Interpreting Musical Gestures, Topics, and Tropes

Robert S. Hatten

Description

Definitive study of Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert by an award-winning author.

"Robert Hatten's new book is a worthy successor to his Musical Meaning in Beethoven, which established him as a front-rank scholar . . . in questions of musical meaning. . . . [B]oth how he approaches musical works and what he says about them are timely and to the point. Musical scholars in both musicology and theory will find much of value here, and will find their notions of musical meaning challenged and expanded." —Patrick McCreless

This book continues to develop the semiotic theory of musical meaning presented in Robert S. Hatten's first book, Musical Meaning in Beethoven (IUP, 1994). In addition to expanding theories of markedness, topics, and tropes, Hatten offers a fresh contribution to the understanding of musical gestures, as grounded in biological, psychological, cultural, and music-stylistic competencies. By focusing on gestures, topics, tropes, and their interaction in the music of Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, Hatten demonstrates the power and elegance of synthetic structures and emergent meanings within a changing Viennese Classical style.

Musical Meaning and Interpretation—Robert S. Hatten, editor

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. Markedness, Topics, and Tropes
1. Semiotic Grounding in Markedness and Style: Interpreting a Style Type in the Opening of Beethoven's Ghost Trio, Op. 70, no. 1
2. Expressive Doubling, Topics, Tropes, and Shifts in Level of Discourse: Interpreting the Third Movement of Beethoven's String Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 130
3. From Topic to Premise and Mode: The Pastoral in Schubert's Piano Sonata in G Major, D. 894
4. The Troping of Topics, Genres, and Forms: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler
Part II. Musical Gesture
Introduction to Part II
5. Foundational Principles of Human Gesture
6. Toward a Theory of Musical Gesture
7. Stylistic Types and Strategic Functions of Gestures
8. Thematic Gesture in Schubert: The Piano Sonatas in A Major, D. 959, and A Minor, D. 784
9. Thematic Gesture in Beethoven: Sonata for Piano and Cello in C Major, Op. 102, no. 1
10. Gestural Troping and Agency
Conclusion to Part II
Part III. Continuity and Discontinuity
Introduction to Part III
11. From Gestural Continuity to Continuity as Premise
12. Discontinuity and Beyond
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index of Names and Works
Index of Concepts

Sujets

• Musique
• Technique musicale
• Technique musicale
• Literary Criticism
• MUSIC
• Multiple signal classification
• Literary theory
• Theory
• Semiotics
• Musicology

