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274 Notes, December 2012
COMPOSERS
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Book Reviews 275
G-MinorMetrie
Symphony,
Gesture in Mozart: Le nozze di Figar
Rumph, and Don Giovanni
the movemen[Chicago: University o
persuade or communicate; indeed, its Chicago Press, 1983] and "Two Threads
phrase structure is said to enact a dance through the Labyrinth: Topic and Proces
based binary impulse that releases it from in the First Movements of K. 332 and
certain rhetorical obligations. Rather, the K. 333," in Convention in Eighteenth- and
movement enacts its own analytic process Nineteenth-Century Music: Essays in Honor of
by, for example, creating an initial struc Leonard G. Ratner, ed. Wye Jamison Allan
tural problem (based on the repetition of a brook, Janet Levy, and William P. Mahrt,
sigh motive in the opening melody) which pp. 125-71 [Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon,
it eventually solves. Rumph approaches this 1992]), and it is perhaps no accident that
analysis through Condillac's "sensualist Rumph came under this influence as a doc
philosophy" (p. 21), which, among other toral student at the University of California,
things, "demonstrates the interdependence Berkeley, where Allanbrook taught. Mozart
of signs and thought" (pp. 22-23). The idea and Enlightenment Semiotics is laced with
of music as thought, inscription, or writing suggestive topical attributions; it thus con
has been advanced in connection with later tributes positively to ongoing demonstra
composers like Brahms and Beethoven (see,
tions of the interpretive potential of topic.
for example, Mark Evan Bonds, MusicRumph's
as third chapter is not, however, a
Thought: Listening to the Symphony in thecelebration
Age of topic theory; on the con
of Beethoven [Princeton: Princeton Univertrary, it includes a critique of the ontology
sity Press, 2006]), but Rumph sees signs ofoftopics. He is troubled by the seeming ab
it already in the G-Minor Symphony. sence of a precise, historically supportable
The second chapter, "The Sense of definition of the term topic. Furthermore,
Touch in Don Giovanni," explores the episcritics influenced by Ratner, he contends,
temological fallout from elaborations of"have tended to treat topics as codified
the sense of touch in the Enlightenmentsymbols rather than . . . fluid indices. As a
imagination. Citing the living statue in Don result they have often taken a facile ap
Giovanni as a ready reference, Rumph reproach to semantic interpretation, while
states Kant's idea contrasting the rationalneglecting the syntactic structures that ar
ist's preferred modality (sight) with the emticulate and transform topics and which
piricist's (touch). He then proposes not angovern their dynamic interaction with me
allegorical or symbolic reading of the opera ter, tonality, rhythm, and texture" (p. 84).
but a sensualist-empirical one that probesTo construct his proposed alternative,
the very conditions of representation. which, among other things, promises "a
Quotations from the writings of Berkeley,more rigorous syntactic analysis" (p. 85),
Condillac, and Herder dealing with the Rumph first turns to another eighteenth
sense of touch provide the backdrop to thecentury writer, Vico, for an account of
author's analysis of three passages from"rhetoric, invention and topics" (p. 90). He
Don Giovanni: the aria "Vedrai carino," the finds a "cognitive orientation" (p. 91) that
aforementioned duet "Là ci darem la aligns Vico with the empiricists. We need to
mano," and the act 2 banquet scene. These to the "physical proper
attend, therefore,
ties of the musical
readings typically stage a confrontation be sign" (p. 94). Meter and
tween mediated and unmediated hearings,
texture in particular demand our attention,
the former gesturing towards thewhilesymbolic
concepts like markedness and neu
tralization
realm, the latter drawing on natural signs.help to delineate the work of
Rumph's main music-descriptive tool,concludes that "any inter
topics. Rumph
the idea of topic, takes center stageguided
pretation in by traditional rhetoric,
which
chapter 3, "Topics in Context." Fewtreats
would topics as a codified lexicon,
disagree that "Ratner's concept
will[of
misstopic]
the deepest part of Mozart's art"
has proved one of the most (p.fruitful
106). Whileapthis seems unexception
proaches to musical semantics" and
able, the there
"deepest part" is not conveyed as a
well-defined
fore that it "belongs at the heart of any quality
dis accessible by means of
cussion of Mozart and semiotics" (p. analytical
a replicable 79). strategy.
Allanbrook's writings on Mozart's operas
Chapter 4, "Mozart and Marxism," is an
exercise in
and instrumental music have proved musical aesthetics. Citing cri
exem
plary in this respect (see, for example,
tiques of Susan McClary's decoding of an
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276 Notes, December 2012
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Book Reviews 277
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