Meyer, L - Innovation, Choice and The History of Music

Innovation, Choice, and the History of Music
Author(s): Leonard B. Meyer

Source: Critical Inquiry, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Mar., 1983), pp. 517-544
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
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Innovation, Choice, and the History of Music
Leonard B. Meyer
The history of music, like that of other arts, is often pictured as a com-
plex succession of distinctive styles. But unless one posits some neces-
sary, a priori pattern of style change-cyclic, dialectic, evolutionary, or
whatever-which I find methodologically suspect and intellectually un-
congenial, this view seems too general and abstract a place to begin. For
the history of an art is the result of the succession of choices made by
individual men and women in specific compositional/cultural circum-
stances.1 Since styles change only because particular compositional
choices do, an understanding both of how composers devise or invent
novel means and of why they choose some means rather than others
must be central to any account of the nature of music history. The
distinction between innovating and choosing is necessary because, as
we shall see, composers usually have at their disposal many more
alternatives than can be included in a particular work. The distinction is
important because considerable confusion ensues when the side of
creativity that involves the devising of novelty is emphasized at the ex-
pense of the side concerned with choosing among competing pos-
sibilities.
This essay has greatly benefited from the thoughtful criticism and perceptive com-
ments of Alan C. Kors, Janet M. Levy, Peter J. Rabinowitz, David Rosand, and Barbara
Herrnstein Smith. I am very grateful for their help.
1. Such choices need not be deliberate or even conscious. For further discussion, see
my "Toward a Theory of Style," in The Conceptof Style, ed. Berel Lang (Philadelphia, 1979),
pp. 3-6.
Critical Inquiry 9 (March 1983)

? 1983 by The University of Chicago. 0093-1896/83/0903-0010$01.00. All rights reserved.
517

518 LeonardB. Meyer The History of Music
1. Innovation
Why a composer innovates-whether radically breaking the rules of

an established style, devising a new strategy within existing stylistic con-
straints, or exploiting a prevalent strategy in a novel way-is an enor-
mously complex and fascinating question. Answering it involves (at the
very least) accounts of the following, including some estimate of their
relative importance: the personality of the composer (whether adven-
turous or conservative); the specific stylistic/compositional circumstances
surrounding the innovation; and the external constraints, both specific
(patronage, available performers, acoustical environment, and so forth)
and general (cultural beliefs and attitudes, theories of music, and so
forth) that may have influenced the composer's behavior. All these play a
part in what is commonly considered the most important facet of
creativity, namely, the invention of novelty.
Without doubting the interest of this side of creativity, it seems clear
that the mere invention of novelty is more important for an under-
standing of the composer's psychology than for an account of the history
of music. Composers are continually devising relationships, many-
perhaps most-of which are, in some respect and on some hierarchic
level, novel. But of the plethora of alternatives thus invented, only a few
are actually chosen for use in compositions. Most are discarded, playing
no part in the history of music.
Why a particular innovation is used by a composer is also an in-
tricate and intriguing subject; and all the kinds of considerations
mentioned above must play a part in any answer. But unless an innova-
tion is subsequently replicated in some way, whether in another work by
the same composer or in works by other composers, it is not historically
significant. Just as a single swallow does not make an alcoholic, so a single
instance of some novelty does not become part of the history of music.
Put simply: save as a curious anomaly, a single, unique innovation, how-
ever interesting in itself, is of little import for the history of music. What
is central for the history of an art is, I suggest, neither the invention of
novelty nor its mere use-whether in a single composition or in the
oeuvre of a single composer-but its replication, however varied, within
some compositional community.
Leonard B. Meyer, Benjamin Franklin Professor of Music and the

Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania, is the author of Emotionand
Meaning in Music, The RhythmicStructure of Music (with Grosvenor W.
Cooper), Music, the Arts, and Ideas, and Explaining Music: Essays and Ex-
plorations. His previous contributions to CriticalInquiry are "Concerning
the Sciences, the Arts-AND the Humanities" (September 1974) and
"Grammatical Simplicity and Relational Richness: The Trio of Mozart's
G Minor Symphony" (Summer 1976).

Critical Inquiry March 1983 519
Not all novel compositional choices, then, are the province of his-
tory. Explaining the choices replicated solely within a single work is
essentially a concern of criticism, while accounting for choices confined
to the oeuvre of a single composer is the business of style-biography.
Only choices that are replicated by a number of composers, thereby
becoming part of a shared dialect, are the proper province of history.
(Needless to say, this in no way implies that criticism can ignore the
choices characteristic of a composer's idiom and of the shared dialect or
that style-biography can disregard the choices that are typical of the
compositional community.)
Before going further, it will be helpful to consider briefly the notion
that novelty per se is a fundamental human need. Experiments with
human beings, as well as with animals, indicate that the maintenance of
normal, successful behavior depends upon an adequate level of incom-
ing stimulation-or, as some have put it, of novelty.2 But lumping all
novelty together is misleading. At least three kinds of novelty need to be
distinguished. (1) Some novel patterns arise out of, or represent,
changes in the fundamental rules governing the organization of musical
processes and structures. By significantly weakening our comprehension
of the musical relationships presented-undermining not only our
understanding of what is past but our ability to envisage what is to
come-such systemic change seriously threatens our sense of psychic
security and competent control. Far from being welcome, the insecurity
and uncertainty thus engendered is at least as antipathetic, disturbing,
and unpleasant as stimulus privation. (2) Novel patterns may also result
from the invention of a new strategythat accords with prevalent stylistic
rules. Though they may initially seem to threaten existing competencies,
the function and significance of novel strategies within the larger set of
stylistic constraints can usually be grasped without too much delay or
difficulty. For a while the tensions produced by strategic innovation may
seem disturbing. But in the end, when our grasp of the principles or-
dering events is confirmed and our sense of competency is reestablished
and control is reinforced, tension is resolved into an elation that is both
stimulating and enjoyable. (3) Most novel patterns-original themes,
rhythms, harmonic progressions, and so forth-involve the innovative
instantiationor realization of an existing strategy or schema (see examples
1-3 below).3 Novelties of this kind not only enhance our sense of
control-a feeling that we know how things really "work"-but provide
both the pleasure of recognition and the joy of skillfully exercising some
2. For further discussion, see my Music, the Arts, and Ideas (Chicago, 1967), p. 50.
3. Rules are transpersonal but intracultural constraints-for instance, the pitch/time
entities established in some style, as well as grammatical and syntactic regularities. Strate-
gies are general means (constraints) for actualizing some of the possibilities that are poten-
tial in the rules of the style. The rules of a style are relatively few, while the number of
possible strategies may, depending upon the nature of the rules, be very large indeed. The
ways of instantiating a particular strategy are, if not infinite, at least beyond reckoning.

competency. We enjoy novelty-the stimulation of surprise, the tension

of uncertainty-as long as it can be accommodated within a known and
understandable set of constraints. When the rules governing the game
are abrogated or in doubt-when comprehension and control are
threatened-the result is usually anger, anguish, and desperation.
These responses to novelty are consequences of fundamental and
poignant verities of the human condition: the centrality of choice in
human behavior. Because only a minute fraction of human behavior
seems to be genetically specified, choice is inescapable.
While in lower organisms, behavior is strictly determined by the

genetic program, in complex metazoa the genetic program be-
comes less constraining, more "open" as Ernst Mayr puts it, in the
sense that it does not lay down behavioral instructions in great
detail but rather permits some choice and allows for a certain free-
dom of response. Instead of imposing rigid prescriptions, it pro-
vides the organism with potentialities and capacities. This openness
of the genetic program increases with evolution and culminates in
mankind.4
The price of freedom is the imperative of choice. Human beings must

choose where to sow and when to reap, when to work and where to live,
when to play and what to build. Intelligent, successful choices are possi-
ble only if alternative courses of action can be imagined and their conse-
quences envisaged with reasonable accuracy.
Imagination and vision alone will not, however, suffice. To make
one's envisagings count-to transform preferred alternatives into actual
choices-one must have power. Vision and Power. These are the bases
for choice and, consequently, prerequisites for survival. Without them,
life is pervaded by anxiety and despair. The centrality of choice in
human affairs is evident in art. Thus the essence of tragedy, as I see it,
concerns the trauma of failed choice. Such failure may occur because
external circumstances (fate or political conditions) deprive the pro-
tagonist of power and thereby preclude choice, because an uncontrol-
lable, almost irrational compulsion (perhaps what Aristotle meant by a
tragic flaw) clouds the protagonist's vision-the frequent play on sight-
less vision versus visionless sight in so many tragedies is surely more than
coincidental-or because some combination of power and vision is lack-
ing. (The broad appeal of Hamlet stems in part, I suspect, from the fact
that problems of both power and vision are coupled with an explicit
concern for the profound tensions of human choice.)5
4. FranCoisJacob, The Possibleand theActual (New York, 1982), p. 61. See also Stephen
Jay Gould, Ever Since Darwin (New York, 1977), p. 257.
5. It seems pertinent to emphasize that choice is the focus of dramatic action in both
comedy and melodrama. These genres are not, however, concerned with the denial of
choice, as tragedy is, but with its correction. In comedy, the ignorant, unreasonable, or
foolish choices of the protagonist (usually upper-class and, hence, powerful) are corrected

