# New Musicology



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Just read some interesting theories, where the composer expresses themselves subconsciously in music.

Susan McClary, a proponent, gave some examples, such as the recap in Beethoven’s 9th first movement suggests rape was on his mind. Another is in Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony suggesting he was expressing his homosexuality. 

Anybody do any more research into these kinds of theory?


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## Kevin Pearson (Aug 14, 2009)

I prefer not to investigate into conjecture and wild speculations that really do a disservice to the music itself, in my opinion.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

"The point of recapitulation in the first movement of the Ninth is one of the most horrifying moments in music, as the carefully prepared cadence is frustrated, damming up energy which finally explodes in the throttling murderous rage of a rapist incapable of attaining release."

More research is required. I'm open to generous grants.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Well, Beethoven was a white male, and therefore by definition utterly evil, and obsessed with sex and rape. Almost like a post-modernist philosopher. :devil:


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Not even worth researching.


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## Guest (Mar 26, 2018)

Phil loves classical said:


> Just read some interesting theories, where the composer expresses themselves subconsciously in music.
> 
> Susan McClary, a proponent, gave some examples, such as the recap in Beethoven's 9th first movement suggests rape was on his mind. Another is in Schubert's Unfinished Symphony suggesting he was expressing his homosexuality.
> 
> Anybody do any more research into these kinds of theory?


This thesis really is risible and is quite a few years old by now. It's part of the effete, postmodern, anything goes school of revisionism which has nothing to do with music and everything to do with feminist ideology. Yawn.


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## Genoveva (Nov 9, 2010)

Speculation about what was in the minds of the great composers when they composed their best known works (e.g. Beethoven's Ninth, or Schubert's Unfinished) is of no interest to me.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

If composers need for us to know what they're thinking when they write music they should probably just tell us what they mean and not write the music. Usually, though, they're just thinking about what would sound right. It's really enough to keep the mind occupied.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Phil loves classical said:


> Just read some interesting theories, where the composer expresses themselves subconsciously in music.
> 
> Susan McClary, a proponent, gave some examples, such as the recap in Beethoven's 9th first movement suggests rape was on his mind. Another is in Schubert's Unfinished Symphony suggesting he was expressing his homosexuality.
> 
> Anybody do any more research into these kinds of theory?


This sounds incredibly bizarre. Cannot conceive of anything in the said pieces that is remotely suggestive of such.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Phil loves classical said:


> Just read some interesting theories, where the composer expresses themselves subconsciously in music.


Interestingly, whatever one thinks of interpretations of particular works, Schönberg was in favor of what he called "the elimination of the conscious will in art" and insisted that art belongs to the unconscious. One can only express himself directly, he wrote to Kandinsky, by expressing the unconscious, not one's taste, one's upbringing, or one's intelligence, knowledge or skill. Only the unconscious, he told Kandinsky, held what was inborn and instinctive and truly creative, "bringing forth the prototypes which are imitated by unoriginal people and become formulas." Only by creating in this way, i.e. by recognizing the instinctive, inborn truth about ourselves as revealed by the unconscious, can one successfully complete, according to Schönberg, "the true task of humanity in every intellectual or artistic field: to recognize this truth and to express what one has recognized."


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

<<Susan McClary, a proponent, gave some examples, such as the recap in Beethoven's 9th first movement ...>>

This says more about McClary than Beethoven. The recapitulation is a final part of sonata format and, thus, is part of the formula the composer used to compose this symphony. For anyone to claim that Beethoven's 9th symphony, of all the works one could choose to discuss, is about subliminal rape is so absurd as to defy description.

What has in fact happened to classical music is composers have largely abandoned what worked in the past and they have gone their own directions. In other words, instead of writing music for audiences, they write it for themselves. If others happen to like it, fine. But, in most cases in the past 40 years, people haven't liked it.

So, in light of the sad and declining state of classical music, it is hardly a surprise that some musicologist comes along with her own nitwit theories about music and tries to apply them to composers of the past.


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

Phil loves classical said:


> Just read some interesting theories, where the composer expresses themselves subconsciously in music.
> 
> Susan McClary, a proponent, gave some examples, such as the recap in Beethoven's 9th first movement suggests rape was on his mind. Another is in Schubert's Unfinished Symphony suggesting he was expressing his homosexuality.
> 
> Anybody do any more research into these kinds of theory?


what a load of crap. Some academic with and agenda goes after white males that are cultural icons. What a shocker.

and what else? Bach was a transvestite that wore men's clothing as a disguise, right?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Actually the idea has been seriously put forward that Mrs. Bach (can't remember which one) wrote the solo cello sonatas. Wiser heads prevailed on that one.

Oh yes. And remember, Mrs. Einstein formulated the special theory of relativity...


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Actually the idea has been seriously put forward that Mrs. Bach (can't remember which one) wrote the solo cello sonatas. Wiser heads prevailed on that one.
> 
> Oh yes. And remember, Mrs. Einstein formulated the special theory of relativity...


Are you sure? I've never heard anyone seriously argue that Mrs Bach composed the Cello suites, apart from in the sense thay she wrote them down, and maybe added some phrasing.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I know little about McClary's works and personally don't believe music expresses much of anything specific, but just to temper the criticism a bit, here are a few details from Wikipedia.

McClary originally wrote:



> The point of recapitulation in the first movement of the Ninth is one of the most horrifying moments in music, as the carefully prepared cadence is frustrated, damming up energy which finally explodes in the throttling murderous rage of a rapist incapable of attaining release.


She rephrased that to:



> [T]he point of recapitulation in the first movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony unleashes one of the most horrifyingly violent episodes in the history of music. The problem Beethoven has constructed for this movement is that it seems to begin before the subject of the symphony has managed to achieve its identity. ...The Ninth Symphony is probably our most compelling articulation in music of the contradictory impulses that have organized patriarchal culture since the Enlightenment.


Charles Rosen criticizes her a bit less severely admitting that sexual metaphors can apply to music:



> The phrase about the murderous rage of the rapist has since been withdrawn..., which indicates that McClary realized it posed a problem, but it has the great merit of recognizing that something extraordinary is taking place here, and McClary's metaphor of sexual violence is not a bad way to describe it. The difficulty is that all metaphors oversimplify, like those entertaining little stories that music critics in the nineteenth century used to invent about works of music for an audience whose musical literacy was not too well developed. I do not, myself, find the cadence frustrated or dammed up in any constricting sense, but only given a slightly deviant movement which briefly postpones total fulfillment.


I've seen many analyses of music where the critic uses what I consider to be completely useless metaphors that give the reader very little understanding of the work. Admittedly, I have not seen a critic using a metaphor remotely as negatively graphic.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

_"The point of recapitulation in the first movement of the Ninth is one of the most horrifying moments in music.."_

What is horrifying is what is going on in this woman's head.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mandryka said:


> Are you sure? I've never heard anyone seriously argue that Mrs Bach composed the Cello suites, apart from in the sense thay she wrote them down, and maybe added some phrasing.


