Waiting For The Viennese Classics

Waiting for the Viennese Classics
Author(s): James R. Currie

Source: The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 90, No. 1 (Spring, 2007), pp. 123-166
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25172863
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Waiting
the Viennese
for
Classics
James R. Currie
"Let's say that there is an idea of democracy with respect to which all of
that there have been of it since the Enlightenment,
the determinations
and French Revolutions, different types of democracy have
the American
all been inadequate. But they all refer to this idea through a unique mode
of memory that I am trying to analyze and that justifies to a certain
I call democracy to come, which
extent, why I keep this old word.... What
is not
the
future
of democracy,
is what
this work
Jacques Derrida,
Getting atWaiting:
Considerations
seem
is striving
toward."
"Politics and Friendship"
and Political
Philosophical
as if I start at an inappropriately
preamble,
from my object of investigation,
the Viennese
Classics. My
long distance
sense. Since Classical music has already hap
title doesn't even make
to say that it is waiting
it would be more appropriate
for us?for
pened,
It will
us to work
like too much
if, indeed, we can even assert "it" as a single

entity at all. The title also reminds us that debates regarding the periodi
remain robust and
and validation
of this music
zation, conceptualization,
in
Webster's
(as James
sanguine
ongoing projects,
attest), and
particular,
to do until
that Classical music probably has a lot more thumb-twiddling
out what
it was;
we will at last manage

to find our way to its doorstep.2 This is perhaps
cause for frustration, particularly within
the Anglo-American
musicolo
context
of
the
of
idea
where,
"turns,"
gical
irrespective
postmodern
and
"getting-it"
(finalizing classifications,
contextually
historically
pinning
things down, and generally bringing things intellectually
is still more highly rewarded than the attempt
(of poststructuralist
to
terrain
the
hermeneutic
marked
leaning)
keep
by restlessness
irresolution.
How much
more
it would
to rest)
and
ifmy title
satisfactory
at
had been "Arriving
Classical Music,"
for surely that is what lies at the
foundation
of our scholarly activities.
Like Webster,
Classical
Viennese
I will be concerned
music?or
please
e-mail:
here with
"first Viennese
doi: 10.1093/musqtl/gdn006
90:123 -166
Advance Access publication May 7, 2008.
? The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University
be then
Press. All
asserting that
asWebster
Modern,"
rights reserved. For permissions,
journals.permissions@oxfordjoumals.org.
separate period,
assigned
my reasons for doing so likewise arise both
drawn from the period itself and the still ongoing
successfully
in-and-of-itself.
And
considerations
of the music
of that time. But whereas
not only music's

contemporaneity,
no
deeds no less significant?and
from
legacy
the period marked
its performing
of "cultural
forWebster
but also
less public?than
those of Kant and
and Schiller
(of these the most
Hegel, Goethe
important...
arguably its
more
I
for
realization of Kant's
argue
'dynamic' sublime),'
organizing
the period around a certain conceptualization
of dialogue. This concept
tualization
ated
similarly
enables
Classical
to the highest
cultural
deeds
to be elev
these deeds probably find

of Kant; of difference,
is that rather than Kant's Third Critique
and the sublime, I
however,
in
Kant's
that of the famous
argue for
political philosophy,
particular
to the Question:
"An Answer
'What is Enlightenment?,'"
which
their most
of levels, and
important articulation
music's
likeWebster,
in the work
on 12 December
in the Berliner Monatsschrift
appeared
to the specifics of this latter point in the final section
1784.
(I return
of this essay.) Yet
as to why, therefore, we
none
of this annuls the still hanging question

are waiting
for Classical music.
Surely I should just name the essay for
at Classical Music by Means
what it is: "An Attempted
Arrival
of
Dialogue."
that the very kind of dialogue

that I argue for will
Indeed?except
us to see that what ismost of import about Classical music?and
itself?is
inheres in Classical music
that simultaneously
precisely one
to the impera
work
that
would
restless)
according
(perhaps unendingly
enable
as to what Classical music

allowing us to reach agreement
is; this dialogue would be the very paradoxical
activity that prolongs,
our waiting.
rather than wills toward conclusion,
(To make recourse to a
from Lacanian psychoanalysis,
formulation
dialogue would be that which
tive of never
music more than Classical music

is, in-and-of-itself.)
a
to assert that one is going to try and get at
Within
such
dialogue,
here would annul
Classical music would be a betrayal; the assertiveness
that
This implies neither
that it seeks to externalize.
the very content
is in Classical
our hermeneutics
should be self-conscious
symp
failings?unavoidable
toms of an existential
like Sisyphus's
that there are
rock?nor
condition,
to bear on under
no historical or analytical
facts which can be brought
a reconciliation
one
to
not
find
should
and
that
try
standing something,
we perceive
its
The
fact
that
and
discourse
between
objects.
scholarly
we remain
that we have not yet arrived at the object's doorstep?that
a kind of endless exile from it?does
not mean
that all labor should
us to entertain?which
cease. Rather, what I am encouraging
is what
I am also asserting
Classical
music,
as part of its legacy,
still encourages
in
object
fused and as wrapped up in the process of trying to work out what it is
for it; it has
(both now and then) as we are. (We are not only waiting
at
Classical music
for itself.) Thus, arriving
always already been waiting
a tomb
would not be like arriving at some kind of family mausoleum,
features that
determined
filled with the remains of a set of historically
we could then point to in recognition:
"here lies late eighteenth-century
than the comfort of death, we must confront
the
dialogue." Rather
horror of the uncanny; not Classical
dialogue, but rather Classical music
gue at the doorstep
asks. If we will not
within
Classical
value
music
as the container
of a dead
still in the midst
of dialo
standing
tomb; "Was this really my fate?," she
and even painful dialogue
this confused
of her own
entertain
then we must
music,
of our hermeneutics.
start to question
the ethical
and
political
It is one of this essay's main claims that the import of Viennese
Classical music
lies in the fact that it was the first body of Western
to make
music
its raison d'?tre the acknowledgment
and formal articula
to avoidance)
(as opposed
then, this essay is built around
music
is one of the (forgotten)
tion
and pain. To a degree,

assertion:
that Classical
of such confusion
the following
sources of the kind of restless hermeneu
political and ethical values, that I am espous

seem to be more closely related to
that might
and post-structuralism
forms of deconstruction
than the late
tics, and its attendant

ing?a hermeneutics
various
world of the beginning

of the long nineteenth
century.
Enlightenment
But what exactly are these ethical and political values and why was it
in music
in the late eighteenth
that they started being articulated
century?
I will discuss the latter historical
issue at a later stage. But with
to
the
ethical
and
values
of restlessness, we can start
regard
political
statement
with the following
"[W]e do not understand
by Adorno:
us. This is as true for the musician
as for the
music?it
understands
we think ourselves
layman. When
us
to answer."
for
If we
sad-eyed
closest to it, it speaks to us and waits

are reading too much
through
Anglo-American
musicological
paradigms, we interpret this as a more
of my earlier description
reformulation
of the
poetically melancholic
of not getting it. But the point is not that we simply cannot
at
it is that we cannot get at it even though we are see
the
music;
get
in
the
midst of its presence, with it whispering
in our ear so
mingly
right
frustration
that we
of
upon us. The ethical and political
implications
this can be illustrated as follows: In high spirits we visit a friend and on
the door we find her likewise in high spirits; reflecting each
opening
other's smile we assume that we have got each other right. But on
feel its breath
day,
again,
high spirits
opening of the door confronts us, shockingly, with sadness and despair.
We
recognize her still; we may even feel closer to her. (After all, there
a certain
we
physical tangibility
are drawn into an intimate
is
in despair; when our friends are ill,

of the
proximity with the particularity
to those
as it attempts
to hide an overflowing
of tears, the anxious
her,
scratching of one hand by another.) But we no longer understand
for surely the friend who speaks from pain is a broken friend, one who
has been hijacked by a melancholy
that is other to whom we believe
turn of a head
she is.
scenes
Such
can make
look as she waits
us deeply uncomfortable,
for our friend's
us to confront a
for us to answer challenges
sense of happy self-possession.
The heaviness
sad-eyed
lack in our own
potential
in D?rer's
of her melancholy
famous etching melan
(and remember,
our spirits high in flight
not
has
does
that
but
wings
choly
fly) suggests
are merely
a
that usefully exiles
intoxicated
by (high on)
perspective
certain
other
truths
to the margins
of our frame of reference.
And
so in
our friend understands

of her melancholy
us, rather than
her. She understands
that we are not One, but are fre
that our endless self-dialogue will
strangers unto ourselves;
quently
as we try
never fully eradicate a certain shakiness
to our self-possession
the condition
us understanding
to gain possession
that the happiness
that masks our lack
of ourselves;
a violence
at
of
contains
denial
that
any minute might get
(a
shakiness)
to
onto
seek
disenchant
the happi
directed outwards
anyone who might
ness by which
it ismasked;
that we are still too weak to admit that we
are waiting
so to tell our friend to pull herself
for ourselves. And
together
insisting
confronting
to
is tantamount
in-and-of-her-smiling-self)
so
we
a
static
avoid
whole
that
might
being
our own smiling sense of self
the restlessness
underlying
is false," as Adorno,
"The whole
bluntly inverting Hegel,
(to become One,

that she perform
completion.
are treated
claimed.
And yet even in Hegel's work, static positions
is "[t]he activity
since Understanding
with the utmost circumspection,
reveals that "the concrete does divide
of dissolution,"
that which
or in my terms restless. The Spirit

that it is self-moving,"
it finds itself";
in utter dismemberment,
thus "wins its truth only when,
as
a
can
in
the
result
of
One
negative
"looking
only happen
becoming
with
the face, and tarrying
it."8
Classical music be
So we should be wary of insisting that Viennese
itself...
rather than letting it articulate

(as we ought prop
something,
a
in
it
to
the
with
has
do
friend)
difficulty
being a thing at all. Since
erly
is
music
of
human
the
Classical
subjects, it could only be
product
one
we
assume
two
related stances. Either we
of
if
in-and-of-itself
a certain
escape,
endless
purely
the pain and confusion

of their
obfuscating,
thus that there might be a similar something
that the late eighteenth
likewise. Or, we believe
and without
self-dialogues?and
in us that might
escape
century was a time marked
trace, a time
by some kind of prelapsarian
a full
when human
subjects and their cultural products could experience
their
world
that
between
themselves
and
would
integration
authentically
render
selves
In both
restless
redundant.
self-dialogue
same
in the
web of interrelated
cases we
entangle our
threads. With
the
ideological
the myth
that underlying
toward condoning
of
the
historical
determinations
appearance
subject's
former, we verge
changing
universal
transhistorical,
tated). Of course,
condone
context
content
lies a
orien
(generally positively
few in early twenty-first
would
century musicology
it is de rigeur to assert the primacy of historical
such a position;
in the determination
of the human
subject and its cultural pro
ducts. However,
ducts themselves
register
human
the ever
there are also few who would

articulate
confusion
with
assert
regard
a gap between
and their cultural
themselves
replace the comfort of some kind of universal
merely
with a comfortable
that cultural
pro
or
are,
they
If we
determinates.
to what
human
content
music
and culture, we inadvertently
play
a
of
human
between
sub
fantasy
symbiotic relationship
and their environments/contexts
that is exactly
jects/cultural
products
source
are
from which universal positions
the
spawned. By doing so, we
fit between
out a Utopian
mask the fundamental

failure of which
the restless waiting of all dialogue
a piece
is a testimony, whether
is of the subject, the Other,
that waiting
a friend, or ourselves;
in other words,
of music,
the fundamental
failure
of the social
sphere itself.
The failure of the social sphere does not mark a fall from some
in more recent political
earlier state of grace. As has been articulated
the Lacanian-oriented
work of Ernesto Laclau,
philosophy,
particularly
Chantai Mouffe,
and Slavoj Zizek, no social configuration
(or context or
can
ever
be completely
totalized; "Society doesn't exist," it can
identity)
never be completely
to itself, there must always be some
self-present
its structure which
kind of gap within
resists symbolization
and contex
tualization. Thus, Zizek writes that the thesis "that the Social is always
an inconsistent
tra
field structured around a constitutive
impossibility,
thesis implies that every process
by a central
'antagonism'?this
on
us
a
of identification
fixed
conferring
socio-symbolic
identity is ulti
to
doomed
For
the
fail."9
"constitutive
that
Zizek,
mately
impossibility"
versed
creates
is the Lacanian Real, the very limit within discourse

that waiting
is opened up by the act of symbolization
that is necessary
for the
creation of society, context,
in the first place; and in
and discourse
which
impossi
linguistics,
of the entry into language itself
bility or limit is a universal condition
it is not that there is no univer
(i.e., into the Lacanian
symbolic). Thus,
but rather that there is no content
experience,
to human experience
is precisely
is
for
what
universal
versal;
lack within
confrontation
with a fundamental
symbolization,
sal to human
a fundamental
to the uni
the
rather
than
that we then symbolize.

something
as that which
then determines
cultural
always
Society,
products,
to become
fails as a structure; at best, it is always waiting
"Society."
terms it is the very notion
in political
that our waiting might
However,
in a situation where
this lack no longer existed that is proble
as
a
is invoked when
such
I
have
matic;
resolution,
already articulated,
we fail to acknowledge
the gap between
cultural products and their cul
recent political philosophy,
the dangling of
tural determinants.
Within
in front of us is conceived
of as the precondition
for
such a possibility
conclude
of ideology, i.e., for a politics of exclusion. As Zizek writes:

"The function of the ideological
[the] inconsistency
fantasy is to mask
within fixed socio-symbolic
identity and the fact that 'Society doesn't
the creation
us for the failed identification."

