bizarre case is the hymn Salut Drapeau! (Hail to theFlag!), composed for Péladan’s play Le Prince de Byzance in Novem-ber 1891. This is the first instance of incidental music that is com-pletely detached from the text it is supposed to accompany. This weirdhistorical drama set in Renaissance Italy centres on the fatal love ofGiorgio Cavalcanti (an army captain of King Frederick of Sicily) forthe fifteen-year-old Tonio — at first a Dominican novice, then thehereditary Prince of the title, then finally Princess Antonio Tarras!The explanations behind this androgynous self-indulgence on Péladan’spart are tenuous, to say the least. In Act 2 scene 9, Cavalcanti patrioti-cally seizes the flag and proclaims Tonio to the assembled multitudeas the Prince of Byzantium, in defiance of Frederick, and amidst general

8. Ibid., 15.9. From a letter printed on p. IV of the final section of Péladan’s play Le Prince de

Byzance (Paris: Chamuel, 1896).


rejoicing. Péladan adapted his three prose paragraphs into unequalverses for Satie to set, although all he did was to remove the repetitionof ‘Salut!’ from the start of paragraphs two and three, and change thefinal line to ‘Symbole généreux, Idéal collectif’.10 In his haunting, dis-embodied hymn, however, Satie pursued a preordained musical plan,regardless of Péladan’s poetic effusions, and there can be no betterexample of what Constant Lambert describes as ‘formal logic whichis independent of all dramatic and narrative element’.11 Using a trans-position of the gapped scale known as the Greek chromatic mode forhis melody, Satie spread Péladan’s three verses over four repeats of arigid musical sequence of 44 slow, quiet crotchet chords (with someoccasional decoration), which may have been intended for performanceon the harmonium. The manuscript evidence suggests that he wantedthe final ‘Salut Drapeau!’ to coincide with the fifth return of his se-quence, and as verses two and three did not fit in with the patternestablished in verse one, Satie almost certainly worked backwards fromthe end, adjusting the gaps between the verses accordingly. In any

f

p

Harpes

Flûtes

p

Harpes

Example 3: A passage near the end of Act 1 of uspud (BNF MS 9631, p. 19). ‘He[uspud] takes up a larger stone which explodes with a bang; flames burst forth andfrom their midst the stars escape’.

10. In BNF MS 10053. The final line originally read: ‘Symbole généreux de la nobleApulie’.

11. Constant Lambert, Music Ho! A Study of Music in Decline (London: Faber,1934), p. 120.

Words and Music168

event, his chain of chords was far more important to him than Péladan’sbanal, tub-thumping text.12 There is every evidence too that his Greekmode was carefully researched for it recurs in the same transpositionin uspud the following year.

With uspud the concept of musico-theatrical detachment reachedits height. Satie wrote the final text of this ‘ballet chrétien’ himself(with some assistance from Contamine de Latour) and its publicationin 1893 marks the first use of lower case letters throughout, well be-fore e.e. cummings. As such, it is a notable early example of Satie’sconcern with the distinctive ‘exteriorisation’ of his ideas. Satie usedonly 12 motifs in his 35-page score, and according to Contamine deLatour he ‘carefully gathered together all the extravagances possiblein his determination to amaze the public’.13 Undoubtedly his mainmotive was publicity, for he famously challenged the director of theParis Opéra, Eugène Bertrand, to a duel to persuade him to even con-sider producing the ballet, and Satie’s various solo performances atthe Auberge du Clou and the Monday soirées of Gustave Doret in-variably provoked hilarity. And with the mismatch between text andmusic in Example 3 it is easy to see why. The ‘Grande convulsion de lanature’ which shortly afterwards ends Act 1 is scored for quiet harpsand then flutes and is even more inappropriate. Yet there are har-monic sequences in uspud that look forward to Messiaen; Debussyperceptively recognised what was ‘serious, audacious and sensitivebehind this extremist hoax’ when he first heard it;14 and in a 1911article (almost certainly ghost-written by Satie himself), JulesEcorcheville maintained that uspud was ‘written to assert certain strongharmonic convictions which, in any other context, would have seemedtotally unfitting’.15 If the same music in uspud can be used to accom-pany different apocalyptic texts in the two different versions, and thelegacy of Alphonse Allais can be found in the funny testimonials fromluminaries such as Shakespeare and Rameau that accompany the firstversion, the underlying principle of music as an anonymous theatricalbackcloth, ‘white and immobile’, is established here. As such it is aforerunner of the ‘furnishing music’ of the 1920s, and of the way that

12. See Orledge, Satie the Composer, pp. 153–7 for the complete score and furtherdetails.

13. Contamine de Latour, ‘Erik Satie intime’, Comoedia (6 août 1925), 2.14. Ibid.15. Jules Ecorcheville, ‘Erik Satie’, Revue musicale SIM 7 (3) (March 1911), 30.


Satie’s music has become the perfect fodder for advertisements in re-cent years, regardless of the product in question.

In reality, this all began with the detached antiquity of the Sarabandesand Gymnopédies in 1887–88, and it is now known that both setsderived their inspiration from poems by Contamine de Latour. Hispoem Sylvie led to the first unbarred song in 1886, complete withconsecutive sevenths, ninths and even thirteenths before Chabrier’s LeRoi malgré lui. In turn, this beautiful song marks the beginning of theconcept of a recurring accompaniment pattern independent of the di-vision of the poetry into stanzas.16

We can also see in uspud Satie’s Proustian fascination with lists ofnames, from saints and artistic luminaries to the strange-soundingnames of the uspud lineage (like Ontrotance, Irnebizolle, andTumisrudebude — all of whom were supposed to feature as the titlesof follow-up ballets in 1, 2, and 3 Acts respectively). After beginningthe process in 1890, Satie invariably added what were intended to bediverting literary additions to his music for the performer’s benefit.These range from passing interpretative advice like ‘Very shining’ and‘Step by step’ in the first Gnossienne to the humorously diverting ‘Likea nightingale with toothache’ and ‘Don’t make me laugh, you bit offroth: you’re tickling me’ in ‘d’Holothurie’ from the Embryonsdesséchés (1913).

Equally interesting is the dedicatory preface that Satie wrote for thepublication of Le Fils des étoiles in 1896, where, in the guise of Parce-ner and Chapelmaster of his own Eglise Métropolitaine de l’Art deJésus Conducteur, he blesses his companions and calls down ‘the justfire of God on the arrogant and immoral!’ In 1895 he produced twoissues of his own ‘Cartulaire’ where his vengeance was directed attheatre directors like Aurélien Lugné-Poë and the critic Henry Gauthier-Villars (‘Willy’). The Eglise Métropolitaine also led to Satie’s only sub-stantial work in a language other than French, the Latin Messe despauvres of 1893–95. The pseudo-religious ambiance persists as far asthe 1903 ‘Recommandations’ which preface (but were never publishedwith) the delightful Trois Morceaux en forme de poire. Here they be-come mixed with serious statement (‘I am at a prestigious turning-point in the History of My life’), humour (‘I cannot promise more,

16. For further details on these early songs, see Robert Orledge, ‘The Musical Ac-tivities of Alfred Satie and Eugénie Satie-Barnetche and Their Effect on the Ca-reer of Erik Satie’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association 117 (1992), 286–8.

Words and Music170

even though I have temporarily increased myself tenfold, against allprecautions’), the occult and bizarre (‘Don’t play around with theunknown amulets of your ephemeral understanding’), to somethingverging on paranoia (‘The Determined One cannot freeze; the Pas-sionate One obliterates himself; the Irascible One has no reason toexist’). Despite his confused state of mind as the God of his own smallworld, the concept of the part-revealing, part-obfuscating, and part-ridiculous preface persists as an important literary adjunct to Satie’smusic, as we shall see. But again these introductions were never in-tended to be read aloud.

The 1897–1913 Period: Cabarets, Pears and the Wordless Song

In 1897, to help make ends meet, Satie wrote his first popular song, Jete veux, to words by his friend Henry Pacory, and in 1898 beganaccompanying the pince-sans-rire cabaret artist Vincent Hyspa in apartnership which lasted about ten years. As well as providing accom-paniments to Hyspa’s parodies of popular songs, which were adaptedto fit various contemporary political situations, Satie composed someof his own settings of Hyspa’s words, like L’Omnibus automobile andChez le docteur in 1905. He also composed songs for ‘The Queen ofthe Slow Waltz’, Paulette Darty, even if she tried them out in the prov-inces first before risking them in Paris. It was Darty who popularisedJe te veux in 1904, and Satie may well have had a hand in the watered-down version of Pacory’s rather risqué text. He may also have writtenthe text for Darty’s Allons-y Chochotte, for its listed author, D. Du-rante, is otherwise unknown. In any event, these songs have an unde-niable charm, especially La Diva de l’Empire, to a text by DominiqueBonnaud and Numa Blès, the proprietors of La Lune Rousse, for whomSatie also worked. In his cabaret songs, Satie proved he had a com-mon touch, even if he always regarded this work as demeaning, andhe always provided a memorable melodic ‘hook’ and some unexpectedharmonies to keep them fresh. In many ways, they represent his mostconventional matching of words and music, for the aim here was largelyutilitarian.

Of greater mystery are his last collaborations with Contamine deLatour, now known as the Anglicized ‘Lord Cheminot’, in the 1899–1905 period. Although Contamine published numerous tales in LeRire, the origins of the two for which Satie provided accompanying


scores in 1901–02, notably The Dreamy Fish and The Angora Ox,have yet to be found. Equally problematic are the wordless songsImpérial-Oxford and Légende Californienne of 1904–05. Even thoughthere are other songs like Rambouillet and Marienbad whose texts byHyspa have now been identified (by Steven Moore Whiting), and eventhough Satie the slow worker did not always write words into hismanuscripts, the two Latour songs were registered as ‘chansons sansparoles’ for copyright purposes on 18 August 1905, which puts one inmind of the ‘Danse sans musique’ in Satie’s final ballet, Relâche.

The year 1900, besides seeing the completion of Satie’s little shadowtheatre opera Geneviève de Brabant and a prelude for La Mort deMonsieur Mouche (both by Latour) with Ragtime syncopations, alsosaw Satie’s first piece of commissioned journalism. For the Guide del’étranger à Montmartre he produced an article on ‘Les Musiciens deMontmartre’ which, setting a pattern for things to come, said nothinguseful about its subjects.17 Satie’s career in music journalism, how-ever, did not begin on a regular basis until 1912, with his Mémoirsd’un Amnésique and his famous piece in L’Oeil de Veau which put theex-Conservatoire director Ambroise Thomas in second place to hissearch for a lost umbrella. Music critics remained his deadly enemiesand he never really commented in serious detail on music or musi-cians before 1922.

The most interesting pieces from this interregnum period, in whichSatie moved to the distant Parisian suburb of Arcueil and contributedregularly to its Radical-Socialist journal L’Avenir de Arcueil-Cachanin 1909–10, are the Trois Morceaux en forme de poire for piano duet.Although, for once, the directions to amuse the performers disappear,Satie plays with words and music in other ways. There are three pieceslisted in the title, but seven in the collection. The modern, disastrousimplications of ‘pear-shaped’ were not known to Satie, though otherswere. According to the conductor Vladimir Golschmann, Satie toldhim that:

17. Victor Meusy and Edmond Depas (eds), Guide de l’Étranger à Montmartre(Paris: J. Strauss, 1900), pp. 31–32; this was an offshoot from the 1900 Exposi-tion Universelle and the map at the end shows every cabaret to have been in thePigalle area, with only Les Assassins situated on the Butte Montmartre itself.

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All I did … was to write Pieces in the form of a pear. I brought them toDebussy [in 1903], who asked, ‘Why such a title?’ Why? Simply, mydear friend, because you cannot criticise my Pieces in the shape of apear. If they are en forme de poire they cannot be shapeless.18

For both friends, pear-shaped rather had associations with the lowerend of the female anatomy, but ‘poire’ was also ‘current Paris slangfor “head”, and was used in the sense of “stupid head”, i.e. fool’.19

Therefore Satie may have been suggesting that Debussy was a fool fortrying to point him towards traditional forms in order to improve hisstructural skills and further his career. ‘Poire’ was also the name for achild’s spinning-top. So the three (originally two) ‘core’ pieces are ex-panded outwards by ‘A Way of Beginning’, ‘A Prolongation of theSame’, plus ‘An Addition’, and a ‘Restatement’ – all of which, typi-cally, are quite separate pieces. Besides spinning around musically,they also spin around in date. Only Morceaux 1 and 3 (the originaltwo) date from 1903, the rest re-use material from 1890–91 (includ-ing an oscillating and repetitive Gnossienne from Péladan’s Le Fils desétoiles to begin with), or cabaret songs from 1899–1901 (which origi-nally revolved musically through their long chains of repeated verses).There is even an extract from The Angora Ox in the final piece, whichis thus a ‘restatement’ of a different type, and which suggests thatSatie was either making a compendium of his best music, or showingDebussy how his style had developed across the first decade of theirfriendship – or both. Morceaux 2, at the heart of the work, is in ter-nary form, appropriate to a cycle but nothing to do with a ‘pear’, onemight think. Yet the lively outer sections spin around continuouslylike a top, and in turn revolve around a sensuous but repetitive cabaretsong, which has a harmonic succulence akin to enjoying a perfect pear.

As with Debussy’s titles, Satie’s tell the informed and inquisitivereader a great deal. He loved devising sets of titles, like Boring Glob-ules or Monotonous Day’s Marches (both from 1914), but only thepieces he copied in black ink and gave titles to were intended for even-tual publication. In contrast to Fauré, who wanted to call everythingjust ‘Pièce’, Satie revelled in his eccentric titles, especially in the periodof the humorous piano pieces.

18. Vladimir Golschmann, ‘Golschmann Remembers Erik Satie’, Musical America22 (August 1972), 11; the italics are original.

19. Martin Howe, ‘Erik Satie and his Ballets’, Ballet 5 (8) (August–September 1948), 28.


The Humorous Piano Sets (1913–15) and the MoveTowards Surrealism

In these pieces, the literary element assumes increasing importance.After the discovery of his early works by Ravel, who gave the presti-gious première of Satie’s Deuxième Sarabande (and other pieces) at aSociété Musicale Indépendante concert in January 1911, Satie wascast as the ‘precursor’ of modern harmony by the press. While heenjoyed the publicity, he really wanted his latest works appreciated,and for this to happen (which it slowly did), he still needed to intrigueand shock his growing public. In December 1912, Eugène Demetspurchased his Real Flabby Preludes (for a dog) for the knock-downprice of 50 francs in a limited edition of 300. Whilst the title musthave seemed absurd at the time, there was, as always, a strict personallogic behind it. Satie loved animals, and the stray dogs he took pity onwere the only living things to enter his dingy room in Arcueil between1899 and 1925. The sub-titles ‘Alone in the House’ and ‘We Play’probably reflect this. In addition, Satie had already written a set ofFlabby Preludes (for a dog) earlier that summer – including a ‘Chan-son canine’ – which remained unpublished, so the ones that did ap-pear were to him the ‘Real’ Flabby Preludes. Then the opening ‘SevereReprimand’, a genuine toccata or prelude, is directed at all drypedagogic teaching, even perhaps that of Vincent d’Indy, for the firstbass entry is marked ‘The voice of the master’.20 Satie had just fin-ished his seven years of rigorous study with Roussel and d’Indy at theSchola Cantorum, and was glad to be free to compose exactly what hewanted to: he was even gladder that the preludes had been acceptedby Demets after having been ignominiously rejected by Debussy’s pub-lisher, Jacques Durand. Soon Satie was struggling to satisfy the de-mand for more such piano sets, producing over 60 pieces in all beforehe moved on to other things in 1915.

Literary integration reaches its height with the 20 Sports et diver-tissements of 1914 which extend Satie’s commentaries to amuse theperformer into miniature prose poems, and produce what amounts toa Gesamtkunstwerk in cameo through the addition of Cubist-inspireddrawings by Charles Martin. While Marcel Duchamp, Picasso, orPicabia introduced words into their paintings, only Satie employed a

20. In BNF MS 9618, p. 4.

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simultaneous counterpoint of prose poems, music, and drawing withina single composition. In ‘La Balançoire’ (Example 4) each melodicline is matched by a line of distinctly modern poetry. The lines areclearly not meant to be sung because the number of syllables does notmatch the number of notes in any but the third line. The translationruns as follows: ‘It’s my heart that is swinging thus./ It isn’t dizzy./What tiny feet it has./ Will it be willing to return to my breast?’ Wecan also see from Example 4 how Satie’s calligraphy (actually in blackand red ink) is itself a camera-ready work of art, and how concerned heremained about the ‘exteriorisation’ of his musical thought. This canalso be seen in the way his drafts for the pieces had barlines, which wereremoved in publication. Satie also added a ‘Préface’ to the ‘UnappetisingChorale’ that introduces his ‘album’. The chorale is designed for ‘the“Shrivelled Up” and the “Stupid”… a sort of austere and non-frivolousintroduction. I have put into it all I know about Boredom. I dedicatethis chorale to those who don’t like me. I withdraw.’ Here the wordsare an essential part of the music, its raison d’être.

Example 4: ‘La Balançoire’ [The Swing] from Sports et divertissements (New York:Dover Publications Inc., 1982), p. 8.


That summer Satie’s texts grew even more surrealistic in the Heuresséculaires et instantanées, dedicated to ‘sir [sic] William Grant-Plumot’,who was surprising in ‘the strangeness of his good humour’ and ‘con-tinual immobility’ (a recurring fascination with Satie). Whoever wasbehind the choice of dedicatee (Shakespeare and the critic ‘Willy’ havebeen suggested), he has nothing whatever to do with the pieces thatfollow. In the first, ‘Venomous Obstacles’, it is 9.17 a.m.

This vast part of the world inhabited by a single black man: He’s sobored he could die laughing …The toads are calling each other by their family names.In order to concentrate, the black man grasps his cerebellum in his righthand, his fingers spread apart.From a distance he seems to resemble a distinguished physiologist.Four anonymous serpents enslave him, hanging from the shirt tails ofhis uniform which grief and solitude have rendered shapeless.On the banks of the river, an old mangrove slowly washes its roots,filthy with dirt.It is not a favourable hour for lovers.

The music, marked ‘darkly’, is equally strange and chromatic. Apartfrom counting the nine ‘hours’ and seventeen ‘minutes’, it seems to beanother of Satie’s arbitrary juxtapositions of short ostinato-type cells injigsaw puzzle manner. Like his poetry and prose, it has a sort of continu-ity, but always contains sudden tangential and logic-defeating surprises.One might almost say that, at times, the music was arbitrary because, asthe black man’s ‘fingers spread apart’, the oscillating accompanimentcentred on e and the lyrical melody centred on d are not dissimilar toExample 4. But perhaps this is because both belong to Satie’s 1914 style.

But if we look more closely, the distinguished physiologist ischaracterised by pompous chords, each of the four serpents is in-troduced individually, the opening music returns more slowly atthe end an even darker octave lower as the ‘old mangrove slowlywashes its roots’, even suggesting that the text came first and themusic was inspired by it. This hypothesis is, of course, supported bythe projected Boring Globules from the same summer, where Satiewrote texts but no music. The first globule, ‘Regard’, begins with aparody of Verlaine (‘Son regard est une tiède parure’) and endsup talking about an umbrella made from ‘porcine silk which hasthe appearance of a tomato’! The disjunct images Satie probablypicked up from Apollinaire, even if the two were never particu-larly friendly. As we have seen, Satie cared more about his umbrel-las, which he apparently sheltered under his coat when it rained!

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Yet it was to the Heures séculaires et instantanées that Satie appendedhis famous warning in the first edition:

To whom it may concern: ‘I forbid anyone to read the text aloud duringthe musical performance. Ignorance of my instructions will incur myrighteous indignation against the presumptuous culprit. No exceptionswill be allowed.’

Satie also wrote what has been claimed as the first surrealist play inLe Piège de Méduse in the spring of 1913. However, its concept datesback as far as Satie’s Montmartre period, and Ornella Volta has dis-covered that he sketched a first version in five acts in 1898, with theaid of the humourist/illustrator Jules Dépaquit, who later became thefirst Mayor of Montmartre.21 In the nine short scenes (separated byseven dances for Jonas the Monkey) of the final version, the anarchicworld of the Baron Medusa is partly that of Satie himself, though hewas furious with Pierre Bertin for mimicking him when the play reachedthe stage in 1921. Polycarpe, the butler, who initially dominates Me-dusa, and is anxious to be off to a billiards match (and later to bemarried) contains more than a passing reference to Debussy, their rela-tionship here turned on its head. The ‘snare’ of the title involves Astolfo’sability to dance with one eye (another recurring image in Satie’s writ-ings and music), and he is only allowed to marry Medusa’s daughter,Frisette, when he honestly admits that he cannot. The play ends in con-fusion as Polycarpe announces the arrival of various military personnelwho Medusa is convinced have come only to thrash him!

