Vasili Byros - Towards an Archaeology of Hearing - Schemata and Eighteenth-Century Consciousness

8/12/2019 Vasili Byros - Towards an Archaeology of Hearing - Schemata and Eighteenth-Century Consciousness

1/72

Autumn 2009, Vol. 1, No. 2, 235306

2009 by the Korean Institute for Musicology All rights reserved.

Aestheticising the historical and historicising the aesthetic are op-posite sides of the same coin: The argument, the most purple amongseveral ornate passages woven throughout Dahlhauss Grundlagen derMusikgeschichte(Eng. trans., 1984, 71), problematically equates the

aesthetic and historical experience of a musical work as one and thesame phenomenological incident. By extension, it suggests that his-tory is somehow fundamentally integral to the faculty of hearingthathistorical consciousness, even, is immediately available to present-daymodes of listening. Indeed, Dahlhaus maintains that past and presentform an indissoluble alloy; that works extend[ing] from earlier peri-ods into our own age do not come solitary and sequestered; they bringtheir own timeatemps perdualong with them (1984, 70). Much inDahlhauss argument explicitly derives from closely engaging Gadamersnotion of Wirkungsgeschichte(Gadamer 2003, 300ff.; Dahlhaus 1984,3, 5860), or historically affected consciousness, which views history asa broad panorama (Dahlhaus 1984, 71), extending from the past tothe present in a continuous process of reception, or, if you will, as tradi-tion. The larger implication is that traditions persist beyond the point oftheir original habitus (Bourdieu 1993), and therefore resist the pass-ing of time and the commensurate morphing of culture.

Towards an Archaeology of Hearing:

Schemata and Eighteenth-Century

Consciousness

VASILI BYROSINDIANA UNIVERSIT Y


2/72

BYROS

236 Musica Humana

But the ontology of Dahlhauss twisted aesthetic paradox, as hecalls it, warrants some measure of scrutiny, if only because it appears atonce entirely sound and altogether unlikely. Towards the one extreme,a theoretical framework capable of sustaining the notion of a historicalmode of hearing, on both cognitive and philosophical grounds, lies inthe concept of a schemain cognitive psychology and recent historicallyinformed studies in music cognition (Gjerdingen 2007; Byros 2009).But at the same time, the whole question of historical epistemologywould challenge not thepossibilityof a historical mode of hearing so

much as its inevitability, as intimated by Dahlhauss aphorism, thatalllistening will by nature be historical by virtue of works being fromthe past. As Michel Foucault argued painstakingly, the interpretationalgrids belonging to the various phases of history are ever mutating, dis-connected, and often at odds with one another (Foucault 1972; 1994;see also Cook and Clarke 2004, 3; Hacking 2002). Even this negativeorientation, however, finds a home in the concept of a schema. Morespecifically, schema theory invites this otherwise uncomfortable para-dox, for in order to demonstrate that historical modes of listening mayexist, one must articulate some difference with the present so as toqualify the situatedness of cognition as historical in some way, whilenonetheless maintaining that differences are somehow mediated all thesame, in order to allow history a place in cognition.

Example 1Ludwig van Beethoven, op. 2, no. 1 (1795), ii, Adagio, bars 68:

cadence galanteschema


3/72

Towards an "Archaeology" of Hearing: Schemata and Eighteenth-Century Consciousness

237Autumn 2009

On the one hand, when the British musicologist Charles Cudworthfirst related the problem, he maintained eighteenth-century music madeuse of many mannerisms, such as the cadence galante(Example 1), thatwere so markedly of [their] period, but the effect of which is largelylost on modern ears (Cudworth 1949, 176; see also Heartz 2003, 23).On the other hand, as Robert Gjerdingen (2007) most recently and mostcomprehensively arguedwhile acknowledging, alongside Cudworth,that strong habits in the present easily mask differences in the past(2007, 4)schemata nonetheless provide a means of access to the past,

precisely because of their historical contingencybecause of the histori-cal determinacy of these mannerisms or schemata, and of musicalstyle in general: perhaps the most central thesis in Leonard Meyers styleprogram and its legacy (1956; 1967; 1973; 1989; 2000). Both Meyerand Gjerdingen, as Michael Spitzer summarizes the position, presup-pose that eighteenth-century consciousness is immediately accessible(Spitzer 2004, 49) by means of these style forms, or schemata, owingto their historical situatedness (Meyer 1989; Gjerdingen 1986; 1988;2007). And so, betweenthese positive and negative orientations sur-rounding Dahlhauss paradox, we may sketch a framework for objecti-fying less a historical mode of listening, than what might be styled as anarchaeology of hearing for music of late eighteenth-century Europe(cf. Gjerdingen 2007, 1619). Waiting for us at the end of either line ofthought, we will find the concept of a schema.

The Schema Concept

Throughout its long history in Western empirical philosophy and cogni-

tive psychology, the underlying concept of a schema, if not the term, hasupheld a remarkable degree of consistency and refinement (e.g., Aristo-tle De memoria; Locke 1706; Hume 1777; Bartlett 1932; Piaget 1947;Piaget and Inhelder 1968; Minsky 1975; Rumelhart 1975; 1977; 1980;Neisser 1976; Rumelhart and Ortony 1977; Schank and Abelson 1977;G. Mandler 1979; J. Mandler 1984). Most generally, schema refersto the mental encoding of a statistical regularity or redundancy in the


4/72

BYROS

238 Musica Humana

environment that reciprocally informs cognition. It was precisely underthese circumstances that Aristotle first associated the term with the con-cept. He wrote, We know things . . . by a psychic process analogous tothem. There exist in the mind schemata () and processes ()corresponding to the external objects (De memoria, 452b.815; slight-ly modified translation from Ross 1906, 115). The most elaborate mod-eling of a schema from the perspective of cognitive psychology is argu-ably that proposed by David Rumelhart, James McClelland, and thePDP Research Group. The image reproduced in Figure 1, adapted from

their Parallel Distributed Processingof 1986 (Rumelhart, Smolensky, etal. 1986, 10), presents a formalization that resonates astoundingly withAristotles earliest conception.

Figure 1Connectionist modeling of a schema (Rumelhart, Smolensky, et al. 1986, 10)


5/72


239Autumn 2009

Beneath lies the image of a geometric figure, or an external objectby Aristotles terms. Above lies a representation of the schema, orpsychic process, corresponding to that object, that gives rise to itsinterpretation or perception as a cube. The wire-frame drawing is of noordinary cube, however, but of a so-called Necker Cube. Like Wittgen-steins famous rabbit-duck illusion, the image is ambiguous (2001, 166;

Jastrow 1900). The drawing may be perceived as either a southwest- ora northeast-facing geometry. To state it otherwise, the viewing subjectassumes a spatial perspective that is oriented either from above and

to the right, or below and to the left of the object. Therefore properlyspeaking, the psychic process above involves two sub-schemata, L and R,each responsible for one of two possible interpretations. Each schema isa network of small, discrete, and simple mental operations, correspond-ing to the primary data structures of memory, which function in paral-lel to map an interpretation onto each ambiguous corner of the figuresintersecting lines. By way of example, the lower- and left-most node inSchema L, labeled FLL, projects the interpretation of Front-Left-Lower Corner onto the lower- and left-most vertex, to perceive a cubewhose front face lies at the lower left. Schema R, on the other hand,imposes the inverse interpretation onto the same vertex as Back-Left-Lower Corner (BLL), which moves the front face to the upper right,and so forth.

But the greater significance of the exercise resides not in the dual ac-tivity of seeing a right-facing cube as a left-facing cube and vice versa.Nor in the ability to alter ones orientation towards the object. Rather,as Roger Scruton (1999, 78) and Michael Spitzer (2004, 9) argue inrespect to Wittgensteins reading of the rabbit-duck phenomenon, theexercise properly involves seeing the neutral material trace, that is, the

drawing, as either the one or the otheras being able to form a spatialorientation to begin with. In other words, the emphasis falls on the re-lationship between the drawing as a substrate, and the occurrence ofa psychic process, or schema, upon that substrate. The schema and, inconsequence, the ability to see either a right- or a left-facing cube in thisdrawing, is a product of having already seen cube-like geometries in theworld, or of projecting that previously acquired knowledge from ones


6/72

BYROS

240 Musica Humana

ecology onto the image. The visual exercise is a testament to the realityof a schema as a determinant of cognition, because no cube exists onthe printed page, only a series of intersecting lines absent of any cues ofdepth or perspective. Perceiving a cube is entirely an act of the imagina-tion. This projection of knowledge onto the image amounts to forminga context for interpretation, by imposing ones experience of cube-likegeometries in the world in the form of a copy (; Aristotle, Dememoria, 451a.1519)not in the sense of a fixed image, but in thesense of imitating a prior experience as an active reconstructionof past

experience in Frederic Bartletts terms (1932, 213). The schema, by thisestimation, is a re-forming of associations or connections already madein the past according to a (continual) reencounter with the same or simi-lar environmental stimuli: in a word, an image-inative reconstruction ofpast experience. This reconstruction involves the learned and previouslyabstracted affordances of the environment (Gibson 1966; 1979), andthe ecologically imposed necessary connexions (Hume 1777) amongthem in the mind. The affordances of the environment are encoded inthese connections among memory modes (Becker 1973), which buildup to an organised setting (Bartlett 1932, 201), or schema, as a con-text for interpretation.1

History as the Projection of Knowledge

Now, suppose the acousticsignals or sound stimulus (Meyer 1956,4547) produced by an orchestra were analogous to the visual signals ofthe wire-frame drawing in Figure 1. That is to say, imagine there existedan acoustic substratethat is prior to music, as there exists a visualsubstrate that is prior to the perception of a cube. Then, a historicalmode of listening, or a historical means of making music

cognitively(cf. Boretz 1995), would involve the projection of history as a form ofknowledgeonto that substrate. To assume a historical orientation to-wards the acoustic substratum would involve what Spitzer (2004, 9)following Scruton (1999, 78)calls hearing as, a mode of perceptioninformed with knowledge. As knowledge structures that mediate per-ception or determine behavior in this way (Rumelhart, Smolensky, et al.


