Society for Music Theory

Structuralism and Musical Plot

Author(s): Gregory Karl
Source: Music Theory Spectrum, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Spring, 1997), pp. 13-34
Published by: on behalf of the Society for Music Theory
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Structuralism and Musical
Gregory Karl
Over the past few years the relatively new branchof music
criticism which has come to be called musical narratology
has met with what could easily be mistaken for a challenge
to its foundations. In recent writing, Carolyn Abbate, Jean-
JacquesNattiez, and LawrenceKramerhave arguedthat mu-
sic has no narrativecapacityby any accepted definition of the
term. Abbate suggests that the notion of musical narrative
manifests an irresistible, if sometimes misguided, human im-
pulse to rationalize experience in narrative terms, claiming
that "musical works have no ability to narrate in the most
basic literary sense; that is, to posit a narratingsurvivor of
the tale who speaks of it in the past tense."' Nattiez believes
music incapable of the kind of specific extramusicalreference
the term narrativeimplies and consequently, "any description
of [music's]formal structuresin terms of narrativityis nothing
but superfluous metaphor."2 He writes: "When I hear a
march in Mahler's second symphony, I imagine that it's got
something to do with a band of people, but I don't know
which people . . . the responsibility for joining character-
phantoms with action-shadows lies with me, the listener,
since it does not lie within music's semiological capacities to
1Carolyn Abbate, "What the Sorcerer Said," 19th-CenturyMusic 12
(1989): 230.
2Jean-JacquesNattiez, "Can One Speak of Narrativityin Music?"Journal
of the Royal Music Association 115 (1990): 257.
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Plot
join subject and predicate."3Kramer does not question the
existence of a narrative dimension in music, only its cen-
trality, warning that "anyone looking to narratology as a
means of illuminatingmusicalstructureand musicalunity had
better look somewhere else" because "narrativeelements in
music represent, not forces of structure, but forces of mean-
ing."4 Moreover, he is inclined to locate these elements
among the details of the musical foreground, so that even if
narrative descriptions are not superfluous, they are superfi-
cial, addressingthe surface rather than the fundamentalsub-
stance of musical works.5
Though helpful in defininglimits for the notion of musical
narrativity,these argumentsare nonetheless irrelevantto the
narrativists'true concerns because, ironically, no major ad-
vocate of musical narratology actually maintains that music
narratesin any traditionalsense, and none believes that mu-
sical narrativitydepends on the kind of naive extramusical
3Ibid., 244.
4LawrenceKramer, "Musical Narratology: A Theoretical Outline," In-
diana Theory Review 12 (1992): 162 and 161.
5In "Haydn's Chaos, Schenker's Order; or, Hermeneutics and Musical
Analysis: Can They Mix?" (19th-CenturyMusic 15 [1992]: 5), Kramercon-
trasts a musicalanalysisdealing with "faceless deep structures"and a herme-
neutics which must "pay attention to the foreground details of expression,
representation, texture, and narrativeor lyric impetus from which analysis
necessarily abstracts."Thus the narrativeelements of musical works are su-
perficial phenomena far removed from the deep structureswhich comprise
their fundamentalsubstance.
14 MusicTheory Spectrum
reference Nattiez requires of it. After all, the mere fact of
borrowingcritical techniques, analyticaltools, and terminol-
ogy from the field of narratology does not entail a commit-
ment to a narrative view of musical structure. On the other
hand, studies mapping specific extramusical narratives onto
musical works, such as Owen Jander's "Beethoven's 'Or-
pheus in Hades': The Andante con moto of the Fourth Piano
Concerto" are relatively rare in recent criticism.6In short,
musical narrativity has little to do with narrative. From a
survey of the term's current usage one might, in fact, con-
clude that it is merely a misleading placeholder standing for
an elusive sense of teleology in the expressive or dramatic
unfolding of musical works. Nevertheless, I believe it would
be a mistake to dismiss the current debate out of hand be-
cause, as William Kindermanhas suggested, there is more at
issue here than a difference of opinion on the vagaries of
musical teleology.7 Like Kinderman, I believe the contro-
versy is motivated by opposing conceptions of the relation
between musical structureand content, and so manifests ten-
sions with respect to fundamental aesthetic principles. The
position of the radical narrativistsis that structureis not an
aspect of music that can fruitfully be explored in isolation
from content and meaning;that structureand meaning-form
and expression-are indecomposable aspects of musical
works. Fred Everett Maus, for example, questions the very
basis of this dichotomy, writing that "the received notion of
musical 'structure,' as an aspect of music that can be dis-
619th-CenturyMusic 8 (1985): 195-212.
7WilliamKinderman, "NarrativeDesign in Beethoven's Last Sonatas,"
meeting of the American MusicologicalSociety, Pittsburgh, 1992. I refer to
this paper rather than the published version in Beethoven Forum 1 because
in it Kindermanwas able to respond to newly published material by Nattiez
and Kramerthat was not available before the published version had gone to
press.
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tinguished from 'meaning,' [is] vague and obscure."8 In a
similar vein, Anthony Newcomb challenges one of its foun-
dations, the notion that structureand content can be distin-
guished on the basis of their relative primacy or ontological
status. In "Sound and Feeling," an essay on musical expres-
sion which deserves to be better known, he argues persua-
sively that "formal and expressive interpretationare in fact
two complementary ways of understanding the same phe-
nomena. Neither is intrinsicallycloser than the other to the
object."9 On a more practical level, Kindermanhimself has
noted that in some cases "study of the internal integrationof
pieces can hardly be separated from issues of artistic con-
tent," while Leo Treitler has maintained that some crucial
"questions of motivation"-those addressing why musical
passages occur when and as they do-often yield only when
structureis conceived in dramaticterms.10Abbate, Nattiez,
and Kramer, by contrast and in spite of their considerable
contributions to the study of musical meaning and signifi-
cation, endorse a formalist view on the issue of musical
narrative-one in which "narrativecontent" is conceived not
as part of the essential substance of musical works, but as a
product of superfluous metaphor, rationalization, or super-
ficial focus on details of the musical foreground.
This article is aligned with the objectives of the narrat-
ivists, whose enterprisemight be summarizedas the effort to
integrate structural and semantic-expressiveaspects of mu-
sical works in the act of analysis by developing concepts ca-
pable of functioningsimultaneouslyin both domains. Musical
plot, defined as the integrated formal and semantic content
8Fred Everett Maus, "Music as Drama," Music Theory Spectrum 10
(1988): 60.
9Anthony Newcomb, "Sound and Feeling," CriticalInquiry 10 (1984):
636.
'OKinderman,"NarrativeDesign"; Leo Treitler, "To Worship that Ce-
lestial Sound:Motives for Analysis," Journalof Musicology1 (1982): 153-70.

