This is the (slightly) expanded, final version.

This amateur exercise in the philosophy of music—my second, after “Musical Ambiguity and Musical Analysis” (or third, if you count the excursus on Ives and Emerson in the update of my article on The Fourth of July)—was written mostly to clarify for myself, and for anyone else interested, what I think. In writings where the focus is on doing m…[Read more]

“Un bacio”—ancora? Un altro “bacio” examples (complete)

It is difficult to credit the usual explanation that the mere fact of the “bacio” theme’s recapitulation in act 4 of Verdi’s Otello accounts for its powerful effect. Even the irony of dramatic circumstances radically altered from those it accompanied when introduced in act 1 seems insufficient to explain the complex impact of the theme’s return. I…[Read more]

What do we analyze when we analyze a piece of music? Arguing from the point of view of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy (Philosophical Investigations, etc.), and using a somewhat similar method and some of the same concepts (e.g., “playing a game”), this essay asserts that analysis has a distinct role to play apart from providing data to theor…[Read more]

General-interest article on George Gershwin’s opera “Porgy and Bess” (intended as a two-page spread in the London Review of Books or the Times Literary Supplement), based on a book-length work in progress. A propos the forthcoming critical edition of the opera by Wayne Shirley.

This is a revised version of a chapter in the book “Schenker Studies 2,” edited by Carl Schachter and Hedi Siegel (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 160-91.

This is a revised version of a chapter from the book “Schenker Studies 2,” edited by Carl Schachter and Hedi Siegel (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 160-91.

Some thoughts on a favorite book by a favorite author. Not my field, but at this stage not my concern, etiher. A sort of a compensation for my wish that I had proposed writing an opera together to Thomas Pynchon when I had the chance.

The trill in Schubert’s B-flat piano sonata taps into a network of musical symbols. One of the marks of a great composer is a deep intuition as to what meaning can be conveyed by notes deployed in a certain way, a sense similar to one great poets must have to make us feel connections between words.

What do we analyze when we analyze a piece of music? Arguing from the point of view of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy (Philosophical Investigations, etc.), and using a somewhat similar method and some of the same concepts (e.g., “playing a game”), this essay asserts that analysis has a distinct role to play apart from providing data to theor…[Read more]

Most of the songs of John Lennon and Paul McCartney during the Beatle years were largely written by one or the other of the two. But because they acted as mutual editors and occasionally combined segments by each of them into one song, and because the songs were published as if they were true collaborations, the distinct individual styles of…[Read more]

Most of the songs of John Lennon and Paul McCartney during the Beatle years were largely written by one or the other of the two. But because they acted as mutual editors and occasionally combined segments by each of them into one song, and because the songs were published as if they were true collaborations, the distinct individual styles of…[Read more]

The norm of large-scale composition is for a motive to be established on the surface and then for there to be hidden repetition, whether the camouflage takes the form of ornamentation or augmentation.
George Gershwin’s music, however, has a number of notable reversals of this norm of motivic presentation, and his well-known reliance on i…[Read more]

The norm of large-scale composition is for a motive to be established on the surface and then for there to be hidden repetition, whether the camouflage takes the form of ornamentation or augmentation.
George Gershwin’s music, however, has a number of notable reversals of this norm of motivic presentation, and his well-known reliance on i…[Read more]

“Un bacio”—ancora? Un altro “bacio”!—examples

It is difficult to credit the usual explanation that the mere fact of the “bacio” theme’s recapitulation in act 4 of Verdi’s Otello accounts for its powerful effect. Even the irony of dramatic circumstances radically altered from those it accompanied when introduced in act 1 seems insufficient to explain the complex impact of the theme’s return. I…[Read more]

examples 13-A2

examples 1-12

Attempts to account for the undoubted impact of the interview chords in Billy Budd have had the unfortunate aspect of responses to a Rorschach inkblot, tending to reveal more about the respondent than the work. For many theorists, the most convincing approaches have been negative—understandably, because the chords do seem set apart in their lack o…[Read more]