7/72


241Autumn 2009

1986, 7; Rumelhart 1980; Spitzer 2004), schemata provide a means forrealizing not so much a historical but an archaeological mode of hearingin a Foucauldian sense. The difference turns on understanding historyless as the pastness of music, than as a space of knowledge, con-ceptual field (Foucault 1994, xiii; 1972, 126), normative system(Vodika 1975, 90), or mode of behaviour (Dahlhaus 1984, 61) thatschemata embody and thereby aestheticize, corresponding to one sideof Dahlhauss coin. As Leo Treitler relates it, It isnt the pastness of ourobjects that distinguishes them as historical . . . but music inthe past . . .

as a principle of knowledge (Treitler 1982, 154). The problematics ofhistorically informed listening would then be situated in a transpositionof history from a connotation of pastness to one of epistemology.

Music of Late Eighteenth-Century Europe

But music of late eighteenth-century Europe is ideally poised in thisdetailing of the problem, to the extent that a transposition of this kindbecomes immaterial and virtually unnecessary. Because the music is it-self inherently schematic, highly conventionalized, thereby knowledge-

driven and predicated on regularity (cf. Mirka and Agawu 2008), anydistinctions between history and knowledge quaschema collapseorrather, following our Dahlhausian point of departure, they reverse intoone another as if occupying two sides of the same proverbial coin. Be-cause schemata follow a life cycle within a discrete historical setting,any cognitive engagement of music by means of them would simulta-neously constitute aestheticand historicalactivities. By virtue of theircultural determinacy, musical schemata, as albeit aesthetic objects andstructures of knowledge, are stamps of their period (Cudworth 1949,176) and therefore inescapably

historicizednonetheless, corresponding

with the opposite side of Dahlhauss coin.

Statistical Evidence: The 17, 43 and lesolfisolSchemata

Evidence substantiating both the immanently schematic nature of musicfrom late eighteenth-century Europe, and the historical contingency ofthese schemata, lies in ever growing programs of empirical musicology


8/72

BYROS

242 Musica Humana

(Clarke and Cook 2004) dedicated to this repertoire, within the largercontext of a newly rising interface between historically informed the-ory and cognition (e.g., Mirka 2005; 2008; 2009; Gjerdingen 2007; By-ros 2009). The most impressive among the evidence undoubtedly comesby way of statistics, which reconstruct what Leonard Meyer wouldcall the perceptual redundancy of a musical object within a specifiedmusical corpus (1967). Whereas the affordances and regularities inthe environment that go into building a visual schema for perceivinga universal category such as a cube in Figure 1 may easily be taken for

granted, statistical surveys and corpus studies reconstruct evidence forsuch regularities in a culturally-specific musical environment that mayotherwise not be self-evident, or lost to modern ears, in Cudworthsterms.

Among the first of these redundancies to be objectified, followingCudworths thought-piece on the cadence galante(1949), is what Meyercalled the 17, 43 archetype (1980; see also Meyer 1973). Illustratedin Example 2, from the opening of Mozarts Piano Sonata in G major,K. 283 (1774), the schema consists of a tightly knit pair of sub-phrasesconsisting of a tonic-dominant, dominant-tonic parallelism, articulatedby the 17, 43 rhyme in the top voice, the schemas most charac-teristic feature, whose pairing also circumscribes the two stages of theschema.

Example 2Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Piano Sonata in G major, K. 283 (1774),

i, Allegro, bars 14: 17, 43 schema


9/72


243Autumn 2009

The harmonic parellelism and statement-response paradigm betweenstages (Caplin 1998) is a feature shared by several of Meyers otherchanging-note archetypes, as well as the bisected variant of the Ad-este Fidelis schema (Meyer 1973; 1989; see also Gjerdingen 2007,85, 108, 119, 120; 1988, 5559, 6396). But it was Gjerdingen (1986;1988) who brought concrete evidence demonstrating the great frequen-cy and stylistic localization of the 17, 43 on a historical continuum,by conducting a historical survey summarized in the graph of Figure 2,which gives a population distribution of the schema across nearly two

centuries, from 1720 to 1900.

Figure 2Historical population distribution of the 17, 43 schema,

17201900 (Gjerdingen 1988)

The population peaks sharply in the 1770s (the decade in which theMozart sonata was composed) with a period of generally increased ac-tivity between 1760 and 1790. Now by itself, Gjerdingens study maydo little to single-handedly sustain the larger argument by having tobear the burden of representation. But Meyers and Gjerdingens argu-ments and predictions about the historical contingency of schemata, as


10/72

BYROS

244 Musica Humana

drawn from these statistics, are strongly perpetuated by my own com-parable study in several respects.

My dissertation on eighteenth-century tonality as a form of cultur-ally situated cognition (Byros 2009) conducts a similar historical surveyof another, entirely unrelated convention: the progression excerpted inExample 3, from the et lex perpetua section of the Introitus to Mo-zarts Requiem in D minor, K. 626 (1791), what I have termed the lesolfisolschema. The defining property, and consequently the namegiven the convention, derives, unlike the 17, 43, from its chromatic

turn of phrase in the bass (Byros 2009)specifically, from the scale-degree progression, 6, 5, +4, 5. The schema further differs in its highlydominantizing orientation, its first three events collectively assuming thesame function as an augmented sixth chord, by realizing its characteris-tic interval as a diminished third in the bass. In the Mozart Requiem, theschema punctuates a large half cadence, as would an augmented sixth,by unraveling the two dominant-oriented tendencies of scale degrees 6and +4, and positioning them in a diachronic setting (Example 3). Inthis connection, the harmonic-functional symbols in Example 3 derivefrom the implicit probability profiles (cf. Huron 2006, 14374) thatwere assigned to the scale degrees by the nomenclature of eighteenth-century French thoroughbass practice (see Byros 2009, chaps. 23): asFranois-Joseph Ftis summarized the situation in 1844, The degreesof the scale are designated by names, some of which indicate the me-lodic or harmonic characterof the tones that constitute the scale (Ftis1844, 2; added emphasis).2 Scale degrees not belonging to the threetones of the tonic triadtonique, dominante, and mdianteweredefined by their orientation to the hierarchically superordinate scaledegrees 1, 3, and 5. Among the subordinate scale degrees, 6 and 4 were

called sus-dominanteand sous-dominante, which literally meant thescale degrees lying immediately above and below the dominant (see e.g.,Dandrieu 1719; and Ftis 1844, 23). The S category in Example 3derives from the probability profile of dominant-orientedness implicit inthe terms sus-dominanteand sous-dominante, by collapsing these twocomplementary functions into a single dominantizing Scategory be-cause of their analogous probability profiles.


11/72


245Autumn 2009

E

xample3

Mozart,

RequieminD

minor,K.

626(1791),Introitus,

bars43

46:lesol

fisolschema(Byros2009)


12/72

BYROS

246 Musica Humana

As Meyer described it, in many theoretical systems the importance ofprobability relationships is made clear in the way in which the tones ofthe system are named. . . . [T]he normative tones, those toward whichother tones will probably move, have been given basic names, while theother tones have been given names related to these, often in terms oftheir probable motions (Meyer 1956, 56).