of a musical work, is the most inclusive concept of this kind:
the Ursatz of musical narrative, and a symbol of aspiration
toward a grandunified theory of musicalprocesses. The quest
to formulate viable models of plot and so give shape to what
is as yet only an intriguing abstraction, is among the more
formidable challenges in contemporary music theory. The
burden for anyone attempting such a formulation on the
premise that structure and content are indecomposable is to
demonstrate how one might account for the integration of
formal and semantic-expressive aspects of musical works
from the level of motives and phrases to that of entire move-
ments or works.
While little progress has yet been made toward such a
comprehensive model, the nature of musical plot itself has
been the subject of considerable speculation, much of it in-
formed by structuralistliterary theory. Maus, for example,
invokes Tzvetan Todorov's concept of the ideal narrativein
describing the plot he hears in the first seventeen measures
of Beethoven's String Quartet in F Minor, op. 95; both An-
thony Newcomb and Leo Treitler have compared the stan-
dard formal patterns of music in the common practice period
to paradigmaticplots of structuralistliterary theory, propos-
ing that meaning is a function of deviations from these
patterns; Robin Wallace and Anthony Newcomb, following
the lead of A. B. Marx and others, have located plots in
sequences of mental states underlyingmusical structures;and
James Webster has used "the form of tragedy" as a model
for musical plot in Brahms's TragicOverture-but all of these
formulations, I believe, fall short of the idea's potential.t1
l1Maus'sconception of plot in "Musicas Drama" is problematicbecause
it is applied to a short and palpably incomplete passage of a much larger
movement, while Todorov's ideal plot structurewas devised to describe the
minimumrequirementsfor plots in complete tales such as those in Boccaccio's
Decameron. The formulations of Newcomb and Treitler dilute the notion
of musical plot by equating it with the standard sequences of functional
events in musicalformal types. (Newcomb, "Schumannand Late Eighteenth-
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Structuralismand MusicalPlot 15
Only at the level of motives and phrases have the relations
between formal and expressive qualities been explored sys-
tematically, and this work has been carried out primarilyby
philosophers.12
This article sketches a model of musical plot based on
structuralistprinciples designed to account for the relation
between formal and semantic-expressive aspects of musical
works from the level of motives to that of entire pieces. It
is not a universaltheory, however. Its purviewis instrumental
music composed in the framework of Romantic-expressive
aesthetics-mostly works of the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries- and about many works of this era it will have little
to say. The argumentcomprises a relatively brief theoretical
exposition and a longer practical demonstration, an analysis
of the first movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata in F
Minor, op. 57. Before beginning, however, two foundational
issues must be addressedbriefly. First, what is entailed by the
Century NarrativeStrategies," 19th-CenturyMusic 11 [1987]: 164-74; Treit-
ler, "Mozart and the Idea of Absolute Music," in Music and the Historical
Imagination[Cambridge,Mass.: HarvardUniversity Press, 1988]: 176-214).
The approachsharedby Wallaceand Newcomb identifiesplot types, including
sufferingfollowed by healing or redemption and struggle leading to victory,
which are overly general (Newcomb, "Once More 'Between Absolute and
Program Music': Schumann's Second Symphony," 19th-CenturyMusic 7
[1984]:233-50; Wallace, "Backgroundand Expressionin the FirstMovement
of Beethoven's Op. 132," Journal of Musicology 7 [1989]: 3-20). Webster's
analysis includes descriptionsof extended non-dramaticscenes in which the
tragic hero is lost in reminiscences and visions; what the work captures,
therefore, is primarilythe inner experience of a tragic persona and not the
actualevents of a drama("Brahms'sTragicOverture:The Form of Tragedy,"
in Brahms, ed. Robert Pascal [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1983]: 99-124).
12PeterKivy's contour and convention theory of musical expression, cod-
ified in The CordedShell (Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1980), is still
a serviceable framework for discussions of these relations. Among recent
work, Jerrold Levinson, Music, Art, and Metaphysics(Ithaca: Cornell Uni-
versity Press, 1990), particularlythe essay, "Aesthetic Supervenience," de-
serves special mention.
16 MusicTheory Spectrum
term plot; second, the nature of the relationship between
musical plot and human experience.
For the purposes of this article, the claim that a musical
work is organized by a plot means
(1) that some of its elements can be understood to rep-
resent quasi-sentient agents and their actions,13and
(2) that the totality of such actions forms a complete and
coherent unity coextensive with and inclusive of the
entire musical unfolding.
Under the model of musical plot proposed here, these con-
ditions emerge as functionsof music'sinternalrelations-that
is, without specific extramusical reference. Yet the precise
nature of musical agents and actions and their significance
in human terms depends nevertheless on how one conceives
the fundamental relation between musical plots and human
experience. Are such plots like the plans of narratives, told
in the past tense, in which themes, motives, and other units
behave as characters;are they like plots of stage dramas in
which musical agents act and interact in the present without
the mediation of a narrator;do they comprise sequences of
experiential phenomena within a single consciousness-
mental states and impressions, active cognitive processes, or
struggles of opposing forces and voices in a consciousness
divided; or do they relate to human experience in some al-
together more abstract way?
Each of these views entails a very different notion of mu-
sical action and agency and of the relation of the listener to
the ongoing process, and this is why it is importantto arrive
at a working model, at least, before specific issues of agency
13Inusing the term agent in this context, I follow the example set by
EdwardT. Cone in The Composer'sVoice(Berkeley: Universityof California
Press, 1974), though without invoking the elaborate typology he develops for
this concept. I use the term in the most general sense to mean the source of
an action or utterance and, like Cone, do not suggest that multiple human
charactersare represented in musical works.
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and action are broached. For example, the conception of
music as stage drama suggests continuous action in objective
time undertaken by independent agents, perceived by lis-
teners who watch from outside the frame of the work. Music
as psychologicalexperience, on the other hand, mandates no
determinate relation between the time of the embodied ex-
perience and the objective time in which it is performed and
heard. The action takes place within a single consciousness,
and a listener may enter the frame of the work, imaginingthat
the experience it embodies is his or her own experience. In
attemptingto narrow the field, a strict narrativeview of mu-
sical plot can be rejected because Abbate is correct in stating
that music has no narrativepast tense.'4 The notion of music
as stage drama, as I have argued elsewhere, is problematic
as well, first, because what is metaphoricallycalled musical
space is fundamentally disanalogous to space in the extra-
musical world, second, because while musically embodied
experience unfolds in the present tense, it is only rarely to
be understood as unfolding in the objective time of extra-
musical action.15
The view developed here, which in many ways parallels
that formulatedby EdwardT. Cone in The Composer'sVoice,
is that musical plots are dramas of mental life comprising
affective, perceptual, and cognitive impressions. These im-
pressions unfold in the present tense, though not in objective
time, each musical moment embodying indeterminate but
'4As I have argued in "The Temporal Life of the Musical Persona: Im-
plicationsfor Narrativeand DramaticInterpretation"(MusicResearchForum
6 [1991]: 42-72), however, a narrativeview of musical structure, even if it
must ultimately be rejected, captures the character of the temporal rela-
tionship between human experience and the musical unfolding embodying it
better than accounts of music as stage drama.
'5Karl, "The Temporal Life of the Musical Persona." Susanne Langer
discourseson the differencesbetween the kind of virtualtime at work in music
and scientificor clock time in Feelingand Form (New York:CharlesScribner's
Sons, 1953), 104-19.

almost invariably longer spans of experience. The principal
musical ideas, usually themes and motives, are associated
with forces and impressions of mental life and musical plots
play out the interaction of such forces and impressions in
the manner of an allegory. Thus a particularcomposition will
likely not correspond to any particularsequence of mental
events, either real or imaginary, but to an idealized fiction
of mental life unfolding in the mind of an unspecified per-
sona.16How such fictions take on musical form can best be
explained, I believe, in the terms of a diffuse intellectual
movement or approach to inquiry known as structuralism.
ANALYTIC STRATEGIES
Over the last century or so, structuralistthinkers have
made substantial contributions to the fields of phonology,
linguistics, anthropology, literary theory, and art criticism.17
The project of structuralistinquiryin each of these fields has
been to map systems of meaning underlyingrelations among
semanticallyrelevant units, whether phonemes, morphemes,
totemic classifications, or abstract narrative roles and func-
tions. In so doing, structuralistshave followed two guiding
principles. The first is to "concentratenot on the substantive
characteristicsof individual phenomena but on abstract dif-
16Thisconcept, first used and theorized in a musical context by Edward
T. Cone in The Composer's Voice, derives from the literary theory of the
so-called New Criticalmovement. Cone defines the musical persona as "the
experiencing subject of [an] entire composition, in whose thought the play,
narrative, or reverie takes place-whose inner life the music communicates
by means of symbolic gesture" (The Composer'sVoice, 1). I use the term in
the same sense, though I do not conceive the inner life of the persona as
closely analogous to a play, narrative, or reverie.
l7The literatureis simply too extensive to summarizehere. General sur-
veys with comprehensive bibliographies appear in Jonathan Culler, Struc-
turalistPoetics (Ithaca:CornellUniversityPress, 1975) and TerrenceHawkes,
Structuralismand Semiotics(Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1977).
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Structuralismand MusicalPlot 17
ferential features which [can] be defined in relational
terms."18For the structuralists, then, the meaning of any
particularunit is determined primarilyby its relation to other
units in a system and not by its intrinsic characteristics.Sec-
ond is the tendency to use a binary model in analyzing the
relations among phenomena in a system. As Jonathan Culler
observes, "structuralistshave generally followed [Roman]
Jakobson and taken the binary opposition as a fundamental
operation of the human mind basic to the production of
meaning."19The principalsemantic unit proposed in this ar-
ticle is a species of binaryopposition of the same logical form
as those linking characters and their foils in literature. This
species of opposition, by its very structure,I claim, is the key
to solving the fundamental problems of musical semantics
which any model of musical plot must confront. A brief
sketch of the workings of literary foils, illustrated with an
example from a novel by Dostoyevsky, introduces the binary
pattern for which I claim such prodigious semantic potential.
For one character to act as a foil to another, three con-
ditions must be met. First, there must be parallels in life
circumstances, personal history, appearance, or the like
marking the relation between two characters for special at-
tention, inviting readers to compare them critically. Second,
there must be differential features of their character, behav-
ior, or fortunes-differentia-which the underlyingparallels
set in relief. Third, a certain semantic burden must be met;
examining differentiain light of the underlyingparallelsmust
have a payoff, yielding insight into the motivation of the
principal character, the moral order of a given social struc-
ture, the ideology of the author, and so forth. In Dosto-
yevsky's Crimeand Punishment,Razumikhinis an apt foil for
Rodion Raskolnikov because both are impoverishedstudents
living in squalor in nineteenth-centurySt. Petersburg. These
18Culler, StructuralistPoetics, 7.
'9Ibid., 15.
18 MusicTheorySpectrum
parallels in life circumstancesset their contrasting outlooks
and behavior (differentia) in special relief; Razumikhin re-
mains irrepressiblyoptimistic and honestly employed while
Raskolnikov sinks into depression and commits robbery and
double murder. We only understandthis binaryopposition as
that of a principal character and one of his foils, however,
because the pairing is richly instructive;examining their out-
looks and behavior in light of their shared circumstances
yields insight into Raskolnikov'smotivation and the author's
ideology.20Without the counterbalance of Razumikhin, the
reader might, for example, be inclined to interpret Raskol-
nikov's crime simplistically,as a response to his poverty and
as Dostoyevsky's indictment of contemporary social condi-
tions. The presence of a foil who optimistically meets the
same conditions and prospers forestalls such conclusions, fo-
cusing the reader's attention more profitablyon Raskolnikov
as the victim of a misbegotten idea and his Napoleonic as-
pirations. Thus we describe a character as a foil to another
if there are objective parallels markingthe relation between
them for special attention and if contrastingtheir character,
behavior, or fortunes in light of their underlying identity
yields thematically significant inferences.
In the analysis below, the term foil is used to describe
musical elements standingin meaningfulrelations of identity
and contrastto other elements. My usage, however, does not
wholly parallel the term's common usage in literarycriticism.
Specifically, the concept is extended to cover relations be-
tween different versions of the same theme or motive, a prac-
tice that is like describing the repentant Raskolnikov from
the end of Crimeand Punishmentas a foil to his former self.
However, this minor modification of a familiar concept is
20Actually,for the Russianreader, the foil interpretationis also suggested
by the names Raskolnikov and Razumikhinthemselves, for they are seman-
tically loaded in the same way that the proper names of many of Dickens's
charactersare for English readers;in Russian the noun raskol means split or
schism while the adjective razumnij means reasonable or sensible.
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more economical than the alternatives of inventing a new
term or using a cumbersome construction like "counterpart
in a relation of mutually elucidating identity and contrast."
Organizing musical works in patterns of simultaneous
identity and contrast like those linking charactersand their
foils, I believe, is a first step in solving the most daunting
semantic problem facing any model of musical plot: how the
relatively specific dramaticcontent implied by the notion of
plot is to be ascribed to works of so-called absolute music
when the expressive and other semanticallyrelevant qualities
of their component passages, considered in isolation, can be
specified only in general terms. The secret is in the mech-
anism by which relations between foils, by their very form,
communicate meaning beyond that inscribed by the author
or narrator,imbuing straightforwardand seemingly insignif-
icant traits of characterwith profound symbolic and ethical
force. Razumikhin's optimism, for example, is, in and of
itself, no more than the unquestioningfaith of a simple na-
ture. In the context of his relation of identity and contrast
with Raskolnikov, however, it becomes an object lesson in
the virtue of spiritualsimplicity, an indictment of our hero's
world view, and an unwitting mockery of his self-absorbed
struggle "to get a thought straight."21And this semantic sur-
plus comes without a single extra word from the author and,
indeed, without any specific verbal trace whatever; it is in-
ferred merely from the structure of the relation of identity
and opposition linking the two characters. Relations of si-
multaneous identity and contrast in music too possess, by
their very form, a powerful semantic potential, though nec-
essarily restricted by the elusive significanceof the passages
they unite. For the semantic and expressive qualities we can
reasonably attribute to passages of absolute music in isola-
21AlyoshaKaramazovuses this phrase in describinghis brother Ivan in
The BrothersKaramazov, trans. Constance Garnett, rev. Ralph E. Matlaw
(New York: Norton Critical Edition, 1976), Book Two, Chapter 7.

