Repertoire & Analysis Class blog

The ambiguity of “beginning” and “ending,” as Kerman, Rosen, and Taruskin point out, is the most fascinating and mysterious aspect of the first two songs of Schumann’s Dichterliebe. Repeating harmonic cycles, suspended or unconsummated resolutions, and the peculiar interactions between voice and piano accompaniment collaborate in resisting tonal clarity in these two songs. The deliberate irresolution of the final C-sharp dominant sonority of the first one also blurs their boundary, and the beginning of the second song only resolves this chord ambivalently. Unlike Kerman who occupies himself in confronting Schenkerian analysis with various “alternatives,” Rosen concentrates on the vintage point of ambiguous beginning and ending during these two songs. He looks into contemporary literary theory and constructs a perspective upon historical aesthetics, contrary to Taruskin’s focus on “we.” Rosen discussed the suspended struggle between complete form and incomplete content in German “fragments” around the time, and observes a similar element in the Schumann songs. From this “fragment” perspective, tonal ambiguities and hesitations, which are manifest through harmonic syntax and the drama between voice and piano accompaniment, deprive these songs of a “satisfactory beginning or end” in spite of their formal integrity. Rosen thus interprets them as gestures of “unsatisfied desire, of longing eternally renewed.” A focused starting point, a systematic development of observations and arguments, and a respect for historical context and sources ensure the validity of Rosen’s “fragment” interpretation.

 A quick answer (sorry it's late; thesis work has preoccupied me):

           In the modern era, it has become something of a fashion for writers in every subject to try and adopt a more “scientific” approach to their work. The reasons for this, of course, are myriad. Science, in the popular consciousness, has taken on some of the aspects that religion used to have – it is recognized as a Good Thing by everyone in the world; it is an cloak which one can hide behind. A “scientific” study is one beyond reproach, unless someone goes to the effort of written a similarly “scientific” rebuttal. A “nonscientific” study, by contrast, is not only easily critiqued by anyone; it can simply be ignored as “less valid” than any objective measure of a work. Treating our work as science also validates us: it makes us feel as though we will somehow improve society, no matter how esoteric or obscure our work is really is. In order to achieve the hallowed status of "scientific," we shed all our value judgments, and therefore achieve "objectivity."

Present-day analysis tends to focus on the "synthetic element and the functional significance of the musical detail".  This is a more scientific vein of study than criticism; a more narrow definition that is, in Kerman's belief, an "eminently professional process".  Criticism is what people "outside" of music engage in--this is the stuff of aesthetics and value judgements.  Recent analysis, however, claims to be an objective process with distinct methodologies, thus leaving little to no room for value judgements.  Kerman continues by calling this idea into question, however, by stating that any action of analysis must include some value judgement on the part of the analyzer, even one as seemingly small as deeming a specific work a "masterpiece".

10   Summarize Kerman’s analytical/critical method.

Kerman manages to avoid proposing one single "analytical/critical" method.  Instead, he claims to have offered many "alternatives ... to Schenkerian and post-Schenkerian analysis." (330)  What precisely these are is left quite nebulous, and indeed, in his conclusion, Kerman relies on the words of others to an extraordinary degree.  Nevertheless, from his insistent critique of his colleagues, there are certain discernbile features that Kerman clearly hopes to add to current analysis practice.  He demonstrates the limitations of tonal reductions and argues that many key musical moments can occur seemingly insignificantly in the larger context the structure of a piece.  Kerman also calls for the use of personae, dividing in one case the piano player from the singer and analyzing the interaction of their voices.  Similarly, he pays close attention to the interaction between the written word and the musical word in order to extract meaning from German lieder.  Overall, Kerman seeks a more muscular criticism - one still founded on elements of formal analysis, but one that also considers composers, their contexts, and a rehtinking of the German canon as a whole.  Further sumary is difficult, however, due to the author's scattered approach to many disparate threads of thought.  He is, moreover, often distracted by the writings of others and spends considerably more time tearing down rather than building up.  Kerman's style reflects this uncertainty with sometimes unwieldy language that on such a weighty topic as this, only further confuses.   