Furthermore, the harmonic function of a chord represented by theanalytic notation of Example 3 involves not simply the membership of achord in one of the functional categoriesthat is, membership based on

its tonique, dominante, or sus- and sous-dominantescale-degree affili-ationsbut the combination of these with a specific scale degree in thebass. Tsol in Example 3, for instance, specifies a particular functionwhich recognizes the tonic 6/4 as a characteristic passing chord betweensus- and sous-dominantebased harmonies, as frequently occurs, for ex-ample, in what Gjerdingen calls the Indugio schema (2007, 27383,464), where it appears between IV6and IV or ii (k), and the other wayround, as seen in bar 12 of Example 11. The schema serves to elabo-rate or linger (It. indugiare) on a sous-dominantebased harmony(Gjerdingen 2007, 274). This notion of harmonic function as a chord-form against a scale degree in the bass is consistent with eighteenth-century conceptions of harmony, as seen, for example, in the Rule of theOctave and the Italianpartimentotradition, whereby chords and chordprogressions are functional to the extent that they suggest a positionwithin a known scale-degree pattern in the bass (Byros 2009, chaps. 23;Gjerdingen 2007, 2007a; Holtmeier 2007), or within a set of possiblewholes (Gjerdingen 1991, 553). When Ftis penned the first explicitmention of harmonic function in the history of music theory, it was pre-cisely in these probabilistic terms: Each tone of a scale, having a par-

ticular character and carrying out a special function (fonction) in music[cf. Meyers probable motions], is accompanied by a harmony analo-gous to this character and to this function (fonction). The collection ofharmonies proper to each degree of the scale determines the tonality (latonalit) (1844, 3).3

The key-defining character of the lesolfisoltherefore operates byway of two stages, consisting of four events that correspond to the pro-


13/72


247Autumn 2009

gression of the bass. Events are represented by scale-degree nodes inExample 3. Simple lines without arrows between nodes designate andgroup intrastage and intrafunctional relations. Bold lines with arrowsindicate a higher-level syntactic articulation between the two stagesof the schema, which corresponds to the larger SDprogression andalmost invariably to a metric division. The first stage expands domi-nantizing function by harmonizing a lesolfibass with sus-dominante,tonique, and chromatic sous-dominantechord-forms, which collectivelyexpress the same function as an augmented sixth, whose characteristic

harmonic interval is composed-out as a diminished third in the bass.The aggregate effect of the three events in the first stage involves a simi-lar lingering as the Indugio schema, but on a chromatically intensi-fied and therefore even more dominant-oriented augmented sixth-chord,with reiterations of scale degrees 1 and 3 in the upper voices. The sec-ond stage is simply an expression of the dominant, often highlighted bya cadential 6/4, as seen in the Mozart example. In a mental representa-tion of the schema, each event would be abstracted and encoded into asingle memory node, corresponding to the pairing of a specific chord-form (in thoroughbass terms) and scale degree in the bass, as illustratedin Figure 3, adapted from a notational convention in Gjerdingen 2007.4

Figure 3lesolfisolschema: abstract mental representation (Byros 2009)


14/72

BYROS

248 Musica Humana

The rectangular nodes in Figure 3 and their connections are directlyproportionate to the affordances (Gibson) in the musical environ-ment and their necessary connexions (Hume) imposed by custom(, Aristotle, De Memoria, 451b.2535; Locke 1706, Book 2, Chap.33, 6)that is, by the statistical and perceptual redundancies of therelevant style system (Meyer 1956; see Byros 2009, chap. 5).

The Life Cycle of the lesolfisoland 17, 43

Figure 4a distributes the total population of 544 instances of the lesolfisolschema across a 17201840 timeline, from a corpus of roughly3000 musical works throughout all Europe (Byros 2009). Figure 4bdisplays Gjerdingens statistics for the same time period, adapted to thesame criteria of representation by distributing the 17, 43 populationat ten-year intervals, to facilitate comparison. Of great moment, bothsurveys show population distributions that approximate a Gaussianor normal distribution, otherwise known as a bell curve, with sharppeaks in the 1790s and 1770s, respectively, decades that represent the

heyday of the Classical style (cf. Gjerdingen 1988, 99ff.; Bulmer 1967).Besides that, the numbers display a period of overall stylistic consistencythat extends more broadly from 1750 to 1820. The populations of bothschemata are highly concentrated into a period of only seven decades,nearly half the overall time: 88.2 and 90.4 percent of the instancesrespectively occur between 1750 and 1820 (Figure 4). But more sig-nificantly still, with some informed interpretation we might view theseschemata and their populations as telling a larger story. Figure 5 as-similates the numbers from both studies (Gjerdingen 1988; Byros 2009)by treating the 17, 43 and lesolfisolschemata more generally as

symptomsof the Classical style. Once more, the now combined popula-tions bell in 175060 and 181020, while also sustaining a minimumof 67 percent of the population peak from 1760 to 1800, decades com-monly associated with the High Classical style. Not only may oneliken the graph, accordingly, to something of a metaphorical imageofthe history of the Classical style, but also to something of a historicalprediction.


15/72


249Autumn 2009

Figure 4aHistorical population distribution of the lesolfisolschema, 17201840: from a

corpus of roughly 3000 musical works, throughout all Europe (Byros 2009)

Figure 4bHistorical population distribution of the 17, 43 schema,

17201840 (Gjerdingen 1988)


16/72

BYROS

250 Musica Humana

Between these two mutually complementing data sets, we may antici-pate that other Classical schemata would either follow analogous lifecycles, or otherwise sit comfortably within the larger stylistic consis-tency. Not only do the statistics bring strong empirical evidence to sup-port Adornos famous argument respecting the historical immanenceof musical material (Adorno 2004). By extension, they suggest thatlistening by means of this material would equally comprise a histori-cal activitythat schema-driven listening would by nature be historical

through and through (Adorno 2004, 36).Schemata are said to collapse apparent oppositions between nature

and nurture, because the information-processing mechanism is modeledon the outside world or environment (Spitzer 2004, 46; see also Meyer1992): as the cognitive psychologist Donald A. Norman describes it,the fundamental notion that underlies the concept of a schema is thatculture determines the mental structures (in Baars 1986, 386; original

Figure 5Combined historical distributions of the lesolfisoland 17, 43 schemata

as symptoms of the Classical style


17/72


251Autumn 2009

emphasis). By a similar estimation, schemata would dissolve the opposi-tion between past and present because this environment is historicallydetermined; because historyas culturedetermines the mental struc-tures. The affordances of [the] environment, in Gibsons terms, areresources for, and constraints on, cognition (Smith and Semin 2004,75). History provides the constraints that structurally impact the mind(Byros 2009) through a process of re-enacting the perceptual redun-dancy represented at the heart of the historical distribution statistics inFigures 4 and 5: massive exposure to the style system may turn the

historical repertoire into ones proper musical environment, and therebyre-create the original process of statistical learning and recuperate thehistorical center (Spitzer 2004, 46).Forming a spatial orientation inrespect to the visual image of Figure 1, and forming a historical orienta-tion towards some musical work or passage, are different individuationsof the same cognitive process. In this way, Dahlhaus aphorismthatworks bring their own time along with themwould stand on securefooting.

The Negative Component: Mutation and Recovery

But on the other hand, the ultimate paradox in Dahlhauss twist stilllies in the necessity of a negative, discriminating component. That is,for Dahlhaus to be right, he must also be wrong, and I believe this tobe the reaction he intended, by way of a latent contradiction. Noticethat, while he claims works bring their own time along with them, thistime is also paradoxically a lost time, a temps perdu, the French un-mistakably being a reference to Proust (191327), whose deliberationson memory always involve an element of recovery. As it happens, else-where Dahlhaus makes the condition of recuperation explicit: histori-cism, he writes, considers the task of performers and audiencesnotonly to reconstructpart of the past but to make us sense our distancefrom it (1989, 323; added emphasis). The argument strongly resonateswith the main outlines of Foucaults archaeology of knowledge. Toreconstruct the episteme or historical a priori underlying a givenperiod requires that one also locate those moments of mutation, or


18/72

BYROS

252 Musica Humana

disconnect in the history of ideas, that bring such epistemologies intorelief by way of negation: archaeology, by addressing itself to the gen-eral space of knowledge, to its configurations, and to the mode of beingof the things that appear in it, defines systems of simultaneity, as wellas the series of mutationsnecessary and sufficient to circumscribe thethreshold of a new positivity (Foucault 1994, xxiii; added emphasis).Beyond statistical evidence, the problematics of historically informedlistening require that one demonstrate marked differences between sche-ma-driven and potentially modern-specific modes of cognitionto out-

line occasions where historical and modern habits would compete withone another. To do so may be an endlessly difficult exercise, not leastbecause gauging modes of hearing from the past will always involve areconstruction from documents. But such a historical ethnography, asit were, need not fall into disrepute simply because the cultural mosaicof the initial historical situation will always remain a reconstruction,and therefore necessarily incomplete: selected documentary evidence, ora few tiles from the mosaic, often betray a pattern that may be gener-alized into a principle,5and it is this pattern that I should like to explorein the following, by touching briefly on three case studies.

