being true to the work

Being True to the WorkAuthor(s): Lydia GoehrSource: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 47, No. 1 (Winter, 1989), pp. 55-67Published by: Wiley on behalf of The American Society for AestheticsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/431993 .Accessed: 29/01/2015 04:52

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LYDIA GOEHR

Being True to the Work

I. INTRODUCTION

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, E.T.A. Hoffmann issued a novel prescription for musical practice: musical activities, be they of composition, performance, reception, eval- uation, or analysis, should no longer be guided by extra-musical considerations of a religious, social, or scientific sort. They should now be guided by the works themselves. To legitimize this assertion Hoffmann developed the notion of being true to the work (Werktreue) and gave it a prominence within the language of musical criticism it had never before had. '

Hoffmann's understanding of the nature of musical works corresponds closely to that accepted today. Thus, a musical work is held to be a composer's unique, objectified expression, a public and permanently existing artifact made up of musical elements (typically tones, dynam- ics, rhythms, harmonies, and timbres). A work is fixed with respect, at least, to the properties indicated in the score and it is repeatable in performances. Performances themselves are transitory sound events intended to present a work by complying as closely as possible with the given notational specifications. Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and Schubert's String Quintet in C, Op. i63 are examples of musical works.

Since Hoffmann's time, and increasingly in this century, many philosophers have discussed the nature of musical works and the diverse implications of speaking about music in terms of works. My concerns are similarly focused. In the present essay, however, I wish to speak about musical works for the purpose of making two claims. Both claims are derived, or so I shall argue, from a particular historical thesis which asserts that the concept of a musical work first

fully emerged in classical musical practice at the end of the eighteenth century and that, since this time, it has been used pervasively in the world of music. The first claim is that the concept of a musical work is an open concept with paradigmatic and derivative employment. The second claim, which is dependent upon the first, is that the counterexample method, used in the traditional search for definitions of concepts such as that of a musical work, is undermined in a way hitherto unseen in the philosophical literature. In the scope of an article it would be impossible to fully justify the historical thesis itself. This I do elsewhere.2 So I shall say just enough about it to give the reader the information on which the two central claims are based.

II. THE HISTORICAL THESIS

Historical inquiry reveals that the beliefs, values, rules, and patterns of behavior and presentation associated with the concept of a musical work have regulated classical musical practice only since the end of the eighteenth century. The concept crystallized as a result of the fusion of four forces: (I) the articulation of the concepts of Fine Art and of the autonomous work of art in the mid to late eighteenth century and the subse- quent inclusion of music under these concepts; (2) the emancipation of musical sound from poetry and the religious word, and the subse- quent rise of absolute or purely instrumental music; (3) the specific and highly complex interplay between Enlightenment, Romantic, and Idealist thought notably in German and French aesthetic theory; and (4) the emergence of a new sort of marketplace for musical works .3

For most of its history, music was conceived as a practice entirely subject to the constraints of

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 47:1, Winter 1989


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extra-musical occasion and function determined mostly by the church, court, and scientific acad- emy. The changes which took place at the end of the eighteenth century gave rise to a new view of music as an independent practice whose concerns were predominantly musical. This independent practice became a practice geared towards producing enduring products insofar as it was determined by the more general concepts of fine art and the autonomous work of art. Only with the rise of this new view of music did musicians, critics, and the like begin to think predominantly of music in terms of works. Bach did not think centrally in these terms; Beethoven did. Haydn marks the transitions

These claims are supported by a whole series of historical considerations. Thus, in the romantic period, changes took place not only in aesthetic attitudes toward the status of music and composers, but also in the meanings of numerous musical terms. As etymological inquiries reveal, words such as 'Stuck', 'Werk', 'Oeuvre', 'composition', and related terms such as 'repertoire', 'performance', 'rehearsal', 'transcription', and 'improvisation', acquired their modern meanings at the end of the eighteenth century.5 Each of these terms was reconcep- tualized with regard to their specific relation to the central regulative concept-the musical work.

There were at the same time significant changes in the activities of composition, performance, and criticism. New oppositions or new forms of old oppositions quickly became entrenched. Oppositions arose between: the music composed and the music played; the composer and performer; absolute and program music; composition and transcription; and composition and improvisation. These oppositions were to find institutional expression in the for- mation of the "imaginary musical museum": the building of concert halls which moved music from a background to a foreground object of appreciation; the preparation of the first program notes; the new conception of rehearsals as necessary to an adequate performance; dedi- cated publishing companies; and new laws investing copyright in the composer and associated plagiarism policies. In this same period, finally, bibliographies, biographies, and histo- ries were written, all of which focused for the first time on the idea that composers were pro-

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

ducing permanent and independently unique works.

Why should all these changes have fostered the emergence of the work-concept? Prior to the nineteenth century, musical practice was regulated by beliefs that did not conceptually require the idea of a work. This was not true after i8oo. Certainly before i8oo musicians functioned with concepts of operas, cantatas, sonatas, and symphonies. But none of these were understood in relation to the idea that there was a composer producing full and original scores which re- flected and preserved the tonal, rhythmic, and timbral properties of his composition. Nor did these concepts depend upon a composition's sur- viving its performance, being repeated, being performed without interruption, being presented as a completed and unified product, or being considered significant in its own right. Indeed, it was only when the production of music began to be conceived along these lines that many traditional concepts, such as that of a symphony and sonata, acquired their modern significance-as kinds of musical work.

All these claims are founded upon the idea that musical practices, holistically conceived, can be, but need not be, regulated by the work- concept. It is, at most, historically contingent which of these two alternatives is realized in fact. But to say that a given concept arises con- tingently out of a set of historical circumstances does not imply that it is merely ephemeral in nature. On the contrary, a concept can become so entrenched within a given practice that it comes to take on all the airs and graces of necessity.

III. OBJECTIONS

The thesis that the work-concept began to reg- ulate musical practice at the end of the eighteenth century might seem overly contentious. Indeed, it can be challenged in a number of ways. One might challenge my interpretation of historical data or the idea of musical workhood employed in the above. Although the former cannot be further defended here, the latter can. Indeed, for the sake of the argument, it must be.

