Musical Works A MashUp

Art and Abstract Objects
Christy Mag Uidhir

Print publication date: 2013 Print ISBN-13: 9780199691494 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: Jan-13 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199691494.001.0001
Musical Works: A Mash-Up

Joseph G. Moore
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199691494.003.0014
Abstract and Keywords

It is argued that the concept of a musical work shifts innocuously with judgmental setting between the notion of a sound-structure and a more musically flexible notion that is grounded in musico-historical context. This individuative indeterminacy in the work-concept explains and defuses a debate between contextualists and structuralists about the individuation of musical works, but it raises the Quinean worry that musical works are ontologically illegitimate entities without identity. It is argued that this challenge can be met by adopting a supervaluation model of how the workconcept shifts, coupled with a disjunctive (schizoid) metaphysics and a semantic pretense account of our seeming reference to individual musical works. The proposed view also suggests that the existence conditions of musical works are indeterminateone of the two entities that grounds thought and talk about musical works comes into (and goes out of) existence while the other does not.
Keywords: musical works, metaphysics, individuation, supervaluation, sound-structure, provenance
I. Controversing
What role in the individuation of a musical work is played by its provenance by the musico-historical and biographical conditions that surround the works composition and reception? The fact that Beethovens Hammerklavier Piano Sonata (No. 29 in B flat major, Op. 106, 1818) occurred in the musicohistorical setting that it did, and the fact that it was composed when
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it was in the sequence of Beethovens oeuvre determines some of the sonatas broadly aesthetic features. The Hammerklavier established a new precedent for the length of a solo work, for example; and certain features of Beethovens later work, such as situating the fugue within a classical form, emerge here for the first time. Its natural to attribute these novelties to the work itself, since they contribute to the pieces critical importance. On the other hand, even a highly informed listener doesnt encounter these features in a narrowly perceptual way when the work is performed, nor do they guide a proper or even insightful performance of the work. And if a musical work is individuated by those of its features that can be presented and experienced in performance then provenance shouldnt figure in the works identity. But perhaps this illegitimately privileges those aesthetic features that are narrowly experiential, and these are sometimes of secondary evaluative importance (think of chance music, or the use of found sounds). In any case, its not clear that we can cleanly distinguish those aesthetic properties of a work that can be heard in performance from those that cant. Who would deny that The Rite of Springs revolutionary character was apparent to its first audience in Paris? (If you think Nijinskys choreography was really the focus, consider instead the reception given to Ornette Colemans The Shape of Jazz to Come.) Isnt this striking historical property part of the works very nature?
(p.285)
II. Just Yoking

