stephen miles

7/17/2019 Stephen Miles

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/stephen-miles 1/16

College Music Symposium, Volume 39

The Limits of Metaphorical Interpretation

Stephen Miles

University of South Florida

"The culture wars" have raged furiously in the academy throughout the past decade, demanding ourengagement at every scene of institutional power, from scholarly journals and curriculumcommittees to admissions offices and boards of trustees. After years of struggle, it comes as nosurprise that many of us are suffering from battle fatigue: weary of politics and touched by nostalgia,we long for the time when we can return to the tasks of making music—purely, simply, andundisturbed. Yet, just when it seems that "the culture wars" have waned (and can be dismissed as a

journalistic invention), they wax again with a vengeance, as if triggered by the explosion of some

long-forgotten land mine.1

Why have "the culture wars" persisted for so long, and why should musicians in the academycontinue to care about the outcome? The struggles persist, I believe, for two reasons. First andforemost, the underlying social and economic problems that have fueled the conflicts have not beenresolved. Inequities in society will always be manifested in the narrower domain of academe, and thedays are long gone when the academy could function essentially as a private club. In short,musicians in higher education have no choice but to grapple with issues of race, gender, and class,especially with regard to the policies that determine institutional access, all the way fromundergraduate admission to entry into the professorate.

Second, "the culture wars" continue because they touch on moral and philosophical issues of

enduring concern to all members of the academy.2 As musicians who teach in colleges anduniversities, whether as scholars, composers, or performers, we all have a stake in the debate overcultural values and music's role in shaping and expressing those values. All musicians, especiallythose who teach, deal with questions of meaning and value every day, though we are rarely calledupon to articulate our views in explicit detail. Few would deny that music possesses deep culturalsignificance, that it even can bear philosophical meaning, yet many recoil at the idea that aBeethoven symphony is irreducibly political. These issues are of great importance, as they go to theheart of music's claim to be more than sophisticated entertainment. The language that is used todelineate music's social meanings is thus of interest to all thoughtful musicians, and it is in the lightof these larger concerns that the ideological disputes in current music theory and musicology should

be examined.

Reading the continuing debates between contextualists3 and their formalist counterparts on theanalysis of absolute music, it often seems that the two camps are debating utterly different issues.Susan McClary, Lawrence Kramer, and other contextualists accuse formalists both within music

theory and historical musicology of stifling a politically-informed criticism of music,4 only to find

themselves accused of methodological sloppiness.5 At the very least, the resulting discourseobscures the necessity of both approaches for music scholarship that seeks to account for music andits social significance. More troubling, however, is that the formalist and contextualist arguments aremutually reinforcing, with scholars from both camps using each other's positions to justifyintellectual rigidity and ideological purity.

Formalists hold that absolute music is radically nonverbal and transcends the limits of discursivelanguage; it therefore can only be analyzed in technical terms. Leaving aside contextualist criticismsfor the moment, it should be pointed out that there are at least two advantages to the formalistapproach. First, formalists protect musical meaning from being reduced to something non-musical.

sur 16The College Music Society - College Music Symposium

18/10/2010http://www.music.org/cgi-bin/symp_show.pl?h=36&f=28&id=2



By emphasizing music's syntactical sufficiency, formalists insist that we understand the musicalwork as aesthetically autonomous: the temptation to substitute a verbal meaning for something that isnonverbal is thus firmly resisted. Second, by maintaining a steadfast focus on music's structuralrelationships, and by restricting the analytical vocabulary to technical terms as much as possible,formalist analyses offer great specificity of explication. Though this sometimes results in analysesthat are so complex as to be comprehensible to only the most advanced students, this should in noway be taken as evidence that formalism is methodologically misguided.

The disadvantage of this extremely narrow approach to analysis is not its complexity, but rather thatit allows virtually no room for cultural critique. Indeed, the problem of music's relationship tosociety is simply ignored, left to other, less "technically precise" disciplines such as music historyand sociology. It is precisely this categorical refusal of formalists to engage music in its socialcontext that makes them vulnerable to the charge of being socially repressive: if the social meaningsof music cannot be explored, then its ideological functions remain unacknowledged andunchallenged.

Contextualists, on the other hand, begin with the assertion that music possesses extra-musicalsignificance and that this significance can be articulated. Drawing on a wide range of criticalstrategies—semiotics, deconstruction, narratology—these scholars explore the ideologicalimplications of such narrative structures as functional tonality, sonata design, and the concertoformat. Susan McClary's work has drawn attention to the symbolic residue of vocal music in theinstrumental repertoire, reminding us that the musical presentation of texts, especially in opera,inevitably affects our understanding of textless music. Other contextualists, such as LawrenceKramer and Carolyn Abbate, have demonstrated that instrumental music achieves its significancethrough reference to cultural tropes of all kinds, and that the difference between absolute music andmore overtly referential art forms is one of degree, not of kind. Finally, contextualists seek to negatethe objectivist bias of traditional analysis, restoring the cognizing listener to something like an equalfooting with the musical work.

But therein lies the difficulty. Does this emphasis on the listener's role lead to a subjective projectionof meaning? Does musical analysis become simply the occasion for political discourse? Whatmethodological safeguards prevent contexualists from substituting a vague, if ambitious, socialinterpretation for a precise, if limited, formal one? At the heart of these questions is the issue of

metaphor: "understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another."6 Formalists, suchas Charles Rosen, castigate contextualists for their analytical reliance upon metaphor, yet fail to

acknowledge the metaphorical dimension of their own work.7 Contextualists, such as Leo Treitler,defend the use of metaphor, but avoid the hard questions concerning its precise function in music

analysis.8 While neither formalists nor contextualists have bothered to interrogate the predicativestatus of metaphors, much attention has been paid in the past decade to the role of metaphor in music

analysis by music theorists such as Marion A. Guck, Robert Snarrenberg, and Janna Saslaw. Thesescholars have succeeded in exposing many of the fallacies of formalism, yet the weaknesses of thecontextulist position have received far less attention. In this essay I will argue that by refining ourunderstanding of metaphor and its place in music analysis, we need not feel compelled to make anartificial choice between formalism and more socially inclusive methods. I will begin by assessingthe formalist position in the light of scholarship by Guck, Snarrenberg, Saslaw, and others, and I willaddress previously undiscussed problems on the part of contextualists with regard to their use ofmetaphor. Finally, I will offer a group of protocols that prescribe the limits of metaphoricalinterpretation in music analysis.

