The Text and the Work

Abstract

The author brings out the most important aspects of this vast topic from the perspective of a musician. The text is the primary given for musical interpretation which indicates a hidden meaning. The text is aggressive because it declares what is written in it, and powerless, because everyone can do with it as they please (T. Sodeika). The work is only a promise, since what unfolds within it “does not yet exist” (A. Maceina). The work issues a challenge which expects to be met (H. Gadamer). The said [le dit] does not count as much as saying [le dire] (E. Levinas): for the explanation of musical language, expression is required. The text is not an entity of signs closed in itself, but a space in which lines of semantic impulses are drawn (I. Melnikova). The deep semantics of the text are not what the author was intending to say but what the text itself speaks of (A. J. Greimas): a work says more than is embraced by the creator’s consciousness (A. Maceina). Hermeneutics envisages the restoration of the meaning of the text or the creation of that meaning by a new interpretation which is already that of the interpreter (J. Baranova). Texts exist by way of escaping from the captivity of their signs. Only the interpreted—intoned—musical text becomes a creative work.

The text is the primary given for musical interpretation which, due to its openness, indicates a hidden meaning.

A written text, unlike living speech, is objective, impersonal. What is written is written for “everyone and no one”—for “everyone”, because it can be read by anyone, for “no one”, because it does not have a specific addressee for whom the text is intended. But, precisely because of that, the written text is at the same time both aggressive and powerless; aggressive because it declares what is written in it, without asking anyone and without listening to anyone,—powerless, because everyone can do with it as they please.¹

The essential feature of a text is its semantic autonomy. It becomes independent of the author, of the original situation of its appearance or of the addressee. Each text is a particular semantic and sign space, which is given as a possibility. “To understand a text is to follow its movement from sense to reference, from what it says to what it talks about.”² The text is a dualist construct of matter and form, like reality and possibility—a formalised source of an impulse, arousing our discernment; meanwhile, the work is only a promise, since what unfolds within it “does not yet exist”³—Antanas Maceina is quoting Romano Guardini. And “what does not yet exist” is revealed through intelligent expression. “What gives the work its identity as a work? What makes what we call a hermeneutic identity? Obviously, this further formulation means that its identity consists precisely in there being something to “understand,” that it asks to be understood in what it “says” or “intends.” The work issues a challenge which expects to be met. It requires an answer—an answer that can only be given by someone who has accepted the challenge. And that answer must be his (the interpreter’s—J. R.) own, and given actively. The participant belongs to the play.”⁴

The matter should be understood as a possibility (potentiality), and the form as an idea (from the Greek eîdos, morphḗ; in Latin, fōrma) in its primordial sense. The form is actualised; it escapes from its sign-form through becoming, that is, through the interpretive process. Thinkers from the age of enlightenment (the principles of musical language were incidentally developed at that time), following ancient tradition, considered that realisation, becoming (energeia meaning action), and not the work in its sign form (ergon), was the true way for the work to emerge as an artistic phenomenon. “In fact, for me, the said [le dit] does not count as much as saying [le dire] itself. The latter is important to me less through its informational contents than by the fact that it is addressed to an interlocutor. […] Language bears a wisdom which must be explained.”⁵ For the explanation of musical language, expression is required.

The text is not an aesthetic product, but a place of marking with signs; it is not a structure but a process which creates a structure; it is not a passive object, but work and play; it is not an entity of signs closed in itself, which is given meaning and can be reproduced, but a space in which lines of semantic impulses are drawn.⁶

In order to become a creative work, the text poses questions to the perceiver through its very existence. The text is polymorphous material, which acquires its final definition only through the efforts of the interpreter. The deep semantics of the text are not what the author was intending to say but what the text itself speaks of. After all, we will never know precisely the wishes of the author, because those wishes are registered in the text only in outline, a partial scheme, a particular task, or question, for the interpreter.

The author’s opinion, however weighty and significant it might be about a text which they themselves have written, cannot be taken into account: there is often a substantial difference between what a person does and what they think they are doing.⁷

And the answer to these questions is expression which has emerged by way of understanding. “Where does a work belong? The work belongs, as work, uniquely within the realm that is opened up by itself. For the work-being of the work occurs essentially and only in such opening up.”⁸ Expression is as meaningful as the possibilities of understanding allow. “Hermeneutics […] envisages the restoration of the meaning of the text (Dilthey) or the creation of that meaning (Gadamer, Ricoeur) by a new interpretation which is already that of the interpreter.”⁹

