On Methodological Pluralism In Music Analysis: A Review of William Caplin,

James Hepokoski, and James Webster’s Music Form, Forms, and

Formenlehre: Three Methodological Reflections

***
“Seeking maximal flexibility, it [‘Sonata Theory’] is methodologically
pluralistic…The analyst must be free to use whatever tools will assist him or
her to address the questions at hand. There are many questions to ask of a
piece of music—analytical, social, cultural, ideological, and so on—none of
which should be regarded as illegitimate.” 1

“Depending on the context, I pursue different musical aspects: formal

analysis, Schenkerian structural-tonal voice-leading, Schoenbergian
‘developing variation,’ phrase rhythm, and the (too often neglected)
domains of instrumentation and register…This mixed analytical method has
larger implications. The belief that a complex work can be understood on the
basis of a single musical parameter is reductive…the more theoretically self-
conscious the method, the greater its pretensions to global explanation, the
more it actually excludes.”2

The foregoing quotations are evidence of an increasing preference for

methodological pluralism in music analysis. These comments afford a variety

of approaches to coexist by disavowing claims of analytical supremacy. But

consenting to a variety of analytic methods is different from directly

engaging with the work of others. Besides its many other merits, Musical

Form, Forms, and Formenlehre demonstrates a novel format for cooperative

engagement in music-theoretical writing. The book, an outgrowth of a

plenary session at the Sixth European Music Analysis Conference held in

1
James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and
Deformations in the Late Eighteenth-Century Sonata (New York: Oxford University Press,
2006), 603–4.
2
James Webster, Haydn’s ‘Farewell’ Symphony and the Idea of Classical Style (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1991), 4.
Ohriner, Review of Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre 2

Freiburg in 2007 and edited by Pieter Bergé, consists of three articles by

William E. Caplin, James Hepokoski, and James Webster, respectively. The

articles are followed by comments by the other two scholars, and each

author is then given a chance to reply to the comments. The result is a

wonderfully rich and engaging book in which the personalities of the

contributors are more evident than in most writing in our field.

In his introduction, Pieter Bergé characterizes these comments and

responses along a spectrum from “gently critical to overtly polemical.” There

are some passages of gentle criticism, and even occasional words of praise,

but the general tone of the comments leans more heavily towards polemics.

Certainly much of value emerges from these critiques: these scholars have

been given space to explore general issues of theory building that can seem

peripheral in journal and book formats. Furthermore, certain aspects of

Caplin and Hepokoski’s well-established theories become clearer through

these authors’ engagement with other methods. But the tone of the

comments raises a question regarding the viability of the analytical pluralism

to which many theorists now aspire: specifically, can insights generated

through an analysis be useful to one suspicious of the accompanying

theoretical background?

***

The threefold repetition of “form” in the title belies what is in fact a

broad range of fundamental issues raised in the book, including questions of

categorization, temporality, perception, analytical practice, and the role of

Ohriner, Review of Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre 3

culture in interpretation. Although the editor includes frequent useful cross-

references, there is little attempt made by the authors to integrate the three

contributions, and I too will treat them separately. William Caplin’s

contribution is entitled “What Are Formal Functions?” As he notes

immediately, one who has written a 400-page book subtitled A Theory of

Formal Functions should probably have already addressed this topic.3 Yet, as

he relates, while writing Classical Form, a definition of formal functions

eluded him, and this makes his contribution to Musical Form, Forms, and

Formenlehre more essential in understanding his other writing than the

contributions of the other two.

For Caplin, a passage’s formal function is the means by which it

expresses its location within a beginning-middle-ending (hereafter b/m/e)

paradigm (23).4 Furthermore, formal functions are hierarchical: beginnings,

for instance, have their own beginnings, middles, and ends. Thus an analysis

of formal functions is analogous to a tree representation of generative

grouping structure, but Caplin believes formal functions convey the temporal

aspect of music more faithfully than static depictions of tree structures.5

Formal functions, such as “main theme,” “presentation,” or “contrasting

middle” are stereotypically arranged into formal types such as “binary,”

“exposition,” and “sonata.” Contrary to most current pedagogy, Caplin urges

3
William Caplin, Classical Form: A Theory of Formal Functions for the Instrumental Music of
Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).
4
In introducing the b/m/e paradigm, Caplin acknowledges his debt to Kofi Agawu’s Playing
With Signs (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991).
5
In this way, Caplin sees his theory as an alternative to previous approaches to grouping
theory such as Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff, A Generative Theory of Tonal Music
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983).
Ohriner, Review of Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre 4

us to retain our focus on formal function rather than type for several reasons.