"In 'Written by Mrs Bach,' about to premiere in London and then move to Germany, a professor of music, a composer and an American expert in document forensics advance the case that Anna Magdalena Bach actually composed some of the most notable works attributed to her husband, Johann Sebastian Bach."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-composed-by-his-wife/?utm_term=.335ab16f2e81


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## JosefinaHW (Nov 21, 2015)

Nate Miller said:


> what a load of crap. Some academic with *an agenda goes after white males that are cultural icons.* What a shocker.
> 
> and what else? _*Bach was a transvestite that wore men's clothing as a disguise*_, right?


If someone argued that Bach was a transvestite he would immediately become a God and all the people who aren't listening to him, or who trash his music and don't listen to him, or who hope their students won't ever listen to him, would suddenly listen and love his music. Hey, go ahead and spread the news he was a transvestite and transgender!


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

mmsbls said:


> I know little about McClary's works and personally don't believe music expresses much of anything specific, but just to temper the criticism a bit, here are a few details from Wikipedia.


An extensive quote from her revised article is here: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/music/modules/summa3/read5.html

As with so many attention-grabbing soundbites that seem utterly ludicrous, it's worth looking further to see what's _actually_ being said. Her general point seems sound to me, though I find the language overblown.

In a recent interview in Van magazine, McClary says this:
"I don't think any of my interpretations are _the _interpretations. If more people were involved in this kind of work and were able to have debates, we'd have more perspectives. Just like we can go into _Hamlet _and talk about how it deals with the proper succession of kings; how it has to do with gender; how it has to do with metaphysics. All of these things we can talk about, and thousands of people have written about them. The same is true for music: for example, what kind of temporality is being presented? What kinds of tension and release? These are cultural issues. That line of questioning doesn't reduce the music to a single reading; it opens it up for us to listen more carefully and think about what we're hearing. I may have something to say about "Tristan und Isolde" this week and I might have something different to say about it next week."

But I know many people would rather not think about these things at all. A controversial attack on the patriarchy is a godsend - makes it so much easier to dismiss the entire field!


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

KenOC said:


> "In 'Written by Mrs Bach,' about to premiere in London and then move to Germany, a professor of music, a composer and an American expert in document forensics advance the case that Anna Magdalena Bach actually composed some of the most notable works attributed to her husband, Johann Sebastian Bach."
> 
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-composed-by-his-wife/?utm_term=.335ab16f2e81


 I ask are you sure and the best you can come up with is a fictional character!


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Nereffid said:


> In a recent interview in Van magazine, McClary says this:
> "I don't think any of my interpretations are _the _interpretations. If more people were involved in this kind of work and were able to have debates, we'd have more perspectives. Just like we can go into _Hamlet _and talk about how it deals with the proper succession of kings; how it has to do with gender; how it has to do with metaphysics. All of these things we can talk about, and thousands of people have written about them. The same is true for music: for example, what kind of temporality is being presented? What kinds of tension and release? These are cultural issues. That line of questioning doesn't reduce the music to a single reading; it opens it up for us to listen more carefully and think about what we're hearing. I may have something to say about "Tristan und Isolde" this week and I might have something different to say about it next week."


I'd like to know more in a way. The difference between Hamlet and a Schubert symphony is that the former is made of propositions.

I was reading today Bjorn Schmelzer's essay on Cipriano de Rore -- anyone interested in this like of thinking would find the essay stimulating I think.


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

AHA! So this is musicology!


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I'm surprised you took to this notion Phil, it doesn't seem like something you'd go for. Perhaps you just wanted to start up a discussion.


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## laurie (Jan 12, 2017)

JosefinaHW said:


> If someone argued that Bach was a transvestite he would immediately become a God and all the people who aren't listening to him, or who trash his music and don't listen to him, or who hope their students won't ever listen to him, would suddenly listen and love his music. Hey, go ahead and spread the news he was a transvestite and transgender!


 ........... ..................


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

She destroys the notion that absolute music exists and brings the mind and the intellect and the context into everything. Such considerations don’t always apply, such as with many of the works that Stravinsky wrote. While there may be moments of shock or violence in Beethoven’s 9th, it’s simply impossible for anyone to know exactly what was passing through Beethoven’s mind as he was writing and feeling it. What she calls violence in Beethoven’s 9th is what I call the composer simply getting the attention of the listener for his message of the Brotherhood of Man that’s to come—he’s declaring a state of alarm for humanity—and yet she drags Beethoven’s universal message down to the ground into the darkly personal with her own speculative and unprovable psychological projections. 

I find her assumptions highly questionable and a huge psychological projection and ‘rape’ of the composer’s character. She doesn’t understand the implications of that word, and anyone can see how easy it is to use. That kind of analysis is not needed in music. It’s unhealthy and divisive between the sexes. She burdens the performers with this load of psychological baggage and superimposes a script over the music that can get in the way of its performance. It can be burdensome to think and play at the same time. Music’s gift is that it can transcend the mind, though sometimes an understanding of the context can be helpful to understand the composer or the music—if not taken to ridiculous extremes.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Musicologist Leo Treitler argues that McClary's writing on Beethoven is not serious musicology, but all politics. See:

Treitler, Leo. "Gender and Other Dualities of Music History." In _Musicology and Difference_, ed. Ruth A. Solie. Berkeley: University of California Press (1993): 23-45.

I wrote a comprehensive refutation of McClary's theories on music and sexual politics, and read a version of the essay at a meeting of the New England Chapter of the American Musicological Society. There was a response and debate following the reading. Unlike most of my other work, however, this essay proved impossible to get published. I tried five different journals and was rejected without a single claim that I made errors of interpretation, logic or fact. On the off chance anyone is interested  here is a link to a version online:

www.gregorykarl.com/pages/research.html#McClary_Tchaikovsky

Clicking on footnote numbers links one to the note, "back" buttons at the end of each footnote lead back to ones place in the text.


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## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

I don't really know what's going on in minds of those feminists... they see rape in everything. And lose so much energy on such ******** instead of focusing their mind on improving conditions of women in areas and contexts where it's still needed.

And yes, I love the concept of "absolute music"...
For most of the music that I listen to I couldn't care less about its meaning. For me it's just music.


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

KenOC said:


> "In 'Written by Mrs Bach,' about to premiere in London and then move to Germany, a professor of music, a composer and an American expert in document forensics advance the case that Anna Magdalena Bach actually composed some of the most notable works attributed to her husband, Johann Sebastian Bach."
> 
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-composed-by-his-wife/?utm_term=.335ab16f2e81


not for nothing, but the cello suites weren't very well known until Pablo Casals performed them. Until the 20th century, they were considered exercises by the few who even knew of them

so maybe she did write them and that's why they weren't widely known or played for 200 years?


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

ZJovicic said:


> I don't really know what's going on in minds of those feminists... they see rape in everything. And lose so much energy on such ******** instead of focusing their mind on improving conditions of women in areas and contexts where it's still needed.
> 
> And yes, I love the concept of "absolute music"...
> For most of the music that I listen to I couldn't care less about its meaning. For me it's just music.