Three Case Studies

Mozart, String Quartet in C Major, K. 465, Dissonance (1785)

Beyond question, the most famous historical account of Mozarts cele-brated Dissonance Quartet is by Gottfried Weber. The essay original-ly published in Ccilia(1832), and later appended to his Versuch einergeordneten Theorie der Tonsetzkunst(183032), represents somethingof a pinnacle of eighteenth-century thought about harmony, in its virtu-ally obsessive reading of the tonality at a moment-by-moment level (We-ber 1832; Eng. trans. in Bent 1994). As Gjerdingen describes eighteenth-century modes of listening in general, The lodestar of galant music wasnot a tonic chord but rather a listeners experience, and global tonal-ity . . . was foreign to theirmore localized preoccupations (2007, 21;original emphasis).


19/72


253Autumn 2009

Example4

Moz

art,

StringQuartetinCmajor,K

.465,

Dissonance(1785),i,A

dagio,

bars1

14


20/72

BYROS

254 Musica Humana

Example4[continued]


21/72


255Autumn 2009

In Weber, a listeners experience is represented and objectified bydas Gehr(the ear), and, more specifically, by the Habits of theEar (Gewonheiten des Gehres), of which the Mozart analysis was tobe an exemplary illustration (183032, 2:126155; Eng. trans. 1851,1:34567).6Between bars 1 and 14, a minimum of five key changes areregistered following Webers reading and Webers categories for key per-ception outlined in the Versuch, as shown in Example 4.

Each modulation emerges as the consequence of some schema. C mi-nor and B minor in bars 14 and 58 respectively owe to variationsof the lesolfisol, which appears here in the viola, instead of the bass(bb. 14, 58), as an instance of a top-voice variant of the schema(Byros 2009).7The variant places the characteristic doti progressionnormally found in the top voice of the default form (see Example 3)8in the bass, as also seen in Example 5. We know Weber had the schemain mind because he rationalizes the famous dissonances of the openingagainst the schema as a norm.

Example 5Joseph Haydn, Symphony no. 96 in D major, The Miracle (1791),

i, Allegro, bars 19497: lesolfisolschema top-voice variant (Byros 2009)


22/72

BYROS

256 Musica Humana

Example 6 reproduces six potential solutions Weber offered for re-aligning the rhythmically displaced nonharmonic tones, all of themaccording to the harmonic criteria of the lesolfisol.The first notabledisturbance Weber lights upon, for example, is the apparent half-dimin-ished seventh chord on beat 2 of bar 2 (Example 4). The recompositionsin Example 6 interpret the A in the first violin as either having enteredtoo early, and therefore as an anticipation, or G and Fin the viola ashaving entered too late, or both. The adjustments expose an underlyingharmonic syntax of VI6iII;(or +ivol)V6, one of the paradigmatic har-

monizations of the lesolfisoltop-voice variant (cf. Examples 46).

Example 6Mozart, Dissonance Quartet, recomposition of dissonances in bars 14, fromWeber 183032, 46617(and Weber 1832, 17) based on the harmonic criteria of

the lesolfisoltop-voice variant


23/72


257Autumn 2009

Moreover, G, B, and F minor at bars 4, 5, and 8 are all instances ofwhat Weber describes in the Versuchas Neuer Anfang, or New Begin-ning (Weber 183032, 2:127128; Eng. trans. 1851, 1:34546), oneamong five of Webers Habits, or, one might say, schemata of theEar (cf. Saslaw 1991). Weber describes the emergence of G minor andB minor in bars 48 as occurring virtually ex nihilo:

On its own authority, and without any apparent motivation, [the B inbar 4] takes the law into its own hands and seeks to overthrow the Gmajor triad [as dominant] . . . transforming it now unilaterally into thetriad of G minor. . . . The [BD] dyad, seen in the context of the nextbar (b. 6), emerges as a genuine B minor triad in intentionindeedas the tonic chord of B minor. It has therefore precipitated a modula-tion from G minor, which has barely had time to establish itself, intoB minor . . . ; and precipitated it, furthermore, by way of a wholly un-prepared chord of b: i following directly from the G minor triad g: i; inshort two utterly remote keys stated one immediately after the other. (inBent 1994, 168, 170)

But in addition to Neuer Anfang, Weber does reference a more interme-diate process between the two distant tonalities. With the passage givenin Example 7, Weber maintains that the modulations and cross relationsoccurring in bars 45 would be better mediated if the harmonic rhythmof the underlying progression proceeded at a slower pace.

Example 7Dissonance Quartet, recomposition of bars 45, from Weber 183032,

495 (cf. 46619)

The underlying progression is a three-voice version of what Gjerdingen,following Joseph Riepel (175268), would call a Monte schema (Figure


24/72

BYROS

258 Musica Humana

6).By Gjerdingens definition, the Monte consists of two stages, eachcontaining two events that involve the resolution of a dissonant seventhchord, most often in 6/5 position in figured bass terms, to a consonant5/3 harmony. The outer voices of each stage characteristically have a 71and (5)43 pairing (Figure 6).

Figure 6Monte schema, from Gjerdingen 2007, 458

The resolving 5/3 chord may be a tonic or a dominant, and the secondstage of the schema is normally a step higher than the first. The Montein bars 45 of the Dissonance Quartet, however, involves an intervalof displacement of a third, a similarly frequent variation of the schema,particularly in more chromatic environments. The recomposition in Ex-ample 7 brings this variation of the Monte, operating in bars 45 of the

Quartet, further into relief.Beyond Webers categories and analysis, G minor and F minor in

bars 5 and 8 emerge from a telescoped instance of a Fenaroli schema(Gjerdingen 2007, 22540, 462), which consists of a 7123 bass, fre-quently counterpointed by a 4371 countermelody (Figure 7).


25/72


259Autumn 2009

Figure 7Fenaroli schema, from Gjerdingen 2007, 462

In the Dissonance Quartet the countermelody is absent, owing to athinning of the texture towards the end of bar 4. But more relevant tothe Quartet is the Fenaroli schemas close association with a modula-

tion to the dominant of the home key, as it frequently occurs followinga modulation to V (Gjerdingen 2007, 228, 462). In the Quartet, theschema enacts the actual modulation, with an implication for G minorto continue across the barline at bars 45as Weber also described itwith a completion of the Fenaroli, as does occur in the analogous musicin F minor at bars 89 (see Example 4). But at bar 5, the unexpected Din the first violin, along with the ensuing parallelism between bars 14and bars 58, retrospectively turns the Fenaroli into a Monte schema.These prospective and retrospective implications are illustrated with ar-

rows in Example 4, with implied motions and scale degrees never real-ized represented in gray. Between bars 14 and 58, then, a larger Fonteschema emerges, whose two stages each contain a pairing of a lesolfisolwith a Fenaroli (Example 4): the most basic feature of a Fonte,as Riepel initially defined it, involves the transposition of some musicalsegment one step lower (Gjerdingen 2007, 6176, 456).


26/72

BYROS

260 Musica Humana

But the historicism of Webers schema-oriented hearing only emergeswhen contrasted with competing and potentially modern-specific habitsof listening: Heinrich Schenkers analysis from a century later in Derfreie Satz(1935), reproduced in Example 8, registers no change of keywhatsoever, instead reading the opening as a tonic prolongation in Cminor, which leads to a dominant via a series of parallel-sixth progres-sions.

Example 8Dissonance Quartet analysis from Schenker 1935

Unlike the obsessive moment-by-moment orientation in Webers es-say, Schenkers analysis represents an instance of structural hearing(Salzer 1982), whereby harmonic phenomena lying outside the contextof the principal tonality are viewed not [as] modulatory agent[s], asSalzer relates it (1982, 18), but serve a larger contrapuntal process thatultimately serves to elaborate the triad of the principal key (Schenker1935). Without diminishing the value of Schenkers later integrative pre-dispositions, by sacrificing phenomena of the moment to the largerpicture in this way, something in the historical resonance of the Quartethas nevertheless been lost in Dahlhaus and Cudworths terms. Toborrow a metaphor Gjerdingen applies in a related context, withoutthese alluring and persistent changes in the tonality, these localizedpreoccupations, the color of the opening theme, like the Parthenon ofAthens, subsides to a more black-and-white or grayscale image with thepassing of time (2007, 19). The distance in Webers hearing is met onlyin diametric relation to Schenkers competing interpretation of the same


27/72


28/72

BYROS

262 Musica Humana

from G major to B minor in bars 48 (Example 9). Nothing of this oc-curred to Jonas: in a footnote, he writes, Obviously, Schenker made amistakehere. As a matter of fact, the sonata is in E minor (Eng. trans.1954, 252; added emphasis).

Example 9Beethoven, Piano Sonata in E minor, op. 90 (1814), i,

Mit lebhaftigkeit und durchaus mit Empfindung und Ausdruck, bars 19:modulating paired doremischema


29/72


263Autumn 2009

Example 10Mozart, Piano Sonata in D major, K. 576 (1789), iii, Allegretto, bars 14:

paired doremi schema

Now, the question inevitably arises whether these differences in Schen-kers analysis and Jonass misreading of Schenkerprompted, as they

are, by structural hearingare simply instances of theoretical predis-position and bias, or truly representative of a cognitive phenomenonthat is, representative of a way of hearing, of another form of hearingas in Scruton and Spitzers terms. To answer the question is not a mat-ter of establishing a direct causal chain of relations between the theoryof structural hearing and modern modes of cognition or vice versa,but rather whether (theoretical and analytic) descriptions of structuralhearing may be symptomatic of some modern mode of cognition, orsimply of circumstances imposed by a twentieth-century or present-day

situation.

