Abstract
According to certain models of the musical work-performance relationship, musical works persist through time. Dodd and Thomasson argue that perdurantist accounts of musical persistence—according to which musical works persist by having temporal parts at every time they exist—are untenable, and Tillman argues that musical endurantism—according to which persisting works are wholly present at each time they exist—avoids Dodd’s worries. In this paper, I argue that both Dodd’s and Thomasson’s arguments—and Tillman’s response—rely on assumptions linking theories of persistence to common-sense views about musical works and, moreover, that these assumptions are unwarranted. As a result, only an attitude of neutrality towards questions about the nature of musical persistence is warranted.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
One might, of course, worry that the physical entity needs to be conceived of in a certain way—or to be embedded in the right kind of social practice—in order to count as an artwork.
The central question at issue here concerns the nature of musical works and, in particular, the nature of the work-performance relationship. Now in the western classical tradition, musical works are normally identified with compositions—the products of musical compositional activity. Musical multiplicity, however, is not specific to this tradition but can be found in a broader range of genres, including rock and jazz among others. And the identification of works with compositions in these other genres is controversial. It has been argued, for example, that in rock music, musical works should instead be identified with recordings (Kania 2006), and it has been argued that in jazz they should be identified with performances (Alperson 1984). Nevertheless, in this paper, I will follow the convention of formulating the issue in terms of works. But whether or not jazz and rock compositions count as musical works in their respective genres, they remain multiple in the sense at issue. As a result, since everything I say here can be easily reformulated in terms of the nature of compositions—rather than works—and the composition-performance relationship, any worries about the generality of this discussion can be set aside.
More complex variants of the type-token model often deviate from this simple version in two dimensions. First, rather than identifying musical works with structured sound types, some views take such types to be constituents of musical works. According to Levinson’s “indicated-type” theory, for example, musical works are complex entities made up of structured types, composers, and times (Levinson 1980). Second, some views have additional—or alternate—conditions that need to be satisfied in order for a sound event to count as a performance of a given work. Typically, this involves the requirement that the sound event stands in the right kind of causal or intentional relationship to the work. For example, rather than requiring a sound event to be a token of the type associated with a work, Levinson requires instead that it be intended to be a token of this type and that this performance intention “succeed to a reasonable degree” (1980, p. 24).
See Tillman (2011, p. 15).
Alward (2004)
See Rohrbaugh (2003, pp. 198–199).
Alward (2004, p. 335). This label is borrowed from Kaplan (1990). The common currency conception has frequently been mischaracterized as a version of the mereological approach (see, e.g., Aliyev 2017, p. 86; Caplan and Matheson 2006, p. 60, n. 7; Tillman 2011, p. 16, n.11); after all, although it is arguably true that musical performances are parts of musical continuants on the common currency conception, it is not true, on this view, that musical continuants are fusions of their performances.
See Dodd (2004, p. 347). Strictly speaking, Dodd’s concern is with the putative temporal flexibility of musical works rather than performance flexibility.
I am appealing here to Davies’ “pragmatic constraint” on theorizing about artworks (Davies 2004, p. 18). According to Davies, musical works “must be entities that can bear the sorts of properties rightly ascribed to what are termed ‘works’ in our reflective critical and appreciative practice.”
These arguments are developed more fully in the Alward (manuscript).
See Levinson (1980, p. 24).
For more on this, see the Alward (manuscript).
Depending on the account of types on offer, one might take musical works to persist on the type-token model as well.
Tillman (2011, pp. 17–9) also considers the possibility of persistence by means of “spanning” time. This alternative is not relevant for present purposes. See also Moruzzi’s Musical Stage Theory according to which a musical work is “a stage/performance connected by a privileged relationship to other stages/performances” (Moruzzi 2018, p. 342).
The question of whether there are intervening parts of musical works in between performances or they are gappy entities will not be addressed here. See Aliyev (2017) for a discussion of the putative temporal gappiness of musical works on the continuant-stage model.
Dodd (2008, p. 1129).
Thomasson (2004), p. 82).
Presumably a performance needs to be sufficiently successful as well if an appreciator is to be able to hear the work—in part or in whole—in question by means of listening to the performance.
It is worth noting that an appreciator can also hear all of the musical work by listening a complete recording of it.
See Lycan (2001), p. 41).
References
Aliyev, A. (2017). Musical perdurantism and the problem of intermittent existence. Grazer Philosophische Studien, 94, 83–100.
Alperson, P. (1984). On musical improvisation. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 43(1), 17–29.
Alward, P. (2004). The Spoken Work. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 62(4), 331–337.
Alward, P. (manuscript). Musical ontology and the question of persistence.
Caplan, B., & Matheson, C. (2006). Defending musical perdurantism. British Journal of Aesthetics, 46, 59–69.
Davies, D. (2004). Art as performance. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Dodd, J. (2002). Defending musical platonism. British Journal of Aesthetics, 42, 380–402.
Dodd, J. (2004). Types, continuants, and the ontology of music. British Journal of Aesthetics, 44, 342–360.
Dodd, J. (2008). Musical works: ontology and meta-ontology. Philosophy Compass, 3(6), 1113–1134.
Kania, A. (2006). Making tracks: rhe ontology of rock music. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 64(4), 401–414.
Kania, A. (2013). Platonism vs. nominalism in contemporary musical ontology. In C. M. Uidhir (Ed.), Art and Abstract Objects. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kaplan, D. (1990). Words. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society: Supplement, 64, 93–119.
Kivy, P. (1983). Platonism in music: a kind of defense. Grazer Philosophische Studien, 19, 109–129.
Levinson, J. (1980). What a musical work is. The Journal of Philosophy, 77, 5–28.
Lycan, W. (2001). Moore against the new skeptics. Philosophical Studies, 103, 35–53.
Moruzzi, C. (2018). Every performance is a stage: musical stage theory as a novel account for the ontology of musical works. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 76(3), 341–351.
Rohrbaugh, G. (2003). Artworks as historical individuals. European Journal of Philosophy, 11, 177–211.
Thomasson, A. (2004). The ontology of art. In P. Kivy (Ed.), The Blackwell guide to aesthetics (pp. 78–92). Oxford: Blackwell.
Tillman, C. (2011). Musical materialism. British Journal of Aesthetics, 51, 13–29.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Alward, P. Musical Ontology and the Question of Persistence. Acta Anal 35, 213–227 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-019-00398-w
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-019-00398-w