Satie’s life from this point onwards revolved more and more aroundthe theatre, and his other curious 1913 venture was Les Pantins dansent,a disembodied ‘poème dansé’ written for the Metachoric Festival devisedby Valentine de Saint-Point, who had close links with the Futurist move-ment. From the Revue musicale SIM, we learn from Saint-Point that:

… in my Métachorie, music and dance are equal partners, both uniquelyand similarly dependent on the Idea, that is to say the idea evoked in thepoem or drama … I interpret a poem and not the music, and the music isinspired by the poem and not conceived choreographically … Metachoryis conceived in the modern spirit … it needs a creative musician … itsdirection is intellectual and not sentimental.22

21. See Erik Satie, Correspondance presque complete, ed. Ornella Volta (Paris:Fayard, 2000), p. 83.

22. From a press controversy between Saint-Point and Paolo Litta published in theRevue musicale SIM 10 (1 ) (1 janvier 1914), 71; Valentine de Saint-Point was agreat-niece of the poet Lamartine.


All of which appealed to Satie. Saint-Point and he were to respond to thesame poem independently, only putting the results together at the premièreon 18 December 1913 in the Salle Léon-Poirier, when her maudlin anddistinctly sentimental poem (about a poet dying on a fête day while thepuppets are dancing) was read aloud by none other than Édouard de Max.23

As the number of Satie’s four-bar phrases does not equal the number oflines in Saint-Point’s poem, there can have been no exact synchronisationbetween the two in performance. So Satie lived up to the spirit of the enter-prise and again created a ‘theatrical backcloth’ to a text, though perhapsa slightly more appropriate one than had been the case in the 1890s.Being a perceptive literary critic, he probably kept his score short to forcede Max to get through the self-indulgent poem as quickly as possible.

In 1914 Satie wrote his own contemporary version of French thir-teenth-century Troubadour poetry for his minuscule Trois Poèmesd’amour. But in the last of these, ‘Ta parure est secrète’, he made nofewer than thirteen versions of the tiny 8-bar song in his quest for per-fection in simplicity. Following his predominant belief that the ‘melodyis the Idea’ from which all else flows, every bar applies the same rhythmof six quavers and a crotchet to Satie’s ‘magic words’. In the process,Satie takes advantage of French as an unstressed language, and pokesfun at the vocalised mute ‘e’ in sung French at the end of each line(Example 5). For his poems, Satie took the verse-form of the medievalChanson de geste, with its monorhyme stanzas (laisses), and adapted itto modern ends. But he never took anything literally from the past. So,just as the vocal lines look like modern plainsong in Example 5 but onlypreserve its spirit, so the verse-form of the trouvères is modified fromthe customary ten- or eight-syllable lines to seven, and Satie joins theseby consonance rather than assonance. In the printed version, the mock-ing preface about the Romantic poet with ‘eyelids fluttering like leaves’and all the humorous textural additions (like ‘Put back your clock anhour’ in the final bar) were deleted – even down to the dynamics andthe marking ‘Avec tendresse’ – so that the song should appear as simple anddead-pan as possible. Yet paradoxically, the last things Satie added (at thefinal proof stage) were the curious chromatic flourishes before bars 3 and7, which are at odds with the prevailing modality, the restrained style, butnot the anachronistic poem about a young smoking tomboy.

23. See Orledge, Satie the Composer, pp. 120–24 & 349–50 for the poem and fur-ther details. The version for small orchestra performed in December 1913 wasSatie’s second response to Saint-Point’s poem. The first contains his only knownwriting for solo harp (see p. 124).

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Example 5: Trois Poèmes d’amour, No. 3: ‘Ta parure est secrète’ [‘Your attire isdiscreet’]. The textual additions come from BNF 9615(1), pp. 16–19.


The 1916–19 period

‘Le Chapelier’, the third of Satie’s Trois Mélodies of 1916, remainsone of the most curious alliances of words and music in existence: asort of double parody or pastiche. Always an admirer of Lewis Carroll,Satie first took René Chalupt’s adaptation of an episode from the MadHatter’s tea-party in Alice in Wonderland and set it in the arpeggio-based melodic style found in late 1915 works like the Cinq Grimaces,no doubt with the Mad Hatter’s ticking watch in mind.24 He then hada flash of inspiration, and realised how shocking it would be to graftCarroll’s topsy-turvy world onto an operatic love-duet by that epitomyof bourgeois sentimentality, Charles Gounod. So he adapted the firststanza of the Provençal ‘Chanson de Magali’, as sung by Vincent inAct 2 scene 3 of Mireille (1864), wickedly introducing strings of par-allel fifths in place of Gounod’s bass pedal points, and using Gounod’soperatic upper tonic climax in his second stanza. He also introduced aglorious slithering descent to a point two octaves below to end hisfirst stanza, at the point where the Mad Hatter greases his watch withbest butter because it is running three hours slow.

With the Cocteau-Picasso-Massine-Diaghilev ballet Parade (1917),the literary links rather concern what was left out of the production.Cocteau originally wanted fairground barkers shouting through mega-phones, a chorus intoning onomatopoeic nonsense syllables in Parts 2and 3, and all manner of noises off in the then-fashionable Futuristicmanner of Marinetti et al. There was also a song as the great Titanic‘sinks blazing into the sea’ that survived without its text into Satie’sorchestral score.25 Satie even set some of Cocteau’s ‘trompe l’oreille’effects in his sketches, but all these extraneous ‘noises’ were excisedby Diaghilev before the 1917 première as he disliked the concept ofwords entering the sphere of ballet.26

24. See Orledge, Satie the Composer, pp. 21–4 for an extract and further detailsabout ‘Le Chapelier’.

25. In the flute and piccolo parts at fig. 32 bars 1–9, pp. 64–6 in the Salabert or-chestral score, Paris, 1999. Cocteau’s text read: ‘Tic! Tic! Tic! Le Titanic s’enfonce,allumé dans la mer’.

26. Such as BNF 9603(1), pp. 16–17, with its settings of ‘a–é, o–a, é–u, a–é, o–é–i–é’.These survive in the oboe and cor anglais parts of Part 3: Acrobates in ibid., p. 88.

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With Socrate (1917–18), Satie’s ‘return to classical simplicity witha modern sensibility’, which he owed to his ‘“Cubist” friends’, hereverted to the nineteenth-century translation of the Dialogues dePlaton by Victor Cousin.27 He preferred this to the more modern trans-lation by Mario Meunier because of its clarity, simplicity, and beauty,and in the process he found Plato to be ‘a perfect collaborator, veryquiet and never importunate’ (unlike the interfering Cocteau).28 Inwhat is now recognised as his masterpiece of restraint, Satie made noadditions or changes of order to the twenty paragraphs he selected,and produced a work that was ‘white and pure as Antiquity’ and ‘with-out the least idea of conflict’.29 Its title ‘symphonic drama in threeparts’ would appear to be a misnomer, until one realises that it issymphonic insofar as its main motifs all appear in the orchestra, anddramatic insofar as it describes the events leading to Socrates’ deathin its final part. In most places the recitative-like vocal line was graftedonto an already complete motivic musical argument. For the dramaticeffects one might expect from the death itself, Satie substitutes seven-teen bars of bare fifths on two shifting pitches with a virtually mono-tone vocal line, whose simple dignity transports the tragedy onto ahigher plane. From the abruptly juxtaposed blocks of vertical soundin Parade, Satie’s subdued score placed the emphasis on horizontalcontinuity, with motifs carefully leading into each other and evenoccasional orchestral overlaps between them. Poulenc aptly comparedSatie’s linear music to the limpidity of running water.30

The commission for Socrate had arrived in October 1916 from thewealthy Princesse Edmond de Polignac, who had studied ancient Greek.It was originally intended for one of her celebrated musical receptions,

27. From a letter to Henry Prunières dated 3 April 1918, cited in Satie (ed. Volta),Correspondance, p. 325.

28. From a letter to Valentine Gross dated 18 January 1917, cited in Satie,Correspondance, p. 277.

29. See Orledge, Satie the Composer, p. 316 for the precise sources of these extracts;also a letter to Valentine Gross dated 6 January 1917, cited in Satie,Correspondance, p. 273; also a letter to Paul Collaer dated 16 May 1920, citedin ibid., p. 406.

30. Cited in Paul Collaer, ‘La Fin des Six et de Satie’, La Revue générale 6–7 (June–July 1974), 2; see Orledge, Satie the Composer, pp. 134–5 for an example of thisfrom Part 1: ‘Portrait de Socrate’.


with the Princess and one of her friends, Madame de Wendel, seatedin luxurious armchairs, reading from Plato’s dialogues to a musicalbackground. Satie soon decided to make it a self-contained work (withwhich he planned to score a great success on a projected Americantour in 1919), but he retained the idea of female voices, even thoughthe characters were all male.31 Thus, in the final version, we find foursopranos (two high and two mezzo) intoning the recitatives ofAlcibiade, Socrate, Phèdre and Phédon in what amounts to a stereo-phonic context, even though it is nowadays usually performed by asingle soprano. It was as close to pure literature with a musicalbackcloth as Satie could get, with melismas (as always) being virtu-ally non-existent. Within what is essentially a minimalist concept, Satieuses small expressive gestures to telling effect within his transparenttextures, and the way that he leaves the drama suspended in space ona second inversion chord on f#, the note on which Socrate began, is amasterstroke.

Satie and the Early 1920s

As well as expanding his musical journalism, Satie wrote more songsin the 1920s, including the Quatre Petites Mélodies of 1920 and thefive Ludions (Fargue, 1923). Now working mostly to theatrical com-missions, he also set substantial tracts of Molière’s dialogue from LeMédecin malgré lui (1666) to convert Gounod’s 1858 opéra-comiqueinto an all-sung opera for Diaghilev’s Gounod revival in Monte Carloin January 1924. Here Satie went to extraordinary lengths to get hissettings of Molière perfect and he also wrote his only score using nine-teenth-century chromatic harmonies in a directional manner to matchGounod’s arias and ensembles, with which his nine ‘scènes nouvelles’were interspersed as recitatives.32 The process involved no less thannine stages between June and December 1923: first, Satie annotatedthe libretto Diaghilev sent him into nine scenes which he coordinated

31. See Robert Orledge, ‘Satie & America’, American Music 18 (2000), 88–90 forfurther details; the reference to the two high and two mezzo-sopranos can onlybe found in Satie’s letter of 1 December 1918 to the novelist Henri-Pierre Rochérelating to this tour (see pp. 89 and 101).

32. I have recently edited this last unknown Satie orchestral score, which is pub-lished by Aerial Kites Press, Liverpool, 2001.

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with Gounod’s vocal score; second, he copied out the dialogue to beset in the right-hand pages of a small blue notebook (BNF MS 9595(2));thirdly, he added the natural speech-rhythms to be used for every wordon the opposite left-hand pages; fourthly, he noted the vocal ranges ofthe eight singers involved; fifthly, he drafted the music for his ninenumbers in four sketchbooks (BNF MSS 9595(3–6)); sixthly, he madeneat vocal scores for rehearsals in eight further notebooks (now in aprivate collection in Paris); in stage seven, he incorporated the furthercuts Diaghilev had made during his initial rehearsals; in stage eight,he planned the precise pagination of his orchestral score on three post-cards (BNF MS 9595(3bis)); and finally he wrote out the full orches-tral score (now in the Beinecke Library of Yale University). In thisswift-moving and compact score, his only indulgence was a giantmelisma on the final word ‘bel-le’, sung by the fake doctor Sganarelle.33

On the other hand, Satie got virtually nowhere with a contemporaryopéra-comique of his own entitled Paul & Virginie, to a libretto byCocteau and Radiguet based on the famous story of shipwreck on adesert island by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. Satie wanted Paul & Virginieto be light, sparkling and spontaneous, in the style of Rossini, but theonly piece he seems to have completed between 1920 and 1923 was theopening ‘Sailors’ Chorus’.34

Far more to his taste were the little poems ‘Danseuse’ (Cocteau)and ‘Adieu’ – originally ‘Mouchoir’ from Les Joues en feu by the boywonder Radiguet – which Satie set in October to December 1920. Thelatter song of just 16 bars about the ‘Admiral … waving his old hand-kerchief’ caused Satie almost as much trouble as anything in Socrate.35

In BNF MS 9574, pp. 1–7, he made two purely rhythmic drafts beforehe was satisfied with the prosody, accompanied by three drafts of avocal line in B major. In the third attempt, converting the vocal linefor ‘Amiral’ from a falling scale to a palindrome gave him the idea forhis strange, chromatic accompaniment, to which the introduction andcoda were appended last. Thus the accompaniment derived from Satie’smelodic response to an individual word: what began as a café-concert

33. Ibid., p. 129; for fuller details of this unique project see Robert Orledge, ‘Gounod,Satie and Diaghilev (1923–24): Le Médecin [et le compositeur] malgré lui’, Muziek& Wetenschap 3 (1993), 91–116.

34. ‘Choeur des Marins’ for tenor solo, chorus and piano, ed. Robert Orledge (Paris:Salabert, 1995).

35. See Orledge, Satie the Composer, pp. 70–3 for fuller details.


Example 6: Quatre Petites Mélodies, No. 1: ‘Élégie’ [for Claude Debussy], showing theformal sections and the two versions of the vocal line (BNF MS 9576, pp. 10–11).

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waltz ended up as a compact and carefully sculpted art-song fromwhich the waltz elements were composed out, in a process Cocteaulikened to ‘decomposition’.

The most interesting of the four little songs is Satie’s ‘Élégie’ for hisfriend Debussy, a setting of stanza 7 of Lamartine’s ‘L’Isolement’, pub-lished in Premières Méditations in 1820. From Example 6 we can seehow melody constitutes the ‘idea’ behind the work and conditions itsoutline, form and content. In the work that emerges ‘the harmony isan illumination, an exhibition of the object, its reflection’.36 In thiscase, there are two melodies, the vocal line and the upper accompani-ment line, and in such cases it was usually the latter that emergedfirst. So Satie began by planning what became Example 6 with hisrhythmic response to Lamartine’s desolate poem on a monotone e1

(which survives in bar 3 of the upper melodic line), but his first me-lodic thought was the undulating parallel fifths in the right-hand pi-ano part in bars 1–3. Through transposition, this survived to condi-tion the form and content of the whole ‘Élégie’. He then ‘illuminated’his basic idea by harmonising it in different ways, numbering the cellsas they were to appear in the final version in bars 1–3, 4–6 and 10–12.This produced the monothematic form marked A, A1, A, A2 in Ex-ample 6 (in which A2 uses chords 1 and 3 of A1, separated by whatmight be seen as a variant of chord 4 as the climax at the start of bar11). A2 gave Satie the most trouble (three compositional stages) bothbecause of the tonal ambiguity he wanted for the ending (the initialmotif in bars 1–3 centres on a Phrygian e minor, but the song beginsand ends on f, which is prepared by the cadence on its dominant c inbars 5–6). However, it can be observed that f major as such neveroccurs in this ambiguous song, and the only thing that looks like atonic in root position is the c major at the start of bar 6, though thiscould well be a dominant in the overall scheme.

Lastly, Satie composed the anguished vocal line itself, the object ofthe whole tribute to Debussy. As can be seen in Example 6, this wentthrough two complete stages (with the preordained rhythm remainingconstant), and Satie composed the angularity into it, in the processgiving a better link between the melodic and harmonic tension in bar5, and a stronger climax on the only g2 in bar 11, even if it came on

36. From Satie’s compositional credo, ‘Subject Matter (Idea) and Craftsmanship(Construction)’ on the cover of BNF MS 9611 (1917); for the original Frenchtext see Satie, Écrits, pp. 48–9


‘est’ instead of ‘tout’. While the parallel fifths and whole-tone chordsmay be reminiscent of Debussy, the bitonal approach, absolute economy,and the sonorous (almost Brahmsian) left-hand octaves identify Satie asthe composer. Here Lamartine’s poetry served as an inspirational meansto an end, in which the musical integrity was the most important factorfor Satie — as we can see from the way he arrived at the final vocal linelast. Yet the irrelevance of nature and material possessions after the lossof a single, cherished friend was exactly what Satie wanted to portrayin September 1920, and for once Satie brings his inner emotions nakedto the surface in an unusually wide-ranging vocal line of almost exag-gerated expressiveness. Everything ends where it began, with the re-peated fs extending into infinity through the implied continuation ofmotif A2 by whatever means. Debussy is also commemorated in a long,revealing, and completely serious article about their friendship that Satiewrote in August 1922 for the American journal Vanity Fair, at the re-quest of Sybil Harris. But unlike his two articles on ‘the great Stravinsky’,this was sadly never published during Satie’s lifetime.37

Satie gathered together many of his views on music and literaturein his articles for the bookseller Pierre Trémois’s journal Cataloguebetween March and November 1922 (a year in which Satie’s produc-tion was almost entirely in words). It should also be remembered thatSatie was a frequent visitor to the Left Bank bookshops of Sylvia Beachand Adrienne Monnier and that one of the first performances of Socratetook place in Monnier’s La Maison des Amis des Livres in the rue del’Odéon in March 1919. Here Satie came into close contact with suchluminaries as James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound and Léon-PaulFargue, and he also attended the first readings of Joyce’s Ulysses (inFrench translation by Valéry Larbaud) there in December 1921. ForTrémois, Satie wrote short essays on such subjects as Bookishness,Reading, Publishing, and Writing in cafés (‘Painful Examples’). Themost interesting is that on Publishing, which shows how importantthe well-printed book was to him. ‘A literary publication’, he says,

… appears more brilliant, more logical, more ‘genuine’ than its cousinthe musical publication…its value, very often, tends to rise highly, towardsthe ‘rare’ class. In a word, the book is a ‘genuine’ object – a kind ofjewel, a type of work of art. It is complete.

37. Published in Les Feuilles libres 4 (29) (October–November 1922), 347–52, andVanity Fair 19 (6) (February 1923), 39 and 88.

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A musical work … has none of these precious external features; itappears like a sort of brother to academic books – an ugly brother.

Take Albéric Magnard, who published a great number of importantworks, dressing them up to look like an ‘atlas’ … His example – a very‘deliberate’ one in this case – shows how little importance he attachedto the notated ‘exteriorisation’ of his thought, and underlines thedifference which exists between literary and musical publications.38

Satie, like Debussy (but unlike Magnard), played a positive role indesigning editions of his works, and here he suggests that music‘should be put in print in some quite different way’ as ‘engraving isso awkward physically’. The later twentieth century was, of course,to prove him right. Unfortunately, as is so often the case, he does notelaborate on his forward-looking ideas, but we can perhaps see whyhe deliberately removed conventional barlines and key signaturesfrom his later music for single performers, for he considered that the‘variable nature of musical notation spoils the “patina” of musicalworks. Times destroy the meaning of the “symbols”: clefs, accidentalsetc.’ Therefore Satie sought to make his own publications as close ashe could to the literary models he admired, hence the ‘historical back-ground’ in the form of texts or stories. His ideal solution came inSports et divertissements, but the opportunity for this sort of expen-sive collaboration between the arts was rare, and it took nine yearsfor Sports to appear on general sale in the de luxe edition by LucienVogel.

Satie’s concern for the eye as much as the ear appears in his laterpublic lectures, which look like the literary equivalent to Apollinaire’sCalligrammes, though precedents for these can be found in the em-blematic verses of Satie’s favourite author Lewis Carroll (such as the‘Mouse’s Tale’ in the shape of a mouse’s tail in Chapter 3 of Alice inWonderland). The rows of dots of varying lengths which characterisesuch pieces had a practical purpose too, for they told Satie when andfor how long to pause when he read them aloud.39

38. Satie (ed. Volta), Écrits, pp. 54–5, originally published in Catalogue 3 (30 May1922), 3.

39. A good example can be seen in Satie’s ‘Préambule’ to a concert by MarcelleMeyer on 17 January 1922, illustrated in Orledge, Satie the Composer, p. 218.


Conclusions

As far as music and words are concerned on a broader level, the domi-nating figure in Satie’s life between 1915 and 1923 was Cocteau, whogave him more publicity than he had ever dreamed of in Le Coq etl’Arlequin (1918), projecting him as the personification of the newmodern spirit of simplicity and French nationalism, with its roots inpopular melody and its inspiration in the music-hall, cabaret and cir-cus. Parade, minus Cocteau’s texts, established Satie as the godfatherof the avant-garde, elevating him to a cult figure in a post-war highsociety hungry for sensation and chic diversion. In this period, Satiealso created Musique d’ameublement, of which the best-known ex-amples were his parodies of Ambroise Thomas (again) and Saint-Saënsin the ‘entr’actes’ performed between the acts of a Max Jacob play,Ruffian toujours, truand jamais (now lost) at the Galerie Barbazangeson 8 March 1920. Here the concept of music as a sonorous backcloth,endlessly repeating short fragments while everyday life continues oblivi-ous around it, failed because of its very novelty. Satie’s shouts of ‘Goon talking! Walk about! Don’t listen!’ had the reverse effect to thatintended. Words were involved here in the way that Satie incorpo-rated a Romance from Act 1 of Thomas’s Mignon (‘Connais-tu lepays, où fleurit l’oranger?’); words in the form of a play went onaround it; and words were what Satie wanted more than anything tohear as it was performed. But underneath, as always, the music provedthe most important element, and this aspect can also be seen in theway Satie carefully balanced the scores of his later ballets Mercureand Relâche in 1924 so that they would stand up both to future analy-sis and the absurd theatrical paraphernalia that surrounded them intheir provocative performances.