CriticalInquiry March 1983 521
Imagining and envisaging-the grounds for choosing-are possible

only if the world is understood to consist of enduring structures and
persisting processes. The assumption of constancy, what I will call the
"axiom of inertia," profoundly affects both our conceptualization of the
world (specially our comprehension and explanation of temporal events)
and, correlatively, our behavior in the world. The axiom asserts that,
other things being equal, a pattern-that is, any relatively stable struc-
ture or established process-will be understood to persist or be con-
tinued unless deflected by some external impingement.
In the area of behavior, the rapid and radical changes that have
been characteristic of Western culture during the past few centuries are,
as I have argued elsewhere, anomalous.6 Thus the almost frantic search
for the new, so typical of the arts in the twentieth century, is not, as far as
I can see, the consequence of some innate need for change and novelty;
rather it results from our culture's belief in the productive and beneficent
value of innovation. Even the sciences, seeming models of the de-
sirability of progressive change (and often exemplars for artistic "ex-
periment" and innovation), fundamentally favor stability. Paradigms
and theories are not lightly abandoned. Significant counterevidence will
not lead to rejection-until a viable alternative theory is at hand. The
axiom of inertia neatly accounts for this behavior: one does not give up
the security of one basis for envisaging and choosing-one theory of the
world, however inadequate-until another is at hand. More generally,
the scientific method is not designed to foster change. (After all, one
usually hopes that experiment will confirm theory.) Rather it is the goal
of science to produce the most stable world possible, a world in which
apparent innovation is, so to speak, neutralized because it is subsumed
under some order or principle that is itself unchanging, a world in which
the possibility of envisaging enhances the probability of intelligent
choice.7
through a salutary change in his or her understanding of the consequences of alternatives.

As a result, the credibility of the social order is preserved. (Comedy criticizes the social
order in order to improve and preserve it. Consequently, it tends to be politically con-
servative. Plautus, Moliere, W. S. Gilbert, Oscar Wilde, and George Bernard Shaw suggest
no radical revolutions. Rather they depict the foibles of the powerful in order to enable the
prevailing social structure to function beneficially and effectively.) In melodrama, con-
versely, the malevolent, destructive potential (possible "choices") of the social order is
thwarted and corrected-the intervention of some benign, external agent (deusex machina)
is often needed to counteract the power of the established forces-and the protagonist is
saved. (Melodrama, too, tends to be politically conservative, correcting aspects of the social
order in order to preserve it. Seen thus, the plot of Beethoven's Fidelio, for instance, is
scarcely revolutionary-when Pizarro's evil plans are foiled, the virtues of the existing
order [Leonora's loyalty and Don Fernando's justice] are evident.)
6. See my Music, the Arts, and Ideas, chaps. 7 and 8.
7. Though it is the goal of theories in all disciplines to produce a stable cognitive
environment, it by no means follows that all theories do so with equal success. And perhaps
competing theories are judged less on the basis of aesthetic appeal (as is sometimes

In the area of conceptualization (scarcely distinguishable from be-

havior), both the events that constitute a piece of music and the events
(the succession of pieces of music) that comprise the history of
music-or, for that matter, the history of anything-are interpreted in
the light of the axiom of inertia. For when we think about the history of
the cosmos, the earth, living things, a human life, or political events,
attention tends to be directed to the changes evident in the world. To
direct attention in this way is tacitly to postulate that change is what calls
for explanation and, correlatively, to take for granted that continuity
and constancy are fundamental conditions of existence. This is not to
say that discontinuities do not exist. There are patent disjunctions-as
the possibility of surprise makes evident. But this very possibility confirms
the prevalence of the axiom of inertia: we can be surprised only because
we take continuity for granted.
Notice that, generally speaking, the continuities posited by the
axiom of inertia are understood to function within the realms in terms of
which we comprehend experience.8 To comprehend the world in terms
of distinguishable realms is to conceptualize such realms as governed by
relatively discrete and independent sets of constraints. Not only are
broad realms such as physics and politics, religion and military tactics,
sailing and architecture conceptualized as governed by different sets of
constraints, but subdivisions within such realms are so as well. Such sub-
divisions may be based upon differences between the constraints gov-
erning distinguishable hierarchic levels: within the world of physical
events, the constraints governing the behavior of planets and of particles
are different; and in the world of literature, the constraints governing
the structure of sentences are not the same as those governing plot
structures. Or subdivisions may be stylistic: in music, for instance, con-
straint differences distinguish Western music from Indonesian music,
Baroque from Classic music, Haydn's music from Mozart's, and Mozart's
operas from his sacred works.
In each realm and subrealm of experience, the need for a stable
world in which to envisage and choose leads us to postulate the persis-
tence of constraints. But our postulations are continually being called
into question by the patent presence of novelty and the inescapable
existence of change. Yet so powerful is the need for a stable world that
we will cling to concepts and hypotheses that support our envisaging,
even in the face of blatantly discrepant data. Sometimes existing con-
cepts and theories can readily account for novelty and change. But when
suggested) and more according to how much cognitive stability-how much inertia-they
are able to produce.
8. Probably this really works the other way around; that is, the axiom of inertia leads
us to formulate stabilizing concepts, and where such stabilization proves possible, a realm is
differentiated.

this proves impossible, ways will be found for restoring a reasonable

semblance of stability.
Within realms, concepts may be modified, theories qualified, to ac-
commodate anomalies. If such adjustment fails, then novelty and change
may be subsumed under, and attributed to, some larger, more encom-
passing process or set of relationships: in biology, for instance, the
theory of natural selection; in economics, Gresham's law; in the history
of art, a theory of cyclic recurrence. In all such cases, the significance of
novelty is minimized because the constraints that persist are those
considered most important. Reductionist theories (for instance,
Schenker's theory of the Ursatz in music) make it possible to discount
novelty and depreciate change (the Ursatz admits no consequential
novelties and has no history) by absorbing them into a high-level re-
lationship in which the posited persistence of constraints reassures us
that innovations are illusory or inconsequential and that an enduring
order preserves the possibility of envisaging and choosing.
When novelty and change cannot plausibly be accounted for in
terms of internal constraints governing some realm, then they will tend
to be attributed to the impingingpresenceof constraints from some other
realm. Thus, innovations may, as mentioned above, be traced to in-
fluences external to the prevalent constraints of musical style: the per-
sonality of the composer, the wishes of a patron, available performers,
the state of technology, or the ideology of the culture. Notice that ini-
tially such attribution allows us to acknowledge the advent of novelty
without doubting the stability of the style. A single novelty, interpreted
as anomalous, does not require that we revise our understanding of the
constraint set. Only when an innovation is replicated in a number of
different works, so that the constraint set is modified (however slightly),
is there historical change.
While an individual novelty may be attributed to impinging external
constraints alone, historical change depends upon the interaction be-
tween internal and external forces. For in order "to take"-the analogy
to a skin graft is not absurd-an innovation must be compatible with
prevalent stylistic constraints. That is, compatibility is a necessary condi-
tion for replication-but not a sufficient condition. At any time there are
probably innumerable innovations that are compatible with the con-
straints of the prevalent style; yet they are not replicated. What is re-
quired for replication is the impetus and energy of ideology. Ideology is
needed-rather than merely external constraints-because replication
requires continuity that transcends idiosyncratic circumstance and par-
ticular occasion. Specific events-battles and weddings, famines and
fashions, political causes and social circumstances-may generate some
innovation and even lead to its use; but replication depends upon those
persisting and deeply ingrained beliefs and attitudes that constitute the
ideology of a culture.

