Structures, musical realities and some other trips on musical creation in composition and analysis

In this essay I elaborate a reflection upon the use of the term ‘structure’ in music theory, considering some of its epistemological implications on the way we tend to approach musical knowledge. It is not my intention to present a historical or philosophical review at length, which could not be done given the size limitations of this paper, even though some contextual considerations about it are made along the text. My main purpose is to infer nuances and methodologies related to the use of this concept in varied theoretical contexts, in which certain differences in perspective, repertoire and analytical objectives are considered. In particular, I discuss some contributions on the side of topical analysis and musical narrative that aim to clarify issues of musical meaning and discourse. Drawing on studies by Michael Klein and Rodolfo Coelho de Souza, and suggesting the discussion could be extended to the work of Grabócz and Micznik, among others, I claim that these approaches, broadly speaking, configure a sort of transtructuralist methodology in which topoi function as a hybrid midway between music ‘in itself’ and music as a worldly thing. This is achieved through vesting the concept of topic of a veiled structural aura, based on intertextual and sociocultural conventions rather than what could be called textual or traditional ones. The point of interest is that even though a topic is identified as an object, i.e., as a verifiable part of the music, its semantic implications upon musical meaning stay always relatively open, and this explains the hybrid dimension of topoi mentioned above. The role of musical narrative, then, would be to take this openness to another level of analysis, one in which the analyst should commit himself to the cultural values he finds most pertinent among those he identified in the music, thus creating a perspective of interaction between these values in relation to the temporal unfolding of the analyzed work. That is why this last instance, which Almén called the ‘narrative level’, is often linked to musical hermeneutics, since its epistemological foundation is not anymore properly an analytic, but rather an interpretive one.

Now, it must be pointed out that Western classical music is par excellence the aimed repertoire in this theoretical trend. Even though topical analysis is currently being extended to other repertoires (I think, for example, of Acácio Pidedade’s contributions on Brazilian popular music), it is there, in the core of classical music, where topoi seem more well-grounded, catalogued, theorized or, in a word, structured. It is also there we will find the main focus of music narrative studies, at least in its most weighty advances (a recent publication organized by Klein and Reyland [2013] signals, perhaps, major contributions on other musical practices). So, if one is dealing with other musics, it is perfectly reasonable that some methodological difficulties should arise regarding the adaptation of these concepts to new theoretical necessities. In this essay, I suggest that not only methodological adaptations should be made in order to enlarge the repertoires in the current discussion, but – and this is my main concern – that the very transtructuralist approach, as I called it, could be reviewed in light of these adaptations.

Using as a starting point a stimulating analogy between musical objects and the kafkan ‘thing’ Odradek, made by Lawrence Kramer (2011 p. 184-203), I then take as an analytical case my own recent composition named Para Vestir o Vazio (fl., cl., vc., pno.). Neither as a composer nor as an analyst I find myself in the position to infer any kind of structure-as-object in this piece of music, let alone identify topoi or other unities of conventional meaning. That does not mean, though, we cannot make structures out of it, since sound and musical notation are all there, as physical traces of what we call work. In fact, I do try to establish a structural behavior for the beginning of Para Vestir o Vazio, but since those structures are not conventional in any sense, and since they are not necessarily related to my creative intentions as the composer, I think there is a fundamental difference between them and the kind of structure we assume that exists in a work by, say, Mozart or Chopin. First, the structures I made up for Para Vestir o Vazio are not only related to what exists as score or performance/recording, but also with what I, as composer and/or analyst, imagine as other sounds and metaphors that does not exist as a trace; second (by consequence), I cannot imply that those structures are the music ‘in itself’ in any theoretically relevant sense. It should be clear by now that the term ‘structure’, then, loses its sense as a metaphor, and this is why I prefer to use the expression ‘musical reality’ when writing about my music and that of some other composers (see Angelo 2014). Finally, under these particular circumstances, transtructural methodologies do not fit in the analysis, since the hermeneutical process is not built upon the structure. Musical realities are in themselves interpretive things: under this perspective, music cannot open itself to the world because it was a worldly thing from the beginning.