We have already seen Satie writing self-contained music as a de-fence against indifferent theatrical texts from the 1890s onwards, andwe can also see him creating music out of a text in a work like in‘d’Holothurie’ from the Embryons desséchés, in which everything butthe first idea derives from Loïsa Puget’s popular song ‘Mon Rocher deSaint-Malo’ (to words by her husband Gustave Lemoine) of c. 1840.Satie also borrowed and transformed melodies from operettas popu-lar in the 1880s by Edmond Audran, Aimé Maillart, Robert Planquette,and even from Gounod’s Faust in his humorous piano pieces of 1913,as well as French folksongs, and the English nursery rhyme ‘Sing aSong of Sixpence’ in his furnishing music for Mrs Eugène Meyer

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(Junior) in 1923. With these went verbal associations that permeatedthe music in disguise, another good example being Irving Berlin’s 1911hit ‘That Mysterious Rag’, which Satie used as a rhythmic model forthe ‘Ragtime du Paquebot’ [the Titanic] in Parade.

Thus Satie remained as responsive to words in his music as ‘liter-ary’ composers like Schumann or Debussy, but for him the unspokenword was as important (if not more important) than the spoken one.On many occasions his aim was to shock and to turn accepted rela-tionships between words and music on their heads, as in grafting thetext of Socrate onto a preconceived motivic structure after the moodand start of each part had been decided with the words in mind. Hisapproach in Socrate was both Wagnerian (with the main motifs in theorchestra) and totally un-Wagnerian in its compositional approachand aesthetic. At the same time, Satie wanted to create timeless, white,almost anonymous music that could fit any situation, and his initialconception of Socrate was as large-scale ‘furniture music’. Yet almostall his creations have strong literary associations, even when they ap-pear to be absolute music. He invented all lower case writing withuspud in 1892, and the following year created deliberate boredomthrough hypnotic and endless repetition of the same musical text inthe mantra-like Vexations, which is preceded by a period of silentmeditation and is also one of the earliest known pieces of total chro-maticism. Here the ambient sounds of the environment quickly be-came the most interesting part of the 14–24 hour performance, aninnovation which had important ramifications for John Cage in the1950s and 1960s.

In the few songs that Satie set, the poetry is always contemporary,and in cases like Fargue’s ‘La Statue de bronze’, it came direct fromthe author. To complete his Trois Mélodies in May 1916, Satie askedFargue to ‘Send me – immediately – something very short and terriblycynical’.40 In this case, the normally slow Satie completed the song inten days and had it performed four days after this, all within the samemonth. Similarly the Ludions, although they date back to Fargue’searly childhood, come from the versions published in the journal

40. From a letter of 16 May 1916 in the Archives Léon-Paul Fargue, kindly sup-plied to me by Laurent de Freitas; the complete postcard is published in Satie,Correspondance, p. 242.


Intentions in May 1923, which also determined the order of Satie’scycle. This he finished by 18 May, despite making no less than fourdifferent settings of the outer songs ‘Air du Rat’ and ‘Chanson duchat’ before he was satisfied.41 Strangely, he never set anything byApollinaire, and in reality very little by Cocteau, and finding newpoetry that was absolutely right for his needs at any particular timeproved very difficult (as it did for Fauré). But Satie was regularly sup-plied with poems, as in the case of Suzanne Kra, the translator ofRilke, in July 1917, or Max Jacob in October 1919. But in neithercase did he feel able to set the results: unfortunately he never explainedwhy.

Satie continued to prefer the company of poets and artists to that ofmusicians (as Debussy did), and purely musical pages in his notebooksare rare, for to Satie words and music were inseparable. If he will notgo down for posterity as one of the great song-writers, his continuousrethinking of the Romantic approach to words and music led to newapproaches to both, whose ramifications extended across the twenty-first century to the creations of composers with similar aesthetics:John Cage and his disciples; British composers like Harrison Birtwistle,Howard Skempton, Christopher Hobbs and Gavin Bryars; minimalistssuch as Steve Reich and Terry Riley; and independents like FedericoMompou, Maurice Ohana and Virgil Thomson.

41. In BNF MS 9594 and a notebook in the Fondation Satie, Paris; see RobertOrledge, ‘Genèse des Ludions d’Erik Satie (1916 and 1923)’, Bulletin de la Sociétédes Lecteurs de Léon-Paul Fargue 8 (2002–3), 117–32 for fuller details.

8

‘Breaking up is hard to do’:Issues of Coherence and Fragmentation

in post-1950 Vocal Music

James Wishart

Many writings by scholars and composers on the relationship betweenwords and music are centred on issues of intelligibility or coherence.It would be relatively easy to become sidetracked into a long discus-sion of the diverse aspects which may increase or decrease the coher-ence of a text delivered in musical terms, whether spoken, sung, orinvolving hybrid modes. It would be tempting to consider questionsof room acoustic, where clear understanding of text can easily be im-peded while listening to music. Also pertinent is the role of clear dic-tion in performance, not just where the lazy vocal performer might beberated for inhibiting clear perception, but perhaps raising the ques-tion whether singers who possess unusually good diction potentiallywield this notional excellence to the detriment of other important as-pects of collective musical expression. There are many occasions inmusical performances where we might recognise imperfect balance –voices (and the accompanying words) being lost in a welter of orches-tral colour. In another situation we might find a performance less thangripping, conceivably because we cannot fathom the language of thetext or because we are beguiled (especially in the case of a high-lyingsoprano tessitura) by the vocal quality which seems to prevent cleartextual perception. Finally, we might find the notion of florid contra-puntal vocal textures an inhibiting factor in terms of accurate andsympathetic perception of the words, in an echo of discussions whichhave permeated much of musical history.

It might therefore sound odd to ask why we need to pose the ques-tion about the desirability of hearing the words when listening to vocalmusic. It might seem self-evidently desirable, even necessary. If we are ina theatre watching and listening to an operatic work, we wish to under-stand as much as possible of what is going on, not just the actions onstage, but also the words emanating from soloists and chorus.

If the production is in our own language, our concentration mightbe somewhat relaxed, with the expectation – sometimes disappointed– that we will inevitably catch the majority of the words uttered. Inthe case of a poor auditory performance, we might find ourselves ofnecessity listening in frustration with perversely enhanced concentra-tion. Much might depend on our familiarity with the work itself – wecould be more forgiving about not being able to make out all thewords if we knew what was going to happen. Even a reasonably fullsynopsis consulted in advance could conceivably present us with asituation where we were confident in terms of understanding whatwas going on at a particular time and of comprehending the mainarguments or emotions which were present in specific sections of thescore. Let us imagine, however, the first time a particular work comesto our attention – I instance here a fairly recent experience in attend-ing Friedrich Cerha’s opera Der Riese von Steinfeld (2001) in a premièreproduction at the Vienna Staatsoper in June 2002. The programmesynopsis was gnomic and unhelpful, the ‘surtitles’ were hard to read,and the voices were often covered by the loud Bergian orchestral tex-tures, with virtually the entire line of the leading soprano characterseeming to be one long vocalise, soaring ‘above the stave’ to strato-spheric levels. My reaction to this work was definitely flawed – andyet it was nonetheless possible to perceive the work on one level with-out understanding (or indeed hearing) much of the text.

Arguably, in a concert situation, we might be less concerned whenpresented with a text in an unfamiliar language or a performance wherenot every syllable was projected with total clarity. Clinging to ourprevious knowledge or informed by our programme note, we listenwith differently focused ears. In Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex (1927), weare presented with a textual commentary in our own tongue (the origi-nal French text is by Cocteau), and we then hear the choral texture inLatin – this unusual hybrid-text piece allows us to vary our intensityof concentration on the words, should we wish to do so.1 In a typicalMozart operatic finale, despite the composer’s supreme skill in intro-ducing different characters’ unique perspectives with distinctive mu-sic, there will be moments when the whole edifice becomes so com-plex that we may miss some of the words (although in using a good

1. Igor Stravinsky, Oedipus Rex, opera-oratorio, ([1927, revised 1948] London:Boosey and Hawkes, 1949).

191Issues of Coherence and Fragmentation in post-1950 Vocal Music

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deal of repetition, Mozart ensured that the texts for the most partwere audible at one time or another).

Perhaps we should put the question a little more tartly: does it re-ally matter in the case of a familiar text (for instance, a religious ex-ample like the Stabat Mater or Magnificat) that we may not hear ev-ery syllable?2 Furthermore, if we know the predominant mood of thework – for example, sorrowing or lamenting – how much is our lis-tening pleasure enhanced by hearing the text in its completeness?

If these examples prove less than convincing in accepting the no-tion of imperfect verbal coherence, we should address ourselves toother occasions where less than total intelligibility could be regardedas a positive factor (and wholly intentional on behalf of the com-poser). Ever since the time of Charles Ives, we have become attuned tothe concept of simultaneous sound-strata co-existing, but not neces-sarily at equal dynamic or perceptual levels. There are many places inIves’s scores where ‘part-hearing’ is the required reality – for instancethe repeated low-dynamic 10-bar string orchestra phrase set againstthe raucous second orchestra (wind-brass-percussion) in Central Parkin the Dark.3 Although the string chords cannot be closely followed atthe climactic point, this in no sense invalidates their place in the score– if you were to omit them, the result would be catastrophic.

We must resist the temptation to make adverse remarks learnt fromyears of careful part-balancing – if the instance is well-judged in termsof the strength of the sound-colour and registral context, ‘part-hearing’will be the eventual effective result. The most familiar and extensiveexample in more modern repertory of this concept of relative intelligi-bility is Berio’s Sinfonia for amplified voices and orchestra (1968) whereso much musical and verbal information is provided (especially in thecollage-style middle movement) that it is quite inevitable that somemusical detail will be lost or partially hidden.4 Over a generation ofperformances which Berio attended himself (sometimes as conductor,

2. These well-known religious texts are chosen as examples of very familiar texts,which, although they have inbuilt contrast, nonetheless project a very strongemotional ambience, which would be familiar to most audiences.

3. Charles Ives, Central Park in the Dark, ed. by J.-L. Monod (Hillsdale, NY:Boelke-Bomart, 1973).

4. Luciano Berio, Sinfonia for 8 amplified voices and orchestra (London: Univer-sal Edition, 1972).


other times as observer), there was a myriad of different ‘solutions’ tothese complex textures – as exemplified perhaps by the recordings inthe current commercial catalogue, all very different from one another.David Osmond-Smith’s revealing book on this work uncovers the wholeprinciple of selective and relative occlusion, where musical or textualelements seemingly bubble up to the surface or drain away, like somesort of subterranean river.5

A further reason for eschewing total coherence might be one of illus-tration – I am reminded of a mostly intelligent newspaper review in TheTimes of a performance of my own soprano and orchestra work ÒranHiortach (St Kilda Song) (1990) which found effective the way that thesoprano soloist sometimes had her text partially obliterated by wavesof orchestral sonority as an analogue for the gigantic waves breakingon the massive cliffs and rocks around the island of St Kilda celebratedin my piece.6 Looking back on this metaphor, I wonder how much wasintention on my part as composer and how much was in the control ofthe conductor, but I did definitively intend parts of the score to be expe-rienced as overwhelming, in the same way that the islanders were over-whelmed by the brutal circumstances which surrounded their enforcedemigration in 1930 – so the partial obliteration of the text can be seenas an element of this more complex musical metaphor.

Having discussed some reasons why relative coherence is a matterof legitimate artistic consideration, I turn to the idea of fragmenta-tion. Many choral textures in works from Handel to Berio use com-plex contrapuntal textures where the clarity of the words is subordi-nated to the expressiveness and dramatic logic of a heterogeneoustexture. I am not aware however of any significant use of fragmentedwords or choral lines being broken up between the constituent partsuntil the 1950s or 1960s. Two early examples stand out in my musicalmemory – Stravinsky’s A Sermon, A Narrative and A Prayer (1961)and Penderecki’s St Luke Passion (1966).7 Example 1a shows the

5. David Osmond-Smith, Playing on Words: A Guide to Luciano Berio’s ‘Sinfonia’(London: Royal Musical Association, 1985).

6. The world première performance took place at Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool onWednesday 16 May 1990 with Sarah Leonard (solo soprano) and the RoyalLiverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Barry Wordsworth. The news-paper review appeared in The Times on Friday 18 May 1990, and was writtenby David Fallows.

7. Igor Stravinsky, A Sermon, A Narrative and A Prayer (New York: Boosey andHawkes, 1961); Krzyszstof Penderecki, St Luke Passion ([1965] Krakow: PolskieWydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1967).

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repeated refrain from the first movement of Stravinsky’s work, a verysimple instance of how the text migrates from one voice to another,with the male parts dividing up the final phrase.

In the Narrative section, the text is often shared between soloistsand narrator, coming together and ‘swapping over’ at key points. Thiscan prove surprising, even disconcerting, as Stephen Walsh comments:

Example 1a: Stravinsky: A Sermon, a Narrative and a Prayer, movement 1 (Ser-mon), bars 68–71 [orchestra omitted]. (© Copyright 1961 by Boosey and Co. Ltd.US Copyright renewed. Reproduced by permission of Boosey & Hawkes MusicPublishers Ltd.)

Example 1b: Stravinsky: A Sermon, a Narrative and a Prayer, movement 2 (Narra-tive), bars 179–85. (© Copyright 1961 by Boosey and Co. Ltd. US Copyrightrenewed. Reproduced by permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd.)


The ‘Narrative’ itself is … afflicted by mannerism. For instance, the much-remarked device of switching from speech (narrator) to singing (contraltosoloist) at exalted or significant moments, and especially each time thename ‘Stephen’ is mentioned, is too self-conscious to work in any butthe superficial sense that anyone can hear it happening … The troublewith … these procedures, as well as with the … occasional rhythmicdeclamation of the narrator, is that they imply an artificial world ofritual which is consistently denied by the matter-of-fact Sunday-schoolatmosphere of the work as a whole.8

Example 1b shows perhaps the most successful instance of fragmen-tation and word-swapping in this short movement – perhaps the moreso for not involving the narrator at this point. Sometimes the sound isof a hybrid timbre contralto/tenor voice on a unison note, other mo-ments present the exciting pitch diversity of a line which may move upor dip down at any time into a new solo vocal colour; this is thrillinglyresolved in the final bar of the example (the last words in the move-ment, although the music continues with a contemplative instrumen-tal coda).

Penderecki’s St Luke Passion was a touchstone for a new kind ofreligious choral work, a Passion setting with a choir which gets tosound genuinely angry and determined, and a dry narrator speech-part which (in its surroundings of anguished textures and colours) isemotionally highly charged. Example 2 does not show flying conso-nants or phonemes to express crowd violence, but a static texturewhich uses chromatic saturation in setting a small portion of text,migrating from one voice to another (dotted lines on the exampletrace the progress of the text). Each voice keeps the same pitch, restat-ing it with new syllables two or three times. The effect of this is tosuspend the harmony – total perception of every syllable is probablyneither possible nor desirable.

Chorus as crowd – we are familiar with many musical works fromHandel to Penderecki that seek (at least at some point) to conjure upa crowd. How much more realistic, one might argue, a musical depic-tion of a crowd scene would be if it were broken up into constituentvoices, or the texture fragmented into differing groups, differing voice-types, differing viewpoints. Any crowd might thus contain solo ‘hot-heads’ as well as more normal citizens! How many voices do we needto signify a crowd? Giles Swayne’s Cry (1979) (assisted somewhat by

8 Stephen Walsh, The Music of Stravinsky (1st paperback edition, Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1993), p. 257.

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electronic manipulation) takes 28 individual singers; Berio’s Coro(1970) needs 40 individual parts to deliver monumental homophonictextures, alongside 40 instrumental parts; Berio’s The Cries of Lon-don (1974) has an exuberant crowd-like vitality with just 8 voices; thesame composer’s A-Ronne (1974–75) uses crowd textures during the

Example 2: Penderecki: St Luke Passion part 1, after figure 12. (Copyright PolskieWydawnictwo Muzyczne S.A.)


work, in two versions, one with 5, one with 8 voices.9 The teemingfury of the two large choirs employed in Ligeti’s Requiem (1963–65)must exceed 150 at least.10 And we sometimes sense a crowd of voices,produced by one solo singer in a number of tape pieces – Stockhausen’sGesang der Jünglinge (1956), Berio’s Thema (Omaggio a Joyce) (1958),and Nono’s La Fabbrica illuminata (1964).11 We can even suggest split-or multiple-personalities with solo voices – Judith Weir’s virtuoso(short) one-woman opera King Harald’s Saga (1979) is perhaps thebest example, with the same singer bearing all the parts (including therole of the entire Norwegian army!)12 Birtwistle’s Nenia on the Deathof Orpheus (1970) also fuses the roles of the two protagonists Orpheusand Euridice in the coda.13

If fragmentation is sometimes the expression of realism in a crowd,is this sufficient reason to explain the emergence of this musical tech-nique in the 1950s to 1960s? Were there precursors of this idea whichcould be detected? My first thought was to look to an analogy withliterature and the manner in which regular lines of literary text (espe-cially in poetry) became fragmented. This led me to explore examplesof unusual typographical layout in Guillaume Apollinaire, e. e.cummings, and John Hollander. Other practitioners of unusual verballayouts and non-semantic texts do exist – the entire strand which begins

9. Swayne, Giles, Cry for 28 amplified voices with electronic treatment, op. 27([1979] London: Novello Music Publishers, 1980); Luciano Berio, Coro pervoci e strumenti (Vienna: Universal Edition, 1976); Luciano Berio, The Cries ofLondon (1974–76, 8-voice version; London: Universal Edition, 1976); LucianoBerio, A-Ronne for 8 amplified voices, ([1974–75] London: Universal Edition,1975); there is also a parallel edition for 5 voices.

10. György Ligeti, Requiem for soprano and mezzo-soprano soloists, two chorusesand orchestra ([1963–65]; study score Frankfurt: Edition Litolff/Peters, 1965).

11. Karlheinz Stockhausen, Gesang der Jünglinge for four-track tape (revised ver-sion, no. 8, 1956; Cologne: WDR Studios, now available in CD recording for-mat, CD3, from Stockhausen-Verlag, Kürten); Luciano Berio, Thema (Omaggioa Joyce) for tape (1958; Milan: Studio di Fonologia, now available in CD for-mat, BVHAAST 9109 Acousmatrix 7): Berio/Maderna tape works – from BV-Haast, Holland; listed as ESZ 5993 in the catalogue of Edizioni Suvini Zerboni,Milan); Luigi Nono, La Fabbrica illuminata for soprano solo and tape (per-forming score, Milan: Ricordi, 1964; original recording with Carla Henius, solosoprano available in CD format on Wergo WER 60382).

12. Judith Weir, King Harald’s Saga for solo soprano, playing 8 roles ([1979]; vocalscore, London: Novello Music, 1979).

13. Harrison Birtwistle, Nenia on the Death of Orpheus (London: Universal Edi-tion, 1970).

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with futurism, and takes in aspects of dada, Vorticism, surrealism andsound poetry. Although many of these are fundamentally intended forperformance, relatively few are specifically organised for more thanone voice, making the fragmentation/dislocation aspects less clear-cut.

Apollinaire, in particular, had immense influence as a literary fig-ure and his poetry was set by several French composers, most notablyPoulenc, but I have not been able to find any examples where thecalligraphy or typography of the original text has overtly affected themusical setting. The American poet e. e. cummings was published asearly as the 1920s and there are a small number of settings of hispoems as individual songs from the 1920s and 1930s, all by Americancomposers, but it has taken significantly longer for his poems to beused for song-cycles or choral works. The one major example of thelatter is Boulez’s e. e. cummings ist der dichter (1976), where certainelements of typographical layout have definitively affected Boulez’sstructural response to the text.14 John Hollander has provided severaltexts for musical settings which encompass complex phonemic word-play and the most successful fusion of his words and music is Babbitt’sPhilomel for soprano and tape (1964).15

My possible theory of interconnectivity between innovation in ty-pography and fragmentation on the musical page thus appears to be‘not proven’, at least not until after the advent of this technique offragmentation in the 1960s. Instead I would like to consider the influ-ence of another musical genre which may prove significant – the worldof electroacoustic music. I find it interesting that even the name of thestudio founded at the RAI in Milan jointly by Berio and Maderna inthe 1950s is divergent from practices elsewhere – the Studio diFonologia lays out its primary concerns in its title. The strange polem-ics of elektronische Musik (in the hands of Stockhausen at WDR inCologne), musique concrète (the province of Pierre Henry and PierreSchaeffer in Paris) and fonologia in Milan now seem to be so verymuch ancient history! But the common interest in phonetics(Stockhausen was a keen student of Meyer-Eppler in Cologne, andthis interest informed much of his musical thinking at that time,

14. Pierre Boulez, e.e. cummings ist der dichter ([1970, revised 1986]; London: Uni-versal Edition, 1986).

15. Milton Babbitt, Philomel for solo soprano and tape ([1964] New York: Schirmer/Associated Music Publishers, 1964; recent recording available on Neuma withJudith Bettina, soprano, CD 450–74).


especially Gesang) perhaps provides a clue to how much commonground there suddenly seemed to be between these radically differentcentres of innovation in the later 1950s. When Stockhausen took thestep of amalgamating a boy’s voice with electronically-generated soundin Gesang he created sound-complexes, constructed with use of serialprocedures, which proved to be very similar in effect to those found inBerio’s tape montage Thema (Omaggio a Joyce), where the contentwas produced by the voice of Cathy Berberian, reading through the‘Sirens’ chapter of James Joyce’s Ulysses.16

David Osmond-Smith has written sympathetically about Berio’sprocedures and their consequences in this work:

The ‘overture’ to the ‘Sirens’ chapter consists entirely of dislocated phrasesfrom the ensuing narration. These tell no story, so there is nothing todistract the reader from texture and rhythm – save that the mind,confronted with isolated images, begins to build hypothetical bridgesbetween them, generating new meanings quite unrelated to those thateach fragment is to adopt in the ensuing narrative.