tion, arising from isomorphism with human expressive be-
haviors, conventional affective shadings of mode and chord
type, the evocation of "topics" or styles of functional music,
analogies to dynamicphysical processes, intertextuallinks to
other works, and so on, are necessarily unspecific.22Never-
theless, when musical elements fixed with unspecific traits of
characterare broughtinto relations of identity and opposition
with other equally indeterminate elements, the semantic po-
tential of each of the parts may be immeasurablyenriched by
its function in the opposition as a whole; for elements only
vaguely defined as to their intrinsic expressive qualities and
semantic potential may yet be defined with considerable pre-
cision in relational terms with respect to other elements.
When such relations of identity and opposition are system-
atically developed over the course of an entire composition,
we have the stuff of which plots are made.
Exploring how musical analogs of foils and other oppo-
sitions are systematically developed as elements of plot re-
quires two further constructs, roles and functions, drawn,
appropriatelyenough, from the structuralisttheory of plot.
Both are lucidly formulated in a pioneering work of struc-
turalist literary theory, Vladimir Propp's Morphology of the
Folktale (1928). In this study of one hundred Russian fairy
tales, Propp notes a "two-fold quality of the folktale: it is
amazingly multiform, picturesque, and colorful, and, to no
less a degree, remarkablyuniform and recurrent."23The pic-
turesque and colorful details are superficialmanifestationsof
a small number of recurrent elements called roles and func-
22Adiscussion of musical expression as isomorphismwith human expres-
sive behaviorsappearsin Kivy, TheCordedShell. Discussionsof topics appear
in Leonard G. Ratner, ClassicMusic (New York: SchirmerBooks, 1980) and
V. Kofi Agawu, Playing With Signs (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1991).
23VladimirPropp, The Morphologyof the Folktale,trans. LaurenceScott,
The InternationalJournal of American Linguistics24 (1958): 19.
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Structuralismand MusicalPlot 19
tions. Roles are idealized charactertypes, recurringfrom tale
to tale, which can be filled by a number of more or less
interchangeablebeings. The role of villain, for example, may
be played equally well by a giant, a bandit, a witch, a step-
mother, or some other unsavoryentity. The central elements
of tales, those forming the structuralskeletons of plots, are
functions. Propp describes a function as "an act of dramatis
personae, which is defined from the point of view of its sig-
nificance for the course of action of the tale as a whole . . .
Functions serve as stable, constant elements in folktales, in-
dependent of who performs them, and how they are fulfilled
by the dramatis personae."24The function, villainy, for ex-
ample, can take the form of a murder, an abduction, the
stealing of a magic agent, the throwing of someone into the
sea, or any numberof other dastardlyacts, but its significance
in the course of the tale as a whole is independent of the
details of its specificmanifestation. As a function it motivates
the actions of the hero, who eventually, after intervening
functions, attempts to counteract it.
The notion of abstractroles requiresno introductionin the
field of music criticism; it is a common practice to refer to
the principaltheme of a movement, particularlya movement
in sonata form, as its protagonist, and nearly as common to
use the term antagonist or some equivalent to refer to ele-
ments at odds with the principalmaterial.25In my analysis of
the Appassionata I add one further role with less precedent
in the critical literature. The real innovation in this article,
24Ibid.,20.
25Studiesin which both roles are postulated include Patricia Carpenter,
"Grundgestaltas Tonal Function," Music TheorySpectrum7 (1985): 15-38;
Philip G. Downs, "Beethoven's 'New Way' and the Eroica," in The Creative
Worldof Beethoven,ed. Paul Henry Lang (New York: W. W. Norton, 1970),
83-102; and SusanMcClary,"SexualPolitics in ClassicalMusic," in Feminine
Endings (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991), 53-79.
20 MusicTheory Spectrum
however, is a system of musical plot functions indebted in a
general way to Propp's thinking and adapted to the theory
of musical actions.26
In the analysis which follows, a distinction is made be-
tween two kinds of actions, the first not unlike common-
place actions of everyday life-outbursts, interjections, sobs,
flights, hammer-strokes,slides, leaps, climbs, and other mo-
tions and gestures of isolated agents. Actions in this category,
which are the basis of Maus's theory of musical action as
developed in "Music as Drama," play a relatively minor role
in this article, helping to characterizeagents cast in abstract
dramaticroles. Actions in the second category, defined much
as Propp defines functions, are the fundamentalunits of plots
like the one I describe underlyingthe first movement of the
Appassionata. Because they are defined as Propp defines
functions, that is, "fromthe point of view of their significance
for the course of action of the [work] as a whole," actions
of this kind are, I believe, a more promisingbasis for analyses
of plot at the level of complete movements than the everyday
actions Maus favors.27Called functional sequences, they are
26Most of my functions actually bear little practical resemblance to
Propp's, sharingonly the principlesembodied in his definitionof the concept.
Any attempt to adapt his actual system of thirty-one functions for use in
musical analysiswould have been fruitless in any case because most of them
are simplytoo concrete (e.g., "XIV. The Hero Acquires the Use of a Magical
Agent") and in the body of literaturehe analyzesthey alwaysoccur in a rigidly
prescribedorder.
27Thedanger in Maus's approach, if one can judge based on his analysis
of a seventeen-measurefragment, is that it can lead to an atomistic account
of plot. The three principalactions he hears in the opening of Beethoven's
Quartetin F Minor, op. 95, for example, are built from materialswhich recur
in variousguises throughoutthe movement, establishingcomprehensivepat-
terns of behavior with respect to one another and perhaps even dramatically
consistent roles. In his analysis, however, these comprehensivepatterns are
not acknowledgedin explainingthe motivationsof agents within the opening.
Consequently,one must wonderhow the isolated actionsof the firstseventeen
measureswould be reconciled to the course of action of the work as a whole.
The strategy is analogous to attempting to explain the motivations of char-
actersin a novel on the basis of informationrevealed in the firstchapteralone.
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actions in the abstractundertaken by one agent with respect
to another, and the terms by which they are describedhere-
enclosure, disruption, subversion, counteraction, interruption,
integration, divergence, withdrawal, realization, and trans-
figuration reflect something of their abstract character.
For now, only those encounteredin the Appassionataanal-
ysis need be defined; the legend in Figure 1 can be consulted
for further clarification. Enclosure refers to a sequence in
which an agent is, within a closed unit of structure, directly
preceded and followed by material playing an opposing role
or representing a contrastingstate; enclosures are often like
verbal exchanges between two parties in which the first to
speak also has the final word, refuting or sweeping aside
an objection interposed by an adversary. The opening of
Beethoven's Eroica is a paradigmexample of enclosure. The
enclosed element is the third clause of the principal theme
(mm. 23-36), whose syncopated duple divisions have been
interpreted by several writers as an antagonisticforce in the
movement as a whole.28The principalmaterialof the theme,
representing the thematic protagonist of the movement,
precedes this passage and then follows it with redoubled
strength, enclosing the antagonistic element, establishing its
own heroic character in the very act of confrontation and
reassertion. The term enclosure invokes the familiar spatial
metaphorof a work unfoldingfrom left to right, so that if one
imagines the phrase structure of the opening of the Eroica
diagrammed as A (mm. 1-14), A' (15-22), B (23-36), A"
(37-45), the enclosure is visually apparent. The term dis-
ruption refers to a pattern resembling a failed enclosure in
which the element to be enclosed proves uncontainable.Here
the first agent still has the final word but its attempt at ref-
utation rings hollow, betrays weakness, or ends in failure.
The opening of the Appassionata,as explained in the analysis
28Chapter2 of Scott Burnham, Beethoven Hero (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1995) discusses the long tradition of programmaticinter-
pretations of this movement.
 Structuralism and Musical Plot 21

