Intentions in Theory and Practice

Abstract

The ‘intentional fallacy’ and pronouncements of the ‘death of the author’ supported the hermeneutical flights of fancy that characterized the ‘New Musicology’ of the 1980s and early 1990s, but mesh less well with more recent New-Historicist impulses. Anti-intentionalism is motivated by a belief in the autonomy of art, a belief most musicologists today reject. Our interest in composers’ working documents and correspondence also conflicts with anti-intentionalist methodologies. Due to the diversity of current musicology, no one stance towards interpretation will describe all interpretative activities in our field. Nevertheless, for those interested in understanding musical works and performances as the products of human endeavour, I argue that moderate actual intentionalism is the theory that best describes practices directed towards this aim. Its chief advocates—Paisley Livingston, Robert Stecker, and Noël Carroll—are philosophers in the analytic tradition. This article, thus, provides a glimpse of what musicology might gain from taking a greater interest in work in this field.