… Berio now extracted from [Joyce’s verbal] … mosaic purely musicalelements, and used them to explore the borderline where sound as thebearer of linguistic sense dissolves into sound as the bearer of musicalmeaning … In part he did this by taking Joyce’s polyphonic imageryliterally, and superposing texts upon themselves with slightly differentrhythmic spacings: in effect, translating text into texture.

Out of this ‘impossible’ vocalism, comprehensible speech (usually asingle word) momentarily emerges, only to be engulfed: relativecomprehensibility has become a compositional parameter to be handledin much the same way as textural density or, within a pitched context,harmonic density.17

Berio has written himself that:

… the three languages were combined according to a procedure whichis quite simple and ordinary: it is a matter of a series of exchanges betweenone language and another, which is applied to particular fixed points –on the basis of the results obtained with the preceding superimposedvocal aggregates – using criteria of similarity or contrast. The rhythm ofthe passage from one language to another is realised in a way whichbecomes faster or slower according to the length of textual segmentschosen. The more rapid passages (with the shortest durations) serve asthe fundamental basis for the last phase of the work …

In considering the fusion of the three different languages the firstpriority has become the connections in terms of sonority, more important

16. The ‘Sirens’ chapter (11) from Ulysses is commonly regarded as having an un-derlying musical structure and making prominent use of musical imagery

17. David Osmond-Smith, Berio (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 60–3.

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than following linguistic codes. This is not least because when severalmessages are spoken simultaneously it becomes impossible to comprehendfully more than one at a time – whereas the isolated textual sonorities,which can now be ranked alongside more obviously musical elements,can now be integrated into a fully polyphonic texture. It is also interestingto note that at a certain point, as the mechanism of the textual exchangeshas become more stable, this type of listening becomes the predominantmode: the passages of where one language transfers to another are nolonger perceived as such – they take on instead a uniquely musicalfunction.18

These two explanations reveal the concern for different levels ofmusical significance, and an interest in questions of intelligibility andcoherence, despite the inhibiting factors of linguistic pluralism andpolyphonic complexity. One other tape piece of significance alreadyreferred to (Stockhausen’s Gesang der Jünglinge) also brings out evi-dence of the composer’s awareness of the issues of intelligibility. In anearly article explaining constructional aspects of this work, he refersto phonetic principles in the same context as timbral issues – it hasbecome axiomatic to his thinking at this time that significant aspectsof the work would be rigorously organized, and the serial principle isused here for this purpose.

In order to employ the most complex phonetic structure of speech interms of serial composition, many different steps are necessary betweenthe individual examples of a given phonetic system … so that regulartimbre-scales can be chosen from a continuum (for instance, steps fromone vowel to another, from vowel to half-consonants, to consonants etc.);this is only, if at all, possible with electronically-produced sounds …

We only have a homogeneous sound-family if sung sounds sound atcertain places like electronic sounds, electronic sounds like sung ones. … According to the ‘colour’-continuum, the composition was basedon the idea of a ‘speech-continuum’: at certain points in the composition,sung groups of words become comprehensible speech-symbols, words;at others they remain pure sound-qualities, sound-symbols; between theseextremes there are various degrees of comprehensibility of the word.These are brought about either by the degree of permutation of the wordsin the sentence, syllables in the word, phonemes in the syllable, or byblending one form of speech with speech- or sound-elements foreign tothe context … Of course this leads to new word-connections not containedin the text … The context of the sounds therefore also influences to aparticular degree the comprehensibility of the speech (for example, degrees

18. Luciano Berio, ‘Poésie et Musique: une Experience’, Contrechamps 1 (1983),29–30; the translation into English is my own.


of spatial effects by means of artificial echo, degrees of intensity, of thedensity of simultaneous or successive events, etc.)19

The significance of these early electroacoustic works was profound– not only securing the future rapprochement between different musico-technical aesthetic positions but also advancing enormously the repu-tation of this still ‘infant’ genre of post-war music. There are manyexamples of composers whose progress from studio to concert hallcan be charted – consider the case of Ligeti, whose early experience ofstudio composition (after the Hungarian uprising which occasionedhis flight to the West) led to a work initially planned for the studiobeing seamlessly transferred to the more colouristic world of the sym-phony orchestra (Atmosphères, 1960).20 Even if many composers foundthemselves (often by circumstances or type of apprenticeship) forcedto choose between traditional compositional perspectives or workingwithin an electronic studio, there was still a significant ‘crossover’influence – concepts especially identified with studio praxis found theirway into many non-electronic scores from the early 1960s onwards.One aspect of this ‘crossover’ traffic, I would suggest, was the en-hanced interest in manipulation of vocal sounds, either bearing textor as non-semantic phonemes. It was comparatively easy after Berio’sThema to suggest any density of voices, having only one singer asoriginal sound-source – and the embryonic moves after Stockhausen’sKontakte (1960) to involve spatial placement as a crucial new ele-ment within the genre of electroacoustic music could potentially onlyenhance this idea of ‘enlivening’ multiple voices and creating more‘realistic’ ambiences and sound-complexes.21

This same preoccupation by mainstream electroacoustic compos-ers with textures and panoramas produced by combinations of speak-ing and singing voices, now often with enhanced spatialization andsignal processing, is very much still in evidence in electroacoustic piecesfrom the late 1990s and the early years of the twenty-first century –such as the works of Trevor Wishart, Jonty Harrison, Francis Dhomontand Åke Parmerud.

19. Karlheinz Stockhausen, ‘Music and Speech’, in Die Reihe vol. 6, Speech andMusic (English edition, London: Universal, 1964), pp. 58–9.

20. György Ligeti, Atmosphères for large orchestra without percussion ([1960] Vienna:Universal Edition, 1971).

21. Karlheinz Stockhausen, Kontakte for piano, percussion and 4-track tape (1960;London: Universal Edition, 1966).

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In choral music, the types of fragmentation which composers haveused varied from highly systematic and rigorous organization (withevidence of mathematical contrivance) to seemingly random alterna-tion of word-fragments. Evidence of both approaches (albeit in min-iature terms) can be found in some of the many choral works composed

Example 3a: Penderecki: Dies Irae, movement 2 (‘Apocalypsis’), figure 10.(Copyright Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne S.A.)


by Penderecki since the early 1960s – turning first to the Dies Irae(sometimes known as the Auschwitz oratorio) we find in Example 3athat the choral texture is of a wedge-type expansion moving from theregistral middle outwards, at first seemingly strictly by chromatic pro-gression alternately up/down but becoming less strict as the passage

Example 3b: Penderecki: Dies Irae, movement 3 (‘Apotheosis’), after figure 21.(Copyright Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne S.A.)

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continues.22 As the registral space ‘fills up’, the text (which appropri-ately refers to the assemblage of ‘a great multitude’) continues in syl-labic fashion – each new entry advancing the text, with a predomi-nant filling up of high and low register coming at the end. The firstfew notes almost seem like a ‘dry run’ with the first syllable of ‘Post’abandoned before being restarted in earnest.

Example 3b shows another highly chromatic texture (the fragmen-tation arises out of a 11-note choral cluster) with the orchestra (threeentries) included in the randomised entry scheme. As in the previousexample, the text is given in large print across the centre of the score,voices and instruments. Minor deviations from a left-to-right syllabicsetting are in evidence – the word ‘vivere’ is not subject to fragmenta-tion and is heard twice allocated to the same voice, and there is arepeat of the opening word ‘surgit’ which interrupts the rest of theverbal texture.

22. Krzysztof Penderecki, Dies Irae (Krakow: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1967).

Example 3c: Penderecki: Dies Irae, movement 3 (‘Apotheosis’), beginning. (Copy-right Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne S.A.)


In Example 3c we see a texture where the fragmentation is confinedto just 2 octaves on the note D; in a quiet context this is an effectiveway of keeping a held sonority going while enlivening it with wordschanging from one voice-type to another – it is partly systematic.

To see an example of choral violence and indiscipline we turn toExample 3d, where the 8-part chorus spits out plosive consonants andchopped-up syllables in a proportional tempo section likely to lead toa forest of overlapping hard-edged choral sounds that cannot commu-nicate any semantic context, as they are indeed isolated phonemicparticles.

Luigi Nono’s 1950s and 1960s were a period of high intensity, find-ing new and rigorously ordered ways of harnessing serial organiza-tional principles to choral textures, often setting texts highly sugges-tive of left-wing socialist and revolutionary sentiment. His master-piece Il Canto Sospeso (1956) for chorus and orchestra sets highlyemotive texts but subjects them to complex and sometimes very

Example 3d: Penderecki: Dies Irae, movement 2 (‘Apocalypsis’), before figure 4.(Copyright Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne S.A.)

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recondite mathematical procedures.23 In the same article by Stockhausencited above, he takes time to explain aspects of the serial structure andthe motivation for the choral treatments found in the work.

For his composition Il Canto Sospeso Luigi Nono chose extracts fromfarewell letters of political prisoners condemned to death: … these texts can be treated formally [and] freely … all the extracts donot contain isolated words, exclamations, images for the poetical effect;they contain calm, complete sentences, logical connections of sentencesin colloquial language; they communicate whole trains of thought whichcan, when set, be either respected or effaced …

In certain pieces in the Canto, Nono composed the text as if to withdrawit from the public eye where it has no place. The composer was deeplymoved by these letters; musical reasons were not the only ones to leadhim to set them to music. In sections II, VI, IX and in parts of III, heturns speech into sounds, noises. The texts are not delivered, but ratherconcealed in such a regardlessly strict and dense musical form that theyare hardly comprehensible when performed.24

Stockhausen continues to ask the obvious question (and produceshis own explanation):

Why then, texts at all, and why these texts? Here is an explanation.When setting parts of the letters about which one should be particularlyashamed that they had to be written, the musician assumes the attitudeonly of the composer who had previously selected the letters; he doesnot interpret, he does not comment. He rather reduces speech to its soundsand makes music with them. Permutations of vowel-sounds, a, ä, e, i, o,u; serial structure.

Should he not have chosen texts so rich in meaning in the first place,but rather sounds? At least for the sections where only the phoneticproperties of speech are dealt with? …

Some sections … go so far as to break up the sense; others … quote,even clarify the text … We can therefore keep to the idea … that thecomposer consciously ‘expelled’ the meaning from certain parts of thetexts; only the vocal line remains. This is not possible with meaninglesssyllables. The sense of speech can only be banished to a vocal structurewhen the listener can know, or feel, or check that he is not supposed tounderstand some particular thing – in this context – and that this particularthing is apparently not so important at the moment of hearing this music.

It is not for nothing that a few fragmentary syllables flash out of theheaving sounds here and there … The listener feels he has understoodthem without, however, their having resulted in larger coherent passages.25

23. Luigi Nono, Il Canto Sospeso (Mainz: Schott, 1957).24. Stockhausen, ‘Music and Speech’, pp. 47–8.25. Ibid., pp. 48–9.


In an unusual gesture, Stockhausen then (in a footnote) almost re-pudiates his own argument, quoting Nono’s own reaction to his pre-viously stated comments:

Soon after the publication of this interpretation, Nono informed me thatit was incorrect and misleading, and that he had neither a phonetictreatment of the text nor more or less differentiated degrees ofcomprehensibility of the words in mind when setting the text – not evenwith respect to a possible repression of the sense of these farewell letters,and if I could interpret a quasi-serial vocal structure into [movement] II,it was a mere coincidence. The reader must therefore not take myreflections and analyses as being demonstrations of Nono’s composition,but rather of my own – demonstrated on the work of another composer.26

I have to confess that I do not wholly believe Nono’s protestations,nor Stockhausen’s acquiescence! My example from Nono’s work ofthis time is taken from the somewhat lesser-known piece ‘Ha Venido’:

26. Ibid., p. 49 (fn.).

Example 4: Nono: ‘Ha venido’, Canciones para Silvia, pp. 19–20. (Copyright ArsViva Verlag, Schott Musik International.)

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Canciones para Silvia (1960) for soprano solo and a choir of six othersopranos with no instrumental accompaniment.27 The text is takenfrom the mid-twentieth-century Spanish poet Antonio Machado. Asbecame common in Nono’s choral writing, words and syllables are cutup, sometimes prolonged by new voices, sometimes contrasted withsemi- or wholly closed mouth vocal production (in Example 4 the ab-breviation b.c. denotes closed mouth and a.a. scarcely open mouth).

It is noticeable that the syllabic content passes around the entiregroup of seven sopranos, and there are instances where the main vow-els are prolonged, and textures where words or syllables grow out ofor retreat into closed-mouth sonorities. This very supple text usagecreates a lot of fascinating vocal colours, but questions of whethercomplete intelligibility is possible are inevitably raised, just as in thelarger-scale work Il Canto Sospeso discussed above.

The final two works which will be cited exhibit the widest varia-tion in fragmentation techniques. Berio’s A-Ronne, originally writtenfor five voices as a kind of radio montage, was revised for eight voices(always to be lightly amplified, singing into individual hand-held orclosely-positioned microphones, and mixed by a sound engineer).28

Berio had asked his regular textual collaborator, Edoardo Sanguineti fora brief poetic text based on concepts of beginnings, middles and ends.The result (in several languages, complete with important references toDante and biblical sources amongst others) is shown in Example 5a.

In Example 5b, the two main protagonists (at opposite ends of theparabolic layout) play with the text concerning ‘middles’ using threelanguages (Italian, French and English) and artfully alternating syl-lables – the last section of the example showing a small instance ofBerio’s preferred kind of ‘unconventional virtuosity’ (associated espe-cially with his series of mostly instrumental solo Sequenze) as the bass‘struggles’ to insert the appropriate suffix ‘-ning’ at the correct placein the triplets. More demanding and more peculiar demands are tocome.

In Example 5c the same two principals hold forth and turn an ini-tial canonic-style imitation game into something more complex – sepa-rating out the consonants and vowels respectively from the phrase‘Aleph is my end’; they challenge one another, ending with a furious

27. Luigi Nono, ‘Ha Venido’: Canciones para Silvia per soprano solo e coro di 6soprani ([1960] Mainz: Schott, 1960).

28. See n. 9.


repeated accelerating sequence where the words are literally ‘split apart’– consonants to the left (Tenor 1), vowels to the right (Bass 1) – andthe twain must meet, Berio requiring the text to be ‘clearly reconsti-tuted’. The virtuosity implicit here is considerable, demanding split-second timing and much careful rehearsal. Even so, an audience maystill be bemused and bewildered about the intention behind the isolated

Example 5a: Berio: A-Ronne (text written/collated by Edoardo Sanguineti), preface.(Copyright Universal Editions, Vienna. Reproduced by permission. All rightsreserved.)

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phonetic utterances, until they ‘get the joke’. The human brain is actu-ally extremely well organized at speech recognition, and it will nottake long for a listener to understand that the two quick-fire protago-nists are meant to knit together their phonetics into a perceptible phrase,which they have even heard before. There is still an element of ‘notcompletely hearing’ of course, because the vocal sonorities and into-nations of the individuals are unlikely to be (and should not be, even)a perfect match.

Slightly later in the composition, Example 5d alternates a multi-language word-stream between the two soloists, often changing lan-guage or swapping roles in unlikely and confusing places. Adding tothe perceptual difficulty, Berio often (manneredly) asks for a crescendofrom the beginning of the utterance towards the significant accentedstrong (sometimes final) syllable. This could lead to the listener onlypicking up on the text midway through (further frustration ‘inbuilt’).After this example ends, the exchange is repeated in vowels only, cul-minating with another accelerating challenge, trying to reconstitutethe phrase ‘in the end is my music’.

To some, A-Ronne seems a puzzling piece – it arises partly as a kindof extension to Sequenza III (1966) where a text by Mark Kutter is

Example 5b: Berio: A-Ronne p. 19. (Copyright Universal Editions, Vienna.Reproduced by permission. All rights reserved.)


given radical treatment, somewhat akin to what happens with Joyce’swords in the tape piece Thema.29 But it is more than that, it has apossible theatrical dimension too: there are imaginary scenic descrip-tions (see Example 5e) for each section of the work, but left open tointerpretation or indeed wholesale change by the performers.30

It is perhaps the connection between works involving phonetics(the lack of an overtly understandable text creating a perceived needto construct a viable alternative focus for an audience) that is interest-ing here. In the 1960s Ligeti had produced two extraordinary musicalworks, both scored for the same combination of three solo voices andan ensemble of seven instruments. Aventures (1963) and NouvellesAventures (1965) have no perceptible words at all – just reams ofphonetic text, mostly notated according to agreed principles and

Example 5c: Berio: A-Ronne pp. 20–1. (Copyright Universal Editions, Vienna.Reproduced by permission. All rights reserved.)

29. Luciano Berio, Sequenza III for solo voice (London: Universal Edition, 1966).30. Vic Hoyland, Sleevenote for LP recording of A-Ronne, Electric Phoenix, EMI

EL 27 0542 1, 1986.

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codifications set down by the International Phonetic Association.31

There are massive numbers of complex markings by Ligeti, which goa long way to explain just how these phonetic fragments should bepresented (including some remarks about facial expressions). This couldbe seen as tipping over into theatrical presentation – and it was nosurprise to find these works revised with an immensely complex dra-matic scenario provided by Ligeti; this was, however just as quicklydispensed with, leading to most performances today being ‘concertperformance only’, not least because of the extra (mute) actors re-quired to fulfil the dramatic requirements and the radically increasedlength from 12 to 30 minutes or longer. These pieces, which haveacquired classic status, are now often most effectively presented in theconcert hall, with differing degrees of dramatic and visual gestures.

Boulez, writing in Orientations has this to say about what Ligeti isdoing (although he wrote this several years earlier):

Example 5d: Berio: A-Ronne pp. 23–4. (Copyright Universal Editions, Vienna.Reproduced by permission. All rights reserved.)

31. György Ligeti, Aventures for 3 singers and 7 instrumentalists (Frankfurt: Peters,1965); Nouvelles Aventures for 3 singers and 7 instrumentalists, (Frankfurt:Peters, 1965).


Even a consistent use of a variety of phonemes, however, does notnecessarily lead to a ‘language’, for this necessarily implies a system ofsemantics. Hence we sometimes find composers making use of animaginary language, invented specially for their own reasons and designedto form part of some instrumental sonority or to create what are properlyspeaking orchestral effects in vocal ensembles. The method in which thismeaningless ‘poetry’ is employed will depend on its purpose, and thismay be either picturesque, esoteric or purely musical.32

Phonetics however are increasingly making up part of many texts:either found in choral works by Stockhausen from as long ago asCarré to recent choral components of the heptalogy Licht, or used asa type of ‘glossolalia’ in works which purport to introduce states ofmusical ecstasy (there are examples from Stockhausen again such asStimmung (1969), but it is also found in John Tavener’s works and insome larger-scale Berio works).33

The final examples come from Ligeti’s powerful Requiem (1963–65).34 The first two movements show Ligeti transferring his canonicand micropolyphonic experience to a large choral canvas – the finalcalm and supple ‘Lacrimosa’ is extraordinarily reserved, with both vo-cal soloists gently overlapping their text against a very static and ‘glow-ing’ texture (string harmonics to the fore). The third movement pre-sents the Day of Judgement sequence, and a very violent and aurally

Example 5e: Berio: A-Ronne (possible scene-sequence).

32. Pierre Boulez, ‘Sound, Word, Synthesis’, in Jean-Jacques Nattiez (ed.), Orienta-tions: Collected Writings, trans. Martin Cooper (London: Faber, 1986), p. 186.

33. Karlheinz Stockhausen, Carré for 4 orchestras and choirs (London: UniversalEdition, 1971); Stimmung for 6 amplified voices (Vienna: Universal Edition, 1970).

34. György Ligeti, Requiem for soprano and mezzo-soprano soloists, 2 choruses,and orchestra ([1963–65] Frankfurt: Peters, 1965).

