1 Barthes, Roland, Elements of Semiology (New York, 1967), 10Google Scholar

2 For further discussion of the protocol for composing variation sets in the eighteenth century, see Leonard G Ratner, Classic Music Expression, Form, and Style (New York, 1980), 255–9Google Scholar

3 The most recent elaboration of this tripartition is in Jean-Jacques Nattiez's Music and Discourse Toward a Semiology of Music (Princeton, 1990), 10–16Google Scholar

4 Edward T Cone, ‘Words into Music The Composer's Approach to the Text’, Sound and Poetry, ed Northrop Frye, English Institute Essays 1956 (New York, 1957), 9Google Scholar

5 Kramer, Lawrence, Music and Poetry The Nineteenth Century and After (Berkeley, 1984)Google Scholar

6 For further discussion of this point as it applies to the reading of literary works, see Eagleton, Terry, The Ideology of the Aesthetic (Oxford, 1990)Google Scholar

7 See Bent, Ian D, ‘The “Compositional Process” in Music Theory 1713–1850’, Music Analysis, 3 (1984), 29–55Google Scholar