hatten, robert. review agawu-nattiez

Society for Music Theory

Playing with Signs: A Semiotic Interpretation of Classic Music by Kofi Agawu; Music andDiscourse: Toward a Semiology of Music by Jean-Jacques Nattiez; Carolyn AbbateReview by: Robert S. HattenMusic Theory Spectrum, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Spring, 1992), pp. 88-98Published by: on behalf of the Society for Music TheoryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/746084 .Accessed: 03/02/2015 14:07

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Kofi Agawu. Playing with Signs: A Semiotic Interpretation of Classic Music. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991.

Jean-Jacques Nattiez. Music and Discourse: Toward a Semi- ology of Music. Translated by Carolyn Abbate. (Translation and abridgment of Musicologie generale et semiologie [Paris: Christian Bourgois, 1987].) Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990.

Reviewed by Robert S. Hatten

These two books on the semiotics of music are dramat- ically different. Ironically, Nattiez invokes Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), the American philosopher whose actual term for semiotics, taken from the Greek word for "symp- tom," was semeiotic; Agawu relies on Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), the Swiss linguist whose chosen term was "semiology." Whether one speaks of music semiotics (most English writers) or music semiology (French writers) might seem im- material; but there is a real difference between the more structuralist perspective of Saussure's semiology and a Peircean semiotic that provides a hermeneutic component as well (through the interpretant and the process of abduction).'

In brief, Kofi Agawu integrates an analysis of topics (fol- lowing Ratner) and a beginning-middle-end paradigm to complement an "intramusical" (Schenkerian) voice-leading approach to works by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Jean- Jacques Nattiez offers an expanded revision of the founda- tional philosophical and theoretical positions that first ap- peared in his Fondements d'une semiologie de la musique (1975). Throughout, Nattiez defends his tripartitional approach (poietic, pertaining to the creation of the work; neutral, pertaining to its immanent status; and esthesic, pertain-

'Semiology in the structuralist sense (as defined for Agawu by the linguist, Emile Benveniste, 1981) requires as its complement a semantics to supply reference. Peirce, on the other hand, includes semantic (and pragmatic) interpretation in his basic model of semiosis.

















































ing to its perception and interpretation), applying the three- way perspective to analysis and discourse about music. Nattiez's book is the first of a projected multivolume work; he promises a semiological critique of current theories of style and analysis, as well as an extensive sampling of his semiological analyses, in future volumes. Agawu's study is self- contained; analytical exemplification is frequent and in direct support of his theoretical claims, which are summarized and projected into the Romantic period in the last two chapters. Nattiez ranges widely through the fields of electronic music, ethnomusicology (including his own work with the Inuit), and the history of harmonic theory to illustrate the complex problems of defining a musical work and explaining its meanings. Both books are written in a concentrated yet admirably clear style, and each offers a useful introduction to semiotics and its application to music.

Unfortunately, these and other strengths cannot be illus- trated adequately in the short space of a review. Instead, I will concentrate on a critique of the central semiotic issues at stake in each author's approach, based on my own work in music semiotics and my concern for the place of musical expressive meaning in any semiotic theory. I will argue that Agawu does not fully define or categorize the topics he an- alyzes, nor does he go very far in interpreting the topical signs he decodes. And I will offer an argument, based on Peirce's abductive understanding of interpretation, that undermines Nattiez's neutral level in its present form.2

AGAWU'S SEMIOTICS

The "playing with signs" in Agawu's title refers to the productive interaction between more referential topics and "apparently nonreferential tonal structure" (p. 17). The anal-

2For a critique of his first version of the neutral level in the Fondements (1975), see my review-article in Semiotica (1980).



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ysis begins by identifying topics, and the various styles they suggest create a realm of intertextual (other works/styles) as well as thematic associations in the work. But topics offer no syntax "in Ratner's scheme" (p. 20), and thus they are best described intuitively and aligned with structural functions in common-sense "marriages of convenience": a descending fanfare with a cadence, or a coup d'archet with an opening. Rhetorical terms, also historically applicable to this music, provide a more syntagmatic perspective by clarifying the functions of beginning, middle, and end. This three-part model can also be applied to the basic contrapuntal (in this case, two-voice) framework for the tonal structure of the movement (here, the opening of the Prague Symphony). The synthesis of topical (expressive) signs and structural (Schenkerian-based voice-leading) signs is what Agawu finds most insightful in his semiotic approach (p. 23).

Using Roman Jakobson's distinction between introversive and extroversive semiosis, topical signs may be understood as extroversive (signifying or relating to the world outside the piece), and Schenkerian signs as introversive (signifying or relating to other musical events in the piece). Agawu modifies this simplistic account, however, by noting that topical signs can also be described in musical terms, since they are com- prised of notes behaving according to a musical syntax. Thus, intro- and extroversive signs are not neatly distinct for music, and the analyst must determine the value each may have for a particular piece (pp. 24-25). But like Jakobson, Agawu finds introversive tonal structure to be primary. Topical signs are not only dependent, but their arbitrary definition leads to "discontinuities among various topical essences" (p. 24).