Controversies such as this about the proper role of provenance have been hotly debated in recent decades. And I think it is fair to say that contextualiststhose who think work identity is sensitive to provenance are winning the day. If we agree with Jerrold Levinson and other contextualists1 that at least some historical or even biographical properties should figure in the identity of a musical work, then its plausible to construe a musical work as a sound-structure yoked somehow to certain art-historical features that surround its composition. There are interesting and subtle disagreements about how we should best understand and deploy the notion of a sound-structure, as well as the notion of art-historical provenance, but these are not my main concern here.2 My concern instead is with the yoking: How should those of us moved by contextualist considerations best understand the way structure and provenance mix in our concept of a musical work?
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An obvious way to incorporate provenance in a works identity is to construe a musical work as a fine-grained concatenation of a sound structure and a particular provenance. Ill take as representative Stephen Daviess (p.286) suggestion that a musical work is a performed sound-structure as made normative in a musico-historical setting.3 The proposal may allow that strict similarity in sound structure and provenance is somewhat loosened in application, but its logical root is conjunctive: Two works are identical if and only if they have the same sound structure and the same provenance. This is the main form of contextualism on offer in the literature, presumably because its the only straightforward way to mix structure and provenance. I propose a different mix. On my view, our judgments of work identity are more disjointed. They are variously sensitive to structure, or to provenance, or to both in a way that occasionally pulls us in different directions. Moreover, our identity judgments can shift with the explanatory purposes, evaluative foci, and pragmatic considerations that characterize the different judgmental and conversational settings in which we find ourselves. Sometimes were focused primarily on a works musical structure, while sometimes were concerned more with its art-historical status. Most of the time, both criteria are implicitly at play. Exactly how our sensitivities shift and even that they shift at allis not readily apparent to us because the two concerns rarely come apart. If Im right, theres a sort of tacit semantic indecision or individuative indeterminacy built into our work concept. This indeterminacy isnt worth resolving through revisionary conceptual sharpening because not doing so yields cognitive and conversational economy. And as Ill eventually explain, it doesnt rule out the worlds answering to our shifting concept. This is the view I will develop in this chapter. I first argue that shiftism (sorry) is a superior alternative both to contextualism about musical works and to contextualisms main opponentthe structuralist view that musical works are simply sound structures.4 In Section III, I argue that this shifting (p.287) view gives a better treatment of some hypothetical and actual cases of work individuation because it explains some unsettled intuitions. And in Section IV, I argue that considerations that might sharpen this indeterminacy are either tangential or inconclusive, particularly once shiftism is seen as a theoretical alternative. I then worry, in Section V, that the individuative indeterminacy that shiftism exposes challenges the existence of musical works. However, in Sections VI and VII, I develop a more detailed account of the indeterminacy that I argue, in Section VIII, is compatible with realism about musical works.
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III. Intuition-Mongering
Hypothetical cases are sometimes treated as grist for a theoretical mill, or presented along with a favored intuition that the theory goes on to honor. For the moment, Id like to effect the opposite: Insofar as its possible, consider the following counterfactual scenariosmy own versions of some familiar exampleswith an open, uncommitted, and pre-theoretic mind. Scenario #1: The Hawaiian-Hammer. Suppose Beethoven had lived in some remote part of Hawaii, as yet untouched by the culture of Captain Cook. In 1817, a Broadwood piano washes ashore. The Hawaiian genius soon figures out how to play and compose for it, and to do all of this in classical style no less. Even more miraculously he does so all on his own. By the fall of the next year, he has composed a piece that is note-for-note identical to the actual Hammerklavier. Is the Hawaiian-Hammer the same as the actual Hammerklavier?5 Scenario #2: The Honey-Hammer. Suppose instead that, back in Vienna, Beethoven sits down to write his 29th piano sonata during the (p.288) same time period; and he dedicates it to Archduke Rudolph, as he actually did. Suppose, though, that the sonatas third movement turns out to be more upbeat and somewhat sweeter than the actual Hammerklaviers famously sorrowful third movement. Suppose our counterfactual Beethoven has upped the tempo a bit, made a few themes a touch less searching, and tossed in a few more major tonalities. The differences are subtle, but noticeable (at least to those who can shuttle between possible worlds), although the counterfactual piece goes on to much the same critical acclaim and influence as the actual Hammerklavier. Is this counterfactual 29th Sonata none other than our actual Hammerklavier?6 The strict contextualist holds, of course, that neither the HawaiianHammer nor the Honey-Hammer is the same work as Beethovens actual Hammerklavier, while the pure structuralist agrees that the Honey-Hammer is a different piece but will allow that the Hammerklavier could, indeed, have been composed in a remote part of Hawaii. But what do our untutored intuitions tell us? (Or have I already reloaded them?) The examples are far-fetched, of course, and there isnt universal agreement, but some of us draw a blank; and we do so because were pulled in different directions. If we successfully discharge the presupposition that a determinate yes or no is called for, we might well say that the HawaiianHammer is the same as the actual Hammerklavier in one sense but not
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another. Ditto for the Honey-Hammer, with the senses converted. I dont know for certain that Im in the intuitional majority here, though I suspect it. (Confirming this might be a project for experimental philosophy.) In any case, I want to investigate exactly what wide-spread intuitional indeterminacy of this type might show about our work concept. In the first scenario, we notice a structural similarity and a provenancial (if I may) dissimilarity. Since this pulls us in conflicting directions, our overall judgment about the identity of the Hawaiian-Hammer remains indeterminate. This would be nicely explained if our work concept shifts, as I claim, between a structural strand and an entirely provenancial strand. But the contextualist might claim that our intuitional uncertainty arises instead because we recognize a similarity in one of the (as he holds) two components of the musical work, while we simultaneously disregard a (p.289) dissimilarity in the other. Perhaps we disregard provenance because our consideration of the case has been too hasty, or we havent fully appreciated the truth of contextualism. This alternative explanation of the Hawaiian-Hammer is already inferior, since it makes our intuition half-mistaken, but I think the Honey-Hammer nails the case against the contextualist. Regarding this second scenario, the contextualist has to say, I think, that any intuitional indeterminacy results from a looseness in our enforcement of structural similarity. But this gets things wrong: We dont blank on the Honey-Hammer solely because we cant gauge whether the structural differences transgress some permitted degree of looseness; rather, our sense that the structural differences are, or might be beyond the pale is balanced against our sense that the strong provenancial similarities should rule the day. We think of a musical work as a product, but also as a process. And the process, at least, is almost always cultural. (This is one reason the HawaiianHammer, with its isolated genius, is a particularly far-fetched example.) To count as a work, a musical offering must have presentational content a performed sound structure, close enoughbut someone must also consider it to be a work, and indeed a work of a certain type. The composer isnt entirely authoritative here; and in this respect, musical works are a bit like marriages and touchdowns. Even when shes working solo, the composers work is shapedboth constrained and enabledby a socioartistic tradition and practice, which she might shape in turn. This practice helps determine what features can count as artistic, and how: It helps determine, for example, which expressive features are conveyed by which
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transformations of the medium. But this social practice also plays a role in determining whether something is a work at all, and how the work is institutionally recognized, presented, described, categorized, canonized, and so on. All of these considerations drive the way we individuate works. So far, of course, the contextualist will agree. What supports my shifting view against contextualism is the further observation that many art-institutional means of work-individuation neednt have much connection with musical content. In order to count as a musical work, a creation must have some musical content or other, to be sure,7 but a works art-institutional (p.290) individuation neednt concern the particularities of this content. This suggests that provenance can have an individuating force all on its own.8 Consider the way we think, at least theoretically, of musical works over time, both during their composition and after their initial or official completions. A composer confronts a deadline, and very late in the day she decides to alter the key signature or tempo of her piece, or to tinker with its harmonies, or to cut and add measures or entire sections, or even to completely change the principal theme. We nevertheless seem to regard the work as numerically unchanged for sound practical reasons of a broadly institutional and intentional kinda piece has been commissioned, a title has been chosen, or the composer has simply stuck to the self-imposed task of composing her next new work. On the other end, a deadline may have passedan initial performance has occurred, or a score has been publishedyet the composer tinkers with her composition because it dissatisfies her in some way (true of Bruckner and Chopin), or because she wants to change things to suit the different musicians, instruments, or audience involved in an upcoming performance (true of Mozart, Stravinsky, Ellington, and many others).9 We say that the work has changed, but we seem to mean this qualitatively and not numerically: We might distinguish drafts or versions in order to mark the relatively stable musical, or institutionally noted points in the diachronic stream of structural variation, but we dont stray from the pragmatic, provenance-driven reasons for counting the whole structureshifting enterprise as of a piece, and not many. I see no reason to think that our work concept is any less modally flexible than it is temporally so. And once were gripped by the force of art-institutional considerations then our work concept can, I submit, accommodate structural variations even greater than those involved in the Honey-Hammer. Suppose Beethoven set out with the express goal of writing a sonata in which to reconceive the fugue. (For all I know he actually did