Within a repertoire, Caplin believes the set of formal functions can be

circumscribed but the possible orderings of them cannot. Even if a complete

description of formal types were possible, Caplin argues that constructing

such a categorization is often analytically unproductive. Rather than arguing

whether a piece is, or is not, a instance of the type “sonata form,” Caplin

would rather explore which musical features contribute to the sense of

formal function in a piece, regardless of its type (31–34.6 Finally, Caplin

establishes an analytical methodology of formal functionality based on

correlations between certain musical features and hierarchically nested

functions within the b/m/e paradigm shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Correlations of musical features and the b/m/e paradigm (after Caplin)

Beginning Middle End

Harmonic prolongational sequential cadential

progression:7
Key: tonic modulatory/non- tonic

tonic
Construction:8 tight-knit loose tight-knit

At the same time, Caplin argues that many musical features do not

generate formal functionality, and he includes thematic material among

them. The earliest written descriptions of sonata form often featured

6
James Webster disputes Caplin’s insistence on a strict division between functions and
types. For example, “exposition” is type, a stereotypically arrangement of main theme,
transition, subordinate theme, and closing section, but “exposition” also serves an initiating
function in a sonata movement (49).
7
See Caplin, Classical Form, 24–31.
8
“Tight-knit” and “loose” are terms introduced by Schoenberg in his Fundamentals of
Musical Composition. For their relation to formal functions, see Classical Form, 84–86.
Ohriner, Review of Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre 5

thematic material as the primary means of creating formal functionality—in

Koch’s 1793 formulation (to cite just one example) a “boisterous, slightly

noisy theme” is to be followed by a “lyrical” one—but Caplin avows that he

himself has been unable to differentiate closing sections and subordinate

themes, for example, on the basis of thematic content.9 Furthermore,

contrary to a common intuition, the recurrence of previously heard thematic

material does not instrisically indicate a formal beginning at some

hierarchical level. Rather, Caplin argues that the ability to cast the same

thematic material in widely varying form-functional roles was a primary

means of compositional play available to the Classical composer.

Caplin articulates a consistent and rigorous theory of form, but its

analytical utility is called into question in the other authors’ responses. For

Hepokoski, the notion of hierarchical formal functionality—an “infinite

regress” of beginnings, middles, and ends—is “hardly revelatory (41).” For

Webster, labeling formal functions is redundant because the segments are

always experienced in a particular temporal context (47). Both authors also

find Caplin’s b/m/e paradigm unnecessarily doctrinaire, and Webster

especially argues that it is not sufficiently flexible to account for the myriad

formal possibilities in Classical music.

These criticisms would seem to diminish severely the explanatory

9
Heinrich Christoph Koch, Introductory Essay On Composition, trans. Nancy Kovaleff Baker
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983). “Subordinate theme” is roughly equivalent to
Hepokoski and Darcy’s “secondary zone” and James Webster’s “second group.”
Terminology differs from author to author, but in each case terms are intimately connected
to fundamental theoretical conceptions and thus not interchangeable. I will make the
practice of correlating terminology to the author under discussion.
Ohriner, Review of Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre 6

power of Caplin’s method, but I believe they are overblown. Caplin does use

the b/m/e paradigm exclusively to structure his form-functional hierarchy,

but pace Hepokoski, that hierarchy is neither infinite nor regressive. His

hierarchy consists of perhaps half a dozen levels, beginning with the

constituents of periods and sentences, and ending with the largest sections

of a piece. And to characterize the hierarchy as a regression is to imply that

each level is functionally the same. Here Hepokoski echoes what Leonard B.

Meyer calls the fallacy of hierarchical uniformity—“the tacit and usually

unconscious assumption that the same forces and processes which order and

articulate one hierarchic level are operative, are equally effective, and

function in the same fashion in the structuring of all levels.”10 But the thrust

of Caplin’s theory (and its primary distinction from Lerdahl- and Jackendoff-

style analysis) is that the levels are not uniform because different musical

parameters contribute to functional identity at different levels of structure.

Caplin uses the limited b/m/e paradigm not to argue for an unrealistic

theoretical elegance in hierarchical structure, but rather to regulate an

investigation into the relationship between musical features and formal

functionality.