Analysis, argues Kerman, stems from the viewpoint, which came into being at the beginning of the 19^th century, that a perfect piece of music is one whose constituent elements are all individually perfect and combine in perfect proportion.  This “organicist” ideal was embodied, according to these early proto-theorists, by the works of great German (and especially Viennese) composers of the 18^th and 19^th centuries, such as J.S. Bach, W.A. Mozart, Beethoven, and others.  Nineteenth-century thinkers applied this ideal to these composers to further justify the musical canonization (no pun intended) of these composers’ works, but it was not until the entire idea of tonality, “the seeming linchpin of the entire [organicist] system” was called into question in the early 20^th century that “the ideology receive[d] its full articulation” (Kerman, p.316).  This led theorists into a full-scale questioning of how music functioned and what aspect of a piece defined its true content.  Sir Donald Tovey, for example, offered the answer that “form in art is equivalent to content” (Kerman, p.316), whereas Schenker eventually founded his analytic system on a “systematic reduction to the level of a single triad, the tonic triad” (Kerman, p.317).

In his article “How We Got into Analysis, and How to Get out”, Kerman states that analysis can indeed inform and help performance. After his discussion of the analysis of Schumann’s “Aus meinen Tränen”, he suggests that careful analysis can help resolve the “performance problem” and lead to a more whole performance of “Aus meinen Tränen”.

I find that I can give a much more compelling performance of a piece once I understand the inner workings. For example, my gut reaction to song may be that a certain part of it is frightening or horrifying, I can convey that by simply “feeling” horrified while singing or I can analyze the music to find what exactly makes that section feel so horrifying. Once I have discovered the bridge between objective structural fact and my own subjective reaction to the music and have identified what I believe to be the “horrifying factor”, I can emphasize that detail while singing the piece and, thus, communicate effectively.

Now, there is a chance that I can and will do this subconsciously. After all, “gut reaction” is a reaction. However, as a performer, I strive to give an active performance. Gut reactions are passive, but conscious decisions are active. I can give a much more active performance of a work when I understand the inner workings of the piece.

(Though I've posted this second, I wrote it sometime earlier.)

At its simplest, analysis is the process by which we discover what a piece of music does and how it does it. Music has no set function but has the capacity to evoke many complex emotions; it is analysis that identifies these feelings and explains what it is, compositionally, that cultivates such a response. It is often the case that the too-precise emotions evoked by music are beyond the scope of simple English, and a synthesis of both technical and poetic terms is necessary to “explain” a piece. (Since the experience that accompanies listening to music is something exclusively human, it cannot be explained in purely scientific terms. While a good look at the congeneric aspect of music has the capacity to be clear-cut and defined, it is often the murky extrageneric implications that are most impacting.)

A first-order approximation of a piece’s evocative content can be made by an analysis of its tropes. Despite being “just sound”, it is often agreed that music can sound triumphant, frightening, peaceful or even spiritual. This is sometimes accomplished by employing recurring musical ideas, such as a fanfare to convey strength, or a diminished chord to cause unrest. Even the popular conception of “major mode, happy, minor mode, sad” has a huge impact on our perception of music even though these associations are almost entirely subjectively decided. In synthesizing the countless tropes in music, well-defined or otherwise, a composer can create an emotionally unique listening experience.

Beyond the tropes though, it quickly becomes very hard to concretely analyze music. It becomes more difficult still to uncover the composer’s intention— often completely impossible— as he attempts to musically illustrate more complex themes. Still, analysis renders music digestible, as it often makes explicit compositional intricacies that may have gone unnoticed without a close listen, and those intricacies can then be searched for meaning. It is also possibly the most important studying tool for composers, so as to see how exactly compositions of the past operate. 

            Music is among the oldest of arts in the world, and yet somehow it remains one of the most arcane. A bizarre barrier seems to stand between a piece of music and our best efforts at analysis – no matter how hard we try or the methods we use, something is always lost in the transition from notes to words. The magic we feel listening to a Beethoven sonata – an almost pure expression of mood, character, and ideas simultaneously – is never replicated by an analysis of that sonata.