Beethoven, EroicaSymphony, Op. 55 (1803)

Towards that end, perhaps the most compelling evidence for an ar-chaeology of hearing comes from Beethovens EroicaSymphony (Ex-ample 11), where the opposition between past and present materializes


30/72

BYROS

264 Musica Humana

not simply between individuals, and not only diachronically, but be-tween entire strains of reception history and therefore also synchronic-ally (Byros 2009, chap. 1). In 1807, Friedrich Rochlitz describes bars 79of the opening theme as modulating formally to G minor (frmlichnach G moll; 1807, 321), in a review for the Leipzig Allgemeine musi-kalische Zeitungthat displays the same localized preoccupations withthe phenomenology of the moment as Webers Versuchand essay on theDissonance Quartet:

The symphony begins with an Allegro con brio in three quarter time inE major. After the tonic triad has been powerfully sounded two timesby the entire orchestra, the violoncello states, softly, but noticeablyenough, the . . . simple principal subject [in bb. 34], which hereafter isto be set up, turned around, and worked out from all sides. Already inbar 7, where the diminished seventh appears over Cin the bass, and inbar 9, where the 6/4 chord appears over D, the composer prepares thelistener to be often agreeably deceived in the succession of harmonies.And even this preludizing deviation (prludirende Abweichung), whereone expects to be led formally (frmlich) to G minor, but in place of the

resolution of the 6/4 chord finds the fourth led upward to a fifth, andso, by means of the 6/5 chord, finds oneself unexpectedly back at homein E majoreven this is interesting and pleasing. (Rochlitz 1807, 321;slightly modified translation from Senner et al. 2001, 2:21)9

As I have demonstrated elsewhere, hearing a modulation to G minor is aconsequence of psychologically contextualizing the opening bars of thetheme against the lesolfisolschema as a historically determined men-tal template (Byros 2008; 2009). In short, the lesolfisolfrequentlyappears in the context of a key-change that involves a modulation up

a major third: a modulating variation of the schema that I call the lesolfisolinter-key variant (Byros 2009). Example 12 displays oneinstance from the second movement of the fourth sonata among six thatEmanuel Bach appended to the Versuch ber die wahre Art das Clavierzu spielenof 1753: namely, the eleventh of eighteen Probestcke, eachof which serves a musical as well as pedagogical function.


31/72


265Autumn 2009

Example11

Beethoven,

Sympho

nyno.

3inE

major,Eroica,op.

55(1803),i,Allegroconbrio,b

ars1

18:schema-basedanalysis


32/72

BYROS

266 Musica Humana

Example11[continued]


33/72


267Autumn 2009

Example12

CarlPhilippEm

anuelBach,

AchtzehnProbestckezudemV

ersuchberdiewah

reArtdasClavierzuspielen,

Sonatano.

4inBminor,ii,

Largomaestoso,

Probestckno.

11,

bars22

24:

lesolfisolmodulating,

inter-keyvariant(Byros2009)


34/72

BYROS

268 Musica Humana

Bars 2324 show the same schema from Example 5 now prompt-ing a modulation from D major to Fminor, by virtue of a functionalreinterpretation that transforms D major from a toniqueto a minorsus-dominante, or D in the bass from doto le(Example 12).The un-derlying pedagogical context is especially relevant in this connection:the Probestcknot only demonstrates the schemas use as ameans ofmodulating up a major third, but as themeans of doing so; it not onlyappears in a modulating context but it advances thestructural modula-tion of the movement. The Largo maestoso from which Example 12 is

excerpted begins in and returns to D major at bar 15, following modu-lations to the dominant (bb. 512) and the relative minor (bb. 1314).But the modulation to Fminor at bars 2324 causes the movement toend in a different key than it begins; the half cadence at bar 24 is sus-tained via extemporization and ultimately transformed into a perfectauthentic cadence in Fminor at bar 26. Much like the Rule of the Oc-tave summarizes the central tendencies or habits of eighteenth-centuryharmonic practice (Christensen 1992; Lester 1992, 4989; Gjerdingen2005; 2007, 465480; Holtmeier 2007), Bachs Probestck, an equallymusical and music-pedagogical artifact, summarizes or objectifies thecustomary means of modulating up by a major third. That is, the modu-lating inter-key variant is itself schematic (cf. modulating Prinnerin Gjerdingen 2007, 52), and when isolated from the total population of544 instances of the lesolfisolfrom Figure 4a above, which includesthe nonmodulating intra-key variants, its own subpopulation alsoapproximates a Gaussian historical distribution, which also peaks in the1790s, as seen in Figure 8.

For a historical and historically-informedlistener, the opening of theEroicais but another manifestation of the same phenomenon seen in

Bachs Probestck, as well as the passage excerpted in Example 13,from Haydns Symphony no. 82 in C major, LOurs (1786), whichshows the inter-key variant at the same pitch-class level of the Eroica.For a listener who hears a G-minor tonality emerging in bars 69 of theEroica, the mind imposes a top-down influence derived from memoriesof passages like the Bach Probestckand Haydn symphony, by posi-tioning the sound stimulus of bars 19 within a series of what Meyercalled memories of relevant musical experiences (Meyer 1956, 88).


35/72


269Autumn 2009

Figure 8Historical population distribution of the lesolfisolschema inter-key variant,

17201840 (Byros 2009)

Example 13Haydn, Symphony no. 82 in C major, Lours (1786), Finale: Vivace, bars 13339:

lesolfisolmodulating, inter-key variant (Byros 2009)


36/72

BYROS

270 Musica Humana

Or, as Weber himself described it, a habit has the effect to make the earput this or that accustomed construction upon the different harmoniesthat may occur (Weber 183032, 2:12627; Eng. trans. 1851, 1:345).In this sense, a tonal schema is synonymous with Webers category ofgewohnte Modulation(Customary Progression), one among five ofWebers Habits of the Ear: it is natural also that the ear (das Ge-hr) should become accustomed to many modes of modulation [i.e.,harmonic progression] in the most common use, and should becomethereby much inclined to understand an harmonic succession in the cus-

tomary sense (Weber 183032, 2:137; Eng. trans. Weber 1851, 1:355).Now, in the Eroica, the resolution of the 6/4 at bar 9 never material-izes: as Rochlitz describes it, in place of the resolution of the 6/4 chord[one] finds the fourth led upward to a fifth, and so, by means of the 6/5chord [at bar 10], finds oneself unexpectedlyback at home in E major(1807, 321; translation from Senner et al. 2001, 2:21; added emphasis).But the absence of this single, terminalfeature in the schema is inconse-quential in terms of what operates in the mind upon hearing the soundstimulus of the opening theme, prior to the disruption of the schemaat bar 10, for the lesolfisolhas already been activated as a contextfor interpretation. One of the central tenets of schema theory stipulatesthat, once activating a schema, a listener supplies default values for anyof its missing features (Gjerdingen 1988, 7; Rumelhart 1980); and theseculturally learned schematic expectations are irrepressible (Bharucha1994, 21517). But the significance of schema theory lies less in thenotion of expectation as such, than in the underlying cognitive processthat gives rise to it. Expectation is simply a byproduct of a synchronicactivation of a cognitive context in the mind, a top-down influence thatsubsequently transforms a given sound stimulusas yet uninter-

preted acoustic signals or informationinto a sound termacousticsignals interpreted as part of the prevalent style system of the culture(Meyer 1956, 4547). [T]o understand [Beethovens] theme, as Mi-chael Spitzer describes the relation of the 17, 43 schema to Mozartspiano sonata in Example 1, is to compare it with a representation in


37/72


271Autumn 2009

the mind formed by memories of themes like itimposing a learnedconceptual template (Spitzer 2004, 31), which, in the case of the Eroi-ca, is the lesolfisolschema.