For
exist,' and thus to compensate
Zizek we witness
such a masking
of the fundamental
in,
inconsistency
the Jew, as
the figure of the Jew in anti-Semitic
for example,
discourse;
is scripted as the barrier which
Other,
stops society becoming
completely
in fact, it is the mask
whereas,
(structurally complete),
self-present
that (particularly Capitalist)
which obfuscates
society is structured
a
as
an
of being society in the first
condition
around such
impossibility
Zizek scripts the figure of the Jew as the "sublime object
place. Hence,
to become
thus not be waiting
of ideology." A desirable
society would
so that the very concept
it would be waiting
"Society" could
"Society,"
in its attempt both to infect discourse
and create negatively
be hindered
structures. Like Classical music,
society would be in dialogue
ideological
the
the act of suicide that becoming
itself, refusing to commit
would necessitate.
of its absolute determinates
tomb for the preservation
context
there are two primary options
Within
such a theoretical
an
of cultural products and works of art. In a
available for
understanding
with
of
the facial decorations
analysis of Claude L?vi-Strauss's,
Indians form a visual text that, as Fredric Jameson puts it,
a symbolic act, whereby
real social contradictions
"constitutes
[inequal
famous
Caduveo
insur
indicative of the failure of the social structure],
ity and conflicts
in the
in their own terms, find a purely formal resolution
mountable
as L?vi-Strauss
"were never
aesthetic
realm."11 The Caduveo,
writes,
... Yet since
to resolve their contradictions.
they were
lucky enough
or
to
to
solution
live
this
unable
they began to
directly,
conceptualize
ments,
thetic
act is itself ideological,

and the production
of aes
act in its own
form is to be seen as an ideological
the function of inventing
imaginary or formal 'solutions' to
"the aesthetic
or narrative
right, with
unresolvable
social contradictions."1
In a remarkable
historically
passage immediately
panoramic
Jameson then points out that
following,
if this were the case for the relatively more confined
and negotiable
pre
even
more
true
it
and
then
how
much
societies,
capitalist
pre-political
must
be for any societies that have followed.

assume that as factors exacerbating
We might
the Social multiply,

ution of fundamental
the impossibility of
the temptation
for art to present an imaginary resol
social antagonisms
also increases. From this per
as painting
spective, cultural and aesthetic practices can be understood
a smiling face over an ongoing
trauma. A politicized
hermeneutics
would
seek to reveal how such "cultural treasures," asWalter
Benjamin
in
it
the 1930s, "have an origin which
put
[critique] cannot contemplate
not only to the efforts of
horror. They owe their existence
the great minds
and talents who have created them, but also to the
toil of their contemporaries"
anonymous
(i.e., those predominantly
victims
invisible
of the fact that "Society does not exist"). And
then
without
is not at the same

of civilization which
famously: "There is no document
time a document
of barbarism." The task of the historically
orientated
to reveal that, as Adorno
against the grain,"1
put it, "[t]he expression of history in things is no other than that of past
torment."
It is no wonder
then that recent critical musicology
increas
critic
is "to brush history
the cultural products of traditionally marginalized

groups;
ingly valorizes
since such groups are the most
immediate victims of both the Social
it is assumed that their cultural work will speak
failing and its masking,
the social
truth most
authentically.
art
Marginal
provides us with the second
art
to the notion
that "Society
uring
according
art is a primarily critical rather than ideological
theoretical
option
for fig
doesn't
exist"; marginal
the
practice. However,
conclusion
that musicology
increasingly draws from this?that
only art
cannon can aspire to such
that has been refused entry into the Western
a critical function?must
cannon
be rejected. The Western
simply no
longer wields the power that is the privilege of a culturally hegemonic

has argued with regard to a related
position. As Berthold Hoeckner
... have been
topic, "The central values associated with absolute music
nationalist
conservativism,
widely criticized for their mandarin
ideology,
and neglect of social and political concerns. Today, however,
the idea
in
(and ideology) of absolute music has finally lost its privileged
position
art music and it is no longer a dominant
in
Western
the
paradigm
scholarly study
recourse to both Adorno
and Benjamin,
argues that
Hoeckner,
making
a
it is precisely at such
falls
when
this body of music
heated moment
con
in
music's
the
from grace that its critical potential,
caught fly-like
of its fall does a star
amber, is released: "Only at the moment
a
source
it
of hope."18
then
become
the brightest. Only
does
stones of
it is precisely one of the most
Moreover,
important foundation
textual
shine
the Western
musical
cannon,
the Viennese
culture with
such a model
that first provided Western

Classics,
of a critical art. To criticize the
Classics
for how they later became negatively
incorporated
not of their own making
into ideological discourses
is just as offensive,
as it is to exclude from serious discourse
and disempowering
neutralizing,
Viennese
In the following
the marginalized
works of the victims of oppression.
con
some of the historical
I articulate
issues and historiographie
section,
cerns that might allow us to view this critical potential
of the Viennese
Classics.
How
the Viennese
Classics Wait: Toward
a Dialogic
Paradigm
Positioning theViennese Classics
of vocal music
century is strong
of the early eighteenth
that the prevailing
aesthetics
century
or mimetic)
idea that all art is representational,
(the centuries-old
to hold sway. Early eighteenth
continued
theorists,
century aesthetic
the French, placed the arts into a hierarchy, giving priority
particularly
The
veneration
evidence
to those that provided

their signifiers
the clearest connection
between
and their signifieds. This can be seen clearly in texts such as Charles
r?duits ? une
Batteux's
neoclassical
treatise, Les Beaux-arts
paradigmatic
more
m?me principe (1746). In the mimetic
rep
system, the
obviously
held in
the visual and literary arts?were
of the arts?i.e.,
was
to be
esteem.
music
without
considered
text,
Music,
high
especially
its message
inferior because of its inability to say and communicate
There was even debate as to whether music,
clearly and unambiguously.
resentational
by nature, was capable of saying anything at all, the suspicion being that
the solid support of linguistic meaning music was merely a set of
without
vapid gestures and effects, rather like a fireworks
pleasing, yet essentially
display.
All
its neat summary in Fontenelle's

especially
me
veux-tu?"
(Sonata, what do you
quip, "Sonate, que
is ambiguous,
want of me?). Apart
that music
from the obvious message
text
is
music
artificial.
without
Fontenelle's
ridiculously
joke implies that
this is well
known,
rather wicked
early
prevalent
keeping
and audience
that both performers
century aesthetics
eighteenth
Batteux wrote
the arts as artifacts.
alike should experience
members
or
it happens
that the musician
dancer may actually
that "if sometimes
circumstance
that is an accidental
which
be feeling what he expresses,
Admittedly,
not
is
at all the intention
between
of the art."20 To confuse
the distinction
turns
art
art and life is to act without
it
into
the
taste;
something
is on a living skin and
"like a painting which
and unsavory,
grotesque
should be on a canvas."21 Fontenelle's
remark, though, ismore cutting;
is as risible as
that seriously engaging with a piece of music
a
a
or
a
lacks
chair
coherent
cup: music
conversing with
language, a real
and a proper speaking voice.
human presence,
art that was
theorists venerated
century mimetic
Eighteenth
it suggests
For them, the unambiguousness

of a tasteful
a
art
scenario between
the audience
piece of
implied
particular dramatic
the implied listening
and the art; or, as I will refer to them, between
scenario, the listening
subject and the musical object. In this dramatic
clearly
understandable.
as an active observer and the art as a passive

an artifact, the object obviously has no life
from the meaning
the listening subject assigns to it. It cannot
subject
is characterized
object,
an artifact. As
separate
return the listening
subject's
the
gaze and achieves meaning
only when
what it represents. The listening subject is
the artifact with her knowledge
of what that
listening subject recognizes

she surrounds
omniscient;
artifact represents. As Carl Dahlhaus
of the relaxed spectator, an observer
"a listener assumes the role

wrote,
who deigns to judge the likeness or
listening subject is never consumed
The
of a description."
of the character of
by the effect of the art because of a "conception
musical
that
and
[is]
feelings
primarily objective
objectifying."
a melodic motive
"in unprejudiced
does not
Therefore,
perception,
a
one
into
it seems
dullness
and
dull
but
rather
express
mood,
transport
unlikeliness
dull
in itself."24
scenario repeatedly manifested

This mimetic
itself in Baroque
in the form of codified systems of musical
discourse
signs that could be
used to create and interpret music. As Michael
P. Steinberg has written,
... combines
a system of representation
with confidence
"[t]he Baroque
an
act
in the very possibility of such
of representation"
; and Friedrich
that "right from the start the Baroque builds a fixed vocabulary
Blume,
that can be taught and transmitted."
of such systems are
Examples
or
contents
to
the
of
musical
allegory,
signs that can be under
"keying
stood by the hearer simply from the sensuous effect,"27 such as in word
imitatio naturae, or the direct copying of sounds such as one
painting;
finds
in French
descriptive
music
by Rameau
and Couperin;
the
vollkommene
1739) and Scheibe's Der critische

(Hamburg,
and the doctrine of affects. Musical
sounds
Capellmeister
Musicus
(Leipzig, 1745);
these mimetic
into comprehensible
systems could be organized
to a set of criteria understood
experiences
according
by a community
within
of
listeners.
Leonard
implies
Ratner's
introduction
that such an aesthetic
interpretations
lowing fashion:
of the Viennese
its contacts
From
with
of the rhetorical
mentality
Classics.
worship,
poetry,
could
Ratner
notion
helpfully
defines
drama,
of topic
inform our
topic
entertainment,
in the fol
dance,
the hunt, and the life of the lower classes, music

ceremony,
in the early 18th century developed a thesaurus of characteristic figures,
which formed a rich legacy for classic composers. Some of these figures
were associated with various feelings and affectations; others had a pictur
for musical
esque flavor. They are designated here as topics?subjects
the military,
discourse.
between musical
Topic
signifier and an extra
implies a clear relationship
means
is
musical
that
understandable
of, or clearly translata
signified
by
ble into, language. As Harold Powers writes,
"each topic either implies
or characterizes
a recognizable
social
feature of music
from a particular
tags naming kinds and manners
topics are terminological
consumers.
familiar to a particular
society of musical
They are
verbal equivalents
for items in a musical
Wye
Jameson
vocabulary."
a characteristic
a similar point: "by recognizing
Allanbrook
makes
style,
of notes and rhythms as having
[the writer] can identify a configuration
context.
The
of musics
a particular
and clarified, of course, by its role in its
stance, modified
movement
and by the uses made of it earlier in the piece. In short, he
can articulate within certain limits the shared response a particular
passage will evoke."
At
the other
lies the
spectrum from mimesis
role
assumed
the
dominant
gradually
end of the aesthetic
idea of musical
which
autonomy,
debates concerning music during the nineteenth
century.
inverts the drama between
The concept of musical
autonomy
listening
as
a
in
mimetic
the
and
result,
and,
epistemological
subject
theory
object
in aesthetic
superiority of mimesis's
implied listening subject crumbles. This reversal
was achieved by trumping the materialistically
oriented
linguistic foun
in eighteenth
dations of knowledge
century mimetic
theory with higher
and the transcen
cards in the Western
intellectual's
pack?metaphysics
dent. The
concept
and
the value
of stable musical
meaning
were
ousted
wrote in his famous essay of

As E.T.A. Hoffmann
of metaphysics.
is the most romantic
Instrumental Music":
1813, "Beethoven's
"[music]
one
is
that
of all the arts, one might
the
say
romantic,
only
genuinely
is infinity."
its only subject matter
Because both mimetic
theory
to a latter-day
and the idea of musical
autonomy work in reference
to a system in
of value?in
other words, according
Platonic
conception
which
the quality of an idea or object is ultimately
gauged by the degree
since
to the realm of the spiritual, or to true ideas?the

of its proximity
idea
nature was able to supersede
of music's
the
pronouncedly
metaphysical
more semantic orientation
of mimetic
In
the
prose
thought.
hyperbolic
of the prophets of musical
characteristic
the young Friedrich
autonomy,
that "language can never
of music, because music
stands
Nietzsche
stated
symbolism
mordial
contradiction
and therefore
unity,
render the cosmic

adequately
in symbolic relation to the pri
and primordial pain in the heart of the primal
is beyond and prior to all
symbolizes a sphere which
phenomena."
the art object is no longer a

autonomy,
In touch with the highest realm of experience,
it can
the power of the listening subject. The musical
effects that,
In the idea of musical

artifact.
passive
even surpass
semantic meaning,
had been dismissed
a
are
now
source
of
Fontenelle
power,
by
phenomenal
the "double quality of a narcotic
that both intoxicates
and
of their lack of inherent
because
as incoherent
possessing
writes, "here for the first time in the

spreads a fog." As John Neubauer
an art that subordinated
didactic messages
aesthetics,
history of Western
to pure forms was acclaimed
as
and representations
of specific contents
the musical
listening subject, unable to rationalize
she finds herself, experiences
frustration and fear or
herself to the overawing power of the music's
simply relinquishes
7
effects.
She recognizes
the music's
of its
superior force as evidence
profound art."
world in which
The
status: "shining rays of light shoot through the darkness of

metaphysical
we
aware of giant shadows swaying back and forth,
and
become
night
ever
In the same way that it is an act of
closer around us."
moving
hubris to attempt to understand God, it is now arrogant to attempt to
as enormous
as music. The listening
and encapsulate
something
a
the
music
that
the
well
have become
may
impression
subject gains
a
one
real presence.
Like
of Rilke's angels, though,
knowing
subject with
to the listening subject: unlike
the music
is, at the same time, indifferent
art object, the autonomous
the mimetic
work does not require the
surround
gaze of the listening subject

the essentially Romantic
Increasingly,
with musical
have come to hold
autonomy
acknowledging
in order
to bring it to life.39
aesthetics
associated
a privileged
place
in the
might
to stimulating
in which a
essays on Mozart
by both Leo Treitler,
number of terms that "the writers around 1800 [used] for characterizing
the mental
that are modeled
processes
(narra
by instrumental music"
back
are applied,
tive, emotional
flux, fantasy, thought, discourse, meditation)
on
and Marshall
consciousness
the
of
Brown,
conception
changing
in music of the 1780s; more recently, Daniel Chua has worked
emerging
out sophisticated
in
critical interpretations
of the Viennese
Classics
this
aesthetics.40 However,
general in terms of emerging Romantic
means
inhabits a strange position within
scholar
that Classical music
on
ship. On the one hand, scholars show it as emerging from mimesis;
it as on the verge of reaching musical
the other, they position
autonomy.
on the wane or on the cusp; an old-style
It is either post- or pre-factum;
material
artifact with its feet firmly planted on terra firma or an elusive
into the
entity on the edge of sublimation
in
Even
Webster's
where
argu
work,
James
metaphysical
stratosphere.
to a separate period have
ments
in favor of assigning Classical music
in terms of a mixture
is understood
of
been most strong, Classical music
and partly dematerialized
case what unin