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this.) And suppose he accomplished this with music that is very different that doesnt move by descending thirds, for example. Couldnt this still be the Hammerklavier? Ive chosen Beethoven as the source of my examples because its precisely in the era he dominates that Lydia Goehr has controversially claimed that our work concept came into being in its complete and mature form.10 One (p.291) mark of this is that Beethoven and his contemporaries could, and did make normative heightened levels of performative uniformity, precision, virtuosity, and musical detail. But this actually makes Beethoven less tractable for my purposes since we tend to focus so intently on, as it were, his music. Consider instead pieces that are composed with a particular person or occasion preeminently in mind, or that are strongly driven by some non-musical theme. Couldnt Handels Fireworks Music, Ellingtons Queens Suite, or Arlo Gutheries Alices Restaurant survive even greater variations in musical structure? Whats going on here? Bound up in our work concept are two distinct metaphysical criteria of individuation, one structural and the other provenancial. Works themselves seem to vary in how two distinct types of properties bear on their identity: Some works have greater structural detail than others, and some are surrounded by more forceful and determinative art-historical particularities. The Hammerklavier has more structural detail than the ditty I just wrote (trust me); and this same ditty might have been composed anytime in the past few decades, whereas Bartoks Concerto for Orchestra, actually composed in 1943, could not have been composed before 1942, when Shostakovich penned the Seventh Symphony which Bartok satirizes.11 But I think our work concept is doubly shifty: Our relative sensitivity to these two variably thick ingredients can itself shift and remix as our thought and talk focus on different aesthetic issues, and as they make salient different kinds of aesthetic property. So our individuative judgments shift as we consider different musical works, and also as this consideration is driven by different aesthetic concerns. Very occasionally, a perfect semantic storm blows in: We stumble across an example that pulls our two criteria in different directions, as we consider the case in a manner that leaves our divergent sensitivities in intuition-numbing equipoise. This happens most readily in theoretical discussions, like this one, in which an example is purposely constructed, and we regard it without any particular concern (other, perhaps, than understanding the very nature of this regard). In these
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rare, untethered, theoretical settings our work concept blanks, and breaks down. But thankfully, what might be common in philosophical discussion is almost unheard of in everyday talk of musical works and performances of them.
(p.292)
IV. Can We Sharpen Up?
My claim so far is that our received concept of a musical work is individuatively vague: In the vast majority of normal cases we unproblematically tell musical works apart and count them cleanly; but in certain cases, such as in the thought experiments Ive discussed, our work concept doesnt individuate cleanly and determinately because its structural and provenancial strands pull in different directions (and judgmental setting doesnt resolve this conflict). But the case Ive made for this conceptual indeterminacy rests largely upon a few thought experiments, and intuitions about these are notoriously complex and various, as are their explanations. One might suspect that there are other considerations that will resolve this pre-theoretic indeterminacy. What about the published debate over the individuation of works? Portions of that discussion properly concern, in effect, our separate understandings of structure and provenance, whereas my concern, again, is with the more fundamental question of how the two are mixed in our work concept.12 Also tangential, I believe, is the discussion of whether works are created or discovered, and how, if theyre created, they can also be abstract entities. (Ill suggest at chapters end that the existence conditions of musical works might also be indeterminate.) What remains seems largely a consideration of actual and hypothetical examples, and Ive here proposed an alternative and superior way of treating them. Moreover, its difficult to see how further considerations could decisively sharpen up our work concept. A discovery model seems entirely implausible in this realm: Musical works are not natural kinds whose essential features might be discovered through empirical investigation. On the contrary, musical works seem constructed entities whose identity conditions are entirely determined by our discursive practice and the conceptual scheme that drives it.13 We might hope instead for conceptual resolution through reflective equilibrium: Perhaps our work concept will sharpen up once we see how it connects to (p.293) broader aspects of the way we think about music and artistic practice. Here too Im sceptical. The problem, it seems to me, is that
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the obvious issues we might plumb are, on reflection, either independent of the question of work identity or themselves unsettled (or both). Ive already suggested that the issue of existence conditions wont help. Where else might we look? We might try looking outside the realm of Western classical music. Here, though, we will encounter musical practices without works or, more often, practices with musical works that might be structurally thinner but beset by the same individuative indeterminacy nevertheless.14 Our thought experiments could be made just as inconclusive if we substituted for Beethovens Hammerklavier sonata John Coltranes Giant Steps or, I suspect, a piece of Classical Indian, or Javenese gamelan music. Or perhaps we will find unhelpfully that the concept of a musical work is elsewhere deployed in a quite different and heterogeneous fashion, as has been argued for rock music.15 We might look to other entitiessymbols, flags, car models, booksthat seem both created and repeatable. But here too, I suspect we will encounter the same individuative indeterminacy. Indeed, the shifting view might be extended to cover repeatable non-musical works such as Henry Fords Model T and Saul Kripkes Naming and Necessity, because work concepts seem generally to yoke a structural or content-sensitive criterion together with a provenancial one. Finally, we might hope that some general theory about the production and reception of artworks might sharpen our work concept. But Im still skeptical. Take the debate at play in our opening controversy. To paint in very broad brushstrokes, the neo-formalist holds that what is to be evaluated in an artwork are the significant features we narrowly perceive in encountering it in a gallery, in a book, or in performance, for example. (These are sometimes called a works aesthetic properties as opposed to its artistic ones.) On this view, it might be useful to know a works art-historical setting in order properly to perceive itin order, that is, to appreciate which of its many perceivable features are artistically relevant.16 But it is only these perceivable features that properly figure in an evaluation (p.294) of the work itself as opposed to the artist or the genre; and so it is only these features that are built into the work metaphysically. The neo-expressivist holds, by contrast, that since art is at core a communicative activity, cultural and historical setting is essential to an artworks communicative force. On this view, a sound structure or a canvas may be the crucial perceptual vehicle of an act of artistic communication,
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but it is still only one part of that act. For this reason, the artwork is more inclusive than the sheer communicative vehicle (i.e. the canvas or sound structure); the artwork also includes the vehicles relations to cultural setting and to the contingent expressive connections that are an indispensible part of the artistic communication. Whos right? Perhaps the neo-formalist and the neo-expressivist capture divergent but equally useful ways to conceptualize the worlds enormously diverse variety of artworks and artistic practices. This theoretical pluralism would support, and be supported by the individuatively mongrel character of our work concept. But even if only one view is right, the independence of work-individuation from this general debate seems ensured by significant theoretical looseness in this domainthat is, by unclarity or outright freedom about whether one theoretical choice point has any bearing upon another. For example, the neo-formalist might have reason to hold that, although only narrowly perceptual properties of the artwork are properly attended to while evaluating the work itself, other features including relations to context are nevertheless part of the work. And the neo-expressivist might favor a conception of the artwork according to which the work itself is a narrow expressive vehicle, with the rest of the expressive act captured in events centering around the artist.17 One can imagine motivation for each of these complex views. And their very possibility shows that the general debate about the nature of artistic practice privileges neither the structural nor the provenancial strand of our work concept. So, if Im right, theres a deeply irresolvable indeterminacy in our concept of a musical work. This would defuse the debate about work-individuation: Structuralism and contextualism overprivilege, in effect, distinct and sometimes divergent individuative strands bond up in our mongrel concept of a musical work. Each view is half-right, but also (p.295) half-wrong. But this nice result is balanced against a dark metaphysical implicationif our work concept is irresolvably indeterminate, perhaps there arent really musical works at all.
V. Interlude: A Quinean Tension

