1

MUSICAL INTERPRETATION
PRINCIPLES FOR THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE
MUSICAL WORK AS AN OBJECT OF INTERPRETATION

Introduction

This study addresses the need for methodologies that can be used on the comprehension
of musical works, with special reference to musical performance.

For an exact definition of the concepts the following points must be clarified:

When we speak of music, we refer to its real sound dimension - what we actually hear -
distinct from a conceptual, virtual dimension - the music work.

The music work has its foundations on

1 - the composition, the creative act of the composer, first existing moment of
the work;

2 - the perception of the public, appearing, in this case, as heard music;

3 - the material support (score, recording, scheme), being, in this case, the
apprehension made by the study of this support. 1

The musical work can be defined as the product of the psychological and physical
activities of the composer, ending with its notation or first performance 2. After this
creative moment, the musical work becomes virtual. It accomplishes itself through
performances and listenings, becoming then music. But until this transformation takes
place, the musical work is not music, is not something real, with its own properties,
autonomous from its perception as music or its material support. It is virtual, and it is
also intentional because its existence is becoming music.

1
The “music work”, is a concept used and studied by Ingarten, Cf. R. Ingarten (1989), pages. 51, 58, 60,
64 and 181 and R. L. Martin (1993), pages. 117 and following..
2
Cf. R. Ingarten (1989), page. 147.
 2

According to the proposals of Molino and Nattiez, and to the above explained definition
of musical work, we can understand any musical event in three different levels:

c o m p o se r w o rk p u b lic
p o ie s is e s te s is

Figure 1
1. the poietic level - the act of creation;

2. the estesic level - the perception and comprehension;

3. the neutral level - what is left of this exchange between poiesis and estesis,
independently from any creation, or perception - the material residue of the
process.3

These levels correspond to different manners of dealing with music: the composer with
the poiesis, the performer with the estesis and the neutral level, i.e. the score.

c o m p o se r P o ie sis 1 E ste sis 1 I nte rp re te r 1 W o rk 2

P o ie sis 2 ( m u sic )
W o rk 1
(sc o re ) E ste sis 2

E ste sis 5
I nte rp re te r 2 P u blic 1
E ste sis 3
In te rp re t e r 3
P o ie sis 3

W o rk 3 P o ie sis 4
( m u sic ) W o rk 4
(m u sic )
E ste sis 4

E ste sis 6
P u b lic 2

P u blic 3

Figure 2

3
Cf. Molino (s.d.), page. 112, Molino (1990), page 113, Nattiez (1987), page. 34,
 3

This system can be much more complicated if we include other participants that
normally act in the musical phenomena.

The multiple approaches to a musical work, the different comprehensions and

(re)creations (performances) increase the complexity of this picture and the importance
of the different estesis and subsequent poiesis until a perception of the performed work.

C.

The present study has not only as target an objective approach to the neutral - material -
dimension of the work; for it is assumed that any approach and comprehension is, by
itself, a subjective act, depending on its context and the inclosed intentions. And this
estesis, this contact with the musical work, is inevitably also a poietic act because of the
creative subjective aspects it embodies.

In this sense, this study must be considered referring not only to scores and recordings
but also to memories of auditions, personal experiences, symbolic experiences that
appeared in performances, in interpretations and/or in auditions of musical works. These
subjective factors, being part of cultural or other systems, will be also considered for
this study on its cultural, social and even personal -psychological - level.

The purpose of this study is to define different kinds of symbols and symbolic structures
in a musical work, having as perspectives not only the creative act of the composer or its
result (the neutral level) but, essentially, the possibilities of comprehension of the work
and the whole hermeneutic experience in the performance.

Different Symbolic Forms

The first moment of existence of a musical work is the creative act of construction - the
initial poiesis in the terms of Molino/Nattiez. This creative act makes use of musical
objects - sound constructions - with a certain importance in the work. These musical
objects exist only because of their importance in the structure of the work and because
of their relation to others alike: referring to other musical objects in the same work, even
in other works, they act like symbols in a closed context. These symbols exist not in
relation to concepts or to things out of the work, but in relation to others of the same
nature with any kind of relevance in the structure of the work. The analysis tradition of
 4

Riemann, Schenker and others, based on strict musical structures 4, considers almost
only the study of these symbols and their (pitch, melodic, rhythmic, harmonic, tonal,
formal, structural/cognitive) relevance and relationships in a exclusively musical
context.