Figure 1. Graphic summary of plot, Beethoven, Piano Sonata in F Minor, op. 57/i
O M O '0 [x
C N In O 0%
- - 0 In If 0 rN
mm. o
_-
c
_-
'V
(
0D
cCV
-
n
In) ro.0 - N C"
-
m
-4 -@ I)
- ,O
-_
r
_
co -O
4 N
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- cv
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rV
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N

-D------

EI(A) j R- O FA)R r -R -N--D

t tC(
E ,J-
C(P)
E
-n C(P) K E

Roles: OtherSymbols: In theexamplean antagonisticelementdisrupts

(] - Protagonist <- Reaction to or against a preceding one in therole of protagonist.
function,condition,or agent Subversion - Indicatedas follows:
( - Antagonist - Indicatescausation.Forexample,a
(G)- Goal State counteraction executedby anagentin the
role of protagonistyieldinga goal state
Changesin thefortunesof agentsareindicatedby wouldbe represented as follows:
bold type,lowercase,andtheadditionof plusand
minussigns.The followingrepresentsthefortunes -- Herean elementin the role of protagonistis
C(P) subvertedby an antagonisticone.
of a protagonistin a continuumfromgoodto ill,
the middletermrepresenting a neutralor starting ( ) Parenthesesareusedin attributing an Counteraction - Reactionto or againsta
condition: actionto a particularagent.In theabove precedingfunctionoragent Indicatedby a
example,the counteraction is attributed
to backwardarrow:
an agentin the role of protagonist.
Additionalplusandminussignsmaybe added. The Graphing of Functions: Withdrawal - A backward arrowis directedat
Enclosure - Elementsin an enclosureare thatwhichmotivatesthe withdrawal:
Functions: bracketedas follows:
E - Enclosure <- W
D - Disruption E
S - Subversion Interruption - The roleof the interrupting
C - Counteraction agent,antagonistin this case, maybe indicated
W Withdrawal Disruption - Indicatedby brokenbrackets,an parenthetically:
I - Interruption arrowindicatingcausation,anda changein the -
fortunesof the disruptedagent I(A)
R - Realization -
Realization Bringingabouta goal stateor
carryingouta threat
'D: --.? S
R ) or
?-RRo)

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22 MusicTheory Spectrum
below, exemplifies the function of disruption. Here the ele-
ment to be enclosed, the four-note motive descending from
Db to C sounding first in m. 10, sets in motion a series of
events through which the element that would enclose it, the
principal phrase returning at m. 17, is rendered nearly in-
coherent. Subversiondescribes the undercuttingof the char-
acter or expressive qualitiesof one agent due to the influence,
superimposition, or ascendancy of an agent in an opposing
role. Counteraction,the only function proposed here with a
direct counterpart in Propp's system, describes a measure
taken to counter the effects of a prior enclosure, disruption,
or subversion. Realization is the bringing about of a desired
state or the fulfillment of a threat. Withdrawalrefers to an
introversivecounteraction-a retreat from conflict; interrup-
tion is self-explanatory. I believe that functional sequences
enacted by musical agents cast in abstract dramatic roles
reflect a fundamental mode of organization in works like
Beethoven's Appassionata, while providing the basis for a
typology of musicalplots with broad implicationsfor the crit-
icism of nineteenth- and twentieth-centurymusic and the his-
tory of style in this era. The analysiswhich follows shows how
roles and functional sequences can be heard to arise from
interlocking patterns of binary oppositions akin to literary
foils, and how a series of functionalsequences might be linked
to form a complete and coherent plot.
ANALYSIS
In examining the opening of Beethoven's Appassionata,
one is confronted with a number of binary oppositions that
might be analyzed as musical-dramaticelements and their
foils. This analysis begins with the relation between the first
four measures and their thrice interrupted restatement in
mm. 17-23, because in a passage replete with striking ex-
cesses and extravagant gestures, this restatement of the
opening phrase is the most extravagant of all, and hence a
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promising nexus for interpretation. The restatement makes
a special point of preserving each measure of its foil intact
and at a restraineddynamic level, and this apparent attempt
to recapture the composure of the opening is cast in special
relief by the violence of the three ff outburstsinterruptingits
progress (mm. 17-18, 20, and 22). But the full significance
of this treatmentof the opening phrase is only apparentwhen
the contrastingaspects of the model and restatement are ex-
amined in light of their underlyingidentity. Consideredapart
from its foil, the restatement is an oddly timed passage
marked by striking dynamic and textural contrasts, features
suggesting extreme expression and a tendency toward dis-
continuity. Consideredin relation to its foil, however, it takes
on a far more specific significance:in this context it is a well-
balanced four-measure phrase mangled or dismembered.
Soundingjust seventeen measuresfrom the opening, this bru-
talizationof the principalphrase is enigmatic-an outrageous
effect in search of a cause, inviting the listener to search for
an explanationor causal agent. I suggest that the explanation
is in the intervening measures and that the cause is the in-
tervention of an antagonisticforce embodied in the four-note
descending motive from Db to C (henceforth, motive X)
which first sounds in m. 10. (This statement is made from the
point of view of the fictional world of the work. It would be
closer to the truth to say that the structuralfunction of the
passage is to focus the listener's attention on motive X in
order to mark it for a particularstructural-expressiverole in
the overall plan. The illusion of causation is thus exploited
to achieve a structuralgoal.) A detailed examination of the
passage focusing on how motive X is introduced and how it
interacts with the other elements of the theme-designated
collectively as the thematic protagonist-supports this inter-
pretation.
Before proceeding, however, it is necessary to explain
carefullyhow the ascriptionof dramaticroles like protagonist
and antagonist to the movement's themes and motives is to

be reconciled with the overriding conception of the work as
a dramaof mental life unfoldingin the experience of a unitary
persona. First and foremost, these roles do not represent
independent characters,but should be understood as abstract
personifications of opposing forces, impressions, and struc-
tures within the psyche of the persona. The terms protagonist
and antagonist were chosen because of their precedent in
music criticism and because they are relatively neutral labels
for the elements of such a dramaticopposition. The element
designated as the protagonist embodies the persona's will to
action and the seat of its identity, and for this reason it is the
element to which the fortunes of the persona are most closely
linked. It is largely true, therefore, that as the protagonist
fares, so too fares the persona. The two terms are not in-
terchangeable, however, since the persona's experience en-
compasses all of the work's forces and actions both fair and
foul, while the term protagonist denotes only the material of
the principaltheme (exclusive of motive X). The antagonistic
motive might be understood as the persona's mental repre-
sentation of an extrapersonal force or as some aspect of
the self perceived as foreign or inimical to the persona's in-
terests.29
Motive X, then, enters in m. 10 as a foreign element in
the texture, a distinct second voice differentiated from the
protagonist'svoice by its register, its strong rhythmicprofile,
and its dialogic relationshipto the principalmotives. It is well
cast for an antagonistic role. Its low register and semitonal
descent lend it an ominous or sinister quality, and its gravity
and inflexible insistence in its three repetitions signal author-
ity and elemental power. Equally important is its role in de-
fining the root of a lengthy dominant elaboration, for in this
29Forthis strategy I am once again indebted to Cone, who in The Com-
poser's Voice uses it in accounting for some of the vivid details of Berlioz's
Symphoniefantastique.
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Structuralismand MusicalPlot 23
capacityit creates a high level of expectation for an inevitable
resolution. Integratingthese observationsyields a sinister and
single-minded agent promising an unavoidable outcome-in
other words, a threat or warning. The first time the malev-
olent message is stated, in m. 10, it goes unheard-the pro-
tagonist continues in self-absorbed dalliance with the trill
motive. With the second statement in m. 12 the protagonist
hears, but either does not understand or requires clarifica-
tion: it repeats the antagonist's words with a rising, ques-
tioning inflection. To be absolutely sure the threat is under-
stood, the antagonist slows its speech (the poco ritardando
of mm. 12-13) and pronounces the fateful words once again.
The protagonist understandsthis time, repeating what it has
heard and responding with a violent outburst in mm. 13-14.
Whether this gesture and the subsequent fragmentation of
the thematic protagonist express rage, fear, defiance, grief,
confusion, or some other emotion or state is impossible to
know at this point.30For now it is enough to recognize that
the threat or warning has had a disruptive influence on the
protagonist, performing the function of disruption in the
structuralistsystem proposed here.
Of course, the interaction described above is only a sim-
ulation of dramaticdialogue, and in fact there is no need to
ascribe specific meanings to the voices. The function of the
passage is fulfilled merely by its structuralsimilarityto a dra-
matic dialogue, and it is this similaritywhich is exploited in
30IfA. B. Marx is right in hearing rage in this passage ("Derselbe Satz
wiederholtsich, wiederleis' anhebend, aber mit schmetterndemEinschlagder
Harmonie dreimal mit Wuth unterbrochen"(Ludwig van Beethoven: Leben
und Schaffen, Vol. 2 [Berlin: Verlag von Otto Janke, 1863-64], 27), I would
suggest that it is rage of a special kind. It is like a storm one raises in one's
own mind to drownout unwelcomethoughts, in this case the warningor threat
of motive X. Perhaps it succeeds-after all, motive X is not heard in the
restatement-but if so, the success has had a price; the persona's peace of
mind has been shattered.
24 MusicTheory Spectrum
accomplishinga crucialstructuralgoal. The causal link drawn
between the entry of motive X and the disruption of the
principalideas that follows in mm. 17-23 create distinct and
ultimately stable dramatic roles for two principal thematic
elements, establishing an antagonist-protagonistopposition
which becomes one of the principalsubjects of development
throughout the movement.31
The second theme can be heard as a foil to the firstbecause
it is derived from the movement's opening motive in a way
that is clearly audible, and yet diametricallycontrastswith the
firsttheme in a numberof its formal and expressive qualities.
The rhythmicsimilaritiesconnecting the themes are obvious,
as are the shared emphasis on tonic (of their respective keys)
arpeggiation and neighbor motions-but the contrasts are
more striking. The first theme, as discussed above, is volatile
and active, quite literally the protagonist confronting an an-
tagonisticforce. The second is serene, emerging only after all
echoes of conflict have faded. It is contemplative and unified
in effect ratherthan active and divided among multiple agents
like its counterpart-thus, a soliloquy or lyricalmood picture
rather than a dramatic scene. It is set off from the turmoil
of the first theme area and from the agitated closing that
follows by a parenthesis of transitionalmaterial and because
it is the only hint of the mediant major in an exposition
dominated by the minor mode. What is the significanceof its
relation to the first theme? The most obvious interpretation
31RobertHatten explores the notion of a thematic opposition acting as
a theme for development in an analysisof the firstmovement of Beethoven's
String Quartet, op. 130: "If issues of rhythmicambiguity . . . and thematic/
textural/tempooppositions are, in the best Classicalsense, significantthemes
of the movement, then their workingout may involve strategiesthat, in their
tonal/structuralconsequences, go beyond the basic expectations of the style
("Aspects of Dramatic Closure in Beethoven: A Semiotic Perspective on
Musical Analysis via Strategies of Dramatic Conflict," Semiotica 66 (1987):
200.)
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is that it representsa state of the work's persona diametrically
contrasting with that embodied by its foil, and if this is so,
then we have once again been set an enigma. Like the relation
of varied restatement and opening phrase examined above,
the expressive gulf separatingthe two principalthemes, cast
in relief as it is by their underlyingidentity, stands as an effect
in search of a cause. One must explain what has happened
to console or restore the composure of the persona, given the
chaos that had so recently prevailed in the opening theme.
As above, clues can be found in the intervening material.
The transitional phrases connecting the two principal
themes (mm. 24-35) elaborate a single harmony, V/III, while
maintaining an unwavering pulse in eighth notes. The first
two evenly-balancedfour-measurephrases echo the dramatic
conflict embodied in the first theme. Each culminates in its
third measure with a sforzando on the flatted-sixthscale de-
gree of the new key which descends in the final measure to
the fifth degree, recallingthe 16-5 motion of motive X. Over-
all, however, the contour of the passage is a gradual dimin-
uendo and descent to a lower register and level of tension-a
softening and broadening that settles in m. 35 into a deep
and quiescent pool of mediant major. The action taken in
the transition, then, is a turning inward-a withdrawal-and
finally, a submersion into thoughts or impressions sheltered
from the threats and chaos of the opening scene. The role
played by the second theme might therefore be described as
an ideal, contemplative state of the persona.
What is the nature of the ideal state embodied in the
second theme? By examining some of its salient formal and
expressive features-that is, those thrown into relief by its
foil, the first theme-one can narrow the range of interpre-
tations. Perhaps in highest relief is its major-modal colora-
tion. It is the only extended passage of the exposition in the
major mode, which, given conventional affective interpre-
tations of the modes, invites interpretations at the brighter
end of the expressive continuum. Also in sharp relief is the