inWebster's
influences. However,
is redeemed
is that a scholarly antagonism
tentionally
through
happens
to
of a once reconci
be
the
manifestation
shown
merely
being
perverted
liatory historical
reality to which we can now joyously return home.
historical
divergent
Hence,
Creation
Haydn's
helped
tic art,
music's
in a form
as mimesis.
function
ible,
to found
albeit
the musical
was
as
the
that made
elements
the most
arguably
roman
and most
highest
its traditional
maintained
simultaneously
the
Among
sublime
status
new-found
that
this
important.
poss
triumph
From
this
perspective, Haydn's final triumph itself almost seems sublime, not only
in elementary human terms, but in historical ones as well. For his
triumph
was
the
artistic
touchstone
of
an
entire
period for which we have no name, because

and Romanticism.41
the Enlightenment
historical
period:
it links, rather than divides,
on a broad historical
level the argument
that the Classical
Admittedly,
era is en route, rather than a self-contained,
stable style period makes
sense when we consider
of the end of the
the profound disturbances
century. To
eighteenth
Friedrich Triest wrote:
cite
just one
example,
in 1801,
Johann Karl
If one wanted to characterize the final fifth or tenth of the last century
with a single word, one could perhaps find no better term than
"ferment." Almost all human knowledge and activity are affected by it,
ories, but scientific
ideas and systems as well
to
indeed,
shaken
their
foundations;
what
(even logic), have been
is more,
is at
and
the
same
time a distinguishing
characteristic of the present era, these changes did
not remain merely objects of knowledge or playthings for scholars and
idle world-watchers,
but have been translated unusually rapidly into prac
it not be a miracle if the fine arts, which are so closely
tical life.Would
connected with those things, i.e., with both scientific
ideas, were not infected by this kind of ferment?
and practical
from the perspective

of the first part of this essay, it would
Moreover,
seem desirable
to keep Classical music
in this strange state
suspended
since such suspension would appear
and metaphysics,
between mimesis
to be productive
of keeping Classical music
condition
of dialogue
that is commensurate
restlessly waiting within

with Hegel's notion of
the
and thus evidence

that Understanding
has
"tarrying with the negative,"
been kept active within
the terrain of our hermeneutics.
But rejecting
as if one were
oriented
interpretations,
paradigms within historically
a
not
create
law, will
implementing
satisfactory results in every instance.
However
beneficial
the role that both mimetic
and metaphysical
reread
in
music
the
have
had
idea
of
Classical
within
ings
unitary
dismantling
since
the Western
their results have been depressing
canon, ultimately
as a
the space they have cleared has merely
functioned
instrumentally
where
the interpreters wage a colonial war for their own
cat
but
historical
alternative,
equally static and therefore nondialogic,
so
Restlessness
has
been
created
that
restlessness might
egories.
merely
once more be annulled.
battleground
At
in
this particular moment,
Romantic
readings predominate
fact that even Allanbrook
this
admits.43 Crudely
put,
has been able to happen by means
of a covert assumption
that any
the field?a
"difficulties" within
or formal?cannot
Classical
music?whether
be
accommodated
successfully
and must
therefore be coming
century
thinking
Romanticism's
magnetic
"an uncritical
absorption
expressive,
conventional,
by eighteenth
under the sway of
In fact, such a strategy falls prey to

own self-representations,"
in Romanticism's
characterizes
Romantic
ideology.45 By accepting
as Jerome McGann
cannot
that "difficulties"
field.
we
within
the discourse,
own
Romanticism's
self
project
merely
frequently
as
a
reason
of
the
serving representation
Enlightenment:
repressively
in the face of the vitality of the
oriented movement
that is impotent
onto
be accommodated
Classical
music
and the transcendent.

the Enlightenment
imagination
Regarding
such a position
does not do credit to its manifest
complexities.
itself,
the mid-twentieth
Since
century,
come
increasingly
clich?d
of the
conceptualizations
a more
have
under attack, creating
of the relationship
the seeming idealism of the
between
and
the
realities"
and cultural products of
intellectual
"historical
history
is seen now as far more refractory, riven
the period. The Enlightenment
tensions. Nevertheless,
and manifest
with both underlying
when
Enlightenment
critical picture
is not directly invoked in discussions

of Classical music,
the cultural and intellectual model
that can still take its place is one
founded on the very idealistic picture of the Enlightenment
that
sets up for us to reject. Perhaps this merely acknowledges
Romanticism
Romanticism
that the difficulties
of our own historical
the comforting
illusion
Western
culture nearly
situation
that at least Classical
music
still impel us to need

was something
of
"got right" during the long gory procession
it is understandable
that those for whom
therefore,
Modernity.
Perhaps,
an idealistically Enlightened
seemed
untenable
of Classical
conceptualization
therefore search within Romantic
might
more sensitive
to the self-evident
ideas potentially
Classics.
tural complexities
of the Viennese
Since the field of Classical music
scholarship
music
has
aesthetics
expressive
for
and struc
a con
is evidently
in
economic
which
issues)
by
inconsequentially
one
cannot merely
different positions fight for the power to colonize,
trust that if we leave Classical music
in the restless condition
of waiting
it will be allowed to remain there
between mimesis
and metaphysics,
tested field
(driven not
a strategy is required that can allow for

Classical music both to remain in waiting and to be able to defend itself
against colonization
by other paradigms. As result, I have to make
recourse to the very object of my initial critique
in the opening
section
undisturbed.
In this instance
of the essay in order to preserve the values that that critique had been
set up to defend;
In what
in Hegelian
the negation.
terms, I negate
a
and the metaphysical
the mimetic
space between
follows, I prise open
forces
that continue
dialogic)
effects
music
our interpretations
of Classical music
to as the
will
be
referred
(that
can be colonized;
and I do this
can
music
be protected
itself. In the next section I will
so that Classical
from
of colonization
this paradigm primarily as if it were
the primary cultural and

can be understood.
music
which
Classical
by
section, I will show how this apparently
regressive move
to undermine
rather than
functions
paradoxically
determinant
In the following
in my argument
bolster
discourse
by which Classical
and paradoxically
precisely
the negative
present
historical
to threaten
insert another
and there
up the practices
to critique.
of interpretive
colonization
that this essay
seeks
Dialogue and theViennese Classics

in the
the social realm, the idea of dialogue gains importance
all over Europe, of
century because of "the establishment,
eighteenth
new institutions where
From
ideas could be explored and discussed."46
Within
coffee houses,
salons, public lectures, lending libraries, theatrical and

to masonic
and
operatic performances,
lodges and learned academies
has
societies, dialogue was an important reality of what J?rgen Habermas
referred to as the "new public sphere" of the eighteenth
This
century.
of conversational
point ismade historically
tangible by the proliferation
centuries.
manuals
and eighteenth
For
during the late seventeenth
was
a
means
not
century
thinkers,
eighteenth
though, dialogue
simply
to
an end or a handy tool for aiding social interaction.

it
Like a magnet,
attracted a number of the major ideas Enlightenment
thinkers cherished;
as an abstract concept,
it functioned
like a salon or a coffee house for
virtual meeting
other concepts?a
ground where ideas could intermingle.
a starting point, the prevalence
of the concept of dialogue can be seen
as one manifestation
of the Enlightenment's
response to, and hostility
thinkers criticized
toward, religion and scholasticism.
Enlightenment
As
a priori "truths" in a dogmatic

one cannot have a dialogue when
the participants
refuse to have their statements
the strong
questioned,
in the eighteenth
presence of dialogue
century speaks of a belief that all
truths must be proved or earned; they cannot simply be posited.
(As
Simon Keefe remarks in a discussion
of Gotthold
Ephraim Lessing's play
scholastic
fashion
thought because
that denied debate.
it presented
Because
"the pursuit of truth ismore important

than
truth itself. For Lessing
is less important than
teaching moral precepts
?
In turn, the need for
awareness.'")
'[stimulating] moral and intellectual
means
even
that
necessitates
and
celebrates
the use of
proof
dialogue
that
touchstone
of the eighteenth
the
reason,
century mentality. Within
context of dialogue,
the shared use of rational processes by the partici
Nathan
der Weise
[1779],
...
pants works to bring them together; dialogic reason is a kind of lingua

franca that acts like a social bonding agent.
Dialogue
through reason, then, embraces the virtues of collabor
ation and communication,
to practice
its participants
encourages
and works against the notion of authoritative
control. The
decorum,
is free from unequal power relations so that the desires of
ideal dialogue
over those of the group nor are com
the individual neither predominate
one
it.
As
commentator
"let others
wrote,
contemporary
promised by
also speak and contribute
their share towards the general conversation.
are people who without
the
it, monopolize
perceiving
everywhere
are ethically motivated
All participants
to debate any
conversation."
There
that
that general agreement

and resolution
can be ignored, and yet no problem must monop
in which members
is a process of discussion
olize. Ideally, then, dialogue
of a group voice their opinions, with the moral goal of general agree
in praxis, for
ment.
and a microcosm
It provides a powerful metaphor,
no problem
achieved:
to venerate;
and it may
that the age claimed
those ideas were to be realized.
the democratic
ideals
have
to them how
suggested
and
Dialogue
occurred frequently
even
terms, such as conversation and discourse,

in discussions
the eighteenth
of music
throughout
terms appeared
centuries.
Predominantly,
dialogue
its relative
and early nineteenth

in the context of discussions
lines of a texture:
the fugal answer;
might be distributed
the different
between
of the relationships
imitation
inform
of
definitions
and, in particular,
they
the parts of a melody
the different ways in which
between
and the relationship
among instruments;
terms to
in the concerto.
The use of dialogic
soloist (s) and orchestra
was
textures
in
mirrored
instrumental
the eighteenth
discuss
century
by
textures
subtle and pliable nature of the instrumental
the increasingly
became capable of the fluid and rapid trans
terms germane. Some
of dialogue
the application
as
movement
Fourth Piano
of Beethoven's
the slow
such
textures
themselves.
The
formations
that made
pieces,
Concerto
relation
in G Major, op. 58 (1806), with its highly dramatized
seem
out
to
to
be
and
call
between
orchestra,
piano
interpreted dia
ship
3
a
and
"a
conversation
between
its
title,
Sanguineus
Through
logically.
no.
a Melancholicus,"
1
in
C Minor, Wq.
C.P.E. Bach's Trio
161,
effort.
( 1746) simply excuses the scholar of exegetic
in eighteenth
about
of dialogue
century writings
prevalence
currents in
and its resonance with broader social and intellectual
the eighteenth
century has fostered a considerable
scholarly interest in
of Classical music.
ideas for the interpretation
using dialogue-related
The
music
as a metaphor
for formulating
takes dialogue
My approach, by contrast,
the language of late eighteenth
between
the relationship
and theorizing
and the listening subject (rather
and early nineteenth
century music
a
late eighteenth
than
century audience
community)
implied
particular
6
In the rest of this essay, aspects of dialogue
language.
by that musical
the listening subject and the musical
between
object will be referred to
Further, I use dialogue both as a frame for
the musical
processes of the sounding forms
I will talk of interior dialogic processes.
instances,
as exterior dialogic processes.

to reinterpret
and a means
themselves.
In these
A Dialogic Classical InstrumentalMusic

The
dialogic model
conventions
musical
in this essay assumes that the positioning

creates different
discourses
within
aesthetic
used
of
relationship
implied listening
the mimetic
exhibits con
scenario, music
objects. Within
ventions
that are recognized by the listening subject, who is the only
are assumed to
in the relationship. The conventions
active participant
and musical
be stable and unambiguous;

they assure the listening subject that the
is an artifact, thus allowing the listening subject to grasp the
musical
object as if it were a beautiful porcelain figurine or a snuffbox.
music
to assign meaning
to cul
In contrast,
since conventions
permit humans
tural products and provide models
those products can be con
by which
musical work because
structed, they cannot be part of an autonomous
status. They would
would
the
invalidate
music's
they
metaphysical
that (at least socially) the music had been made,
almost as if
emphasize
it were a mechanism.
it
the absence of conventions
makes
Therefore,
not
if
for
the
of
musical
difficult,
impossible,
implied listening subject
to be able to possess the musical
autonomy
object as she had been able
to do within
autonomous
the mimetic
musical
scenario.
work
The
hypothetically
the implied
convention-free,
incapacitates
listening subject,
in the face of the music's overpowering
effects
making her defenseless
cannot
whose meaning
she
fully comprehend.
Classical
instrumental music depends upon the presence of
conventions.
As has been often noted,
the situ
recognizable musical
element occurs
frequently arises, though, that the conventional
a
or
manner.
an
in problematic
incorrect
trait
Moreover,
important
of Classical
instrumental
pieces is that they are driven to solve such
to reinstate the convention
in its correct formulation. The
problems,
ation
are worked out or "discussed" during

such difficulties
process by which
course
the
of the composition
until their potentially
force has
disruptive
into the music
been integrated
is one example of an interior dialogic
or displacement
of a musical
convention
is the
process. The disruption
sets
in
that
the
discussion
and
the
establish
gesture
motion,
problematic
ment
of the accepted use of that convention

is the goal toward which
is
the piece
driven. As in the eighteenth
century ideal of dialogue,
the final resolution was earned through a process of discussion,
because
it becomes
"conformed
ethics
imbued with a certain moral quality:

to or directed
towards right."
One
process is
speak of an
the whole
might
of convention.
example of such a process is given by Haydn's

