Editing Musical analysis (section)

== Analytical situations ==
{{clarify section|date=June 2018}}
Analysis is an activity most often engaged in by [[musicologist]]s and most often applied to western [[european classical music|classical music]], although music of non-western cultures and of unnotated [[oral tradition]]s is also often analysed. An analysis can be conducted on a single piece of music, on a portion or element of a piece or on a collection of pieces. A musicologist's stance is his or her analytical situation. This includes the physical dimension or corpus being studied, the level of stylistic relevance studied, and whether the description provided by the analysis is of its [[Immanence|immanent]] structure, compositional (or [[poietic]]) processes, perceptual (or [[esthesic]]) processes,{{sfn|Nattiez|1990|loc=135–136}} all three, or a mixture.

Stylistic levels may be hierarchized as an inverted triangle:<ref>{{harvnb|Nattiez|1990|loc=136}}, who also points to {{harvnb|Nettl|1964|loc=177}}{{incomplete short citation|date=October 2021|reason=Which [[Bruno Nettl]] 1964? in the bibliography}}, {{harvnb|Boretz|1972|loc=146}}, and {{harvnb|Meyer}}{{incomplete short citation|date=October 2021|reason=No Meyer in the bibliography}}</ref>
*universals of music
**system (style) of reference
***style of a genre or an epoch
****style of composer X
*****style of a period in the life of a composer
******work

Nattiez outlines six analytical situations, preferring the sixth::{{sfn|Nattiez|1990|loc=140}}
{| style="text-align: center; border: none;"
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| '''Poietic<br />processes'''
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| '''Immanent structures<br /> of the work'''
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| '''Esthesic<br />processes'''
|-
| '''1'''
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| <big><big>♦</big></big>
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|-
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| Immanent analysis
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|-
| '''2'''
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| <big><big>♦</big></big>
| ←
| <big><big>♦</big></big>
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|-
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| Inductive poietics
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|-
| '''3'''
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| <big><big>♦</big></big>
| →
| <big><big>♦</big></big>
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|-
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| External poietics
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|-
| '''4'''
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| <big><big>♦</big></big>
| →
| <big><big>♦</big></big>
|-
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| Inductive esthesics
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|-
| '''5'''
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| <big><big>♦</big></big>
| ←
| <big><big>♦</big></big>
|-
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| External esthesics
|-
| '''6'''
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| <big><big>♦</big></big>
| ←→
| <big><big>♦</big></big>
| ←→
| <big><big>♦</big></big>
|-
|colspan=7| Communication between the three levels
|}

Examples:
# "...tackles only the immanent configuration of the work." [[Allen Forte]]'s [[set theory (music)|musical set theory]]
# "...proceed[s] from an analysis of the neutral level to drawing conclusions about the poietic" – Reti analysis of Debussy's ''[[La cathédrale engloutie]]''{{sfn|Reti|1951|loc=194–206}}
# The reverse of the previous, taking "a poietic document—letters, plans, sketches— ... and analyzes the work in the light of this information." Paul Mie, "stylistic analysis of [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]] in terms of the sketches"{{sfn|Mie|1929}}{{Incomplete short citation|date=October 2021}}
# The most common, grounded in "perceptive introspection, or in a certain number of general ideas concerning musical perception ... a musicologist ... describes what they think is the listener's perception of the passage",{{sfn|Meyer|1956|loc=48}}{{incomplete short citation|date=October 2021|reason=No Meyer 1956 in the bibliography}}, analysis of measures 9–11 of [[Johann Sebastian Bach|Bach]]'s C minor fugue in Book I of the ''[[Well-Tempered Clavier]]''
# "Begins with information collected from listeners to attempt to understand how the work has been perceived ... obviously how experimental psychologists would work"
# "The case in which an immanent analysis is equally relevant to the poietic as to the esthesic." [[Schenkerian analysis]], which, based on the sketches of Beethoven (external poietics) eventually show through analysis how the works must be played and perceived (inductive esthesics)

===Compositional analysis===
Jacques Chailley views analysis entirely from a compositional viewpoint, arguing that, "since analysis consists of 'putting oneself in the composer's shoes,' and explaining what he was experiencing as he was writing, it is obvious that we should not think of studying a work in terms of criteria foreign to the author's own preoccupations, no more in tonal analysis than in [[harmonic analysis (music)|harmonic analysis]]."{{sfn|Chailley|1951|loc=104}}