Example 1: Fitting instances (points) to defined formal functions (lines of

polygon)

10
Leonard B. Meyer, Music, the Arts, and Ideas: Patterns and Predictions In Twentieth-
Century Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 96.
Ohriner, Review of Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre 7

Webster’s concern of insufficiency is of a piece with his wariness

towards comprehensive theories generally. In Classical Form, the b/m/e

paradigm is mapped onto around two dozen musical functions, and as

Webster suggests, some spans of the repertoire will not reasonably conform

to any defined function. Allow me to make a graphical to Webster’s

complaint (see Example 1). Say one has a set of points that one wishes to

inscribe in an n-sided polygon with the aim of minimizing a, the area of the

polygon. In my analogy, the points represent musical segments and n

represents the set of defined formal functions. To assuage Webster’s

concern, the size of n can be increased by recognizing ever more functions

and this will of course reduce a. But at some point the decrease in a wrought

by each increment of n will be trivial. When formulating a set of functions to

describe a repertoire, the ambition ought to be a “good enough” fit with a

manageably small set of functions, presumably those most capable of

describing a largest share of the repertoire. Whether Caplin balances these

concerns is open to dispute, but it is unfair to expect him to be able to

address the entire repertoire with a finite collection of functions.

***

Caplin’s theory is explicitly ahistorical and does not claim to be

Ohriner, Review of Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre 8

informed by late eighteenth-century culture. In contrast, the ways in which

culture ought to constrain the analysis of a particular work is the subject of

James Hepokoski’s “Sonata Theory and Dialogic Form.” The theoretical

grounding Hepokoski offers will be familiar to those readers of an appendix

to Elements of Sonata Theory, “Some Grounding Principles of Sonata

Theory.”11 The book’s dialogic conception is closely related to recent reader-

response theories of literature that locate the meaning of a text in the

interaction between a specified, culturally situated reader and the text,

rather than within the text itself.12 In Hepokoski’s conception, an analyst

engaged in dialogic formal analysis seeks not to abbreviate the sounding

structure of a movement through analytical categories, but rather to

consider that structure in dialogue with the culturally sanctioned generic

features a listener would expect of the movement.

Hepokoski’s main concern in his chapter is the viability of a dialogic

conception of sonata form if many of its features are severely altered or

absent. He discusses Beethoven’s F-minor “Egmont” Overture as an

example of a slightly deformational movement.13 The overture’s “S-zone,”

cast normatively in the mediant in the exposition, is recapitulated in the

submediant rather than in the tonic. For Edward T. Cone, the lack of a tonic
11
Hepokoski and Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory, 603–610.
12
A good introduction to reader-response theory can be found in Wolfgang Iser, The Act of
Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University press, 1978).
13
Hepokoski and Darcy use the term deformation “to mean the stretching of
a normative procedure to its maximally expected limits or even beyond them
—or the overriding of that norm altogether in order to produce a calculated
expressive effect…As a technical term, it is intended to carry no
judgmentally negative connotation, as in some popular usages of the word.”
See Elements of Sonata Theory, 614.
Ohriner, Review of Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre 9

recapitulation of the S-zone is a violation of “the sonata principle” and calls

the overture’s membership in the category of “movements in sonata form”

into question, but Hepokoski insists that category membership is the wrong

issue on which to focus our attention. Rather, he argues for the utility of a

dialogic conception of sonata form because “we are invited to use our

knowledge of the broad range of sonata-form norms and guidelines to

interpret what does happen in Egmont (75).”14

But what is the range of pieces in which listeners are encouraged to

enter into dialogue with sonata form norms? Hepokoski examines

Beethoven’s 1811 Die Ruinen von Athen Overture (in G major) as an

example of a highly deformational movement when viewed through the lens

of sonata form. A representation of the various segments of the movement

is given in Example 2, reprinted from Hepokoski’s chapter.

14
Cone introduced the “sonata princple” in Musical Form and Musical Performance (New
York: Norton, 1968), 76–8. Webster addresses much of his commentary on Hepokoski
towards the problem of “non-resolving recapitulations,” arguing that the fifth relationship
between III and VI does indeed bring the S-zone “into closer relation with the tonic,” and
thus meets the qualifications for Cone’s “sonata principle (96).”
Ohriner, Review of Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre 10

Example 2: Ludwig van Beethoven, Overture to Die Ruinen von Athen, Op. 113
(reprinted from Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre, 78)

For Hepokoski, the movement is in dialogue with sonata form, although that

dialogue is not clear at the beginning. In particular, the first hundred

measures are highly problematic. Within that span a listener is presented

with (1) a slow introduction, mm. 1–19; (2) a marcia moderato led by the

oboe, mm. 20–28; (3) a tonally closed theme in G major, mm. 29–60; (4) a

similarly self-contained small ternary in C major, mm. 61–91; and (5) a

reprisal of previously heard transitional material leading to a half cadence in

A major, mm. 92–99. Sonata form features are more evident following m.