String Quartet,
no.
in greater detail later. The first
op. 33,
5, which will be discussed
movement
begins peculiarly with a cadential figure (X in Ex. 1).
An
According
music with
the musical
to the conventions
to begin a piece of
of Classical music,
a figure usually reserved for points of closure is to confuse
the
syntax, thus creating a disruption. Admittedly,
Violino
??SP
Violino
II
Viola
Violoncello
Example
mm.
1-2
1.
Haydn,
String
in G Major,
Quartet
op.
33, no.
5, first movement,
opening figure already finds a more proper recasting at the

problematic
seem to
end of the first period of the first movement,
and this would
is
the
initial
that
excused.
However,
suggest
syntactical
infelicity
quickly
since
in musical
the problem of openings
and closings
syntax pervades
not only the rest of the first movement
but the quartet overall, we might
an ongoing
this as but a temporary relaxation within
merely consider
in musical
and closings
regarding the problem of openings
at
that
the
unleashes.
the
end
of
the quartet's
very
syntax
Only
opening
the first movement's
finale, when
opening figure recurs
problematic
context
in Ex. 2), can we under
in
its
proper
(X
syntactical
repositioned
a harmonious
stand that the problem has achieved
relationship with its
dialogue
its identity. As in the dialogue

ignored nor does it take over;
through a process of discussion.
are raised by the fact that
questions
compromising
surroundings without
ideal, the problem raised is neither
integration
has been
earned
historical
Nevertheless,
in action
conventions
Classical
blundering
feet,
qualities of
on their
back
they get drunk, trip up, get
as
see
we
them
sober, and maybe
(if
aspiring toward
learn a lesson in self-improvement
from their experi
exhibit
the decidedly
human
and rectification:
try to get
Enlightenment)
ences. They are restless, in stark contrast to the hypothetical
behavior of
a mimetic
one
conventions
artifact
within
would
(after all,
hardly expect
to suddenly pick her nose, wipe it on
one's Dresden
china shepherdess
her floral dress, and then reassume her demure pose). But what creates
in Classical
of conventions
the presentation
conventions
than
the
them
Other
Quite
literally, something
a
the givens of the con
that opens up
gap between
selves, something
it is not
because
ventions
and the source of agency that?precisely
this restlessness
that infects
music?
JM IH
CO
C/5
Example
?i
p^
2.
Haydn,
String
Quartet
in G Major,
op.
33, no.
5, finale,
mm.
84-end
(106)
by givens
completely
of the
perspective
thereby able to act upon them. From the theoretical
section
music's
of
this
this
would
of
the
be the proof
essay,
gap
opening
status. From a more historical
to ideological
critical as opposed
perspec
as freedom,
tive, the Other which creates this gap might be considered
and self
the elusive source of critique, politics, consciousness
and artistic activity, whose origins and being was becom
consciousness,
within
the ongoing project of
ing the primary topic of contestation
In musicology,
this discourse
century.
Modernity
on freedom has traditionally
of
been associated with the emergence
seems
so
to
if Classical music
be in possession
of freedom,
Romanticism,
we would
exhibits
that it has gained a certain

and self-consciousness,
assert
consciousness
can be understood
In Kant's
that it
presence,
it
that historically
of musical
autonomy.
human
and
in terms of the paradigm

freedom is seen as absolute
philosophy
and thus not
on any prior cause, and similarly in Fichte the "absolute I,"

dependent
as the source of freedom and the ultimate
is understood
foun
which
terms. For
in merely objective
of the world, cannot be construed
as
consciousness
is '"a
Bowie writes,
Andrew
for Fichte,
example,
a 'Tathandlung.
like a
Its very nature is not to be objective
deed-action',
dation
fact, but rather to resist objectification

by being active and by not being
irredu
self-consciousness
determined
by anything but itself. This makes
to the deterministic
cible to any explanation
of the kind applicable
to
seem
to be antithetical
ideas
would
such
natural world."
Although
can also
conventions
inclined idea of conventions,
the more numerically
that a particular
of certain agreements
use
a
as
at
of their freedom within
result of the
has arrived
community
it is na?ve not to recognize
that
the realm of social dialogue. However,
are also manifestations
forces that can
conventions
of socially objective
us negatively,
of
determine
exactly so that we are no longer conscious
be understood
as manifestations
of our determinants
the parameters
So (again),
within
social dialogue.
like a strange zombie hybrid, manages
our potential
to change
our
exercise of
freedoms
that Classical
through the
how is it
music,
effectively
a
roam
between
land
within
no-man's
around
restlessly
self-consciously
conventions
realm
of
the
and
the determinate
realm of
spontaneous
to
stasis and
law and dissent,
freedom, between
givens and critique,
mimesis
and metaphysics?
movement,
to resolve such questions
localiz
We might
attempt
by historically
to
context
ideas
of
music
of classical
century
irony.
ing the
eighteenth
to the conventional
One could view the interruptions
progress of events
in Classical
tions
instrumental
that characterize
to the authorial
music as analogous
interjec
certain
of
the quirky narrative
strategies
or Laurence
Jacques le Fataliste
when a convention
informing
stopping
direction.
occurs
the implied
the expected
Sterne's
Tristram
in an unconventional
Shandy. In other words,

is
way, the composer
in a highly rhetorical manner

that he
in
flow of the work and starting it off
another
listener
is
is anything
By doing so, the illusion that the composition
is shattered, and the
than an artifact created by the composer
is given an ironic tone. Irony, in
expressive world of the composition
a
means
is
this sense,
the listening subject from the music;
of distancing
other
thus it can be seen as an indirect means

as a foundation
model
for a historically
of validating
the mimetic
informed interpretation
of
music.
Classical
for understanding
itself as a favorable model
here
Irony presents
since connections
the
between
and
styles
composers'
compositional
ironic techniques
of novelists?for
and Sterne?were
example, Haydn
of ironic
circulation
in
inter
the effects
during the period. Nevertheless,
are not as straightforward
as we might hope. In fact, ironic inter
from the object of contemplation
ruption can suggest that our distance
is shrinking,
that we are being dragged further and further into the body
ruption
of the work,
some
away. This is because when
likely to look at it more closely; and the
the less likely that we will be able to perceive
rather
than being
we are more
pushed
thing goes wrong,

closer we are to an object,
are too surrounded
it as a whole. We
that the closer one
by its details. Of course, one can

to an object, the more easily one
is brought
as
an
it
of material
perceives
assemblage
fragments. From this perspec
can
as
an
to enter the com
invitation
musical
be
conceived
tive,
irony
we
are
into
when
However,
poser's compositional
workshop.
brought
argue
close proximity with an object, our sense of the object's

intricacy
than
increases, which can make us feel that the object is more profound
we may at first have assumed. Proximity
does not necessarily
lead to an
our sense of the
from the object, or heighten
distance
experiential
object as artifact. On the contrary, it can help to imbue that object with
a presence. We might
return here to the melancholy
in
friend discussed
section of this essay, where we realized that a person has
the opening
more
whole
depth than we had first imagined,

we had mistaken
her for.
that she is not
the neat,
smiling
a
small digression will serve to illustrate my point further. When
clock mender
into the workings
of
myopic
squints through his spectacles
a beautiful but broken clock, the pleasure he gains from the experience
is not simply his satisfaction
in wielding
power over an inanimate object,
A
a power that may

communion
with
elude him
elsewhere
something
well-known,
in life. He
also enjoys
a communion
the act of
that, for possibly
reasons, gives
object
to himself,
"You're a real beauty,
break that leads the clock mender
mutters
clocks
clocks
in the first place.

of Martin
(As Terry
presence.
aren't you!" It is the fact that
to his love and familiarity of
in the context
has written
Eagleton
of a discussion
"when the hammer breaks, when

Heidegger,
to take it for granted,
its familiarity
is stripped from it and it
one could say that the very
up its authentic
Therefore,
being.")
into
that defines the clock as an artifact lures the clock mender
we cease
yields
thing
than an object; and as a result of this love
feeling that the clock ismore
and familiarity,
tries to make
the clock mender
the clock function prop
The
broken
clock
and
the
clock form an
again.
erly
well-functioning
interdependence.
in Classical
conventions
the disruption
of musical
Analogously,
music gives that music presence,
rather than emphasizing
artificiality,
and thus confuses any literal application
of late eighteenth-century
notions of irony. On the one hand, the familiarity of the conventions
(at least for the implied
from becoming
stops that
subject of Classical music)
the evidently human
terrifyingly inhuman?for
orientation
of these conventions
draws our attention
presence
listening
(even practical)
away from the horizon of the metaphysical
the fact that we are drawn into the world
realm. On
of these
the other
conventions
hand,
by their
terms means
that they are restless) stops
(which in musical
conventions
from being mere dead shells. The resulting combi
nation of the recognizable with that which has presence
imbues
a
music
human
that
Classical
with
peculiarly
quality
justifies the fre
to personification
in the following musical
quent recourse that Imake
brokenness
those
a musical
convention
is disrupted
and a conventional
is
is
the
unfulfilled,
expectation
listening subject
impelled by moral
as if it were a partner in a dialogue.
instincts to engage with the music
In a metaphorical
sense, the listening subject interrupts the work with
an implied "excuse me?" The ensuing attempts
to resolve or rectify the
analysis. When
in its accepted
convention
form
problem and to reinstate the musical
interior
the
music's
are, therefore,
response to
(the
dialogic processes)
conven
the implied queries of the listening subject. When
the musical
can be said
tion is finally reinstated,
the listening subject and the music
to have
come
to an agreement.
the
It is this moral contract between
mean
I
what
that
defines
and
the
musical
by
subject
subject
listening
exterior dialogic processes.
Under
the subsection
I had
the Viennese
Classics,"
"Positioning
as
a
I
for
that
would
argued
strategically present dialogue
paradigm
so that Classical music could be preserved
Classical music
against being
colonized
by its surrounding paradigms. My goal had been to preserve
in the opening
section of this
and dialogue
espoused
seem
as
if both the stra
from the above sketch it might
essay. However,
as a virtue had
of restlessness
tegic aspect of this move and the necessity
since in a dialogically
been overdetermined,
oriented Classical music
the
restless waiting
paradigms of mimesis
coexist and necessitate
and musical
do indeed appear both

autonomy
is
the presence of each other. Restlessness
to
counteract
the possibilities
of false reconcilia
required to dialectically
tions within
the political, hermeneutic,
and aesthetic
realms, and also
But
if reconciliation
has actually been achieved,
those realms.
between
it is surely churlish to insist on restlessness
for restlessness's
sake. To
we
Webster's
should
the
human
sublime
celebrate
words,
appropriate
this
which
and historical
of
rather
than
music,
links,
divides,
triumph
mimesis
the Enlightenment
and Romanticism,
and musical
autonomy,
artifice and presence, musical
and
implied listening subject. So as
object
our
us
now
a dialogic
turn
to
let
of
that
celebration,
part
interpretation
of a single movement,
the scherzo and
trio from Haydn's
in G Major, op. 33, no. 5, but ends up
String Quartet
into
entire
consideration
the
multi-movement
work.
taking
sets out from
the consideration
Haydn s String Quartet, Op. 33, No.
5, Scherzo and Trio
and trio of Haydn's

op. 33, no. 5, the most
striking
is the hesitant
the
and consequent
antecedent
opening
problem
of the empty measure,
quality of its final cadence, mm. 7-10. By means
m. 8, and the repetition of the dominant
chord from the end of m. 7 in
m. 9, the resolution onto the tonic is extended
by two measures.
In the scherzo
about
9 and 10 are not only literally separated by the silent measure,

but also gesturally differentiated
from the preceding material,
texturally,
we
and registrally. From the robustness of the antecedent
dynamically,
to the lighter realm of this cadence, which
seems strangely
have moved
out of place, as if grafted on from a different piece. Anomalous
and
Measures
the cadence does not fulfill its assigned

local-level
unconfident,
a
a
role
of
conclusion
and tying up
loose end. Also,
syntactical
drawing
when
the cadence finally arrives after the silent measure,
it bypasses the
onto
in
resolution
G
shown
3.64 This
expected
voice-leading
Example
resolution had been prepared at the end of the antecedent
in violin 1
slightly
but only partially fulfilled in the consequent

(mm. 3-4),
(Ex. 4 shows
how the ends of both the antecedent
and consequent
might have been
in terms of voice leading). As a result, the final gesture of the
connected
opening period has more the quality of a raised eyebrow than an
affirmation.
3.
Quartet
in G Major,
op.
33, no.
5, third movement,
4.
Haydn,
Example
String Quartet
3 onwards,
voice
leading
implications
in G Major,
op.
33, no.
55,
Haydn,
String
of mm.
7-10
Example
reworking
In the context
of the movement's
through a two-measure
third movement,
mm.
dance-based
genre, this rhythmic

of
the expected
displacement
measure
units
of
a
is
regular
grouping,
major generic disruption. The
hitch immediately
the listening subject in a dialogue with the
implicates
hitch,
created
a reinstatement
of the genre's conventionally
is
the
accepted
expected
goal.
Thus
the listening subject could see the problem of the
involved,
as an attempt
in mm. 9-10
cadence
to rectify an opposite
in
problem
the antecedent.
Like the consequent
distorts its
phrase, the antecedent
role within
the dance genre. In contrast with the end of the consequent,
musical
material
in which
features
though,
the antecedent's
space, as opposed
fault lies in the contraction

of material
into a
to the stretching of regular material
into an
of a recognizable
three-beat measure
expectation
regular
space. The
expanded
in this dance genre is unfulfilled
in the antecedent
because
the two
of motive X (a and b) are compressed
into a
components
X
5a
and
This
is
in
unit,
(Exx.
5b).
compression
confusing
terms of syntax because
the new X (i.e., X ), grating against the
measure
line as it stomps up its two-octave
range in violin 1, is in fact a
of
X.
Y
from
is
ornamented
inflection
liquidation
(Y
by a semitone
rhythmic
two-beat
whose
rhythm is derived from X; thus, a tentative,

yet rather unstable
between
the two is kept in place [Ex. 6].) Liquidation,
relationship
usually a sign of transition or closure, is at odds with the expository
function of the antecedent.
As a result, the listening subject is swept up
in a drive to the final cadence of the opening period before any material
5.
String
Haydn,
Example
mm.
motives
1-4,
rhythmic
Quartet
in G Major,
op.
33, no.
5, third movement,
6.
Haydn,
String
Example
mm.
1-4, motivic
liquidation
Quartet
in G Major,
op.
33, no.
5, third movement,
to justify that dash. Moreover,

when
the
presented
to
its
anomalous
fulfill
fails
the
overblown
finally arrives,
quality
to get there too quickly created in the lis
that the attempt
expectations
of this discrepancy
is that the
tening subject's mind. One explanation
has been
suitably
cadence
final cadence
of the first period rectifies the initial brevity of thematic

in
the antecedent
of material
suffi
exposition
through the introduction
as
to
a
contrastive
be
labeled
belated
Hence
the
ciently
mini-exposition.
of different material.
Similarly,
phrase can be seen as counteracting
impression
quent
cedent.
the expansion
of the conse
in the ante
the contraction
to restore order, though, overcompensate,