passage's near stasis. The three two-measureunits with which
it begins are rhythmically identical and firmly centered on
the mediant harmony;its melodic structure(A, A', A) might
be described as three repetitions of the same shape with the
barest minimum of internal contrast, or as an oscillation
between two nearly identical statements. In anthropomorphic
terms, one might say that it manifests no impulse to change
-to move beyond the single image which is its subject or the
single harmony groundingit-and therefore, no sense of for-
ward motion or striving. Integratingthese observationsyields
a general interpretation: the opening clauses of the second
theme are pleasurableand static, suggestinghumanstates like
restfulness, peace, or contentment. But this interpretationis
incomplete, for it fails to capture a cruel irony defining the
theme's role in the plot as a whole; that is, the very features
creating its restful and contented impression-its harmonic
and rhythmic stasis, its oscillation between two nearly iden-
tical statements-also render it unsustainable. The theme is
simply too static and repetitive to invite a broader exposition.
In any event, the pleasant, if short-lived, impression of the
second theme is cast in a new light by events set in motion
in m. 42.
The descending third Fl -Db, in m. 42 cuts short the pre-
vailing serenity of the second theme by echoing the last mo-
tive of its principal clause in the minor mode and at forte.
Now it is part of the nature of states like contentment and
serenity that they require time to be savored. A flash of rage,
a twinge of wistfulness, a moment of ecstatic joy; these are
unproblematic, but fleeting contentment is nearly a contra-
diction in terms. The essence of contentment can only be
experienced as an enduring phenomenon, and it is for this
reason that the interruptionof the nascent contentment in m.
42 is essential to the second theme's meaning. The isolated
descending third of m. 42, appended as it is to a pattern of
more complete statements, sounds like an uneasy after-
thought or doubt, foretelling a change in the fortunes of the
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Structuralismand MusicalPlot 25
persona, signaling a return to reality through its move to the
mediant minor, the key of the closing. The first step in this
return, the note Fb, is the flatted-sixthscale degree in the new
key-the degree defining the antagonistic motive X which is
soon to reappear prominently at the climax of the closing
theme as Fb moving to Eb. The allusions to the antagonist
which cut it short, along with its brevity, suggest that the ideal
state of the second theme is not contentment with a tangible
reality in the experience of the persona, but ratheran ephem-
eral vision.
If the transitionpreceding the second theme was a turning
away from the outside world leading to immersion in a fleet-
ing dream state, the closing which follows is the return jour-
ney, a re-emergence into the real world of conflictintroduced
in the first theme. Moreover, this symmetrical contrast of
immersion and emergence is underscored by parallels in
structureand content and so stands as another illustrationof
the role foils can be heard to play in the structureand mean-
ing of the exposition. Like the transition, the closing material
(mm. 51-66) begins with two four-measure phrases, each
culminating in an allusion to motive X, followed by a fore-
shortening(or liquidation)in subsequentphrases. But instead
of the transition'srelativelycalm eighth-note pulse and fading
echoes of motive X, in the closing we find a frenetic pace and
motive X at fortissimo surging out of the depths on the crest
of a rising arpeggiationof vii?7. In addition to its relation to
the transition and motive X, the closing material also recalls
the protagonist through its emphasis on the submediant and
Neapolitan harmonies. Thus, one could say that it exhibits
the kind of simultaneous multiple agency characterizingthe
sonata's opening. What then is the role of the closing in the
plot of the exposition? It confirmsthe conflict of protagonist
and antagonist as the primary issue of the drama and, by
cutting short the contented impressionsof the second theme,
confirms that the ideal envisioned by the persona is an iso-
lated and seemingly distant hope. The action it performswith
26 MusicTheory Spectrum
respect to the second theme is enclosure;it encloses the single
hopeful moment in a structuredominated by impressions of
turmoil generated by the influence of motive X.
So by the end of the exposition three abstract dramatic
roles-protagonist, antagonist, and goal state-have been
taken by its themes and motives, and two problems moti-
vating the rest of the movement's action have been posed.
First is the threat of motive X, which, after its introduction
in m. 10, occupies the thoughts of the musical persona more
or less continuously throughoutthe exposition. Second is the
unrealized ideal envisioned in the second theme. The rest of
the movement explores these dramatic problems, which
prove to be related. Throughoutthe movement, the principal
concern of the persona is to bring into tangible and enduring
reality the ideal state envisioned in the second theme. Each
attempt to do so, however, is thwarted by the intervention
of motive X, which grows in power and influenceas the move-
ment progresses.
The exposition has ended in the key of Ab minor, the
mediant minor of the movement's tonic, with the antagonistic
element, motive X, in a position of power attained through
its disruptionof the thematicprotagonistand enclosure of the
second theme into a larger structure in which it is the dom-
inant factor. In the development, however, the protagonist
challengesits position. The development begins (m. 67) in the
tonal netherworldof Fb major, spelled enharmonicallyas E
major, a region far removed from the movement's tonic and
one beholden to the Ab minor established as part of motive
X's sphere of influence in the closing. (Fb major arises as
the submediantof Ab minor.) All of the materialin Fb major
comes from the first theme, though the opening arpeggiated
motive sounds only in the firsttwo measures. When the open-
ing motive returnsin m. 79, however, performingthe function
of counteraction,the struggle is begun in earnest. There is a
sudden change to a forte dynamiclevel, a sudden increase in
rhythmicactivity, and a sudden move to the minor mode, all
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creating an effect of heightened tension. The motive passes
from hand to hand, beginning in the left hand in mm. 79-80
and then continuing in the right hand in mm. 81-82, in this
way covering a span of more than four octaves over the course
of four measures, while the accompanyingfiguration, which
crosses it in a descending direction, covers nearly three. By
this hand-over-handgrappling(metaphorically,that is; not on
the part of the pianist), the protagonist extricates itself from
the tonal netherworldof Fb minor, moving through a mod-
ulating sequential pattern by minor sixths until it arrives on
firmer ground, the dominant of Db, in m. 91. It is tempting
to ascribe a special significanceto this pattern of modulation
by a chain of submediantrelations, given that the key of the
submediant itself, Db, holds a certain symbolic status in
the sonata as a whole. It is in the key of the submediant, for
example, that the persona twice attempts unsuccessfully to
project the goal state envisioned in the second theme: the first
attemptis in the development beginningat m. 109, the second
is the parallel passage in the coda in mm. 210ff. Moreover,
the second movement, the serene Andante con moto, unfolds
entirely in the key of the submediant, establishingDl major
once and for all as a realm of the ideal. Finally, the antagonist
can be interpretedin light of this symbolism as well, since its
semitonal descent from Db perenniallydrags the submediant
back into the conflicted axis of dominant and tonic. Nowhere
is this more apparent than in the transition from the second
movement to the finale, where D b as tonic suddenlybecomes
Db as the submediant of F minor and is then pulled down
to C in an expansion of motive X, setting the tragic finale in
motion. Given these symbolic associations, it is singularly
appropriatethat the immediate tonal goal of the protagonist's
first counteraction in the opening movement, the key of the
submediant, should itself be reached by a strainingspiral of
submediantrelations. By this ingenious escape from the tonal
netherworld of Fb, the protagonist counteracts the tonal ef-
fects of the antagonist'sdominanceof the exposition, winning

