What the Sorcerer Said

Abbate, Carolyn

doi:10.1525/ncm.1989.12.3.02a00040

Cited by 8 publications

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“…17. Carolyn Abbate (1989) critiques leitmotivic-semiotic interpretation (and ideas of musical narrative, more generally).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Here for the Hearing

2023

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This book offers a series of essays that show the integrated role that musical structure (including harmony, melody, rhythm, meter, form, and musical association) plays in making sense of what transpires onstage in musicals. Written by a group of music analysts who care deeply about musical theater, this collection provides new understanding of how musicals are put together, how composers and lyricists structure words and music to complement one another, and how music helps us understand the human relationships and historical and social contexts. Using a wide range of musical examples, representing the history of musical theater from the 1920s to the present day, the book explores how music interacts with dramatic elements within individual shows and other pieces within and outside of the genre. These essays invite readers to consider issues that are fundamental both to our understanding of musical theater and to the multiple ways we engage with music.

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“…17. Carolyn Abbate (1989) critiques leitmotivic-semiotic interpretation (and ideas of musical narrative, more generally).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Here for the Hearing

2023

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“…Such theorising evolves naturally from the predilection for narrative analogy in music analyses in prior decades, for instance in analyses by Edward T. Cone (1977 and 1982), Anthony Newcomb (1987), Marion Guck (1994) and David Lewin (1986 and 1992). Yet, although narrative analogy takes centre stage in these various interpretations, Carolyn Abbate (1989), Jean‐Jacques Nattiez (1990) and Lawrence Kramer (1992) have all expressed scepticism about musical narrative, stressing its limitations. For instance, Nattiez worries that reading music as some kind of plot runs the ‘serious risk of slipping from narrative metaphor to an ontological illusion’: the belief that ‘since music suggests narrative, it could itself be narrative’ (1990, p. 245).…”

Section: Theoretical Basesmentioning

confidence: 99%

AnImaginedDrama ofCompetitiveOpposition inCarter'sScrivo inVento,withNotes onNarrative, Symmetry, QuantitativeFlux andHeraclitus

Mailman

2009

Music Analysis

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Carter's music poses struggles of opposition, for instance in timbre (Double Concerto), space (String Quartet No. 3) or pulse (String Quartet No. 5). His preference for the all‐interval tetrachords, 4–Z15 [0, 1, 4, 6] and 4–Z29 [0, 1, 3, 7], is also well known. From these facets of Carter's music, I develop a narrative interpretation of his Petrarch sonnet–inspired solo flute piece, Scrivo in Vento (1991). Specifically, I forge narrative pathways by imagining the two tetrachords as active agents opposed in competition. Previous Scrivo analyses (Capuzzo 2002; Childs 2006) stress continuity by revealing Q‐transforms and common‐note voice leading between the tetrachords. While acknowledging such features, my analysis emphasises oppositional struggle by tracing the tetrachords as separate entities which cooperate and conflict as they manoeuvre to outdo each other. The analysis advances three theses: (1) it guides listening to and reading Scrivo in a way which resonates with Carter's concern for the aesthetics of oppositional struggle, his choice of a sonnet as inspiration and his affinity for all‐interval tetrachords; (2) it shows that music‐analytical detail can be organised into dramatic narratives by (a) projecting dramatic roles onto categories asserted by a formal theory and (b) treating the formal theory's relations metaphorically as actions performed by each role as the musical work unfolds; and (3) it shows how detailed pc‐set analysis can support a Heraclitean view of music: a flux of opposing forces seeking and resisting unity.

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“…2011(Cohn et.al. , 2012McCloud 1994), painting (Bal 1991;Steiner 2004Steiner [1988), photography (Hirsch 1997), opera (Hutcheon, Hutcheon 1999), television (Kozloff 1992;Th ompson 2003), dance (Foster 1996), and music (Abbate 1989;Grabócz 1999Grabócz , 2007Tarasti 2004;Seaton 2005;Rabinowitz 2004;Sternberg 1992). However, there has been no consensus about what is actually a non-verbal narrative, particularly, about whether the possibility of such a narrative mode is necessarily bound to language: whether it can exist but only as an intermediary or surrogate process originally encrypted or codifi ed in natural language, or if it is possible that a narrative experience can be totally independent from language.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the embedded cognition of non-verbal narratives

Bruni

Baceviciute

2014

SSS

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Abstract. Acknowledging that narratives are an important resource in human communication and cognition, the focus of this article is on the cognitive aspects of involvement with visual and auditory non-verbal narratives, particularly in relation to the newest immersive media and digital interactive representational technologies. We consider three relevant trends in narrative studies that have emerged in the 60 years of cognitive and digital revolution. The issue at hand could have implications for developmental psychology, pedagogics, cognitive science, cognitive psychology, ethology and evolutionary studies of language. In particular, it is of great importance for narratology in relation to interactive media and new representational technologies. Therefore we outline a research agenda for a bio-cognitive semiotic interdisciplinary investigation into how people understand, react to, and interact with narratives that are communicated through non-verbal modalities.

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What the Sorcerer Said

Cited by 8 publications

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Here for the Hearing

Here for the Hearing

AnImaginedDrama ofCompetitiveOpposition inCarter'sScrivo inVento,withNotes onNarrative, Symmetry, QuantitativeFlux andHeraclitus

On the embedded cognition of non-verbal narratives

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