Echoes of Petrarch: Martin Boykan and Musical Narrative.

Publication: Perspectives of New Music

Publication Date: 22-JUN-00

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THROUGHOUT THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, musical analysis placed a peculiar emphasis on structure as a means of validation. From Schenker's Ursatz to Forte's pitch-class set complexes, theoretical systems have implicitly asserted that a piece's significance derives principally from its adherence to a structural model, within which every detail is explicable. The architectonic exploits of composers, too, from Babbitt to Xenakis, reflect the same premise: that a musical work is justified only if it possesses a demonstrable logical framework and complies scrupulously with the demands of the same.

Martin Boykan propounds a contrasting analytical approach, which he labels "music as narrative." Simply stated, a piece of music tells a story, and it is the drama inherent in that story which gives the piece its significance, quite apart from structural considerations. The unifying elements of a piece, in fact, serve exclusively to provide a setting for the drama, and in many cases the salient events achieve their significance precisely because of their deviation from established paradigms. In a yet-unpublished book, he ridicules conventional analysis: "About no other art form have writers been so obsessed with the question of 'unity' (and therefore 'variety'). To read about music is to have the impression that it is always in danger of falling into incoherence." (1) Boykan does not oppose the concept of coherence per se. Rather, he objects to a coherence derived through analogy from the visual arts, and therefore devoid of reference to music's fundamental attribute: temporal organization.

Because time is an essential clement of the musical experience, Boykan argues, musical analysis should derive its terminology and its methodology not from the plastic arts, but from the dramatic. A piece of music does not resemble a sculpture or a painting nearly so closely as it resembles a play or a novel, in which the ordering of events, and to a certain extent their pacing, govern the aesthetic experience. But structural analysis typically deemphasizes rhythm and phrasing in favor of pitch and harmony, effectively flattening a musical piece into a static phenomenon. Therefore, although Boykan does not disapprove of such tools as voice-leading graphs or pitch-class set identification, he insists that they alone cannot provide a comprehensive understanding of a piece of music. "Musical structure is not a map, even one that gradually unfolds. Or to put it another way, the synchronic model, in which everything somehow is seen together, fundamentally distorts the way music is perceived."

Of course, he acknowledges distinctions between music and the dramatic arts. He does not allege that musical notes or gestures represent concrete objects, as do words, nor that they conjure specific, extramusical associations. Boykan's "narrative" is not identical to a musical "program." The characters in his drama are the musical entities themselves--pitches, figurations, harmonies. For example, in an analysis of a Beethoven piano sonata, he writes, "the adagio does not quite accomplish what it set out to do.... The 6 chord on the downbeat of measure 3 is so powerful that it forces the B to descend." And later, "the Cx forces the music into a higher register, where the B, inflected to the leading tone, B[MUSICAL NOTES REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], will finally cut a viable path to a triumphant C[MUSICAL NOTES REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]." The nouns are technical, but the verbs and adjectives are theatrical. Boykan deliberately personifies the relevant musical entities, adopting metaphorical dramatic phraseology to conv ey their significance.

In what, therefore, consists this discretely musical narrative? Although Boykan does not proffer a precise definition of the term, a close reading of his analyses indicates that it consists in the establishment of expectations and in their subsequent fulfillment or impediment. These expectations may vary in intensity and in specificity, but it is they that maintain the listener's interest throughout the performance of a piece. They may be as...

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