100, including a development of the G major theme and a restatement of the

G major theme to end the movement.15

In addition to the sounding structure of the piece, Hepokoski’s dialogic

conception seeks to reconstruct the expectations of a contemporaneous

listener. In the early 19th century, sonata form was “overwhelmingly the most
15
Since m. 61 cadenced in G major, no alteration is necessary to retain tonic in final
passage.
Ohriner, Review of Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre 11

common” genre in which to cast a listener’san allegro overture. Hepokoski

only recognizes one other option, what he terms the “potpourri form,” a non-

sonata concatenation of themes of which there are several (mostly French)

pre-1811 examples.16 Besides the nearly universal sonata form and the rare

but extant examples of potpourri form, Hepokoski avows that because no

other early nineteenth century allegro overture clearly engages in dialogue

with another form, no other form ought to be available to the analyst of the

Ruinen von Athen Overture.

From this assertion, everything seems to fall into place. The oboe’s

marcia is grouped with the slow introduction outside the movement proper.

The tonic-affirming passage from mm. 51–61 is deemed a “transitional

zone.” The cadence at m. 61 is understood to be a fourth-level default I:PAC

MC. Measures 61–92 are the S-zone, cast in the deformational subdominant

and exhibiting tightness of construction usually reserved for main themes.

Finally, mm. 92–100 are a closing section, though they consist of previously

heard transitional material.

Having identified the deformations of sonata norms in the movement,

Hepokoski completes his analysis by offering a hermeneutic interpretation of

them. In a provocative passage, Hepokoski suggests that the turn towards

the subdominant in the purported S-zone represents a “remote and distant…

Hellenic antiquity” and that the torso aspect of the recapitulation is

16
Hepokoski draws on the work of Suzanne Steinbeck in his formulation of the potpourri
overture. Examples include Méhul’s overtures to Le Jeune Henri (1797) and Joseph (1807).
See her Die Ouvertüre in der Zeit von Beethoven bis Wagner: Probleme und Lösungen
(Munich: Emil Katzbichler, 1973).
Ohriner, Review of Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre 12

suggestive of ruins, “once-whole things…with a crucial arch or supporting-

pedestal once there but now lost forever.” (86) In the subsidiary dialogue

with the potpourri form, he suggests that the first several themes, disjointed

in their initial presentation, are brought to a state of cohesion through the

sonata process, just as the disjointed parts of the Hapsburg Empire were

being brought into a state of cohesion through a political process celebrated

by the ceremony in Pest that the overture commemorates.

To what extent is this interpretation dependent on Hepokoski’s

theoretical orientation? Caplin remarks that “a hermeneutic interpretation is

only as solid as the formal analyses on which it is based,” and he quickly

dismisses a dialogue with sonata form since the movement evidently lacks a

transition and a subordinate theme both in “exposition” and “recapitulation

(90).” Instead, he terms the C major small ternary passage an “interior

theme,” a formal function frequently found in the subdominant in large

ternary and rondo forms. This suggests a concatenation of the formal

functions main theme, interior theme, and return, reminiscent of a ternary

formal type. Crucially, the movement is far more normative when considered

in dialogue with the large ternary, and thus Hepokoski’s suggested

correlation between the “Ruins” of the title and the “ruins” of the form is

rendered less viable. Here interpretation hinges on a theoretical question

raised by Caplin: is Hepokoski’s listener allowed to enter into dialogue with

ternary form in the context of an allegro overture? Hepokoski vigorously

denies this possibility:

Ohriner, Review of Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre 13

If a composer, in 1811, did decide to make the extraordinary decision

to override all generic expectations by producing, say, a rondo [or
large ternary], completely outside the normative realm of structural
options for an overture—which is certainly not the case here—one
might expect that that structure and thematic types would at least
have to be as clear and unmistakable as possible, precisely in order to
perceive clearly that unusual choice (85).

This stricture severely impugns the creative abilities of a listener.

Beethoven wrote many other large instrumental works in ternary form. Is it

really so difficult to engage in dialogue with a form one knows from past

experience in a novel (though similar) context? The dialogic analytical

process carries with it an explicit protocol: one construes an appropriate

listener, determines incongruities that such a listener would encounter in a

piece, and only then ventures into the hermeneutic realm. Adhering to this

protocol is crucial because it is too tempting to configure one’s imagination

of such a listener, as wel as the incongruities they would perceive, in order to

afford an interpretation one wishes to offer.