But considering the evidences, observations, experiences and the considerations of

many musicologists, psychologists and other music theorists - S. Langer, L. B. Meyer,
Sloboda, Clynes, even Hanslick to a certain point - it is possible to consider musical
elements (musical symbols) that refer to actions, things, movements, impressions: they
exist in the place of other things of non-musical nature, not of musical objects. This is,
i.e., the case of some military music, of sounds of onomatopoeic nature, of musical
rhetoric figures (Affectenlehre in baroque music), of sound patterns included in
electronic instruments. It can as well be the case of a possible relationship between
humans as sensible - emotional - organisms and a succession of sounds in a musical
work, between the listeners and music: a psychomotor relationship between an
individual and an emotive continuum.

EXOGENOUS SYMBOLS

1. ORGANIC SYMBOLS

“ Nous dirons, alors que la musique opère au moyen

de deux grilles. L’une est physiologique, donc
naturelle; son existence tient au fait que la musique
exploit les rythmes organiques, et qu’elle rend ainsi
pertinentes des discontinuités que resteraient
autrement à l’ètat latent, et comme noyèes dans la
durèe.” 5

Emotion can be defined as a reaction to a strong, more or less unexpected stimulus: an

emergency reaction, a struggle in order to stabilise the psycho-physiological levels.
Some primary emotions as fear, love, joy are well defined and characterised, even in
musical terms 6.

4
and, perhaps, also in a psychologist - cognitive approach (see Jackendoff and Lerdhall (1983))
5
See Levy Strauss (1974), page 24.
6
See Clynes (1983), Budd (1992), Fraisse (1985) and Rösing (1993).
 5

It is known that sound can produce such emotions, and not only music but all kinds of
sounds - even all kinds of arts, ways of communication or any stimulus - can induce
emotions. As Budd (1992) explains in his thorough essay, emotions are not a property of
or something inherent in music itself, but a probable effect of it, and they can be
understood in relation to music. As a response to a musical stimulus, emotions can act
as reactions to the listening to - or the involvement with - sound qualities and their
constructions in music (a change of intensity, of texture, of timbre).

But emotions can be also understood as something very profound, often not quite
definable in specific terms. Wallon 7 describes the deep nature of primary emotions,
their neuropsychological character and their genetic importance to the development of
communication, of interaction and socialisation in childhood. Furthermore, emotions
can be also understood not as a temporary reaction to a specific stimulus, but as a
continuum of reactions to various stimuli coming from the exterior and the interior of
the individual8. Music being in close relation to time 9, it can be conceivable that
musical works (at least some aspects of a musical work) are a kind of symbolisation of
certain aspects of life, of living time. In this sense it is also possible to imagine that
music can cause an identical emotional continuum on a group of persons that listens to
it, and that such emotions will be always attached to their knowledge of that particular
piece.

This symbolisation creates a close connection between the continuous phsyco-

physiological movement of life and musical “movement” - the constant flow of sound
and sound constructions. In a poiesis, as in the act of composition, these organic
symbols are, in the terms of E. Clark and others 10, icons, because they appear in the
music as an imitation - mimesis - of an emotional continuum imagined by the composer,
imitating a real or virtual movement and its constant change. After listening to a
particular piece, these organic symbols can subsist, although in a primary organic way,
as a reference - a memory - of a particular piece, excluding others. And so they can be

7
See Wallon (1966 and 1983) and Martinet (1981)
8
See Martinet (1981), page 35 and following, Wallon (1983) page 51 and following and P. Fraisse
(1985).
9
A speculation on time, in the words of S. Langer (1957), page 36.
10
It must be clear that E. Clarke (1988 and 1989), like Nattiez (1987) page 28 following, uses the
semiotic concepts of C. S. Pierce, where the term “Sign” (representamen) is the primary and basic
element in the semiotic triad, being devided in indexes, icons and symbols, these last only with a
conventional relation to the object. Other theorists use, on the contrary, the word “Symbol” as a basic
semiotic relation, being “sign” a conventional symbol with no more (also in genetic terms) relation to the
object that was in the basis of its existence. See H. Wallon (1966), page 248 and following.
 6

the most immediate and the simplest comprehension of a musical work - an organic,
emotive comprehension of the work.