So far, Ive argued for the following two claims: Conceptual Indeterminacy: Our concept of a musical work (and the discourse/practice in which its embedded) doesnt determinately individuate all cases we might consider;
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sometimes different individuative strands within our concept pull us in different directions. No Sharpeners: Theres no hidden criterion of individuation for musical works that can be discovered empirically; and reflecting on broader conceptual connections wont favor any particular revisionary sharpening of our concept. Along with these two claims, I also hold that we have a strong prima facie reason to be realists about the existence of musical works. We seem successfully to talk about and quantify over works; indeed, we seem to perform them. Much of our music making seems to traffic in works; and talk of musical works seems an ineliminable part of the performative, critical, and even legal discourse that surrounds this music making. But this combination of views is in tension. If Conceptual Indeterminacy and No Sharpeners are both true, then its hard to see how realism about musical works can be squared with Quines compelling metaphysical injunction against entities without identity. How can we admit musical works into our considered ontology if they lack clear identity criteriaif we cant say, even in principle, whether the Hawaiian-Hammer (or the Honey-Hammer) and Beethovens actual Hammerklavier are one and the same musical work? We might question or scrutinize Quines principle. Indeed, Quine himself once archly asked whether certain entities (he had in mind meaning-notions like propositions) might be accepted as twilight half-entities to which the identity concept is not to apply? If the disreputability of their origins is undeniable, still bastardy, to the enlightened mind, is no disgrace.18 But despite the appeal of enlightened disrepute, Im with Quine. At least, Im (p.296) with him in opposing the possibility of in-the-world metaphysical indeterminacythe putative possibility that, for example, the HawaiianHammer and the actual Hammerklavier neither determinately stand in nor fail to determinately stand in the identity relation to one another. For one thing, the general possibility of this type of metaphysical indeterminacy faces strong general challenges to its coherence.19 More importantly, the possibility doesnt match up well with the source of the conceptual indeterminacy in this case. For the conceptual indeterminacy in our work concept arises not from a lack of intuitions, but from conflicts among them. And this suggests that the indeterminacy resides not in the world itself, but in our representations of it.
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Indeed, it suggests that, if need be, we could unpack our work-talk and say everything we want to say about our musical practice in terms of individuatively precise entities that answer to our conflicting criteria. If this is so, then an individuatively determinate world could answer to our indeterminate work-talk. It is this view that I will flesh out in the remainder of the chapter. My positive view consists of a model of our unrevised work concept (Section VI) and a sketch of a metaphysics that grounds it (Section VII). With this view in place, I argue (Section VIII) that it compares favorably to a second way one might respond to the Quinean tensionthat is, to abandon realism about musical works.
VI. A Supervaluating Concept