The distinction between novelty and replication is neither as clear

nor as simple as the preceding discussion might suggest. Problems arise
because the emergence of novelty is related to the hierarchic organiza-
tion of complex structures. As a result, a pattern may be novel on one
hierarchic level but not on another. To take an example from music: on
the level (1) of foreground pattern (the notated succession of pitches,
durations, mode, timbre, tempo, and meter), the melodies given in
example 1 are strikingly different. Each is novel. Yet on the next hierar-
chic level (2), both melodies are realizations (instantiations) of the same
schema-the changing-note pattern, 8 - 7 - 2- 1(8), indicated on graphs a
and b in example 1. In short, what is novel on one level of organization
may be replication on another.
Haydn, Symphony No. 46 in B, ii.
Poco Adagio
1. y ' .
9)i
I Ff fI .. .
p
I 8 7 2 1 (8)
a,
Q{1
Z.
i1 I
v
I
-----lI
I)
t
'i
IIr,Lt1
- 11II
I
Beethoven, String Quartet in F, Op. 18 No. 1, iv

Allegro
1.
3 3 3 3
3 i
i
8 7 1 (8)
i
2
II
2. I
I b ,'Pb
. rl
Example 1
Novelty may also arise through permutation and combination on a

single hierarchic level. The patterns given in example 2, for instance, all
replicate an archetypal closing motive (m) whose invention lies buried
Haydn, "MilitarySymphony," Haydn, String Quartet Mozart, Symphony No. 40
No. 100, ii in Bb, Op. 64 No. 3, iii in G Minor (K. 550), iii
m ml m2
I ca ~I
. ' i r J"1 t I litIf Jj JJJIJ 11

a. I b. 1 c I
^A ? ...f , ^A I? c%= similar
- o r L- r 11
(6'r
V
- I .
.
1-
I V7 I I V I V7 I
Example 2

somewhere in the early history of Western tonal music. As motives, then,

they are scarcely novel. However, since each becomes part of a form and
process that is unique, each is relationally new. The differences are
unmistakable. Example 2a, for instance, is the beginning of an ascending
melody which is essentially disjunct, as graph a, example 3, indicates.
m ?
'
hS^r
I P
f r; - If rriO r: 1^ff 2 r
!
m2
i
f r- l;
r r r
r
Th r J- 1
I
lC.l
b.i r ) __X___
Example 3
The motive of example 2c, on the other hand, comes at the close of a
descending melody which is basically conjunct and linear (see example 3,
graphs b and c). Though the replicated motives form novel relationships
with what precedes and follows them on the foreground level, they may
at the same time be part of replication on a higher level. Thus the motive
that begins the slow movement of Haydn's "Military Symphony," to-
gether with what follows it, forms part of a familiar triadic schema (see
example 3, graph a).
Finally, it is relevant to observe that any performance of a piece of
music that does not slavishly parrot an earlier performance involves
what might be called "interpretive" innovation. Within the traditions of
their musical culture, performers devise novel realizations of a potential
pattern (in our culture, often a notated score) and then choose from
those possibilities. Innovation exists on the level of performance, and for
this reason performers are considered to be creative artists. But on the
level of the "work," there has obviously been replication.
Save where novelty results from the permutation and combination
of patterns on a single hierarchic level, the force and frequency of in-
novation are, not surprisingly, related to the hierarchic structuring of
constraints. In general, high-level changes (innovations) in a set of

constraints-for instance, in the rules of a style-occur very infre-

quently, but, when they do, their effect is consequential for all musical
parameters throughout the hierarchy; as one moves toward lower levels
of the constraint set, novelty becomes more common but less con-
sequential. Put differently, the conservation of constraints on higher
levels supports the invention and selection of novelties on lower ones:
unchanging, transcultural laws allow for alternative rules of style (Euro-
pean tonal music versus Indonesian gamelan music); enduring rules of
style permit the invention of novel strategies; replicated strategies may
be instantiated as novel compositional patterns; and, finally, the "same"
compositional pattern may be newly interpreted in a particular per-
formance.
In what follows, I will be mainly concerned with innovations that
arise on the middle levels of this hierarchy-that is, with the devising of
new strategies for realizing existing rules and with the invention of
original realizations of prevalent strategies. It is important to recognize
that there is a significant difference between these kinds of innovation. A
strategy is a generalprinciple which can serve as the basis for innumerable
individual and novel realizations. Thus schemata such as those given in
examples 1 and 3 can be instantiated in quite diverse compositional
dialects and, within each of these, in markedly different and original
ways9-so can formal principles (such as variation, rounded binary, or da
capo form) or genres (such as opera buffa, oratorio, or tone poem). And
the permutation and combination of stock figures can be the basis for a
general strategy: for instance, using a familiar closing figure to begin a
composition (see examples 2a and 3a).
It would appear that particular realizations of such strategies cannot
be generalized. Thus, though the successions of actualizations that are a
piece of music may be the basis for a myriad of more or less novel
interpretations, we do not doubt that the performances are of the same
composition. Whether interpreted by Toscanini, Leonard Bernstein, or
Bruno Walter, the piece being played is still (and we have no trouble
recognizing it), say, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.10 Yet there are obvi-
9. A dialect arises when a number of composers employ the same general set of
constraints. See my "Toward a Theory of Style," p. 30.
As these observations indicate, replication need be neither deliberate nor conscious. A
composer may, for instance, replicate (instantiate) a shared schema without being aware of
the fact. See my discussion of several instantiations of a single schema in "Exploiting
Limits: Creation, Archetypes, and Style Change," Daedalus 109 (Spring 1980): 177-205.
10. The situation is more problematic when there is no notation. In the case of a jazz
performance (or that of an Indian sitar player), it is often doubtful whether one is attend-
ing to a new interpretation of a traditional work or to a new work. Interpretation and
composition constitute a single, indivisible act.
One can perhaps add a further level of interpretation, namely, that created by the
listener. In a very modest way the listener may introduce cognitive novelty into the musical
experience. Such listener interpretation may in part explain why music can be reheard so
many times. And the number of times one can rehear a composition without tedium may
depend upon the interpretive opportunities provided by the work and the performance.

ously problems. For even on the level of interpretation we often gener-

alize about styles of performance, observing that this interpretation is
"romantic" (enhances the articulation of form and the presentation of
process through the use of dynamics, tempo, and the like), while that
one is "classic" (adheres more closely to the notation of the score). And
though it would seem strange to suggest that one interpretation was an
instantiation of another, even on this level something must be capable of
generalization; otherwise one could not speak of the influence (as distin-
guished from the imitation) of performers-for instance, Toscanini.
Composers invent particular patterns of pitches, durations, and the
like (musical relationships on various hierarchic levels) that are, for the
most part, realizations of already existing stylistic constraints. Some of
these patterns may be so idiosyncratic that they defy generalization-
that is, no classlike relationships can be discerned in them.11 Other pat-
terns, however, may be capable of generalization. It is this second possi-
bility that is of interest here: namely, that patterns invented as, and
initially understood to be, no more than the individual realization of
existing constraints may subsequently be the basis for some new general
strategy-one that is replicable.
Because until fairly recently composers seldom consciously devised
novel strategies but rather wrote original pieces intended to please, un-
equivocally documented instances of the transformation of a particular
pattern into a general, replicable technique are hard to identify. But the
sort of thing that I have in mind seems quite clearly described in the
following account of the textural changes that took place in Dufay's style:
The number of voices was increased to four: the old disjunct con-
tratenor was, as it were, split into two separate voices-the con-
tratenor altus ... and the contratenor bassus.
While such a scheme may also befound in the fourteenth century,
Dufay's use of it was new. He took intense interest in certain succes-
sions of sonorities, especially at the ends of phrases. These were
possible only when the lowest sounding part had a specific, rather
disjunct shape. Since a preexistent melody ... would be unlikely to
have such a shape, the placement of the contratenor bassus below
the tenor permitted Dufay to employ both the cantus-firmus prin-
ciple and his preferred succession of sonorities.12
Put in terms of this essay, what had been essentially a collection of indi-
vidual realizations of existing constraints was generalized by Dufay as a
new compositional strategy.
11. Writing about Virginia Woolf, W. H. Auden observed: "I do not know if she is
going to exert an influence on the future development of the novel-I rather suspect that
her style and her vision were so unique that influence would only result in tame imitation"
(Forewardsand Afterwards[New York, 1974], p. 417). It is also well to remember that time
has a way of filtering general procedures out of relationships that once seemed intractably
idiosyncratic.
12. David G. Hughes, A Historyof EuropeanMusic (New York, 1974), p. 113; my italics.