Formalist suspicion of metaphor

Formalist analysis is inseparable from the rise of absolute music, and is predicated upon absolutemusic's aesthetic and social autonomy. This affirmation of the autonomy principle is reinforced by





the formalist concentration on the analysis of individual works, a practice that implies that it is possible to understand the classic works of composers from Bach through Boulez strictly throughreference to the score. It is important to bear in mind, however, that while music theorists havealways been concerned with logic of form and clarity of presentation, these functions were rarely

isolated from the study of composition until the nineteenth century.9 Tinctoris and Zarlino codifiedthe contrapuntal practice of their predecessors and more conservative contemporaries, and

formulated the fruits of their analyses as compositional prescriptions. Albrechtsberger, Beethoven'steacher, taught analysis as a means to understanding the practice of composers, not as theexplanation of music's meaning. Even Rameau's treatise on harmony, though vast, was concernedonly with the logic of harmonic function, not with the comprehensive explication of a composition'sself-referential meaning. Other aspects of the composer's art—the use of compositional rhetoric, the

presentation of text, etc.—were likewise taught with a view toward practical implementation bycomposers. It was only with the rise of a repertoire regarded as fully transcendent from language that

the technical explanation of such music became an end in itself.10

Of course, the music now commonly regarded as "absolute" was not understood in quite this way atfirst. The combination of formal sufficiency and expressive richness found in the late symphonies of

Mozart and the instrumental music of Beethoven was at first explained in an almost mystical fashion.Jean Paul, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Wilhelm Wackenroder, and other early romantics made bold claims forthis repertoire—that it was capable of conveying a truth beyond language, and that it had become acipher of the divine. Significantly, these early interpreters of absolute music were not professionalmusicians, but literary figures, and their foremost concern was with music's expressive powers. Eventhe more technically sophisticated Hoffmann nonetheless blended thematic analysis with emotionallyevocative prose. These early writers on absolute music clearly felt the need to attribute extra-musicalsignificance to this emerging repertoire. It was only much later, with the Wagner-Hanslickcontroversy, that the idea of a music that was radically autonomous and completely self-referentialfully emerged.

Opposing the view of the Wagnerians, who held that music was inextricably tied to emotion, if not tolanguage, Eduard Hanslick stressed that music created its own meaning which was irreduciblymusical. In his classic text, On the Beautiful in Music, Hanslick asserted that we may experiencecertain emotions when listening to music, but these emotions are not to be confused with musicalmeaning; that is a matter of musical logic:

To the question: What is to be expressed with all this material? the answer will be:Musical Ideas. Now, a musical idea reproduced in its entirety is not only an object ofintrinsic beauty but also an end in itself, and not a means for representing feelings and

thoughts.11

Music thus became a unique form of pure play: unquestionably significant, yet of uncertainsignification.

It is in this context of polemics over the aesthetic status of music that the work of Heinrich Schenkershould be understood. Schenker may be regarded as the first theorist to have provided acomprehensive account of musical meaning as completely self-referential. As Pieter van den Toorn

points out in Music, Politics, and the Academy, Schenker was not opposed to the metaphysicians ofabsolute music; rather, he wished to establish a more rigorous method for the investigation of therepertoire's formal achievements. Though his work has been faulted on many grounds—from itsmetaphysical foundations to its positivist methodology—it has provided the prototype of today'sformalist music theory. Schenker's explanation of musical events as the unfolding of a single elegant

structure is widely taught by American theorists in our leading universities, and has paradigmaticsignificance even for those scholars who reject his assumptions regarding the cultural and historicalsupremacy of functional tonality. Schenker's primary point—that advanced music functions purelyaccording to its own formal principles—is accepted as axiomatic by all formalists. From this





viewpoint, the most important feature of absolute music—indeed, its grandest achievement—is itsradical aesthetic autonomy.

Music's aesthetic autonomy is inseparable from the larger process of cultural rationalization in thenineteenth and twentieth centuries, and thus carries profound social and philosophical implications.As the formal possibilities of twelve-tone equal temperament and the sonata principle became moreapparent, composers became increasingly concerned with the exhaustion of music's formal latencythrough the elaboration of its own materials. In a manner that is consistent with Weber's theory ofrationalization, musical form became a function of internal consistency, not external reference and"expression." Just as music had become less tied to the external demands of patrons of the churchand court, so did music become less bound by affective conventions: expression thus came to beunderstood as a musical by-product, not the cause and motivation of musical form itself. However, ifabsolute music is entirely self-referential, has its mimetic function been essentially lost? Thoughcontextualists such as McClary argue with some justification that the Affektionslehre remained a vital

component of musical production and reception throughout the nineteenth century,12 these mimetictropes eventually became peripheral to absolute music. The achievement of this repertoire is itsstructural complexity and formal sufficiency: it does not require verbal concepts to becomprehensible.

Absolute music's self-referentiality and radical autonomy would seem to make it socially useless, yetAdorno has argued that the objective character of all autonomous art is paradoxically the source ofits social value, for it provides epistemic resistance to the devouring activity of the subject: "If anysocial function can be ascribed to art at all, it is the function to have no function. By being differentfrom the ungodly reality, art negatively embodies an order of things in which empirical being would

have its rightful place."13 Again, recalling the historical context in which absolute music firstappeared, this was the period of the emancipation of the bourgeois subject. The bourgeoisie hadattained an unprecedented freedom of movement, both socially and economically, yet this hadironically compromised the objective conditions of freedom: only by remaining blind to the social

consequences of freedom and its foundation in class conditions could the ideology of freedom bemaintained. This irony was reflected in the initial reception of absolute music: the music was praisedfor its expressiveness (its subjective power), while its defining aesthetic feature was its structuralautonomy (its objective character). The objective structures of absolute music were never meant to

become the projection screen for the subjective fantasies of its listeners; rather than existing for thesubject in ideological affirmation, absolute music confronts the subject with social truth throughabsolute faithfulness to its own rational procedures.