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extravagant vision it is that Ligeti delivers. Paul Griffiths aptly de-scribes it:

The ‘day of wrath’ has come, and Ligeti launches into it with a hecticenergy and chopped violence in complete contrast with the music ofcontinuity that has gone before. Voices and instruments sound togetherin mechanical staccato patterns that tumble over one another, tripletsand quintuplets conflicting with the fast semiquaver pulse, the dynamicaggressively fortissimo. But no sooner have they started than they stop,as if startled by their own emphatic insistence, and then the deathcart isset rolling again.35

In Example 6a the hectic energy referred to can be seen and heard – 5-part polyphony (with octave instrumental doublings) which is highly(almost impossibly) chromatic and rhythmically fervid – this kind ofdelivery cannot continue for long without pauses (often at unexpectedmoments in the middle of words) or an entirely new texture. This isGriffiths’ commenting again:

It is as if Ligeti were admitting that no portrayal of death can possibly beadequate: faced with the unfathomable we hide our embarrassment andour anxiety in laughter. At the same time though, the music does notoffer the release of forgetful hilarity. The matter is still deeply serious, asit is in those painters Ligeti much admires, Breughel and Bosch, wheremeditations on the vanity of human existence produce monsters ofalarming comedy.36

So we can make an analogy between the brutally dissociated lin-guistic fragments flying across the page and the visual richness andgrotesquerie evident in medieval religious art. The rest of the move-ment switches between this manic energetic texture and more drawn-out, often single-note lines of expressive power and anguish. Example6b shows the ‘Tuba Mirum’ section: note not only the violent dia-logue between soloists and mocking, perhaps even judgemental brass,but also the way one phonemic fragment – ‘mi’ (first half of the word‘mirum’) – is subject to four different textures, first introduced by themezzo-soprano soloist at a furious fff dynamic with a rapidly growingand destabilising brass crescendo on the same pitch which eventuallysubjugates and drowns out the solo sonority altogether. At the veryend of the brass crescendo (therefore fractionally hidden in terms ofits ‘full attack’) every voice of the combined choirs enters in explosive

35. Paul Griffiths, György Ligeti (London: Robson Books, London, 1983), p. 52.36. Ibid., p. 53.


Example 6a: Ligeti: Requiem movement 3 (‘De Dii Judicii Sequentia’), beginning.(Copyright C.F. Peters.)

Example 6b: Ligeti: Requiem movement 3 (‘De Dii Judicii Sequentia’), figure A.(Copyright C.F. Peters.)

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unison with the continuing vowel sound ‘i’, only to stop very abruptlyin the next bar. This bar has provided the point where the mezzo-soprano soloist can briefly drop out, take a large breath, re-enter im-perceptibly and be ‘discovered’ on the vowel sound ‘i’ once more.Four stages of colour and density control, for one perhaps insignifi-cant phoneme! This is indeed a supercharged and violently expressivesetting of the supposedly terrifying text.

After a general pause, at letter F, the chorus re-enters in what onpaper looks like a monstrously complex dissonant harmonic texturewhich gradually rises, but since the markings are so carefully defined byLigeti – accents, sotto voce, half-sung (with crosses on the stem of eachnote) comes out as a volcanic crowd sonority – Griffiths writes again:

The actual mention of death at the beginning of the fourth stanza [Morsstupebit ] … brings another gargoyle: the whole choir together in low,almost spoken incantation, ticking over like some machine running outof steam.37

37. Ibid.

Example 6c: Ligeti: Requiem movement 3 (‘De Dii Judicii Sequentia’), figure A(continued). (Copyright C.F. Peters.)


There is real menace and a kind of primeval terror here – the rest ofthe movement continues in similar manner, with some text sharedbetween soloists and chorus. Occasionally, the textual fragments getout of order with one another and intertwine. Fragmentation andphonetic explosions are not more literal or extreme than this in nor-mally texted musical works – but perhaps the circumstances of settingwords foretelling the Last Judgement should be indeed as exceptionalas this!

I have tried to show a range of usages of fragmentation techniqueswhich illustrate this highly useful musical technique. Pierre Boulezformulated an overall position which separates off the role of the poemfrom the musical setting – he is not specifically discussing musicalfragmentation here but inevitably is discussing issues of comprehen-sion and intelligibility.

The time taken to read a poem is a single, exact datum; but musicallyspeaking there are two times, one for the poem as action and one for thepoem as reflection. To aim at making the two simply coincide is to amountto renouncing a dialectic rich in potentialities on a huge scale. Furthermorethe poem as action is directly ‘taken over’ by the music, in which itspresence is essential to the resulting form: the concept of time hardlyvaries in reading music. The poem as reflection, on the other hand, maybe submitted to a kind of fragmentation or distortion from its originalform, may indeed even absent itself from the music, in which it persistsin the form of appended commentary.38

So what price coherence? In the examples offered, can we be cer-tain that what is lost in terms of full verbal perception is more thanmade up for in terms of heightened expressivity? Coherence is a com-plex quality to measure and assess – what may be entirely coherentfor one individual may turn out to be confused and problematic foranother. Even when composers used supposedly objective ideas aboutindices of intelligibility – the serially organised parameters referred toearlier in relation to Berio and Stockhausen’s early tape works – this isfar from being universally recognised or understood in the mannerintended by the composer. I must admit to liking the notion of ‘notquite hearing’. Doesn’t this reflect all too much of our day-to-daydealings – on the telephone, in personal conversations? Must our ex-perience of music always be entirely fully comprehending?

38. Pierre Boulez, ‘Poetry – Centre and Absence – Music’, in Orientations, p. 196.

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My own formal practices as a composer have often centred on whatI call an incoherence-coherence model – in other words taking thenotion of fragmented sounds, isolated gestures, brief disassociatedmusical or perhaps verbal elements, possibly surrounded by unex-pected pauses, being changed over time into continuity and restate-ment/ongoing transformation. I therefore not only use the musicaltechnique of vocal and textual fragmentation in my works, but havetransferred its potential to the level of macrostructure, where an ini-tial ‘incoherence’ can be seen (in the eventual context of the com-pleted work) to have been a vital starting point for the rest of thework.39

39. This is most clearly shown in my work Rodina (1987) for 22 solo voices andtrumpet, which sets texts in English, Scots, and Russian. The opening composi-tional paragraph contains a mélange of isolated syllables taken from versions inthree languages of the word ‘motherland’ (in English, French [matrie], and Rus-sian [rodina]). These are fragmented amongst the voices and appear somewhatlike a ‘false start’ – but the piece does eventually gain coherence!

9

Writing For Your Supper –Creative Work and the Contexts

of Popular Songwriting

Mike Jones

In 1988 I wrote a song called ‘Model Son’. This song appeared eventu-ally on an album for RCA Records – Swimming against the Stream byLatin Quarter (a group of which I was a non-playing member) releasedin the spring of 1989. By that point it was my one hundred and forty-seventh song and would make my fortieth recording. Oddly, no onesave myself heard my version of ‘Model Son’. Instead I did with it whatI did with all the songs I wrote in the years I spent as a full-timesongwriter: I completed it on paper as a lyric where the melody andarrangement existed only in my imagination and in snatches of singingon a cassette recorder. I then posted the lyric (set out, conventionally, asverses, chorus, and ‘bridge’) together with several others, to my thensongwriting partner, Steve Skaith (he lived in London, I in Liverpool). Hiscontribution to the songwriting process was to set my words to music.

In recounting this brief outline of songwriting practice, one thatidentifies me as a lyricist rather than songwriter as such, I am awareof how unusual and far-removed from the conventional portrayal ofpop songwriting my experience might seem – at least since the rise of‘rock’ music and the emergence of the writer-performer. Rather thanargue for the contemporary re-emergence of the non-performingsongwriter in the now narrower sub-genres of ‘pop’ and ‘R&B’, forthe purposes of this discussion I intend to emphasize the similaritiesrather than the differences between my experience and the writer-performer rock ‘norm’. My reason for so choosing is because the contri-bution I wish to make to a symposium which reflects on the relation-ships between words and music is one that emphasizes, and exploresthe implications of, the work involved in bringing them together.

I use the term ‘work’ advisedly because I mean it in the prosaicsense of paid employment, of effort for reward under prevailing eco-nomic conditions. My writing ‘Model Son’ is evidence of my being a

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worker in the popular music industry. As such a worker, for all thetime I lasted as a professional songwriter, my experience was thatthere were scant explanatory resources available to me from which tomake sense of that role and, consequently, to help me live with my(implicitly unstable and demanding) conditions of work. Instead, thegeneral reaction of friends and family to my occupation (drawing asthey will have done on embedded and media-appropriated populistdiscourses) was that I had ‘made it’ and that I now existed in someexotic, non-work place. This is not how I experienced popularsongwriting: it is a job, if not like any other then it is still more like‘other’ jobs than is ever grasped by those colloquial discourses andtheir continuous deployment and replenishment in ‘bio-pics’, and inthe pulp biographies and ghosted autobiographies of popstars andpop songwriters. Of course, because I entered the role with my headfull of the same ideas of ‘making it’ and the promise of exciting timesit was a little while before I experienced this realization; but my out-line of it here is not simply an account made in hindsight, once on the‘inside’, the music industry can rapidly reveal itself as a work-placeand demand to be treated as such.

‘Fame, I’m Going to Live Forever … ’

As I recall from my own early desire to be a ‘song-writer’, and as Ihave had confirmed to me constantly in over a decade of organizingand delivering songwriting and ‘music industry’ courses, large num-bers of young people continue to aspire to the status of songwriter,but they aspire (as I aspired) in ignorance of how songwriting (andwith it, record making) takes place under ‘industrial’ conditions. Con-sider the ‘reality’ television programmes Popstars, Pop Idol, and FameAcademy (in all their now globe-spanning incarnations) in these terms.The entire premise of these shows devolves onto three of the primaryclichés of ‘show business’: that record and publishing companies arecomprised of ‘talent spotters’; that, consequently, they ‘know talentwhen they see it’; and that their expertise ensures that ‘talent willalways out’. This phenomenon deserves far more attention than I cangive it here but my point is that the distance between how popularmusic is organized industrially and how it is represented to us, decadeafter decade, in talent shows and in films about talent, is described bythe distance between Judy Garland in A Star is Born and Judy Garland

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in real life – put simply, making music for profit and celebrity is nothow it appears to be!

Clearly, my ‘revelation’ here is no revelation at all – we all ‘know’that films are just ‘stories’ and most people recognize (or at least sus-pect) that television programmes are constructed to established con-ventions. Further, every other person we meet seems to have a similarstory about how someone in school, or in a local band, or in the pub,sings, plays, looks, and performs better than the latest winner of themost recent talent show. In this way another slew of clichés is invoked– the music industry ‘doesn’t care about talent’, ‘record companiesjust rip you off’, ‘you have to be in the right place at the right time’,and so on. Yet, for all this ‘common knowledge’, we are no closer tounderstanding how matching words to musical notes can appear to bein two places at once – in the world of deserving talent and the worldof mendacious companies; in the world of the ‘truth’ of emotionalexpression and in the ‘false’ world of emotional manipulation, and soon. And to dismiss these binaries simply because they are binariesdoes not seem to be quite enough. Rather we need to recognize that,because large numbers of young people are motivated continuously toseek out recording and publishing contracts, or ‘deals’ as they aremore commonly referred to, the industrial organization of popularmusic is enabled and goes on being sustained. In turn, if we considerthat this is not serendipity, that business cannot be managed in thehope that supply just keeps on appearing magically, then we are forcedto consider that supply (and with it industry) must in some way bepresent in, and practised through, this process of aspiration. My ex-ploration of how words are matched to musical notes in popular com-position is, then, predicated on this recognition and pursued towardsthis end.

‘Model Son’ – the Finished Lyric:Verse One:I grew up with a scorpion behind meSting in my rib-cage, the moment I drew airWithin his means there was nothing he denied meBut nothing was all we’d ever share

Chorus (one)I couldn’t be a model sonModels have no self-motivationThey ride little trains on endless tracksI had my own route, my own destination

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Verse Two:In Kidd or Blood he claimed a distant cousinShipping lumber, tramp steam, out of JacksonvilleAnd he showed me reefs and hitches by the dozenBut the knots that he tied in me, they’re tighter still

Chorus (One):

Chorus (two):

I couldn’t be a model sonModels learn no self-preservationThey live by grace on feet of clayNeeded my own rock, to tangle with temptation

Bridge:

But tempted, stung to actionLeaving home and stung some moreSo we have danced it down the decadesMother, father, son and squaw

Verse Three:

I grew up with a scorpion behind meSting in my rib-cage, the moment I drew airAnd tipped in ink indelibly he signed meThe blue-print of another son somewhere

Chorus (one):

Chorus (two):

Creators, Creativity and the ‘Creative Process’

Paul Zollo’s Songwriters on Songwriting is perhaps the definitive col-lection of its kind.1 Taking the form of interviews (sometimescomposited from several sessions, several years apart) with over fiftyof the leading North American songwriters from, mainly but not ex-clusively, the ‘Rock’ era, Zollo seeks, in his own words to ‘allow thesesongwriters to talk seriously and in-depth about their great songs andabout the creative process’. Most reviews of the work consider that heachieves this aim; as Michael Tearson of Sing Out! magazine puts it:

Two pieces juxtaposed early in the book form a kind of core aroundwhich this collection revolves. These are lengthy interviews with firstBob Dylan and then Paul Simon. In each of these, Zollo shows how wellhe listens and responds in his questioning. The Dylan piece … rapidly

1. Paul Zollo, Songwriters on Songwriting (New York: Da Capo, 1997).


leads into a fascinating discussion about the instinctive, intuitive wayDylan creates his writing. With Simon, there is an in-depth retrospectiveof the whole arc of his career … This segues into an intense discussionabout his creative process … Both interviews are tremendously revealingand rewarding.2

This sense of ineffability, in part constructed by Zollo in the types ofquestions he asks his respondents, is then summed up by LeonardCohen when he observes that ‘if I knew where good songs come fromI’d go there more often’.3

What concerns me here is not, or not just, that Songwriters onSongwriting is redolent of the canonizing practices of Rock journal-ism; it is more for the way in which Zollo presumes – along with hisreviewers and, sometimes, his respondents – that ‘songwriting’ and‘the creative process’ are synonymous with each other; or, more perti-nently, that they exhaust each other. My point here is that if we tooquickly consign the effort involved in songwriting to the ineffable weput that activity beyond analytical reach – into the realm of ‘art’ and,consequently, far beyond the prosaic world of writing for one’s sup-per. However, rather than venture too deeply into the more sterilereaches of the ‘art versus commerce’ debate, what I want to exploreare the series of questions implied in the introduction to this discus-sion: what is the nature of the work involved in songwriting? Whattype of worker is a songwriter and why is it so difficult to find out?And why is songwriting not (or not always) the glamorous occupa-tion it promises to be?

Yet, to begin to answer these questions, we are forced to acknowl-edge the ongoing ideological role played by a perceived antipathy be-tween ‘art’ and ‘commerce’. As comments in the introduction to thisdiscussion argue, ‘Songwriter’ is too often viewed as a privileged free-dom from work rather than as a form of employment – although this‘freedom’ comes with a price. Since the rise of rock music, and instark contrast to the predominantly triumphalist approach ofHollywood’s treatment of ‘Tin Pan Alley’ songwriters (think of MickeyRooney as Larry Hart in Words and Music), whether we are dealingwith ‘Daniel Weir’ in Iain Banks’s Espedair Street or David Essex as‘Jim MacClaine’ in Stardust, the story is a familiar one, an over-familiar

2. Quoted from http://www.vermontgourmet.net/cgi-bin/vermontgourmet-search_type-CustomerReviews-item_id–0306812657-locale-us.html#review_1

3. Zollo, Songwriter, p. 335.

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one: the music industry has no room for artists, it gobbles them upand spits them out once their commercial life is at an end; or elseindividual artists can be overwhelmed by the sheer venality offered bycommercial success. Stratton and Negus both argue (although towardscontrasting conclusions) how prevalent is this reading even within themusic industry itself as certain key operatives (notably Artists andRepertoire – A&R – staff) attempt to organize the commodificationof imaginative effort through a process of self-justification: that theyare sympathetic with the artistry of the artists they sign but that themarketplace (or, in Negus’s study, the marketing department) are harshplaces that need to be contended with and conquered if the artist’swork is to reach a wider public.4 And even though as Negus cautions(in a later work),

Creative activity and commercial criteria do not always confront eachother in … a Manichean fashion … there is not only conflict betweencommerce and creativity. But, conflicts about what is [sic] creative andconflicts about what is to be [sic] commercial.

he acknowledges that the force (rather than the detail or the accuracy)of the ‘debate’ continues to inflect how individuals – whether immedi-ate musical originators or managerial staff in record companies (and,indeed, journalists and fans) – continue to perceive how creativity isorganized for consumption.5

The problem with these ‘art versus commerce’ versions of the life ofmusic-creators is that they deflect us from access to the actual activityof songwriting. Further, as songwriters are likely to buy into the asso-ciated myths of music-making (for the want of alternative representa-tions of, or ‘explanatory resources’ for, a life in music) then the devel-opment of a level of self-reflexivity that would encompass the notionof songwriting as, at base, work, is discouraged. Consequently, thePaul Zollos of this world are on safe ground when they approach analready selected group of ‘great’ songwriters, with the appropriatedegree of awe and subservience, because to represent these people as

4. Keith Negus, Producing Pop: Culture and Conflict in the Popular Music In-dustry (London: Arnold, 1992); John Stratton, ‘Between Two Worlds: Art andCommercialism in the Record Industry’, The Sociological Review 30 (1982),267–85.

5. Keith Negus, ‘Where the Mystical Meets the Market: Creativity and Com-merce in the Production of Popular Music’, The Sociological Review 43 (1995),317–39.


‘artists’ is in the writer’s own interest: firstly as ‘fan’ who supports anideological status quo in which ‘ordinary’ life is made bearable byassociating oneself with an artist (and/or star or celebrity) who livesan ‘extraordinary’ life that might be enjoyed vicariously as long asenough effort is put into identifying with the artist and with whatthey appear to suffer for their art. Secondly as a would-be ‘expert’, thewriter offers readers ‘access’ to exactly this extraordinary ‘art mak-ing’ through organizing his approach to his subject from firmly withinthe ideological parameters of the constructed ‘artist’. Permission foraccess is granted on these terms (because songwriters are flattered bysuch interest and record companies like to sell ‘catalogue’) and bookpublishers respond because they also recognize the hunger for thiskind of tamed ‘insight’. Taken together, everyone goes home happy –except the researcher into the work involved in combining words andmusic!

The reason that an approach such as Zollo’s does not take us closerto the idea that songwriting might be a ‘job’ like any other is becauseit is posited on the notion that creativity is sui generis: creativity isineffable because it is ‘instinctive’, it is ‘intuitive’, it is the product of‘inspiration’. None of these conditions is demonstrable and, there-fore, they can never be accessed either from without or, seemingly,from within. Consequently, whether the creative effort is directed atwriting Northanger Abbey, designing the Tay Bridge, or paintingGuernica we cannot know that effort, only its results. Further, andalso consequently, an entire, elaborate social and cultural apparatushas arisen to assess critically such results where this apparatus con-sists of connected institutions all with the aim of participating in theeconomic rewards of (implicitly commodified) creativity. In turn, theseinstitutions and their practices – whether directly productive (publish-ing of various kinds) or associated with the business of disseminatingworks of creativity or commenting on them (the mass media) – havecome to stand for a ‘knowing’ of creativity and the creative process ina way that goes on re-confirming that the process itself cannot beknown by any means other than through some (culturally and sociallyvalidated) system of discernment.

While I do not enjoy the opportunity here to explore the notion oftaste and issues of value with regard to popular cultural productionin any greater detail, what the social construction of taste can beargued to accomplish is a kind of forced congruence of discursivenotions of ‘creativity’ with what we experience as cultural products

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– where the point is that products are the outcome of industry, notcreativity alone.6 In this recognition I am trying not to reify creativityor to argue a romantic conception of it, only to suggest that accountsof, in this instance songwriting, rarely deal directly with creativity asa form of effort, not because it is ineffable but because the tendency isto settle with, or fail to see beyond, the terms in which creativity issocially constructed and debated.

Electing to Reflect

As a (former) songwriter the representation of creativity as unknow-able seems wholly unsatisfactory to me. We have seen the words of‘Model Son’ and I can report faithfully that I did indeed complete thissong as a song through creative effort. I will explore this effort belowbut here I can also report that the effort required to complete this songobeyed an urgency that was the sum of a combination of imperatives:the song was not completed for its own sake with only the integraldemands of its subject and structure to concentrate and drive that ef-fort. It would be fair to comment that, had I been famous enough to beinterviewed by Paul Zollo, I might not have articulated my effort in thisway. One of the key characteristics of the canonizing act is to individu-ate the ‘artist’; Zollo seeks the artist’s collaboration in a (substantiallyunavoidable) partial, limited, and implicitly positive reconstruction oftheir own lives, and, more pertinently, work as ‘artists’. In this exercise,‘record companies’ and ‘the music industry’ play shadowy and almostalways negative ‘walk-on’ parts – as, perhaps, the price of entry to the‘non-work place’, or to the status of ‘exceptionality’, referred to previ-ously. But the point remains that what unites Zollo’s songwriters (ratherthan differentiates them from each other), and what, in turn, unites allsongwriters whether ‘signed’ or ‘unsigned’, is that what they have incommon are, to use Marx’s term, the social relations of production – inthis case, of song production – characteristic to the music industry.