Organic symbols exist in the relations between musical elements such as time, tempo,
rhythm, dynamics, melody line and texture and life inherent factors such as tension,
happiness, energy, calm, etc.

“Music also presents us with an obvious illusion, (...)

the appearance of movement”11

These organic symbols are not musical objects 12 , they are not sounds or sound groups,
but only a perspective of a musical work. They appear always very close to rhythm, to
the flow of sound events in time, as described in Gabrielson (1983) and Clynes and
Walker (1983) 13. They can be, in the poiesis, a result of the way musical objects are
disposed in time: the tension and the “movement “ of music, the musical gesture. They
have mimetic properties of life factors and refer to qualities like slowness, quickness,
strength, weakness, anxiety, tranquillity. But far from being static, an organic symbol
can also be a kind of map of the motion in music - of the musical gesture, of the changes
in harmony, rhythm, tempo, tension, texture, etc. In a estesis, organic symbols are ways
of understanding the musical events as (possible, effective, memorised) emotional
effects on the listeners: they understand music - and a musical work - as a vital (organic)
continuum, a continuous movement, a constant but plastic flow of tension.

Traces of these symbols can be seen in character indications as Allegro, con forza,
subito, commonly written in the scores, in physical reactions to musical hearing (foot
movements, body movements accompanying music, variation of blood pressure, etc. 14)
and even graphical forms of musical writing (i.e. in some contemporary graphical
scores).

Organic symbols are very difficult to separate from other things as they are not entities
like musical objects. An organic symbol can be sometimes confused with the beat, or
with rhythm, because of its close connection to time - living time. But it can also be
attached to the evolution of textures, of timbre, of harmony, of melody, on the evolution

11
In analogy to painting, that is an illusion of virtual space , see S. Langer (1957), page 36.
12
As the definition of Pierre Shaeffer (1966).
13
See also the concept of emotion as stimmung in Rösing (1993).
14
See Clynes and Walker (1983)
 7

of sound and sound qualities, in a much broader sense of rhythm. In western music, we
can see strong examples in the special melancholy character of Beethoven’s 3rd
symphony (i.e. the 2nd movement), in the dancing invitation of the Mozart Rondos in
piano Concertos, or in the anxiety of Bartok’s beginning of Miraculous Mandarin.

““Le charme de la musique, qui peut se

communiquer si universellement, semble reposer sur
le fait que tout expression du language possède dans
un contexte un ton, qui est approprié à son sens; ce
ton indique plus ou moin une affection du sujet
parlant et la provoque aussi chez l’auditeur.”15

Organic symbols exist in a code, in a certain cultural and social context. Some organic
symbols can, perhaps, have an universal character - common to all human beings - based
on the identification of the “movement” of the music with the psychomotor activities
and emotional reactions that appear in all human beings. Listening to a piece of music,
or to certain sound patterns, every human being is driven to react in a certain and
universal way: the individual reacts to the sound “movement” with a real movement - a
gesture - or with a imaginary or even an intellectualised movement - the possible
movement in face of the complex codes of cultural behaviour 16.

2 . THE SYMBOLIC SOUND ORGANISATIONS

2.1 Onomatopoeic symbols

It is also possible to consider, in a more precise way, some exogenous symbolic

relations between certain musical objects - or musical parameters - and things or
objects, actions, even animals. For example, we can refer the cuckoo by imitating it with
an instrument constructed to this purpose (J. Haydn) or any other, the singing of a bird
made by a flute or other instrument (Messiaen), a battle made by the rhythm and the
sounds of an organ (in Renaissance music), the machine referred by continuous
mechanical repetitions of a pattern. Contrary to what Susan Langer wrote, I think that
these onomatopoeic symbols are very common and should be understood in western

15
Kant (1989), §53.
16
See Clynes and Walker (1983)
 8

music: the thunder, the breath, the space, the sea, the city, the cries, the horses, are
sound constructions that normally are imitated in music, in film music, publicity, etc.