Given this emphasis on absolute music's radical self-referentiality, it follows that the analysis ofabsolute music should focus just as radically on the object. Hence, formalist analyses attempt toexplicate musical meaning only through reference to a given composition's use of materials.Knowledge of formal conventions is assumed, but the interest is not in the homology of music andform; rather, what is emphasized is the individuality of each composition, the way each establishesits own universe of meaning. Other vital factors—how music is understood, how much informationis processed by the listener, how this affects the aesthetic experience as a whole—are disregarded inthe interest of accounting for the structural sufficiency of the whole. Though formalists rarely denythat music provokes emotion, they simply do not see the explication of that emotion as a properconcern of analysis. Just as the composition is aesthetically autonomous, the analysis must preserveand protect that autonomy from the threat of mimesis or extra-musical concerns. Following a lengthyand illuminating application of pitch-class analysis to the second movement of Beethoven's NinthSymphony, van den Toorn writes:

And there can be no better way of representing this music, it seems to me, of drawingthe listener into the web of its detail. For it is precisely by "noticing" that detail, thedetail of an individualization, that the experience is given greater depth. Indeed, forthose mindful of the context, the objective likely to surpass all others is that of





experiencing more of that context. And the greater the depth, the more intense the

experience; the greater the potential for intimacy.14

According to van den Toorn, if one accepts the radically self-referential character of absolute music,one will restrict musical understanding to a single context—the autonomous work of music—andrefrain from expanding the analytical frame to include seemingly non-musical concerns. (It should

come as no surprise that van den Toorn defines the musical experience as one of intimacy, aradically private and unmediated form of communication between composer and listener.)

The objective of formalist analysis—understanding the functioning of a musical composition as acompletely self-referential system—results in a severe suspicion of metaphor, for metaphoricallanguage opens the gate to unlimited references beyond the confines of the music's structure. Thoughmetaphors appear in virtually all formalist analyses, they are enlisted rather apologetically and arenever the focus of the analysis. They usually occur as vehicles for technical understanding,enlivening otherwise arid prose with a rhetorical flourish.

The avoidance of metaphor helps to explain why the language of formalists has become increasingly

obtuse and jargon-laden: if metaphors are disallowed, one has no choice but to describe the object inever-greater technical detail. Preferably, this approach to analysis yields quantifiable results, andthere is no reason why this should disturb a thorough-going formalist: if analysis aspires to the samelogical rigor as its object of enquiry, it need not possess obvious humanistic appeal. The point is notto explain the music's relationship to the subject, but rather to probe the musical object itself—inantiseptic isolation. The less analysis relies on prose, on language, the more it will rely on number,the very source of music's formal self-sufficiency.

There are at least three contradictions that follow from the ambitions and assumptions of formalistanalysis, each stemming from the inadequacy of propositional language to account fully for musicalmeaning. First, every form of analysis constitutes a simplification of the phenomenon. Though thismay seem to be a trivial observation, it merits detailed examination because the charge ofsimplification is the one most frequently leveled against contextualists and all others who challengethe formalist methodology. In "Music à la Mode," Charles Rosen criticizes McClary and others for

drawing frequently on metaphor, charging that "all metaphors simplify."15 Indeed, they do.Metaphors focus on specific features of disparate domains, calling them into relief with utterdisregard for any totalizing objective. Yet, knowledge of any kind depends upon simplification andcognitive selectivity, for particulars only take on significance through reference to concepts. Themoment of selectivity in the construction of knowledge is part of a larger dialectic, consisting of theaccumulation of information, the assimilation of that information through concepts, followed by thecritique of those concepts, which in turn allows for the further accumulation of information. This isas true for formalists as it is for contextualists: in an effort to fully explicate music's technicalfunctioning, formalists disregard all "irrelevant" factors, such as music's emotional, social, and

political significance. As was stated earlier, this is not a bad way to start. The problem, however, isthat formalist methodology does not allow for a moment in which the analytical frame can beexpanded: the relevance of the "irrelevant" is rarely acknowledged, much less integrated through asubsequent analytical step. The categories of formalist analysis—ranging from the simplest elementsof rhythm and pitch to the most complex concepts of large-scale form—help control the excess ofsignificance in the musical phenomenon. Though the repertoire of absolute music unquestionablyrequires such conceptualization, formalist methodology highlights those aspects of music that can bequantified and generally ignores those aspects (such as timbre) that cannot.

Hence, the knowledge offered by formalists is necessarily limited by their methodologicalassumptions. Metaphors may simplify, but so inescapably do formalist analyses. The issue is notwhether or not to simplify, but how to acknowledge simplification as but one step in analysis.Simplification and focus lead to insight, but to insight that must be challenged by an expanded frameof reference. Formalists should begin their analyses knowing that detailed analysis of music's self-





referential form must be brought into play with music's social functions.

