Abstract
Intertextuality now more often appears the rule rather than the exception in nineteenth-century music. Speaking to broad debates about historicism, authorial intention, and hermeneutics, the concept that musical texts reference preexisting works through direct quotation, allusion, or other types of transformation in order to create dynamic, layered meanings has been applied to a range of music representing a core part of the nineteenth-century canon.1 Nonetheless, after a flurry of interest, intertextuality now hovers in the background of many studies without being fully addressed, suggesting a need for further investigation.2 The concept of intertextuality also has important implications for how we understand the character and function of musical subjectivities—the “audible signal of subjective presence.”3 However, the two concepts are rarely brought into dialogue. This is surprising given that the concepts of intertextuality and subjectivity go hand in hand in literary studies, in which intertextuality is closely associated with the presence of divided or multiple subjectivities.4
Highlights
Intertextuality more often appears the rule rather than the exception in nineteenthcentury music
This article brings the concepts of intertextuality and subjectivity into dialogue in order to advance our understanding of both and to generate new readings of two pieces that are rich in intertextual relationships and raise complex questions about subjectivity: Liszt’s Deux Polonaises
The performer has a fundamental influence on how subjectivities are expressed, challenging our understanding of who retains authorial control
Summary
Polonaise I begins with intertextual references to Chopin and Ogiński, which immediately problematize our understanding of the composer’s voice, and suggest the presence of multiple subjectivities.[72]. This relationship is made obvious as the melody merges (without any stylistic disruption) into a repeat of the introduction/transition material at measure 171 This creates the impression that the initial voice of the opening has been able to break through, restoring the militaristic and the bitter, vengeful aspects of the polonaise through the help of the performer. As the two main themes become assimilated by the introductory/transitional voice, the motive of the introduction becomes central to the development of the piece, introducing musical parameters that will become crucial to our understanding of the musical processes at work It does not maintain the distance of a narrator, but takes on a more active subjectivity, one whose immediacy is emphasized as it becomes associated with the subjectivity of the performer, with the power to influence and transform other musical subjectivities within the piece. Theme B; new falling Modulatory Funeral march/recitative – Stile eighth-note motive; appassionato brief allusion to Allegro energico from
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