a respite in which the persona pursues the ideal envisioned
in the second theme.
The second theme as it sounds in the development (m.
llOff.) derives its meaning from its relation to its foil, the
original statement in the exposition, a relation which might
be describedas a compound irony. While in the originalstate-
ment the very features creating a restful and contented im-
pression are precisely those renderingit unsustainable,in the
development, the features allowing it to be sustained beyond
its originallength undercutthe restful and contented qualities
which were its expressive essence. Preserved is the pattern of
oscillation between rhythmically-identicaltwo-measure units
followed by a foreshortening on the final motive. But this
familiarpattern is subvertedby new features undercuttingthe
theme's placid impression, including a modulating progres-
sion with an accelerating harmonic rhythm and an overall
dynamic contour which could be described as a series of
increasinglyintense crescendos. The dilemma of the persona
is captured perfectly by the interaction of these two sets of
features. In the exposition, the theme had to be cut short
because its static pattern of oscillation would have been un-
tenable had it continued longer than the cycle and a half
(three units) it in fact completed. In the development, how-
ever, restless harmonicmotion allows it a longer life. As the
oscillation continues and is followed by its foreshortening,
more potent harmonic solutions, including the move to B
minor begun in m. 113, are offered to counteract the inertia
of continued repetition. After two and a half cycles-which
is about as far as harmonic variation alone can sustain the
pattern of repetition-the liquidation begins in m. 120 with
an acceleration of harmonicrhythm. The restatements of the
final motive which follow are like a desperate effort to hold
ground-to sustain the ideal state in the face of increasing
opposition. In m. 123 the image is shattered, the shards and
sparks thrown upward in the arpeggiation of vii?7 and then
showeringdownwarduntil motive X is ferociously hammered
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Structuralismand MusicalPlot 27
out in mm. 130-33. Whatever threat or warning the antag-
onist had delivered at its first appearance is abundantlyful-
filled in this catastrophe, and the effects on the persona are
soon indexed in the treatment of the principal theme in the
recapitulation.
Before proceeding to the recapitulation, however, a few
prefatorywords are necessary. Recapitulationsand other ex-
tended formalrepetitionshave posed a perennialdilemmafor
narrative and stage-dramaticaccounts of musical structures
because the architectonicrequirementsthey satisfy in music
have no counterpartsin narrative literature or drama. Con-
sequently, musically satisfying repetitions are often found to
be dramaticallysuperfluous, and have been discounted, ra-
tionalized, or simply left unacknowledged in interpretations
of musical plot. Perhaps the most familiar rationalization is
one Philip Downs used a quarter of a century ago in his
dramaticanalysis of the first movement of Beethoven's Ero-
ica. That part of the movement for which Downs was unable
to identify an integral dramaticrole, including extended pas-
sages in the exposition and development and most of the
recapitulation and coda, was dismissed as serving a purely
musical function. The function of the coda, for example, he
found to be "virtuallyentirely formal," merely fulfilling the
"sonata principle of recapitulation."32Needless to say, this
tactic is dangerously arbitrarybecause it allows one to dis-
count any passage impeaching the author's interpretationas
a concession to formal requirements.33
32PhilipG. Downs, "Beethoven's 'New Way' and the Eroica," in The
Creative World of Beethoven, ed. Paul Henry Lang (New York: W. W.
Norton, 1970), 86.
33CarolynAbbate, in discussing the narrative interpretationof Ducas's
L'Apprentisorcier, characterizesa similarstrategyas an "interpretiveescape
route," observing that "when a motif's appearance seems contradictoryin
terms of its symbolic force, it will be stripped of its symbolic meaning. Its
recurrence is written off to the exigencies of purely musical logic" ("What
the Sorcerer Said," 224).
28 MusicTheory Spectrum
It is an open question, however, whether those who have
confronted the problem more directly have had greater suc-
cess. Edward T. Cone, in a hermeneutic study of Schubert's
Moment musical, op. 94 no. 6, meets it head-on, offering a
comprehensive strategy for interpreting formal repetitions.
According to Cone, the opening section of this ternarywork
embodies a tragic sequence of events, dramatizing "the in-
jection of a strange, unsettling element into an otherwise
peaceful situation. At first ignored or suppressed, that ele-
ment persistentlyreturns.It not only makes itself at home but
even takes over the direction of events in order to reveal
unsuspected possibilities."34
In explaining why this dramatic sequence is repeated da
capo after the Trio, he suggests that in the mind of the work's
persona, "the memory of the original course of events is
bound to recur," an interpretationreflectinghis general view
that "formal repetitions are often best interpreted as repre-
sentations of events rehearsed in memory."35As a strategy
for interpretingexact repetitions, this all too convenient so-
lution is problematicin at least two respects. First, to accept
it is to accept that in some cases the rehearsal in memory of
a sequence of events is indistinguishablefrom the actual ex-
perience of living through it-something we know to be un-
true in everyday life. Second, if one accepts Cone's expla-
nation with respect to Schubert'sMoment musical, then one
must be willing to accept that all dramatic ternary works
ending with exact repetitions of their opening sections rep-
resent sequences of events followed after a digressionby their
precise and vivid rehearsalin memory. The problem with this
interpretive strategy is that while it may be plausible as an
account of an isolated work, it is bound to seem fetishistic
applied to ten. But however one rates Cone's solution as an
34EdwardT. Cone, "Schubert'sPromissoryNote: An Exercise in Musical
Hermeneutics," 19th-Century Music 5 (1982): 239.
35Ibid.,240.
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account of exact repetitions, I believe that it nevertheless has
considerablemerit in the interpretationof varied repetitions,
including the recapitulationof the opening theme in the first
movement of Beethoven's Appassionata.
Continuing the analysis: After the catastrophe of the re-
transition,the Appassionata'sopening scene is replayed mea-
sure for measure in the right hand beginning in m. 136, and
it is this part of the texture which I interpret as the persona's
reconstruction of earlier events. Why reconstruction rather
than mere repetition? The reason is the nature of the relation
between this passage and its foil in the exposition. In the
recapitulation nearly every aspect of the theme's subtly-
nuanced expression is undercut by the addition of a single
new feature, the pedal point underlyingthe first period, and
as a result, the original course of events, though followed
step by step, is stripped of its immediacy and emotional con-
text. Among the seemingly contradictoryqualities subverted
by the pedal point are, on one hand, a sense of calm self-
possession arising from the theme's deliberate and careful
unfolding (in mm. 1-8) and stabilityand solidity proceeding
from its root-position harmonies (first F minor and then Gl
major) and squarely symmetrical phrasing; on the other, a
certain willfulness and elusiveness revealed in sudden, un-
preparedshifts to distant tonal terrain, and a fragmentaryand
halting impressioncreated by its frequent pauses. In the re-
capitulation, the agitation of the incessantly reiterated pedal
tone shatters the calm, overshadowingthe deliberate motion
of the right hand while welding the formerly fragmentary
scene into a single curve of force. The stability and solidity
of the opening phrases are undercut because the pedal point
grounds the last half of a lengthy dominant prolongation
(mm. 122-51), transformingwhat was a firm tonic harmony
in the first measure of the sonata into a mere neighbor chord
within a prolonged dominantat the onset of the recapitulation
(m. 136), thus destabilizing the entire first period. In the
exposition, the willful and elusive character of the thematic