I don't think this is fair. From what I've seen, McClary's excesses are not indicative of a general problem. Most feminist musicology is focused on under studied repertoires, perspectives and questions well worth exploring, just the sort of things that would fit in your "still needed" category.

It should also be noted that the definitive version of McClary's essay on Beethoven's Ninth, in _Feminine Endings_, deleted the bit about rape. It was only an early version in an obscure outlet that included it.


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

So... the secret message of these great works is rape and homosexuality...?

As someone who had the misfortune to attend higher education in the 21st century, it still pains me that this discussion has spawned a topic even on something as disposable as talkclassical.com. <The secret message of this post is a scatalogical obsession>


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## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

EdwardBast said:


> I don't think this is fair. From what I've seen, McClary's excesses are not indicative of a general problem. Most feminist musicology is focused on under studied repertoires, perspectives and questions well worth exploring, just the sort of things that would fit in your "still needed" category.
> 
> It should also be noted that the definitive version of McClary's essay on Beethoven's Ninth, in _Feminine Endings_, deleted the bit about rape. It was only an early version in an obscure outlet that included it.


OK, perhaps I overreacted because I hold Beethoven and his Ninth especially very dear and after reading McClary's comments it's impossible to unlearn them. And she didn't attack just the Ninth symphony but also entire sonata form.

Regarding exploring less well known repertoires, I am always for that, and for exploration of female composers as well. I recently had some great discoveries, such as Louise Farrenc and Dora Pejačević.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I'm surprised you took to this notion Phil, it doesn't seem like something you'd go for. Perhaps you just wanted to start up a discussion.


 I've heard in music, as in some other Art, there is a balance of Yin and Yang. I've heard Mozart is Yin and Beethoven is more Yang. So in more hell for leather aggressive moments in Beethoven (or any other composer), then the extreme Yang could inspire some fancy imagery to rape (agression, no consent). But I've also read somewhere this is McClary's idea more than Beethoven's. Sort of like you are what you hear, rather than he is what you hear him as.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

I'd be curious if she's written analyses of Benjamin Britten's music.


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## Boston Charlie (Dec 6, 2017)

Phil loves classical said:


> Just read some interesting theories, where the composer expresses themselves subconsciously in music.
> 
> Susan McClary, a proponent, gave some examples, such as the recap in Beethoven's 9th first movement suggests rape was on his mind. Another is in Schubert's Unfinished Symphony suggesting he was expressing his homosexuality.
> 
> Anybody do any more research into these kinds of theory?


Sounds like BS to me.

I don't know Susan McClary, but I know that a lot of psychobabble was bandied about during the 1940s through the 1980s where under the influence of Freudian and Neo-Freudian thought, all sorts of unconscious motives of a violent or sexual nature were said to lurk behind the every form of expression.

I have a vintage piece from the era by a chess grandmaster and psychoanalyst, Rueben Fine, called "Psychology of the Chess Player" (along with classical music, chess is my other passion in life). In the book, Fine claims that certain chess grandmasters have a mother fixation because the queen is the most powerful and valued piece, while hatred and desire to kill the father is represented by the object of checkmate where one "kills" the king.

Apart from "Psychology of the Chess Player", Fine wrote a lot of other books on the strategic elements of chess that remain useful for amateur players today who'd like to improve their game.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

EdwardBast said:


> Musicologist Leo Treitler argues that McClary's writing on Beethoven is not serious musicology, but all politics. See:
> 
> Treitler, Leo. "Gender and Other Dualities of Music History." In _Musicology and Difference_, ed. Ruth A. Solie. Berkeley: University of California Press (1993): 23-45.
> 
> ...


Read some of your essay. Isn't Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony Programmatic rather than absolute? He gave some bit of a program, even though it is modelled after Beethoven's 5th?


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Blancrocher said:


> I'd be curious if she's written analyses of Benjamin Britten's music.


No doubt it's all about raping choir boys.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

larold said:


> ...The recapitulation is a final part of sonata format and, thus, is part of the formula the composer used to compose this symphony...


Hmmm - I'm not necessarily convinced that Beethoven limited himself to an imposing formula - rather, that sonata form is a natural form that music often takes - exposition, development and recapitulation.

Also, sonata form has been linked with the Hegelian dialectic so the model may be said to be foundational.


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## Guest (Mar 27, 2018)

KenOC said:


> "The point of recapitulation in the first movement of the Ninth is one of the most horrifying moments in music, as the carefully prepared cadence is frustrated, damming up energy which finally explodes in the throttling murderous rage of a rapist incapable of attaining release."


This was revised by McClary to something less startling:



> '[...] [T]he point of recapitulation in the first movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony unleashes one of the most horrifyingly violent episodes in the history of music. The problem Beethoven has constructed for this movement is that it seems to begin before the subject of the symphony has managed to achieve its identity.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_McClary


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Phil loves classical said:


> Read some of your essay. Isn't Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony Programmatic rather than absolute? He gave some bit of a program, even though it is modelled after Beethoven's 5th?


If one defines a programmatic work as one intended by its composer to be heard in light of an extramusical story or scenario, then Tchaikovsky's Fourth is not programmatic. What is usually offered as the work's program in concert notes and the like was written for the eyes of Nadezhda von Meck alone, and only because it was composed with her financial support and she specifically requested that he explain its "meaning." So Tchaikovsky did his best and wrote that remarkable little narrative analysis we all know. But Tchaikovsky never intended or expected this private communication to become public, and he certainly didn't intend his after-the-fact explication of the Fourth to be read by listeners in conjunction with a performance.

If one stretches the definition of programmatic to include any work with some undisclosed extramusical inspiration - works with a so-called "hidden program" - then one gets closer to making a case. But we have no good evidence that the symphony was inspired by anything extramusical, since there is no indication that the interpretation Tchaikovsky wrote for von Meck had been in his mind when he composed the work or at any time before he received her request. Moreover, what he wrote about his Fourth seems to be modeled on A.B. Marx's famous interpretation of Beethoven's Fifth (in _Beethoven Leben und Schaffen_, 1859), the one incorporating Schindler's alleged quotation of Beethoven about Fate knocking on the door. So, even by this liberal definition - one I don't accept - it would be a big stretch to call the Fourth programmatic.

Tchaikovsky confused the issue, however, by actually using the word program, in a less famous but equally important letter to Sergei Taneyev. Taneyev suspected an underlying program in the Fourth, probably because of what he considered to be balletic music like the first movement's second theme. In answer, Tchaikovsky said his symphony was just a reflection of Beethoven's Fifth, which he claimed was programmatic, insisting there wasn't the least doubt about what Beethoven's Fifth means. He got pretty defensive, explaining that he didn't want any work to emanate from him that was just an abstract collection of notes and modulations. From this discussion it becomes clear that what Tchaikovsky meant by the word program is something like what modern musical narrative theorists mean when they postulate a narrative design in a work of absolute music, that is, some kind of coherent abstract psychological-dramatic content underlying its overall structure. Given that the word program as used by Tchaikovsky applies to works universally accepted as absolute, like Beethoven's Fifth, I see no reason to think that his applying it to his Fourth makes that symphony any more programmatic than its model.