I am suggesting that the concept of a musical work is intimately tied to a conception of the complex relationships obtaining between the composer, the score, and the performance, as


Goehr Being True to the Work

these are expressed on several levels: within musical and aesthetic literature; and in terms of institutional codes. These relationships came to be sharply defined at a particular time against the background of those theories which first gave to music its autonomy and, indeed, exalted position among the arts. Henceforth, I shall refer to this view as the romantic conception of musical works.6

Objectors might claim that my notion of workhood is too closely wedded to a romantic understanding of musical practice. They might suggest that there is an ideologically neutral notion of a work: a work is either a sound pattern simpliciter; a work is a sound pattern corresponding to appropriate musical or aesthetic interest. Regarding the former, however, this would mean that any tune or song is also a work, which is going too far. And regarding the latter, as soon as we begin to speak of more complex patterns, perhaps those indicated in scores or embodied in performances, we adopt that conception of music first fully formed in the late eighteenth century. In other words, the very notions of a score, indication, and performance employed in this purportedly neutral description are thick with meaning, as, indeed, is the idea of "appropriate musical or aesthetic interest." It is, therefore, yet to be shown by those who object to the thesis presented here that the concept of a musical work regulates musical practice with something other than a deeply romantic significance.7

There are two further objections. The first turns on the claim that even if circumstances of a given sort do not allow at a specific time for conscious or explicit use of a concept, this does not mean that what is produced does not fall under the said concept. The second rests upon the apparent implication of the thesis, that we can speak of music in terms of works only if the music was produced in the period around i8oo. If the concept of a musical work is tied to its moment of origin-which was effectively the heyday of romanticism-then its application must similarly be restricted and the boundaries of its extension closed. I shall confine myself in the proceeding sections to forestalling both of these objections by discussing the conditions under which we can and do, in fact, speak about the music, say of Bach, in terms of works.

To this end, note that the thesis does not

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commit us to the view that Bach did not compose musical works. Indeed he composed some of the greatest works ever written. It might, in my terms, be anachronistic but in musical terms it is not implausible to date the golden age of absolute music or of musical works in the second half of the eighteenth century. What I have claimed is only that the musical world within which Bach lived was not regulated by the idea of a work. This claim can, at most, be historically inaccu- rate. The conclusion that he did not compose works is not implied.8

Of course, the thesis does commit its propo- nent to a view of meaning and truth as dependent upon the existence of particular conceptual schemes. Given that we have a concept of a musical work, Bach composed works. If the concept had never emerged within musical practice (or, indeed, within any other relevant or related practice) we would speak instead of Bach's music in terms perhaps not only more familiar to Bach himself, but also still evident in other existing musical practices which are not regulated by the idea of creating fixed, everlast- ing musical products.

IV. EXTENDING THE USE OF A CONCEPT

Nowadays, in fact, there seems to be no form of musical production excluded from being packaged in terms of works. Most, if not all, classical music composed before 1800-for example, the music of Palestrina, Vivaldi, and Bach-is packaged in this way, despite the fact that the music in question was not so classified at its moment of origin. We tend, also, to classify most, if not all, avant-garde or aleatoric music as works. We speak of the works of Cage, Neu- haus, and Rzewski regardless of the fact that these composers do not think of themselves as composing within the romantic tradition. "It's a very deliberate step of mine," Neuhaus writes, "not to record the pieces. These pieces are not musical products; they're meant to be activities."9

We often disregard the conceptual differences between a work and an improvisation or between a work and a transcription. Both improvisation and transcription (and arrangement) emerged with their modern understanding as concepts sibling to that of a work. Undoubtedly they stand in a very intimate relation to the latter


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concept, but it is not one of identity. The relation seems, however, to be indeterminate. On occasion, we are content to refer to certain transcriptions as transcriptions. Sometimes, however, we speak of them as works in their own right. 0 The same indeterminacy obtains in the case of improvisations and arrange- ments.

Those interested in avant-garde notions of "found art" might speak of the phenomena of natural music-bird songs, for example-if not as works, then at least as instances of music. But suppose that recordings were made of the phenomena on the basis of which scores were produced which in turn made possible their in- stantiation in performance on suitable instru- ments. How easy it would be now to talk of these phenomena not merely in a loose sense as instances of music but as works. "The objet trouve ... unlike the result of an individual production process but a chance find ... is recognized today," Burger argues, "as a 'work of art'. The objet trouve thus loses its character as anti-art and becomes, in the museum, an autonomous work among others." "

When we speak of works we do not think immediately of jazz, folk, or popular music, nor of music serving as an accompaniment to other art forms, such as film and dance music. Nor do we think immediately of music which is pur- posefully integrated into the everyday world- the music in religious services or other rituals. But this does not exclude the possibility of thinking about these kinds of music in terms of works.

With regard to film music we usually speak only of musical or film scores. But we would be tempted to call these scores works if and when they were conceived as products to be marketed and evaluated independently of the films. We might be tempted, also, to think of an Indian raga (or a particular performance based on a given raga) in terms of a performance of a work if the music was produced in the Royal Albert Hall as part of a celebration of music of other cultures. Thus, even if we would be hesitant to say that these kinds of music yield paradigmatic examples of musical works, we could still see them as yielding borderline examples.

It seems, then, that our contemporary use of the work-concept does not confine us to the music of the romantic period. We are, appar-


ently, tempted to understand musical practices of many kinds as involving the production of works. But if, as I claim, the work-concept emerged as a result of a specific confluence of aesthetic, social, and historical conditions, how have we been able and why have we wanted to extend the employment of the work-concept seemingly so pervasively?

V. CONCEPTUAL IMPERIALISM

A major part of the answer to the 'why' in this question is that the view of the musical world which romanticism originally provided has continued since i8oo, despite much anti-romantic theorizing in the intervening period, to be the dominant view. This view is so entrenched in contemporary musical thought that its con- stitutive concepts are taken for granted. In fact, we have before us an obvious case of conceptual imperialism.