There is a second contradiction in the formalist objection to metaphor: to speak of music at all is tospeak metaphorically since music and language constitute separate domains. We all have a tendencyto think of sound in terms of language, and formalist language is designed to conceal thediscrepancies that inevitably arise. Even at its most rigorous and precise, the language of formalismis metaphorical, betraying our common reliance on image schemata, which Mark Johnson defines asthe "abstract patterns in our experience and understanding that are not propositional in any of the

standard senses of that term, and yet. . . are central to meaning and the inferences we make." 16

Indeed, the work of Johnson and George Lakoff has made it abundantly clear how thoroughly

metaphorical our thought processes actually are.17

Though we may cast our thought in propositional form, most of our thinking requires the applicationof spatial referents to nonspatial domains. The paucity of aural vocabulary should come as nosurprise, nor should the fact that we tend to rely on visual metaphors when describing sound. Sound(especially recorded sound) is sensorially isolated: we cannot see, touch, taste, or smell a sound. As aresult, we tend to use metaphors borrowed from these other senses to account for aural stimuli. To

describe a pitch as "high" may seem obvious enough, but it is only true metaphorically: a pitch ishigher on a staff or higher in the vocal tessitura, but strictly speaking, the pitch is faster , since its perceived "highness" is a function of its vibrational frequency. Our notational system is metaphoricalthrough and through, combining descriptive and prescriptive functions so successfully that mosttrained musicians think habitually in terms of notational imagery.

If the underlying metaphorical character of the formalist vocabulary is now evident, this in turn points up another way in which formalism is far from objective. Lakoff and Johnson havedemonstrated that the metaphors we commonly use are thoroughly intertwined with cultural values.For example, words like "up" and "down" take on positive and negative connotations because of our

bodily experience. To be "up" is to be operative, to be superior, to be correct, positive; to be down is

generally the reverse. This can be traced to the simple fact that healthy, functioning human beingsare able to stand and walk, and are hence upright. Given the pervasiveness of these metaphors, andthe unconscious manner in which they are learned and used, it should come as no surprise that weare rarely aware of their cultural connotations.

The spatial metaphors discussed to this point are used primarily to describe facts and the simplestkind of relationship between facts (e.g., "This pitch is higher than that pitch."). Yet, as Lakoff andJohnson have demonstrated, even these common metaphors are inscribed with cultural value. Whatare we to say then about metaphors of analysis which are deliberately fashioned to describe thecomplex relationships between musical facts? Janet Levy has explored this question in detail,

examining the valuative implications of organicist and naturalist metaphors.18 With regard to the

former, she argues that the penchant of some theorists (especially Schenkerians) to prize organicunity in music is revealed by the use of such metaphors as "germ," "prefigured," and "concealed

seams."19 Theorists who subscribe to organic unity (or "monogenesis," to use Goethe's term),assume that music should utilize such relationships and hence invoke organicist metaphors to

persuade the reader that such relationships exist. Metaphors such as these are so pervasive and so

insidious that many students adopt them unconsciously.20 The fact that they are sometimes quite aptfor describing aural similarities does not negate the fact that they bear specific values, values that

come with their own genealogy of cultural and social practice.21

In Chapter Three of Music, Politics, and the Academy ("Schenker and His Critics"), van den Toornargues that Schenker's metaphors are less problematical than those of Leo Treitler and other

contextualists:

Terms such as prolongation, neighbor note, reaching-over (übergreifen), and initial





ascent are openly descriptive of tonal phenomena and were obviously intended todescribe such phenomena by means of a physical imagery that was related to Schenker'stwo central metaphors, those of motion ("directed motion") and organic growth. There islittle reason why such a vocabulary should prove inhospitable to anyone with a need for

expressive analytical discourse, for an overt metaphorical presence.22

The problem, however, is that not everyone "with a need for expressive analytical discourse" desires"directed motion" or "organic growth," as both of these metaphors are laden with contested culturalvalue and meaning. Must we all assume that the tonal repertoire is fundamentally based on the ideaof directed motion to preordained hierarchical goals? Though van den Toorn is accurate in pointingout the spatial references of other Schenkerian terms, it is unclear why Treitler's "poetical" terms areless analytically acceptable than Schenker's "technical" terms, since both are ultimately

metaphorical.23

Beyond these contradictions of formalist analysis (the inadequacy of formalist categories to thecomplexity of music and the metaphorical nature of formalist language), there is a third problem to

be considered: the objectivist character of formalist analysis promotes the ideology of autonomous

art by denying all aspects of music that cannot be empirically proven.24 Though it is comforting to believe that music can be studied in a pure, isolated state, music is thoroughly enmeshed in theworld. When the analysis of music starts and finishes with the isolated musical work, it promotes thefiction that the knowledge yielded through such analysis is complete. This is the message that has

been given to numerous generations of musicians by scholars at our leading institutions of higherlearning. Despite the fact that such scholars teach the history of music, they do not teach, in thewords of composer Herbert Brün, "the history that music made": they do not teach music as a socialand political phenomenon, a phenomenon that only achieves its ultimate significance—indeed its

ultimate aesthetic significance—in the context of social and political life, not just cultural life.25

As Jürgen Habermas has taught us, there is no such thing as objective knowledge, knowledge free

from human interests.26 The very questions that we bring to the object of inquiry reveal our biases,our interests, and that much more the path that we wish to follow in the pursuit of answers to thosequestions. The problem, of course, is that formalist analyses are predicated on objectivity, thusmaking it even more difficult for scholars to acknowledge their interests, let alone interrogate them.Though formalist accounts of the musical object are indispensable, they conceal as much as theyreveal. This is not to say that every interpretation is a misinterpretation—that there are no criteria fortruth—but rather that formalist interpretation fails to acknowledge the fact that it is incomplete, or, ifit does so, it is only incomplete from the standpoint of formalist principles. This situation would begreatly helped by the simple recognition of these limitations on the part of formalists, something thatthese scholars have been heretofore been reluctant to do.

When whole domains of intellectual enquiry are disallowed, an ideology is being served. Ideologiesfunction less on the basis of what is openly said than on the basis of which questions are permitted.Formalists essentially subscribe to Wittgenstein's dictum, "What we cannot speak about we must

pass over in silence,"27 yet they should remember that Wittgenstein himself rejected this prescriptionin favor of a much more complex approach to language and reality. The first step toward a theory ofanalysis that is adequate to the complexity of music as an aesthetically autonomous, yet sociallycontingent phenomenon, is the acknowledgment of formalism's necessity and inadequacy. Thoughcontextualists will dispute the aesthetic autonomy of absolute music, formalists are on solid groundwhen demonstrating the internal consistency of pure instrumental music. Such demonstration

prevents absolute music from becoming the screen for programmatic projection. Only when absolutemusic's aesthetic autonomy has been affirmed can the next interpretive move be taken: the

exploration of absolute music's social contingency.