The individuative shifting Ive argued for can be nicely modeled as a matter of our work concepts supervaluating over independent structural and provenancial criteria.20 According to the supervaluation model, two tokenperformances are determinately considered to be performances of the same musical workthat is, our work concept counts them as performances of the same workif they stand in both the same-structure and the (p.297) same-performance relations to one another. They are determinately not considered performances of the same work if they fail to stand in both of these relations. Otherwise (if the performance-tokens stand in one but not another of these criterial relations to one another), it is indeterminate according to our concept whether the two performance-tokens count as performances of the same musical work. So, according to the model, Beethovens own performance of his freshly composed sonataon an autumn evening in 1818, supposeand a performance by Richard Goode in Amherst, MA in 2008 determinately count as performances of the same musical work, the Hammerklavier, because the two performances stand in both the same-structure and same-provenance relations to one another. (Both are members of the same two equivalence classes formed under the same-structure and same-provenance relations respectively.) A David Grisman mandolin performanceinspired by the Grateful Deadlater the same evening in Northampton, MA determinately counts as a performance of a distinct musical work because it determinately does not stand in either relation to Beethovens performance (or to Goodes). Its indeterminate whether a performance by the Hawaiian genius counts as a performance of the same musical work as Beethovens performance: The performances stand in the same-structure relation to one another, but fail to stand in the same-provenance relation. And its also indeterminate whether
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a performance of the sweeter sonata by our counterfactual Beethoven on the same autumn evening counts as a performance of the same work: The counterfactual performance stands in the same-provenance, but not the same-structure relation to Beethovens actual performance. A more comprehensive and nuanced model of our work concept would need to be complicated in a variety of ways. And even then, no model will perfectly capture our work concept. For one thing, folk-constructs such as this vary somewhat with person, culture and domain of application. Nevertheless, I think this supervaluationism nicely explains our concepts individuative indeterminacy. It captures the profile of our intuitions, including conflicted intuitions, that I elicited earlier in the chapter; and it explains why our work concept functions perfectly well in the vast majority of cases in which the two relations dont come apart. I will comment briefly on two complications at play in the examples Ive discussed. The first complication concerns vagueness in each of the two criteria considered separately. We might allow that Beethoven and the (p.298) Hawaiian genius could have indicated the same sound structure despite some relatively minor differences in their musical specifications. But how great can these differences be? Not as great as the significant harmonic differences that yield the Honey-Hammer, I think, but we might allow differences in key, for example, and slight differences in specified tempo and ornamentation. Wheres the cut-off point? The allowable degree of variation seems vague. The relation of same-provenance also seems loose. Beethoven could have indicated his sonata later than he did, perhaps even after he had composed what is actually counted as his 30th piano sonata (op. 109). But could the very same Hammerklavier, provenancially considered, have been composed by one of Beethovens contemporaries? Considered in the right setting, I think it could, but I suspect vagueness here as well.21 In any case, as far as I can see, the vagueness in these two criterial relations, and the best way to understand it (perhaps with a second application of supervaluationism?) is independent of my account of the indeterminate criterial mixing. A second complication has to do with the way that our judgments of work identity might vary with judgmental setting. The norms and standards of different musical genres seem to make for differences in the way we individuate works within them.22 But as I suggested in Section III, our identity judgments might also vary, even concerning one and the same case, with judgmental settingthat is, with the variable conversational, aesthetic
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and practical concerns that are at play when an identity judgment is called for.23 Its not my goal here to establish that our work concept is (p.299) deployed in this type of setting-variable way, but I strongly suspect it. If so, this would add another layer of complexity to our model, and raise some new questions.24 However, as far as I can see, this setting-dependence of our work concept cuts across its individuative indeterminacy and the supervaluation model Ive just proposed.
VII. A Schizoid Metaphysics