Consider any form of music produced any- where in the world. Have many musicians, interested in what is generally referred to as classical music, not found good reason to interpret all these musics according to the romantic view?I2 Have they not assumed that the closer all forms of music approximate in their mode of presentation to those determined by romanticism the more civilized they are? The more general concept of a work of art is itself often used as a way of attributing a high value to any kind of thing. Consider the pleasure a chef would feel from being told that his Black Forest Gateau is a "work of art, " or the satisfaction of a car manufacturer who produces a car deemed a "fine artistic product."'3

One obvious result of seeing the world's musics-including much of classical music- through romantic-colored spectacles is that many have assumed that these musics can be packaged in terms of works: ways are sought to assign the 'works' to composers, to represent them in full notational form, thereby allowing them to be regarded as having a fixed structure with a sharply defined beginning and end, thereby allowing them to be performed on numerous occasions as part of a program of works in the fine setting of a concert hall.

Apart from the fact that this way of thinking results in our alienating music from its various socio-cultural contexts, and apart from the fact



that most of the world's music is not originally packaged in this way, do we not risk losing something significant when we so interpret it? Do we not lose something when we hear the music of a flamenco or a blues guitarist in a concert hall?'4 For the conventions associated with the concert hall determine that the audience should listen with disinterested respect to the 'work' being performed. The audience cannot even tap its many feet. Do we not lose something-even just an acoustic something-when we hear eighteenth-century chamber music performed, outside of the chamber, in symphonic concert halls? The critic Jonathan Keates, in thinking specifically about eighteenth-century operas, is aware of the tendency for romanticism to dominate. "However much we might pride ourselves on our understanding of the eighteenth century," he writes, "the values of the Gesamtkunstwerk continue to be applied with ingenious blindness, to appraising the over- all worth of its art-forms. " '5

This conceptual imperialism has not been one-sided. The beliefs associated with the ideal of Werktreue have increasingly and sometimes enthusiastically been adopted by those musicians involved in the production of music of many different kinds. Thus, jazz musicians have sought and indeed found respect from 'serious' musicians by dispensing with the smoky and noisy atmosphere of the club and by perform- ing, instead, in tails. Many have willingly adopted the institutional conventions associated with 'serious' music. A Chinese committee, in its bid to produce western-style musical works, acted together as composer to produce, against all Chinese traditions, the Yellow River Con- certo. Schoenberg, when defending his twelve- tone method, emphasized that "one uses the series and then one composes as before as the great austro-german composers always have done ... My works are twelve-note compositions, not twelve-note compositions."' 6

That these musicians have justified the production of their kind of music to their critics by showing their willingness to conform to the conditions of Werktreue is not altogether surprising. Think of the powerful effect both the distinction between civilized and uncivilized (primitive, popular) music and that between artist and craftsman, has had on a musician's conception of his respective practice. Recall that classical

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music is still regarded by many as quintessen- tially civilized.

Imagine how inferior a Chinese person must feel on hearing the dismissive words of the romantic Berlioz: "The Chinese sing the way dogs bark, or as cats vomit when they've swal- lowed a fish bone."'7 Or the jazz musicians who read in I920 these words of a French jazz critic: Jazz is cynically the orchestra of brutes with nonop- posable thumbs and still prehensile toes, in the forest of Voodoo. It is entirely excess, and for that reason more that monotone: the monkey is left to his own devices, without morals, without discipline, thrown back to all the groves of instinct, showing his meat still more obscene. These slaves must be subjugated, or there will be no more master. Their reign is shameful. The shame is ugliness and its triumph.' 8

As recently as i987, a discussion was devoted to establishing the claim that Duke Ellington "utterly fails to conform to the criteria of the conventional idea of 'the artist', just as his improvised productions fail to conform to the conventional view of the 'work of art'," even though Ellington saw himself "as an 'artist' in this sense and took to composing 'works' for the concert hall."'9 What, the critic then asks, are we to make of the music?

Jascha Heifitz tells us that he occasionally performed works by contemporary composers for two reasons: first, to discourage the composers from writing any more; second, to remind himself of how much he appreciated Beethoven. Here, works produced around i8oo serve as the standard. Similarly, this standard operates behind the facile comment that Vivaldi wrote the same piece 300 times. With any con- sideration of the times in which Vivaldi lived-a time when composers were required to produce music for several similar occasions each week- this comment loses its derogatory force.2o Con- sider, finally, how cynical classical musicians tend to be of popular music, on the grounds that a given song has a simple form or that the music "doesn't last,?" or that popular music is ex- pressive of infantile emotions. Why should all music meet the conditions imposed by romantic aesthetics? Simplicity of form is required in much of the world's music precisely because of the music's acknowledged subservience to social, political, and religious functions. Much


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music is not designed to "stand the test of time." Its value and significance lie elsewhere. 21

Despite numerous practical difficulties, the work-concept with its conceptually dependent notions of performance and notation have been adopted by many interpreters and producers of music of all sorts. Thus, since i8oo, not only have the most disparate arts, as Walter Pater once said, "aspired to the condition of music" but, also, many of the most disparate musics have aspired to the condition of musical works.

The assimilation of seemingly alien concepts into a given type of music is not, however, all bad. First, the migration of concepts among different musics is pretty much inevitable given our conceptual or cultural limitations. We can only comprehend the music of cultures to which we do not belong by employing an already familiar conceptual framework. Second, apart from the inevitability of perspectival com- prehension, there is sometimes a healthy blur- ring of the boundaries between different musics, something which can be fostered by conceptual migration. Thus, even given (or despite) imperialistic influence, the adoption of concepts into foreign musics can lead-and has led on occasion-to new and interesting musical styles.22

Thus far, I have explained why the work- concept has come to be employed-despite its having emerged within a particular practice at a very particular time-in settings prima facie temporally and spatially set apart from this original context. Now I must show how this has been possible. VI. PARADIGM AND DERIVATIVE EXAMPLES

The concept of a musical work, I have suggested, emerged and found its regulative function within musical practice as a result of a specific crystallization of ideas about the nature, purpose, and relationship between the composer, the score, and the performance. This crystallization served effectively to shape what is now our standard interpretation of the concept of a work and of the musical practice it regulates. It also has come to serve as the basis for our classification of examples of musical works. It is to this last function that our attention must now turn.

When we use the concept of a musical work we use it with an understanding revealed in our


beliefs, ideals, assumptions, expectations, and actions. We can, however, use the concept in different ways. At least two of these ways serve to ground a distinction between paradigm and derivative examples.