Contextualist reliance upon metaphor

Because contextualist analysis is patently opposed to objectivism, contextualists give much greateremphasis to the subjective aspect of analysis, the point of reception. Contextualists thus reverse theemphasis in the dialectics of interpretation, starting first with the socially constructed listener. Thequestion McClary and other contextualists ask is not "How does this music make sense?", but rather,"How does the listener make sense of this music?" By calling attention to the listener's cognitive

process, contextualists are able to open the door to the social world—the world of symbols, sociallyconstructed meaning: the world of metaphor.

Contextualists gladly enlist metaphor so as to escape the limits of propositional language. Ametaphor, whether simple or outrageous, is uttered as a literal falsehood, but one that points to animportant analogy with another realm. To cite Paul Ricoeur, "Metaphorical meaning does not merelyconsist of a semantic clash but of the new predicative meaning which emerges from the collapse ofthe literal meaning, that is, from the collapse of the meaning which obtains if we rely only on the

common or lexical values of our words."28 In a manner that is consistent with the contextualist useof metaphor, Ricoeur suggests that metaphors transform our understanding, achieving a new kind of

meaning through the "collapse of meaning." But what kind of meaning is achieved through a literalfalsehood? Can such meaning be offered in the form of a truth claim? It would seem that manycontextualists have not considered the implications of these questions. In their eagerness tosystematically develop metaphors that convey music's analogical relationship to the world,contextualists always risk being seduced by the very power of their own metaphors. This can take atleast two different forms: theoretical seduction and methodological seduction. The former resultsfrom using metaphors to make truth claims, the latter from simply forgetting that a metaphor has

been invoked in the first place.

In a recent essay, "Constructions of Subjectivity in Schubert's Music," McClary writes the followingabout the second movement of the "Unfinished" Symphony:

Movements such as the second movement of the "Unfinished"—as well as sections ofmany other compositions—celebrate such differences as utopian: in these, the field isestablished by pleasurable free play, and the forces that threaten to disrupt aresuccessfully defused. But there was another side to Schubert: a side that produced victimnarratives, in which a sinister affective realm sets the stage for the vulnerable lyricalsubject, which is doomed to be squashed. This is true, for example, of the first

movement of the "Unfinished" Symphony.29

While McClary does not explicitly state that the meaning of Schubert's music corresponds to herreading of it, and thus make an overt truth-claim, her metaphors carry that implication: after all, the

movements don't "celebrate," McClary "celebrates" a particular interpretation. What is particularly bothersome in this case is that McClary focuses squarely on the issue of reception early in the essay,

describing how her students decided that Schubert was gay all on their own.30 Had she followed thatline of thought more strictly, her reading would carry greater force. As it is, she so loads hermetaphors that the interpretation is weakened—weakened not because the music cannot justify theinterpretation, but because its status as a subjective reading is subtly abandoned through a dubious

predication.

The second problem, that of methodological seduction, most often occurs when a metaphor has beenelaborated fully into an allegory. Consider McClary's remarks on the second movement of Mozart'sPiano Concerto in G Major, K.453:

For it does seem that the piano was an unlikely participant in the celebration of its ownsubmission. The happy ending, the requisite closure, was attained at too high a cost: thelobotomy at the moment of recapitulation. To be sure, the valued quality of inevitability





is present here—but in the literal sense of "unavoidable:" regardless of how hard thesoloist protested and tried to escape this conventionally predetermined fate, its struggleswere futile. This is hardly the sense of "inevitable" we think we are celebrating when wevalorize eighteenth-century music, but perhaps this iron fist is always hiding within the

velvet glove.31

At this crucial point in her analysis, McClary seems to hope that we have been so persuaded by herfundamental metaphor (the concerto as dialogue) that we will accept all of its extensions. The problem, however, is that her assertions are made in reference to her metaphorical construction. Hasshe forgotten that she is using a metaphor? The metaphor has become so developed that it has,indeed, started to take over.

In defense of McClary, she should not be faulted for offering strong readings of any music, whether by Schubert, Mozart, or other composers. So long as she does not make truth-claims on the basis ofher metaphors, her work can be argued against, but not falsified. Of course, that is what truly bothersthe formalists such as van den Toorn and Rosen, that metaphorical interpretations are persuasivewithout being true. McClary's ultimate truth-claim is about music as a social phenomenon ("A piece

of music therefore can be perceived as a dialectic between order and noise, a strategic model of howviolence or deviance may be tolerated and channeled within a given social framework."32), and sheuses her reading of a particular piece of music to support that truth-claim.

Van den Toorn and other formalists ultimately are arguing against this fundamental premise ofcontextualist criticism. As we have already seen, however, the problem is that metaphors are somuch a part of our mental processes that formalists cannot protect music and culture from theirinfluence. When contextualists are wrong on the music, their work is unconvincing and they should

be criticized. However, when metaphorical interpretation is thoroughly grounded in the details of thescore, contextualists cannot be faulted for simply invoking metaphor as a rhetorical tool. It is not theuse of metaphors in general but the implications of particular metaphors that formalists find

undesirable.