protagonist, apparentin its sudden shifts to and from the area
of the Neapolitan, depends on an element of surprisethat is
lost in the recapitulation. The shifts at the beginnings of the
second and third phrases (mm. 4-5 and 8-9), for example,
come after silences which obscure any sense of linear con-
nection, the protagonist simply appearing in will-o'-the-wisp
fashion in new regions. In the recapitulation, however, the
move to the Neapolitan is anticipated by the ascent of
the pedal point to Db in m. 139, while the move back to the
dominant is given away by the B in the bass in m. 143.36It
is by undercutting all of these expressive qualities and im-
parting its more or less uniform agitation to the entire first
period that the pedal point stripsthe passage of its immediacy
and emotional context, homogenizing or flattening its ex-
pressive contours. It is as though the events of the earlier
drama are remembered clearly, but monochromaticallycol-
ored by the intense affective experience of a later time in
which they are recalled, the effect very much like the dis-
tancing we sometimes experience when reconstructing a
scene in our imaginations. Note, however, that it is only the
persona's impressions of the past which are subject to emo-
tional distancing. The persona's experience in the present is
of unprecedented vividness.
A good way to integrate these observations is to describe
the passage from the climactic retransition (m. 130) through
the recapitulation of the principal theme's first period (m.
36The addition of the B transformswhat in the exposition had been a
submediantharmonyinto a more dominant-directedchord of the diminished
third (B, D6, F, Ab in m. 143). Although this change might be interpreted
superficiallyas a mere concession to correct voice-leading, since the B in the
bass replaces Db to avoid parallel octaves, what is crucial here is the way
Beethoven, like any great artist, turns a mere necessity to aesthetic account.
By giving away the move to and increasingthe gravitationtoward the dom-
inant, the B serves the same function as the anticipationof Db four measures
earlier, standing as an integral part of a comprehensivestrategy to make the
pedal point an agent of irresistible drive and inexorable purpose.
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Structuralismand MusicalPlot 29
151) in terms of abstract functional sequences-specifically,
subversion and enclosure. Of course, the subversion of the
thematicprotagonisthas alreadybeen describedin detail-all
that is left is to ascribe the act itself to an element playing
an opposing role. This is easy enough since the pedal point,
the subversive agent, proceeds directly from the final pitch,
C, of motive X in the retransition-its incessant knelling thus
linked linearlyand psychologicallyto the antagonisticmotive.
This linkage, however, could be more or less direct. One need
not, for example, conceive the pedal as a direct extension of
the antagonist in order to implicate the antagonist in the act
of subversion. A more plausible interpretation is that the
pedal represents an agitated state of the persona precipitated
by the preceding catastrophe, and that it is this agitated state
that is directly responsible for subvertingthe expressive qual-
ities of the thematic protagonist. On this view, then, there
is a chain of causation: the antagonistic force brings about a
state of agitation in the persona which in turn colors the
memory of past events.
The protagonistis also enclosed in a largerunit of structure
(the dominant prolongation in, mm. 122-51) controlled by
the antagonist. Its return in m. 136 is preceded by the ca-
tastrophe in which its fondest dreams were crushed by the
antagonist's thunderous hammering, and followed in mm.
145-48 by the reconstructionof the passage in which motive
X had first delivered its warning.
It is now possible to interpret this passage and its role in
the plot of the movement. Only after the catastrophe of the
retransition does the persona fully realize the magnitude of
the threat that had been posed by the antagonist. Having
suffered dearly for underestimating its adversary, it is in a
state of extreme agitation that the persona attempts to re-
construct the sonata's opening scene in order to ascertain
what went wrong. Should the magnitude of the threat have
been recognized when it was first delivered? What, if any-
thing, had been done to precipitatethe threat and what might
30 MusicTheory Spectrum
have been done to neutralize it? These are the likely ques-
tions occupying the persona. The subversion and enclosure
of the protagonist in this passage indicate a downturn in the
persona's fortunes and a commensurateadvancement of the
antagonist'sposition, a shift in power with consequences for
the varied restatement following in m. 152. Here the torment
of the persona is considerably more protracted than in the
exposition-five outburstsat fortissimo ratherthan three dis-
rupt the passage's progress-a development thoroughly con-
sistent with its declining fortunes.
There is little to say about motivation in the nearly literal
recapitulation of the transition and second theme, for it is
perfectly naturalafter its recent misfortunesthat the persona
should again wish to submerge itself in consoling dreams or
hopeful visions. Nor is it remarkable that these ephemera
should take forms nearly indistinguishablefrom their earlier
manifestations-or indeed that they should be lost once more
in the return to reality. These repetitions present no special
difficulties for an interpretation of the work as an abstract
fiction of mental life because, unlike dramatic scenes or sit-
uations in literary narratives,dreams are wont to recur. This
is why the nearly exact repetition of the second theme is
unobjectionable, while an exact re-enactmentof the dramatic
scene embodied in the first theme would have been intol-
erable. It is even possible that the very repetition of the
second theme and closing has a special significance,marking
the fleeting dreams of contentment and rude awakenings
they contain as perennial, immutable facts of the persona's
existence-the default conditions of its soul.
Only in the coda does the persona once again make the
effort of will required to overcome this psychic inertia and
to advance the plot. Like the development, the coda begins
on the principaltheme and proceeds (without a transitionthis
time) to tie main action, another attempt to project and
sustainthe persona's ideal state in the key of the submediant.
Now given that just such an action led to disaster in the
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development, the choice to attempt it again must be under-
stood, if not as a direct challenge to the controlling position
of the antagonist, then at least as the most reckless tempting
of fate. But perhaps the persona has learned from its mis-
takes; at any rate, the pattern of phrases and foreshortening
is altered in the coda, and the new solution initially seems
more successful than its counterpart in the development.
Here, as in the earlier episode, the theme is borne upward
and foreshortened until a point correspondingto the original
breaking point (m. 123) is reached in measure 218. In the
coda, however, it seems that the crisis is weathered. When
the texture fragments into wide-ranging arpeggiations, the
fragments do not plummet catastrophicallydownward as in
the development, but continue to soar over an ascendingbass
line until reaching the dominant in measure 233.
What fuels the tension of the passage to this point is the
expectation that motive X will enter as a violently disruptive
force, just as it does in the initial statement of the opening
theme and at the climax of the development. Indeed, the
coda's construction in parallel with the development seems
specifically calculated to raise and exploit this expectation,
sustainingthe movement's tension and forwarddrive through
dramatic means long after its major tonal issues have been
resolved. But because a point corresponding to the initial
crisis point is allowed to pass uneventfully, this expectation
is frustrated,and when motive X is quietly intoned in m. 235,
the persona seems to be asking what the listener must be
wondering as well: Has the threat been forgotten; will an-
other catastrophebe averted? A sudden explosion of motive
X (m. 239) is the answer, setting the final scene in motion,
another desperate assertion of second theme, this time in the
tonic minor (mm. 240ff.). It is quickly swallowed up by ma-
terial derived from motive X (the motion between Db and
C in mm. 251-56) and in the brief moment before it is con-
sumed it bears little resemblance to its former self. The per-
sona's vision of an ideal state has withered in the face of harsh

reality and in the final measures the protagonist falls pow-
erless, spent or despairing.
A graphic representation. It is possible to summarize the
plot of the movement graphically, and though such an ex-
ercise is not an indispensable step in a structuralistanalysis,
it has two potential benefits which I believe make it worth
the effort. First, it contributes to clarity of interpretationby
forcing one to conceive an entire movement as a unified hi-
erarchy of dramatic events. Second, it can be useful in lo-
cating dramatic strategies shared with other works. Fig. 1
(p. 21) demonstrates an approach to graphic notation that
serves to represent the roles, functions, and larger dramatic
sequences in the first movement of the Appassionata. Read-
ing the figure roughly from left to right: At m. 10 the an-
tagonist (A) enters, drawingthe protagonist(P) into dialogue
on a topic it dictates (subversion, S), and, through a threat
it delivers, exerts a disruptiveinfluence (disruption,D) which
is indexed in the mangled transformationof P beginning at
m. 17. This compromised transformation is indicated by
lower case (p), while the forward pointing arrow indicates
causation, in this case, that the misfortune befalling P is the
result of actions (disruption and subversion) undertaken by
A. In the transition (mm. 24ff.) the persona responds to the
preceding events (a response to a preceding event or function
is indicated by a backwardarrow) by withdrawing(W), sub-
mergingitself in contemplation of an ideal condition to which
it aspires (goal state, g). Lower case is used because the goal
state is imagined but as yet unrealized. A nagging after-
thought interrupts(I) the contemplative mood in m. 41, pav-
ing the way for another scene of conflict in which elements
of A and P are intermingled(Ap). A is the dominantelement
in this conflict and so the exposition closes with the antagonist
in control (enclosure, E), the brackets extending back to the
first entrance of A indicatingits sphere of influence. Early in
the development (m. 79), P launches a counteraction (C),
allowing a respite in which the persona attemptsto realize (R,
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Structuralismand MusicalPlot 31
realization) the goal state envisioned in the second theme.
The attempt is unsuccessful (hence lower case g followed by
a minus sign, m. 110); the goal state proves unsustainable,
and A interrupts (m. 130), fulfilling the threat delivered in
m. 10. During the recapitulationof the first theme A is in a
controllingposition with respect to P, enforced through func-
tions of subversion, enclosure, and disruption(mm. 130-51).
Its stronger position relative to that of P is indicated by bold
type (A). Mm. 163-204 mirrorpassages from the exposition,
and only with the persona's second counteractionto A's con-
trol (m. 205) is the plot advanced. A second attemptto realize
the persona's goal state initially meets with success (G, m.
211), but soon A enters (m. 235), disruptingthe goal state,
subsuming(enclosure) its last desperate echo (g--, m. 240ff.),
and crushing the protagonist's hopes (p--, 257).
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
The plot sketch above raises more questions about the
meaning and expressive content of the first movement of the
Appassionatathan it attemptsto answer, and what it does say
about its significance in human terms is rather general. Ac-
cording to this sketch, the movement is best understood as
a record of mental impressions, the internal experience of a
persona in pursuit of an ideal destined to be crushed by an
inscrutableand intractableantagonisticforce. It is about shat-
tered dreams-not particulardreams, but dreams in the ab-
stract. It is not the embodiment of any discrete ten minutes
of the personals mental life, but an idealized fiction captur-
ing the essence of the persona's experience with respect to
external and psychological phenomena-experience gained
over an indeterminate period of time, perhaps even a life-
time. The musical agents are like allegoricalpersonifications,
not only of phenomena in the mind of the persona, but also,
in a sense, of divisions of the psyche itself. The protagonist,
32 MusicTheory Spectrum
as observed above, represents the seat of the persona's iden-
tity; that which directs the focus of its consciousness. The
second theme embodies a state to which the persona aspires
constructed as an ideal image of the protagonist which the
persona attempts unsuccessfullyto project upon the world in
the development and coda. The antagonist, which thwartsthe
realization of the persona's ideal state, might be unassimi-
lated matter within the mind of the persona, perceived as
foreign and inimicalto the persona's aspirations,sense of self,
or world view. It could represent mental impressions of a
threatening extrapersonal force, deadly contradictions the
persona has failed to resolve in its characteror beliefs, nag-
ging fears or doubts, feelings of guilt, or voices of societal
condemnation lurking on the periphery of consciousness.
From the array of alternatives offered above it should be
clear that this structuralistmethod is not intended to generate
specific claims about the meaning or expressive content of
the work. Rather its purpose is to uncover the abstract dra-
matic plan in which the movement's expressive coherence
consists-for the movement is not expressively coherent be-
cause it embodies a specific meaning or tells a particular
story, but because its abstract dramatic plan possesses an
inner logic capable of suggesting any number of stories of a
particulartype without telling any of them. But this sugges-
tive ability, I maintain, is the essence not only of the work's
expressive coherence, but of its formal coherence as well, so
that in formulating the abstract structure of the movement's
expressive-dramatic unfolding in structuralist terms, we in-
evitably create an account of the semantic-expressive deter-
minants of the movement's formal structure. By focusing on
these two complementary aspects of musical works, a struc-
turalistaccount of plot bringsa kind of structuralexplanation
to bear on issues of content and semantic-expressiveinter-
pretations to bear on problems of structure.This article con-
cludes by suggesting the kind of work to which each mode
of inquiry might be put.
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First, by conceiving a sequence of plot functions per-
formed by agents cast in abstract dramatic roles as one de-
terminant of formal relations in the Appassionata and other
works, a frameworkemerges for answeringthe kind of ques-
tions Leo Treitler has called "questions of motivation"-
those addressing why particularmusical events occur when
and as they do.37Why is the varied restatement of the prin-
cipal theme mangled; why is the second theme derived from
the first; why is motive X thundered out in the climactic
retransition; why is the closing in the mediant minor; why
does the first half of the coda parallel the structure of the
development? These features, which are among the cardinal
formal, expressive, and semantic facts of our analytical sub-
ject, do not lie comfortablyin the focus of traditionaltheory;
a structuralistapproach, on the other hand, comprehends
them accordingto their function within a single, unified dra-
matic plan. The utility of structuralistanalysis in accounting
for motivation in individualworks is matched by its utility in
locating common threads among works with seemingly little
in common. Just as Vladimir Propp's structuralistanalyses
reveal recurrent patterns underlying the amazingly multi-
form, picturesque, and colorful surfaces of Russian fairy
tales, so structuralistanalyses of musical plot reveal common
patternsof dramaticconstructionin works remarkablyvaried
in tone, expression, and formal detail. The opening move-
ments of Beethoven's Appassionata,Eroica, and StringQuar-
tet, op. 59 no. 3, for example, while exemplifying three
different genres and the three diametricallycontrasting ex-
pressive poles of the tragic, the heroic, and the comic re-
spectively, are nonetheless organized by a common plot
strategy: in each an unassimilated or antagonistic element
enclosed in or disruptingthe principaltheme later runs amok,
dominatingthe climacticpoints of both the development and
coda, subverting or disrupting the thematic protagonist. In
37"ToWorship that Celestial Sound."