2. Choice
There is little need to recount further the difficulties involved in

explaining precisely why, and from what source, specific innovations
arise. Scholarly literature is littered with studies suggesting reasons for
innovation and searching for sources, first instances, and the like. Nor
usually-and this is a central point here-is identifying the first instance
or source of some strategy or compositional procedure historically very
important. (Indeed, were it so, music history would be an impossible,
rather than an impoverished, discipline, for we seldom know the origins
of an innovation. Generally we are content to cite an exemplary or an
early instance, such as Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier or Ferdinand
Fischer's Ariadne musica [1702].) Let me explain.
In any reasonably rich culture, novelty abounds. Indeed, it is om-
nipresent because every act and every artifact that is not an exact replica
of an existing one is in some way different and, in that respect, novel.13
Put another way: all composers-even those who write the most routine
and pedestrian works-are continually devising new relationships. Most
of these are historically inconsequential realizations of existing con-
straints, though some may, of course, be of high aesthetic value. But one
can never be sure that some seemingly peculiar realization will not sub-
sequently become the basis for a generalized constraint: a new strategy
or even a novel rule.
Because culture is always replete with possibilities, it is, as I have
said, not primarily the advent of novelty that needs to be explained but its
use and replication.Why, out of all the possible alternatives that he might
have imagined or considered for use at this point in his piece, did the
composer choose this one rather than some other? And why did par-
ticular kinds of patterns, forms, or genres (rather than others equally
available) appeal to some specific compositional/cultural community so
that they were replicated by repeated performances of a work (or group
of works) or as a consequence of current compositional consensus? Why,
in short, do some innovations survive while others, however aestheti-
cally satisfying they may have been, disappear, apparently without his-
torical consequences?14
Such questions about the "why"s of change remind us that the
problems of music history are themselves the result of history. In-
fluenced both by the scientific model which, rightly or wrongly, empha-
sized the importance of the discovery of new data and the devising of
new theory, and by nineteenth-century notions that stressed the value of
13. The question of what constitutes an exact replica is more complicated than it
might at first appear. See my discussion of miming below, pp. 536-38.
14. "Apparently," because it is possible that such "rejected" novelties may be con-
sequential at some future time.

innovation (as progress), our age has conceived of creativity almost en-
tirely in terms of the need for, and devising of, novel relationships.
Investigators have continually asked little children, as well as famous
artists and scientists: How does one get new ideas? Where do they come
from? Though doubtless of great psychological interest, this concern
with the causes and sources of innovation has had unfortunate conse-
quences for our understanding of history. Unwarranted emphasis on
the generation of novelty has led to an almost total neglect of the other
side of creativity-namely, that of choosing. Of course choosing is always
done by some individual. But the constraints that seem most to influence
the compositional choices that shape the course of music history are not
those peculiar to the individual composer's psyche but those of the prev-
alent musical style and of the cultural community.
This last observation has significant implications for our under-
standing of influence and, ultimately, for our accounts of change in the
arts. First, it indicates that, although the term "influence" is generally
used to refer to relationships within a particular art, whatever affects the
choices made by an artist is an influence.15 Cultural beliefs and attitudes,
the predilections of patrons, or acoustical conditions may, for instance,
be every bit as influential as prior musical compositions.16 Indeed, some
compositions (such as Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischiitz)may have
become "exemplary," and hence influential, precisely because they were
favored and chosen for cultural, rather than purely musical, reasons.17
Second, this viewpoint makes it evident that just as novelty is om-
nipresent, so possible sources of influence abound-in prior composi-
tions, in the other arts, in cultural ideology, in political and social circum-
15. For a careful discussion of this aspect of influence, see Goran Hermeren, Influence
in Art and Literature(Princeton, N.J., 1975).
16. What is usually meant by influence within an art is simply a special kind of
replication-one in which a particular patterning can be traced to specific features of some
earlier work or to characteristic traits of some composer's idiom. This view accounts for an
observation made in my Explaining Music: Essays and Explorations (Berkeley, 1973), pp.
73-75: namely, that there is no in principle difference between similarities (replications)
explicitly devised by the composer and those that occur because the constraints of the style
make them probable. What is involved is a continuum of replications from those that occur
only within a single movement to those that transcend all cultural historical
boundaries-as, for instance, with the ubiquity of the octave and the fifth as stable entities.
17. What I mean by an exemplary work is one whose commanding presence is such
that its specific means (whether innovative or not), as well as its more general character,
have a compositional/cultural impact and resonance that are inescapable. One thinks per-
haps of such works as Josquin's Missa Pange lingua, Monteverdi's Fifth Book of Madrigals,
Handel's Messiah, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and so on. Works not at first considered
exemplary-for instance, Bach's St. MatthewPassion-subsequently may become so.
The notion of an exemplary work is similar to George Kubler's concept of a "prime"
work. But because an influential realization may not be the first instance but only an
effective proclaimer of novel means, I prefer the term "exemplary." See Kubler, The Shape
of Time (New Haven, Conn., 1962).

stances, and so on. Since any specific source of influence is only one
among a large number of possibilities available to a composer, a particu-
lar work of art or a cultural belief is never more than apotential influence.
To be an actual influence, it must be chosen by the composer. And, as
with innovation, the central and consequential problem for history is not
showing that influence occurred-or even tracing genetic connections-
but understanding and explaining why it took place: Why, that is, out of
the multitude of possibilities was this one influential?
Third, the concept of influence, like that of creativity, has been
confused because emphasis on the source of influence has been so strong
that the act of compositional choice has been virtually ignored. And
when the importance of the prior source is thus stressed, there is a
powerful tendency to transform it surreptitiously into a cause-as though
the composer's choice were somehow an "effect," a necessary conse-
quence of the mere existence of the prior source. This concept of how
influence works is at once confirmed and reinforced by our ordinary way
of speaking about such matters: for example, "Gluck's operas influenced
Mozart's" = Gluck's operas are the active agents, Mozart's are the passive
receivers.
Not only our concept of how influence works and our attitudes
toward creativity but our whole way of thinking about the histories of the
arts has been biased and ultimately crippled by what might be called
"covert causalism." In this model of temporal change-and it is virtually
the only one available in our culture-prior patterns or conditions are
routinely regarded as active causal agents, while later events are reg-
ularly relegated to the position of being passive, necessary results or
effects. All is post hoc, propter hoc.18
The inclination to conceptualize the world in terms of causal con-
nections is so powerfully ingrained in our culture's way of thinking that
our language subtly tends to suggest, through the use of that ubiquitous
conjunction "because," that all explanations are causal.19 Thus, asked
why the earth moves around the sun, someone might reply, "because of
the law of gravity." However, though it is common to refer to gravity as a
"force" (suggesting notions of causation), properly speaking, it is not a
cause. As Henry Margenau writes, "Newton's law of gravitation . . . sets
18. The prevalenceof causalismmay in part be responsiblefor our culture'salmost

pathologicalconcern with innovation(originality).For when worksof art are regarded as
necessaryeffects of prior causes (whethercompositionalor cultural),creativeartistsare in
effect denied freedom to choose. Instead of reveling in their power to exploit-to select
from-the past, artistsbecome anxious lest they be victimizedbythe past. No wonder they
have sought to escape from such imposed indebtedness-either by denying the relevance
of historyor by explicitlyrejectingcausalexplanation.
19. The ubiquityof "because"is clearly related to the centralityof choice in human
life. For by apparentlywarrantingthat a relationshipis causal, use of the conjunction
seems to assure us of the possibilityof envisagingand, hence, of choosing.