The predicative status of metaphor will probably always be a matter of dispute between those whowish to assert that metaphors express what conventional language cannot and those who deny such

power of expression. Lakoff and Johnson, for example, view metaphor as "imaginative rationality":

Metaphor is one of our most important tools for trying to comprehend partially whatcannot be comprehended totally: our feelings, aesthetic experiences, moral practices,and spiritual awareness. These endeavors of the imagination are not devoid of

rationality; since they use metaphor, they employ an imaginative rationality.33

According to this view, the value of metaphor is measured by what it suggests rather than by what itfails to precisely denote. Certainly when one considers the excessive character of absolute music— its syntactical clarity and semantic vacuity, its nestedness in cultural convention and its ability to

break free of those conventions—metaphor would seem to be an indispensable analytical tool. In aseminal essay on the role of metaphor in analysis, Marion A. Guck writes, "Metaphor-basedanalyses, in encompassing the complexities of relations in pieces, capture something of the

processive effect of many patterns interacting. They can provide the means to approximate faithfully

the complexities of our peceptual manipulation of pieces."34

And yet, what do metaphors actually reveal? According to Donald Davidson, we must never forgetthat metaphors are literally false: metaphors do not magically say what the literal meanings of words

cannot say. "What matters is not actual falsehood but that the sentence be taken to be false." 35 Thisis the maddening mystery of metaphors: the meaning is vivid and seems to be clear, but in actualityis not. Both the creation and deciphering of metaphors require imagination; there are no rules that





govern their function. They powerfully suggest relationships between disparate domains, but they inno way prove them. Indeed, what they supposedly prove would be impossible to express: that is whya metaphor is used in the first place.

Does this mean that metaphors are pure fancy? Not even Davidson makes this claim: "Generally it isonly when a sentence is taken to be false that we accept it as a metaphor and start to hunt out the

hidden implication."36

Note the words, "hidden implication." From this it is clear that Davidson doesnot intend to dismiss metaphorical significance, but rather, false predication. According to Davidson,metaphors mean exactly what their words say: they create a literal falsehood that suggests a meaningthat cannot be paraphrased. Metaphors require that the reader consider relationships betweendisparate domains that cannot be made using propositional language. The reader must "hunt out" the

possible significance of a patent falsehood. This idea is similar to Wayne C. Booth's comment:"Metaphors are seductive because they require the reader to participate in an imaginative process, a

kind of dance."37 If an analyst uses a metaphor, he or she should always be aware that the price ofmetaphorical assertion is that the significance of the metaphor cannot be proven. This is not to saythat a metaphor cannot be persuasive, however, and more will be said shortly about that matter.

Given the ambiguous predicative status of metaphor, it is easy to understand why an analyst whocasually invokes metaphor might forget that he or she has actually done so. After all, if one isopposed to an objectivist epistemology (as contextualists are by definition), and the objectivistcriticism of metaphorical interpretation is based on the inability of metaphors to bear truth claims,one might just push blithely on, insisting that metaphors do in fact, reveal hidden truth. But the"truth" that is supposedly "hidden" is a product of the imagination—albeit a useful, insightful

product of the imagination. Metaphors are not to be evaluated on the basis of their truthfulness, onlyon the basis of the persuasiveness. Contextualists may view this assertion as a denial of metaphorical

power, yet I hope to show later in this paper that this is not the case.

Another problem confronts contextualists: Does it matter that the causality of analogical

relationships (conveyed through metaphors) cannot be proven? According to Lakoff and Johnson,metaphors have the power "to create a reality rather than simply to give us a way of conceptualizing

a preexisting reality."38 Since this description could apply to lies as well as metaphors, it is importantto draw a number of distinctions.

Metaphors may not "create a reality" in the objectivist sense, but they create connections in the mindof the reader. The structural relationships between social dynamics and musical structure are notthere in the music, somehow waiting to be discovered ; this is the false logic of objectivism whichaffirms facts above the relationships we construct between them. Contextualists draw connectionswhere none "existed" before, citing analogies between disparate realms and arguing for the fullconsideration of the implications. At their best, contextualists such as McClary, Subotnik, and

Kramer argue so persuasively that the reader accepts the analogy as a permanent component ofmusical understanding. The point is not to demonstrate causality (a relationship that is alwaysdifficult to prove, even by the standards of objectivists), but rather to persuade the reader that arelationship is significant. Though this may seem like a modest accomplishment, it is not. One of the

primary accomplishments of socially-informed criticism—from Adorno to McClary—is theestablishment of new analytical categories. Once one has learned to think in terms of analogicalrelationships between musical and social structures, it is virtually impossible to think about musicwithout recourse to these categories. Contextualists have made it easier to interrogate the socialsignificance of absolute music, and that is an invaluable contribution.

The real problem is when the issue of causality is not faced squarely. Contextualists all too

frequently leave doubts as to their claims, implying a causal relationship where one isundemonstrable. If contextualists are willing to accept that causality is not the issue—that the issue isone of persuasion and argument—then no such claims need be made. This even supports the politicalobjectives of some contextualists, insofar as it places the interpretive emphasis on contemporary,





rather than historical, reception. One of our advantages over historical audiences is that we can seeoutside the frame of the original habitus, we can draw connections between music and society that nohistorical audience could have imagined. So, falsifying contextualist claims on the basis that no suchunderstanding existed at the time is to (in time-honored fashion) use the status quo as an argumentagainst consciousness. Contextualists need not argue on the basis of causality to alter the modes ofmusical perception.

There is a final point of contradiction in contextualist analysis. If contextualists simplify, it is usuallyon not one but two levels: the musical and the social. Just as formalists call attention to certainfeatures of music at the expense of others, so do contextualists through the use of metaphor. Thegreat challenge of the metaphorical interpretation of absolute music is to enhance our understandingof this repertoire's social embeddedness without diminishing our understanding of its formalintegrity. A concerto may indeed be structurally analogous to a social dialogue, but it is much moreas well. To reduce a complex phenomenon to such an equation is to substitute one meaning foranother, a move that denies music its legitimate aesthetic autonomy. Analogies may be drawn

between music and society, but such analogies are necessarily incomplete. Only through immanentcritique can the subjective and objective moments of analysis be held in tension and not allowed tocollapse into false identity.

The limits of metaphorical interpretation

Having examined the strengths and weaknesses of formalists and contextual analysis with regard tothe use of metaphor, we are now in a position to consider three guidelines for metaphoricalinterpretation:

1. Since absolute music is not denotative, any attempt to attribute extra-musical significance toabsolute music will require the use of metaphor.