But Brian Hyer, having read Rochlitz, deems the G-minor hearingunpersuasive (Hyer 1996, 81), in a way that mirrors Jonass correc-tion of Schenkers mistake[n] hearing of op. 90. For Hyer, the bass Din bar 9 of the Eroicacarrying a 6/4 chord is heard, categorically, as aleading tone to E: I must admit to finding the reviewers hearing of the6/4 above D [b. 9] unpersuasive: I believe our memories of E are too re-cent for us to hear D as anything but a leading tone to E (Hyer 1996,81). Do we accept Rochlitz and Hyers competing responses as evidencefor some inevitable subjectivity about perception, or as symptoms oftheir respective cultures and environments, as representations of histori-cal and modern modes of cognition? The reception history of the Eroicaprovides evidence of the latter. Rochlitzs G-minor hearing would rever-berate for two centuries to form a strain of reception that extends from1807 to the present, as shown in Figure 9. Hyers E hearing, on theother hand, has its origins in Schenkers famous Meisterwerkanalysisof the symphony from 1930 (Schenker 1930), and its recurrences areotherwise limited to responses at the turn of the twenty-first century(Figure 9).10Beyond their modern situation, the actors in the E strainare alike in their shared inclination to view the G-minor 6/4 chord atbar 9which Stephen Rumph describes as having settled in G minor(2004, 90)as an entirely incidental phenomenon: as a functionallyextraneous (Barry 2000, 10910) apparent chord (Klein 2005, 83).Like Schenkers analysis of the Dissonance Quartet and Jonass (mis-)reading of op. 90, with the E strain of reception, events of the momentappear to have been similarly sacrificed to the larger context, to

the recent memory of E major and the tonic that controls the entirecontext in Hyers terms (1996, 91). Unlike the preceding case studieshowever, Hyer, Barry, and Klein in the E strain of reception display asimilar style of reasoning, but outside the (at least conscious) influenceof theoretical biasby a natural, or rather, by a theoretically unme-diated cognitive response to the opening theme.


38/72

BYROS

272 Musica Humana

(a)

(b)

Figure 9EroicaSymphony, two competing strains of reception to bars 69

of the opening theme (from Byros 2009)(a) Timeline representation; (b) Quantified representation


39/72


273Autumn 2009

The Alloy of History Forged and Dissolved

Dahlhaus might not find a more ideal body of evidence: the receptionhistory of the Eroicafulfills both of his paradoxical conditions. Thealloy formed by past and present is both indissoluble in G minor, anddissoluble in E. The past represented by G minor and the lesolfisolschema giving rise to it extends into the present but is simultaneouslylost. On the one hand, the indissolubility of G minor provides evidencefor some persistent consciousness that has resisted the passing of time,in the form of what the French philosopher-sociologist Maurice Hal-

bwachs has called a collective memory: a current of continuousthought . . . [that] retains from the past only what is still living . . . inthe consciousness of the [social] group that maintains it (1997, 131).History, in this sense, as Peter Burke argues in his reading of Halbwa-chs, becomes social memory, which is no longer history in the propersense of the term: social groups determine what is memorable andhow it will be remembered (Burke 1989, 98), whereas history, prop-erly speaking, always involves the reconstruction of a distant and lostpast. In Halbwachs argument, collective memory and history are

effectively mutually opposed categories: the latter begins where the for-mer ends (1997, 131ff.). But the historical resonance of the G-minorhearing, beginning, as it does, in 1807, only emerges in the face of theconflicting E-major strain of reception, as a necessary, discriminatingcomponent that traces a Foucauldian mutationthe threshold of anew positivity in the very concept of tonality, graphically representedin Figure 9.

Historical Resonance and Historical Distance

Together, all three case studies betray a more common underlying pat-tern: the historical resonance in the hearings of Weber (K. 465), Schen-ker (op. 90), and Rochlitz (Eroica) seems to lie in their re-cognitionof these opening themes against a schema as a historically determinedmental template, while the competing modern responses appear as aconsequence of the schematas absence, loss, or suppression by modernhabits, whether mutually informed by structural hearing, or simply as


40/72

BYROS

274 Musica Humana

a result of the distance from the original culture. Indeed the loss of his-torical resonance, owing to historical distance, is the norm, rather thanthe exception, in most philosophies of hearing. By way of example, con-sider Eric Clarkes ecologically oriented argument in Ways of Listening:

Even the most specialized expert listener who has attempted to re-construct an early nineteenth-century sensibility is in a situation thatis utterly different from a true contemporary of Beethovensif onlybecause of all the music that has sounded since then. A twenty-first cen-tury listener is inevitably not only deaf to some or many of the conven-

tions that the music invokes, but also hears all kinds of later resonancesthat a contemporary of Beethovens obviously would not. (Clarke 2005,17172)

Rose Rosengard Subotnik advances the same argument in a decon-struction of structural listening, by proposing that a [modern] listener. . . hear[s] overtones of intervening knowledge and experience whichdrown out or erase various responses that could have originally beenintended or anticipated, while adding others (Subotnik 1988; reprinted

in Scott 2000, 172). Or, as Gjerdingen describes it more simply, stronghabits in the present easily mask differences in the past (2007, 4). Andall three case studies would support these statements, including the Ero-icas E strain of reception.

But all the same, the indissolubility and continuity of the G-minorstrain would indicate that strong habits in the past equally mask or sup-press differences in the present. Not only do schemata seem to providethe cognitive mechanism that allows for a historical mode of listeningtoday in a positive sense, by providing a historically-determined cogni-tive context for interpretation, but also in the negative sense, by allow-ing one to forget or erase interveningknowledge, and to drownout modernassociations and influences. Because a schema, as seen inits more sophisticated formalization by Rumelhart, Smolensky, et al.in Figure 1, is not only the mental encoding of a statistical redundancyin the environment, but also a constraint network: the activation ofa single node within one of the sub-schemata in Figure 1 imposes itsnecessary connexion (Hume 1777) with, and the activation of, the


41/72


275Autumn 2009

other nodes in that schema, according to its goodness of fit with thevisual stimulus, which is commonly known as a spreading activationin the langue couranteof connectionist researchers, as indicated by linesand arrows in Figure 1 (Rumelhart, Smolensky, et al. 1986; Rumelhart1980). But at the same time, the activation of node FLL from SchemaL presupposes a deactivation of, and negativeconnection with, BLLin Schema R, and, by extension, the deactivation of all of the nodes inthis rival schema, whose negative pairings with the nodes in Schema Lare represented by dashed lines with dotted endpoints in the illustra-

tion. The Necker Cube schema as a whole therefore contains two largersets of activation as well as deactivation. Built into the very concept ofa schema is not only a culture-associative component that forms a cog-nitive context for interpretation, by activating knowledge relevant to agiven situation, but also a disassociative component that turns off ordeactivates irrelevant or contradictory knowledge. In respect to the Ero-ica, the inter-key variant of the lesolfisolprovides a culturally co-herent context for perception, while also eliminating all other contextsand knowledge that fall outside the possibilities of the style as a prob-ability system, to use Leonard Meyers phrase (1956; 1967). By meansof these negative connections, there is something of a cloistering effectthat operates in the mind, whereby the historical system is unaffectedby outside influencesoutside, that is, the style as a probability system.For a historically informed listener, once having formed these schematain memory, historical distance becomes immaterial, and historical listen-ing then becomes virtually inevitable. As Donald Norman described it,once you start developing a particular set of knowledge structures [i.e.,schemata], youre committed to them for the rest of your life. They willcolor your interpretation of everything (in Baars 1986, 386).

Classical Scripts and Romantic Plans

The implications of the schema concept move well beyond the particu-lars and recognition of the schemata themselves: prolonged exposureto eighteenth-century music would not only promote the cognitive as-


42/72

BYROS

276 Musica Humana

similation and development of eighteenth-century schemata, such as the17, 43 and lesolfisol, by process of statistical learning, but mayalso give rise to a more general way of hearingthat is consistent withan eighteenth-century mentalit, and it is precisely in the underlyinggeneralizability of the situation that one may speak of schema-oriented/historical versus structural/modern modes of cognition. In 1977, thepsychologists Roger Schank and Robert Abelson distinguished betweendifferent categories of schemata they called scripts and plans. Ascript is an extremely detailed knowledge structure that describes

appropriate sequences of events in a particular context. [It is] is madeup of slots and requirements about what can fill those slots. The struc-ture is an interconnected whole and what is in one slot affects whatcan be in another. . . . Thus, a script is a predetermined, stereotypedsequence of actions that defines a well-known situation (Schank andAbelson 1977, 41; added emphasis). A plan, on the other hand, is amore general structure, a repository for general information that willconnect events that cannot be connected by use of an available script orby standard causal chain expansion, owing to the absence of specificinformation about the connectivity of events: i.e., a script . . . is notavailable (1977, 70).