Is Tchaikovsky's Fourth absolute music? That is an even messier debate I won't get into. But for the purposes of McClary's essay and my response, it is.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

JosefinaHW said:


> If someone argued that Bach was a transvestite he would immediately become a God and all the people who aren't listening to him, or who trash his music and don't listen to him, or who hope their students won't ever listen to him, would suddenly listen and love his music. Hey, go ahead and spread the news he was a transvestite and transgender!


This is why I've always wanted to enjoy the pampered, privileged existence of a transgender person. What it must be like to be so universally loved and admired!


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Boston Charlie said:


> Sounds like BS to me.
> 
> I don't know Susan McClary, but I know that a lot of psychobabble was bandied about during the 1940s through the 1980s where under the influence of Freudian and Neo-Freudian thought, all sorts of unconscious motives of a violent or sexual nature were said to lurk behind the every form of expression.
> 
> ...


Sounds like BS to me too. But, for the record, McClary makes no claim that the misogynistic content she hears in works of absolute music is held by their composers, consciously or subconsciously. She engages in no psycho-babble whatever. She has her own special brand of babble, to wit: She believes misogyny is inherent in sonata form and that it derives from notions of masculinity and femininity as constructed on the operatic stage, the morphology of folk tales and myths, and descriptions of sonata form in didactic writing of A. B. Marx. She apparently believes that composers, by the very act of composing in sonata form, produce misogynistic works even if they have never had a misogynistic thought in their lives, conscious or unconscious.


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

> She believes misogyny is inherent in sonata form


:lol:

sorry, that just sounds so ridiculous I couldn't stop laughing

Personally, I think she is just trying to get published by overlaying musicology with identity politics.


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## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

Phil loves classical said:


> I've heard in music, as in some other Art, there is a balance of Yin and Yang. I've heard Mozart is Yin and Beethoven is more Yang. So in more hell for leather aggressive moments in Beethoven (or any other composer), then the extreme Yang could inspire some fancy imagery to rape (agression, no consent). But I've also read somewhere this is McClary's idea more than Beethoven's. Sort of like you are what you hear, rather than he is what you hear him as.


WTF? Do you actually believe this?


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

I just listened to the first movement of the 9th again so I could hear this for myself....and that lady has one more screw loose than I thought

Now just for the mentioning....the idea of an organic whole was really fully in place by the time he wrote the 9th. What I heard was a finale that left the door cracked for the next movement. I don't think it was a "frustrated" ending at all, he just let it play out over some time. That's not being a rapist, that's being an artist

and let's not forget what the theme for the 4th movement of this symphony is

and as someone has already said, what good does her work do anyone trying to perform this symphony other than add a lot of baggage that doesn't belong there in the first place?


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Anyone who's actually interested in what McClary has to say might also be interested to read Robert Fink's _Beethoven Antihero_ (Google it), which looks at earlier commenters' approaches to Beethoven, saying:
"Once aware of its parallels in tone, impression, and even imagery with an entire line of sublimating male critics, it is much harder to dismiss her narrative of desire, frustration, and violence as the product of a hysterical (not historical) imagination. But for a professional musicologist to hear Beethoven as transgressively violent in 1987 was to swim against an overwhelming discursive tide. Beautifying - the use of formalist analysis and the ideology of absolute music to neaten things up, to construct a _cordon sanitaire_ around cherished works of music - has become the default interpretive strategy for canonic music."

He also quotes McClary's "more general critique of formalist analysis":
McClary: "For most of the history of post-Renaissance Western music and in virtually all of its critical literature, the sexual dimensions of its mechanisms have been shamelessly exploited and yet consistently denied... the climax-principle has been transcendentalized to the status of a value-free universal of form".


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

What's the point of musicology anymore? Do we really need any more musicologists? Thousands of books, articles, theses, and other works have been written about anything and everything. Today, there is little music being written that anyone would care about what some musicologist thinks. Are musicologists just failed musicians who couldn't compete with better players? Are they lousy composers who have nothing else to offer? Are some, like this woman, just trying to justify their likely over-paid job?


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

mbhaub said:


> What's the point of musicology anymore? Do we really need any more musicologists? Thousands of books, articles, theses, and other works have been written about anything and everything. Today, there is little music being written that anyone would care about what some musicologist thinks. Are musicologists just failed musicians who couldn't compete with better players? Are they lousy composers who have nothing else to offer? Are some, like this woman, just trying to justify their likely over-paid job?


Shorter form: STOP THINKING ABOUT STUFF!!!


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Nereffid said:


> Anyone who's actually interested in what McClary has to say might also be interested to read Robert Fink's _Beethoven Antihero_ (Google it), which looks at earlier commenters' approaches to Beethoven, saying:
> "Once aware of its parallels in tone, impression, and even imagery with an entire line of sublimating male critics, it is much harder to dismiss her narrative of desire, frustration, and violence as the product of a hysterical (not historical) imagination. But for a professional musicologist to hear Beethoven as transgressively violent in 1987 was to swim against an overwhelming discursive tide. *Beautifying - the use of formalist analysis and the ideology of absolute music to neaten things up, to construct a cordon sanitaire around cherished works of music - has become the default interpretive strategy for canonic music.*"
> 
> He also quotes McClary's "more general critique of formalist analysis":
> McClary: "For most of the history of post-Renaissance Western music and in virtually all of its critical literature, the sexual dimensions of its mechanisms have been shamelessly exploited and yet consistently denied... the climax-principle has been transcendentalized to the status of a value-free universal of form".


By the time McClary and "The New Musicology" came on the scene, the old approaches to Beethoven and formalist analysis were already under assault by theorists and musicologists far better equipped and informed than McClary. Anthony Newcomb, Leo Treitler, Edward T. Cone, Janet Levy, Philip Downs, Ruth Solie, Robert Hatten, Joseph Kerman, James Webster, William Kindermann, Fred Maus and numerous others did the serious work in this area. McClary then appeared with her little flag for the New Musicology and jumped out in front of the parade. Those who had been paying little attention mistakenly assumed she had something to do with starting and leading the movement. Most of her major essays are philosophically, analytically and logically inept. Some are laughable.

Oh: "anyone who's actually interested in what McClary has to say" should read McClary. Start with _Feminine Endings_.

Also:
"Narrative Agendas in 'Absolute' Music: Identity and Difference in Brahms's Third Symphony." In Musicology and Difference, ed. Ruth A. Solie. Berkeley: University of California Press (1993): 326-48.

And if you want a truly silly take on Bach, try:
"The Blasphemy of Talking Politics in Bach year," in Music and Society, ed. Richard Leppert and Susan McClary, Cambridge UP (1987).

There is much, much more out there.


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## Kevin Pearson (Aug 14, 2009)

EdwardBast said:


> Sounds like BS to me too. But, for the record, McClary makes no claim that the misogynistic content she hears in works of absolute music is held by their composers, consciously or subconsciously. She engages in no psycho-babble whatever. She has her own special brand of babble, to wit: She believes misogyny is inherent in sonata form and that it derives from notions of masculinity and femininity as constructed on the operatic stage, the morphology of folk tales and myths, and descriptions of sonata form in didactic writing of A. B. Marx. She apparently believes that composers, by the very act of composing in sonata form, produce misogynistic works even if they have never had a misogynistic thought in their lives, conscious or unconscious.