Paradigm examples, sometimes more usefully called original examples, are those produced directly and explicitly under the guidance of the relevant concept. We classify examples as derivative, by contrast, when we classify them as being of a certain kind even though these objects were not brought into existence with the relevant kind in mind or within the appropriate practice. Whether an example is paradigm or derivative is not, however, something that is decided independently of how we use the concept. Thus, strictly speaking, we should speak of a given concept as having a paradigm and derivative arena of employment and only then of its extension in terms of paradigm and derivative examples.

The paradigm use of a concept, as defined above, tells a familiar story about conceptual use. Derivative use, however, is more complicated. There are in fact different aspects to the derivative use of a concept. Consider the concept of a musical work. We may look first at the extent to which the activities of non-romantic musicians have approximated to the condition of romantic music. We may look at how concepts associated with romantic music have gradually been taken over and thus the extent to which these musicians have begun to speak of their production in terms of works.

When non-romantic musicians borrow romantic concepts they adopt an understanding sufficient to sustain the functioning of these concepts. In romantic eyes, they more or less successfully impose the appropriate categories upon their practice. They act in what the romantic considers to be the right way and in a way they themselves presumably now find satisfac- tory. The concepts come to be employed in a non-romantic setting in much the same way as natives incorporate into their understanding concepts introduced to them by foreigners. Without exposure to foreign concepts, native musicians remain oblivious to them. It is on this assumption that we say that the use of the concepts is foreign to the native's own practice and, thus, if the concepts are used at all, they are used derivatively.



We can, in addition, look at how musicians steeped in the romantic view interpret non- romantic musics according to their own conceptual framework. This would be more like persons who, entering into a foreign cultural context, make use of their native linguistic or social appa- ratus in order to acquire what is for them a sufficient grasp of unfamiliar customs. Roman- tic musicians can effectively choose to regard any piece of music as a musical work if they believe they can, with the relevant understanding, act successfully or usefully in relation to that thing.

Hence, it is possible for romantic musicians to look at a non-romantic practice, say, one in which the music of Bach or Palestrina was produced, and to classify the music derivatively in terms of works. This is possible because the romantic musicians can identify a composer, represent the music in an adequate notation, specify a fixed set of instrumental specifications, and so on. This process is seen clearly in the way in which composers in the early nineteenth century began not only to rewrite the history of music in terms of works, but also to give to composers and music of earlier centuries what they never had-precise notations, multi- ple performances, and the possibility of eternal fame. Recall Mendelssohn's introduction of Bach's St. Matthew Passion as a musical work. Mendelssohn, to put the point crudely, took Bach's music away from the church and put it into the concert hall. In the same manner, again, it is possible for romantic musicians to identify composers and sound-structures when listening to transcriptions or improvisations or the music of an original blues guitarist and to talk of these in terms of works. The use in all these cases of the terminology of works is derivative.

The assimilation of romantic concepts into different kinds of music should not be thought of as uniform. It varies from case to case. Some kinds of music stand in closer conceptual proximity to romantic music than do others: the eighteenth century sonata stands in closer conceptual proximity than the Indian raga. Some kinds of music will be associated with ideals which conflict with those associated with the work-concept: the improvisatory nature of jazz is an obvious example. It is likely, finally, that derivative works, precisely because they are derivative, will fail to comply perfectly with the

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beliefs and expectations associated with the concept of a musical work: notations, if existing at all, might not be as precise as Beethoven would have liked.

When, however, we are faced with a derivative example which does not comply perfectly with the conditions of the work-concept, we do not exclude it from falling under that concept. To do so would defeat the whole idea of its being a derivative example. The point can be put this way: when an example falls under a concept it is less a matter of its having the appropriate properties than its being brought to fall under the concept by a user of that concept. If the relevant properties are lacking in the first place, they can be assigned to the example so that it can be regarded in the right way. If this is not possible, the attempt fails. Only then do we exclude the example from falling under the concept.23

This procedure is made possible in virtue of the connection holding between the paradigm and the derivative use of a concept. This connection is a conceptual dependency of the latter upon the former which has to be understood in terms of the aims and beliefs of musical agents. To use a concept derivatively one attempts to match the paradigm or original understanding of the concept with a 'foreign' example. The match can be more or less successful. Often the match is triggered by a desire that certain productions replicate or be like those originally falling under the concept. Often it has to do with a wish to continue or broaden a tradition. The conceptual dependency of derivative use on paradigm use can vary in character and complexity. But it always has to do with the particular understanding implicit in our involvement in musical practice, rendering the search for formalized understanding of the connection misguided.

Although the derivative examples of works are dependent on the paradigm examples in the way described, it is nonetheless possible for the former to effect our understanding of the latter. A derivative example might bring something new to the understanding of the concept under which it falls. When this occurs we can respond in different ways. One useful way is to expand or modify the meaning of the concept itself. When we chose to do this our choice of paradigm and derivative examples might change. But this is not problematic. On the contrary, it is precisely this possibility of expansion and modification of


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conceptual meaning (seen here in terms of the interplay of paradigm and derivative use) that confirms the desired open nature of that concept.24

A concept which is treated as an open concept can undergo expansion and modification in meaning when its associated understanding is affected by extraneous influences. This is an inevitable consequence of conceptual migration and social change. It is also a consequence of the ever present attempt to overthrow tradition or to change or modify a style. Sometimes, however, the influence of derivative use is not powerful enough to expand or modify a concept's meaning. In this case the meaning remains the same. This does not, however, imply that the concept is being treated as closed. To treat a concept as open leaves open the possibility of change. Change does not actually have to occur. This is the case with the concept of a musical work. The imperialistic attitude which has accompanied the use of this concept has served as a matter of fact but not as a matter of necessity to prevent significant change in our understanding of musical practice."5

The view of the concept of a musical work as described here leaves open three important pos- sibilities. First, it is possible that a musician in i8io and one in i988 might both be regulated by the work-concept, but because of a possible modification of meaning they might be working with a different understanding and with a different range of paradigm and derivative examples. There is, however, a dynamic and diachronic relation linking together the successive stages of a concept and serving to preserve its identity over time.