In one of Meyers later contributions to schema theory (1989), heassigned these categories a historical dimension, by arguing that eigh-teenth-century music is inherently script-oriented, while nineteenth-century music is increasingly more plan-based in its organization,notwithstanding the presence of scripts and plans, generallyspeaking, in both styles.11By this estimation, not only will a histori-cal and historically-informed listener be psychologically equipped witheighteenth-century scripts, that is, the schemata, but also will have cul-

tivated a mode of listening or behavior that continually seeks out thosescripts in the act of listening. In Music in the Galant Style, Gjerdingenprovides both Markov-model and graphic representations of this lis-tening strategy, which are based on historical descriptions of composi-tionspecifically, Leopold Mozarts account of one defining hallmarkof a master composer: il filo(the thread; Gjerdingen 2007, 369ff.).Gjerdingen interprets Mozarts metaphor as a matter of [p]lacing


43/72


44/72

BYROS

278 Musica Humana

For instance, we see the probability that an Augmented Sixth willprecede a Ponte schema (in brief, a dominant expansion) is extremelyhigh by comparison with most other transitions. In the second represen-tation, reproduced in Figure 11, Gjerdingen describes a series of sche-mata . . . as beads on a mental string or cognitive threadil filo (2007,375). The thread may consist of a simple succession of schemata,as in Figure 11a, or of a more complex arrangement involving theoverlapping of schemata as well as the nesting of lower-level with-in higher-level schemata, as in Figure 11b. Though Gjerdingen never

explicitly describes these threaded representations in terms of scriptsand plans as such, Figure 11 closely represents Meyers original de-scription in abstract, graphic form:

[C]hanging-note melodies [like the 17, 43], antecedent [and] con-sequent phrases, full authentic cadences (subdominantdominanttonic), and sonata-form structures . . . are scriptlike. Thus, once part ofa changing-note pattern is comprehended [e.g., 17], subsequent partsof the pattern are largely predictable. To the extent that the syntacticconstraints shaping some script are unfamiliar, however, the listener

will tend to understand that script in terms of a more general plan. .. . While music of the Classic period employs plan-based patternings,these are almost always coordinated and dominated by scripts. In thenineteenth century, the situation is more or less reversed: what had beenspecific syntactic scripts tend to be subsumed within or transformedinto general plans. (Meyer 1989, 24546)

Figure 11aThreaded representation of low-level schema successions

(A string of schematail filo), from Gjerdingen 2007, 376


45/72


279Autumn 2009

Figure 11bThreaded representation of schema nesting and overlapping,

from Gjerdingen 2007, 376

Meyer applied the script category to eighteenth-century music in away that suggests a more general mentalitor episteme, in Foucaultsterms, that underlies the construction of several if not all of its param-eters. My own research has also proceeded in this direction, but specifi-cally with regard to tonality(or as eighteenth-century musicians calledit, modulation), to argue that the expression and perception of a

key in music of the long eighteenth century is fundamentally script-oriented in its design (Byros 2009). Evidence of such a mentalitmay begleaned frompartimenti, the Rule of the Octave, and other eighteenth-century thoroughbass artifacts (cf. Gjerdingen 2007a; Holtmeier 2007),such as chord-form tables that illustrate the probability for a givenchord-form succession in a first-order Markov chain, as seen in Figure12, from Michel Correttes Prototipesof 1754. Beyond the suggestivetitle of Correttes treatise (cf. prototypes to schemata) towardsreconstructing a schema-theoretic conception of eighteenth-century

tonality, Correttes table of chord-form probability is isomorphic withGjerdingens schema-sucession probability matrix in Figure 10, inproviding the statistically most probable succession given a particularchord-form antecedent state. Together, they speak to the same philoso-phy underlying the concept of a script, by objectifying the appropri-ate sequences of events in a particular context, and the stereotypedsequence of actions that define a well-known situation, in Schank andAbelsons terms.


46/72

BYROS

280 Musica Humana

Figure 12Probability table of chord-form succession, from Michel Corrette,

Prototipes(1754, 1213)


47/72


281Autumn 2009

Figure 12 [continued]


48/72

BYROS

282 Musica Humana

In addition to thoroughbass artifacts, the script-oriented conceptionof tonality is further documented by moment-by-moment analytic de-scriptions by Vogler (1776; 1778), Koch (178293), Weber, Rochlitz,and even Mozart himself (1784; see Lester 1992, 86; cf. also Anson-Cartwright 2000, 177). That both Johann David Heinichen (1728) andDavid Kellner (1732) used the term schema to characterize the Ruleof the Octave is perhaps not coincidental (Byros 2009, chap. 2).

Il filo:Navigating the Thread

The orientation of the tonality in both the opening themes of the Eroicaand the Dissonance Quartet are entirely consistent with these histori-cal artifacts in their progression of low-level scripts. In the Eroica,as seen in Example 11, the tonal scheme of the entire opening theme,E majorG minorE major, is articulated by a low-level progressionof schemata analogous to the Mozart-Gjerdingen filoconcept in Figure11b. The progression begins with a Bastien variant of a Tonic-TriadArpeggiation, from the overture to Mozarts Singspiel Bastien undBastienne(1768). The Bastien schema then elides with the inter-key

variant of the lesolfisolat bars 46, which brings the tonality intoG minor and opens up a path for the symphony never fully realized inits opening theme.12In Figure 13, Gjerdingen graphically illustrates thisnotion of paths lesser known in a succession of schemata and schemaprobability. Thepath, or thethread, he writes, is the result of choic-es made at various forks. In Figure 13, paths M, N, O, and Prepresentchoices not made. The musical import of these choices can vary fromlistener to listener. Someone new to the galant style will hardly be awareof any of the paths not taken. A galant composer [or historically in-formed listener], by contrast, would have known several alternatives ateach fork and their implications (Gjerdingen 2007, 379). The disrup-tion of the lesolfisolat bar 10, analogous to the divergent paths inFigure 13, occurs by means of another instance of schema-overlapping:the absence of resolution of the 6/4 at bar 10 is caused by a retrospec-tive interpretation of the last two events of the lesolfisolas the firsttwo events of a Monte, which amounts to a modulating variant of the


49/72


283Autumn 2009

17, 43, whereby an implied but never fully realized 17 in G minor isanswered by a 43 in E major (see Example 11); and as is common fora modulating 17, 43, the first stage . . . involves subdominant ratherthan tonic harmonies (Gjerdingen 2007, 115)in this case, the Cdiminished seventh chord, operating as a chromatic sous-dominanteinbars 78.13

The VkI progression in E major at bars 1011 of the Eroicaconstitutesthe second stage of the schema. The first stage elided with the lesolfisol, however, remains incomplete, because of an elision that results inthe absence of resolution of the 6/4 chord at bar 9. But even this modu-lating 17, 43 / Monte schema which returns the tonality to E majorparadoxically supplies a mental resolution of the 6/4 chord in bar 9 toa G-minor dominant, in order to satisfy (retrospectively) the parallelism

constraint between the two stages of the schema. The bass parallelismof CD, DE would, under normal circumstances, be coupled with aGF, AG parallelism in the top voice, as shown in the hypotheticalrecomposition of the opening theme in Example 14, where the secondstage of the modulating 17, 43 is rhythmically compressed, as well asin the abstract representation of the schema in Figure 14.

Figure 13Alternative schema paths, from Gjerdingen 2007, 379


50/72

BYROS

284 Musica Humana

Example 14Hypothetical realization of implicit modulating 17, 43 /

Monte schema underlying bars 610 of the EroicaSymphony

Figure 14Modulating 17, 43 / Monte schema: abstract mental representation


51/72


285Autumn 2009

In the Eroica, this parallelism between stages in the Monte / modulat-ing 17, 43 is further elaborated by the analogous suspension of A inthe first violins at bar 11, corresponding to the suspension of G in bar9, which recalls the paradigmatic statement-response attribute ofthe 17, 43 (Example 11). By Gjerdingens characterization, the outervoices of a schema form a musical pas de deux: if one adapts themetaphor to bars 711, the danseuse of the melody falls out of stepwith the danseur of the bass in bars 910, by never resolving its G toan Fas a proper 43 suspension within the larger context of a cadential6/4, as does occur in bar 10 with AG (Gjerdingen 2007, 142).

14

Theremainder of the theme, then, consists of a cadenza compostaa perfectauthentic cadence with a cadential 6/4whose fascale-degree is elabo-rated by means of an Indugio (see Gjerdingen 2007, 141, and Clau-sulae, 13976, in general). The compositional make-up of the sym-phonys opening theme is therefore entirely consistent with moment-by-moment strategies of listening and compositional devices documentedin eighteenth-century analyses and thoroughbass artifacts.

The same process of a low-level script-progression regulates thesuccession of tonalities in the opening of the Dissonance Quartet(Example 4). Following the repetition of the lesolfisoltop-voicevariant and Fenaroli pair from bars 14 in bars 58which takes thetonality from C minor, through G minor and B minor, into F minorbars 610 return the tonality to C minor, through E major, by meansof a Fonte. As a low-level schema, the Fonte, also first introduced byRiepel (175268), is the inverse of a Monte, containing two stages withtwo events, each stage resolving a dissonant 6/3, 6/5, or 7/5/3 chord to aconsonant triad; but the relation between stages in the Fonte is descend-ing, frequently by step from a minor to a major key (e.g., D minor to C

major; see Figure 15). Oftentimes, the dissonant seventh chord will be inthe form of a 6/4/2 (which results from flipping the top voice and bass)that resolves to a more consonant 6/3 triad, as occurs in bars 910 and1011 of the Dissonance Quartet (Example 4).15Like the Monte, theFonte is often varied (in chromatic environments) to result in an intervalof displacement of a third between the two stages of the schema over astepwise bass, as occurs in bars 912 of the quartet. The tidoprogres-


52/72

BYROS

286 Musica Humana

sion normally found in the bass, and normally coupled with a fami(or me), appears here in the second violin; and as occurs with much ofthe preceding material in the quartets opening, scale degree 7 in eachstage of the schema is metrically displaced, whereby D and B appear inbars 10 and 11 as implied suspensions from bars 9 and 10, but actuallysound as appoggiaturas and incomplete neighbor tones, coupled withthe suspended F and D in bars 910 and 1011, respectively.