Although they don’t appear in all musical works, when they do they have an increased
interest and influence on listening and on the comprehension of the work.

2.2 Cultural symbols

Many other times composers and musicians use some other symbols that don’t have the
characteristic mimetic sound character. When a classical composer wants to refer to the
countryside, or to hunting, or even to something vaguely related to those things (horse
riding, announcement of the arrival of a group of people, wild animals), the instrument
he is going to use will be the horn, or he will imitate the typical parallel sixths played by
natural horns.

These kind of symbols appear as a substitute for some objects, landscapes, or ideas, but
they have sometimes just a vague relation to it. They exist as a part of a large cultural
frame, in constant development, understood by a limited number of people (social
and/or cultural definable). Having no onomatopoeic or some kind of imitation, they are
symbols of something because they are usually employed in a very specific context by a
specific group of persons. The elements of musical rhetoric studied in Baroque
Affectenlehre 17, the leitmotive in Wagner’s opera, even the diminished fifths (the
famous diabulus in musica), the sounds used in commercial electronic instruments, are
examples of such cultural symbols.

These symbols18 can have great importance in analysis because of their relation in the
context of the work to other musical objects or parameters, to other works, to the style,
to the context in history. When composers like Schönberg, Ligeti, Schnitke, Milhaud
and many others use rhythms from popular music (waltz, samba, rumba, rock, habanera,
etc.,) that are always used in specific contexts (and with specific intentions), they offer
the listener the possibility of a new field of symbolic relations, of ways of understanding
the entire piece, possible only to people that know those specific rhythms and their
social character. When Baroc and XVIII century musicians used the famous French
Ouverture, they almost certainly didn’t want to announce the entering of the King, but
musicians and many music lovers would be able to understand its character as an

17
Even those that are some kind of mimesis of movement (ascensus, cruxis, etc.), because in most cases,
this relation is not obvious or possible to be heard.
18
In Piercian terms, real symbols.
 9

introduction, as a slowly pompous march, as the announcement of something - the suite,

the symphony, etc.

The musical quotation is another powerful cultural symbol, as it happens in A. Berg’s

violin concerto or in modern and contemporary works 19. Even more the imitation of a
style20 as in Schnittke’s (K)ein Sommernachtstraum and in many contemporary
composers (Rihm’s Ländler, Killmayer’s Lieder, etc.) has semiotic properties that
contemporary listeners will definitely not escape.

We can ask if it is possible to include as cultural symbols such musical objects as

Alberti’s figured bass, a tonal chord succession IV-V-I, even a scale. In fact, cultural
symbols exist because they are understood as symbols in a specific context. A simple
chord succession doesn’t exist as an exogenous symbol in a tonal context because it
doesn’t have any other individuality - it is just a chord succession in the middle of others
alike. On the contrary, if it appears in a non tonal context, or in a context where a simple
chord IV-V-I succession becomes prominent, it can be understood as a symbol of tonal
simplicity, or old music, or even stupidity; if not understood as such, the good continuity
and the internal coherence of the piece would be disregarded.

But the appearance of a common IV-V-I succession or a Alberti bass is always a sign of
a particular style, excluding others that don’t use these features. And in this sense, every
musical object, if understood as a particularity of a style (or group of works) becomes a
symbol of it. In this case, its relevance in the context of the work is, perhaps, not
prominent, but its identity as an element of a code - a style, a way of musical thinking -
is unmistakable and so becomes a symbol of it. In this sense, some parameters (textures,
timbres, etc.), substructures (i.e. organisations like series, scales, modes, chords) and
forms can be as well understood as cultural symbols for their identity and importance in
a specific musical code.