Second, to talk of paradigm and derivative examples falling under a given concept does not imply that this is the only way to classify the given instances. It is possible to interpret and perform, say, Beethoven's Spring Sonata, in accordance with the ideals implicit in a rain dance. We would then be obliged-in the context of the corresponding practices-to describe the music not as a paradigm example of a work but as a derivative instance of a rain dance. Consider the reconception (and adoption of appropriate evaluative criteria) involved in our listening to originally classical works which have been jazzed up, used in films, or even made into popular hits.


Third, it is possible to speak of pieces of music as falling originally or derivatively under more than one concept. Here, musicians might deliberately produce music which fails to fall neatly under a single concept. Many musicians-especially those of the avant-garde- have recognized the limitations of producing music solely under the dictate of romantic ideals and have chosen instead to employ notions typ- ical of other musics. To what extent, if at all, the work-concept-or the ideal of Werktreue-has remained central to their musical production has differed from case to case.

Thus far, I have explained why-in historical terms-and how-in philosophical terms-the concept of a musical work has been used so extensively in the musical world. It remains to be shown what effect all this has on the philoso- pher's traditional use of the counterexample method.

VII. COUNTEREXAMPLES

In recent philosophical literature, the concept of a musical work has been treated less in terms of its genealogy than in its role as an ontological category. Accordingly, it has been described in relation to two traditional ontological concerns: a concern to describe the mode of existence of different kinds of objects in terms of categories like universals, types, and classes and a concern to determine the essential properties or the identity conditions for these objects. The idea has been to describe the concept by describing the kind of object a musical work is. 26

Within these accounts there has usually been an assumption that the concept of a musical work is the sort of concept whose meaning can be given in terms of an unalterable description of its defining characteristics. The objection has then been forwarded that, for any definition of "musical work" formulated in these terms, it is always possible to find an example of what we would in practice call a work which fails to meet these conditions. 27

With the tension arising from this assumption and the related objection a crucial ambiguity has surfaced concerning the range of examples intended to fall under the concept being defined. This ambiguity has surfaced in the absence of a decisive answer to the question as to whether a definition of "musical work" is designed to



determine just the paradigmatic application of the concept of a musical work or the boundaries of its entire extension. It has remained unclear, in other words, whether the concept of a musical work is being treated as open (in which case one cannot close its borders) or as closed (in which case one can).

Theorists have taken different routes. Some have explicitly confined their theories to paradigm examples, thereby engaging in something similar to what was once called monster bar- ring-the exclusion of 'difficult' examples. Others have continued to see their theories as accounting for all examples of musical works. The justification for either modus operandi has not, however, been made explicit.

Theorists, furthermore, have apparently had no qualms in using certain examples as paradigm examples of musical works. Their theories- almost without exception-have been formulated on the basis of examples drawn from the repertoire of the early I8oos. Their inquiries always begin with the question: "What sort of thing is Beethoven's Fifth Symphony?" This should no longer surprise us. But what are we to make of the fact that examples drawn from early pre- I8oos and avant-garde music and sometimes from folk, jazz, and popular music, but never from the 1800s repertoire, have been appealed to when and only when there was an intention to challenge a given theory or part thereof?28 "It appears that Ingarden's elitism has a serious consequence for his analysis of the musical work," Czerniawski writes. "By ignoring popular works, he fails to realize that the ontic status of a musical work is variable, since at the popular end ... its identity is uncomplicated by any score/performance relationship. "29

The success of a challenge using these kinds of examples-the success of the counterexample method as so employed-depends entirely on whether the examples are bonafide examples of works. The challenge rests on the assumption that the work-concept can be employed when speaking about musics other than that of music produced around I8oo. But even if it is a worthy assumption it is a big assumption. Yet the fact that this assumption has been made has had almost no recognition, let alone adequate expla- nation. We should not simply take it for granted that any kind of music can be packaged in terms of works.30 If, however, we do accept that all

63

kinds of music yield examples of musical works, then those who would want to reject a purported definition of the work-concept will have before them an extremely broad range of possible counterexamples. Herein lies the problem.

If theorists adopt a traditional essentialist approach to definition, they will likely assume that all examples of works-past, present and future-are such in virtue of their having certain essential properties. Either an object of a certain kind has these properties or it does not (in which case it is an object of another kind). As long as this is assumed the additional distinction between paradigm and borderline examples and then a confinement of one's definition to the former are unnecessary. All that matters here is that one looks to see if a given object has the properties associated with the kind in question to see if it is an example of that kind. If it is, it is immediately entitled to serve as a counterexample to a definition which excludes it. The counterexample method clearly operates on this view of things.

The counterexample method is called into serious question, however, as soon as we em- brace a more complicated account of what it means for something to count as an example of a given kind or what it means for an example to fall under a given concept. Such an account was embraced above when I argued that a given concept is open and thus does not have its borders closed; when a distinction was drawn between paradigm and derivative examples; and when it was suggested that something counts as an example of a kind not directly because it exhibits the appropriate properties but directly because it is brought to fall under the concept by users of that concept within the context of a practice. On this view, what can count as a counterexample turns out to be a complicated matter because a derivative or what otherwise we have called a borderline example cannot any- more be used as a counterexample. 31

Recall the conceptual dependency that derivative examples have on paradigm examples. Objects come to count as derivative examples in virtue of the relation in which they stand to paradigm examples. Without paradigm examples serving as the standard there could be no conception of the non-standard. In my terms, derivative instances can only be counted as works if the original instances of works have


64

already been acknowledged as such. Given this, it makes no sense to think that a derivative example could be used as a counterexample to challenge either a definition confined to paradigm examples or one accommodating, say, all currently existing works. To adapt a Hanslickian principle: no musical practice which is not guided originally by the work-concept can give the lie to a practice which is so guided.32

Consider, now, the case of the latest avant- garde work which is brought forward as a paradigm example of a work; it is produced with the work-concept in mind. Nonetheless its creator desires to challenge the traditional notion of a work. Could this example be used as a counterexample? I do not believe so. To see this we need to clarify the difference between using counterexamples to challenge philosophical definitions and using examples-be they paradigm or derivative-to challenge the traditional meaning of a given concept. When one counts X as an example of a work one accepts a given meaning of the concept, a meaning which regulates at least its paradigmatic use. If one subsequently wants X to challenge this meaning, one becomes involved in trying to expand or modify the concept's present meaning. To engage in this process one first acknowledges the present meaning and only then provides a rationale for its suggested expansion or modification. This is not at all the same thing as using X to challenge a philosophical definition of the given concept. It is, rather, an indication of one's real engage- ment in the dynamic tradition in which the concept functions.