Does that hold true for women composers too?


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

Kevin Pearson said:


> Does that hold true for women composers too?


this isn't about "women musicologists"

it is about THIS particular woman


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## Kevin Pearson (Aug 14, 2009)

But if misogyny is inherent sonata form then what about women who compose in sonata form? Are they misogynists as well?


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Nate Miller said:


> :lol:
> 
> sorry, that just sounds so ridiculous I couldn't stop laughing
> 
> Personally, I think she is just trying to get published by overlaying musicology with identity politics.


Well, yeah. It's an asinine theory, which is why I wrote my essay refuting it.



Kevin Pearson said:


> But if misogyny is inherent sonata form then what about women who compose in sonata form? Are they misogynists as well?


No, their music would be governed by a misogynistic master narrative, with no conclusions drawn about the beliefs or attitudes of the composers.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> Well, yeah. It's an asinine theory, which is why I wrote my essay refuting it.
> 
> .


What has she said about your essay? I assume you've shared your ideas with her. And the journals which refused to publish it, what did they say?

(I should say that I haven't had a chance to read your work yet, nor have I read Susan McClary, though I find the area interesting enough.)


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## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

I really don't know what is the point of such analysis. Even if there can be made some connection between music and sexuality, even of the violent variety, it doesn't discredit such music in any way, it doesn't make it bad, or wrong. Art shouldn't be censored. Art can explore all the topics. Music is a form of art, and while I am not big into Freudian stuff and think that it's largely unscientific, if we accept his theory, inappropriate impulses, including sexual impulses, can be sublimated into great achievements, works of art etc... and it's the healthiest and most mature of all defense mechanisms. It's OK for art to explore sexuality, violence, whatever. It's not OK to actually commit rape, or to promote it. Beethoven definitely does not promote rape with his music.

Subjecting works of music (without lyrics) to such type of analysis is problematic IMO. There are countless shades of human emotion and music can express them all. Reducing it just to sexuality is a huge oversimplification of things. Why couldn't be Beethoven frustrated by countless other things? Maybe his deafness? Maybe the fact that there are so many obstacles to the universal brotherhood and peace? Maybe countless other things. People are not exclusively sexual creatures.


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## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

If anything, I find Beethoven's Ninth cathartic. It's indeed filled with emotion, and listening to the whole work (as it's intended) provides huge emotional discharge and fulfillment. Which should, in theory, make listeners less likely to be violent, sexually or otherwise.


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## Razumovskymas (Sep 20, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> If composers need for us to know what they're thinking when they write music they should probably just tell us what they mean and not write the music. *Usually, though, they're just thinking about what would sound right*. It's really enough to keep the mind occupied.


Really, that's it? They just think about what sounds right?

I always thought they think about the unthinkable and the things that are not expressible with words and therefore they use music? The only true art form to express the true essence of the universe.

But maybe I'm overcomplicating things.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Nereffid said:


> Anyone who's actually interested in what McClary has to say might also be interested to read Robert Fink's _Beethoven Antihero_ (Google it), which looks at earlier commenters' approaches to Beethoven, saying:
> "Once aware of its parallels in tone, impression, and even imagery with an entire line of sublimating male critics, it is much harder to dismiss her narrative of desire, frustration, and violence as the product of a hysterical (not historical) imagination. But for a professional musicologist to hear Beethoven as transgressively violent in 1987 was to swim against an overwhelming discursive tide. Beautifying - the use of formalist analysis and the ideology of absolute music to neaten things up, to construct a _cordon sanitaire_ around cherished works of music - has become the default interpretive strategy for canonic music."
> 
> He also quotes McClary's "more general critique of formalist analysis":
> McClary: "For most of the history of post-Renaissance Western music and in virtually all of its critical literature, the sexual dimensions of its mechanisms have been shamelessly exploited and yet consistently denied... the climax-principle has been transcendentalized to the status of a value-free universal of form".


Really difficult to know what is being said here.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

McClary: "For most of the history of post-Renaissance Western music and in virtually all of its critical literature, the sexual dimensions of its mechanisms have been shamelessly exploited and yet consistently denied... the climax-principle has been transcendentalized to the status of a value-free universal of form".

the sexual dimensions of its mechanisms?
the climax-principle has been transcendentalized to the status of a value-free universal of form?

Any one?


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## Guest (Mar 27, 2018)

Blancrocher said:


> I'd be curious if she's written analyses of Benjamin Britten's music.


Or Prokofiev!! At 1'10"


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

ZJovicic said:


> If anything, I find Beethoven's Ninth cathartic. It's indeed filled with emotion, and listening to the whole work (as it's intended) provides huge emotional discharge and fulfillment. Which should, in theory, make listeners less likely to be violent, sexually or otherwise.


McClary aside, I do think it's legitimate to reflect on the social and psychological implications of music that "provides huge emotional discharge and fulfillment." No doubt such inquiries will stir controversy and take some questionable paths. But that's not exclusive to musicology, "new" or otherwise.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> What has she said about your essay? I assume you've shared your ideas with her. And the journals which refused to publish it, what did they say?
> 
> (I should say that I haven't had a chance to read your work yet, nor have I read Susan McClary, though I find the area interesting enough.)


I doubt she ever read it. I'm not sure whether she keeps up on articles in musical narrative theory, but I did take a jab at her theories in an article I published in Music Theory Spectrum. The respondent to the paper I read at MIT, the person with whom I debated her theories on sexual politics in classical music, was one of her former students(?) or disciples(?).

The first one suggested I make changes and resubmit. I did and they rejected it. None of the other rejections said anything substantive about the essay. The last editor to reject it said it was unseemly that I was trying to make a name by attacking a leading figure in musicology, which seemed an odd comment.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

janxharris said:


> McClary: "For most of the history of post-Renaissance Western music and in virtually all of its critical literature, the sexual dimensions of its mechanisms have been shamelessly exploited and yet consistently denied... the climax-principle has been transcendentalized to the status of a value-free universal of form".
> 
> the sexual dimensions of its mechanisms?
> the climax-principle has been transcendentalized to the status of a value-free universal of form?
> ...


Let me translate :

McClary believes that sonata form, especially as heard in 19thc epic or heroic works (Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, etc.) is governed by a misogynistic master narrative in which a masculine first theme in the tonic is challenged by a feminine second theme in another key. Throughout the movement the male theme seeks to subjugate the female theme, which goal it finally accomplishes at the end when the second theme is recapitulated in the tonic key, the masculine theme's domain. In the development the masculine theme rages and quests for release, which it finally gets in a big climax, usually right before the masculine theme enters to begin the recapitulation. All of the sexual innuendo on her part is intentional, including the selfish male who only cares about his own climax … 

By "transcendentalized to the status of a value-free universal of form" she means that male critics and composers have for centuries pretended that the questing and striving one hears in these heroic or epic works is about achieving transcendental spiritual goals, personal struggles against Fate, and so on, whereas it is really just about sex and subjugating the feminine.