the Eroica, the antagonistic element, the syncopated duple
pattern of the third phrase (mm. 23-36), occupies exactly the
same position within the principal theme as motive X in the
Appassionata, though, unlike its counterpart,it is at first suc-
cessfully enclosed by the protagonist. In the climacticpassage
of the development (mm. 248ff.), however, the antagonist
rages for 31 measures at fortissimo, culminatingin a sharply
dissonant voicing of the Neapolitan 6/5 of E minor (m. 276-
79). The immediate consequence of this crisis is the so-called
new theme of the development, which is in fact a subverted
form of the protagonist. In the comic (or semi-serious) first
act of the Quartet in C, op. 59 no. 3, the antagonisticelement
is the conspicuously trivial two-note motive opening the al-
legro vivace (mm. 30-31); the crisis of the movement is the
final section of the development (mm. 150-76) in which this
motive runs amok, nattering incessantly in rhythmic canon
and working itself to a crescendo; its consequence is the mys-
tification of the first section of the principal theme in the
recapitulation. Indeed the kind of dramaticmotifs and func-
tional sequences noted in this analysis of the Appassionata
can be heard in other works with sufficientfrequency to sug-
gest that their manipulationwas a central aspect of Beethov-
en's art and one well worth the effort of systematic study.
The complementary approach, conceiving content as the
abstractstructureof a work's expressive-dramaticunfolding,
can guide writers engaging biographical, political, gender,
and other content-centered issues in constructing internally
consistent narrative interpretations of musical works and in
evaluating the consistency and validity of such interpreta-
tions. Two brief examples will indicate the range of issues
which the structuralistanalysis of plot might help to clarify.
First, consider the political slant put on Shostakovich'sTenth
Symphony by statements attributed to the composer in Tes-
timony, a book of memoirs whose authenticity has been the
subject of heated debate for nearly two decades. In it the
composer is reputed to have said that the work is "about
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Structuralismand MusicalPlot 33
Stalin and the Stalin years. The second part, the scherzo, is
a musical portrait of Stalin, roughly speaking."38 Since ma-
terial related to that of the alleged Stalin portrait appears in
each of the symphony's movements, one might explore the
authenticity of these statements by analyzing the work in
structuralistterms to see if the abstract roles and functions
fulfilled by this material are consistent with statements at-
tributed to the composer. First, does it play the central and
presumably antagonistic role one would expect of material
associated with the figureof Stalin in a work about Stalin and
the Stalin years composed from Shostakovich'sperspective?
Is it, for example, cast in an opposing relationship to Shos-
takovich's signaturemotive (D, El, C, B) which appears late
in the work in the role of a principal protagonist, and does
it appear at critical junctures in the symphony's dramatic
plan? The answers to these, admittedly, carefully chosen
questions might tend either to support or cast doubt on the
authenticity of statements about the work's content in Tes-
timony. As it happens, I believe they support it. In the de-
velopment section of the finale the principal theme of the
movement's allegro (first heard at reh. 153 + 2) is gradually
subverted until it comes to resemble music of the Stalin
portraitand at the climax of the movement, the denouement
of the symphony's dramatic plan, a quotation of the Stalin
theme (reh. 184 - 8) emerges from this subverted material,
threatening an enclosure on the grand scale. In the retran-
sition, however, it is violently interruptedby Shostakovich's
signature motive sounding in orchestral unison at fff (reh.
184). These events are at least consistent with the content
described in Testimony, and the irony of Shostakovich con-
signing Stalin to oblivion by a mere signature is too delicious
to dismiss lightly.
38DmitriShostakovich, Testimony:The Memoirsof Dmitri Shostakovich,
as related to and edited by Solomon Volkov, trans. Antonina W. Bouis (New
York: Harper & Row, 1979), 141.
34 Music Theory Spectrum
Or suppose, to cite another example, one wished to in-
terpret the first movement of the Appassionata according to
Susan McClary's narrative paradigm for sonata-allegro move-
ments of the common-practice period, that is, as a drama in
which an antagonistic feminine Other embodied in the second
theme threatens the identity of a masculine protagonist in-
habiting the first.39 The structuralist analysis above would
indicate consistent patterns of behavior, interaction, and re-
lationship among the movement's agents that would have to
be addressed in making such an interpretation internally con-
sistent. Among these, one would have to explain the deri-
vation of the second theme from the first as well as the tragic
fate the two themes share. More important, one would have
to justify carefully the ascription of an antagonistic role to the
second theme given that, as in works by Beethoven, Schu-
bert, and Tchaikovsky which McClary has specifically claimed
as exemplars of this paradigm, it seems clearly to be upstaged
by an antagonistic force within the principal theme or tonic
area.40 While no approach to interpretation can resolve con-
clusively the complex issues of content raised by these ex-
39McClary,"Sexual Politics in Classical Music," in Feminine Endings
(Minneapolis:University of Minnesota Press, 1991), 68-69; and "Narrative
Agendas in 'Absolute Music'," in Musicology and Difference, ed. Ruth A.
Solie (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1993), 326-44.
40Theworks in question are the first movements of Beethoven's Eroica,
Schubert's "Unfinished," and Tchaikovsky'sSymphony No. 4. On the first
two, see "Sexual Politics in Classical Music," 69; the first movement of the
Tchaikovskyis the principal subject of the same essay.
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amples and others like them, the structuralist account of plot
outlined above does provide a conceptual framework in
which they can be focused and fruitfully debated.
In interpreting works of the nineteenth and twentieth cen-
turies, an era in which music's essence and aesthetic function
were often defined in expressive terms and in relation to the
internal life of its composers, critics exploring issues of con-
tent and theorists pursuing models of musical teleology have
increasingly recognized the need to integrate structural and
semantic-expressive accounts of musical works in the act of
analysis. A structuralist model of musical plot is one way in
which this can be accomplished without indulging the ex-
cesses of programmatic interpretation and without divorcing
the notes themselves from the expressive and dramatic con-
ceptions that may well have determined their existence and
disposition in the act of composition.
ABSTRACT
An analyticalmethod based on structuralistprinciplesis developed
for the exploration of an abstract and specifically musical form of
dramaticorganization, called musical plot, underlyingworks of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The fundamentalsemanticunits
of musical plots are binary relationships akin to literary foils and
functionalsequences,standardpatternsof interactionamong musical
units, usually themes and motives, cast in abstract dramatic roles.
The firstmovement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata, op. 57, is analyzed
by this method as a drama of mental life in which an antagonistic
force within the first theme underminesthe interests of the work's
persona.