Concluding: many musical objects - even properties that they bear - were made or are
employed to be understood in their relation to specific objects, actions or ideas (musical,
political, cultural, aesthetic). Some examples are the horn sixths (symbolising hunting,
countryside), the rhythm of the French Ouverture or the introduction in classical
symphonies, standardised sounds of electronic instruments, the particular use of some

19
The quotation of the Tristan chord is very interesting as a symbol in contemporary music pieces.
20
A quote of a style
 10

tonal structures in contemporary and post-modern works, like the use of the Tristan
chord, even a substructure like a scale, symbolising a particular kind of music.

Such symbolic sound organisations, being very close to a semantic meaning, are part of
social and cultural codes and can only be understood by individuals that know that code,
that are in possession of that semantic competence.

ENDOGENOUS SYMBOLS - MUSICAL OBJECTS AND SUBSTRUCTURES

Music is made with constructions of sounds and silences. These constructions use
relationships between parts, elements, properties, smaller sound structures without any
exterior reference. These symbols exist because of their relation to similar symbols in
the same piece, even in different pieces. They are musical objects: sound groups,
motives, themes, sound organisations, relevant because of their intentional (symbolic)
relation to others of the same species, with some of the same parameters and properties.
They can’t be taken out of the context where they belong (a musical piece, a group of
pieces, etc.) because they will loose their identity, their symbolic properties, and will be
lost in another context. They can be part of a predefined code and travel in it, creating
different kinds of connections with others in the same piece, in other pieces, even in a
style. And in this sense they can be also cultural symbols for their reference to that upper
structure (the style, the code, the composer, etc.). The famous Beethoven rhythmic cell
(..._)is a paradigmatic example: it exists not only in the 5th symphony but also in many
other works, even on a political level, becoming also a cultural symbol.

Some of these symbols are not even musical objects (in the sense of Schaeffer) but only
perspectives, parameters of it, even substructures. As examples we can see the modal
substructures of Messiaen and Bartok, the rhythmic/metric patterns of dance, etc. The
understanding of these symbols is related to the knowledge of the code to which they
belong and its syntax, and depends on the interest, on the expectations, on the intentions
of the subject and his approach to those symbols. So, it is easy for a Portuguese to sing
and memorise a rural song of Alentejo21. The way it sounds and its melodic structure is
well known by the people of Alentejo. But perhaps they don’t have the comprehension
of the subtle ornaments, their special importance in the structure, the harmonic relations,

21
A province south-east of Portugal.
 11

the substructures implied: they have an organic and intuitive simple knowledge, based
on the repeated and lived experience of it.

These symbols can be identified and studied in analysis as it is understood by Riemann,

Schenker, Tovey, Nattiez, etc. The characterisation of the symbols, their identity and
their sense - their syntax - depends on the method, the basis of the analysis and the
principles it bears.

THE CODES AND THEIR COMPREHENSION

For the understanding of a musical work, of great importance are the codes implied by
the different kinds of symbols. It is, in fact, the knowledge and the continuous
experiences of the codes that enables the (more or less) profound comprehension of the
symbolic relations and the work in question: like the sounds in spoken language, the
sounds and sound groups in music have specific - symbolic - meaning only when they
are understood belonging to specific structures, with specific relations, somehow similar
to other constructions (musical or not), even similar to other works of the same
composer or other. These relations, their repertoire of possibilities and their way of
interacting form the code - an upper structure of symbols.

These codes are part of “frames of reference” common to a number of persons with
similar life and musical experiences. Any sound or sound group, seen as part of a code,
will be understood as a symbol belonging to that code and will establish relationships
with others with similar properties.

But the comprehension of a code (any code) should not be understood as a question of a
profound academic knowledge: the musical work allows different approaches, different
kinds of comprehension22, different hermeneutics, different codes of comprehension,
depending on the interests of the subject, on the possibilities of understanding - the
frames of reference - and on the use that is supposed for that comprehension. This is
very prominent on the multiple kinds of hearing, approach and use that are made with
musical works. The following examples are representative.

1 - People that are completely ignorant of the codes underlying the composition of a
specific musical work but react very positively on hearing it: they call out of memory a

22
Perhaps also different grades of comprehension.
 12

code that they know from elsewhere and they integrate the sounds they ear in this code;
or, as an alternative, they just allow themselves to be affected by the sounds they hear
and react accordingly, perhaps in a simple organic impulse. This is often the case of
Europeans listening to music of foreign cultures.