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 04 septembre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9780253030276
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Interpreting Musical Gestures, Topics, and Tropes
M USICAL M EANING AND I NTERPRETATION
Robert S. Hatten, editor
ROBERT S. HATTEN
Interpreting Musical Gestures, Topics, and Tropes
Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Bloomington and Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
First paperback edition 2017
2004 by Robert S. Hatten
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
The Library of Congress has cataloged the original edition as follows:
Hatten, Robert S.
Interpreting musical gestures, topics, and tropes : Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert / Robert S. Hatten.
p. cm. - (Musical meaning and interpretation)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-253-34459-X (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Music-Semiotics. 2. Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 1756-1791-Criticism and interpretation. 3. Beethoven,
Ludwig van, 1770-1827-Criticism and interpretation. 4. Schubert, Franz, 1797-1828-Criticism and interpretation.
I. Title. II. Series.
ML3845.H35 2004
781 .1-dc22
2004008468
ISBN 978-0-253-03007-8 (pbk)
ISBN 978-0-253-03027-6 (ebook)
1 2 3 4 5 22 21 20 19 18 17
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART ONE: MARKEDNESS, TOPICS, AND TROPES
1. Semiotic Grounding in Markedness and Style: Interpreting a Style Type in the Opening of Beethoven s Ghost Trio, Op. 70, no. 1
2. Expressive Doubling, Topics, Tropes, and Shifts in Level of Discourse: Interpreting the Third Movement of Beethoven s String Quartet in B Major, Op. 130
3. From Topic to Premise and Mode: The Pastoral in Schubert s Piano Sonata in G Major, D. 894
4. The Troping of Topics, Genres, and Forms: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler
PART TWO: MUSICAL GESTURE
Introduction to Part Two
5. Foundational Principles of Human Gesture
6. Toward a Theory of Musical Gesture
7. Stylistic Types and Strategic Functions of Gestures
8. Thematic Gesture in Schubert: The Piano Sonatas in A Major, D. 959, and A Minor, D. 784
9. Thematic Gesture in Beethoven: The Sonata for Piano and Cello in C Major, Op. 102, no. 1
10. Gestural Troping and Agency
Conclusion to Part Two
PART THREE: CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY
Introduction to Part Three
11. From Gestural Continuity to Continuity as Premise
12. Discontinuity and Beyond
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index of Names and Works
Index of Concepts
Acknowledgments
I must begin by thanking Gayle Sherwood, music editor at Indiana University Press, for her help in launching the series Musical Meaning and Interpretation. Her wisdom and encouragement have been instrumental in shaping the series. I am also grateful for her constant support during work on my own manuscript.
For the inspiration to write about musical gesture I am indebted to two dear friends, Alexandra Pierce and David Lidov, whose pedagogical and theoretical work on gesture has been pathbreaking and personally revelatory. Besides their contributions as music theorists, Alexandra and David are also composers and pianists, and their compositions and performances reveal deep insight into the expressive and structural significance of musical gesture. Leonard Ratner s introduction to Classical topics and Wendy Allanbrook s analysis of the rhythmic gestures of those topics in Mozart were early and profound influences. More recently, my friend Raymond Monelle has brought greater historical and cultural awareness to the conceptualization and interpretation of topics. I regret not having more opportunity to exchange ideas on gesture and subjectivity with the late Naomi Cumming, a friend who graced this world too briefly. She left a body of work filled with her durable spirit and philosophical discernment. For the countless others whose work I found relevant to this study, I must defer acknowledgment to the notes. Gesture is everyone s concern, and in sketching a prolegomenon to a theory of gesture, I must also acknowledge that it was not possible to credit every inflection this common word has acquired from music scholars and performers past and present.
I am deeply grateful for close readings of the complete manuscript by both Patrick McCreless (chair of the Yale University Department of Music) and William Kinderman (chair of the Division of Musicology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). Tamara Balter, my doctoral student at Indiana University, read the complete manuscript and offered valuable insights. Al Frantz, concert pianist and former student of mine at Penn State University, read and suggested improvements to Chapter 7 . I am grateful to the faculty and students at the many universities and international conferences where I have presented portions of the book. Their reactions and comments have kept my mind and ears open.
Progress on the book was facilitated by two sabbaticals, one at Penn State University (fall 1995-spring 1996) and the other at Indiana University (fall 2002), and faculty research grants at both institutions. In addition, a generous publication subvention from the Society for Music Theory supported the setting of musical examples. I am deeply appreciative of these many forms of support.
Ken Froelich, doctoral student in composition at Indiana University, set the majority of the musical examples, and beautifully so. It was a pleasure to work with him.
I would like to dedicate this book to the memory of Erkalene McCormack Ousley, inspiring piano teacher and dearest of family friends for over thirty years. She taught me throughout my high school years to love classical music in all its forms, and her positive influence transformed my life.
Earlier versions of portions of this book have appeared in the following journals and collections, to which I am most grateful:
Part of the Introduction and part of Chapter 9 : The Expressiveness of Structure and the Structuring of Expression: Gesture, Style, and Form in Later Beethoven, in Beethoven: Studien und Interpretationen , ed. Mieczyslaw Tomaszewski and Magdalena Chrenkoff (Krak w: Akademia Muzyczna, 2000), 43-51 (invited paper, international symposium, Beethoven: Structure and Expression, Akademia Muzyczna, Krak w, 1998).
Chapter 1 : The Opening Theme of Beethoven s Ghost Trio: A Discourse in Semiotic Method, Applied Semiotics/S miotique appliqu e 4 (1997), 191-200. URL: http://www.chass.utoronto.ca:8080/french/as-sa/ASSA-No4/index.htm . (invited paper, special issue on The Semiotics of Music: From Stylistics to Semantics, guest-edited by Eero Tarasti).
Chapter 2 : Plenitude as Fulfillment: The Third Movement of Beethoven s Quartet in B , Op. 130, to appear in The String Quartets of Beethoven , ed. William Kinderman (Urbana: University of Illinois Press) (invited paper, international symposium on the Beethoven String Quartets, University of Victoria, Canada, 2000).
Chapter 3 : Schubert s Pastoral: The Piano Sonata in G Major, D894, in Schubert the Progressive: History, Performance Practice Analysis , ed. Brian Newbould (Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2003), 151-68 (invited paper, Leeds International Schubert Conference, 2000).
Chapter 4 : The Troping of Topics in the Symphony, in Beethoven 2: Studien und Interpretationen , ed. M. Tomaszewski and M. Chrenkoff (Krak w: Akademia Muzyczna, 2003), 87-110 (invited paper, international symposium, Von Beethoven zu Mahler: Im Kreis der Grossen Sinfonik, Krak w, 2000).
Part of Chapter 8 : Schubert the Progressive: The Role of Resonance and Gesture in the Piano Sonata in A, D. 959, Int gral 7 (1993), 38-81. Reprinted in French in Cahiers F. Schubert 9 (October 1996), 9-48.
Part of Chapter 8 : Thematic Gesture, Topics, and Tropes: Grounding Expressive Interpretation in Schubert, in Musical Semiotics Revisited , ed. Eero Tarasti (Imatra and Helsinki: International Semiotics Institute, 2003) ( Acta Semiotica Fennica XV; Approaches to Musical Semiotics 4), 80-91.
Parts of Chapters 6 , 8 , and 10 : Musical Gesture, eight lectures, Cybersemiotic Institute (ed. Paul Bouissac, University of Toronto), 1997-99. URL: http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/epc/srb/cyber/hatout.html .
First half of Chapter 10 : Gestural Troping in Music and Its Consequences for Semiotic Theory, in Musical Signification: Between Rhetoric and Pragmatics (Proceedings of the Fifth International Congress on Musical Signification, Bologna, 1996), ed. Gino Stefani, Luca Marconi, and Eero Tarasti (Bologna: Clueb, 1998), 193-99.
First half of Chapter 12 : Interpreting the First Movement of Beethoven s Op. 132: The Limits of Modernist and Postmodernist Analogies, in Beethoven 2: Studien und Interpretationen , ed. M. Tomaszewski and M. Chrenkoff (Krak w: Akademia Muzyczna, 2003), 145-60 (invited paper, international symposium, Beethoven und die Musik des 20. Jahrhunderts: Zeit der Apokalypse und Hoffnung, Krak w, 2001).
Second half of Chapter 12 : Beyond Topics: Interpreting the Last Movement of Beethoven s Op. 132, in Muzyka w kontek cie kultury (Festschrift honoring Prof. Mieczys aw Tomaszewski), ed. Ma gorzata Janicka-S ysz, Teresa Malecka, and Krzysztof Szwajgier (Krak w: Akademia Muzyczna, 2001), 361-68. Also to appear in Proceedings of the 7th International Congress on Musical Signification , Imatra, Finland, June 2001.
Interpreting Musical