Both attempts
and
the final cadence
still seems unintegrated.
to the proposed dialogic models,
the music must discuss
According
to
the idiosyncrasies
of the opening
and attempt
resolve them before the
implied
have been
subject will be satisfied that her expectations
means
contract
this
of
the
moral
between
discussion,
By
is
can be
music
and
the
fulfilled.
Such
discussion
subject
listening
acknowledged.
the listening
seen
in two places. The

starts in m.
movement,
first passage, from the middle

section of this
16 with a reworking of the problematic
opening
now on the dominant.
This reworking then leads into an
antecedent,
to rectify
attempt
liquidating
the compression
of X into the disruptive
two-beat
figure of Y in the opening of the movement
through the
instruments
dance genre. While
crack the
the accompanying
underlying
mm.
to
in
time
unit
21
the
of
the
two-beat
original problematic
whip
a
the process of expansion with
broad overempha
22, violin 1 continues
sized retrograde
(Ex. 7).
The
of Y, in which
another
expansion
of Y is embedded
of the return of the

passage, m. 32 at the beginning
an
of the upbeat to the initial
opening period, consists of
expansion
into a full measure. On a local level, it sounds like running
antecedent
second
on the spot. But, by means

an attempt
to
ismade
of this expansion,
assert X as the generating motive
of the antecedent
and so counteract
the emphasis on the liquidation figure (Y) that had initially assumed
center stage and confused
in
function of the antecedent
the expository
the opening period of the movement.
To this effect, the attempt fails
the opening period of the movement
and Y therefore resumes its initial
alteration,
undeterred.
is recapitulated
without
status, apparently
because
of the opening period raises a number

an exact repetition of the
of difficulties. However
formally conventional
in this move
opening passage may be, in terms of the dialogic processes
is an act of stubbornness,
the
music's
the repetition
ment,
signifying
The
refusal
tation
unaltered
recapitulation
to compromise
that the music
in accordance
will
set about
with
the listening subject's expec

its problems. Admittedly,
resolving
is created on a local level between

the end of
fleeting form of resolution
of the trio. The two
the first playing of the scherzo and the beginning
of the scherzo are recast here as one compact unit
concluding motives
are
in terms of the G the listening subject might have
resolved
and both
to hear at the end of the scherzo and at the end of the opening
wished
but
the bracketed notes are the expected,
period (see Ex. 8, in which
tone
in
between
Thus
the
difference
unfulfilled
related,
resolutions).
is subsumed under the flow of one melodic
these two motives
line, and
is
by the anomalous
quality of the final cadence
the
resolved. With
the repeat of the scherzo, however,
temporarily
movement
the
finishes with this unsettling
cadence,
informing
listening
is dialogically
subject that the movement
incomplete.
the problem
created
IV (RETROGRADE)
Ill
Example
7.
Haydn,
String
Quartet
in G Major,
op. 33,
no.
5, third movement,
17-23
mm.
Example
resolution
8.
Haydn,
String
of end of scherzo
Quartet
in beginning
in G Major,
of trio
op.
33, no.
5, third movement,
this point, we might

conclude
that the language of this piece
uses the
contradicts
rather than justifies dialogic models,
but Haydn
as
movement
within
of
irresolution
the
part of a larger
problem
dialogic
as
a
the quartet
whole. Earlier in this essay we
dialogic process involving
saw that the first movement
of this quartet begins inappropriately with a
At
this syntactical
figure (Ex. 1). Dialogically,
infelicity is equival
to the presentation
of a conclusion
before the proofs; it jumps the
terms, we might
gun. (In Enlightenment
say that it is overly dogmatic,
like a person who walks in through one door, pronounces
"therefore
cadential
ent
is good!" and walks out another door before anyone has a chance
to respond.)
In the first movement,
the repercussion
of this opening
is a
of the syntax, particularly
and disorientation
of
general destabilization
can be understood
in terms of dialogic processes
cadential
closure, which
as the manifestation
of discussion.
But in the following
slow movement,
God
are clear and correct,

of the previous movement
the cadences
opening
ation is made
credible
in this movement
cadential
Ex.
because
ismotivically
figure of the previous
as if the problems created by the

have been resolved. This interpret
the refrain that marks the major cadences
derived
movement
from the problematic

opening
(compare X in Ex. 9 with
1).
the slow movement,

characterized
elev
However,
by a consistently
ated opera seria tone, ends with a statement
of its basic cadential
refrain,
is followed by an anomalous
which
that has the quality of a
pizzicato
satirical aside. Suddenly,
cadential
closure seems unstable again. This
a set of motivic
connec
clownish final gesture creates and emphasizes
tions between
the ending of the slow movement

and the opening of the
communicates
that
that
the
(Ex. 10)
following movement
a
wields
The
effect.
final
gesture of the slow movement
negative
already
a
as
is a moment
of bad decorum,
when
guest (the scherzo) turns up to
scherzo
a party both far too early and offensively

attired, or when
somebody
finishes off someone
else's heart-felt
with a facetious
pronouncement
seepage of the scherzo's antics into
throwaway remark. The backwards
the end of the slow movement
return to the
also marks an unfortunate
J1 V j
W'
Exampie
7-10
h y
9.
J'
Haydn,
String
^>k
Quartet
go
in G Major,
33, no.
op.
5, third movement,
mm.
SLOW MOVT
pizzicato
-J^j
jj-*
7??w
J-J J1
SCHERZO
x +y
x+y
x +y
x+y
x = rhythmic motive
=
y pitch motive
Example
between
10.
end
Haydn,
of second
String Quartet
and beginning
in G Major,
op.
of third movements
33, no.
5, motivic
connections
Like the contradictory

caden
disarray of the first movement.
itself too soon. Its
the scherzo presents
of the first movement,
the catalyst for the unruly
then provides
rush to blurt out its message
syntactical
tial incipit
momentum
of the liquidating
dash
toward
its final
cadence.
of the slow movement.

the exquisite veneer
the pretensions
By chipping
the scherzo leads us to recognize
that the slow
of the slow movement,
an
not
is
that commu
movement's
expressive device
grand mien
simply
nicates
that the syntactical mayhem
of the first movement
has been laid
to rest. Rather,
bundled
hauteur
up in the slow movement's
attitude
that derives from its willful
unpleasantly
supercilious
to the true state of affairs within
is an
blindness
the dialogic processes of the quartet

that everything
has been success
pretends
a
concluded
and
stoical
pose that draws
fully
by striking
slightly tragic
concentration
the listening subject into an admiring and sympathetic
on the slow movement's
own sufferings and strengths and makes her
slow movement
thus far. The
forget
the real issues under
discussion
in the world
elsewhere
of the
quartet.
is a new character, one

In terms of dialogue,
the slow movement
a
that makes
token gesture of taking part in the discussion
by elevating
motivic material
into the realm of tragedy
from the first movement
It is essentially
self-centered. When
the scherzo trips it up by
on
as
it
train
its
exits
of
dress
the
the stage of the dialogic
stepping
huge
it dawns on the listening subject that the slow
processes of this quartet,
movement's
mode
could be summed up as "let the rest of
conversational
(Ex. 9).
eat cake!"
the quartet
to the unresolved
ending of the scherzo, we will no

as a denial of the ideals of dialogue or an
Returning
longer interpret its message

act of stubbornness.
On the contrary, the scherzo's inability to resolve
is
that
the syntactical problems unleashed
evidence
fully
by the opening
are
on
to
of this quartet
the interior
strong enough
impose themselves
toward their
dialogic processes of the work and hinder their progression
desired goals. The ending of the scherzo acknowledges
that there is
more to do before the dialogic processes of the work as a whole can be
it sounds more unstable,
it nevertheless
completed. Although
brings the
dialogic processes of the quartet far closer
movement.
The end of the scherzo works
not to undermine
them.
The
set of variations
that constitute
to answer
to stabilization
than
the slow
for the good of dialogic
ideals,
are brought
into
of the music's
questioning
the finale
the listening subject's implied

aberrant behavior. The finale has a lightness that Donald
continuing
"the finale ... shows that the revival of the
Tovey found unsatisfying:
divertimento
style, though adding important new resources to the string
being
quartet, has
do not make
movement;
its dangers. Three melodic

variations
an adequate finale to a quartet with
and the prettiness
of Haydn's
Siciliana
and a runaway coda

so important a first
theme
is extinguished
Quartet,
criticizes
achieve.
a comparison
to suggest."
it has the misfortune
But Tovey
not
set up to
the finale for failing to produce
it
is
something
cannot
The expansive
formal parameters
of the first movement
to
be read as simply the product of Haydn's
yearning
compositional
write an expansive first movement.
The particular nature of the first
movement
is the product of the difficulties
it faces in wrestling with the
the quartet as a whole begins. To ask that the
problem with which
to
is tantamount
finale be as long and involved as the first movement
extreme
in
that
the
end
work
and
And
that
requiring
begin
difficulty.
makes no sense in terms of this particular work's dialogic
logic.
with the rest of the quartet explains the
engagement
and
theme
seeming simplicity. That the variation
self-possession
are exceedingly
variations
and its subsequent
should
regular periodically
not be taken as evidence
of a lame deflation
of Haydn's
compositional
Its dialogic
finale's
return to regularly placed, stable

the comforting
inspiration. Rather,
acts as a sedative to the syntac
variation
cadences
the
finale
throughout
tical volatility
that had unnerved
the characters of the preceding
scherzo
6
movement.
In dialogic
and the opening
terms, the finale marks the
at the
of irresolution
entry of another character at the awkward moment
By means
end of the scherzo.

examinations
ofthat
of an example
(the theme), and three
three
this character pre
variations),
(the
example
the quartet with an exemplum
of good syntactical behavior,
a
we
as
in
in
have
seen, the opening figure of the
which,
presto
ending
as
a
first movement
cadential
appears
figure to a reworking of the vari
ation theme. The ethos of the finale, a gentle and unimposing
manner,
sents
it steady despite
and third movement's
holds
that disconcerted
the first
the storm of problems
and had driven the slow movement
arguments,
into performative
of the work's dialogic
denial and eventual desertion
asserts
Presto
that
the
when
the
processes. Thus,
opening
problematic
can be resolved into the work, all the
gesture of the first movement
can be pictured nodding
their heads, or perhaps even
other movements
inviting
the listening
to join in with
the dance
of the finale's
arguments.
concluding
To
subject
Come
...
section of this essay, the Viennese

If, as I asserted in the opening
are one of the first major bodies of fully critical music within
Classics
that means
the project of Western
they are able to speak
Modernity,
social truth (that "Society doesn't exist") by retaining a gap between
determinate
givens
and the more
spontaneous
freedoms
by which
the
the
they
the failed Social structure the subject is both constituted

by
the givens of social forces and yet can never be fully identified with
is ideological.
of a full reconciliation
If
those forces; any representation
since
this is the case, the ending of Haydn's
op. 33, no. 5, is ideological,
that within
conven
it performs a reconciliation
between
both the givens of musical
tions and the critical disruptions
that resist and question
those handed
down elements
the listening subject and the compo
and also between
sition itself. So we should reconsider my earlier dismissal of Tovey's
criti
cism of the finale's
by the finale's theme
ution to the complex
in the rather
shallow
the syntactical
regularity created
inadequacy. Does
act as an authentic
and variations
critical resol
state of affairs that is left precariously
unresolved
breath of the scherzo's concluding
cadence? Or,
to
engagement
aided
the
mildly
infantalizing
syntactical
regularity,
placation?the
by
lilt of the pervading
sicillienne
rhythmic
topic, merely
rocking the listen
interior dialogic processes of the quartet
ing subject and the preceding
does
the finale
surreptitiously
shift modality
from dialogic
into a feeling of safety rather than proving that things have indeed been
secured? If indeed the finale ismerely a comforting
then in a
simulation,
to conclude
the restless,
sense, Classical music here attempts
negative
as its primary philoso
condition
of waiting
that I had presented
virtue.
is
and
this
from the
political
phical
Philosophically
depressing;
as
of
since
historical
context,
perspective
though, unsurprising,
dialogue,
an actualization
of the ideals of the public sphere, was colored by the
critical
antagonisms
that both marked
the bourgeoisie
and were masked
by the
of its own agency within
the political
bourgeoisie's
self-representation
life of eighteenth
century society.
ideology arose in response to a certain deadlock created

which
itself had come into being as a severe solution to
of the seventeenth
century engen
political catastrophes
dered by the Reformation
and the resulting split in religious authority.
In
was
to
the
crises
of conflicting
be
absolutism,
religious consciences
resolved by the figure of the monarch,
who recognizes no other authority
Bourgeois
by Absolutism,
the pervasive
than God?thus
the devastating
power of the church?and
neutralizing
to
wars.
is
civil
and
It is a sign of the
stop
only goal
religious
to
traumas
which
the
of
seventeenth
century conflicts remained
degree
within memory
all other political concerns?such
that, within absolutism,
as freedom of speech, the articulation
of conscience,
and all of those criti
whose
cal activities
of productive
restlessness?were
considered
to
subordinate
Ethics, thus, became
expendable.
politics. As Reinhart
Kosselleck
has described
and the needs of the situation
it, "conscience
are reconcilable no longer...
there must be a clean break between
the
symptomatic
of his heart, where he remains his own judge, but external

