Musical semantics and quotation have garnered considerable attention in music scholarship, but there are still several problems that must be addressed. The diversity of musical quotation techniques, the numerous ways they may relate to each other, and questions of how a quotation works within a new composition pose difficulties for researchers, who are at risk of overanalyzing or misinterpreting a work. To that end, scholars must demonstrate that a musical quotation in a new piece was intentional and purposefully placed for someone’s benefit or recognition (usually the intended listener or likely audience). Furthermore, musical quotation has a long, relatively unexplored history, with composers reusing existing music in practical ways (as well as other aesthetically driven ways) since the sixteenth century, and scholars must make distinctions regarding the different types and purposes of musical quotation, which can vary widely from era to era or even piece to piece.

For works composed prior to the twentieth century, quotations are “in tension” with the new material around it: noticeable and distinct, but still integrated, and the treatment of the borrowed material helps determine its meaning in the new context. A much larger problem arises in modern music from Mahler to Stockhausen, which employ so many different quotations and allusions from different historical eras and styles that it is difficult to tell which elements are “central” to the composition and which are “borrowed” or “foreign bodies.” Moreover, even when listeners have access to a composer’s input through program notes or commentary, they are often at pains to hear the individual quotations and borrowed materials. Modern-day pluralistic, collage-like pieces such as Luciano Berio’s Sinfonia pose new challenges for semantics, analysis, and interpretation, and there is still much disagreement among composers and scholars over how such music is to be understood.

Works: Jacquet de Mantua: Dum vastos Adriae fluctus (123); Andreas Zweiller: Magnificat (124); Clemens non Papa: Drei Magnificat from Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae, Vol. 4 (125); Cipriano de Rore: Ancor che col partire (126); Adriano Banchieri: La pazzia senile (126); Francesco Rovigo: Magnificat “Benedicta es caelorum” (127); Georg Herner: Magnificat (127); Pietro Antonio Bianco: Magnificat (127); Stockhausen: Hymnen (130), Telemusik (130); Luciano Berio: Sinfonia (131-32).

Sources: Palestrina: Vestiva i colli (126); Lassus: Fleur de quinze ans (127); Jacob Regnart: Venus du und dein Kind (127); Giovanni Croces: Percussit Saul mille (127); Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 2 in C Minor (“Resurrection”) (132); Richard Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier (132); Ravel: La Valse (132); Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68 (“Pastoral”) (132).

Index Classifications: General, 1900s

Contributed by: Matthew G. Leone