A work is more than the will of its creator; a work says more than is embraced by the creator’s consciousness; more—precisely due to its openness. […] What is accessible to interpretation always is and must be open; but what is open is never identical to what the creator of this openness wanted—since the will of the creator is always limited, finite and therefore closed.¹⁰

It is unfortunate that significance, not being expression of meanings but only the conversion into sound of the superficial form of those meanings, often obscures efforts to search for meaning and, putting it mildly, renders the act of expression meaningless. Some sort of action still takes place, although you know that you don’t understand what you’re doing; after all, you don’t understand that you don’t understand; you know that you should know that it is shameful not to know (or at least it should be); but searching for meaning is unfamiliar—you are acting in whatever way. The problem of knowing and understanding is analogous to the problem of significance and meaning. The text and the work are in relation to each other in the same way as significance and meaning. The text, being an object, and material, is always the same in substance and nature. Texts both are in the state of being and exist by way of escaping from the captivity of their signs.¹¹ The work which emerges by way of interpretation exists; it becomes alive, opens up and reveals itself and is different every time. […] A musical work is characterized by certain criteria: the theoretical nature (the link with compositional theory), the philosophical content, the notation fixed in the text, polyphony (including latent polyphony), the author’s invention, the insularity of the form as an integrated whole, structural individuation, and constancy (virtual survival in time). The special value of a work is locked up in these characteristics.¹²

A good analogy for the understanding of a musical text would not be the superficial, simple conversion of the signs into sound, like the reading of words of an incomprehensible language in Latin script, but the perception of the intonational figures expressed by the textual structures. Understanding depends upon knowledge of the subject (what it should be), and this should form the basis of expression. The musical text in itself is obviously a silent given. It is a voiceless passivity objectified by way of conventional signification. Only interpretation, which is the actualisation of that text, makes the notes recorded on paper sound and endows them with a body—a voice, a tone.

A work of art is perceived as a form which is open due to the infinite number of interpretations. However, at the same time, the multiplicity of meanings cannot be separated from the aesthetic organisation of the signs.¹³

“Performance […] is an act of penetrative response which makes sense sensible. […] Interpretative response under pressure of enactment I shall, using a dated word, call answerability.”¹⁴ Answerability is to be understood not only as an answer to the work’s questions, but also as a responsibility of the interpreter which must be supported by abilities to implement that answer. When reading the text, that is, making it sound, one should feel its affect—its narrative, that is, the intonational form of the text of the musical work. “The sensory perception of any object appears to consist of two components; that part of the object which we see at present from our point of observation, and the other sides of the object which are not at present visible from that point.”¹⁵ Initially, the text appears before us as a particular system of structures. But the structure is an integral set of elements, connected by particular links in such a way that, when one element changes or one of the links is changed (which always happens during interpretation), the other elements constituting the structure or their links also inevitably change. “Every text is characterized by internal organisation; in this lies the code which structures the text.”¹⁶ That is why the initial occurrence of reading-perceiving is so important, as the continuous form of movement of thought. “Reading means not only seeing what is given to us at present, but looking seemingly right through this present given and “seeing” what it means and signifies.”¹⁷ Sadly, even among professionals, there are cases of dyslexia. “Original consciousness is only possible in the form of an actually and genuinely original conscious-having of sides and a co-conscious-having of other sides that are precisely not originally there. I say co-conscious, since the non-visible sides are certainly also there somehow for consciousness, “co-meant” as co-present. But they do not appear as such, genuinely.”¹⁸

In the second, deeper, reading phase, the text is transformed into its future sound form, in accordance with the intonational meaning of the structures. Because

to become a musician (even just a modest amateur) is to liberate oneself from this one-sided connection with the objectivized text of the score and to learn how to hear the speech underlying the utterance. Then, instead of a simple execution, so to say, word-for-word playing of the notes, I might gradually succeed in moving towards a more open interpretive practice, which would potentially create meaning with each new performance.¹⁹

“Working out the text, achieving a better or worse understanding of its meaning, is first and foremost a matter of the subjective competence of the person reading: musical hearing, for example, is determined not only by the level of musical culture, by musical literacy, but also probably by physiological features of the auditory organs or even genetic inheritance. There would no point in looking for equality among people in this regard.”²⁰

Thus, only the interpreted—intoned—text becomes a creative work. If you turn into sound only “what is written,” what results is only the sound of the textual signifiers—the notes, and not a revelation of the work’s meaning. “Every text is a particular semantic and sign space, which is given as a possibility (-ies). The meaning (one or a multitude of meanings) is given to us from the very beginning, but not revealed. Our task is to reveal it (or them). How? We must ‘unpack’ it by putting it into our consciousness.”²¹