***

Unlike Caplin, Hepokoski and Darcy, and many of their predecessors,

James Webster has not articulated a theory a form in his previous writings,

and is therefore not expected to defend such a theory in his contribution to

Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre entitled “Formenlehre In Theory and

Practice.” Rather, he has situated himself in the critical tradition of Tovey

and Rosen that prioritizes the particularities of individual pieces. After the

occasionally taxing quarrels of Caplin and Hepokoski, I can envision some

readers retiring before Webster’s contribution. This would be a mistake.

Ohriner, Review of Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre 14

Webster begins his chapter with a six-page exposition of the thorny issues

that confront a formal analyst— architecture vs. process, surface design vs.

background structure, atemporal comprehension vs. temporal apprehension,

empiricism vs. formalism, the attitude of historical theorists vs. present

conception, as well as contemporary theories of hermeneutics, reader-

response, and genre. This cogent introduction to the problems of formal

analysis should be made available to all undergraduate and graduate

students, coupled with only the barest introductory notes.17

Webster adheres to “multivalent” analysis, a method he outlined in his

earlier book on Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony. Like dialogic analysis, it

brings with it a specific analytical protocol that urges one to identify form-

generating events in a variety of musical parameters before constructing an

analytical narrative that emphasizes one parameter to the exclusion of

others. More often than not, multivalent analyses challenge the unity a

univalent formal theory “such as Schenker’s ‘Ursatz’ or Hepokoski’s and

Darcy’s Sonata Theory” might uncover (129). Webster’s demonstrations of

multivalent analysis through discussions of Beethoven’s Op. 10, no. 3 and

Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony, K. 551, thus resist prematurely minimizing

features that suggest disunity. For example, in the Mozart symphony, the

three phrases of the second group are elided at points of cadence,

suggesting an unbroken musical flow of events. Caplin sees these elisions as

indicative of loose construction and deems the second group normative in

17
Webster’s “brief excurses” on the problems surrounding formulations of the “closing
group,” found on pp. 137–139, will also be of great value for students in introductory classes
on form.
Ohriner, Review of Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre 15

terms of its arrangements of formal functions (143). Yet other parameters

suggest disunity: phrases 1 and 2 share a forte dynamic, while phrases 2 and

3 share thematic material; these disunities will be missed if the parameter in

which they occur is considered incapable of generating formal functions or

delineations, as in the case of Caplin’s view of thematic material. Webster’s

aim is not to argue against unity in all cases, but to shift the goals of analysis

away from demonstrating unity.

Again, the comments on Webster’s chapter question whether

analytical findings can be separated from their theoretical underpinnings.

Caplin begins by asserting that Webster lacks a theoretical foundation, and

that analytical findings can only arise from a worked-out theoretical

scaffolding. If this is so, then methodological pluralism is indeed

problematic. But theories ought to be able to describe features of music

they intend to treat and remain mute on topics with which they are not

concerned. The thrust of multivalent analysis is that a theory of cadence, for

example, need not comment on form. While the analytical products of a

more limited theory cannot claim the comprehensiveness of Caplin’s ideal, a

multivalent approach also does not rest on the acceptance of single

constituent theory.

Hepokoski’s remarks are characteristically sharper. Similar to his

comments on Caplin’s contribution, he argues that Webster’s findings are

trivial. Multivalent analysis— “a first step advanced as a near final one

(147)”—provides a linear chart of facts but offers no means of hermeneutic

Ohriner, Review of Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre 16

engagement. He proceeds to fill “gaps” in Webster analysis, suggesting a

narration of the second half of the “Jupiter” exposition in which an implied

agent wrestles with the responsibility of articulating the piece (“We have a

symphony to accomplish!”), a desire for “irresponsible” repose, and

occasional disorientation (“Oh! Wait! Where am I?”) (150). While multivalent

analysis is essential in articulating an initial description of a piece, Hepokoski

finds it ill-equipped in the formulation of interpretation, his most prized goal

of analysis.18 Webster in turn accuses Hepokoski of equating his own

personal values with a wrong-headed notion of progress in the humanities

and then of unfairly prescribing the analytic practices of others (156).

Hermeneutics can certainly add value to one’s experience a piece and can

be a laudable goal in the classroom, but it also carries specific dangers.