2. Since metaphor entails the mapping of analogous features from one domain to another, and the

aesthetic autonomy of absolute music results from its formal sufficiency, the metaphoricalinterpretation of absolute music should be grounded in music's formal structures.

3. The elaboration of metaphor in critical discourse has only one function: to demonstrate theaptness of the metaphor.

1. Since absolute music is not denotative, any attempt to attribute extra-musical significance toabsolute music will require the use of metaphor.

Formalists should acknowledge the metaphorical dimension of their analyses. If it is true thatmetaphors seduce, and that they often seduce the metaphor maker, then the seductiveness of

metaphor is most powerful when it is least acknowledged. As was argued earlier, the formalist prejudice against metaphor is based, in part, on the belief that the technical language of music is freefrom metaphor, a belief that is false. The value of formalist analysis lies not in its nonmetaphoricalcharacter, but rather in the precision and specificity that is offered through its methods.

Formalists should further recognize that this technical precision does not remove music or analysisfrom the world: by attempting to account for musical meaning (through the use of language,obviously), the cognitive assumptions of our culture are imposed through the subtlest kind ofmetaphors. Yet the knowledge offered through formalist analysis is not diminished in value becauseit is contingent, since this is a condition of knowledge generally and does not detract from thecontribution of rigorous formal analysis. Formalists should therefore acknowledge the

epistemological contingency of their work, knowing that—despite these limits—strong formalistanalysis is indispensable for understanding the internal functioning of musical elements.Furthermore, formalist analysis implicitly affirms the aesthetic autonomy of absolute music, and





rightfully asserts that knowledge of this repertoire must attempt to account for its claim to formalsufficiency (even if this claim is ultimately revealed as false). This is true despite the fact that noanalysis is ever definitive, since our understanding of music changes as the tools of analysis change:this fact alone demonstrates the contingency of musical knowledge. What should be abandoned isnot strong formalist analysis, but the claims of such analysis to be objective: formalist analysis isobjective because it focuses primarily on the object of study, not because it offers purity of

perception or understanding.

2. Since metaphor entails the mapping of analogous features from one domain onto another, and theaesthetic autonomy of absolute music results from its formal sufficiency, the metaphoricalinterpretation of absolute music should be grounded in music's formal structures.

Contextualists should acknowledge that their analyses are fruitful only if they take formal rigoranother step forward. Without the precision of formalist analysis, contextualists run the risk ofsimply offering programmatic substitutes for musical meaning. By first demonstrating absolutemusic's aesthetic autonomy, contextualists can retain the social value of this autonomy beforeexpanding the analytical frame to demonstrate absolute music's social contingency. A fullunderstanding of these twin aspects of absolute music—aesthetic autonomy and socialcontingency—guards against the subjective and objective fallacies in musical analysis.

Theorists and musicologists are not presented with a choice between formalism and contextualism;only when these methods of analysis are followed simplistically are they truly antithetical. Ifcontextualists first attend rigorously to the details of musical meaning before interrogating music'ssocial implications, they are not projecting politics onto music; rather, they are elaborating thesignificance of music in a variety of social and political contexts. Likewise, if formalistsacknowledge that music exists only in social contexts and that formalist analysis is necessarilyincomplete, their project need not be understood as an implicit denial of music's social meaning.

If the twin fallacies of subjectivism and objectivism are to be avoided, metaphors must beunderstood as entailing an epistemic split-reference. We understand metaphors by maintaining twoincompatible domains in our minds, not by collapsing them into a third meaning. Every metaphor isa kind of fiction, but a fiction that enlists our imagination to see connections between domains thatcannot be articulated through propositional language. As the Ricoeur points out, the Majorca

storytellers begin their tales with "it was and it was not."39 Every metaphor functions in preciselythis way—suggesting, pointing, but never disclosing a truth that could otherwise be expressed

propositionally.

3. The elaboration of metaphor in critical discourse has only one function: to demonstrate theaptness of the metaphor.

This is not the same thing as explaining the meaning of the metaphor. As was just asserted,metaphorical understanding requires a split-reference. Also, to explain the metaphor is to kill it, asDonald Davidson has noted. Metaphorical elaboration must always acknowledge its imaginativeaspect and never suggest that a fiction has been magically transformed into propositional truth.

Though it may seem obvious and unremarkable, it is worth remembering that the metaphor is thedistinct contribution of the analyst; it is not in the music. Since no connections naturally exist

between music and the world, the analyst invokes a metaphor to draw a connection between thedomains. The metaphor must be elaborated in order to support its invocation, not to prove its truth;

therefore, both domains encompassed by the metaphor must be elaborated in the greatest possibledetail to strengthen the analogical connection. Though thick description may not prove causality, thatis not its burden: it need only help us imagine "possible worlds." Once the analogical relationship is





established between two domains—through the use of metaphor—the stage is set for a different kindof analysis, one that attempts to document empirically the various levels of mediation connecting themusical text with the social context.

Davidson correctly distinguishes "what words mean and what they are used to do," and reminds us

that metaphors should be understood according to their purpose.40 Metaphors are used to persuade:

the literal falsehood suggests a different meaning through the combination of disparate domains. Yet,according to Davidson, the possible meanings are too vast, too lacking in specificity, to bear truthclaims. If they are persuasive, it is because the particular metaphor is strikingly apt or because wehave been persuaded of its aptness. (Davidson steadfastly denies that we have been persuaded

because the meaning of the metaphor has been "explained," since in his view there is nometaphorical meaning that can be explained.)

All analysis is about the proclamation of meaning and thus reflects particular interests, and metaphoris obviously a tool for the promotion of certain interests. The fact that metaphor remains a rhetoricaltool in no way detracts from its value, for it is only through metaphor that music's relationship to theworld can be explored. Only when a supposedly objective analysis is offered as an alternative is

metaphorical interpretation seen as less valuable.

1See the collection of commentary by Todd Gitlin, Annette Kolodny, et al., in "Have the CultureWars Ended?" The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 6, 1998: B4-8; see also Wendy Steiner,The Scandal of Pleasure: Art in an Age of Fundamentalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1995).