In some respect, this is probably unavoidable. A masterful composer is an artist of the highest degree. Analysts, with sincere apologies to all the analysts who are reading this, are not. We cannot expect every scholar to be a poet. Admittedly, this isn’t a problem confined to music: in visual arts we can discuss balance or symmetry, but (to steal a somewhat clichéd example) we would be hard pressed to define exactly what is so compelling about the Mona Lisa’s smile. But it is a problem that is more pronounced in music than in the other arts. If I might go out on a limb, a part of all great art exists on a subconscious, meta-cerebral plane, a plane that humans have never been able to put into words satisfactorily.

            So, all that being said, what is the point of analysis? If we can’t hope to capture that subconscious level of understanding, we can still try to capture it on a less ephemeral level. Perhaps we do not understand why music moves us so, but we can try to understand how.

            Here we get into the realm where musical theory can help us. We can understand how a passage falls apart – for example, an E natural in Schubert’s Op. 94 no. 6 we studied, introduced early in a piece in A flat major, is barely resolved several phrases later, and never quite firmly resolved in the entire piece. Conversely, we can understand how musical tension is built up. Devices like ostinati, over the course of a piece – say, the underlying chords played by the strings in Holst’s Mars (from The Planets Suite) – leave the listener in anticipation of some kind of resolution or “solution.” We can expand or contract analysis as we see fit – we can thoroughly deconstruct a single phrase or even a single measure, or we can do a broad, sweeping analysis, like the apposition of B major and C major in Strauss’ Also Spracht Zarathustra. But no matter what, we’re always looking to explain how music accomplishes that leap from sound-waves to magic – whether in exploring the tool-box the composer draws from, or exploring the nuance that a performer adds which gives a chord that special ring.

As an example of a changing musical climate, Kerman discusses the diminishing presence of German instrumental music in the 20^th century. A lot of the famous analysts that Kerman introduces worked during a comparatively consistent time in music history; that is, the repertoire available to them only spanned from Bach through to the end of the 19^th century. Musical style had not yet begun to “fray”; it would soon split into the countless styles of the 20^th century, such as jazz, modernism, serialism, (holy) minimalism, etc. As musicians cultivated more diverse styles, it must have become more difficult to propose a unifying method of analysis. This problem worsened with the rise of recording technology, inviting styles of popular music (rock, blues, and more problematically, rap) onto the analytic stage. Technological advancements have also seen to a “smaller world”, allowing for the exchange of musical styles between cultures. As Debussy was famously influenced by Javanese gamelan music at the Paris Exposition of 1889, styles from other cultures have become more and more accessible in the West, consequently influencing 20^th century composers. For these reasons, music consumption in the 20^th century was unlike anything previous, owing mostly to the introduction of these countless styles.

Kerman uses the word "analysis" in two different ways—one to discuss how it is defined by musicians, and one to discuss how he himself views it (or what he wishes it was).  When he first mentions the word in relation to its use by musicians, he even puts quotes around it as if to emphasize his distance from their definition.  To Kerman, most musicians use the word analysis as the name of a purely objective or mechanical practice in which they pick apart the technical details of a piece of music without extrapolating any meaning from it or drawing any connections (besides those of the details themselves to each other).  However, to Kerman, analysis must move beyond these methods, also taking into consideration the implications or impact of the musical devices it finds and sorts out.  The former definition of analysis is very close to the one I hold true; using terms about which we've already spoken in this class, I would put Kerman's "analysis" under the heading of "interpretation."

But beyond a new view on analysis, Kerman also advocates for a different take on criticism.  To him, what we all think of as criticism is too vague and not immersive enough to be either useful or educational.  He prefers that criticism go deep into the piece being discussed, fleshing out and positing upon all of its aspects, getting at its meaning as fully as possible.  His version of analysis would provide an invaluable tool for criticism, as in addition to specific features and elements of the music itself, an analysis would also serve as a baseline, having put forward already what concepts are suggested by the piece's musical devices; these concepts would presumably be delved into further in a formal criticism.