are to be submitted
to the ruler's judgment and jurisdiction. The
voice of conscience must never emerge; outwardly
it has to be put to
To survive, the subject must submerge his conscience."
sleep....
chambers
actions
arose: "what will happen once peace is

the question
Nevertheless,
once
the
threat
of
death
has been averted and the citizen is
secured,
to develop?"69 A historical
answer can be given by the following
traumas of the seventeenth
sketch. As the immediate
century receded,
to politics got
absolutism's
submission
of
and
ethics
morality
required
free
itself striving to become politics. This

replaced by its inverse, morality
in intellectual
is articulated
transformation
history by Hobbes
being
or Reputation"
famous "Law of Opinion
by Locke, whose
superceded
a
no
to
where
"citizens
defer
the
State power
picture
painted
longer
its own moral
alone [but] jointly, they form a society that develops
laws,
laws which
take their place beside those of the State," and ultimately
become
the State.7
order of
Politically,
though, the administrative
a
in
in
situation
remained
where a
effect, resulting
essentially
stratum of society, fundamental
to society's economic well-being,
whole
and at the absolute forefront of its intellectual
and cultural develop
created a public sphere which
ments,
realistically
speaking wielded
minimal
that
class
legislative clout, leaving
impotent. To take
politically
absolutism
but one
in France were major creditors to the State

example, financiers
to its existence;
and thus fundamental
however,
"[n]ot only did they
... [t]heir
in fiscal matters
lack all influence
capital itself was wholly
insecure: time and again a royal fiat would arbitrarily rob them of the
for."71
they had worked and ventured
it is understandable
Faced with this kind of deadlock
that
itself available
like a Haydn
string quartet, which makes
something
gains
interpretation
in terms of the bourgeois
for
in the dialogic
embodied
the failure of a social resolution
values
inversely acknowledge
paradigm, might
to actualize
its resolution within
itself by dreaming
the realm of the
onto
it
the imaginary.
aesthetic,
(In this instance, a late
by projecting
is structurally no different from the
century string quartet
eighteenth
famous analysis
face paintings of the Caduveo
Indians in L?vi-Strauss's
in the opening
section of this essay). If the givens of musical
discussed
can be reconciled with the forces that criticize them, then
conventions
the givens of the social structure can be reconciled with the
force of a social stratum that at present remains marginalized.
or maybe
there can be revolution without
the
bloodshed;
Maybe
means
us
to
offer
the
toward such
ideology of the public sphere purports
If we entertain
transformation.
the latter, then maybe our
bloodless
maybe
critical
it is
this is the case, then from a political and philosophical
perspective
now
an
not
it
is
since
of
worth
for,
waiting
merely
object
certainly
interest rather than, as our own situation absolutely demands,
historical
a vital participant
in the dialogues we must partake in as we try to
in human history.
this particularly
negotiate
catastrophic moment
to salvage Classical music
In an attempt
from this fate and move
this essay, I turn to a discussion
Kant's essay famously begins with
toward concluding
Enlightenment?"
Enlightenment
ismans
is the
Immaturity
of Kant's
"What
is
an injunction:
emergence from his self-incurred immaturity.

to use
inability
one's
own
understanding
without
the
guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not

lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it
is there
without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment
fore:
Sapere
audel
Have
the
to use
courage
your
own
understanding.7
seems like a relatively standard Enlightenment

if we are to
position:
be free, we must relinquish ourselves from the "laziness and cowardice"
that keeps us bound to figures of authority that we invest with the power
instruments
to think for us. "Dogmas and formulas, those mechanical
for
This
of [the individual's] natural endowments,

rational use (or rather misuse)
are the ball and chain of his permanent
Instead we should
immaturity."
use our reason in order to establish what it is that we should and should
not do. Kant
between
is here
Classical
asserting freedom,
music's conventions
that which had opened up the gap

and their disruptive presentations
Instrumental Music").
"A Dialogic Classical

is not merely
Kant, however,
inciting us to burn our metaphorical
toward the actualization
of freedom must
braziers; the process of moving
"a public can only achieve
be tempered by legislative procedures:
(see subsection
slowly. A revolution may well put an end to autocratic

enlightenment
to
and
but it will
rapacious or power-seeking
oppression,
despotism
never produce a true reform in ways of thinking.
Instead, new prejudices,
as
a
ones
serve
like the
leash to control the great
they replaced, will
in the essay, we are not
mass."
As
he
later
unthinking
distinguishes
living
where
in an age of enlightenment,76
associates
and dogma?Kant
but one could expand it to the
in an enlightened
age, but rather
to authority
ritualistic adherence
this primarily with religious doctrine,

ancient r?gime in general?must
coexist with the use of reason.
existence of faith and reason would seem
This simultaneous
indicative
would
of an insurmountable
be the sudden
to be
historical
transformative
antagonism whose only solution

act of revolution?that
which Kant
already
rest of his philosophical
project in that it posits two positions

separated by
a gap rather than an all-encompassing
theoretical
totality fully available to
to the political policy of Frederick the Great,
the understanding.
Alluding
Kant argues that in order to become free: "Argue as much as you like and
is that in our public
this means
you like, but obeyl" What
as a place where as people
Kant defines, rather confusingly,
"use of man's
of learning we address "the entire reading public"?the
reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment
about whatever
roles?which
as a "particular civil
in our private roles?defined
among men." Whereas
or
is
with
which
entrusted"
?"it
office
is, of course,
[an individual]
post
to argue in such cases; obedience
is imperative."
So,
impermissible
on the one hand we are
like dialogically oriented Classical music,

to align ourselves
to the given of conventional
we are to engage in critique of those roles.
rather
roles, whilst
on the other
as can be seen from his formulation

is paradoxical,
in
of the categorical
of a discussion
imperative
in Thinking?"
is Orientation
(1786):
Kant's
assertion
of it in the context
"What
if reason will not subject itself to the law it gives itself, it will have to
bow under the yoke of the law which others impose upon it, for without
any
law whatsoever
nothing,
not
even
the
greatest
can
nonsense,
play
its
hand for very long. Thus, the inevitable consequence of declared lawless
ness in thinking (an emancipation
from restrictions of reason) is that
to
is
think
freedom
finally lost.
The
idea that freedom

tiate its own antithesis
is no freedom
unless
it is forced endlessly
to nego
the law) gains socio-psychological

(for example,
the
prophetic?for
validity from the fact that it proved to be historically
laws created by the initial acts of the
eradication of already-existing
to a
left the political terrain vulnerable
French Revolution
ultimately
in the form of the Terror.
return of the repressed of unfreedom
(Similarly
I asserted that
the Viennese
under the subsection
Classics,"
"Positioning
a historically oriented paradigm to ground it, Classical music
without
to being oppressively
would merely be left vulnerable
grounded by some
though, is not merely
sociological.
paradigm.) Kant's argument,
"Kant does not ground reason in actual
As Onara O' Neill has written,
or in agreement
consensus
he
and standards of any historical community;
other
the possibility of
that preclude
it in the repudiation of principles
we might
interaction and communication."
Philosophically,
open-ended
illuminate the truth of the Kantian paradox of freedom by recasting it
grounds
(somewhat
provocatively)
in the characteristically
Hegelian
negation
of
back to the values of restless waiting

that I had
in
section
the
of
this
essay.
opening
espoused
is that which resists dogma and conceptual
If freedom
ossification,
then freedom cannot define itself as always resistant to such laws, since
link the discussion
freedom would then have become a dogma (a dogma of antidogma),

and
at worse it would have reduced its purported critical function to a mean
ingless injunction
("always resist dogma"), the mere recognition of which
being the justification that something
is happening. To resist the rhetorical
politically
and philosophically
valid
of its own lawlessness as if
stylization
a universally valid law, freedom must therefore incorporate law
to it) back into itself, thus
that had initially been Other
(the negative
is open-ended,
the initial negation.
Freedom
but it can only
negating
it were
so by being open to the possibility that in order to move

itmust
on
is for this
static
invariants.
it
be
skewered
(For example,
simultaneously
reason
in the opening section of this essay that I defined waiting,
very
remain
which
to be associated
with stillness, precisely with its opposite,

in
the
process of the negation being negated, both the
restlessness.)
initial term and the reincorporated negative undergo transformation.
In the first stage of a complex
reading of Kant's essay, Zizek argues
tends
But
that it is in fact exactly this taking on of the law that allows us to view
it as something
other to us that we can then distance ourselves
from.
of given empirical,
(Kant) customs and
"acceptance
'pathological'
remnant?a
remnant of the
rules is not some kind of pre-Enlightened
traditional authoritarian
attitude," which Zizek associates with the
This
this paradoxical
essentially Baroque universe. Rather,
taking on of the
law for the purposes of freedom, radically reconfigures
the authority of
as nonsensical
law itself, which
"is never experienced
and
Baroque
on the contrary
law is always illumi
unfounded;
[pre-Enlightenment]
It is "through this
power of fascination."
by the charismatic
customs
of
and
the
rules
of
social
acceptance
life, in their nonsensical
is Law,' [that]
of
the
fact
that Taw
given character,
through acceptance
we are internally freed from its constraints?the
way is open for free
nated
reflection." As a result, laws take on a "given, non-founded

in our experience
of them that "entails in itself a kind of dis
tance from them."81 Instead of being full, laws become ghost-like, Other
to what we would
imagine them to be, whilst still remaining absolutely
theoretical
character"
to the structure that opens up the possibility of freedom.

the
also be said to become
Similarly
political
subject might
ghost-like,
since in order to keep the possibility of her freedom open, she too has
to what she would
had to become Other
imagine herself in her freedom
to be: she has to become
the subject of the Law.
necessary
in Kant's
proceeds
analysis
is in effect
the "pathological"
aspect of social customs
character
truth-less, non-sensical
possible by the "traumatic,
word,
only made
of the internal, moral
that "we can free ourselves

law itself;
of external
and achieve
the maturity
proper to the autonomous
to the 'irrational' compulsion
subject precisely by submitting
social constraints
enlightened
of the categorical
the internalized
"moral Law is
imperative." Thus,
as a motivating
in so far as it is its form itself which functions
obscene
force driving us to obey its command?that
is, in so far as we obey
moral
Law because
reasons."
of a set of positive
sees in Kant's moral
Zizek ultimately
that binds us to ideology.
it is law and not because
For these
reasons,
structure
the
very
philosophy
is a compellingly
Zizek's argument
like
disturbing one, but I would
its progress at the point at which
the law and the political
of the negation
of the negation,
both become
subject, at the moment
we can start
are
since
and
them
transparent
ghost-like,
ghosts
through
to arrest
to the form itself

to see something
addiction
other than the meaningless
commitment
of ideological
that is Zizek's vision. I would also like to
turn back to the ending of Haydn's
string quartet.
If, as I have argued, critical freedom can only be salvaged from
rhetorical stylization by taking on its other, the negative of the law, then
in Classical music,
it follows that the positive restlessness of dialogue
are disturbed
into restlessness by the
the givens of conventions
whereby
of freedom, only resists becoming
critical movement
similarly stylized by
in their accepted form and precisely at the
the imposition of conventions
been achieved. As in Kant's
point where resolution has not necessarily
the dialogic processes of the quartet can argue as much as they
argument,
like and about whatever
they must obey; not
they like, but eventually
is right, but since without
that act of knowingly
because
the convention
(in this case before the law of closure) those dia
genuflection
not
will
be
able to preserve a "distance from the external
logic processes
that keep the possibility
'machine' of social customs"
and conventions
at the
in effect. The seeming stasis of reconciliation
of authentic dialogue
meaningless
of an underlying
end of Haydn's quartet is thus no ideological masking
of restlessness
remaining
restlessness, but rather the very precondition
into mere gestural simulation.
and not descending
authentic
a result of this paradoxical move,
the finale of Haydn's
op. 33,
takes on a certain
law in Kant's formulation,
transparent ghost-like
quality, which might help us to review Tovey's
As
no. 5, like the distanced
correct. More
of inadequacy as inadvertently
importantly,
we
are
to see some
able
I
this
that
argue
transparency
through
though,
to
an
of
Derrida's
appropriation
phrase "democracy
thing that, through
judgment
Derrida,
come,"
"democracy
"dialogue
as in the historical
not denote
continuation
of
the future of democracy,
an idea that we are already in agreement
it is "an idea of
about. Rather
democracy
have been
that there
with respect to which all of the determinations
and French
the American
of it since the Enlightenment,
have all been inadequate."

different types of democracy
Revolutions,
not just as a regulating
ideal
As a result, it "always remains inaccessible,
it is structured
like a promise and like a relation to alter
but also because
it never possesses
the identifiable
form of the presence or of
ity, because
to translate Derrida down
to self."
It is always dangerous
the presence
we might productively
into a reduction. However,
work here with the
at all in
to come has very little to do with democracy
idea that democracy
any form that can be presented
through finite analysis: "What's import
ant in 'democracy to come' is not 'democracy,' but 'to come.'" And what
"to come" points to is not the future, per se, but rather the very possibility
to the emergence
of something Other
than what exists now:
of openness
'"To come' means
'future,' not the present future, which would be

tomorrow"?not
that we now imagine
present and presentable
something
"It means
the space opened for the other and
and then tangibly actualize.
; the Other of a democracy
term
lations of that
might bear no relation.
to which
to come"
others
present
formu
to come," the very term "democracy"

is
in
and
the
face
of
the
transparent
already becoming
ghost-like
impossible
to replace that
it is but a small move
promise of an Other
democracy,
term with "dialogue," which would
its
then also start to fade.
Through
Since
in "democracy
act of preemptive,
mechanical
closure it is with
meaningless,
paradoxical
"a space
this "dialogue to come," that Haydn's
with
ends,
quartet
as
to
is
come."
It
and
others
for
the
other
if, having secured the
opened
own
its
in the
continuance
of
the
and openness
(for
moment)
possibility
for itself?the
keep it endlessly waiting
turns toward us, us who the quartet could never have
known, and throws this promise toward the darkness of an unknowable
in human history, it
future where we now are. At this appalling moment
is to our utmost disgrace if we think we no longer need to make
the law
so
can
we
is over and
that "to come"
think the waiting
be, if
transparent
which
present?that
quartet then
that restlessness
would
can now
lie down
to rest, if...
Notes
James Currie
is an Assistant
Professor
in the Department
Columbia
University,
where
he
held
a postdoctoral
position
at the University
of Music
Buffalo (SUNY), having previously taught at Loyola University
(New Orleans) and
in The
Society
of Fellows
at
and politics
history,
philosophy,
s Understanding
No-Music:
Music
just completed
the Politics of Negations.
and
entitled
is also
He
as a
active
artist.
performance
1.
a manuscript
and he has
Interviews,
"Politics
Derrida,
Jacques
ed.,
1971-2001,
and
in Negotiations:
and
Interventions
introduction
Rottenberg
by Elizabeth
Friendship,"
an
and with
trans,
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), 179.