The conceptual model Ive just proposed nicely captures the way our work concept is deployed in musical practice, but it leaves a crucial metaphysical question unresolved: What do the two criteria track? What makes it the case that two token performances are structurally or provenancially similar, or both? The metaphysics that seems to me best to match the conceptual model is almost flat-footedly simple: The distinct criteria track respectively two distinct and largely distinguishable types of entitiesstructuralworks (S-works) and provenancial-works (P-works). But what are these? Before pursuing this question, I emphasize the relative independence that it has from the conceptual model. To be sure, there must be something about the world that these criteria track, unless we are to leave the door open to eliminativism about musical works. But my conceptual account might remain entirely accurate even if the metaphysics I pursue turns out to be misguided. I think we can take structural-works simply to be sound structures. Sound structures are not, of course, uncontroversial entities. We might wonder which particular sequences should play the role of S-works. For example, do sound structures include performance-means?25 As I noted earlier there are general metaphysical worries about sound structures as abstracta. For example, how do abstract sequences enter into the causal relations at work in our putative reference to musical works, and our knowledge of them? But my claim about the existence and structure of the individuative indeterminacy in our work concept is, as far as I can see, compatible with (p.300) a wide range of possible answers to such questions. In any case, these worries dont tell more forcefully against my position than the positions to which Ive argued its superior. We need confidence only that there is some workable account of sound structures, or at least of sound structure talk. The more novel construction is that of a provenancial-work.26 I think of Pworks as causal webs of intentionally linked action-tokens grounded initially
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in status-endowing actions of a composer and the musical institutions that surround her. They spread diachronically from the actions involved in composition and work-endowment through certain performative, evaluative, and representational events that those acts of composition influence. Since the acts of composition, work-establishment, performance, and evaluation are to be specified and understood relative to a background of expressive and performative traditions that inform them, we can usefully regard P-works as tradition-threadsthat is, as individual threads in the broader causal tapestry of musical, psychological, and social events upon which a musical culture and tradition supervene. An example might help. The P-work that corresponds to Beethovens Hammerklavier piano sonata (call it the P-Hammer) is to be specified and understood against a broad range of performance traditions, contingent musico-expressive conventions, and prominent cultural events that would have been at play in the Viennese musical culture in which Beethoven composed his sonata. This expressive background is roughly a collection of musical conventions that Beethoven and his contemporaries would have implicitly regarded as the relevant musical backdrop against which a new musical composition was to achieve its expressive effects. The P-Hammer itself starts with some specific actions of Beethovenshis deciding to compose another sonata, or his being commissioned to do so. They extend through the process of composition, and the moment when Beethoven (or a publisher or a deadline) determined that his composition was done. This is the period during which the P-Hammer came into existence. The P-Hammer continues by including the specific performative and evaluative tradition that Beethovens composition has brought about. It includes all token performances intended to be of Beethovens 29th piano (p.301) sonata, or more broadly, performances (and playbacks) that stand in a chain of referential intentions reaching back to Beethovens composition. It also includes representationsthoughts and words about the Hammerklavierthat are grounded in causal chains reaching back to Beethovens compositional actions.27 The P-hammer is, then, a single tread in the still on-going musical tradition that includes all of Beethovens compositions and the many performative and representational events theyve spawned, as well as the vastly more numerous musical events that comprise the on-going history of Western classical music.
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As Ive sketched them, P-works supervene upon particular actions, including particular psychological and social events. So, to the extent that such actiontokens are temporally bounded, then P-works are as well. And this means that P-works come into existence somewhere in the compositional process, and go out of existence when the causal effects of these compositional acts come to an endwhen the last performance has been played, the last score has been burned, and no one thinks about the Hammerklavier any more. A number of questions remain for a fleshed out account of tradition-threads, but this sketch suffices for my purposes here.28 Its time now to situate shiftismto show how it allows us to maintain realism about musical works.
VIII. How to be a Realist about Musical Works