===Perceptual analysis===
On the other hand, Fay argues that, "analytic discussions of music are often concerned with processes that are not immediately perceivable. It may be that the analyst is concerned merely with applying a collection of rules concerning practice, or with the description of the compositional process. But whatever he [or she] aims, he often fails—most notably in twentieth-century music—to illuminate our immediate musical experience,"{{sfn|Fay|1971|loc=112}}{{incomplete short citation|date=October 2021}} and thus views analysis entirely from a perceptual viewpoint, as does [[Edward T. Cone]], "true analysis works through and for the ear. The greatest analysts are those with the keenest ears; their insights reveal how a piece of music should be heard, which in turn implies how it should be played. An analysis is a direction for performance,"{{sfn|Cone|1960|p=41}} and Thomson: "It seems only reasonable to believe that a healthy analytical point of view is that which is so nearly isomorphic with the perceptual act."{{sfn|Thomson|1970|loc=196}}

===Analyses of the immanent level===
Analyses of the immanent level include analyses by Alder{{Citation needed|date=February 2024}}, [[Heinrich Schenker]], and the "''ontological'' structuralism" of the analyses of [[Pierre Boulez]], who says in his analysis of ''[[The Rite of Spring]]'',{{sfn|Boulez|1966|loc=142}}{{incomplete short citation|date=October 2021}} "must I repeat here that I have not pretended to discover a creative process, but concern myself with the result, whose only tangibles are mathematical relationships? If I have been able to find all these structural characteristics, it is because they are there, and I don't care whether they were put there consciously or unconsciously, or with what degree of acuteness they informed [the composer's] understanding of his conception; I care very little for all such interaction between the work and 'genius'."

Again, Nattiez argues that the above three approaches, by themselves, are necessarily incomplete and that an analysis of all three levels is required.{{sfn|Nattiez|1990|loc=138–39}} [[Jean Molino]]{{sfn|Molino|1975a|loc=50–51}}{{incomplete short citation|date=October 2021|reason=There is no Molino 1975a in the bibliography.}} shows that musical analysis shifted from an emphasis upon the poietic vantage point to an esthesic one at the beginning of the eighteenth century.{{sfn|Nattiez|1990|loc=137}}

===Nonformalized analyses===
Nattiez distinguishes between nonformalized and formalized analyses. Nonformalized analyses, apart from musical and analytical terms, do not use resources or techniques other than language. He further distinguishes nonformalized analyses between impressionistic, paraphrases, or [[hermeneutic]] readings of the text (''explications de texte''). Impressionistic analyses are in "a more or less high-literary style, proceeding from an initial selection of elements deemed characteristic," such as the following description of the opening of [[Claude Debussy]]'s ''Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun'': "The alternation of binary and ternary divisions of the eighth notes, the sly feints made by the three pauses, soften the phrase so much, render it so fluid, that it escapes all arithmetical rigors. It floats between heaven and earth like a [[Gregorian chant]]; it glides over signposts marking traditional divisions; it slips so furtively between various [[musical key|keys]] that it frees itself effortlessly from their grasp, and one must await the first appearance of a harmonic underpinning before the melody takes graceful leave of this causal [[atonality]]".{{sfn|Vuillermoz|1957|loc=64}}{{incomplete short citation|date=October 2021}}

Paraphrases are a "respeaking" in plain words of the events of the text with little interpretation or addition, such as the following description of the "Bourée" of Bach's ''Third Suite'': "An [[anacrusis]], an initial phrase in D major. The [[figure (music)|figure]] marked (a) is immediately repeated, descending through a [[interval (music)|third]], and it is employed throughout the piece. This phrase is immediately elided into its consequent, which modulates from D to A major. This figure (a) is used again two times, higher each time; this section is repeated."{{sfn|Warburton|1952|loc=151}}{{incomplete short citation|date=October 2021}}