For anyone interested in McClary's take on sonata form, expressed as neutrally as she ever does, here it is, from "Sexual Politics in Classical Music," an essay in her book, _Feminine Endings_:

"Most opening movements in nineteenth-century symphonies are organized according to a schema called sonata-allegro procedure. Central to this procedure is a confrontation between two key areas, usually articulated by two distinctly different themes. The first theme establishes the tonic key and sets the affective tone of the movement: it is in essence the protagonist of the movement, and it used to be referred to quite commonly as the "masculine" theme. Indeed, its character is usually somewhat aggressive; it is frequently described as having "thrust" and it is often concerned with closure. Midway through the exposition of the movement, it encounters another theme, the so-called feminine theme, usually a more lyrical tune that presents a new key, incompatible with the first. Given that a tonal, sonata-based movement is concerned with matters of maintaining identity, both thematic and tonal, the second area poses a threat to the opening materials. Yet this antagonism is essential to the furthering of the plot, for within this model of identity construction and preservation, the self cannot truly be a self unless it acts; it must leave the cozy nest of the tonic, risk this confrontation, and finally triumph over its Other. The middle segment of the piece, the development, presents the various thematic materials of the exposition in a whole range of combinations and keys. Finally, at the recapitulation, the piece returns to establish both the original tonic key and the original theme. The materials of the exposition are now repeated, with this difference: the secondary theme must now conform to the protagonist's tonic key area. It is absorbed, its threat to the opening key's identity neutralized."


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

beetzart said:


> WTF? Do you actually believe this?


Sorry, I guess my post wasn't clear. The Yin Yang duality has nothing to do with McClary, but is something that may have affected her thinking though. I believe in that dualtiy, but not anything McClary is trying to sell.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

FWIW, I think McClary's analysis of sonata form isn't wide of the mark, especially for works where the return of the main subject in the recap is very dramatic -- as in Beethoven's 9th and a lot of other, but by no means all, works. If anybody knows of a woman-composed sonata-form work where the subsidiary theme is so obviously subjugated by the main theme in the recap, I'd like to hear about it.

I'm by no means complaining, merely remembering my Nietzsche: "Goest thou to woman? Forget not thy whip."


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## Kevin Pearson (Aug 14, 2009)

KenOC said:


> I'm by no means complaining, merely remembering my Nietzsche: "Goest thou to woman? Forget not thy whip."


Is that a self-flagellating whip?


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## Guest (Mar 28, 2018)

EdwardBast said:


> For anyone interested in McClary's take on sonata form, expressed as neutrally as she ever does, here it is, from "Sexual Politics in Classical Music," an essay in her book, _Feminine Endings_:
> 
> "[...] The first theme establishes the tonic key and sets the affective tone of the movement: it is in essence the protagonist of the movement, and it used to be referred to quite commonly as the "masculine" theme. [...]"


Is it true that it used to be referred to 'commonly' as the 'masculine' theme - and by whom? Concert goers? Musicologists? Beethoven?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

MacLeod said:


> Is it true that it used to be referred to 'commonly' as the 'masculine' theme - and by whom? Concert goers? Musicologists? Beethoven?


Music has been recognized to represent gender for a long time. From a 1799 review of Beethoven's Op. 10 Piano Sonatas: "As already indicated, this tenth collection appears worthy of much praise. There is good invention and a serious, manly style."


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

EdwardBast said:


> Let me translate :
> 
> McClary believes that sonata form, especially as heard in 19thc epic or heroic works (Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, etc.) is governed by a misogynistic master narrative in which a masculine first theme in the tonic is challenged by a feminine second theme in another key. Throughout the movement the male theme seeks to subjugate the female theme, which goal it finally accomplishes at the end when the second theme is recapitulated in the tonic key, the masculine theme's domain. In the development the masculine theme rages and quests for release, which it finally gets in a big climax, usually right before the masculine theme enters to begin the recapitulation. All of the sexual innuendo on her part is intentional, including the selfish male who only cares about his own climax …
> 
> ...


Thank you.

I guess I inferred as much. Perhaps I was just a little irritated by the word 'mechanisms' and the phrase 'value-free universal of form' which, in her defence, may have been defined contextually.

I think its a shame to see such cynicism in music critics, though I do accept that we all are somewhat ignoble.

For me, and seemingly for most of those posting here, the 9th symphony of Beethoven has nothing about it that is redolent of anything sexual; especially if we compare it to, for example, Wagner's Tristan prelude, which obviously is. If this critic's argument is one of sublimation, then it just remains an extrapolation and a very cynical one.


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## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

Phil loves classical said:


> Sorry, I guess my post wasn't clear. The Yin Yang duality has nothing to do with McClary, but is something that may have affected her thinking though. I believe in that dualtiy, but not anything McClary is trying to sell.


Excuse my stupefying ignorance but how can Beethoven's music inspire imagery of rape and aggression? That is a pretty vile thing to suggest. But what exactly are you suggesting in this pseudo intellectual imagery? Does listening to Beethoven's music give you those thoughts or images then because it certainly doesn't with me?


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

beetzart said:


> Excuse my stupefying ignorance but how can Beethoven's music inspire imagery of rape and aggression? That is a pretty vile thing to suggest. But what exactly are you suggesting in this pseudo intellectual imagery? Does listening to Beethoven's music give you those thoughts or images then because it certainly doesn't with me?


Beethoven is one of the heavier composers. I know punk/hard rock fans that get into his music more than, say Mozart. The idea of rape never occurred to me before, and sounds pretty graphic for what is actually presented in the music.

An interesting thought just came to me. Is that imagery any less absurd than the idea of music being higher than all wisdom and philosophy?


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> Is it true that it used to be referred to 'commonly' as the 'masculine' theme - and by whom? Concert goers? Musicologists? Beethoven?


McClary traces this idea to a passage from A. B. Marx's _Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition_ (1845):

_The second theme, on the other hand, serves as contrast to the first, energetic statement, though dependent on and determined by it. It is of a more tender nature, flexibly rather than emphatically constructed-in a way, the feminine as opposed to the preceding masculine._

She claims this passage illustrates a practice of "designating" the contrasting themes of textbook sonata form as masculine and feminine respectively. In fact, Marx was just using a convenient analogy to make a point in a didactic work. He wasn't suggesting anyone actually call the contrasting themes masculine or feminine. McClary offers no evidence that this was a general practice. I'm sure people did occasionally repeat Marx's analogy - he was an influential writer and critic, after all - but extraordinary claims require … well, some evidence anyway. 

So, to answer your question: McClary doesn't say who, other than Marx in this passage, used this gender-specific language, nor does she offer any evidence that it was a common practice. This is McClary's modus operandi: expecting readers to swallow big claims on little to no evidence.


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## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

Phil loves classical said:


> Beethoven is one of the heavier composers. I know punk/hard rock fans that get into his music more than, say Mozart. The idea of rape never occurred to me before, and sounds pretty graphic for what is actually presented in the music.
> 
> An interesting thought just came to me. Is that imagery any less absurd than the idea of music being higher than all wisdom and philosophy?