Cone's version of hermeneutics lies, I believe, somewhere between the two definitions of analysis.  He claims that complete structural analysis is necessary to discovering a piece's true content, thus implying that such content can in fact (to some extent, at least) be derived from complete analysis.  

The word “analysis” comes from the ancient Greek word lyein, meaning, “to unfasten”. In a very literal sense, an analysis of something is a taking-apart of that thing. In analyzing something, one breaks a complex thing into its simpler parts. Analysis is an integral part of many different disciplines (e.g. philosophy, mathematics, literature, music, etc.), and bears a slightly different shade of meaning in each discipline. However, in all cases, analysis involves breaking down a complex subject to better understand it.

Analysis of music involves taking apart a musical work and examining it from the inside. Very often, this process begins with examining the harmonic structure of the work.  Other sorts of structures and details can be worked out of the piece and similarly examined. This step involves the discovery of objective structural facts.

But while we may note these objective details, their significance is not per se, but is rather found in the connection of these details to the listener’s subjective experience of the work. For example, noting that a certain piece moves to the Neapolitan in a certain measure is relatively meaningless. However, noting that the move to the Neapolitan causes a feeling of disorientation is very meaningful. Thus, the second step of analysis is the connection between the objective musical facts and the subjective response of the listener.

Whether or not music has content (see: Philosophy of Music), it certainly manages to make the listener feel certain emotions. Sometimes, analysts may attempt to draw bridges between the subjective reaction of the listener and some intended “objective” content of the work (such as a specific story line) or the objective facts of the composer’s life and circumstances.

The term “analysis” refers to any attempt to characterize the thoughts, feelings, and moods evoked by a piece of music, and to explain them in terms of specific techniques used in the composition and the performance of the piece.  In general, then, analysis begins with the listener’s reaction to the piece.  This need not be a first impression, but to produce a satisfactory analysis it should be a purely emotional response, without reference as yet to the intent of the composer and/or performer, or to specific techniques they might have used to bring about this reaction.

The next step of analysis, explaining how and why the piece (or a specific performance thereof) produced this reaction, entails two somewhat distinct tasks.  One is to identify specific musical characteristics of the piece.  This might include identifying the chords used in a piece, the meter of a piece, or the various rhythms of a piece.  The second task is to provide a compelling argument as to how these musical characteristics work together to bring about the listener’s emotional reaction.  In some cases, the association between a certain musical device and a certain mood (especially in the context of a certain musical era) is strong enough that it needs little justification; for example, few would question an argument that an 18^th-century piece feels stately and martial because of its duple meter and dotted rhythms.  However, it requires much more explanation to argue, for example, that a certain deceptive cadence heightens the sense of devastation in a certain piece.  What is there about a certain pair of chords, in a certain order, that implies devastation?  One might argue that the V chord’s failure to resolve to the tonic as we would want and expect – and its resolution instead to a chord closely related to the tonic but very different in quality – creates a heightened sense of tension, and of unfulfilled promise, in the ears of its listeners, and that this is what causes the aforementioned sense of devastation.  The primary problem of analysis, then, is how to erect this bridge between gut reaction and musical device in a way that explains emotional reaction in terms of musical device without destroying its emotional significance in the process.

Question #1 (I promise not to only answer the first question for the rest of the semester.):

When Kerman describes the term music “criticism” he regards the practice as one might regard food criticism: critics who are published often, give value judgments, and write for an un-academic audience from a place of unpreparedness. While this definition is harsh, I can’t fault Kerman for distancing himself from such a term. “Criticism” primarily denotes disapproval. An audience member (or album listener) could hardly have the time and depth of experience to report on the true quality of a piece of music. Whereas literary critics are expected to have access to the hard copy of the text, musical critics are left to listen without a score. These reporters can either be extraordinary at aural perception or, realistically, left with a very shallow report on the piece discussed.