Figure 15Fonte schema, from Gjerdingen 2007, 456

Noteworthy is the emergence of a more plan-like structure fromthis low-level succession of scripts: namely, a descending chromatic bassfrom bars 110, broken by the second stage of the Fonte in bars 1112.The chromatic bass and parallel-sixths progression in Mozarts Disso-nance Quartet, as objectified in Schenkers analysis (Example 8), illus-

trate a paradigmatic instance of Meyers argument that, where higher-level plans do arise in the Classical style, they are byproducts of orcoordinated and dominated by scripts. But, whereas to an eighteenth-century mentalitthe chromatic bass plan is a higher-level schemaresulting from the low-level progression of scripts, in Schenkers analy-sis it becomes therationalizing mechanism for interpretation, to which


53/72


287Autumn 2009

the historically oriented scripts-progression and, more importantly, thesuccession of tonalities, is entirely lost. The stylistically more neutral orgeneral categories of the chromatic bass and the fauxbourdonprogres-sion suggest a striking parallel with Schank and Abelsons descriptionof a plan: In listening to discourse, people use plans to make sense ofseemingly disconnected sentences. . . . For any two conceptualizationsthat are related by their occurrence in a story, we must be able to tracea path between them. The path must be based on general information(1977, 70). Likewise, when listening to [music], people use plans to

make sense of seemingly disconnected [tonalities]. . . . For any two[chords or keys] that are related by their occurrence in a [musical pas-sage or work], we must be able to trace a path [cf. chromatic scale] be-tween them.

The same phenomenon of privileging a larger-scale plan over aseries of low-level scripts is common to every one of the precedingcase studiesthe Dissonance Quartet, op. 90, and the Eroicaandeach involves a difference in the perception of key, which suggests thata plan-oriented mechanism for key-perception may have developedsince the later nineteenth century, and that elements of structural hear-ing are perhaps an inexorable fallout of these stylistic developments. Itstands to reason that music containing low, or lower, levels of statisticaland perceptual redundancy (Meyer 1967) will desensitize moment-by-moment strategies of listening encouraged by highly perceptually-redun-dant styles, where the phenomenon of probability is placed center-stage:the moment-by-moment attuning to a key, by Mozart, Koch, Vogler,Rochlitz, Weber, and others, is a consequence of the script nature ofmusic in the long eighteenth century, and the commensurate listeningstrategies it promotes.

Theoretical Fallout: Towards an Archaeological Principle

Script and plans may therefore provide a more formal perspectiveon the notion that historical and modern modes of cognition differ spe-cifically in the presence and absence of schemata. Schank and Abelson


54/72

BYROS

288 Musica Humana

argued that script-based processing is a much more top-down opera-tion [and therefore] . . . a process which takes precedence over plan-based processing when an appropriate script is[cognitively] available(1977, 99; added emphasis; see also Meyer 1989, 345ff., and Gjerdin-gen 1988, 89). To return, once more, to the Eroicaproblem, the dif-ference between Rochlitzs and Hyers perceptions of key may lie notsimply in the presence and absence of the lesolfisol, but in the moregeneral difference between script- and plan-based strategies of listen-ing or key-perception. In this way, the modern hearings differ less in the

absence of a schema per se, than in the unavailability of a scriptschema,and the consequent employment of a more general, less probability-ori-ented plan-strategy for negotiating the tonality. Implicit in Schank andAbelsons definition of a plan is that less information from the soundstimulus is influenced by schema-based memory, which results in adisproportionate distribution of schema-based memoryoperating as atop-down influenceacross the acoustic substrate or sound stimulus.Previous studies in visual perception indicate that schemas control theamount of attention that is given to various aspects of a situation (J.Mandler 1984, 109), an interpretation that appears to be consistentwith cognitive formulations of structural hearing by generative musictheory (Lerdahl and Jackendoff 1983; Lerdahl 2001):

[T]he specific content of an event degrades and generalizes into mem-ory, depending on the framework in which it is experienced. Conse-quently, at any prolongational level, only what is needed in that contextis retained through a transformational operation. . . . The transforma-tions in question are deletion. (Lerdahl 2001, 3536)

The theoretical predisposition of sacrificing phenomena of the mo-ment to the larger picture finds a cognitive correlate in this notion oftransformational deletion. But ironically, these structural or hierar-chical modes of listening, often associated with top-down conceptsbecause the surrounding hierarchy in the musicalcontext is said toimpose a top-down influence on the events of the momentare actuallymore bottom-up and data driven: Bottom-upor data-drivenprocesses


55/72


289Autumn 2009

are hard-wired, do not depend on learning or context, and rely on struc-tural perceptual features of stimuli[added emphasis], not the stimulismeaning. Prior learning, context, and meaning presumably make theircontribution through top-downor conceptually-drivenprocessing(Johnson and Hirst 1993, 260). The underlying operation of a bottom-up and top-down strategy can be seen rather transparently in Hyers andRochlitzs descriptions, respectively. For Hyer, the bass note D in bar 9of the Eroicacarrying a 6/4 chord is heard as anything but a leadingtone, because of our too recent memories of E from bars 16 inthe symphony. Rochlitz, on the other hand, describes a G-minor modu-lation as the result of some culturally determined rule implicit in thequalifying term frmlichman frmlichnach G moll glaubt geleitetzu werden (one expects to be led formallyto G minor). Whereas theE hearing documented in Hyers essay appears to be a consequence ofa bottom-up strategy, of rely[ing] on structural perceptual features ofstimulithe emphasis on and memories of E from the beginning ofthe symphonyRochlitzs G-minor hearing is a consequence of a ratherdifferent form of memory: the memory of the lesolfisolschema op-erating as a top-down influence. Plans subverting scripts amounts toprobability giving way to structural salience. Lerdahl himself suggeststhat listeners perceive tonal tension retrospectively and therefore hier-archically, unless schematic intuitions are strong (Lerdahl and Krum-hansl 2007, 342, 358; added emphasis).

The Archaeology of Scripts and Plans

The scripts versus plans dichotomy returns the problem once moreto archaeology in Foucaults sense, whereby each category may sub-stitute for eighteenth- and nineteenth-century epistemes or spaces ofmusicalknowledge. Meyers Classical-scripts-versus-Romantic-plansinterpretation of style change resonates with Foucaults articulationof a historical disconnect between eighteenth- and nineteenth-centurymodes of thought (Foucault 1994, xxiixxiv). In Meyers view, thetransition from an eighteenth- to a nineteenth-century European styleinvolves a commensurate development from more culture-specific to


56/72

BYROS

290 Musica Humana

more natural, innate, or Gestalt-based musical structures (1989),which corresponds with broadly defined characterizations of the eigh-teenth and nineteenth centuries as the Age of Empiricism and theAge of Romanticism, respectively. Spitzer interprets Meyers evo-lution as a gradual shift from culture to nature, from a classical stylethat is rule-governed, learned, and conventional (1989, 209) to arepudiation of convention (164) in romantic music (2004, 46). Thepreceding evidence surrounding the three case studies would indicate acommensurate, albeit likely unconscious, repudiation of convention

in a cognitive sense for some modern listenerswhether in the formof transformational deletion or by resorting to a plan strategy, orbothand a predilection for rule-governed, learned, and convention-al modes of listening for historical and historically-informed listeners.It may be without coincidence that Lerdahl ties the hierarchical orien-tation of the generative music theory program to a nativist argument,and likens it to a natural propensity of the musical mind (Lerdahl2001, 4).16In the absence of a learned, culture-driven script-schema,the mind potentially makes recourse to more innate, hard-wired,bottom-up, Gestalt-driven, or plan-based strategies for negotiat-ing the flux of musical experience. It is precisely in this hypothesis thatamodern mode of listening may be synonymous or consistent with astructural, hierarchical, or more plan-based orientation, and histori-cal modes of listening commensurate with a schema-driven, script-based conception. Historical and cultural distance leads to schema lossor absence, which causes a more weighted activation of bottom-upprimitivesinterpret[ing] events with respect to events already heardin a work (Lerdahl and Krumhansl 2007, 358)in the stead of top-down schemata:17the absence of a schema requires the comprehender

to seek an organizing framework; whether sucessful or not, the situa-tion involves more data-driven processing than when a schema is easilyand rapidly activated (J. Mandler 1984, 106; added emphasis). Thereare, furthermore, strong sociohistorical factors that

Documents

Vasili Byros - Towards an Archaeology of Hearing - Schemata and Eighteenth-Century Consciousness