As we know, the business of songwriting devolves onto an author’sability to ‘assign’ his or her innate right to make copies of her or hiswork (so long as it is original) to an organization better-placed and farbetter-equipped to bring that work to the attention of potential pur-chasers. These organizations are able to manufacture copies of the

6. Performing Rites (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).


original work and distribute them to shops (in the case of recordcompanies) or to make the original available to other users (in thecase of publishing) and both also (or are meant also) to advertise theexistence of the original or of copies of the original for sale or use. Inthis activity, songwriters stand to earn considerable amounts of moneybecause there are fixed rates for the mechanical reproduction as wellas the live and broadcast performance of the songs they write to whichnon-writers are not entitled. Viewed in this way, the business of recordcompanies is to select from a large pool of aspirant music-makers,reproduce the original work of those selected, and organize the circu-lation of copies of the original, for profit; and it is also the business ofmusic publishers to select from the pool of aspirants with a view tobuying the rights to the works of the aspirants in order to exploitthose works in a myriad of commercial forms. Once the costs of theselection procedure, reproduction, and circulation have been met, therecord company and the publisher returns a limited percentage of anyprofit to the creator of the original work in the form of a royaltypayment. So, for ‘unsigned’ writers there is no income at all fromsongwriting while for ‘signed’ writers there is a much-delayed, pro-portional income which is normally off-set in the form of advancepayments against that anticipated income – where the extent of theadvance is a matter for negotiation during the creation of ‘the deal’and the ability to eke out the advance is a matter for the prudence, orotherwise, of the individual songwriter.

That my experience of songwriting was ‘unstable and demanding’was in part (but only in part) because Latin Quarter had been, in theyears leading up to ‘Model Son’, an eight-piece band with two manag-ers. This, in turn, meant – quite unglamorously – that it could neverearn enough to ensure that everyone lived comfortably and securely.What compounded this problem (which would affect morale) was that,despite a reduction in personnel on both fronts, Swimming Against theStream was to be Latin Quarter’s third album for a major label. By thelogic of the recording and publishing contract system (wherein acts andwriters are tied to sequential ‘option’ clauses) any act reaching a thirdalbum will normally have expected, and have been expected, to havesold considerable quantities of previous records and made considerableamounts of money for record company and publisher alike – the onlyreason for those contracting companies to exercise their option to con-tinue publishing songs and making records by their signees. This wasnot true of Latin Quarter. We had enjoyed substantial sales in some

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countries, but made little impact in others. While signed to AristaRecords that label had been sold to Bertellsmans, a large Germanpublishing company. Arista was then merged with another acquisi-tion, RCA Records, to form Bertelsmann’s Music Group (BMG). Ourfirst album had been made by an independent label but licensed toRCA in Germany. Success there prompted Arista to sign us. They in-sisted on a new album which was not a success. We then exploited theturmoil of the merger argue for an ‘internal’ transfer to British RCA.Swimming Against the Stream was, then, more a third ‘first’ album –but it left us, and in particular me, with much to prove.

Despite selling in excess of 100,000 copies, Swimming Against theStream was comparatively unsuccessful, predominantly because saleswere insufficient to pay off our accumulated ‘debt’ (royalties couldneither meet the costs of production of all three albums nor offsetadvance payments already made). The ‘failure’ of the album led to, orexemplified, the subsequent ‘failure’ of Latin Quarter, although a fur-ther three albums were made and there have been several subsequentre-releases. Several writers – among them Hirsch, Cohen, Garnham,Negus, Miège, and Caves – similarly observe that ‘many are calledbut few are chosen’ when it comes to success in the cultural market-place, but what these accounts have in common is that they do notattempt to explain how, in individual cases, pop acts ‘fail so to bechosen’. As I learnt from my own experience, attempting to establish‘what went wrong’ is an enormously difficult undertaking, and in theimmediate wake of ‘losing a deal’ (after trying so hard and for so longto win one) it is far easier to turn the blame inwards: my response toLatin Quarter and RCA ‘parting company’ was to conclude that I wasnot a ‘good enough’ songwriter; only gradually did I begin to look atmy experience in fresh light. After researching the experience in thecontext of an analysis of the music industry (which amounted to hack-ing away the ideological over-growth) I began to identify the com-monalities sketched above – wherein songwriters and performers arenot so much victims of the music industry as victims of their own lackof preparation for doing business and of a concomitant want of pru-dence in contracting with its companies.

Establishing a new account of ‘failure’ helped to restore my self-esteem in such a way that, had I wanted to, I could have reverted to acomfortable notion of my own ‘artistry’ and blamed everything elseon my lack of commercial acumen and on the commercial deficienciesof RCA Records as a marketing operation (which is substantially what


I came to do). But this is to rehearse the familiar ‘art/commerce’ scriptin a slightly more informed or more complex way: I knew I was, orhad been, creative, equally I knew I did not know enough about thecommercial business that surrounded and allowed my creativity – andso failure was the result. But however much this works as an explana-tion of the fate of Latin Quarter, it is not truly an explanation of‘Model Son’ – yet the two are inextricably linked. Consequently acloser reproduction of the episode of writing a song requires attentionto its context of production, to the social relations of its production,but it requires, also, a more precise identification of the type of workengaged in by the songwriter and therefore the type of worker pro-duced in and through such an engagement.

It is not enough to declare that I was ‘a worker in the popular musicindustry’ as if this explains itself. My ‘paid employment’ was not adirect wage, I was ‘self-employed’; the condition of this employmentwas unstable because it was precarious, but this is not entirely why itwas ‘demanding’. Further, I was aware that work needed to be under-taken in order to remain in what continued to seem like the waitingroom of the ‘non-work place’. I was constantly aware that I was in abusiness, an ‘industry’ even, and I was glad to be part of it, but how,exactly, was I part of it, on what terms and conditions was my self-employment established? I was ‘in the industry’ because I was doingsomething (performing work) that this industry required for its survivaland prosperity. Ultimately, I was aware that being a songwriter was nothow I had anticipated it: I was creative but, somehow the creative choicesI made – the aesthetic choices in the completion of ‘Model Son’ – weredriven by more considerations than the need to express myself on aparticular subject, in this instance my relationship with my father. Thisrecognition, in turn, convinces me that I cannot sustain an analysis ofthe music industry that argues for the precedence of its industrial rou-tines without demonstrating them in action. On this basis, what is re-quired is a closer examination of creative work as work.

Symbolic Creativity and the Cultural Industries

As David Hesmondhalgh puts it in The Cultural Industries:

More than other types of production, the cultural industries are involvedin the making and circulating of products – that is, texts – that have aninfluence on our understanding of the world … the cultural industries

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have usually been thought of as those institutions … which are mostdirectly involved in the production of social meaning [sic].7

In a stimulating and comprehensive study, Hesmondhalgh attemptsto locate the originators of texts – songwriters among them – withinthe social relations of cultural production. In this exercise he makesthis useful definition of the songwriter as a worker:

The invention and/or performance of stories, songs, images, poems, jokesand so on, in no matter what technological form, involves a particulartype of creativity – the manipulation of symbols for the purposes ofentertainment, information and perhaps even enlightenment … I preferthe term symbol creators for those who make up, interpret or reworkstories, songs, images, etc.8

What is so compelling about Hesmondhalgh’s introduction of the de-scriptive term ‘symbol creator’ into the debate on cultural productionis that, through it, he retains the notion of creativity but strips it of thehalo of positive connotations that characterize the romantic concep-tion of the artist – ‘the man [sic] who is most likely to have experi-ences of value to record’ in I. A. Richards’s telling phrase; in so doing,he accomplishes much of relevance to this argument.

In Hesmondhalgh’s own argument, his primary focus is on deter-mining whether the immense quantitative changes in the organizationof the cultural industries (mergers, acquisitions – the rise of BMG forinstance – the increasing reach of globally organized conglomerates,the immense upheavals in communication technology) have encour-aged corresponding changes in their qualitative organization; theirsocial relations of production – because, if there has been such a seismicshift this will be of great relevance to ‘symbol creators’, to their work-ing conditions, and to their prospects. Ultimately, his conclusion is that,though much changes, much remains the same where the location ofpower, and the ideological reproduction of capitalist social relations, isconcerned, but this in no sense makes him an economic determinist;rather, he asserts at key points throughout his study, the belief that:

… because original and distinctive symbolic creativity is at a premium, thecultural industries can never quite control it. Owners and executives areforced to make concessions to symbol creators by granting them far moreautonomy (self-determination) than they would to most other workers.9

7. David Hesmondhalgh, The Cultural Industries (London: Sage, 2002), pp. 3–11.8. Ibid., pp. 4–5 (italics as in the original).9. Ibid., p. 6 (emphasis as in the original).


And, again,

This point about creative autonomy is absolutely crucial for anunderstanding of the cultural industries in the late twentieth century[sic]10

What is interesting is that Hesmondhalgh reiterates this point anddraws attention to its centrality to his argument, but then, in his verylast paragraph, makes this observation:

One of the most important aspects of my approach, borrowed from thecultural industries approach, but also to some extent from empiricalsociology of culture, has been to focus on symbol creators [sic]. Icommented … on the surprising neglect of these cultural workers instudies of the cultural industries.11

One aspect of an answer to the earlier question, ‘why is it so difficultto find out … what type of worker a songwriter is’, would be becausethere has been so little dedicated work on identifying how music ismade at the time of its making. This is why Hesmondhalgh citesHoward Saul Becker’s study Art Worlds which has been so influentialin and on the literature, and why also Ruth Finnegan and, subse-quently, Sara Cohen’s work have been equally influential – becausethey all, in related ways, demonstrate that creativity is collective andthat creators face constraints of a range of kinds which derive fromtheir reliance on, or their inability to avoid, the input of others in therealization of their artistic, creative work.12 I will return to this pointlater in the chapter.

Hesmondhalgh can also answer why songwriting (as one form ofsymbolic creativity) is less glamorous than it appears – because thereis a very large unpaid pool of aspirant symbol creators and a very,very small group of symbol creators who make an appreciable (andoften extravagant) living from their efforts. What his work does lessusefully, for all its insight into the working context of the symbolcreator, is to deal with the contradiction that, for all its ostensible‘autonomy’, the workplace of symbolic creativity is still, very defi-nitely a workplace. Hesmondhalgh claims autonomy – and with itself-determination – for the songwriter but truly he demonstrates

10. Ibid., p. 55.11. Ibid., p. 266.12. Ibid., pp. 35 and 172; see Howard S. Becker, Art Worlds (Berkeley and Los

Angeles, CA: University of California, 1982).

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neither. To come closer, but not quite close enough, to the experienceand practise of autonomy and self-determination in songwriting weneed to consider the work of Jason Toynbee.

‘It Ain’t the Money …’

In Making Popular Music Toynbee rehearses an argument substan-tially similar to Hesmondhalgh’s but one that exceeds it by its concen-tration on the act of creativity itself. Towards this aim he draws onthe work, predominantly but by no means solely, of Pierre Bourdieuand Bakhtin to present a stimulating and elaborate study which ar-gues for the autonomous, self-determined creativity of musicians butonly after the radical re-specification of such creativity as ‘social au-thorship’. As Toynbee puts it:

Perhaps the biggest advantage of treating popular music authorship insuch a way is that it enables one to be sceptical about grand claims tocreative inspiration (sometimes made by musicians themselves) withoutdiscarding the notion of agency.13

Toynbee’s argument pivots on the belief that, despite the compellingexigencies of capitalist social relations, these are not determining inthe last instance and particularly where the creation of popular musicis concerned: ultimately so voracious is the marketplace for popularmusic that capitalists care less how popular music is created, all thatcounts is that a continuous stream of new music is made available tothem so that they can commodify some of it for sale. Consequently,and exactly as with Hesmondhalgh, Toynbee argues the existence ofan ‘institutional autonomy’ for, in this instance, popular musicians:

… market organization is the most significant factor in explaining howa certain institutional autonomy has developed in popular music … Thelogic of the music industry’s own structure as a capitalist cultural industryhas, paradoxically, pushed it into conceding a degree of creative controlfor musicians.14

From this point, Toynbee’s case amounts to a careful and intellectu-ally demanding celebration of what he refers to as a ‘cautiously

13. Jason Toynbee, Making Popular Music: Musicians, Creativity and Institutions(London: Arnold, 2000), p. 46.

14. Ibid., p. 1.


optimistic thesis’: namely that

… popular musicians show in a limited, but none the less substantive,fashion the transforming power of human agency, first as producers ofdesire for a better life, second as exemplars of autonomous action.15

If ‘autonomy’ is secured by the peculiarities of the music marketplacethen ‘agency’ (Hesmondhalgh’s ‘self-determination’) is in part a con-sequence of the creative process (the working practice) of songwritersthemselves. If we conceive ‘autonomy’ as both a state or conditionand as a conceptual space (‘room for manoeuvre’ is a colloquial rendi-tion of circumscribed personal autonomy) then Toynbee’s account ofhow this space ‘works’ would be that firstly it is never static, becausetechnology, and with it musical adaptation to technology, never rests.He then goes on to make Bourdieu’s work the fulcrum of a detailedargument that each individual exhibits a ‘habitus’, ‘a constellation ofdispositions … which inform subjectivity and therefore action’.16 Ac-tion (in this instance musical composition) takes place on or within a‘field’ constituted for popular musicians out of the collective total ofrecorded popular music. Against this background, Toynbee urges usto see that the ‘strategy’ of each individual popular music creator is aconsequent effect of what he or she perceives as ‘possible’ from thepoint of their unique intersection of habitus and field:

The space of possibilities … is a crucial concept for the present argument… possibilities are the product of the relationship between the ‘push’ ofsubjective disposition and the ‘pull’ of objective positions … possibilities(or possibles) emerge in the … tension between habitus and field.17

This allows him to conclude that individual creators enjoy the oppor-tunity to make unique music for the reason that no person ever ac-cesses the whole of recorded music and no two people ever access thesame limited proportion of music in the same measure at the sametime. Further, no two people are alike and, consequently, what sensi-bility and receptivity each will bring to recorded music will be uniquelytheir own. As proportionately few individuals elect to become musi-cians, and fewer still elect to enter the public arena, who finally ‘makes’music (in the sense of contributes to the pool of recordings) is deter-mined by a process which of necessity will need to begin away from

15. Ibid., p. xiii.16. Ibid., p. 36.17. Ibid., p. 38.

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the ‘organized’ market cited above. This removed area forms whatToynbee refers to as the ‘proto-market’, described by him as ‘rela-tively autonomous zones (that are) difficult for record companies tocolonize’.18

Taken as a whole, Toynbee’s argument is a hugely suggestive one,especially when joined with that of Hesmondhalgh, for in it we have aclearer, more detailed and continuous connection of the individual’swill to create being practised comparatively freely, but always underdeterminate market conditions and always through accessing the ac-cumulated experience of already existing recorded music. Much ofthis, in essence, is what I have hinted at throughout this piece: this ishow a musician can be in ‘two worlds at once’ – because his or herwork consists of consistently mediating, negotiating, and reconcilingthe shifting dimensions of ‘art-making’ and ‘commerce-satisfying’.Additionally, the industrially-demanded supply of musical ‘raw mate-rials’ is shown to be present through the aspiration of musicians whodesire to enter the market-place because those aspirant musicians cre-ate their new music (as in music reformulated under prevailing tech-nological conditions) in a bid to reach the places where those whoinspired them have already been. Finally, creativity is implicated withmarket-forces but only in the uncompromised sense that the degree ofconnective relevance of new music is tested in the relatively free spacescollected under the rubric of the proto-market. Seemingly, all of the looseends are tied up and, as a songwriter (but only because I practised asone indissolubly through all of these contingencies), I deserve my placein Zollo’s book after all for, at the point where my habitus connectedwith my perception of the field, there was no-one there but me …

Except? Except that, for all the comfort I might draw from thesenotions of ‘self-determination’, ‘creative autonomy’, institutional au-tonomy’, and ‘agency’, my experience tells me that, in Toynbee’s read-ing of the creative moment, the subjectivity practised in my workinglife as a songwriter was not a condition that could be distinguishedfrom ‘the “pull” of objective positions’. Instead, my ‘subjective dispo-sition’ was inflected, inscribed, and read through exactly those ‘objec-tive positions’ because as a ‘worker in pop’ I needed constantly tointernalize, and to respond to my internalization of, those ‘objective’conditions. In the demanding activity of constant re-adjustment to

18. Ibid., p. 29.


fresh perceptions of a dynamic constellation of mutating, commodification-driven considerations I remained an agent, certainly, but only in sofar as I acted to produce what and how I determined required to beproduced at any particular conjuncture. This does not mean that Ihad to write ‘Model Son’ but it does affect how I wrote the song(and why the song appeared on the album). In this, what I rememberexperiencing was not creative autonomy so much as creative isola-tion because, for all the camaraderie of being a member of a success-ful band, I was also the key originating force in a problematic eco-nomic entity, Latin Quarter. Of all the songs I wrote in this period,none exemplifies better how subjectivity is over-determined by thesubjective perception of ‘objective conditions’ than does ‘Model Son’.

Writing ‘Model Son’ – Urge to Expression

An ‘album’ is a collection of recorded songs but it is also an industrialproduct and all I am truly asking is where does songwriting end andindustrial production begin? ‘Model Son’ was one of more than fortysongs that were considered for inclusion on Swimming Against theStream. In total I had some forty-three lyrics available for mysongwriting partner to compose around. Thirty-five of these resultedin songs, predominantly in ‘demo’ versions recorded on a Tascamportastudio. Twenty-one were rehearsed by the band (some had al-ready been included in the live-set, Latin Quarter’s performance rep-ertoire). Eventually this number was whittled down to the twelve songsthat appeared on the album. Throughout this time I became increas-ingly uncomfortable that such a ‘personal’ song would be made avail-able for public consumption. This discomfort had been present fromthe moment I began the composition but when you are your ownaudience it is easy to accommodate discomfort; the more public thelyric became, the more reluctant I felt to allow it to become a record:agency was alive in the immediate decision to write, but autonomywas never clear cut, even from the outset.

As an approach to considering why the concepts of ‘creative’ or‘institutional’ autonomy and of ‘self-determination’ and ‘agency’ mightbe less than the truth of songwriting as an occupational choice it isworth discussing the writing of ‘Model Son’ in some detail. In this Iwant to distinguish between a broad set of ‘motivations’ that drovethe song (the place at which Zollo’s work tends to stop) and others

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more difficult to access – the critical factors that comprise thecomposition’s‘subjective disposition’ to elect for certain kinds of cre-ative expression.

I was motivated to write ‘Model Son’ for three main and intercon-nected reasons: firstly, as I have indicated, I was motivated in generalto write songs as a matter of employment and self-identity. By thetime of writing the song I had been self-supporting as a songwriter forfour years. At this point in my life I felt satisfied and self-confident inand with my career as a songwriter (rather than self-satisfied and con-fident). I was satisfied because many of the songs which I initiated(and lyrics which I completed) seemed to be assured of release asrecords. This, in turn, encouraged a self-confident belief that I wouldcontinue as a songwriter into ‘the future’ – with or without LatinQuarter. I was not ‘self-satisfied’ because I had, by that time, becomeaware of how little control I enjoyed over my ‘art’ and neither was I‘confident’ in my immediate relationship with RCA Records and RCAMusic (my publishers) because I was also keenly aware of how strainedand tenuous were the professional relations that structured my exist-ence, whether those between the band and the record label, the bandand its manager, or between individual members of the band itself.

My second, parallel, source of motivation for writing songs, againin general, was driven by the need for Latin Quarter to fulfil its re-cording and publishing commitments. As the principal songwriter itwas my responsibility to continue to furnish the material from whichrecordings were finished. It would be misleading to exaggerate theforce of the legal obligation to produce songs; rather what needs to berecognized is how income for pop acts who are still seeking to estab-lish themselves on a firm economic footing remains tied to recordingand publishing advances – without my songs there would be no cashflow. I can report that this fact did indeed register with me, althoughwhether it invoked any determining urgency in the aesthetic and cre-ative choices I made remains to be identified and discussed.

Finally, I was motivated to write the specific song/lyric ‘Model Son’because I experienced an unquenchable need to explore and expressmy feelings about my relationship with my parents and, more perti-nently, with my father. There is nothing distinctively ‘songwriterly’ inthis need but that I had the means to create a public examination of aprivate issue, or bundle of issues, begins to connect with the latentpower of the popular musical form, a power that seems to suggestthat, in and by engaging with pop, and with popular creativity in


general, we attain a ‘voice’. In turn, winning a voice implies gaining a‘hearing’, a public hearing for whatever it is we have privately on ourminds. Whether what we have on our minds is a source of pain orpleasure to us, being able to ‘speak’ more loudly than our peersamounts, for many in this position, to self-realization, or the achieve-ment of self-hood. If entirely misconceived, this is still strong magicand we would be unwise to underestimate its spell: consider the hugenumbers of aspirant pop acts, the queues of Pop Idol contestants, inthese terms. But before I return to this ‘magic’, I need to counter theimpression that I sat down one day and set-to to engage with my de-mons in song form simply because I could; rather my songwriting washabitually a piecemeal process. My practice was to work from a single(lyrical) line or phrase where the emphasis here must be placed simulta-neously on the social (or political, cultural or emotional) relations sug-gested by the semantic content of the observation so encapsulated – inthis instance ‘I grew up with a scorpion behind me’ – and the metricaland rhythmic structure of that line or phrase. The latter was as impor-tant as the former – if I could not sing the phrase then I could notdevelop the idea contained within it (or expressed through it) as a song.

