When Music Makes Sounds

Abstract

This essay is intended as a contribution to the debate within a widespread paradigm for musical metaphysics in the analytic tradition, the structuralist framework. My main aim is that of defending Performance Relativism, the view that more than one sound-structure may determine the correctness criteria for the performance of a work of music.In section one, I briefly introduce the idea of a sound-structure, and I distinguish two roles it may play in musical metaphysics: as part of an analysis of composition, and as a central component in the study of the work-performance relation. In section two, I introduce a particular version of structuralism, Performance Pluralism, and I present some (relatively negotiable) theses about the relationships between sound-structures and the composition of a work of music. In section three, I put forth my favourite version of Pluralism, namely Performance Relativism.In the second part of this essay, I proceed to an assessment of these views. On the basis of some preliminary comments about structuralism tout-court in section four, section five suggests that Relativism may have a better chance of explaining certain intuitions about 'musical interpretation' than the traditional versions of structuralism. More importantly, section six explains how Relativism remains metaphysically relevant independently of the defacto appropriateness of the pluralist approach to performance practice - that is, independently of the considerations from section five. In particular, the metaphysical significance of Relativism stems from my acceptance, side by side with what I call the Necessity of C-Structure, of the thesis of the Contingency of P-Structure, namely the claim that musical works do not bear properties of sound essentially.1. Two Grades of Structural InvolvementFor convenience's sake, I treat sound-structures (hereinafter often simply structures) as structured collections of properties of sound, exemplified by particular sound-events (their exemplars or instances). This vague version of a 'Platonist' viewpoint is here taken on board without further ado, mostly due to its familiarity. Yet, nothing in this essay hinges on its independently controversial metaphysical commitments, and my arguments in what follows may easily be rephrased within alternative and/or better developed frameworks.1According to 'widespread consensus', sound-structures play important roles in the philosophical analysis of musical practice, and in the study of the metaphysical make-up of musical works.2 Two of these roles are of interest for my purposes here: structures appear within the structuralist explanation of musical composition, and as part of the structuralist analysis of the relationships between a work and certain sound-events, in particular its performances.According to structuralism, the composition of a work consists in, possibly among other things, a process whereby a composer indicates (or selects, assembles, or what have you) a certain sound-structure (or soundstructures).3 I refer to the sound-structure(s) involved in the composition of a musical work w as the 'compositional structure(s)', or more concisely c-structure(s), for w. I briefly consider the roles c-structures may play within an account of the identity-conditions of a work of music in section two, where I present a relatively negotiable version of the principle of the Necessity of C-Structure.According to the structuralists, furthermore, sound-structures provide the metaphysical grounding for the work-performance relationship, at least in the sense that only sound-events that exemplify certain structures are acceptable as correct performances of particular works. I discuss this normative role of sound-structures in greater detail later on, in section three. For the moment, I rest satisfied with referring to the sound-structure(s) eventually relevant for the establishment of the performancecriteria for a musical work w as the 'performative structure(s)', or more succinctly /»-structure(s), for w. …