2The ideas expressed in this paragraph were largely stimulated by Bethany Bryson's fine paper,"Understanding the Canon Wars: A Comparative Study of Four Universities," presented at the

Conference on Social Theory, Politics, and the Arts, Drexel University, Philadelphia, October 9,1998.

3Though these scholars are frequently identified as the New Musicologists, this term carries theconnotation of faddishness. "Contextualists" is the more accurate term, given the insistence of thesescholars on always understanding music in its social, political, and philosophical contexts. See RoseSubotnik, "On Grounding Chopin," in Developing Variations: Style and Ideology in Western Music(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991), 142.

4See in particular Susan McClary, Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality (Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press, 1991) and Afterword to Jacques Attali, Noise, trans. Brian Massumi

(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985); Lawrence Kramer, Classical Music andPostmodern Knowledge (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995); RuthSolie, "What Do Feminists Want? A Reply to Peter van den Toorn, Journal of Musicology IX, No. 4(Fall 1991): 399-410; and Rose Subotnik, "The Role of Ideology in the Study of Western Art Music"and "Musicology and Criticism," in Developing Variations, op. cit.

5See in particular Pieter van den Toorn, Music, Politics, and the Academy (Berkeley and LosAngeles: University of California Press, 1995) and Charles Rosen, "Music à la Mode," New York

Review of Books 41 (23 June 1994): 55-62.

6

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago and London: University ofChicago Press, 1980), 5.

7Charles Rosen, "Music à la Mode," 55-62. Rosen focuses at length in this essay on such quotes





from McClary as the following, in reference to the first movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony:"The point of recapitulation...is one of the most horrifying moments in music, as the carefully

prepared cadence is frustrated, damming up energy which finally explodes in the throttling,murderous rage of a rapist incapable of attaining release."

8See Leo Treitler,"Language and the Interpretation of Music," in Music and Meaning, ed. Jenefer

Robinson (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997), 23-56.

9One might argue that medieval theorists such as Boethius were not primarily concerned withcompositional practice, but neither were they concerned with the analysis of individual works ofmusic.

10For a fuller discussion of the gradual emergence of formalist methods, see Ian Bent's preface to Music Analysis in the Nineteenth Century (two volumes), Ian Bent, ed. (Cambridge, UK: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1994).

11Eduard Hanslick, On the Beautiful in Music, trans. Gustav Cohen (New York: The Liberal ArtsPress, 1957), 48.

12McClary, "Narrative Agendas in `Absolute' Music: Identity and Difference in Brahms's ThirdSymphony," in Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship, ed. Ruth A.Solie (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 326-344.

13Theodor W. Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, ed. Gretel Adorno and Rolf Tiedemann, trans. C. Lenhardt(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984), 322.

14van den Toorn, op. cit., 119.

15Ibid., 59.

16Mark Johnson, The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason(Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 2.

17See Janna Saslaw, "Forces, Containers, and Paths: The Role of Body-Derived Image Schemata inthe Conceptualization of Music," Journal of Music Theory (Fall 1996), Vol. 40, No. 2: 217-243.

18Janet M. Levy, "Covert and Casual Values in Recent Writings about Music," Journal of

Musicology 5, No. 1 (Winter 1987): 3-27.

19Ibid., 4.

20Ibid., 5.

21For an extensive discussion of organic metaphors in Schenker's work, see Robert Snarrenberg,"Competing Myths: The American Abandonment of Schenker's Organicism," in Anthony Pople, ed.,Theory, Analysis, and Meaning in Music (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 29-56.

22van den Toorn, op. cit. 90.





23The focus of van den Toorn's criticism is Treitler's essay, "History, Criticism, and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony," in Music and the Historical Imagination (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UniversityPress, 1989), 19-45. Treitler employs a more emotionally suggestive vocabulary in his analysis

because he is trying to account for the listener's psychological experience of the music. ThoughTreitler discusses the music in technical detail, his point is not to explain its formal self-sufficiency,

but rather its engagement of the listener's spatial and temporal imagination.

24Charles Rosen, The Frontiers of Meaning (New York: Hill and Wang, 1994), 126: "Even morethan literature and the visual arts, music can never be arrested by any system of analysis orinterpretation, either formal or historical. It is natural to look outside or beyond the music, to find theways in which it can temporarily and provisionally assume different kinds of significance.

Nevertheless, music will not acknowledge a context greater than itself—social, cultural, or biographical—to which it is conveniently subservient."

25Herbert Brün, Professor Emeritus of Music at the University of Illinois, uses this phrase frequentlyin his lectures and seminars.

26Jürgen Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests, trans. Jeremy Shapiro (Boston: Beacon Press,1971).

27Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus, trans. D.F. Pears and B.F. McGuinness(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961), 151.

28Paul Ricoeur, "The Metaphorical Process as Cognition, Imagination, and Feeling." On Metaphor ,ed. Sheldon Sacks (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 144.

29Philip Brett, Elizabeth Wood, and Gary Thomas, eds. Queering the Pitch: The New Gay and

Lesbian Musicology (New York and London: Routledge, 1994), 225.

30Ibid., 209.

31Susan McClary, "A Musical Dialectic from the Enlightenment: Mozart's Piano Concerto in G Major, K.453, Movement 2," Cultural Critique, No. 4 (Fall 1986): 158.

32Op. cit., 133.

33Lakoff and Johnson, op. cit., 193.

34Marion A. Guck, "Musical Images as Musical Thoughts: The Contribution of Metaphor toAnalysis," In Theory Only 5 (1981): 41.

35Donald Davidson, "What Metaphors Mean," On Metaphor , 40.

36Ibid.

37Wayne C. Booth, "Metaphor as Rhetoric: The Problem of Evaluation," On Metaphor , 52.

38Lakoff and Johnson, op. cit., 144.

39Op. cit., 151.



stephen miles

Documents