In short, and in the instance of ‘Model Son’, I did not search for amelody or for a line of text and neither did I do the preliminarywork of electing to discuss my troubled relationship with my fatherin song form. The line ‘came’ to me, it was ‘singable’, and it acted asa conduit to a lifetime’s accumulation of the psychological end-prod-ucts of the interactions between a father and his son. What neededthen to take place was the work of locating that line in the musical(and semantic) place that its combination of musical and semanticcontent seemed to suggest might exist for it if an act of songwritingwas undertaken from this starting point. On this basis, it was notguaranteed at the outset that the first line that occurred to me wouldbe the first line of a new song – as it happened to be in this case – infact on some (rare) occasions the originating observation might bediscarded as the song suggested by it was worked on and workedout. Whatever the final place of the originating lyrical phrase, thewriting process would be the same: the lyric would be developedthrough singing and rarely in a single session. Rather, I would returnfrequently to what would begin to emerge as verses or choruses andprosecute them to a finish as energy and inventiveness would allow.All of this activity would take place on a comparatively systematicbasis wherein the subsequent process of co-writing took place in a

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context in which the need to sell records rather than attain self-ex-pression was the over-arching goal.

Songwriting and the Romantic Artist

Before proceeding it is important to caution that I am aware of how atleast two aspects of this (abbreviated) account of my songwriting mightappear to chime with the romantic conception of the songwriter as‘artist’. In the first instance, when I write that the initial, ‘stimulant’line for ‘Model Son’, ‘came to me’, I intend this phrase to be under-stood in a material rather than an inspirational sense. The line derivedfrom a conversation with my mother who, at one time, attempted toexplain my father’s personality in terms of his astrological sign, Scor-pio: he was a ‘scorpion’ and his (defensive) reaction was to be sting-ing. There is no sense, then, that the image emerged from my torturedsoul after solitary reflection, instead it was collected from the discur-sive flux of daily life, as was everything else I wrote, whether fromdialogue in films, television programmes, conversations overheard inpublic places, fragments of interior monologue provoked by responsesto private or public events, advertising slogans, even graffiti. Even so,this was not, or not alone, a hypersensitivity to words as such. Ratherit was a sensitivity to how words are deployed to explain relation-ships or sets of (social) relations. As an individual I was sensitized tothe reasons people gave or invoked for conducting their lives in par-ticular ways and for justifying the repercussions of their actions onothers – where the latter groups, disempowered though they werelikely to be, might also textualize their attempts to make sense of theirpasts, presents, and futures in interesting and productive ways. Thetriangulation of my songwriting is then completed by my recognitionof a felt need to establish, also through words, how and where I felt Istood in relationship to those (implicitly inequal) relationships andrelations and to the justifications made for them. To me this nowseems all to be the product of deep emotional insecurity and a prac-tised petit-bourgeois need to exercise control through a fear of itsabsence but at the time it was rock and roll and I did it for a living.

The second aspect of an implied Romanticism in the synopsis of mysongwriting concerns the observation that my creative effort lay in‘locating’ an originating lyrical line or phrase in some, as yet undis-covered, whole that its existence suggested might exist. As it stands,


this summary of a complex procedure might be taken to imply that,somehow, I believed each nascent song to be a ‘David in the rock’ – toexist in toto in some etheric place only an artist, through artistic ef-fort, could reach. This would be a misleading conclusion to draw;rather, to argue that a ‘stimulant’ lyric carried with it the implicationthat some wider or deeper concern was signalled by it – and that this‘concern’ could be expressed as a song – is simply to observe thatmelodic lines can be ‘worked up’ into songs, that lyrical lines containideas that might be developed in interesting ways, and that both re-quire effort to pursue to a conclusion. Viewed in this way I cannotconceive this ‘effort’ in any way other than ‘creative’ but what needsto be identified is the range of forces and relations that might be ar-gued to have borne on the choices I made in fashioning the text; inmanipulating its many symbols in ways that would make this song a‘contender’ for a commodity (the one that came to be called Swim-ming against the Stream – which title now seems increasingly ironic!)

Songwriting and Work

It could be argued that I was motivated to write ‘Model Son’ for acombination of what might usefully be described as situational and(to echo Toynbee) dispositional reasons: firstly, I was a songwriter byoccupation who needed to write songs to maintain this role and whowas faced with an immediate objective (an album to complete). Sec-ondly, I was a songwriter who was habitually sensitized to discur-sively mobilized projects of power (in personal life, in the social andpolitical realms) who attempted to make sense of these projects throughlyric-writing articulated and practised through imagined musical com-position. This is an entirely autonomous – in the sense of individuallydistinct – expression of subjectivity (though whether it is a distinctpractice of creativity remains to be discussed). Further, how I ‘imag-ined musical composition’ drew on what I enjoyed of the music I knewand liked – a particular assemblage of ‘hits’ from the mid-1950s on-wards, leavened with the work of the more conventionally melodicrock writers and performers (predominantly but not exclusively the‘singer-songwriters’). Consequently my imagined compositions obeyedfairly orthodox and obvious genre rules, clear evidence of congruencewith Toynbee’s ‘social authorship’. Finally, the election of the precisesubject matter, my relationship with my father, can only be agentic

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and self-determining; nobody put a gun to my head and demandedthat I write on this particular topic in this particular way (the mari-time references derive from his time as a merchant seaman, for ex-ample).

It is difficult to see how my songwriting, held to the light at thisangle, took place under industrial conditions at all, at least in thetraditionally conceived sense of some form of supervised productiontowards a determinate end in which the employer attempts to ensurethat the worker expends all the labour power the employer has pur-chased. Of course, there is more than one way to skin a cat. Not allproduction for profit is organized as an assembly line and one of thekey areas for debate and research in management theory is the extentto which the classic, ‘Fordist’ model has been superseded historically,both within and beyond manufacturing industries. On this basis itwould be more accurate to discuss whether and how my songwritingtook place under the conditions of the specific industry within whichit occurred – in this instance the music industry. Currently, though,the closest the study of popular music comes to an account of themusic industry as an industry (as a workplace) is in the publishedwork so far cited – in Hesmondhalgh, Toynbee, and Negus (where thelatter has mounted quite different analyses in different publications).There are many other rich engagements with popular music that, per-force, must deal with its complex condition as an industrial, culturaland social product but there remains a dearth of studies which at-tempt to account for what happens in the making of music by musi-cians who, apparently while working solely to directions suggested bytheir respective muses, still contribute to commodity production assubordinates to capital.

‘Capital’ is not a force which, in the instance of musical activity,operates as some kind of cultural ‘beachcombing’ operation essen-tially after work has been done. Equally, though, it offends to con-sider capital in (exactly) its Fordist incarnation, wherein managers,on behalf of investors, design and enforce a rigid and ‘scientific’ worksystem in which the entire labour power of an almost infinitely substi-tutable workforce is commandeered by those managers to serve theaims of capital accumulation. This is why Adorno has made no ap-pearance in this discussion: songs do not write themselves and even inan Adornian universe it would still be permissible, and methodologi-cally possible, to examine how individual creativity and the logic ofproduction mesh to produce a musical item which is simultaneously a


piece of music and also a commodity. The ‘truth’, then, must fall some-where between these two extremes, and, therefore, in some other ren-dition of the ‘logic of production’. As we have seen, in recent work onthe ‘cultural industries’, the logic of musical production has been rep-resented as one in which, to quote Hesmondhalgh, there exists ‘anunusual degree of autonomy, which is carried over from eras whereartists, authors and composers worked independently of businesses’.

Under these circumstances, capital’s response to its own inability tocontrol production directly is to resort to a medley of risk-reductionmeasures as the setting for production; for example (after BernardMiège), more products are commissioned than are actually releasedinto the marketplace, new ways are found to sell old products whosecosts of production have already been met, ‘workers’ are not retainedon fixed salaries but must rely on royalty payments, capital is investedmost heavily in strategies and practices for accessing and constitutingmarkets (in physical and electronic distribution systems and in pro-motion and marketing).19 Again as Hesmondhalgh puts it, ‘This com-bination of loose control of creative input, and tighter control of re-production and circulation constitutes the distinctive organisationalform of cultural production during [this] era’.20

Writing ‘Model Son’ – the place and the fate of autonomyand self-determination

The problem with the account of songwriting as work which devolvesonto the notion of a ‘loose control of creative input’ is that, in at-tempting to open a distance between an account of the music industryas an industry and other, more rigid, accounts of industrial configura-tions of wage labour and capital, it tends to over-plead the case forcreativity. This is not to make the counter-error (which is Adorno’smistake) of arguing that, when it comes to popular music, creativitydoes not take place, rather it is to suggest that we pay closer attentionto the contexts within which (musical) creative work exists. Through-out this account I have referred to how ‘demanding’ I found the roleof a songwriter to be. In many ways this observation flies in the face

19. Bernard Miège, The Capitalization of Cultural Production (New York: Interna-tional General, 1989).

20. Hesmondhalgh, The Cultural Industries, p. 56 (emphasis as in the original).

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of the ‘glamour’ we associate with the role; further it tends to disturbthe more complacent overtones of ‘creative autonomy’ and ‘self-determination’ – yet ‘demanding’ it remained.

In my own research into the experience of music acts signed tomajor record labels I found a repeated pattern of transformationfrom aspirant pop act outside the music industry to ‘signed’ record-making act at its heart. What this devolved onto was the unavoid-able necessity of aspirant pop acts connecting with, and accumulat-ing, relationships with, intermediary figures (managers, advisers ofvarious kinds, record company personnel, and so on), who, togetherwith the act, formed, in each case, what I came to call a ‘supra-organization’: roughly an uneasy and uneven working coalition ofdifferently motivated individuals (some of them representatives oflarge and powerful organizations enjoying different and contrastingaccess to resources) all combined to realize an often divergent con-ception of the musical work initiated by the act, or, more accurately,by its songwriters. The pressure I experienced then derived from theneed to consider (poorly informed) perceptions of the priorities ofthe working coalition as a whole – as well as of each of its parts.Under these conditions, my ‘subjective disposition’ (Toynbee) and,within and through it, my ‘self-determination’ (Hesmondhalgh), wasconstantly driven to check my creative decisions against a complexof considerations.

‘Model Son’ needed to respond to a complex of considerations be-cause it was created through a complex of relations: Latin Quarter’s‘deal’ with RCA was predicated on its belief that we were a poten-tially lucrative investment; in the fateful words of the A&R represen-tative charged with making a record with us, ‘you are a first divisionband but you haven’t made a first division album yet’. This was goodmotivational psychology and great politics – we were flattered andencouraged to aspire to ‘greatness’ but simultaneously neutralized asa ‘judging’ force – attainment of the ‘feel good’ but imprecise goal ofa ‘first division album’ was to be determined by the company alone,embodied and actualized as it was by the A&R man. Consequently, inwriting ‘Model Son’, one consideration I needed to make was how‘the company’ would react to what I wrote. When I chose the subjectmatter and the words and music which articulated it, I needed to an-ticipate whether any resultant song would emerge as a ‘contender’ forthe album that the company was prepared to pay for; whether, ulti-mately, I wanted the song to be a ‘contender’ is another matter still.


Further, that the company would be the eventual arbiter of my workwas but the ‘outer ring’ of an ‘orbiting’ constellation of audiences formy work. This constellation consisted, in the immediate sense, of theintricate and intractable relationships with intermediary figures withinthe ‘supra-organization’ whether separately or in some almost infinitenumber of combinations. In turn, the entire raison d’être of this col-lection of people was that together it could produce the commoditywhich would usher into being a paying audience for the music of LatinQuarter. In writing ‘Model Son’, some, but certainly not all, of theconsiderations crowding my subjectivity would be the following:

1 Although this is comparatively exceptional, I needed to anticipate howmy co-writer would react to what he received from me. In the instanceof ‘Model Son’ would he be motivated to compose, and then to perform,a song about my father? Further, did what I had written live up to, orconform to, his expectations of my contribution to our joint work?

2 I needed to consider how the band and the manager would react to newcompositions. By the time of writing ‘Model Son’ we had all livedthrough promising times that had failed somehow to live up to theirpromise, yet we were still ‘in the game’. Would they be pleased or wouldthey react negatively? Would ‘Model Son’ be perceived as a ‘bad’ songor as a (too) risky departure from the norm?

3 I needed to consider the integrity of any resultant album in terms ofsubject matter and tempos. Although I could not control my co-writers’compositional reactions, was the subject too sombre for the needs of thealbum?

4 I needed to anticipate how Latin Quarter record buyers would react tothe new songs. Would they be disappointed? Would they consider thenew material even better than previous work and so express enthusiasmto family and friends and encourage them to buy the record and attendthe planned promotional tours?

5 I needed to consider how non-Latin Quarter record buyers would react.Would new, large-scale, sales of Swimming Against the Stream eradicateour mounting debt to the record company and allow us to continue tomake records? My ‘career’ depended on the song!

6 I felt the need to anticipate reviews of the new album. I had alreadybeen castigated as a ‘worthy but dull’ writer. Would ‘Model Son’ reversethis negativity or confirm it? Would I need to absorb more pain andembarrassment or would I achieve my ambition of being recognized as a‘good’ songwriter? (I had much to prove.)

7 Finally, was the song up to my own standards? Did it pass the test ofwhat I considered and imagined ‘good’ writing to be? Here is a signifi-cant test of subjectivity – or at least in its incarnations as self-image and

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the requirements of the self-esteem referred to previously – where bothare fragile and can be affected positively or negatively by the reactionsof any or all of the preceding individuals or groups; where, in turn, all ofthis makes ‘self-determination’ something of a hostage to fortune.

Taken together, these considerations should, at a minimum, demon-strate how cluttered and clamorous is the songwriter’s ‘space of thepossibilities’ (Toynbee). Further, all of this agonizing about unpredict-able and uncontrollable reactions to creative choices takes place underconsiderable pressure. When writers write, when they work, they doso ‘against the clock’: not only do record albums take time to writeand record (as well as promote, market and sell), they exist in a tacitlyagreed (and often quite paranoid) ‘cultural’ time-frame. By the timeof the album’s release it would have been three years since LatinQuarter’s hit single. Would we have been forgotten? Was the timenow past for the specific ‘scene’ (replete with its distinct generic iden-tity) we were perceived to be part of? Additionally, writing and re-cording is hemmed in by budgetary limits and limitations. This is notto argue that all records, indeed songs, could be improved if just alittle more time and a lot more money had been made available. Moreit is to concede that some aesthetic choices are made simply because adecision demands to be made, there and then: songwriters and bandmembers need to live while writing, but, as we have seen, recordingcosts incurred need to be recouped from sales before any income fromthe record or, much more pertinently, any further funds against antici-pated royalties will be advanced by the record company and by thepublishers.

Songwriting is ‘Work’ – So What?

My anxiety to reach the heart of an understanding of songwriting as‘work’ is because my own experience of ‘writing for my supper’ seemsto linger as a harsh and dispiriting memory, dwarfing the pleasure Itook in the activity (together with the reminiscences of all the ‘goodtimes’); but it is more than simply pique. What causes me more anxi-ety still is the dual recognition that, while combining words and mu-sic for a living or for any other reason is indeed a pleasure, this activ-ity is encouraged in our culture almost entirely for the end of profit-making: ‘many are called’ – to the thrill and love of songwriting – sothat the work of a very few can ensure that the owners of, and investors


in, vast corporate conglomerates might grow ever richer. To put thisslightly less biblically, ‘making it’ is what the corporations (and I wouldcollect the ‘independent’ record sector under this heading) offer to allyoung and idealistic people. Part of the thrill of consuming music is toidentify with its performers, its stars. But what is the ‘it’ that is ‘made’?Is it a place reached or a state attained? Toynbee is decisive here whenhe argues that music-making offers ‘the promise of transformation …the possibility of possibility. It is a resource of hope’.21

We make popular music in hope, in the hope of escaping work, inthe hope of overcoming a lived and palpable alienation and achievingthe agency or the self-determination that Toynbee and Hesmondhalghargue is achieved through popular cultural production. But, again,songwriting is, precisely, production – not just an economic activitybut an industrial one.

Literally thousands of young people, all of the time, aspire to be‘pop stars’ and to be identified, listened to, admired, valued, and re-spected as individuals, for who they are and how they express them-selves; for what they have to ‘say’ and how they ‘say’ it. That ‘ordi-nary life’ seems to deny us these opportunities, this interest, care andempathy, is eloquent in itself, but what really counts, for the purposesof this argument, is that this denial propels those of us who are aspir-ant music makers into the path of a set of people who argue that theycan see the ‘good’ in us, so long as it is expressed in forms that theyrecognize as musical talent. As such we are far beyond Becker’s ‘artworlds’ at this point. To connect with intermediaries is not to extendsome beneficent ‘network’ of which the music-maker remains the cen-tre, it is to hope (and to have confirmed) that you are doing something‘right’ from the perspective of the market and the commodity-process.

As we have seen, Toynbee presents the area of those who aspire(through music) to leave behind the ordinary world as the ‘proto-market’, a place or conceptual space in which the ‘promise of trans-formation’ is sought in and through acts of ‘agency’ – making upand performing songs for an audience. But in my reading of the ex-perience of aspirant pop acts (proto-pop acts), the alchemy of theproto-market can only occur through the addition of the ingredientembodied by the intermediary figure, with the result that transfor-mation can take place (a ‘deal’ might be forthcoming) but this is not

21. Toynbee, Making Popular Music, p. 32.

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the same as the transmutation courted and longed for by the aspirantmusician. Instead, when musicians achieve deals they go to work,ostensibly for themselves and on their own behalf (self-employment)but more accurately for a ‘joint’ end over which they have no finalcontrol (self-employment does not presuppose ‘creative autonomy’).The ‘deal’ they make (that they have dreamt of making) is to make arecord, a record paid for by an investor (a record company) andorganized, by the investor’s direct employees, as a commodity. Morethan this, the aspirant has already been working – in the sense ofinternalizing the ‘rules of the game’, of directing and discipliningtheir labour towards the deal, towards marketability – from themoment they began to aspire to ‘making it’, because this ‘making it’has been represented to them not just as a chance to gain a ‘voice’,not just as a ticket to somewhere else, but as (life-affirming) creativ-ity, itself.

Again, what is this ‘it’ that is so determinedly sought to be ‘made’?In essence it is both place and state, a place of individual affirma-tion, a place to be more than is allowed elsewhere. One of the rea-sons that songwriting is a difficult occupation to access and interro-gate is because the music industry is organized to put us out of touchwith prosaic reality (or to put us differently in touch with the every-day); its products are escapist rather than utilitarian. Whether weread this negatively (Adorno) or positively (most Popular Music Stud-ies theorists) is an entirely separate debate; the point is that musicacts on subjectivity; we dream other selves through it, imagine otherlives, dance either to submerge ourselves into crowds or to tran-scend the moment with those we love, or hope to love. Wherevermusic takes us it is always away from here. Music’s power derivesfrom how intimate we can choose to be with some aspect or ex-ample of it, on how we allow, and sometimes cannot resist, its im-pact on our subjectivity. Makers of musical products make fortunesfrom this recognition and they are at pains to minimize the disrup-tion of this potent and therefore lucrative intimacy, where the resultis that traces of industry tend to be erased from the product-makingprocess; whether in the aftermath of physical production (in promo-tion and marketing campaigns which emphasize the ‘artistry’ of the‘artist’) or, what is more important for these purposes, in the con-struction of the product itself. Consequently, when some music movesus to make music ourselves it does not present us with a map forhow to reach that ‘other place’, because ‘transformation’ is not what


is really on offer.The actual practice of intermediary figures (notably but not solely,

managers and A&R personnel) is, exactly as Hesmondhalgh has it, to‘manage’ the creative process. This project is accomplished, can onlybe accomplished, discursively, and the discourses drawn on, and intowhich musicians are drawn (hardly unwillingly – they themselves arealready fluent in them!) emphasize the mysteries, the ineffability ofthe work at hand. In record-making we deal directly with commodityfetishism as the album appears to take on a life of its own. All of thetalk which surrounded the making of Swimming Against the Stream –whether a producer was necessary and if so who it should be, wherethe recording should take place, what songs should be included, thesequencing of tracks, whether additional musicians would be required– devolved onto ‘the needs of the album’. In this way also, the inter-mediary figures absolved themselves of their controlling and intrusivemanagement, their impacts on ‘creativity’. In this way, popular music‘creativity’ is concealed as the composite activity it is, one driven bythe over-arching need to achieve sales in the marketplace, to whichend creative management, as any management, is directed.

Similarly, where the ‘consumption’ (or active use) of music is con-cerned, listeners buy into the belief that the musical ‘work’ is free-standing, self-explanatory, and self-sufficient. This follows for the rea-son that (as I have argued) a significant dimension of the effectivenessof music is that it appears to come from somewhere other (and better)than the ‘world’ in which we encounter it. Choosing to engage withmusic on these terms entails the collaboration of listeners with pro-ducers in the concealment of pop’s commodity-nature, where the con-tradictory clichés of the ‘common sense’ of pop add value to its capac-ity to excite. No one wants to know the reality, it is too mundane(although still fascinating to be part of) and, crucially, it would breakthe spell that promises the magical transformation that drove themusic’s creation.

