1: Musical Borrowing | Reinventions

In this session we will explore musical borrowing as a field of study as pioneered by the American musicologist Peter Burkholder. In considering this area, it is important to note that ‘borrowing’ and ‘quotation’ are not necessarily synonymous: a composer might use an earlier composition as a model, or ‘quote’ a phrase exactly, or paraphrase a theme so it works more appropriately in the new context. A consideration of the hypotext (the older text or texts) and the hypertext (the new text) provides a starting point for a discussion of music and meaning within these artistic spheres.

Charles Ives

The music of the American composer is often rich in quotation and reference, so it provides a good case study for our exploration. The lecture will introduce some of the terminology created and theorised by Burkholder, which is applied specifically to Ives, but has applications to a range of music types. Burkholder’s approach is summarised in the following questions:

Analytical questions: For any individual piece, what is borrowed or used as a source? How is it used in the new work?
Interpretive or critical questions: Why is this material borrowed and used in this way? What musical or extramusical functions does it serve?
Historical questions: Where did the composer get the idea to do this? What is the history of the practice? Can one trace a development in the works of an individual composer, or in a musical tradition, in the ways existing material is borrowed and used?

Burkholder proceeded to develop a Typology of Musical Borrowing, which provides a useful framework for the analysis of musical borrowing in a wider range of music.

Preparation

Read Peter Burkholder’s The Uses of Existing Music: Musical Borrowing as a Field

Associated Reading

Peter Burkholder – “Quotation” and Paraphrase in Ives’s Second Symphony
David Metzer – “We Boys”: Childhood in the Music of Charles Ives

Associated Listening

Charles Ives – Central Park in the Dark
Charles Ives – A Symphony: New England Holidays, 3rd mvt. 'Fourth of July'
Charles Ives – Symphony No. 2 (particularly the 5th movement )

Further Resources

Grove Music Online entry for Borrowing
Peter Burkholder – Musical Borrowing: An Annotated Bibliography [online resource]
Peter Burkholder – All Made of Tunes: Charles Ives and the Uses of Musical Borrowing
Michael Talbot (ed.) – The Musical Work: Reality or Invention?
Allan Moore – Song Means: Analysing and Interpreting Recorded Popular Music
Justin Williams – Musical Borrowing in Hip-Hop Music: Theoretical Frameworks and Case Studies
Olufunmilayo B. Arewa – From J.C. Bach to Hip Hop: Musical Borrowing, Copyright and Cultural Context
Theft: A History of Music, a graphic comic tracing the history of musical borrowing

Follow-Up Work

Construct your own one-page analysis of a chosen work, applying Burkholder’s framework. Email me an electronic version in advance of next week’s class, and be prepared to present your analysis in class

‘Ives had an extraordinary working life. After professional training as an organist and composer, he worked in insurance for 30 years, composing in his free time. He used a wide variety of styles, from tonal Romanticism to radical experimentation, even in pieces written during the same period. His major works often took years from first sketch to final revisions, and most pieces lay unperformed for decades. His self-publications in the early 1920s brought a small group of admirers who worked to promote his music. He soon ceased to compose new works, focussing instead on revising and preparing for performance the works he had already drafted. By his death he had received many performances and honours, and much of his music had been published. His reputation continued to grow posthumously, and by his centenary in 1974 he was recognized worldwide as the first composer to create a distinctively American art music. Since then his music has been frequently performed and recorded and his reputation has broadened further, resting less on his innovations and nationality and more on the intrinsic merits of his music.’ [Oxford Music Online]