Agawu next offers a useful historical account of topics, underlining their appropriateness as analytical terms. He provides a list of twenty-seven topics (omitting some he refers to later, such as coup d'archet and waltz) as a "provisional universe" (p. 30), but any distinctions among kinds of topics (beyond Ratner's primary division between dance types and a hodge-podge of "styles") must be ferreted out of his sub-

























sequent analyses. There are implications of meter, mode, tempo, texture, and expressive character that might have been addressed, leading to an oppositional, or even hierar- chical organization of types. Agawu evades the issue by in- sisting on tying topics to the tonal hierarchy (p. 50), and by underlining the fluid, flexible, or contextual nature of topical analysis. He pays lip service to oppositional definition (p. 49) but does not attempt a systematic inventory. Even a limited structuralist theory, however, would have offered a clearer (paradigmatic) account of such basic units, either in terms of oppositional or typical features, and their possible syntagmatic or distributional contexts. Among topics one can imag- ine a march with a fanfare or a pastoral musette; Agawu even gives an example of a minuet in the hunt style (p. 45). But why is a sarabande in Sturm und Drang style not appropriate (as I would assume)? How does alla breve relate to the learned style? In what sense do aria and singing style differ? Don't most Classical recitatives have a declamatory element derived from Empfindsamkeit? These questions suggest different levels as well as different extensions or connotations for Agawu's topical universe.

Such concerns were not fully addressed by Ratner, either, and Agawu is clearly aware of the problems. He illustrates them in an analytical discussion of the opening of Mozart's Piano Concerto in C Major, K. 467. Simultaneous topics are possible, but exact definitions may not be: "To identify a march topic is . . . to invoke a complex interaction of parameters informed by contextual hierarchies" (p. 38). I find Agawu's actual identifications to be intuitive and persuasive, but if meaning is difference (Saussure), then there is much theoretical work to be done in differentiating and organizing the topical universe.

Agawu concedes the possibility of "plots" for certain works' topical sequences. But his ambivalence is obvious: "Plots arise as a result of sheer indulgence" and are "per- haps an optional rather than an obligatory stage in the analysis, since this step depends on the analyst's erudition"


























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(p. 34).3 Later, he apparently substitutes the less controver- sial (but vague) notion of "structural rhythm" (from Lawrence Kramer) to describe a musical discourse emerging from the "dynamic transitions" among musical parameters, as they move through topics (pp. 38-39). In attempting to create a "rhetoric of structure," Agawu appears to be opting for a conservative synthesis of "referential foreground" and "structural background" (p. 39). Thus, topical signs are to be conceived in Saussurian terms as the union of signifier and signified, and the signified "remains implicit in the historically appropriate label invoked" (p. 39). Agawu's contextual interpretation, then, does not move us closer to the expressive sense of these topics, but rather to their structural implications as they interact with the tonal syntax (p. 41). For Agawu, syntax is salvaged from a purely synchronic state (an improvement over Saussure) in that topics lend the tonal syntax historical specificity. But I would argue that tonal structure alone can be considered in historical (stylistic) terms (Hatten, 1982). The improvement that Agawu envisions (pre- sumably over an astylistic Schenkerism applied equally from Bach to Brahms) is in fact already apparent among more sensitive Schenkerians (Rothstein, for example).

The remaining analyses of topics are disappointing, be- cause the focus is on identification, not expressive interpretation, of "conventional" topical signs in the work. The sig- nifieds for topics are hardly more than their labels, or a few of their identifying characteristics. While it is quite possible,

3In my own work, I find expressive genres characterized by topical fields to be a crucial guide to the expressive sense of a moment, and key to interpreting unusual formal features as well. Such genres provide a theoretical approach to syntagmatic topical relationships, and clearly challenge Agawu's claim that "expression has no syntax" (p. 131). Analytical illustrations may be found in Indiana Theory Reviewv 12 (1991) and Theory and Practice 15 (1992). More thorough theoretical and analytical discussion is included in my recently completed book manuscript, Musical Meaninlg in Beethoven: Marked- ness, Correlation, and Interpretation.













(p. 34).3 Later, he apparently substitutes the less controver- sial (but vague) notion of "structural rhythm" (from Lawrence Kramer) to describe a musical discourse emerging from the "dynamic transitions" among musical parameters, as they move through topics (pp. 38-39). In attempting to create a "rhetoric of structure," Agawu appears to be opting for a conservative synthesis of "referential foreground" and "structural background" (p. 39). Thus, topical signs are to be conceived in Saussurian terms as the union of signifier and signified, and the signified "remains implicit in the historically appropriate label invoked" (p. 39). Agawu's contextual interpretation, then, does not move us closer to the expressive sense of these topics, but rather to their structural implications as they interact with the tonal syntax (p. 41). For Agawu, syntax is salvaged from a purely synchronic state (an improvement over Saussure) in that topics lend the tonal syntax historical specificity. But I would arg

hatten, robert. review agawu-nattiez

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