Thus, when, for example, an avant-garde composer produces something which is designed to challenge the romantic conception of the work of music and in turn is designed to expand or modify this conception, there is no suggestion on the part of this composer that Beethoven thereby did not compose musical works. He just composed under a conception of musical practice which is now thought by the composer to be perhaps aesthetically or ideologically unsound. The avant-garde composer at no point thinks that the traditional meaning was 'definitionally' incorrect. VIII. CONCLUSION

The way in which a concept functions reg- ulatively within a practice is a complex matter


revealed more directly to those philosophers with an historical eye than to those with an ahistorical eye. The different uses and the depen- dencies obtaining between them reveal special complications for those who would like to see all examples of musical works classified on the same terms. These complications reveal the methodological basis of the counterexample method and its limited use. This has been the substance of my argument.

Of course this argument is not only applicable to the concept of a musical work, for the manner in which this concept has been treated in the philosophical literature is shared by many other concepts, be they artistic, aesthetic, legal, or ethical. What has been said here of the open and extended use of the concept of a musical work can thus be said also of these other concepts, although, clearly, their historical emergence and the empirical and historical conditions of their use will differ from case to case.

There are many lessons to be learned from analyzing concepts with a historical eye. I have pinpointed only one: that to be true to music is not necessarily the same thing as being true to the musical work. This lesson, by itself, is of substantial musical and philosophical significance.33

LYDIA GOEHR

Department of Philosophy Boston University Boston, MA 02215

i. E.T.A. Hoffmann, "Beethovens Instrumentalmusik" in Musikalische Novellen und Aufsatze, Band I (Regens- burg: Gustav Bosse, n.d.), p. 69: "Der echte Kunstler lebt nur in dem Werke, das er in dem Sinne des Meisters aufgefasst hat und nun vortragt. Er verschmaht es, auf irgendeine Weise seine Personlichkeit geltend zu machen, und all sein Dichten und Trachten geht nur dahin, alle die herrlichen, holdseligen Bilder und Erscheinungen, die der Meister mit magischer Gewalt in sein Werk verschloss, tausendfarbig glanzend ins rege Leben zu rufen, dass sie den Menschen in lichten, funkelnden Kreisen umfangen und seine Fantasie, sein innerstes Gemut entzundend, ihn ras- chen Fluges in das ferne Geisterreich tragen." For discussion of the association between Hoffmann and the notion of Werktreue, see Friedrich Blume, Classic and Romantic Music: A Comprehensive Survey, trans. M.D. Herter Nor- ton (London: Faber and Faber, 1979), p. 112. See also Alfred Brendel, "Werktreue-An Afterthought" in Musical Thoughts and Afterthoughts, Princeton Essays on the Arts (Princeton University Press, 1977): 26-37.


Goehr Being True to the Work 65

2. The thesis is fully defended in my The Work of Music (forthcoming, Oxford University Press). For other discussions of the emergence of the concept of a musical work, see Carl Dahlhaus, Esthetics of Music (Cambridge University Press, 1982), chapter 2; Walter Wiora, Das Musikalische Kunstwerk (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, I983); Cheryl Seltzer, ed., Musicology and the Musical Composition, Current Musicology 5-7 (I967-68): 49-126; Gudrun Hennenberg, Idee und Begriff des Musikalischen Kunstwerks (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1983).

3. Notions central to our understanding of the Fine Arts-those of "art for art's sake," disinterested attention, the museum, and the distinction between art and craft-are discussed in Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgment; Andre Malraux, Museum Without Walls, from La Musee Imag- inaire, trans. by Stuart Gilbert and Francis Price (London: Secker and Warburg, I967); Paul Oskar Kristeller, "The Modern System of the Arts," Journal of the History of Ideas 12 (1951): 496-527 & 13 (1952): 17-46; Peter LeHuray and James Day, eds., Music and Aesthetics in the Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Centuries, (Cambridge University Press, 1981). See also Eduard Hanslick, On the Musically Beautiful (Indianapolis: Hackett, I987) for discussion of the 'musical' as opposed to the 'extra-musical'. For discussion of the idea of absolute music see Theodor W. Adorno, Philosophy of Modern Music (London: Sheed and Ward, 1973); Jacques Attali, Noise: The Political Economy of Music, trans. Brian Massumi (University of Minnesota Press, I985); Bellamy Hosler, Changing Aesthetic Views of Instrumental Music in Eighteenth Century Germany (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, i98i) and John Neubauer, The Emancipation of Music from Language: Departure from Mimesis in Eigh- teenth-Century Aesthetics (Yale University Press, i986).

4. I cannot refer the reader here to any specific words of these three composers as proof of my claim. The most I can do is ask the reader to consider the kinds of conditions and constraints under which these composer's lived and the kinds of concerns they had. For evidence of the latter there are numerous published letters and biographies.

5. Until late in the eighteenth century, there was no standard or generic way of referring to works as such. An instrumental composition when considered independently of, say, a cantata of which it was part would be referred to perhaps as "le morceau ddtachd," "la piece de musique," "die Solo" [Sonata], "die Musik," or "das musikalische Stuck" [the musical bit-an introduction or an interlude]. None but the last has modern usage. See entries relating to the composition and performance of music in James Grassineau, A Musical Dictionary (New York: Broude Brothers, a facsimile of the 1740 London Edition); Sebastien de Brossard, Dictionaire de Musique (Paris: Christophe Ballard, 1703) and Johann Gottfried Walther, Musikalisches Lexicon (Leipzig: Wolffgang Deer, 1732).

6. To refer to the romantic conception of musical works is not to refer straightforwardly to what we call romantic music. The former concerns a way of conceiving of musical practice, the latter concerns a style of musical composition more closely associated with Schumann and Liszt than with Beethoven. However, given certain historical reasons having to do with how Beethoven conceived of his musical activity, I will adopt what was in fact E.T.A. Hoffmann's position. Hoffmann saw Beethoven as the paradigmatic romantic composer.