2.
"The
James Webster,
'First Viennese
s 'Farewell
Symphony
and Romanticism
Enlightenment
and the Delayed
Nineteenth
Century,"
"The Concept
of Beethoven's
'Early'
Modernism'
and
Period?"
"Between
47-60;
Music
25 (2002):
Nineteenth-Century
in the context
Period
of Periodizations
Haydn
as Music-Historical
Century
Eighteenth
1 (2004):
Music
Eighteenth-Century
in Music
History:
108-26;
in General,"
Forum
Beethoven
the Idea of Classical
3-27;
(1994):
and
Through-Composition
Style:
Cyclic Integration inHis InstrumentalMusic (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge

Press,
University
"Classical,"
335-66.
1991),
in New
Grove
titles
include Daniel
important
Music
ed. Stanley
and
Musicians,
of
Other
Dictionary
2001), 5: 924-29; Eugene K. Wolf,
(New York: Macmillan,
of Eighteenth-Century
Historiography
2nd
Sadie,
ed.
"On the History and
on Dahlhaus's
Reflections
Music:
Heartz,
des
Die Musik
18. Jahrhunderts,''Journal ofMusicobgical Research 10 (1991): 239-55; Carl Dahlhaus,

"Das
18. Jahrhundert
ed. Carl
Jahrhunderts,
in Die Musik
als musikgeschichtliche
Epoche,"
Neues
der Musikwissenschaft,
Handbuch
Laaber,
Germany:
as a Music-Historical
(Laaber,
Century
Finscher,
Ludwig
I have
2002).
4.
vol.
trans.
English
Ernest
vol.
Harriss:
"The
and
the political,
philosophical,
The Restlessness
of the Negative,
social
(Minneapolis
on the ethical
and London:
and
Current
political
import
Musicology
74
Jason
of Minnesota
University
of
(Fall
of
values
trans.
Hegel:
the Puppet?"
Eighteenth
Press,
for
irresolution
5-45.
2002):
as Music-Historical
58. Webster
Period?"
Century
Eighteenth
works
of Haydn's
for an understanding
the import of the sublime
in
Late
and
the
Musical
Vocal
Sublime,"
Music,
Haydn
Haydn's
"The
Webster,
has
18.
26 (1986):
1-6;
Symposium
College Music
in Geschichte
und Gegenwart:
Allgemeine
5 (PUPL),
cols. 236-38.
on
Nancy,
elaborated
in "Better
musicology
ed.,
elaboration
see Jean-Luc
and Steven Miller
restlessness,
Smith
Epoch,"
Die Musik
2nd
For a remarkable
3.
1-8;
1985),
"Klassik,"
der Musik,
Enzyklop?die
des
Dahlhaus,
on
elaborated
in "The Creation,
and His World,
Sisman
ed. Elaine
(Princeton,
NJ:
Princeton
Press,
University
1997),
57-102.
is Enlightenment?"
5.
The
"What
question
Other
of an essay competition.
contemporary
Gotthold
cinct
United
6.
and the
Lessing
on Kant's
essay,
Ephraim
commentary
Kingdom:
Cambridge
was
by
respondents
Moses
Philosopher
Jewish
see Dorinda
University
posed
Outram,
Press,
1995),
the newspaper
included
The
as the
topic
the dramatist
Mendelssohn.
For a suc
Enlightenment
(Cambridge,
1-3.
Theodor W. Adorno, Beethoven: The Philosophy ofMusic (Stanford, CA: Stanford
University
7.
Adorno,
8.
G. W.
University
Press,
1998),
Minima
F Hegel,
Press,
xi.
Moralia
(New
Phenomenology
18-19.
1977),
York:
Verso,
of Spirit,
1978),
trans. A.
49.
V. Miller
(New
York: Oxford
Slavoj
1989),
Object of Ideology
10.
Zizek, The SublimeObject of Ideology, 111.
11.
Fredric
The
Jameson,
Political
Unconscious:
as a Socially
Narrative
Act
Symbolic
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981), 79.

12.
Triste
L?vi-Strauss,
trans.
tropiques,
John Russell
York:
(New
Atheneum,
1971),
179.
13.
14.
The
Jameson,
As
Political
more
"how much
writes,
Jameson
faced
Gesellschaft,
with
the corrosive
with
79.
Unconscious,
the great
must
true
it be
for the citizen
of the modern
of the revolutionary
and
options
period,
and tradition-annihilating
effects
of the spread of money
and market
cast of collective
with
the changing
characters
which
the bourgeoisie,
economy,
oppose
now to an embattled
now
to an urban proletariat,
with
the great fantasms
aristocracy,
of the various
nationalisms,
different
kind,
with
of the
industrial
the
forces
city
of communism
onset
of that
great
constitutional
now
themselves
and
and homogenization
its 'masses,'
the sudden
and
followed
fascism,
ideological
15.
16.
17.
and
Berthold
Minima
advent
Hoeckner,
19.
For example,
global
the Philosophy
of History,"
(New York: Schoken
Books,
the Absolute:
Programming
(Princeton,
of theMoment
NJ:
Hoeckner,
18.
and
superstates
the
Jameson,
village?"
in Illuminations,
ed.
256-57.
1968),
50.
Moralia,
the Hermeneutics
of the
of our
tension
the final
Arendt,
Adorno,
the
no
and communism,
which,
capitalism
at the dawn of modern
seethed
times,
that which,
on
"Theses
Benjamin,
trans. Harry
Zohn
Walter
by
between
rivalry
less passionate
and obsessive
than
wars
the
of
marks
through
religion,
The Political Unconsious,
79-80.
Hannah
of a rather
'subjects of history'
constriction
and psychic
of the rise
of the great transnational
appearance
virtual
social
see James
J. Johnson,
German
Music
Press,
2002),
3.
23.
the Absolute,
Programming
Nineteenth-Century
Princeton
University
"Musical
Experience
and
of a
the Formation
French Musical Public," Journal ofModern History 64, no. 2 (1992): 191-226.
20.
Charles
Historical
21.
Batteux,
22.
Carl
Kingdom:
Les Beaux-arts
Batteux,
Reader
I, ed. Edward
Les Beaux-arts,
Cambridge
(New
Press,
23.
Dahlhaus,
Esthetics
of Music,
17.
24.
Dahlhaus,
Esthetics
of Music,
17.
25.
Michael
Friedrich
trans. M.
27.
Blume,
D. Herter
Blume,
principe,
Pendragon
in Music
Press,
Aesthetics:
The Meaning
Renaissance
Norton
Renaissance
264.
1986),
1983),
Austin
(Cambridge,
United
20.
of the Salzburg
Festival:
Austria
as Theater
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), 3.
Ideology, 1890-1938
26.
York:
trans. William
of Music,
University
P. Steinberg,
? un m?me
264.
Esthetics
Dahlhaus,
r?duits
Lippman
(New
and Baroque Music:

York: W. W. Norton
and Baroque
Music,
A Comprehensive
and Company,
Survey,
1967),
105.
113.
and
1980), 9.
29.
Harold
Powers,
Text
Music:
Mozart's
"Reading
and Topic,
and Sense,"
Syntax
Current Musicobgy 57 (1995): 29.

Jamieson Allanbrook, Rhythmic Gesture inMozart: Le Nozze di Figaro and
30. Wye
Don
Giovanni
31.
Lydia
soon
"[t]he
to the view
enough
It also
dent.
writes:
Goehr
of Chicago
University
(Chicago:
it." The
embodied
Museum
Imaginary
carried
did more
music
instrumental
3.
1984),
that music
suggestion
that
Press,
transcendent
led
meaning
to the transcen
point
in the
An Essay
Works:
than
of Musical
Philosophy ofMusic (Oxford, United Kingdom: Clarendon Press, 1992), 154.

32.
in David
Cited
Poet
The
and
Kingdom:
Cambridge
For an
33.
aesthetic
ed., E. T. A.
Charlton,
the Composer,
Hoffmann's
trans. Martyn
Criticism,
96.
Press,
1989),
Music
University
Ian Bent,
in Music
Theory
United
(Cambridge,
in nineteenth-century
thought
A Hermeneutics
in the Age
Kreisleriana,
Writings:
Clark
role of Platonic
"Plato-Beethoven:
Music?"
Nineteenth-Century
of the
discussion
interesting
see
debates,
Musical
for
Ian Bent
ed.
of Romanticism,
(Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 105-24.

Friedrich
34.
The
Nietzsche,
Birth
trans. Walter
of Tragedy,
Kaufmann
(New
York:
Vintage Books, 1967), 55.

35.
lack of
instrumental
writes
180. Goehr
that
Birth of Tragedy,
content
it possible
for
made
literary or visual
to actually
status of a medium
and
embody
in The
of Wagner,
concrete,
intermediary,
to rise above
music
the
a higher
become
Case
The
Nietzsche,
"[t]he
truth." The
Imaginary
154.
Museum,
John Neubauer, The Emancipation ofMusic from Language (Chicago: Chicago
36.
Press,
University
2.
1989),
is the "result of an action"

"effect"
452),
(Chambers
English Dictionary,
Usually,
the effect.
of something
that could create
the presence
the "action"
implies
is more
in its Romantic
"Effective"
akin to the present-day
sense,
spectacle
though,
seems
to
cause
remain
unknown.
cinematic
where
the
effects,
Jean-Jacques
special
37.
where
seems
duced
writes
for example,
Rousseau,
that
is "effective"
something
to the means
superior
in creating
employed
"when
the
sensation
it" (Dictionnaire
of
pro
de Musique
[Paris: 1768], 191).

E. T. A.
38.
Musical
39.
Writings,
one
of
them
pressed
existence.
whelming
are just able
Every
Poetry
Music,"
in E.T.A.
Hoffmann
98.
if I cried
"Who,
Instrumental
"Beethoven's
Hoffmann,
out, would
me
to endure,
suddenly
hear me
among
against
his heart:
the angels' hierarchies?

I would
be consumed
and
even
we still
is nothing
of terror, which
but the beginning
us.
are so awed because
to annihilate
it serenely
disdains
in
The
Selected
first
Duino
Maria
Rilke,
(Rainer
elegy,
Elegies,
For beauty
and we
is terrifying"
angel
Rainer
Maria
Rilke,
of
ed.
and
trans.
and
the
Idea of Absolute
Stephen
Mitchell
[New York:
Vintage
Books, 1989], 150-01).

40.
Leo Treitler,
"Mozart
and After:
"Mozart
The
if
in that over
Revolution
in Musical
Music,"
Consciousness,"
185; Marshall
Critical
Brown,
Inquiry
Meaning
41.
United
(Cambridge,
Webster,
Kingdom:
Late Vocal
"Haydn's
Cambridge
Press,
University
1999).
97.
Music,"
in Deutschland
im achtzehnten
?ber die Ausbildung
der Tonkunst
"Bemerkung
trans. Susan
in 1801 in the Allgemeine
musikalische
serialized
Jahrhundert,"
Zeitung,
on the Development
as "Remarks
in Germany
in the
of the Art of Music
Gillespie
42.
43.
in Haydn
Century,"
Eighteenth
and His World,
"A Millennial
Allanbrook,
Mozart?"
357-58.
Mozart
of America
Society
3, no.
Newsletter
(1999): 4.
see Rose
For example,
Last Three
44.
Mozart's
Music
(Minneapolis,
45.
J. McGann,
Jerome
of Chicago
University
Press,
Variations:
of Minneapolis
Romantic
The
of a Critical
"Evidence
Subotnik,
Rosengard
in Developing
Symphonies,"
MN: University
Ideology:
Press,
A Critical
Outram,
in the First Movements
of Mozatt's
(Chicago:
Investigation
1.
1983),
15. For the information

in
The Enlightenment,
in
the
and
I
nineteenth
centuries,
dialogue
eighteenth
early
extensive
Simon
and penetrating
work on the subject:
Keefe's
in the Age of Enlightenment
Dramatic
NY:
(Rochester,
Dialogue
46.
inWestern
Ideology
98-111.
1991),
in
Worldview
and
Style
Viennese
Piano
section
this
concerning
to
indebted
thoroughly
Piano Concertos:
Mozart's
am
2001);
Boydell,
Concertos"
(PhD
diss.,
"Dialogue
Columbia
on the Late Eighteenth-Century

"Koch's Commentary
Concerto:
Music
and Solo/Orchestra
and Letters
Relations,"
79, no. 3 (1998):
in Mozart's
"Dramatic
Viennese
Piano Concertos:
A Study of
368-85;
Dialogue
in Three
First Movements,"
and
Musical
83, no. 2
Competition
Cooperation
Quarterly
no.
Drama:
and
Music
(Summet
1999):
169-204;
102,"
Haydn's
"Dialogue
Symphony
1997);
University
Drama,
Dialogue,
47.
11, no.
Forum
Research
The
Habermas,
Category
of Bourgeois
1 (1996):
Structural
1-21.
Transformation
trans. T. Burger
Society,
of the Public
(Cambridge,
into a
Sphere: An Enquiry
MA: Massachusetts
Institute
of Technology Press, 1989).

