Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Review
Author(s): Raymond Haggh
Review by: Raymond Haggh
Source: Music Theory Spectrum, Vol. 6 (Spring, 1984), pp. 100-103
Published by: {oupl} on behalf of the Society for Music Theory
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/745806
Accessed: 28-07-2015 15:42 UTC
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MusicTheorySpectrum
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Reviews
1758, a post he held until his death. Accordingto several contemporary witnesses such as Ernst Gerber and J. N. Forkel,
Kirnbergerstudied with J. S. Bach from 1739 to 1741, and for
the remainderof his life he served his mentor'sart, not only in
setting down the principles of Bach's music as K. understood
them, but also in assemblingmanuscriptsof Bach's music for
PrincessAnna's library,and by his long andpersistenteffortsto
publishan edition of Bach's chorales, effortscrownedwith success only after Kirnberger'sdeath when C. P. E. Bach brought
the project to a successfulclose.
Die Kunstdes reinenSatzeswas publishedas follows: part 1
in 1771 and again, with a new title page, in 1774;part2, section
1 in 1776 and the remainingtwo parts in 1777 and 1779. Both
volumes were subsequently reprinted in 1793. Die wahren
Grundsatzezum Gebrauchder Harmonieby K.'s pupilJ. A. P.
Schulz was published in 1773 under K.'s directionand with his
name, and is a summary of the harmonic principles of Die
Kunst. This valuable short treatiseis availablein translationby
Beach and Thym in the Journal of Music Theory23 (1979):
163-225. Kirnberger's Grundsdtzedes Generalbasses(1781)
was published as a preparatorywork for Die Kunstdes reinen
Satzes, and Kirnbergeralso wrote importanttheoreticalarticles (to the letter M) for J. G. Sulzer'sencyclopedicAllgemeine
Theorieder schonen Kunste.
Kirnberger'stalents as a writer and as an organizerof his
thoughts were, accordingto his own admission,deficient. In a
letter to Princess Anna (quoted by Dadelsen in MGG 7, col.
455) K. confesses that his writing"lackedorder, style and God
knows what else ... I would put my thoughts down on only
one side of a sheet of paper, and afterwardhe [Sulzer]would
cut them all up into pieces and paste them togetheragainin systematic order. In this way the firstpart of Die Kunstdes reinen
Satzes and all the articlesI wrote for the firstpartof his Theorie
der sch6nen Kunstecame into being." In spite of this cumbersome procedure, Kirnberger'sGermanprose is generallyclear
and logically ordered, presumably a testimonial to his
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Reviews
bowings he provides nineteen melodic elaborationson a ninenote figure:C D E F G FE D C. Page 235, the composerof the
upper example is Handel, not Graun(see translator'snn. j and
d); p. 236, Ex. 11.49, the chorale title "Du dessen Augen flossen, so bald sie Zion sahn" is missing;p. 266, the translationof
"Satze" as "structures"is not as clear as it mightbe. "Settings"
although itself ambiguous more nearly implies the motion of
chords in succession interwoven with dissonances, to which I
believe K. refers here; p. 322, line 3, the word "Geprage"is
translatedas "character,"but the sentence refers to the disposition of whole steps and half steps that "stamp"the individual
modes; "individualarrangementof each mode" is more appropriate.
In closing, it remainsonly to say that studyof this important
treatise is essential for all students of eighteenth-centurymusical styles and of the theory of harmony.Not only are the major
premises of this work significantbut also its many details and
observationswhich enrichour understandingof this centuryof
musicalmonuments.
Peter Kivy. The Corded Shell: Reflectionson Musical Expression. Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1979.
Reviewed by Anne C. Hall
The CordedShell:Reflectionson MusicalExpression,by Peter Kivy, philosopherat RutgersUniversity,is an argumentfor
describingmusic in emotive terms. The book deals with a major activity of music theorists, but it has received more published discussionfrom philosophers. Kivy'sthesis is that music
1The book was reviewed
by KingsleyPrice in the Journalof Aestheticsand
Art Criticism39 (1981): 460-62; by MalcolmBudd in the TimesLiterarySup-
103
is expressive of emotion and, therefore, that emotive description of musicis reasonable. His purpose,then, is to explainhow
some emotive terms can intelligiblyand properlybe appliedto
music-to explain, for example, why we might reasonablydescribe a particularmusical passage as cheerful or melancholy.
His point of departureis the dilemmathat scholarlydescription
of music is incomprehensibleto the layman, while description
in more human terms is unacceptableto the scholar.
Having announced his intention to justify emotive description of music, Kivygives a historyof theories aboutconnections
between music and emotions. He untanglesthree theories:that
music arouses emotions in the listener (true, but not what the
book is about), that music expresses the emotions of the composer (perhapssometimes true, but irrelevantto the rest of us),
and that musicis expressiveof emotion. He assertsthat musicis
expressive of emotion in the way that the face of a St. Bernard
dog is expressive of sadness: it is like human expressions of
emotion. Further,Kivy notes that it is a humantraitto perceive
expressiveness where we can; it is not just resemblance between music and expressivebehaviorthat makes us hear music
as expressive, but our tendency "to animate our perceptions"
(p. 62).2
Kivy devotes a large part of the book to explaininghow it is
that music can be expressiveof emotion in such a way that people will often agree on at least a general emotive characterization of a musicalpassage. He presentstwo complementarytheories: contour and convention. The contour theory posits
resemblance between "the features of the music and the features of human behaviorthat characteristicallyaccompanyhuplement, 3 July 1981, p. 762; by ChristopherHatch in Notes 38 (1981): 311-12;
and by Richard Taruskin in The Musical Quarterly 68 (1982): 287-93.
Taruskin'sreview, which I found after I had writtenmine, argues differently,
but arrivesat a similarconclusion.
2Quotations from Peter Kivy are from The CordedShell, except the one in
n. 11.
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