"Hermeneutic reading of a musical text is based on a description, a 'naming' of the [[melody]]'s elements, but adds to it a hermeneutic and [[Phenomenology (philosophy)|phenomenological]] depth that, in the hands of a talented writer, can result in genuine interpretive masterworks.... All the illustrations in Abraham's and Dahlhaus's ''Melodielehre'' (1972) are historical in character; [[Charles Rosen|Rosen]]'s essays in ''[[The Classical Style]]'' (1971){{sfn|Rosen|1971}} seek to grasp the essence of an epoch's style; Meyer's analysis of Beethoven's ''Farewell'' [[Sonata (music)|Sonata]]{{sfn|Meyer|1973|loc=242–268}}{{incomplete short citation|date=October 2021|reason=Which Meyer 1973?}} penetrates melody from the vantage point of perceived structures." He gives as a last example the following description of [[Franz Schubert]]'s ''Unfinished Symphony'': "The transition from first to second subject is always a difficult piece of musical draughtsmanship; and in the rare cases where Schubert accomplishes it with smoothness, the effort otherwise exhausts him to the verge of dullness (as in the slow movement of the otherwise great A minor Quartet). Hence, in his most inspired works the transition is accomplished by an abrupt ''[[wikt:coup de théâtre|coup de théâtre]]''; and of all such ''coups'', no doubt the crudest is that in the Unfinished Symphony. Very well then; here is a new thing in the history of the symphony, not more new, not more simple than the new things which turned up in each of Beethoven's nine. Never mind its historic origin, take it on its merits. Is it not a most impressive moment?".{{sfn|Tovey|1978|p=213|loc=vol. 1}}

===Formalized analyses===
Formalized analyses propose models for melodic functions or simulate music. Meyer distinguishes between global models, which "provide an image of the whole corpus being studied, by listing characteristics, classifying phenomena, or both; they furnish statistical evaluation," and linear models which "do not try to reconstitute the whole melody ''in order of'' real time succession of melodic events. Linear models ... describe a corpus by means of a system of rules encompassing not only the hierarchical organization of the melody, but also the ''distribution'', environment, and context of events, examples including the explanation of 'succession of pitches in New Guinean chants in terms of distributional constraints governing each melodic interval' by Chenoweth{{sfn|Chenoweth|1972|loc=1979}} the transformational analysis by Herndon,{{sfn|Herndon|1974|loc=1975}} and the 'grammar for the [[soprano]] part in Bach's [[chorale]]s [which,] when tested by computer ... allows us to generate melodies in Bach's style' by Baroni and Jacoboni.{{sfn|Baroni and Jacoboni|1976|loc={{Page needed|date=September 2015}}}}{{cite quote|date=October 2021|reason=Where does Meyer write this?}}

Global models are further distinguished as analysis by traits, which "identify the presence or absence of a particular variable, and makes a collective image of the song, genre, or style being considered by means of a table, or classificatory analysis, which sorts phenomena into classes," one example being "trait listing" by Helen Roberts,{{sfn|Roberts|1955|loc=222}} and classificatory analysis, which "sorts phenomena into classes," examples being the universal system for classifying melodic contours by Kolinski.{{sfn|Kolinski|1956}} Classificatory analyses often call themselves taxonomical. "Making the basis for the analysis explicit is a fundamental criterion in this approach, so ''delimiting'' units is always accompanied by carefully ''defining'' units in terms of their constituent variables."{{sfn|Nattiez|1990|loc=164}}

===Intermediary analyses===
Nattiez lastly proposes intermediary models "between reductive formal precision, and impressionist laxity." These include Schenker, Meyer (classification of melodic structure),{{sfn|Meyer|1973|loc=chapter 7}}{{incomplete short citation|date=October 2021|reason=Which Meyer 1973?}} Narmour, and Lerdahl-Jackendoff's "use of graphics without appealing to a system of formalized rules," complementing and not replacing the verbal analyses. These are in contrast to the formalized models of [[Milton Babbitt]]{{sfn|Babbitt|1972}} and [[Benjamin Boretz|Boretz]].{{sfn|Boretz|1969}} According to Nattiez, Boretz "seems to be confusing his own formal, logical model with an immanent essence he then ''ascribes'' to music," and Babbitt "defines a musical theory as a hypothetical-deductive system ... but if we look closely at what he says, we quickly realize that the theory ''also'' seeks to legitimize a music yet to come; that is, that it is also normative ... transforming the ''value'' of the theory into an aesthetic ''norm'' ... from an anthropological standpoint, that is a risk that is difficult to countenance." Similarly, "Boretz enthusiastically embraces logical formalism, while evading the question of knowing how the data—whose formalization he proposes—have been obtained".{{sfn|Nattiez|1990|loc=167}}