It is more absurd then what Beethoven said. You do realise Beethoven could compose music that wasn't necessarily loud? Listen to his Spring Violin Sonata No 5, and explain how that could cause people to imagine rape. Or a better example the Cavatina. That is one of the most serene and beautiful pieces ever written and it really transcends everything but that is subjective of course, but Beethoven was a man of many talents.

Music is subjective enough as it is without adding more BS to it for no reason or just to shock.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

janxharris said:


> For me, and seemingly for most of those posting here, *the 9th symphony of Beethoven has nothing about it that is redolent of anything sexual*; especially if we compare it to, for example, Wagner's Tristan prelude, which obviously is. If this critic's argument is one of sublimation, then it just remains an extrapolation and a very cynical one.


Agreed. And other musicologists, especially feminist ones, have called her on it. Paula Higgens, for example, published an article (in _19th-Century Music_, I believe) on what she called "guerilla musicology," asking repeatedly "Why sex?" and implying that for MClary it is all politics, the same conclusion Leo Treitler came to.


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

beetzart said:


> Excuse my stupefying ignorance but how can Beethoven's music inspire imagery of rape and aggression? That is a pretty vile thing to suggest. But what exactly are you suggesting in this pseudo intellectual imagery? Does listening to Beethoven's music give you those thoughts or images then because it certainly doesn't with me?


you know, in the aesthetic experience, we bring our own life experience to the work of art

clearly, this lady has some serious problems

I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that in life there is more than just sex, gender, and sexuality.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> So, to answer your question: McClary doesn't say who, other than Marx in this passage, used this gender-specific language, nor does she offer any evidence that it was a common practice. This is McClary's modus operandi: expecting readers to swallow big claims on little to no evidence.


Years ago I once read an interesting bit about Mozart's sonatas; unfortunately I cannot at all remember who wrote it. The writer noted that a certain operatic feel permeates a lot of Mozart's music, including his sonatas, and very often, one can almost hear opera characters singing in them. He specifically referred to this one:






He noted that it is not too difficult to imagine you can hear a male voice opening the piece, answered by a soprano. However, it is not that the male voice is the first theme and the soprano the second; both voices get to do the first theme.

These newfangled pseudo-philosophers who see racism and misogyny absolutely everywhere remind me a bit of religious fanatics who see the devil everywhere.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Nate Miller said:


> I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that in life there is more than just sex, gender, and sexuality.


Oh, I hope not!


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Abstract music can suggest almost anything to listeners. I almost always have images that come to me when I listen to music but to date these have not included violent (or any other type of) rape. I doubt, if we are avoiding factual information (historical facts etc), it makes any difference whether the listener is "an expert" or just a listener. The ideas being discussed here seem based on treating music as a sort of Rorschach test and say more about the "scholar" than the music or the composer. It is almost unbelievable that such opinions are taken seriously. But they do have a serious side in that they give people real reason to dismiss concerns about racism, sexism, abuse and so on - all of which are widespread and detrimental.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

beetzart said:


> It is more absurd then what Beethoven said. You do realise Beethoven could compose music that wasn't necessarily loud? Listen to his Spring Violin Sonata No 5, and explain how that could cause people to imagine rape. Or a better example the Cavatina. That is one of the most serene and beautiful pieces ever written and it really transcends everything but that is subjective of course, but Beethoven was a man of many talents.
> 
> Music is subjective enough as it is without adding more BS to it for no reason or just to shock.


A lot of Beethoven's music is in big mood contrasts. That's for sure. BTW, why are you addressing those questions to me? You should be addressing to McClary


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

brianvds said:


> Years ago I once read an interesting bit about Mozart's sonatas; unfortunately I cannot at all remember who wrote it. The writer noted that a certain operatic feel permeates a lot of Mozart's music, including his sonatas, and very often, one can almost hear opera characters singing in them.
> 
> He noted that it is not too difficult to imagine you can hear a male voice opening the piece, answered by a soprano. However, it is not that the male voice is the first theme and the soprano the second; both voices get to do the first theme.


Funny you should mention this. One way McClary justifies gender-typing sonata form themes is by citing the way masculinity and femininity are encoded in operatic music. She says first themes tend to sound like the music used to depict masculine characters, whereas second themes tend to be like that used for female characters. But in practice her methods prove absurd. She claims that the first movement of Tchaikovsky's Fourth actually depicts the characters and relationships in Bizet's _Carmen_! Specifically, the first theme is Jose and the second theme is Carmen. So the putative misogyny of the opera becomes the content of the symphony. Likewise, the first movement of Brahms's Third Symphony cribs Samson and Delilah, the first theme representing Samson and the second, Delilah. This, I believe is idiotic.


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## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

Phil loves classical said:


> A lot of Beethoven's music is in big mood contrasts. That's for sure. BTW, why are you addressing those questions to me? You should be addressing to McClary


Yes, I know Beethoven uses big mood contrasts. I think you are getting muddled now, Phil, because I thought you was all for the yin and yang and Beethoven was Yang etc. This really is quite the strangest musical argument I have ever taken part in.


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## Boston Charlie (Dec 6, 2017)

EdwardBast said:


> Let me translate :
> 
> McClary believes that sonata form, especially as heard in 19thc epic or heroic works (Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, etc.) is governed by a misogynistic master narrative in which a masculine first theme in the tonic is challenged by a feminine second theme in another key. Throughout the movement the male theme seeks to subjugate the female theme, which goal it finally accomplishes at the end when the second theme is recapitulated in the tonic key, the masculine theme's domain. In the development the masculine theme rages and quests for release, which it finally gets in a big climax, usually right before the masculine theme enters to begin the recapitulation. All of the sexual innuendo on her part is intentional, including the selfish male who only cares about his own climax …


Thank you for your summation of McClary's theory. I've had a hard time following this discussion, at times completely mystified by what people are talking about, but now I think I understand.

I've been listening to classical music for over 35 years; have been aware of masculine and feminine themes in symphonic development; never once thought about it as misogynistic. For a moment, though, let's just say that McClary is right that symphonic music is by-and-large "misogynistic". So what, then?

What should it mean to the average classical music listener?


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## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

Regarding the line of thinking in which the first theme is masculine, and eventually subjugates the second, feminine theme, why not think about it in more abstract sense (if you need to think about it at all)...

Why not look at it in Hegelian paradigm: the first theme is the thesis, the second theme is the antithesis, and the recapitulation is the synthesis. And synthesis is not about violence or winning against adversary, but it's about reaching higher and deeper levels of understanding by combining thesis and antithesis.

This can also be understood as being just about personal growth through facing challenges, overcoming them and preserving identity while incorporating newly learned things into your old self. Simply about struggles and growth.

No need to put a gender or sexual dynamics into it, especially not in such a violent and negative way.

If you absolutely _need_ to see gender in it, why couldn't it be just about seduction, dating, etc? Dynamics that leads to establishing a relationship.