Listen to the Words

Songwriters create with the market in mind; perhaps not in the fore-front of their minds but, in seeking popularity and all that they imag-ine comes with it, songwriters (signed or unsigned) seek to create musicthat will sell. This is not an Adornian criticism of the worthlessness of

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pop, but it is a caution against the representation of the work thatsongwriters, symbol creators, do as ‘autonomous’. If I worked on‘Model Son’ in my imagination then this was self-determining, I wasan ‘agent’ thus far, but, while I worked, my imagination worked onme; would this be the song that made our fortunes? How could Imake it the song that would change our fortunes? Similarly, if myagentic, self-determining subjective disposition was to write about myfather, then ‘objective conditions’ insisted that I wrote about him withincertain forms of expression – or this is, at least, how I apprehendedthe circumstances of my creativity. Those circumstances drove asongwriting practice that, in some measure, consisted of a combina-tion of my own understanding of what was required of me to be asymbol creator; a diligent self-organization to serve my need to re-main a symbol creator; together with responses to the perceived im-peratives of the immediate (and constantly changing) environment ofrecord making. I had a will and a need to express myself but my cre-ativity was tailored to fit making a record I hoped, we all hoped,would sell. To satisfy these turbulent demands, I ensured that I demol-ished my father, for public consumption, in three verses, a bridge anda chorus – in just over four minutes. This is a little longer than thestandard pop ‘single’ but well within the boundaries of the pop singer-songwriter genre of which Latin Quarter fought, unsuccessfully, to berecognized as a significant force within.

What type of worker is a songwriter? A songwriter is someone whoworks at bringing words and music together, a text-maker who ma-nipulates common and also very specialized ‘symbols’. But a songwriteris still a worker, someone who engages in effort for reward. Whatdifferentiates this kind of worker from any other, though, is not thatthe reward is deferred, nor even that it might not come at all, it is thatthe ‘reward’ is an intangible one and an improbable one; a song-writer’sreward is not money (though this is welcome), not even fame (or notentirely): a songwriter is someone who believes that, through writing,he or she will be heard and therefore transformed in some way. In thisbelief, they misread ‘creativity’ as being identical with obeying (withsometimes substantial individual inflection and modification) a pur-suit of music that allows them to do what is required to ‘get a deal’ (orkeep a deal) and ‘make it’. But there is no ‘it’ to be made: no ‘nonwork-place’ to arrive at, while ‘selfhood’ is not within the gift of EMI,Sony, and the rest. There is only money and celebrity and that incredibly


rarely. This conclusion is not to argue against aspiring, creating, hav-ing fun, or any of the other associated, positive dimensions of makingpopular music, only to caution that, if we believe that in writing forour supper we write to a refrain of our own, we miss the point en-tirely.

50 Cent, 82

Adorno, Theodor Wiesengrund, 240–41, 246

Agawu, V. Kofi, 3, 8, 125–6Ahle, Johann Georg

Musicalisches Gespräche, 69Aldrich, Henry, 107Allais, Alphonse, 168Allanbrook, Wye Jamison, 53Allen Jr, Ernest, 100Antiphon, 29Apollinaire, Guillaume, 175, 189, 197–8

Calligrammes, 186Ariosto, Ludovico, 105Aristophanes

The Birds, 19Aristotle, 32, 39

The Art of Rhetoric, 30Atkins, Ivor, 113Audran, Edmond, 187Austen, Jane

Northanger Abbey, 225Aznavour, Charles

‘She’, 21

Babbitt, MiltonPhilomel, 198

Bach, J. S., 54, 138St Matthew Passion, 113‘Es ist vollbracht!’, 117, 121

Bailey, Kathryn, 130–2, 138, 144Bakhtin, Mikhail, 8, 15, 17, 21, 75–6,

83, 85, 99, 101, 232

Banks, Iain, 223Bartel, Dietrich, 46, 50

Musica Poetica, 57, 62Bartholomew, William, 113–4, 119Bate, H. N., 119Battistella, Edwin, 19Beach, Sylvia, 185Beattie, James, 13, 20Beatles, The

Sergeant Pepper, 84Becker, Howard Saul, 231, 245Beethoven, Ludwig van, 113

Christus am Oelberge, 119Belleau, Rémy, 120Berberian, Cathy, 199Berg, Alban, 138Berio, Luciano, 193, 217

A-Ronne, 196, 208–11Coro, 196Sequenze, 208; Sequenza III, 210Sinfonia, 192Thema, 197, 199, 201, 211The Cries of London, 196

Berlin, Irving‘That Mysterious Rag’, 188

Berlioz, HectorLa Damnation de Faust, 18

Bernhard, Christoph, 44Tractatus compositionis augmentus,

69Bertin, Pierre, 177Bertrand, Eugène, 168Birtwistle, Harrison, 189

Nenia, 197

Index

Index252

Bizet, GeorgeCarmen, 25

Blès, Numa, 170Bliss, Arthur

Morning Heroes, 11–2Blondie

‘Denis’, 19Bonds, Mark Evan, 52–3, 55Bonnaud, Dominique, 170Bosch, Hieronymus, 214Boulez, Pierre, 217

e.e.cummings ist der dichter, 198Orientations, 212–13

Bourdieu, Pierre, 232–3Bo$$, 80Brahms, Johannes, 119, 185

Liebeslieder Walzer, 120Brandes, Heinz, 47, 53Brecht, Berthold, 14–5

Die Dreigroschenoper, 13, 17Breughel, Pieter, 214Bridges, Robert, 110

Yattendon Hymnal, The, 111, 112‘Ah, Holy Jesu, how hast thou

offended’, 112‘O sacred head sore wounded’, 112

Brinkmann, Reinhold, 128, 131, 141,144, 147

Bronson, Bertrand, 6Brown, Calvin S., 2–4, 6Brown, Marshall, 5Bruant, Aristide

‘La Villette’, 18Bruckner, Anton

Psalm 150, 116Bryars, Gavin, 189Budde, Elmar, 140Buelow, George J., 31, 56–7Bukofzer, Manfred, 53Bunsen, Karl Josias von, 110Burmeister, Joachim, 44, 47, 50, 55, 61,

62, 67–8, 70Musica Poetica, 37, 42, 69

Butler, Gregory G., 44Byrd, William, 105

Cage, John, 188–9Caldara, Antonio

Crucifixus, 72Carissimi, 108Carroll, Lewis

Alice in Wonderland, 179, 186Caves, Richard E., 228Cerha, Friedrich

Der Riese von Steinfeld, 191Chabrier, Emmanuel

Le Roi malgré lui, 169Chalupt, René, 179Cheney, Dick, 82Cheney, Lynne, 82, 86Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 30, 32, 39–40Claretie, Jules, 166Cocteau, Jean, 179–80, 182, 185, 189,

191Le Coq et l’Arlequin, 187

Cohen, Leonard, 223Cohen, Sara, 228, 231Cone, Edward, 10, 13, 20, 94Cornelius, Peter

‘Three kings from Persian lands afar’,119

Costello, Elvis, 21Cousin, Victor, 180cummings, e. e., 197–8Cummings, William Hayman, 113

Dahlhaus, Carl, 139, 141Dail, Douglas, 98Dante, 208

La Vita Nuova, 18Darty, Paulette

Allons-y Chochotte, 170Daumer, Georg Friedrich, 120Davidson, Donald, 17Davies, Miles, 74De Quincey, Thomas

Dream-Fugue, 2Debussy, Claude, 168, 172–3, 177,

184–6, 188Trois Chansons de Charles d’Orléans,

120Delaere, Mark, 131, 133, 138

253Index

Delibes, LéoAvril, 120

Dentith, Simon, 101Dépaquit, Jules, 177Derrida, Jacques, 2–3Descartes, René, 32

Passions de l’âme, 33, 50Desmets, 173Dhomont, Francis, 201Diaghilev, Serge, 179, 181–2Dido, 95–97d’Indy, Vincent, 173Doret, Gustave, 168Dr. Dre, 81–2, 86Dryden, John, 107Dunsby, Jonathan, 137, 141Dylan, Bob, 222–3

Ecorcheville, Jules, 168Edward VI, 104Egri, Peter 4Einstein, Alfred, 3, 6Elgar, Edward, 113

Scenes from the Bavarian Highlands,120

‘Serenade’, 120Eminem, Chapter 3 passim

Lexicon of Love, 84The Eminem Show, 83–4The Marshall Mathers LP, 73, 85,

94–5The Slim Shady LP, 95‘Curtains Up’, 83–4, 87‘Soldier’, 98‘White America’, 83–8, 93

England, Paul, 119Essex, David, 223Euripides, 13

Fargue, Léon-Paul, 181, 185‘Le Statue de bronze’, 188

Fauré, Gabriel, 172, 189Ferrabosco, Alfonso, 106Ferretti, Giovanni, 106Finnegan, Ruth, 231Forkel, Johann Nikolaus, 50

Allgemeine Geschichte, 69

Foucault, Michel, 98

Gardiner, WilliamJudah, 124

Garland, Judy, 220Garnham, Nicholas, 228Gates Jr, Hanry Louis, 76Gauthier-Villars, Henry, 169George, Stefan, 128

Der siebente Ring, 148Georgiades, Thrasyboulos, 3Gerhard, Anselm, 147–8Gerhard, Paul,

‘Nun ruhen alle Wälder’, 112Gerstl, Richard, 148Gilbert, 136Giraud, Albert, 142Glarean, Heinrich, 5Gluck, Christoph Willibald von

Iphigénie en Tauride, 11, 17Goethe, J. W. Von, 20Godt, Irving, 48Golschmann, Vladimir, 171Gore, Al, 82Gore, Tipper, 82, 86Gorgias, 29Gounod, Charles-François, 113, 161,

182Faust, 187Le Médecin malgré lui, 181Mireille, 179

Gowers, Patrick, 164, 166Grey, Thomas S., 7Griffiths, Paul, 214, 216Gurlitt, Willibald, 53

Handel, George Frideric, 124, 193, 195Harris, Sybil, 185Harrison, Jonty, 201Hartleben, Otto Erich, 142Hatch, Orrin G., 82Hatten, Robert, 19Haydn, Joseph, 124Henry, Pierre, 197Hesmondhalgh, David, 229–34, 240–

42, 245, 247Hirsch, Eric, 228

Index254

Hinton Thomas, Richard, 7Hobbs, Christopher, 189Hollander, John, 197–8Holly, Buddy

‘Peggy Sue’, 18Holquist, Michael, 80, 99, 101Homer

Iliad, 11Hudson, Henry, 119Hullah, John, 124Hummel, 113Hyspa, Vincent

Chez le docteur, 170L’Omnibus automobile, 170

Ice Cube, 81Isocrates, 29Ives, Charles

Central Park in the Dark, 192

Jacob, Max, 189Ruffian toujours, truand jamais, 187

Janequin, Clément, 121Joyce, James, 161

Ulysses, 185, 199

Keaton, Buster, 13Kerman, Joseph, 3, 7Kierkegaard, Søren, 22Kipling, Rudyard

‘Mandalay’, 20Kircher, Athanasius, 44, 50, 56

Musurgia Universalis, 69Klingemann, Karl, 114Koch, Heinrich, 49, 50Kra, Suzanne, 189Kramer, Lawrence, 1, 3, 7–8, 20, 129,

144Krims, Adam, 86, 90–1Krummacher, Friedhelm, 6Kurth, Richard, 146Kutter, Mark, 210

Lacan, Jacques, 2Lamartine, Alphonse de, 185

Premières Méditations, 184Lambert, Constant, 167Lang, Andrew, 19

Langer, Susanne, 3, 20Larbaud, Valéry, 185Lassus, Orlandus, 106

‘Matona mia cara’, 121Latin Quarter, 227

Swimming against the Stream, 219,228

‘Model Son’, Chapter 9 passimLatour, Patrice Contamine de, 162,

168–70La Mort de Monsieur Mouche, 171Sylvie, 169

Leibowitz, René, 150Lemoine, Gustave, 187Lenja, Lotte, 17Leslie, Henry, 124Lessem, Alan Philip, 136Ligeti, György, 212

Atmosphères, 201Aventures, 211Nouvelles Aventures, 211Requiem, 197, 213–16

Lippius, Johannes, 35, 44Liszt, Franz, 140‘Little Musgrave’, 13Lodato, Suzanne M., 3, 125–7, 129,

144, 146Lord, Albert, 6Lugné-Poë, Aurélien, 169Lysias, 29

Machado, Antonio, 208Maderna, Bruno, 198Magnard, Albéric, 186Mahler, Gustav

Das Lied von der Erde, 5Maillart, Aimé, 186Mallarmé, Stéphane, 2

Un Coup de dès, 2Marenzio, Luca, 106Marinetti, Filippo, 179Martin, Charles, 173Mary Tudor, 104Marx, Karl, 226Massenet, Jules, 161Massine, Leonid, 179Mathers, Hailey, 81

255Index

Mathers, Kim, 81, 98Mattheson, Johann, 38, 50, 61, 70

Critica Musica, 69Das neu-eröffnete Orchestre, 69Der vollkommene Kapellmeister, 35

Max, Edouard de, 177McCartney, Paul‘Mull of Kintyre’, 21McGonagall, William, 24

‘Baldovan’, 23, 25Mendelssohn, Felix, 113–8

Elijah, 113Lauda Sion, 117–8Lobgesang, 124St Paul, 115‘Festgesang’, 113‘Hear my prayer’, 114

Messiaen, Olivier, 168Metzger, Heinz-Klaus, 146Meunier, Mario, 180Meyer, Leonard, 3Meyer, Mrs Eugène, 187Meyer-Eppler, Werner, 198Miège, Bernard, 228, 241Mohn, Barbara, 118Molière, 181Mompou, Federico, 189Monnier, Adrienne, 185Monteverdi, Claudio, 54Mounsey, Anna Sheppard, 113Mozart, Leopold

Versuch einer gründlichenViolinschule, 31

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 12, 191–2Müller-Blattau, Joseph, 6

Neale, John Mason, 110‘Blessed city, heavenly Salem’, 111‘Good King Wenceslas’, 111

Negus, Keith, 224, 228, 240Newcombe, Anthony, 7Newmarch, Rosa, 120Nono, Luigi

‘Ha Venido’, 207–8Il Canto sospeso, 205–6La Fabbrica illuminata, 197

Norton, Caroline, 22–3

Novello, Sabilla, 113, 119Nucius, Johannes, 44, 56, 68

Musices poeticae, 69

Ohana, Maurice, 189Osmond-Smith, David, 193

Pacory, Henry, 170Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi da, 124

‘Nativitas tua’, 108Parmerud, Åke, 201Péladan, Joséphin, 166–8, 172Penderecki, Krzysztof

Dies Irae, 202–5St Luke Passion, 193, 195

Pendrill, George, 22, 23Piae Cantiones, 111Picabia, Francis, 173Picasso, Pablo, 173, 179

Guernica, 225Pierce, Web, 12Planché, J. R., 19Planquette, Robert, 187Plato, 180–81

Gorgias, 29Phaedrus, 29

Polignac, Princesse Edmond de, 180Potter, Russell A., 80Poulenc, Francis, 198Pound, Ezra, 185Powers, Harold, 5Printz, Wolfgang Casper

Phrynis Mytilanaeus, 69Protagoras, 29Puget, Loïsa

‘Mon Rocher de Saint–Malo’, 187

Quintilianus, Marcus Fabius(Quintilian), 30, 32, 35, 39–40

Radiguet, RaymondLes Joues en feu, 182

Rameau, Jean-Philippe, 168Ratner, Leonard G., 48–53, 55Ravel, Maurice, 173

Trois Chansons, 120Reich, Steve, 189

Index256

Rhetorica ad Herennium, 40Richards, I. A., 230Rietz, Julius, 115Riley, Terry, 189Rilke, Rainer Maria, 189Rimbaud, Arthur, 161Rooney, Micky, 223Rossini, Gioacchino, 182Roussel, Albert, 173Russell, Henry, 22–5

Saint-Pierre, Bernardin de, 182Saint-Point, Valentine de, 177Saint-Saëns, Camille, 187Samson et Dalila, 16Sanguineti, Edoardo, 208Satie, Erik, 13, Chapter 7 passim

Boring Globules, 172, 175Cinq Grimaces, 179Dance Gothiques, 166Embryons desséchés, 169, 187Fête donnée par des Chevaliers

Normandes, 162–4Geneviève de Brabant, 171Gnossiennes, 162, 169Gymnopédies, 162, 169Heures séculaires et instantanées,

175–7Impérial-Oxford, 171Je te veux, 170La Diva de l’Empire, 170Le Fils des étoiles, 166, 169, 172Le Piège de Méduse, 176Le Prince de Byzance, 166–7Légende Californienne, 171Les Pantins dansent, 177Ludions, 181, 188Marienbad, 171Mercure, 187Messe des pauvres, 169Monotonous Day’s Marches, 172Musique d’ameublement, 187Ogives, 162Parade, 178, 186–7Paul & Virginie, 182Prélude de ‘La Porte héroïque du

ciel’, 164

Préludes du Nazaréen, 164–5Quatre Petites Mélodies, 181, 183–4Rambouillet, 171Real Flabby Preludes, 173Relâche, 171, 187Sarabandes, 169, 173Socrate, 180, 188Sonatine bureaucratique, 162Sports et divertissements, 173, 186The Angora Ox, 171–2The Dreamy Fish, 171Trois Mélodies, 178, 188Trois Morceaux en forme de poire,

169, 171Trois poèmes d’amour, 178uspud, 167–9, 188Vexations, 188‘Adieu’, 182‘Air du Rat’, 189‘Chanson du Chat’, 189‘Danseuse’, 182‘d’Holothurie’, 169, 187‘Élégie’, 183–4‘La Balançoire’, 174‘Le Chapelier’, 179‘La Statue de bronze’, 188‘Les Musiciens de Montmartre’, 171

Saussure, Ferdinand de, 3, 76Schaeffer, Pierre, 198Scheibe, Johann Adolf, 44

Compendium, 69Schenker, Heinrich, 1–2Scher, Steven Paul, 2–8Schering, Arnold, 53Schmidt, Johann Eusebius, 117Schmitz, 47Schoenberg, Arnold, Chapter 5 passim

A Survivor from Warsaw, Chapter 6passim

Die glückliche Hand, 148Pierrot Lunaire, Chapter 5 passimViolin Concerto, 127, 152Verklärte Nacht, 140‘Der Dandy’, 146‘Die Kreuze’, 136‘Gebet an Pierrot’, 142‘Mondestrunken’, 142

257Index

‘Nacht’, Chapter 5 passim‘Rote Messe’, 146‘The Relationship to the Text’, 139

Schopenhauer, Arthur, 140Schubert, Franz, 20, 113, 121, 124

Winterreise, 125‘Der Wanderer’, 11‘Der Erlkönig’, 21, 94‘Die Forelle’, 11

Schumann, Robert, 140, 188Shakespeare, William, 168Shakur, Tupac, 81Shapleigh, B., 119Simon, Paul, 222–3Simms, Bryan R., 131Sisman, Elaine, 54Skaith, Steve, 219Skempton, Howard, 189Snoop Dogg, 82Songs of Praise, 111Sovine, Red, 26

‘Little Rosa’, 11–12Spiess, Mainrad

Tractatus, 69Spohr, Louis

Des Heilands letzte Stunden, 119Stanger, Claudia S., 2–4Stein, Gertrude, 185Stein, Jack, 3, 7Sternfeld, Frederick W., 3, 7Stockhausen, Karlheinz, 198, 207, 217

Carré, 213Gesang der Jünglinge, 197, 199–200Kontakte, 201Licht, 213Stimmung, 213

Stratton, John, 224Strauss, Johann

Die Fledermaus, 16Stravinsky, Igor, 185

A Sermon, a Narrative and a Prayer,193–5

Oedipus Rex, 191Sullivan, Arthur, The Light of the

WorldSwayne, Giles

Cry, 195

Taubert, Wilhelm, 114Tavener, John, 213Tearson, Michael, 222Thomas, Ambroise, 171

Mignon, 187Thomas, Keith, 10, 26Thomson, Virgil, 189Thuringus, Joachim

Opusculum bipartitum, 69Tippett, Michael, 75Tomlinson, Gary, 74–5Toynbee, Jason, 232–4, 239–40, 242,

244–5Trémois, Pierre, 185Troutbeck, John, 113, 119

Unger, Hans-Heinrich, 47, 53, 71

Vanilla Ice, 81Verlaine, Paul, 175Vickers, Brian, 44, 53, 55, 57Vogel, Lucien, 186Vogt, Mauritius Johann, 56

Conclave thesauri magnae artismusicae, 69

Volta, Ornella, 177

Walsh, Stephen, 194–5Walther, Johann Gottfried, 44, 50

Musicalisches Lexicon, 69Praecepta, 69

Watkins, Glenn, 138Watson, Thomas, 107

Italian Madrigals Englished, 106Weber, Carl Maria von, 113Webern, Anton, 131, 140

Five Movements for String Quartet,138

Weill, Kurt, 14, 15Mahagonny, 17

Weir, JudithKing Harald’s Saga, 197

Wendel, Madame de, 181Wert, Giaches de, 106Wheeler, Elizabeth A., 76Williams, Peter, 53–5Winkworth, Catherine, 110–1

‘Christ the Lord is risen again’, 111Wishart, James

Òran Hiortach, 193Wishart, Trevor, 201Wolff, Werner, 4

Yonge, Nicholas, 106–7Musica Transalpina, 105

Youens, Susan, 138, 143, 148–9

Zelenka, J. D.Missa Paschalis, 57–67, 70–2

Zollo, Paul, 222–6, 234

Index258

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