7. I am reacting here to those theorists who in treating the "musical work" as a name for an ontological category have treated it as if it were free from any influence of ideological or aesthetic theory. For bibliographical references, see note 26 below.

8. The philosophical argument to follow, although not its impact, functions independently of the idea that the concept of a work fully emerged at the end of the eighteenth century. We could shift the date back 50 or ioo years or even to the sixteenth century-although obviously I think this is inaccu- rate. In the early part of the sixteenth century Nikolaus Listenius used the idea of opus absolutum etperfectum in his Musica (Nurnberg: Johan. Petreius, 1549). This is understood by many as indication of the presence of the idea of a work. See Dahlhaus, Esthetics of Music; Nicholas Wolter- storff "The Work of Making a Work of Music" in What is Music? An Introduction to the Philosophy of Music, ed. Philip Alperson (New York: Haven Publications, i987): 101-129. This understanding, I believe, is misleading. The notion can be understood in Aristotelian terms-as an action/performance completed and produced in the best way the performer knows how. (Consider the utterance "You have completed your work" meaning "You have completed your assigned task.") Nothing is mentioned in the Listenius text of a performance of a work or of a preconceived work existing independently of and prior to its performances.

9. John Rockwell, All American Music (New York: Vin- tage Books, I983), p. 146. For useful discussion of avant- garde attitudes towards the notion of a work, see Peter Burger, Theory of the Avant-Garde, trans. Michael Shaw (University of Minnesota Press, I984): 55-59 and Chris- topher Ballantine, "Towards an Aesthetics of Experimental Music," Musical Quarterly 63 (0977): 224-246.

IO. Consider the transcriptions, etc., by Beethoven, Liszt, Ravel, Schoenberg, and Kreisler which have been notated or recorded and have come to be appreciated in their own right. What would determine whether a given transcription could be regarded as a work in its own right would depend upon whether it was sufficiently different from the original work for us to decide that it independently met the conditions of being a work. See Philip Alperson, "Musical Improvisation," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 43 (i984): 17-30 and Jerrold Levinson, "What a Musical Work is," Journal of Philosophy 77 (1980), p. 128. In the latter it is argued, in contrast to my point, that a transcription of a musical work in all cases yields an ontologically distinct work.

ii. Burger, Theory of the Avant Garde, p. 57. 12. The very idea of classical music was formed in contra-

distinction to that of romantic music in the early I800s. Although it was intended to signify music written before the romantic era, it came quickly to take on a much wider connotation. This was partially due to the fact that, with a romantic conception of music in mind, theorists came to regard the eighteenth century as having produced the most perfect masterpieces of absolute music despite the fact that the idea of absolute music was foreign to eighteenth century composers. As Dahlhaus writes in his Foundations of Music History, trans. J.B. Robbinson (Cambridge University Press, I983), p. 28: "The idea of absolute music was formed, paradoxically, on the basis of works that first had to be reconstrued before they could even suit this category, a category whose full significance was, in turn, revealed to the


66 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

nineteenth century only by these very works." Blume in Classic and Romantic Music, p. 67 makes a similar point: "It is a widely held but erroneous idea that the Classic era was 'the age of instrumental music'; that, in reality, was the Romantic era."

13. The phrase "musical work" can be used both in an evaluative and in a classificatory sense. What we see here is an imperialistic conflation (contamination) of the two senses.

I4. At a concert of flamenco guitar music played by Carlos Montoya, it soon became clear that the 'endings' of his 'works' were artificial. He simply stopped playing at a certain point and the audience applauded. He then continued with what was clearly an extended improvisation around various flamenco melodies.

I5. From his review of Reinhard Strohm's Essays on Handel and Italian Opera, Times Literary Supplement (Jan- uary 3I, i986), p. I i8. The use of the term Gesamtkunstwerk here is not antithetical to my use of the concept of a work. Recall that the reconception of instrumental music in the early i8oos was applied not only to instrumental works but also to operas, cantatas, masses, etc. Opera, for example, was originally a form of popular entertainment or in some countries a cultivated form of drama. Like other eighteenth century musical forms, priority was given to the word over the sound. Thus, in I711, we hear Alison ridiculing operas written in a foreign language. With the emancipation of instrumental music, however, there emerged a new view of opera amply illustrated in the anecdote reported in i848 by George Hogarth in his Music History, Biography, and Criti- cism (New York: Da Capo Press, i969), p. 78: "The oper- ose character of Mozart's accompaniments was long made an objection to his dramatic music. The Emperor Napoleon once inquired of the celebrated Gretry, what was the difference between Mozart and Cimerosa. 'Sire', replied Gre- try, 'Cimerosa places the statue on the stage, and the pedestal in the orchestra: while Mozart puts the statue in the orchestra and the pedestal on the stage'."

16. Mentioned respectively in Lewis Rowell, Thinking about Music: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Music, (University of Massachusetts Press, i983), p. 2i8 and Paul Griffiths, A Concise History of Avant-Garde Music: From Debussy to Boulez (Oxford University Press, I978), p. 8i.

17. Alain Danieloy, The Situation of Music and Musicians in Countries of the Orient (Florence: L.S. Olschki, I971), p. 2I.

18. Quoted in Attali, Noise, p. I04. i9. From E.J. Hobsbawm review of Duke Ellington by

James Lincoln Collier, in New York Review of Books (Nov. i9, i987): 3-7. Think also of George Gershwin's "classical compositions" in this context.

20. It has been suggested to me that even if Vivaldi was not part of a romantic cult, his music was nonetheless valued for its originality. This I agree with. But one can be original without producing works. Further, I am speaking about a cliched and I think unjustified criticism showing that the critic looks down upon Vivaldi's music because he sees it as failing to meet the conditions of production characteristic of the romantic cult. The fact that Vivaldi's Four Seasons, in particular is one (or four?) of our classics is testimony to the fact that Vivaldi did not write the same work 300 times.