While hermeneutics enables a multiplicity of readings, it prevents claims of

the moral superiority of one reading over another.19 And further,

hermeneutics often has the result of burnishing the authority of the analyst

by implying that anyone with similar knowledge and training ought to be

able to recognize (if not accept) the interpretation. Despite the

recommendations of some recent writers in music scholarship, these dangers

should not prevent hermeneutic engagement. Still, a recognition of the

18
Hepokoski’s devotion to hermeneutics is made plain in Elements of Sonata Theory, p. 603:
“All analysis should be directed toward the larger goal of hermeneutic understanding of
music as a communicative system, a cultural discourse implicated in issues of humanness,
worldview, and ideology, widely construed.”
19
Carolyn Abbate illustrates this point with reference to Wagner’s use of hermeneutics to
disparage Mendelssohn and others in his controversial essay, “The Jew In Music.” We may
be morally outraged at Wagner’s conclusions, but they are the result of a well-formed
hermeneutic analysis. See her “Music: Gnostic or Drastic?” Critical Inquiry 30, no. 3 (Spring,
2004): 518–9.
Ohriner, Review of Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre 17

dangers of interpretation highlights the need for the kinds of alternatives

Webster suggests.

***

As Pieter Bergé states in his conclusion, the willingness of these three

scholars to engage in such a novel format is itself an endorsement of

methodological pluralism that resonates with their previously published

comments. And each author takes a first step towards such pluralism,

embracing tolerance of other theories by foregoing explicit claims of

analytical supremacy. But as Bergé also points out, there is a further need

to evaluate other theories with an awareness of their unique ambitions. This

is where both Hepokoski and Caplin occasionally stumble. Hepokoski

demands that theories afford interpretation and does not recognize

Webster’s laudable attempts to resist overstating unity in Classical music.20

Similarly, Caplin insists that thematic materials are not form-functional and

therefore cannot appreciate the disjunction of hearing two passages paired

in thematic material but distinct in, for instance, tonal organization. T his is

not to diminish the impact of Webster’s critiques of the others. He clearly

thinks Caplin’s theories are inadequate in the entirety of the Classical

repertoire, and he asserts that Hepokoski’s dialogic conception is not new to

our discipline but rather a restatement of ideas that have been circulating for

two decades. But he does not challenge these theories as theories.

20
One of the earliest and most forceful demonstrations of the dangers of overstating the
unified structure of Classical music is found in Susan McClary, “A Musical Dialectic From the
Enlightenment: Mozart’s ‘Piano Concert in G Major, K. 453,’ Movement 2,” Cultural Critique 4
(Autumn, 1986): 164–5.
Ohriner, Review of Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre 18

Still, the publication of this book reveals a path towards just this kind of

positive engagement by theorists of diverse commitments, especially if other

theorists can echo the intellectual generosity that, despite the several

heated exchanges, shines through much of this volume. Even so, a final

challenge of engaging those theories that claim to be comprehensive

remains. A rare trace of uniform agreement among these authors is their

shared belief that previous theories such as those of Heinrich Schenker and

mid-century Formenlehre theorists discourage a tolerant engagement with

other theories by asserting their own analytical intolerance. Stanley Fish has

argued that this kind of intolerance makes pluralism logically impossible. In

trying to confront an intolerant theory, we must either surrender our own

insistence on tolerance or refuse to engage with a theory at its most

distinctive point.21 But this is emphatically not the case in music theory

because in our engagement with other theories we can minimize (or ignore

altogether) their claims for supremacy and qualify their ambitions without

undermining the contributions of those theories towards understanding the

repertoire. In other words, we can draw on methods we find useful without

being burdened by the epistemology at their foundation.22 If we can take

this further step, then the next project of this kind, of which I hope there are

21
Stanley Fish, “Boutique Multiculturalism, or Why Liberals Are Incapable of Thinking About
Hate Speech,” Critical Inquiry 23, no. 2 (Winter, 1997): 383.
22
I’m certainly not the first to make this point. As just one example, regarding the utility of
Schenkerian analysis divorced from Schenker’s political beliefs, see Leon Botstein,
“Schenker the Regressive: Observations on the Historical Schenker,” The Musical Quarterly
82, no. 2 (Summer, 2002): 239–247. Nicholas Cook also believes such a separation is
possible but highlights the possible violence this does to a theory on its own terms. See his
“Schenker’s Theory of Music as Ethics,” Journal of Musicology 7, no. 4 (1989): 415–439.
Ohriner, Review of Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre 19

many, can aspire not towards methodological confrontation or even

reflection but towards cooperation in our shared attempts to understand the

complexities of our rich repertoires.