2 - Most of the people in concerts are not aware of the procedures and rules of
composition. They listen to music - they are, sometimes, a kind of experts in some
music genres - but their knowledge of musical codes doesn’t include the analytical
aspects studied, i.e., by Schenker or Tovey. However, they recognise early and late
Mozart, the several kinds of Stravinsky’s compositions, they can even speculate over a
more or less accurate contralto in a four part choir. They are aware of some codes
(cultural, stylistic, even musical codes, based mainly on audition and on multiple
experiences with music) that permit them a comprehension of the work, excluding a
score based analysis.

3 - The musician that has to play a specific musical work will choose among different
kinds of approach: a simple
sight-reading, playing the work in accordance with his previous knowledge of the style
codes and ways of writing; a research over the different recordings of that piece - an
experience with interpretation codes, or different kinds of understanding the codes of
interpretation; an harmonic, score based analysis that will enable an expressive
interpretation based on the harmonic structure; a research on the historic context that
will enable an experience with historic based codes of interpretation (ways of phrasing
and figuring a melody, i.e.).

4 - A music theorist who wants to know more about the tonal structure of a certain
group of works, ignoring the formal, rhythmic and expressive codes of each one.

The possibilities of comprehension of a musical work are very large. The most easy and
simple way is, perhaps, the act of hearing the piece and the subsequent psycho-
physiological reactions - the organic symbols - immanent to that act of hearing.

But the comprehension of a musical work is always much more complex, depending on
the interests, the possibilities of knowing and of comprehension of the various symbols
and their codes, even the depth and the commitment with analysis, connecting all the
symbolic experiences in a hermeneutic experience.
 13

MUSIC AS SYMBOL

When someone hears a piece of music - even a part of the work - there is a first and
essential assumption: the presence of a sound construction with its own qualities,
separated from all the sounds in the environment, with some kind of structure and
intention. The assumption of the existence of a musical work. The assumption of a
possible construction, as it appears when listening to the very first sounds, creates the
first symbolic relation - the presence of a musical work. It is even not necessary to hear
anything: the presence of a group of people with their instruments symbolises the
imminent appearance of sound constructions with the intention of being music.

Music as a symbol (of itself, of one specific intentional sound construction, of a sound
structure, etc.) exists in cultural and social codes, depending on the ideas and concepts
that the subject has about music, about its ways of appearance, its qualities, its aesthetic
beliefs. It can also be understood as a social and/or political symbol, depending on the
codes where it is understood. In this sense are very important, i.e. the national hymns
and the various types of music (rock, urban, underground, art, etc.) and their social
referents.

An approach to a musical work is never simple and ingenuous: it is always based on a

large amount of previous experiences - all the life of the subject, all the cultural,
language and musical experiences, all the learned codes.

Analysis, seen as a process towards the comprehension of the musical work, can be seen
as a search for symbols, their codes and their meaning in a musical work or group of
works. And it can also deal with the recognition of a large cultural, social and specially
musical background, previous symbolic experiences that will impel certain ways of
comprehension. The musical interpretation - an extension of an hermeneutic process -
can, in my view, benefit from an analysis that has in mind various kinds of symbols and
codes, acting not only in a endogenous musical ground but also with other things
exterior to the music.

Being by nature dependent on all the subjective circumstances involved - the time, the
place, the moment, the public, the interests involved, all the context of interpretation -
musical interpretation must be aware of all the symbolic implications arising from the
musical work in order to be more effective, at least more conscious of its significance.

-January 1999 Francisco Monteiro-

 14

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Principles for the Understanding of the Musical Work as an Object of Interpretation

Introduction ______________________________________________________________ 1

Different Symbolic Forms___________________________________________________ 3

Exogenous Symbols ______________________________________________________________ 4
Endogenous Symbols - Musical Objects and substructures _______________________________ 10
The codes and their comprehension _________________________________________________ 11
Music as Symbol _______________________________________________________________ 13

Bibliography_____________________________________________________________ 14