2I. I am arguing here neither for radical relativism or nihilism with regard to musical judgment, nor that the influ-

ence of romanticism is justified. I am claiming only that the latter exists and that this has interesting consequences.

22. For a discussion of racial purity and impurity in musical styles, see Bela Bart6k, "Race Purity in Music," Modem Music I9 (1942): I53-55.

23. The way in which a musical work exhibits properties is complex since the object is not physical in any straightfor- ward sense. It is, however, appropriate to speak of a work as having such and such properties if it is suitably packaged. If, for example, an adequate score is written for the music, the music takes on a set of essential properties determined by that score. Contrast this with the practice of improvisation where musicians speak of a basic tune or rhythm as an essential, individuating principle. If a given improvisation is recorded and notated, one, so to speak, increases the number of essential properties. Only too soon the improvisation acquires the status of a work and the work takes on the property of being composed. The improviser- jazz musician duly acquires the status of jazz composer.

24. I will make no mention here of the discussion of open concepts influenced by Wittgenstein for two reasons. First, I do not want my discussion to be further complicated by the already existing and mutually conflicting views of open concepts. Second, my argument although similar in conclusion is structured around premises of a sort not to be found in previous discussions. See Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philo- sophical Investigations, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1958), sections 67-88.

25. This is not to say that no musical concepts have changed. The concept of musical sound, for example, has undergone quite extensive changes in the last ioo years. But this concept is distinct from that of a musical work.

26. See the following descriptions of a musical work: as an abstract particular, William Webster, "A Theory of the Compositional Work of Music," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 33 (1974): 59-66; Haig Katchadourian, Music, Film and Art (London: Gordon and Breach, I985); as an initiated type, Levinson, "What a Musical Work is"; as a culturally emergent entity and as a type, Joseph Margolis, "Works of Art as Physically Embodied and Culturally Emergent Entities, " British Journal of Aesthetics I4 (1974): i87-96; as a norm kind, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Works and Worlds of Art (Oxford: Clarendon Press, i980); as a kind, Peter Kivy, "Platonism in Music," Grazer Philosophische Studien i9 (i984): I09-29; as a class of performances com- pliant with a score written in a notational system, Nelson Goodman, Languages of Art: An Approach to the Theory of Symbols (Indianapolis: Hackett, I976); as an interpreted type, R.A. Sharpe, "Type, Token, Interpretation and Per- formance," Mind 9i (1979): II2-II4; as a generic entity, Richard Wollheim, Art and Its Objects (New York: Harper and Row, i968); as the pattern indicated in a score and exhibited in a performance, Kendall L. Walton, "The Pre- sentation and Portrayal of Sound Patterns," in Human Agency: Language, Duty, and Value, eds. Jonathan Dancy, J.E.M. Moravscik, and C.C.W. Taylor (Stanford University Press, i988): 237-302.

27. See Arthur Danto, The Transfiguration of the Com- monplace (Harvard University Press, i98i), p. vii. Danto actually speaks of traditional definitions of 'art' but the same issue is at stake.

28. Nelson Goodman, for example, who finds that much aleatoric music does not meet the conditions of his notational


Goehr Being True to the Work 67

system is willing to say that we have before us no works. See his Of Mind and Other Matters (Harvard University Press, i984), p. I39. For other examples see Levinson "What a Musical Work is"; Peter Kivy, "Platonism in Music"; Roman Ingarden, The Work of Music and The Problem of Its Identity, trans. A. Czerniawski (University of California Press, i986); Alan Tormey, "Indeterminacy and Identity in Art," Monist 58 (1974): 203-2I5; and Paul Ziff, Review of Goodman's Languages of Art, Philosophical Review 67 (1971): 509-I5.

29. Ingarden, The Work of Music and The Problem of Its Identity, p. xiv.

30. Wollheim captures the same kind of assumption perfectly in Art and Its Objects. His book opens with the lines: "'What is art?' 'Art is the sum of or totality of works of art'. 'What is a work of art?'"

31. Whether one could use paradigm examples as counterexamples would depend upon whether one adopted an essentialist view of these examples. I have tried to offer a non-essentialist view which if successful would enable me to dispense with the counterexample method as a method central to philosophical analysis.

32. Hanslick, On the Musically Beautiful, p. 20: "We see that vocal music, whose theory can never determine the essence of music, is moreover in practice not in a position to give the lie to principles derived from the concept of instrumental music."

33. I am very grateful to Bernard Elevitch, Steven Ger- rard, Benjamin Kaplan, Jerrold Levinson, Barry Smith, Kendall L. Walton, Anna Wessely, and to anonymous read- ers for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.


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Issue Table of ContentsThe Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 47, No. 1 (Winter, 1989), pp. 1-107Front MatterAffect and Aesthetics in Human Evolution [pp. 1-14]Giacometti's Art as a Judgment on Culture [pp. 15-20]Refining Art Historically [pp. 21-33]No Ethics, No Text [pp. 35-42]Kant and the Autonomy of Art [pp. 43-54]Being True to the Work [pp. 55-67]Emotions and Music: A Reply to the Cognitivists [pp. 69-76]Aesthetic Laws, Principles and Properties: A Response to Eddy Zemach [pp. 77-82]Book ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 83-84]Review: untitled [pp. 85-86]Review: untitled [pp. 86-89]Review: untitled [pp. 89-90]Review: untitled [p. 91]Review: untitled [pp. 92-93]Review: untitled [pp. 93-94]Review: untitled [pp. 94-95]Review: untitled [pp. 95-96]Review: untitled [pp. 97-98]

Book NotesReview: untitled [pp. 99-100]Review: untitled [p. 100]Review: untitled [p. 100]Review: untitled [p. 100]Review: untitled [p. 100]Review: untitled [p. 100]Review: untitled [p. 101]Review: untitled [p. 101]Review: untitled [p. 101]Review: untitled [p. 101]Review: untitled [pp. 101-102]Review: untitled [p. 102]Review: untitled [p. 102]Review: untitled [p. 102]Review: untitled [p. 102]Book Note Authors [p. 102]

Books Received [pp. 103-106]Back Matter [pp. 107-107]

being true to the work

Documents

musical elements

musical activities

nature of musical works

examples of musical

classical musical practice

extramusical considerations

terms of works

jstor terms