I mean, if we listened to her advice, 90% of music would need to be censored, that is anything in which there is any type of confrontation between themes, wherever there is any contrast. So, 90% of music would be censored, and the remaining 10% utterly boring.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

ZJovicic said:


> I mean, if we listened to her advice, 90% of music would need to be censored, that is anything in which there is any type of confrontation between themes, wherever there is any contrast. So, 90% of music would be censored, and the remaining 10% utterly boring.


Has McClary called for censoring classical music? Has anyone?


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## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

She didn't explicitly, but I think something similar would be needed in order to satisfy her.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I think these excerpts of writing that were posted show more of who this woman is psychologically than anything about music. Truly fascinating stuff.

If you view the world with a gender-tinted telescope, that's what you're gonna say. Simple as that.

I genuinely hope that McClary isn't proposing the idea that the genders are mutually exclusive to each biological male and female! All males have a feminine counterpart _within _them, and vice versa with the female. The psychological processes of music don't necessarily depict outside conflict, but _inner,_ and humans have decided to give it a nominal distinction of "masculine" and "feminine" since that what we know experientially. But ZJovicic's post about the Hegelian paradigm is spot-on. Humans, males and females alike, reenact things so much deeper than what we even label them in our language. Although I won't say it's _on purpose_ that various identities reified in our subjective existence also play out similarly in abstract, _perception is built on both experience of the subject, and essence of the object,_ which follow rules beyond out scope. I think that's why the sonata form is so amazing, that it taps into the "metagame" as some call it, a game in which all other games of identity only play a part.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

ZJovicic said:


> She didn't explicitly, but I think something similar would be needed in order to satisfy her.


Well then, that saves us the trouble of asking her.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

beetzart said:


> Yes, I know Beethoven uses big mood contrasts. I think you are getting muddled now, Phil, because I thought you was all for the yin and yang and Beethoven was Yang etc. This really is quite the strangest musical argument I have ever taken part in.


I do believe music is a balance of Yin and Yang, and Beethoven is more Yang than Mozart, in general. McClary's ideas may stem from this balance. That is all I'm saying.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

How can the sonata form be anything but neutral in nature except by virtue of its content? The form is neutral and has no gender; it’s simply a means of organizing musical content but is not the content itself. It has no force, emotion, or power by itself but only when it’s filled by the composer, just like each instrument has no positive or negative emotional force except by virtue of what it plays. To assume otherwise that the sonata form by itself has the inherent destructive power for evil is totally beyond the pale of sanity, reason, and logic. Or is one to assume that the sonata form is violent or anti-feminist by nature when it’s basically the composer using it as a means of creative self-expression that could be related to anything under the sun? 

But I would say that the subject and distortion of it by a certain certain musicologist is another example of the 20th and 21st century preoccupation with the abnormal and evil that started in the age of Freud, Schoenburg, and the unconscious, that has continued to today, and that much of it is a ginormous psychological projection onto the music that is not necessarily in the music itself, such as Beethoven’s 9th, though music is certainly capable of portraying evil and the darker forces of life as a means to expose & exorcise it. But form itself has no content or meaning until it’s filled.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mandryka said:


> I ask are you sure and the best you can come up with is a fictional character!


I have no idea what you're talking about. There is no "fictional character" in my post or in the reference I gave you in answer to your query. If you're interested in the subject beyond making curt and impolite dismissals, there's more on the web, even on Wiki:

"Professor Martin Jarvis of Charles Darwin University School of Music, in Darwin, Australia, speculated in 2006 that Anna Magdalena may have been the composer of several musical pieces attributed to her husband. Jarvis proposes that Anna Magdalena wrote the six Cello Suites and was involved in composing the aria from the Goldberg Variations (BWV 988). Musicologists, critics, and performers, however, pointing to the thinness of evidence of this proposition, and the extant evidence that supports Johann Sebastian Bach's authorship, remain skeptical of the claim."

Steven Isserlis, one of my favorite cellists, is quite direct: "I'm afraid that his theory is pure rubbish. How can anybody take this shoddy material seriously?"


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

amfortas said:


> Has McClary called for censoring classical music? Has anyone?


Plato was quite a fan of musical censorship. An example, from _The Republic_:
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We were saying, when we spoke of the subject-matter, that we had no need of lamentations and strains of sorrow?

True.

And which are the harmonies expressive of sorrow? You are musical and can tell me.

The harmonies which you mean are the mixed or tenor Lydian, and the full-toned or bass Lydian, and such-like.

These then, I said, must be banished; even to women who have a character to maintain they are of no use, and much less to men.

Certainly.

In the next place, drunkenness and softness and indolence are utterly unbecoming the character of our guardians.

Utterly unbecoming?

And which are the soft and convivial harmonies?

The Ionian, he replied, and some of the Lydian which are termed "relaxed".

Well, and are these of any use for warlike men?

Quite the reverse, he replied; and if so the Dorian and the Phrygian are the only ones which you have left.


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

I can’t believe that these new musicologist are so transparently transphobic! Have they been using the proper pronouns? Exactly! So long as they oppress music in this way, by not keeping up with the latest fads, musicians everywhere will be the losers. Can music transition, etc. There are now 72 different gender categories, and they grow daily. We need some newer New Musicologists, frankly!


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## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

Phil loves classical said:


> I do believe music is a balance of Yin and Yang, and Beethoven is more Yang than Mozart, in general. McClary's ideas may stem from this balance. That is all I'm saying.


Fair enough, although I am curious as to why you hear music like this. Isn't it just another subjective, obfuscating layer to add to music? It's hard enough to get my head around it in the first place even after 3 decades.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

beetzart said:


> Fair enough, although I am curious as to why you hear music like this. Isn't it just another subjective, obfuscating layer to add to music? It's hard enough to get my head around it in the first place even after 3 decades.


I don't see it as an added layer in music, but just as something natural to it. It is the same as the Apollian and Dionysian sides. Nietsche also applied it to his music criticism.


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## Barnaby (Jan 10, 2015)

Sorry this is really late but I just found this and was intrigued.

This point about rape seems to have been misconstrued pretty widely here given the lady's subsequent clarifications. 

Anyway, my untutored view is in favour of her interpretation because it reflects this lady’s ideology and worldview so for me it is 100% valid. I believe that experiencing music is a personal thing and when you listen to a piece, it is facilitating a profound communication with your being - your soul if you want. 

Surely we are all doing this all the time and listening to a piece of music frees us to explore the deepest parts of ourselves which are not always available? As we are all different, doing that means we're of course going to differ in our response and interpretation of meaning and, as this is dictated by our ideas and world views, of course we tend to hold onto them ferociously because they are how we identify ourselves and so are precious to us. As Tolle says "to the ego, every argument is a battle to the death". Maybe what makes us get passionate about music is that it reaches the core of our beliefs and worldview and our place within it. 

As to what Beethoven's intentions were, to me that's irrelevant. Once a work is out there - be it music, poetry, a sculpture, or a painting - it's out there and the author's intentions don't mean a thing. It's up to us to respond. I guess musicologists and some academics might take issue but then their identity is at stake here too.


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