Because of this journalistic redefining of the term “criticism,” Kerman has settled on “analysis” to describe the academic study and interpretation of music. Kerman defines analysis as an attention to musical detail in conversation with the work as a whole. He goes on to discuss a shared focus on the aesthetic and the academic, the impossibility of truly objective analysis. Even the choice of what to analyze within a piece is a statement of personal preference, a scholar’s unique interest. The best analysis is not clinical, but nuanced. 

Kerman’s “criticism” shares similar stigma of Cone’s “hermeneutics.” They both present—and I do not intend to sound anti-populist—a failure of music analysis in an attempt to package music for mass comprehension. Cone’s extrageneric meaning too easily shifts into the uneasy world of tangential attachments. Narratives are imposed. Emotional responses are assumed. Composer biographies are featured prominently. And, as Cone notes, hermeneutics without appropriate musical detail was quickly reviled by the academic community. Kerman’s critics, in this same way, avoid the specificity of analytic work for a journalistic story. Expressive and performative element factor too prominently in their work and, without a solid foundation of true critical thought, musical critics fall far below the standards of contemporary music analysts.

To analyze a written excerpt in an English class, you break down rhetoric to particular arrangements of words, sounds, and grammatical decisions in an attempt to understand and recreate their original impact. The emotional value of language can be sewn back together, metaphor reattached to meter and rhyme, in an attempt to understand its initial power. Music analysis makes this attempt with even less tangible elements. Chords and rhythms are called upon to explain a guttural response to a particular musical moment. Melodies can be happily internalized, but, until we analyze a piece of music, it still eludes our comprehension.

Music analysis grants a modicum of clarity to an otherwise freeform attachment to particular pieces. Perhaps your goose bumps were a product of the sudden shift to the parallel minor. Maybe the lilting melody made the chromatic shifts unexpectedly smooth. Somehow, successful music analysis can discern the factors that make a piece live and breathe without simply butchering the work, clinically removing the expressive content. Analysis begins with the big picture, focuses in on the mechanical details, then labors to attach those smaller details to their larger impact.  All in all, it is an attempt to understand our visceral reactions to music in concrete, rational terms.

Musical analysis is a tricky subject because it is often used as the means to an end.  One can look at the objective, physical structure of the music and determine voice-leading movements, chord progressions, and rhythmic patterns to make scientific sense of a work, but these elements all contribute to the end product of a piece of music--how the music affects its audience.  Looking into the structure can show a clearer meaning for significant instances that may catch the ear, such as a noticable dissonance or a rhythmic pattern, as structure provides context for the moment.  Music, like English, is a language which requires thoughts to be articulated in their full context, and analysis, like close reading, helps identify the context beyond what one may derive from a first listen.  

The trick in this regard is that Music is inherently vague, and thus the interpretation of context can vary wildly between listeners.  As objective as musical analysis could be, the interpretation of the anaylsis couldn't be more subjective.  While there are places and moments in music that can seem to relatively obviously denote a specific event in a composer's life (Beethoven's deafness represented by the storm in Symphony no. 6, Pastorale, for example), there is nothing definitive that we can rely on, not even composer's notes (because they lie), to affirm that belief.  We can only state objectively the change in rhythm, tempo, and mode that occurs into that movement--everything else is extrageneric, and since every listener has different experiences, extrageneric interpretations are bound to be different among different listeners.  Thus, I believe that it is important to make the distinction between these objective and subjective arms

It should also be understood, however, that analysis as a strictly objective endeavor can also be useful and helpful, especially with regards to performance.  I know that this class will focus on classical performance mostly, but I see a jazz relationship that I believe is worth exploring.  Since most jazz music exists only on lead sheets, it is the job of the performer to execute a sound theoretical analysis of how the chordal relationships exist between one another in order to form good voice-leading and accurate solos.  This practice, one of identifying ii-V-I's, TT-substitutions, etc., is strictly objective.  But there are two sides to this coin, even in jazz--the final performance is completely dependant on how the performer interprets the raw material on the lead sheet, and that is based on both internal and external factors that are subjetive.  Ergo, you could have a very popular song, such as "Blue Skies", played as a Latin chart, a swing chart, or in any other variety, depending on how the musicians interpret the song themselves.