Many pieces of music of the 19th century are intended to evoke the rotating spinning wheel by a certain type of figuration. One may approach this repertoire with a number of questions: to what extent such patterns form an identifiable type; how this type came about; how effectively these pieces actually represent what they’re supposed to r…[Read more]

In the world of music theory, the ideas of Heinrich Schenker (1868-1935) cause a major divide. The disagreement goes far beyond technicalities: it involves principles of an aesthetic, epistemological and ontological nature.

According to conventional literary theory, when we interpret the text of a poem or work of fiction as a condensed or represented speech act, this implies a hypothetical speaker. The speaker may be a well-defined narrator who may also be a participant in the action. Often, however, the text offers few or no clues as to who is ‘speaking’. In suc…[Read more]

Concepts borrowed from classical rhetoric have been frequently applied to the analysis and performance of eighteenth-century music since the 1970’s. Part of the justification for this scholarly and musical practice is the evidence of ‘musical rhetoric’ found in period theory. A more controversial premise is the high cultural status and the ubiqu…[Read more]

The Nonassertion Theory of Fiction implies that fictional discourse is quoted discourse. It can stand up against the critique in Walton’s Mimesis as Make-Believe, and avoids the undesirable consequences of that theory. The possibility of hearing music as discursive justifies thinking of (some) music as fiction, against Walton’s reservations.

Studies of musical quotation generally downplay the possible parallels with linguistic quotation, and ignore the specialized debate around quotation in analytical philosophy. Basic to this debate is the idea that we can articulate (‘mention’) x without truly saying (‘using’) x. A quoted expression is set apart within the regular discourse in whic…[Read more]

Recursion may have an important place in cognitive processes. Recursive theoretical models may also seduce the theorist to false abstractions and pseudo-explanations. This is observed in some versions of musical and linguistic formalism, which share a common rationalist-idealist background; paradigmatically, in Chomsky’s controversial M…[Read more]

Christian Gotthold Schocher (1736-1810) is of some historical interest as the founder of a little known school of German declamation around 1800. For Schocher, a notation system for speech similar to musical notation is crucial to the cultivation of the art. Among Schocher’s followers, Johann Carl Wötzel (1765-1836) takes a special place as his…[Read more]

Gustav Anton von Seckendorff, author of ‘Vorlesungen über Deklamation und Mimik’ (1816), is among the many early nineteenth-century theorists of declamation the only one who had a noteworthy, if brief stage career. References to Seckendorff ’s ideas on declamation have become more frequent in recent scholarship, but little is known about his ex…[Read more]

Reviewing How Art Works: A Psychological Exploration, by Ellen Winner (OUP 2019); The Aesthetic Animal, by Henrik Høgh-Olesen (OUP 2018); The Artful Species: Aesthetics, Art, and Evolution, by Stephen Davies (OUP, 2012) (2019)

Lerdahl and Jackendoff’s Generative Theory of Tonal Music (1983) is an attempt to transform music theory into a theory of musical understanding by adopting the formal method and psychological premises of Generative Grammar, along with some Schenkerian elements. It has failed to fulfil its promise mainly because, like Schenker theory, it is…[Read more]