up a relation between an observation on the rate of change of the radial

velocity between two masses on the one hand, and the distance between
them on the other. But it contains no criterion to determine the causal
status of these observations."20
There are other noncausal kinds of explanation.21 But most im-
portant for our purposes-and for the history of art-is that influence is
not a kind of causation. Causal relationships are necessary; influence
relationships are not. Again, choice is central to the discussion. Influence
allows for choice, causation does not. If something actually caused me to
act in a particular way (for instance, a compulsion), then I had no choice
in the matter. As J. M. Burgers observes, "A choice cannot be directed by
a cause, for then it would not be a choice."22
Consider the almost sacrosanct litany that "art reflects the culture
out of which it arises." This commonplace is a clear instance of covert
causalism. Mirrors mirror mechanically; they cannot choose to reflect or
not to reflect. Only individual men and women can do so. In this version
of the causal model the artist is little more than an automaton for the
transcription of culture into art. What is at once paradoxical and ruefully
ironic is that this thesis, which was supposed to form a basis for cultural
history, has been partly responsible for discrediting that discipline. For
culture is not a compelling force that determines what artists must
create. Rather it is a richly variegated presence providing possibilities
from which artists choose. And it is precisely when the artist's choicesare
made the focus of historical inquiry that culture becomes indispensable
for the explanation of style change.
Because they are generally understood as involving linear succes-
sion, natural phenomena have been particularly susceptible to causal
20. Henry Margenau, "Meaning and Scientific Status of Causality," in Philosophyof Sci-
ence, ed. Arthur Danto and Sidney Morgenbesser (New York, 1964), p. 437. In a footnote
on page 462 of the same book is the following quotation from the conclusion of Newton's
Principia: "I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity.... It is
enough that gravity does really exist, and act according to the laws we have explained."
21. One of these explanations specially common in the temporal arts is the kind in
which earlier events or patternings are understood to imply later ones. But the under-
standing of such "if ... then" relationships is probabilistic, not causal. For instance, it seems
entirely proper to assert that in Western tonal music a progression from subdominant to
dominant harmony implies the imminence of tonic harmony. But it would seem strange
indeed to suggest that the earlier harmonies "caused" the later one. Another kind of
noncausal explanation is found in synchronic histories such as Jacob Burckhardt's The
Civilization of the Renaissancein Italy and Johan Huizinga's The Waning of the Middle Ages, or
in synchronic analyses of music such as those presented in Rudolph Reti's The Thematic
Process in Music. These accounts explain some phenomenon-e.g., the Renaissance or a
Beethoven sonata movement-by showing that seemingly disparate elements (philosoph-
ical ideas, works of art, institutions, or contrasting musical motives) can be related to one
another through some common higher-level principle. Since the relationships discovered
are not essentially temporal, they cannot be causal.
22. J. M. Burgers, "Causality and Anticipation," Science 18 (July 1975): 195.

532 Leonard B. Meyer The History of Music
interpretation. And the currency and prestige of biological models (spe-

cially since the eighteenth century) fostered the spread of causalism in
history.23 One consequence in histories of the arts was that beginnings
tended unwittingly to be transformed into quasi-causal agents: that is,
the origin of a composition, a technique, a form, or a genre came to be
understood as shaping its end. Notions such as the "germination" or
"birth," the "rise" or "development," and (ultimately) the "decline" or
"death" of x (the ars nova, operaseria, tonal harmony, and so on) not only
are evidence of the power of the organic model but imply that later
stages of the historical process were already present in presumed begin-
nings. Like most deeply held cultural hypotheses, this metaphor has
affected behavior as well as belief. For instance, the assumption that the
seed contains the future of the plant has, I suspect, been partly re-
sponsible for the obsession with sources ("seeds") in the academic study
of the history of music and the other arts.24
Seeds do not, however, explain the particular growth and flowering
of plants. And, though still current in popular culture and the back-
waters of musicology, biological metaphors have come to seem somewhat
simpleminded. The causal paradigm is, nevertheless, so powerful in our
culture that most of the new metaphors devised to account for historical
change have been characterized by a linear succession that allows for
genetic interpretation.25 For instance, the science-derived metaphor of
"art as problem solving" is not untainted by covert causalism.26 The
antecedent problem tends (perhaps unconsciously) to be conceptualized
as a generating "cause," while the consequent solution is (willy-nilly)
understood to be a resulting "effect."
Though initially attractive, the problem-solving model is itself, I
think, problematic. In its "strong" form, as it occurs in the hard sciences
and in formalized games and puzzles (for example, bridge or chess
problems or crossword puzzles), the very notion of a problem implies
23. See Ruth A. Solie, "The Living Work: Organicism and Musical Analysis,"
Nineteenth-CenturyMusic 4 (Fall 1980): 147-56.
24. Observe that psychoanalyticaccounts of creativityusually combine the covert
causalismof the organic model with the mirrormetaphor:the experiencesof infancyand
early childhood, passing through certain preordained phases of development (like an
organism), are the seeds (causes)that shape the psyche of the artist (effect); the psyche,
thus formed, is reflected in (causes)the work of art created (effect).
25. It should be emphasizedthat those who posit that historicalexplanationrequires
the use of general principles (for instance, Carl G. Hempel and his followers) are not
necessarilyarguing for causalaccounts.For there are general principlesthat are not causal
(see above, pp. 530-31). As far as I can see, the explanationof particularhistoricalevents
alwaysinvolvesthe use of both generalprinciplesof some sort (hypothesesor theoriescon-
necting events) and what I have called ad hoc reasons (see my "Concerningthe Sciences,
the Arts-AND the Humanities,"CriticalInquiryI [Sept. 1974]: 197-202).
26. For an importantpresentationof this model, see Kubler'sShapeof Time.

the possibility of a single correct solution.27 Though such solutions, how-

ever, may be possible in some realms, they are seldom encountered in
the arts. What single problem is correctly solved by Mozart's G Minor
Symphony (No. 40) or by Bartok's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percus-
sion? In its "weaker" forms, the problem-solving model seems more
plausible, for in a broad sense, composers face and solve problems, just
as politicians, businessmen, and generals do. Nevertheless, there are
difficulties with using the notion of problem solving to explain a change
of style in the arts. One of these has to do with the hierarchic level of the
changes being explained.
There seems to be little doubt that individual behavior is guided by
goals and that achieving such goals involves more or less continual
problem solving. But when transposed from the level of individual
choice to that of cultural history, explanation in terms of goals or prob-
lems becomes questionable. The analogy to biological change, as de-
scribed by Francois Jacob, is striking:
There are two levels of explanation for goal-directed processes

in living beings and they have frequently been confused. One deals
with the individual organism, of which many morphological,
biochemical, and behavioral properties clearly appear as goal-
directed. This applies, for instance, to the various phases of re-
production, to the development of the embryo, digestion, respira-
tion, the search for food, escape from predation, migration, and so
forth....
The second level of explanation concerns not the individual
organism but the whole living world and its present state....
Against the argument from design, Darwin showed that a combi-
nation of certain mechanisms could actually mimic design; that it
was possible to explain what appeared to be goal-directed activities
by the chance variation of characteristics, followed by natural
selection.28
Solutions realized in individual compositions seldom become ele-

ments in a more comprehensive, goal-directed, problem-solving process
on the level of music history. This is so for two main reasons. First,
because the axiom of inertia posits persistence, most problem solving
involves the exploitation of existing stylistic constraints through permu-
tation and combination, the novel instantiation of prevalent schemata,
27. The problem-solving model (related to the "art-as-experiment" metaphor) has

had deplorable consequences for the creation of works of art. For, by presupposing the
possibility of a single, correct solution of the artistic "problem" that generated some work,
the model at once encourages methods that guarantee "right" choices (e.g., as in serialism)
and depreciates the role of aesthetic sensibility and judgment.
28. Jacob, The Possible and the Actual, pp. 13-14.

and occasionally the invention of new strategies. (On the level of rules,
novelty is even less likely.) And there is little reason to suppose that such
strategic variation will, in and of itself, necessarily generate higher-level
goals or problems. Second, because compositions invariably result from
the balancing of competing claims (for example, the aesthetic ideals of
the composer, the constraints of the style employed, the ideology of the
culture, the taste of the audience, the availability of performers, and so
on), they may be satisfactory-perhaps even superb-but they seldom
constitute the only possible or optimal solution. As a result, it is im-
possible, save in exceptional circumstances, to infer from the work what
the problem was.
The "problems" posed by works of art are elusive and ambiguous.
For what we know are the solutions: individual compositions. And what
we try to do is infer what the problems might have been.29 In other
words, instead of problem solving, the history of music might better be
likened to a parlor game in which the participants (historians) are given
answers (works of art) and asked to guess the questions. The exemplary
case runs as follows:
Answer: 9-W
Question: Do you spell your name with a "V" Herr Wagner?
Translation: Nein, W.
Whatever its guise, covert causalism has tended not only to bias
historical inquiry by emphasizing origins at the expense of explanations
of style change but also to misdirect those studies intended to trace
changes from early instances to subsequent developments. This is be-
cause the model virtually requires that the problem of change be for-
mulated in terms of a linear series of complex wholes. That is, it has
tended to encourage questions such as: What is the origin (source, seed,
cause) of some genre (opera), form (sonata form), or procedure (ostinato
bass)? But there seems little justification for supposing that this is the way
in which changes of style usually occur. Rather, change seems mainly to
take place not through the gradual transformation of complex wholes
(shades of the organic metaphor) but through the permutation and re-
combination of more or less discrete, separable traits or clusters of traits.
And the traits involved may come-be chosen by the composer-from
sources of disparate stylistic and cultural provenance. In short, it is mis-
29. My position here is close to that of James S. Ackerman, who writes: "What is called
'evolution' in the arts should not be described as a succession of steps towards the solution
of a given problem, but as a succession of steps away from one or more original statements
of a problem .... The pattern of style change, then, is not determined by any destiny nor
by a common goal, but by a succession of complex decisions as numerous as the works of
art by which we have defined the style" ("A Theory of Style,"Journal of Aestheticsand Art
Criticism20 [Spring 1962]: 232).