See
48.

"Dialogue
remarks on
28; and also the various
and
Haydn
Kingdom:
49.
As
David
The
Late
Symphonies
and
Viennese
Piano
in David
their Audience
P. Schroeder,
(Oxford,
United
1990).
could be more
than to be
remarked,
"Nothing
unphilosophical
on any subject."
the
Morals
Enquiry Concerning
Principle
of
in Keefe,
of Mozart's
209; cited
"Dialogue
Hume
1751),
(London,
Viennese
51.
the Enlightenment:
Clarendon
Press,
conversation
or dogmatic
positive
50.
of Mozart's
Keefe,
Concertos,"
Piano
92n59.
Concertos,"
Keefe,
"Dialogue
Baron
von
Knigge,

Ueber
den Umgang
of Mozart's
mit Menschen,
Viennese
trans.
Piano
P. Will,
81.
Concertos,"
Practical
Philosophy of Social Life or theArt of Conversing with Men (London, 1799), 20; cited in
Keefe,
"Dialogue
of Mozart's
Viennese
Piano
Concertos,"
63nll9.
52.
"four
To
take but
one
example,
Goethe
among
intelligent
conversing
people
the First Movements
of Mozart's
Viennese
remarked
that in the quartet we
famously
in Keefe,
themselves."
Cited
"Dialogue
Piano Concertos,"
41.
hear
in
53.
there
fact,
tradition
with
originating
Liszt
of associating
this
with
the Furies. This

has been
upon by Owen
taming
interpretation
expanded
Orpheus
in
in
first
"Beethoven's
Music
8 (1984):
Hades,'"
Jander,
Nineteenth-Century
'Orpheus
on the Andante
A Ten-Year
Con
and later in "Orpheus Revisited:
195-212,
Retrospect
Moto
of Beethoven's
1995):
(Summer
Joseph
a Beethoven
Concerto,"
in Eighteenth-Century
Confrontations
19, no.
Music
Nineteenth-Century
also covered
this
has
39
Representations
in "Representing
issue
(1992).
"When God met the Sinner, and Other Dramatic
See Richard Will,
54.
Concerto,"
Kerman
on
Notes
Relationship:
Piano
Fourth
31-49.
Instrumental
Music
Music,"
78, no.
and Letters
(1997): 175-209; Hans Mersmann, "Ein Programmtrio Karl Philipp Emanuel Bachs,"
Bach-Jahrbuch 14 (1917): 137-70.
55.
Schroeder's
between
work
the Enlightenment);
Koch
and Anton
Keefe
on
as a means
of examining
the relationship
to Haydn's
"London"
(Haydn and
symphonies
on dialogue
and the concerto
by Heinrich
such
ideas
in relation
surveys
as well
Reicha
to theorize
in order
and Diderot
draws
and work
audience
writings
as theories
the
study
of the
Concertant"
"Quatuor
between
see Barbara
vein,
R. Hanning,
instrumen
and
1971]); in a
Latter Half of the Eighteenth Century" [PhD diss., Stanford University,

similar
Goethe,
dialogue
by Lessing,
instruments
and
in Mozart's
Viennese
orchestra,
a number
of areas of import
Levy has identified
in Paris in the
Concertant
("The Quatuor
tal groups, particularly

those between
concertos
(see note
50); Janet M.
piano
in her
of dramatic
relationships
the soloist
and Musical
"Conversation
in the Late
Style
Eighteenth-Century Parisian Salon," Eighteenth-Century Studies 22 (1988/89): 512-28;

Mara
Parker
has
different
examined
conversational
in the
models
from
quartet
string
1750 to 1797 (The StringQuartet, 1750-1797: Four Types ofMusical Conversation

[Aldershot, United Kingdom: Ashgate, 2002]); Nicole Schwindt-Gross uses discourse to
determine
the
of a process
logic
of
thematic
und Diskurs:
(Drama
working
Zur Beziehung
zwischen Satztechnik und motivischen Prozess am Beispiel der durchbrochenenArbeit in den

Laaber,
1989]; and similarly,
[Laaber, Germany:
to
and thematic
between
process
relationship
dialogue
inWien
and "concertant"
between
(Das Streichduett
dialogue
und Haydns
Mozarts
Streichquartetten
uses
Ulrich
Mazurowicz
understand
the
the difference
von 1760 bis zum Tode JosephHaydns [Tutzing,Germany: Hans Schneider,

56.
The
ence
and
Schroeder,
use of dialogue
as a means
of discussing
in Keefe,
is also to be found
the music
Haydn
and
the Enlightenment,
the
relationship
"Mozart's Viennese
terms
in rhetorical
and
1982]).
between
the audi
Piano
Concertos,"
in Mark
Evan
Bonds,
Wordless Rhetoric:Musical Form and theMetaphor of theOration (Cambridge, MA:

Harvard
University
Press,
1991).
account
of
For a splendid
57.
as constructed
in contemporary
Listening
in the German
"Mechanical"
by
appropriated
to their idealistic
was
picture
century
Attention,
listener's
sources,
Wonder
of music
and pieces
see Matthew
Riley's
and Astonishment
Musical
(Aldershot,
2004).
a seventeenth
the Romantics
between
relationships
eighteenth
Enlightenment:
United Kindgom: Ashgate,

58.
the
and
and
eighteenth
into
transformed
of art. See M.
H. Abrams,
critical
century
a term of abuse,
The Mirror
and
term
that was
a binary opposite
the Lamp: Romantic
Theory and theCritical Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), 159-67.
can be said [of
more
wrote
senseless
of Shakespeare
For example,
Novalis
that, "nothing
sense of the
mechanical
of art in that confined,
than that they are works
his works]
of how
discussion
in Abrams,
and the Lamp, 213). A fascinating
The Mirror
word"
(cited
be
in John Tresch's
found
of Communication"
History
59.
(PhD
Chambers
"Moral,"
60.
changed
during
"Mechanical
Andrew
English
early
and Baudelaire
of Cambridge,
diss., University
in the
2001).
930.
Dictionary,
to German
Introduction
Bowie,
Poe
Romanticism:
to Habermas
From Kant
Philosophy:
(Cambridge, United Kindgom: Polity Press, 2003), 63.

61.
Evan Bonds,
Laurence
titles
include Mark
and the
Sterne,
Important
"Haydn,
no.
American
of
Musical
1 (1991):
the
Journal
44,
of
Origins
Irony,"
Society
Musicological
in
Howard
and Laurence
Sterne:
Similarities
57-91;
"Haydn
Irving,
634-46;
Wit,"
and Romantic
"Beethoven
"Schumann's
John Daverio,
Arabesque,"
Current Musicology
40 (1985):
34-49;
56 (1970):
Irony," Musical
Quarterly
'Im Legendenton'
and Friedrich
Schlegel's
150-63.
11, no. 2 (Fall 1987):
and Musical
Literary
Eighteenth-Century
Rey M. Longyear,
Music
Nineteenth-Century
or an
the late eighteenth
the idea that something
mechanical,
century,
During
as being
was considered
could also be perceived
imbued with human
presence
rather than a rationally
insurmountable
contradiction.
See, for
quite
acceptable,
on
M.
the
Mechanical
Encrusted
example,
Janet
Levy,
'"Something
Living': A Source
62.
artifact,
Wit
of Musical
ed. Wye
in Eighteenthand Nineteenth-Century
Music,
P. Mahrt
NY:
Levy, and William
(Stuyvesant,
Annette
"Automatic
Genius:
Mozart
and
Richards,
and Letters 80, no. 3 (1999):
366-89;
Abbate,
Carolyn
of the American
Musicological
Society 52, no. 3 (Fall
in Convention
and Humor,"
Janet M.
Jamie Allanbrook,
Press,
225-56;
1992):
Pendragon
the Mechanical
Music
Sublime,"
"Outside
1999):
63.
Ravel's
Journal
Tomb,"
475-82.
esp.
Terry
Literary
Eagleton,
An
Theory:
Introduction
United
(Oxford,
Basil
Kingdom:
Blackwell, 1983), 64.

at the top of a chord other
Edwards
has noted
that the use of a pitch
George
root is frequently
at
movements
in Haydn's
the
of
end
late quartets
employed
a sense of closure
of undermining
("The Nonsense
(opp. 74, 76, and 77) as a means
than
64.
the
of
an Ending: Closure inHaydn's String Quartets," Musical Quarterly 75 [1991]: 240).

65.
Donald
and Other
66.
part
Francis
Essays
A comparison
of a set whose
Sisman
Tovey,
"Haydn's Chamber
York: Oxford
University
can
be made
composition
"its Tempo
has written,
as quotidian
be dismissed
movement
previous
in Haydn's
oeuvre;
sonata.
drives
That
home
sonata:
67.
classic
came
The
following
Haydn
See
43.
Symphony
argument
of Music
Sonata,
Hob.
XVI:
30,
in 1776. As
distributed
with
it concludes
the first
structural
final
cadence
in the
in the variations
by six such final cadences
acts as a kind of reiterated
the finale
cadential
1993),
and Crisis:
study, Critique
MA:
Massachusetts
(Cambridge,
A-Major
that was
Stream
51.
followed
emphatically:
as a whole."
Press,
University
s "Farewell"
Haydn
provides
1979),
six easy variations

might
easily
a sonata
not a single
in which
the first and only such fully linked cycle
finale
Yet
cadence,
theme
is then
theme
Haydn's
in 1774 and
unserious.
the
Press,
with
began
di Menuet
to a final
indeed,
the point
sonata
for the
pattern
Harvard
the
and
here
in The Main
Music,"
(New
and
and
also
the Classical
Variation
James Webster's
the Idea of Classical
(Cambridge,
of
interpretation
Style,
MA:
this
288-94
has
been
influenced
Koselleck's
strongly
by Reinhart
and the Pathogenesis
Enlightenment
of Modern
Society
Institute
of Technology
Press,
1988).
68.
Kosselleck,
Critique
and Crisis,
19.
69.
Kosselleck,
Critique
and Crisis,
35.
70.
Kosselleck,
Critique
and Crisis,
55.
71.
Kosselleck,
Critique
and Crisis,
63.
to the Question:
"An Answer
72.
Kant,
an
2nd
ed., ed. with
Writings,
enlarged
H. B. Nisbet
is Enlightenment?'"
'What
and notes
introduction
in Kant:
by Hans
Reiss,
Kant,
"An Answer
to the Question:
'What
is Enlightenment?'"
54.
74.
Kant,
"An Answer
to the Question:
'What
is Enlightenment?'"
54-55.
75.
Kant,
"An Answer
to the Question:
'What
is Enlightenment?'"
55.
76.
Kant,
"An Answer
to the Question:
'What
is Enlightenment?'"
58.
77.
Kant,
"An Answer
to the Question:
'What
is Enlightenment?'"
55.
78.
Kant,
"An Answer
to the Question:
'What
is Enlightenment?'"
56.
79.
Cited
in Onara
in The
O'Neill,
O'Neill,
"Enlightenment
and its Shadows,
Enlightenment
(London: Routledge,
80.
trans.
(Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 54.
73.
Reason,"
Political
as Autonomy:
ed. Peter
Hulme
Kant's
Vindication
and Ludmilla
of
Jordanov
1990), 193.
as Autonomy,"
"Enlightenment
194.
81.
82.
83.
Zizek, The SublimeObject of Ideology, 80-81.
84.
Derrida,
"Politics
and Friendship,"
179.
85.
Derrida,
"Politics
and
Friendship,"
180.
86.
Derrida,
"Politics
and Friendship,"
182.
is "not sacred.
I can, some
In fact, Derrida
that the term democracy
later
or
or
term.
not
situation
that
it's
allows
demands
The
the
another,
say, 'No,
day
right
we use another
term in other
For now,
it's the best term for me." Derrida,
sentences.'
states
87.
"Politics
and Friendship,"
181.

Waiting For The Viennese Classics - J. R. Currie (2007)

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Waiting For The Viennese Classics - J. R. Currie (2007)

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Author(s): James R. Currie

"Politics and Friendship"

like too much

if, indeed, we can even assert "it" as a single

we will at last manage

rights reserved. For permissions,

of that time. But whereas

not only music's

these deeds probably find

of this annuls the still hanging question

that the very kind of dialogue

as to what Classical music

music more than Classical music

as part of its legacy,

still in the midst

and pain. To a degree,

political and ethical values, that I am espous

tics, and its attendant

world of the beginning

closest to it, it speaks to us and waits

in despair; when our friends are ill,

look as she waits

of our frame of reference.

our friend understands

(to become One,

or in my terms restless. The Spirit

rather than letting it articulate

the pain and confusion

there are also few who would

mask the fundamental

is the Lacanian Real, the very limit within discourse

that we then symbolize.

of ideology, i.e., for a politics of exclusion. As Zizek writes:

us for the failed identification."

act is itself ideological,

be for any societies that have followed.

the Social multiply,

is not at the same

is "to brush history

the cultural products of traditionally marginalized

longer wields the power that is the privilege of a culturally hegemonic

that first provided Western

Classics Wait: Toward

to those that provided

its neat summary in Fontenelle's

at all the intention

For them, the unambiguousness

as an active observer and the art as a passive

listening subject recognizes

"a listener assumes the role

scenario repeatedly manifested

1739) and Scheibe's Der critische

that such an aesthetic

the hunt, and the life of the lower classes, music

end of the aesthetic

wrote in his famous essay of

to the realm of the spiritual, or to true ideas?the

render the cosmic

the art object is no longer a

In the idea of musical

of their lack of inherent

writes, "here for the first time in the