Ive argued that bound up in our concept of a musical work are two distinct criteria of individuation, one musico-structural and the other provenancial. And Ive also suggested that the relative force of the two criteria can shift with judgmental setting. Usually the two criteria are harmlessly aligned. But occasionallywhen we confront certain examples or when we ask certain philosophical questions about musical worksthe criteria pull in different (p.302) directions. When this happens, our concept doesnt yield a determinate judgment about work individuation. Ive also argued that this conceptual indeterminacy is no reason to abandon realism about musical works. According to the metaphysics Ive sketched, the world contains individuatively determinate entities (sound structures and tradition-threads) that our work concept gets at, and responds to in a fashion nicely modeled by supervaluationism. When the application of our work concept is unsettled we can, if we wish, fully describe the situation in terms of these individuatively determinate entities. But a general conceptual revision or divorce is uncalled for. Not only would sharpening or abandoning our work concept be inefficient, but something important would be lost. The distinct criteria arise from a cluster of features that are bonded together in a unified work concept for artistic and cultural reasonsby the way music is thought about in practice, appreciation, and evaluation.29 However, even if one agrees with all this, one might still wonder whether the view really honors realism about musical works. For one thing, there is not, metaphysically considered, a unified kind of entity that answers to our work concept. If there are metaphysical categories, then sound structures and tradition-threads are surely to be sorted differentlyperhaps as abstracta and concreta respectively. This on its own doesnt undermine realism, of
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course. A concept can be disjunctive in application without violating the broadly realistic condition that it get relatively straightforwardly at entities in the world. For example, we can competently apply the concept of jade without realizing that it comprehends entities (jadeite and nephrite) that are categorically distinct when considered from within a mineralogical framework. And this small misfit between concept and reality isnt enough to undermine realism about jade. But my view posits a bigger misfit than this. It holds that in the normal case, there are two entities that answer to our talk of one musical work. And Ive argued that we cant construe a musical work, in the contextualist way, as a concatenation of these two entities. Its surely surprising, then, to learn (p.303) that when we count the thirty-two individual musical works that comprise Beethovens complete piano sonatas, we traffic in sixty-four distinct entities! If Im right, our work concept involves a tacit semantic presupposition that is falsenamely, that there is a realm of metaphysically unproblematic entities that answer in a clean, one-one fashion to our talk and counting of musical works. This presupposition might have arisen from a sort of tacit and collective linguistic pretense. Its musically and culturally useful to making certain work-wise distinctions among groups of performances and topics of appreciation and evaluation. Speakers within a musical practice adopt or simply inherit the practice of talking as if there are things to which these groupings and topics answer in a one-one fashion. Individual such things are given names which draw revealingly on both musical and provenancial features. And a work concept and a surrounding discourse are quickly up and running. The false presupposition is never exposed by the normal conditions in which the concept is applied. Most people never consider, and never need to consider whether there is really one metaphysically coherent thing that The Hammerklavier Sonata picks out. A philosopher might point out that this musical work cant comfortably be identified with a score, with a psychological idea in Beethovens head, with a class of performances, or with any other prima facie plausible candidate; and she might note that musical works are philosophically strange in other ways besides. But the utility of the practice is largely untouched, even if conceptually-minded composers might stretch it by playing off the philosophy. In short, our work concept continues to function perfectly well despite theorectical problems with the presupposition.
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All of this might seem to make my theory a sort of non-eliminative fictionalism about musical works, since it seeks to support our thought and talk about musical works against a metaphysical backdrop that only imperfectly matches our conceptual scheme. But there is a crucial difference, I think, between my view and the interesting work-fictionalisms that have recently been proposed by Andrew Kania (2008) and by Ross Cameron (2008). The central claim that those theories are fictionalist aboutMusical works existis not, on my view, true only when considered one way but not another, or true only relative to one way of speaking English and not another.30 On my theory, this existence claim is true simpliciter. Its (p.304) determinately true that musical works exist because its true on each sharpening of our work conceptS-works exist, and so do P-works. This seems enough for the view to merit the label realism and avoid fictionalism. In the end, the view defended here is perhaps best characterized not by any label but by the truth-status it accords various claims about musical works. While the existence claim comes out determinately true, the mismatch my view situates between semantic functioning and semantic phenomenology shows up in the indeterminacy it posits elsewhere. I have argued at length, of course, that it can be indeterminate whether the actual Hammerklavier is identical to the Hawaiian-Hammer, and also whether it is identical to the Honey-Hammer. But the view also holds, for example, that it is indeterminate whether sound structures are musical works.31 And although I have not argued for it here, the view also allows, more notably, that it is indeterminate whether a musical work can change musically over time, and whether musical works can come into and go out of existence. Tradition-threads satisfy these conditions, but sound structures dont. The mismatch is not that such claims seem to us to be clearly true, or to be clearly false. Indeed, I think conflicted intuitions about these issues help sustain debate about the nature of musical works. The mismatch is rather that my theory challenges the assumption, connected to the false presupposition discussed above, that these claims must have some determinate truth-value or otherthat is, that unless we are to abandon our work concept or regard it with suspicion, these questions about the nature of musical works (p.305) must have clear and determinate answers. I hope Ive shown that this neednt be so: We can hold that musical works exist even if certain philosophically unsettled claims about them are indeterminate in truth value.
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References Bibliography references: Cameron, R. (2008) There Are No Things that are Musical Works British Journal of Aesthetics 48: 295314 Caplan, B. and Matheson, C. (2006) Defending Musical Perdurantism British Journal of Aesthetics 46(1): 5969 (2008) Defending Defending Musical Perdurantism British Journal of Aesthetics 48(1): 805 Currie, G. (1989) An Ontology of Art (New York: St Martins Press) Davies, D. (2004) Art as Performance (Oxford: Blackwell) Davies, S. (1997) John Cages 4 33 Australasian Journal of Philosophy 75: 44862 (2001) Musical Works and Performances: A Philosophical Exploration (New York: Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press) (2003) Themes in the Philosophy of Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press) (2007) Versions of Musical Works and Literary Translations in K. Stock (ed) Philosophers on Music: Experience, Meaning and Work (Oxford: Oxford University Press) (2008) Musical Works and Orchestral Colour British Journal of Aesthetics 48: 36375 Dodd, J. (2007) Works of Music: An Essay in Ontology (Oxford: Oxford University Press) Evans, G. (1984) Can There Be Vague Objects? Analysis: 38 Field, H. (1973) Theory Change and the Indeterminacy of Reference Journal of Philosophy 70: 46281 Goehr, L. (1992) The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
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Gracyk, T. (1996) Rhythm and NoiseAn Aesthetics of Rock (Durham, NC: Duke University Press) Kania, A. (2006) Making Tracks: The Ontology of Rock Music The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 64(4): 41014 (2008) The Methodology of Musical Ontology: Descriptivism and its Implications British Journal of Aesthetics 48(4): 42644 Kivy, P. (1983) Platonism in Music: a Kind of Defense Grazer Philosophische Studien 19: 10929 Kivy, P. (1987) Platonism in Music: Another Kind of Defense American Philosophical Quarterly 24: 24552
(p.306)
Levinson, J. (1980) What a Musical Work Is Journal of Philosophy 77: 528 (1990) What a Musical Work Is, Again in J. Levinson (ed) Music, Art, and Metaphysics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press) Lewis, D. (1996) Elusive Knowledge Australasian Journal of Philosophy 74(4): 54967 Mag Uidhir, Christy and Magnus, P.D. (2011) Art Concept Pluralism Metaphilosophy 42: 8397 Matheson, C. and Caplan, B. (2008) Modality, Individuation, and the Ontology of Art Canadian Journal of Philosophy 38(4): 491517 Moore, J. (1999) Misdisquoation and Substitutivity: When Not to Infer Belief from Assent Mind 108(430): 33566 (2008) A Modal Argument Against Vague Objects Philosophers Imprint 8(12): 117 Quine, W.V.O. (1969) Ontological Relativity and Other Essays (New York: Cornell University Press) Rohrbaugh, G. (2003) Artworks as Historical Individuals European Journal of Philosophy 11(2): 177205 Salmon, N. (1982) Reference and Essence (Princeton: Princeton University Press)
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Thomasson, A.L. (2005) The Ontology of Art and Knowledge in Aesthetics The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 63(3): 2219 van Fraassen, B. (1969) Presuppositions, Supervaluations and Free Logic in K. Lambert (ed) The Logical Way of Doing Things (New Haven: Yale University Press) Walton, K. (1970) Categories of Art Philosophical Review 79: 33467 Wolterstorff, N. (1980) Worlds and Works of Art (Oxford: Clarendon Press)
Notes:
(*) For help with this chapter, I thank Bradley Armour-Garb, Richard Beaudoin, Thomas Bennigson, Mark Crimmins, Stephen Davies, James Harold, Christy Mag Uidhir, Stephen Maitzen, Lisa Moore, Margaret Moore, Robert Pasnau, Dave Robb, Nishi Shah, and Thomas Wartenberg, as well as audiences at the University at Albany, the Eastern Division Meeting of the American Society of Aesthetics, and the Philoso-Ski Conference in Boulder, Colorado. (1) The debate concerning musical works was notably sharpened by an exchange between Jerrold Levinson and Peter Kivy begun in the 1980s. See Kivy (1983, 1987) and Levinson (1980, 1990). For more recent discussion see, for example, Davies (2001) and Dodd (2007). (2) For my purposes, we can take sound structures to be abstract rhythmically articulated sequences of sound types. However, see Davies (2001, 2008), for a thorough discussion, and reasons why we might include in sound structures not just timbre, but instrumentation. Ill say a good deal more about provenance below. (3) See 2001, p. 97. Although Davies is not out to define musical works, I invoke his suggestion because I think it sensibly incorporates Levinsons inclusion of performance-means, while relaxing the inclusion of individual, as opposed to less restrictive general, bits of musico-historical context. (See Levinson (1980) for this distinction.) Daviess proposal also incorporates, as Levinson eventually did (see 1990, p. 260), the normativity from Wolterstroffs (1980) influential idea that musical works are best seen as norm kinds.
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(4) A note on labels: I use structuralism even though neither Kivy nor Dodd apply this label to their views. My use is meant to be neutral on the disagreement, alluded to above, over whether sound structures should incorporate such features as timbre, instrumentation, or performancemeans more generally. As Ive set things up, shiftism is technically a form of contextualism, since it incorporates provenance in some manner in its account of work identity. But in the interest of clean contrasts and clarity Ill henceforth restrict contextualism to fine-grained conjunctive proposals like those of Levinson and Davies. My taxonomy also leaves out the arthistoricist view of Rohrbaugh (2003) and the musical perdurantism of Caplan and Matheson (see 2006, 2008). These views also individuate works by context, perhaps at the expense of structure. I dont have space adequately to incorporate these views here. (5) This example could be presented as a case of counterfactual doppelgangers, though I see no significant difference, and some simplicity of presentation in casting it as counterfactual comparison with the actual Hammerklavier. This type of example has been widely considered, though my version is essentially a poor mans version of Curries (1989, p. 62), with Hawaii substituted for Twin Earth. (6) This second type of example is much less common, though a notable predecessor is Rohrbaugh (2003, p. 182). (7) Whether Cages silent piece, 433, has any musical content at all is at the heart of one interesting argument that it isnt a musical work. See Davies (1997). (8) This possibility is proposed for photographs by Rohrbaugh (2003). (9) For some of these examples and others, see Davies (2007). (10) See Goehr (1992). (11) unless Shostakovich had composed his symphony earlier; but then Shostakovichs symphony wouldnt have had its characteristic wartime theme, unless the war had happened earlierI riff here on Levinsons nice example (1980, 1990, p. 71). (12) For example, the debate about the role of instruments and performancemeans bears on the proper understanding of a works structural component. And the question of how much of a works provenance is identityPage 22 of 26
determinativecan different composers from the same musico-historical era compose the same piece?applies to the provenancial component separately. (13) Here Im sympathetic with the view of art ontology defended by Thomasson (2005). (14) Stephen Davies develops the useful notion of a works thinness in Davies (2001). (15) See Gracyk (1996) and Kania (2006). (16) This importance of this is brought out by Waltons famous Guernicas example (Walton 1970). (17) This possible position resembles (in reverse!) David Davies (2004) view that a canvas or sound structure is the work-product while the artwork itself is the creative activity by which the artist produced this product. (18) Quine (1969, p. 23). (19) See Evans (1984), Moore (2008), and Salmon (1982, pp. 2436). (20) For the purposes of the conceptual model, we might think of our criteria as tracking (often overlapping) equivalence classes of actual and merely possible token performances (and playbacks) formed under the samestructure and same-provenance relations respectively. To leave things there would be circular, though, since the relations would be informed by the criteria. So in the next section, I will replace these equivalence classes with entities that are more metaphysically articulated and conceptually autonomous. For early articulations of supervaluationism see, for example, van Frassen (1969) and Field (1973). (21) Matheson and Caplan have recently argued that de re modal claims in this realm could be reinterpreted as claims that are really about de dicto possibilities (see 2008, pp. 4968). This may be, but I dont see that they give any positive reason in favor of such reinterpretation other than that this is required by theories of work individuation that Ive challenged in this chapter. Construing my putative de re modal intuition to be what it seems is certainly more straightforward. If Im wrong about this, the sameprovenance relation would simply be less flexible modally. In any case, my
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view problematizes an application of the de re/de dicto distinction in this realm, since our work concept traffics in two types of entities (as Ill argue below). (22) See S. Davies (2001, ch. 1), where the notion of the relative thickness of a work is introduced, though I think this notion properly applies only to a works structural component. And see D. Davies (2004, ch. 5) where provenancial thickness (my expression) is claimed to be work-relative. (23) In other areas of philosophy, these settings might be called judgmental or conversational contexts; and a view that honored this type of variation would be called contextualism. (See Moore 1999, pp. 347ff. for an articulation of contextualism in this sense. And see Lewis (1996) for an influential application of the view to knowledge reports.) But this usage would be confusing in this debate where contextualism is already used to pick out a dependence of musical works upon musico-historical surrounding. (24) How much of this variability is due to a setting-dependent application of the two criteria separately, and how much to a setting-dependent mixing of the criteria? (How can we tell?) And how can we best allow this type of setting-dependence without turning judgmental evaluation into a subjective free-for-all? (25) See, for example, Davies (2008). Questions about the exact nature of sound structures strike me as reflections of looseness in our structural criterion. (26) Predecessors here might include Rohrbaugh (2003), as well as Caplan and Matheson (2006, 2008), though I cant pursue here exactly how my notion compares to theirs. (27) My intent here is to capture the intuition that a work, even in its provenancial sense, might be kept alive even if there were no more performances (or playbacks) of it. This might be so, I think, if a culture continued to think and write about the work, or the work continued to influence the composition of other works. A plausible minimal condition for the continued existence of P-works, suggested by Rohrbaughs 2003 account of photographs, might be that there remains at least the potential for performance. (28) I investigate these in a follow-up manuscript Musical Works as TraditionThreads.
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(29) This commitment to the existence and utility of a unified work concept rules my view out as a form of concept pluralism. Still, in allowing that our core-concept binds together distinct conceptual strands, my view is a near neighbor. Indeed, as far as I can see, shiftism about the individuation of individual musical works is compatible with pluralism about the application conditions for our artwork concept(s). Christy Mag Uidhir and P.D. Magnus plausibly defend such a view (2011). (30) Thus, Kania distinguishes between the claim as made in descriptive metaphysics and as made in real metaphysics (metaphysics of the fundamental level), while Cameron distinguishes between the truth of this sentence in English and the falsity of a homophonic sentence in Ontologese, Englishs metaphysically more considered counterpart. Despite my sympathy for these views, I worry that musical and philosophical discourse, especially concerning such existence claims, doesnt always fall cleanly and discernibly on just one side of some such linguistic-cum-semantic divide. And my theory has the advantage of not requiring one. In any case, these fictionalist views are driven by the desire to avoid the eternal existence of musical works, while (as Ill observe in a movement) my view partially obviates this motivation by allowing that the existence conditions for musical works are indeterminate. (31) The sharpening sound structures are sound structures is true while the sharpening sound structures are tradition-threads is false. This result that neither S-works nor P-works are determinately musical worksaccords nicely, I think, with the philosophical view Ive tried to motivate. I should acknowledge, however, that not everything runs smoothly in this world of supervaluations. For example, interpreted in a straightforward fashion Musical works are individuatively determinate is determinately true; and of course this seems to be precisely the claim Ive been arguing against! However, its not implausible, I think, to give this sentence a meta-linguistic reinterpretation. In fact, I suggest that the sentence really claims that talk of an individual musical work univocally refers to a unique and individuatively determinate entity. And the supervaluation account of our work concept allows us to deny this claim.
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Musical Works A MashUp

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Art and Abstract Objects

Christy Mag Uidhir

Musical Works: A Mash-Up

Abstract and Keywords

II. Just Yoking

IV. Can We Sharpen Up?

V. Interlude: A Quinean Tension

Musical Works: A Mash-Up

Musical Works: A Mash-Up

VI. A Supervaluating Concept

VII. A Schizoid Metaphysics

Musical Works: A Mash-Up

VIII. How to be a Realist about Musical Works

Musical Works: A Mash-Up

Musical Works: A Mash-Up

Musical Works: A Mash-Up

Musical Works: A Mash-Up

Musical Works: A Mash-Up

Musical Works: A Mash-Up

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