leading, I think, to conceptualize style change in terms of a kind of

primogeniture, asking, for instance, whether first-movement symphony
form derived from the concerto, the aria, the opera overture, or some
other source. The answer is probably some traits from all and all traits
from none. Finally, covert causalism inclines musicological studies to-
ward a kind of epidemiology in which mere contact (cause) is tacitly
taken to be a sufficient condition for influence (effect). As a result schol-
arship tends to become overly preoccupied with the past whereabouts
and movements of manuscripts and men.
3. History
Understanding and explaining the replicated choices made by

composers-and this is what music history (as distinguished from
chronicle) must ultimately do-is complicated and perplexing not only
because of the range and number of alternatives available to a composer
but because, as suggested earlier, the various possibilities may be attrac-
tive for very different reasons.30 For example, in a specific com-
positional/cultural situation some of the alternatives may satisfy the
composer's desire for aesthetic elegance or for expressive richness, while
others will better serve to please a particular patron or prospective audi-
ence, and still others may appeal because they are consonant with the
ideology of the composer's culture. Composing, and artistic creation
generally, always involves balancing such claims against one another. In
some cases a composer will choose to sacrifice one claim for another; in
other cases there will be compromise-the alternatives chosen will par-
tially satisfy a number of competing claims. For instance, the influence of
the music of the French Revolution upon Beethoven's work has been
widely acknowledged and copiously documented.31 Did Beethoven
choose this influence because the music was popular? Because of his
political ideals? Because he was thinking about moving to Paris? Because
it satisfied some inner spiritual need? Or because of some combination of
these and other reasons? Put another way: one's impression of the artis-
tic character of a composer-for example, what might be called his level
of aesthetic aspiration-is based upon the kinds of choices he usually
makes among such claims. Mozart, for example, seems to have placed
the claims of elegance and richness above those of immediate audience
appeal, while Meyerbeer tended to choose the other way around.
These observations have implications for criticism generally, and for
sketch studies specifically. For the criticism of compositions and the
30. For further discussion, see Herbert A. Simon, Models of Thought (New Haven,
Conn., 1979), chap. 1.1.
31. See Maynard Solomon, Beethoven (New York, 1977), p. 138.

search for reasons explaining the differences between sketch and

finished work are, I suspect, often misdirected, and therefore thwarted,
by the assumption that there is a single, purely compositional problem
being solved. But this is rarely the case. Most compositions "solve" a host
of problems-that is, reconcile a variety of claims, some of which, at
least, cannot be accounted for on internal grounds alone. It is therefore
seldom possible to trace genetic connections from sketch to completed
composition. Because choices usually satisfy multiple claims, criticism
often seems inadequate, and students of sketch studies have difficulty
moving beyond descriptive philology and simpleminded taxonomy.
Few choices, then, are perfect, that is, optimal from all points of
view. Most involve conciliatory compromise among competing claims,
settling for what is satisfactory-what works well, or very well. In Her-
bert Simon's words, "search ends when a good-enough alternative is
found."32 And as long as it can be assumed, as most theories of problem
solving do, that the goals and values (the rules of the game) of an or-
ganism remain stable over time, the criterion of "good-enough" is not an
issue.
But when the constancy of goals, values, and means cannot be taken
for granted, then the question "Good enough for what?" becomes
pressing. And this is the case in the arts and in human culture generally.
For what constitutes a "good-enough" alternative may well change over
time. It follows from this that a composer's choices cannot be understood
and explained unless the rules of the compositionalcultural game (the
stylistic constraints) are analyzed. What connects the succession of
choices that results in a piece of music is some hypothesis about the
goal-the intention-of the composer. Since emphasis upon the intention
of the composer is perhaps controversial, let me try to make my position
clear by considering the difference between replicating and miming.
The distinction between mechanical miming and replication de-
pends upon whether or not choice was grounded in an understanding of
the constraints that generated the resulting activity or pattern. Suppose,
for instance, that an actor watched a grand master playing chess,
memorized all his typical moves and gestures and then mimed them in a
play or a film. He would have perceived and re-presented what John R.
Searle would call the "brute facts" of the grand master's behavior. But
unless, in addition, he understood the rules and strategies of the game
(what Searle calls "institutional facts"), he would not have played chess.33
Max Black makes the point crystal clear:
32. Simon, Models of Thought, p. 3. Though the theory of "satisficing" was proposed
only recently, the results of the phenomenon were recognized by Alexander Pope long
ago: "Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, / Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e're shall
be" (An Essay on Criticism).
33. John R. Searle, SpeechActs: An Essay in the Philosophyof Language (London, 1974),
chap. 2.

If I say "Jones made the move, 'pawn to king four,'" a full and
sufficient verification of my claim is that Jones shifted a charac-
teristically shaped piece of wood from a certain place on a
chessboard to a certain other place. Yet this is only part of the story.
I would not say that Jones had made the move, should he know
nothing of the game, and were merely moving the piece at random;
nor would I say so if he knew how to play chess but were amusing
himself by replaying some master's game.... In using the lan-
guage of chess, I take for granted the institution of chess playing
and a host of related facts. Before I can teach anybody how to use
the language of chess, I must acquaint him with this background of
presuppositions.34
And this holds equally true for the arts. In order for a pattern to be
replicated in a significant way-rather than being merely mimed or
parroted-it must be understood as part of a known (but probably inter-
nalized) set of rules and strategies. Mere parroting involves presenting
the lineaments of a pattern without comprehending the underlying con-
straints that generated the relationships.35 Hamlet's famous lines make
precisely this distinction:
These indeed seem,

For they are actions that a man might play;
But I have that within which passeth show,
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
[Act 1, sc. 2, 11.83-86]
To make the point even more forcefully and paradoxically as well,

consider the converse of parroting. Though imaginary, the case is
nevertheless instructive. In this instance, the brute facts-the raw stimuli
(words, pitches, colors, and so on)-of two artworks are absolutely iden-
tical, but the institutional facts (the constraints upon which the works are
based and, hence, the possibilities from which the brute facts were
drawn) are significantly different. Then not only would the style and
significance of the two works be different, but the intentions of the artists
would have been so as well.
This difference is the focus of Jorge Luis Borges' story, "Pierre
34. Max Black, Models and Metaphors:Studies in Language and Philosophy(Ithaca, N.Y.,
1962), p. 165.
35. The preceding discussion, and the terms developed in this essay, suggests a re-
formulation of the concept of imitation: namely, an imitation is a special kind of replication
that borrows elements and relationships from one realm (usually elements on a low hierar-
chic level), "real life," but uses them in another realm that has its own set of constraints-its
own principles and goals. Thus fictional literature borrows the trappings and the suits of
observed human action but plays a significantly different "game" with them. This view
owes much to the work of Barbara Herrnstein Smith; see her On the Margins of Discourse
(Chicago, 1978), chaps. 2 and 5.

538 LeonardB. Meyer The History of M,usic
Menard, Author of the Quixote."Early in the twentieth century, accord-

ing to the story, Menard wrote several chapters of a book, and the text
proved to be exactly the same as chapters from Cervantes' Don Quixote.
As Borges writes: "Cervantes' text and Menard's are verbally identical,
but the second is almost infinitely richer.... The contrast in style is also
vivid. The archaic style of Menard-quite foreign, after all-suffers
from a certain affectation. Not so that of his forerunner, who handles
with ease the current Spanish of his time."36Because the goals implicit in
the stylistic constraints he employed were different from those of Cer-
vantes, Menard was not parroting the text of Don Quixote but rather
replicating it-albeit under very unusual circumstances.
The distinction between merely miming and replicating indicates,
then, that, far from being irrelevant, understanding composers' in-
tentions (collective as well as individual) is crucial for understanding the
choices that result in the compositions upon which some history of music
is partly based. But-and this cannot be sufficiently emphasized-it is not
some kind of idiosyncratic,personal intention that is crucial but the sort that is
implicitin the constraintsthat define the styleand the goals of the "game-of-art"
itself.37 In short, the historically significant intentions of a football coach,
a grand master of chess, or a composer are those that result from choices
made among the alternatives permitted by the constraints of both the
style of the activity and the cultural context.38
I do not mean to belittle the importance of either personal in-
tentions or individual inclinations. It may be of great psychological and
biographical interest to know, for instance, why one composer tends to
devise and use novel means while another is disposed to exploit already
existing strategies, or what a composer intended to communicate in
36. Jorge Luis Borges, "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,"Labyrinths:Selected

Stories and Other Wnitings, ed. Donald A. Yates and James E. Irby (New York, 1962),
pp. 42-43.
37. Like choices, from which they are inseparable, intentions are hierarchic. Con-
sequently, only those intentions that affect the level of dialect are historically consequential.
Lower-level intentions may, of course, affect the composer's idiom (his stylistic develop-
ment) and the structure of a specific work.
38. Words such as "intention" and "goal" suggest discredited and suspect notions of
teleology and final causes. However, though their formulation may at times have lacked
finesse, the concepts seem hard to dispense with. For whatever opposes entropy does so by
virtue of a set of constraints that defines structure and process: making a crystal, an
organism, a cultural institution, or a work of art whatever in fact it is. Assuming that what is
meant by a goal is nothing more than one of the possibilities for structure or process that
can be actualized given the operative constraints, then the notions need entail neither
teleology nor final causes-need not, that is, involve anthropomorphizing a goal or inten-
tion as some sort of purposeful striving toward, or inner desire for, actualization.
It should be recognized that there are almost always potentialities permitted by the
prevalent constraints that are never actualized. And this is important because our under-
standing of what occurs (is actualized) always involves a sense of what might have been, and
yet may be, actualized. The future is a significant concept only so long as the constraints of
the world are potent with implied, unrealized possibilities.

some specific passage. However, unless they are shared by other mem-
bers of the compositional community, such inclinations and intentions
will not give rise to a musical practice that goes beyond opus or oeuvre.
Let me illustrate this viewpoint with some examples. A plot/schema
frequently encountered in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is
one in which a virtuous but poor, humble, and perhaps disfigured indi-
vidual is discovered (usually suddenly) to be of wealthy, noble origin.
One thinks, for instance, of "Beauty and the Beast" (and countless other
fairy tales), of TomJones, The Prince and thePauper, and H.M.S. Pinafore.39
Now the interesting and important historical problem is not discovering
the first instance of this schema, identifying its author, or even account-
ing for its origin.40 Rather the important historical problem is explaining
why it was so popular-so frequently replicated in various guises-in the
tales, novels, and dramas of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Part
of the explanation is, I think, cultural. The story was selected and rep-
licated because it touched upon and vicariously resolved a profound
and poignant ambivalence in the beliefs and attitudes of the middle class.
It was an ambivalence in which an ideology calling for the rejection of
the hereditary privileges and authoritarian prerogatives of the ancien
regime had to be reconciled with a repressed yet lingering yearning for
the deference, difference, and perquisites conferred by class distinction.
It can also be illuminating to ask why some trait or schema com-
monly replicated in one period is not in some other. For instance, the
fugue subjects given in example 4 (see brackets) are realizations of a
Clavier,Book I
Bach,Well-Tempered
a.
i^bb7Handel, Messiah
And wil Handel,Messiah

b.
b ? _ C IJ f I I J C.- l" . 1
And with His stripes we are heal - ed
Haydn, String Quartet, Op. 20 No. 5, iv
c.
tbt'?b, : I,J r "C
of . I 1
Example4
39. The aesthetic use of such conventions is discussed in Peter J. Rabinowitz, "Asser-
tion and Assumption: Fictional Patterns and the External World," PMLA 96 (May 1981):
416-18.
40. Accounting for a plot's origin may in the vast majority of instances be impossible
anyway. For example, according to the New Columbia Encyclopedia, the Cinderella story
"(dating back to 9th-century China) exists in 500 versions in Europe alone" (4th ed., s.v.
"Cinderella").

schema frequently replicated in the music of the Baroque period. But,

despite the example from Haydn's music (which is explicitly anachronis-
tic and something of an anomaly), realizations of the schema are seldom
encountered in the music of the Classic period-at least not until vari-
ants of it occur in late Beethoven string quartets.
Consider an even more striking case. As with inventions in all fields,
a novelty may be devised and used by a composer; but only subse-
quently does it become part of the dialect of a compositional community.
For instance, one of Antonin Reicha's fugues for piano (No. 28) has a time
signature of 6/8 + 2/8, while Fugue No. 30 combines 4/2 and 3/4 meters
in the following fashion:
Example 5
As Vacav Jan Sykora writes in his preface to volume 3 of Reicha's fugues:

"Reicha derives his unusual time-signatures (5/8, 2/8, 7/8 or composite
signatures) from the example of folk music, thus anticipating the cre-
ative approach of Bela Bartok."41But use, not origin, is clearly the inter-
esting question here. For few of Reicha's contemporaries or followers in
the nineteenth century employed meters of this sort. One of the reasons
for this was that the Romantics preferred the enchanting mystery of the
exotic to (what seemed to them) its irregularity; for this reason, compos-
ers tended to regularize ("civilize") the music of the folk. Also, because
the deep connection between phrase structure and tonality could not be
abrogated readily, such irregular meters could prevail only when tonal-
ity was considerably weakened-that is, in the twentieth century.
This example suggests that it is not so much the past that shapes the
present but the present that, by selecting from the abundant possibilities
of the past, shapes the past as we construct it. The present chooses what
will influence it and, in so doing, "decides" what its past will be. It follows
from this that our understanding of the present is necessarily provisional
and uncertain. Such understanding depends upon our ability to envis-
age the future, to imagine, that is, what tomorrow's artists will find worth
replicating or building on. And such envisaging has not been notably
reliable.
It has not been so, precisely because history is not the result of a
causal past but of a selective present. For this reason, too, most historical
41. Vacav Jan Sykora, in Antonin Reicha's 36 Fugues for the Piano, ed. Sykora, vol.
3 (Kassel, 1973), no pagination.

explanation is retrospective. It consists of an attempt, based upon rele-

vant evidence, to reconstruct the alternatives available to the composer
and-considering such matters as the composer's personality, specific
cultural circumstances, and prevalent ideological and stylistic con-
straints-to formulate hypotheses about why he or she (or they) made the
particular compositional choices being studied. Since compositional
alternatives are never more than probable, historical relationships can-
not be established until the implications of the past are known, that is,
until particular choices have been made in some present.
Though influence differs from causation in fundamental ways, they
are alike in one epistemological respect. Namely, just as causes are con-
nected to effects only in the light of some relational theory, so influences
are connected to choices only in terms of hypotheses about human be-
havior in specific stylistic/cultural contexts.42 As with causation, the re-
lationship between data and hypotheses is reciprocal: what constitutes
relevant data is a function of our hypotheses about "how the world
works." For instance, though it might be possible (through painstaking
and scrupulous source studies) to discover and document precisely what
Rossini ate for lunch just before he composed the overture to the Barber
of Seville, such information would not be considered relevant data for a
history of music.43 It would not be relevant because our cultural beliefs
(hypotheses) do not connect the consumption of food with compositional
choice. But there may be cultures in which just such connections are
made: for example, before composing/performing a ritual song about
some totem animal, the shaman conducting the ceremony eats part of
the animal. And it is not impossible that developments in neurochemical
psychology will one day reveal a specific connection between eating cer-
tain foods-for instance, drug-related ones-and the tendency toward,
say, innovation in music.44
It is important to recognize that one can be interested in the past
without being concerned with history. For history, as I have urged, seeks
to explain changes that have occurred in the past. But the past may also
be fascinating because it offers what might be called signal "manifesta-
42. For further discussion, see Norwood R. Hanson, Patterns of Discovery (London,
1965), p. 64.
43. Such information might, of course, be relevant in some other history: for exam-
ple, that of French cuisine-as being perhaps the first instance of the preparation of
"tournedos Rossini." Observe, however, that the initial instance is worth recording only
because the recipe has been frequently replicated, becoming part of the culinary dialect of
continental cooking.
44. It does not follow, I hasten to add, from the reciprocity of data and theory, that
theories determine facts. Facts exist apart from the theories that make them relationally
significant; that is, they exist as "brute" facts. Were this not so, intellectual history would
not exist or would merely be a random succession. For it is in part the recalcitrant existence
of discrepant data that necessitates the revision of theory and thereby results in intellectual
history.

tions." That is, by recounting the extraordinary-specially in the realms

of human behavior-tales of the past show us "how the world is." The
evil of Hitler or the sainthood of Gandhi, the catastrophe of the Lisbon
earthquake or the flight of Halley's comet may be of interest not only
because they changed the course of events in some way but because they
significantly affect our conception of what is humanly or physically prob-
able. (In a comparable way, we may be interested in an exemplary work
of art not only because it was influential but because it seems to establish
some sort of limit or standard for the understanding and classification of
the art. Stravinsky's Sacre du printempsis surely such a work.) Moreover,
there are past events that, though they had little effect upon the larger
history of civilization, are nonetheless engrossing: for instance, the
crimes of Heliogabalus.
Notice that our interest in the past as "manifestation" is explicitly
nonhistorical. That is to say, it is not our understanding of historical
change that is affected but our comprehension of what we take to be the
enduring constraints of the world. Looked at from another point of view,
however, the past as manifestation is an enormous and variegated com-
pendium of more or less outlandish gossip. And as with ordinary
gossip-about the affairs and foibles of movie stars, politicians, and
colleagues-we are intrigued because, by changing our sense of the prob-
abilities of human behavior and natural phenomena (if only ever so
slightly), such knowledge of the past enhances our ability to envisage
and, hence, our ability to choose intelligently and successfully.
Delight in the gossip about the great protagonists of the past seems
innocuous enough. Yet at times it may not be so. For the mere inclusion
(in a presumably serious study of an important figure from the past) of
information of whatever kind tends to be taken by readers as testimony
to its significance. And unless the relationship between such information
and the protagonist's choices is made explicit or can be drawn from a
shared repertory of culturally sanctioned reasons, conscientious readers
will feel obliged to devise their own explanatory hypotheses. For in-
stance, by recounting in considerable detail the circumstances of a com-
poser's childhood, education, love affairs, and so on, a biographer/
historian virtually compels readers to formulate reasons (hypotheses
connecting circumstance with choice)-otherwise, why should the in-
formation have been included at all?-reasons for which the author
refuses, in effect, to assume any responsibility.
Observe that histories of the arts are in this respect significantly
different from histories in the realms of action.45 For as we read about
political oppression, economic privation, or military campaigns and their
consequences for subsequent events, we are able to interpret what is
recounted in the light of shared, though perhaps tacitly understood,
45. For further discussion, see Auden, Forewardsand Afterwards,p. 89.

hypotheses about human behavior and the constraints of the cultural

and natural realms. When Achilles sulks in his tent or Cicero denounces
Cataline, when citizens storm the Bastille or the Allies land in North
Africa, we understand their motives and the circumstances that in-
fluenced and led to the choices they made. As a result, the essentially
narrative presentation can easily be comprehended as a reasoned expla-
nation.
By contrast, we have few viable hypotheses about artistic behavior
and the constraints governing it, save in a vague and usually platitudi-
nous way (for example, artists strive to make aesthetically valuable
choices). Ironically, we can explain Beethoven's actions (choices) vis-a-vis
his nephew (an area in which he was scarcely competent) more easily
than we can his choice of E major for the second key area of the first
movement of the Waldstein Sonata (an area in which he was supremely
skillful). Because our culture provides no fund of commonsense reasons
about the grounds for, and constraints governing, artistic choice, narra-
tive accounts of events in the arts tend to remain mere descriptions of
more or less brute facts. Information cannot become explanation, and
chronology cannot be transformed into history.
Our culture fails to furnish such commonsense reasons because the
motives that generate and guide artistic choice seem enigmatic, re-
condite, and ambiguous. The reasons for this are many and varied,
involving such matters as the complexity of explaining the cognitive/
affective nature of creativity, the tendency of music theory to disregard
the claims of cognition and culture, and the fact that in the realms of art,
as opposed to those of action, means and ends are inextricably entwined
so that no choice is merely a means to some larger end. But for present
purposes the important point is that the absence of viable, shared
hypotheses about the bases for artistic choice has exacerbated the in-
clination toward models of a causal sort-mirroring, organic, problem
solving, and the like. It is not merely that causalism is deeply ingrained as
a mode of Western thought. (Most histories of events in the realms of
action are influence/motivation/choice accounts.) Rather, causal models
have found favor because they seem able to avoid the perplexing prob-
lems involved in explaining the motives behind artistic choice. Put the
other way around: unlike causal ones, accounts in terms of influence
cannot avoid theorizing about the ways in which artistic choices are af-
fected by internal motivations, goals, and intentions, by the im-
pingements of external cultural and social constraints, and by their in-
tricate interaction.
Despite their differences, influence and causation are, as noted ear-
lier, alike in that just as causes are understood to connect events in, say,
the natural world, so influence is one of the "glues" that connects events
in the histories of the arts. But influenceis notjust a "weak"kind of causation.
Rather it involves a significant shift in the positioning of the active agent

of change. In causation that agent (the cause) belongs to the set of prior
conditions: x causesy (effect). In influence, on the other hand, the kinetic
agent of change-the individual who chooses to innovate (and to use) or
to replicate-belongs to the set of subsequent conditions: x is chosen byy
(the artist/agent).
In sum, what I am suggesting is that, beguiled by the blandishments
(the seeming simplicity and certainty) of causal models, we have been
looking for the reasons for style change at the wrong end of the creative
process. It is not that I want to deny the relevance of innovative inven-
tion, sources of influence, or origins of musical means. Rather, I am
urging that what are primary and central are the bases and reasons for
compositional choice. Stated succinctly: in the invention and initial use of
novelty, the individual proposes-and studying this is partly the prov-
ince of psychology; in the replication of patterns and means, culture
disposes-and studying this is largely the province of history. This way
of thinking about style change will, I believe, foster historical explana-
tion rather than mere chronological description. And then, instead of
being a subject for pious protestations of devotion or used as trappings
and suits for what are essentially disciplinary studies, cultural history
(together with a perceptive analysis of prevalent stylistic constraints) will
be indispensable in accounting for the succession of compositional
choices that constitute the history of music.


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Innovation, Choice, and the History of Music

Author(s): Leonard B. Meyer

This content downloaded from 200.17.203.24 on Thu, 29 Aug 2013 12:35:12 PM

Critical Inquiry 9 (March 1983)

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Why a composer innovates-whether radically breaking the rules of

Leonard B. Meyer, Benjamin Franklin Professor of Music and the

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This content downloaded from 200.17.203.24 on Thu, 29 Aug 2013 12:35:12 PM

competency. We enjoy novelty-the stimulation of surprise, the tension

While in lower organisms, behavior is strictly determined by the

The price of freedom is the imperative of choice. Human beings must

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Imagining and envisaging-the grounds for choosing-are possible

through a salutary change in his or her understanding of the consequences of alternatives.

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In the area of conceptualization (scarcely distinguishable from be-

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this proves impossible, ways will be found for restoring a reasonable

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The distinction between novelty and replication is neither as clear

Beethoven, String Quartet in F, Op. 18 No. 1, iv

Novelty may also arise through permutation and combination on a

. ' i r J"1 t I litIf Jj JJJIJ 11

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somewhere in the early history of Western tonal music. As motives, then,

This content downloaded from 200.17.203.24 on Thu, 29 Aug 2013 12:35:12 PM

constraints-for instance, in the rules of a style-occur very infre-

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ously problems. For even on the level of interpretation we often gener-

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There is little need to recount further the difficulties involved in

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This content downloaded from 200.17.203.24 on Thu, 29 Aug 2013 12:35:12 PM

18. The prevalenceof causalismmay in part be responsiblefor our culture'salmost

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up a relation between an observation on the rate of change of the radial

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interpretation. And the currency and prestige of biological models (spe-

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the possibility of a single correct solution.27 Though such solutions, how-

There are two levels of explanation for goal-directed processes

Solutions realized in individual compositions seldom become ele-

27. The problem-solving model (related to the "art-as-experiment" metaphor) has

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This content downloaded from 200.17.203.24 on Thu, 29 Aug 2013 12:35:12 PM

leading, I think, to conceptualize style change in terms of a kind of

Understanding and explaining the replicated choices made by

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search for reasons explaining the differences between sketch and

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These indeed seem,

To make the point even more forcefully and paradoxically as well,

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Menard, Author of the Quixote."Early in the twentieth century, accord-

36. Jorge Luis Borges, "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,"Labyrinths:Selected

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