Byron Almén's Theory of Musical Narrative

Narrative theory is a broad and complex area of study, with a correspondingly wide range of applications and theoretical positions relating to music. Almén provides an extensive survey of these positions, arguing for the status of musical narrative as a sibling rather than a descendent discipline to that of literary or dramatic narrative.Footnote ⁹ Rather than lacking in relation to these media, he recognises:

These dynamic interactions, central to Almén's conception of narrative, are illustrated via the recurrent case studies, among others, of Chopin's Prelude in G major and Susan McClary's well-known narrative analysis of Bach's Fifth Brandenburg Concerto.Footnote ¹¹ The former is used as a demonstration of how ‘the topical environment’ – in this case the bucolic, water-like accompaniment of the continuously rippling left-hand of the Prelude – can play a significant role in suggesting narrative context – that is, in framing and bestowing value on material oppositions that emerge and play out during the temporal span of the piece.Footnote ¹² The latter is used to illustrate how the dialectic relationship between opposing elements – in this case the harpsichordist and the ensemble – may ‘isomorphically reflect’, and thus invite critical reflection upon, certain cultural, political, psychological or social realities.Footnote ¹³

Almén's theory advocates three stages of analysis. First, one must delineate ‘semantically meaningful units and the pattern of relationships between them’; then one must track ‘their interactions over time’; one can then determine an ‘expression of the narrative pattern thus articulated’.Footnote ¹⁴ These processes are explicated with recourse to the theory and terminology of musical narratologists Eero Tarasti (himself influenced by the linguistic theory of Algirdas Julien Greimas) and Robert Hatten, and literary narratologist James Jakób Liszka.Footnote ¹⁵

In defining ‘semantically meaningful units’, Almén borrows Tarasti's use of the term ‘isotopy’, first coined by Greimas to account for the semantic consistency of different segments of a text.Footnote ¹⁶ In music, isotopies occur when segments of a composition contain ‘a shared collection of common characteristics, allowing them to serve as fundamental narrative units’.Footnote ¹⁷ Isotopies may be simple or complex, and static or dynamic in nature, reliant for their identification on the consistency of certain temporal, textural, timbral, harmonic or spatial characteristics – as well as their distinction from neighbouring isotopies.Footnote ¹⁸ Almén draws on Tarasti's delineation of isotopies in his narrative analysis of Chopin's Ballade in G minor to illustrate these principles. In the context of a work of contemporary music such as nuun, the traditional characteristics expounded in Tarasti's and Almén's theories, such as tonality, harmony, metre and rhythmic or melodic profile, may be expanded to include characteristics such as periodicity, perceptibility, polyrhythmic density, traditional and non-traditional timbre and the presence or absence of motivic material.

Once isotopies have been identified, their component materials are assigned differing degrees of ‘markedness’ and ‘rank’, as theorised by Liszka and Hatten. For Liszka, markedness involves the assignment of asymmetrical value to opposing elements within a system, while rank involves valuations of relative ‘importance or subordination in a system’.Footnote ¹⁹ Markedness thus refers to distinctions of value, and rank to gradations of value, while narrative organisation ‘tracks the changes of these markedness and rank relations over a temporal span’.Footnote ²⁰ Hatten then cites the cultural dimension of musical narrative as a transvaluation of hierarchical structures of different kinds. ‘Tracking the effect of change and conflict upon these structures’, Almén summarises, reveals ‘the implications of narrative organization as a locus for critical and hermeneutic inquiry’.Footnote ²¹ The lack of descriptive specificity in music is a boon in this regard. Yet the process of valuation is often more challenging, given the absence of words, with their ability to explicitly state or strongly imply narrative and ideological context.

Almén's response to such challenges is to incorporate topic theory in the analytical paradigm.Footnote ²² For Almén, topical details ‘cue interpretation, much as the light and sound design of a film can influence the viewer's understanding of events’.Footnote ²³ Returning to the Chopin G major Prelude, he notes how the left-hand accompaniment, ‘redolent of murmuring streams and gentle breezes, creates a benign, peaceful background environment that strongly influences how a listener might interpret the piece as narrative’.Footnote ²⁴ ‘The very ubiquity and continuity of the topical material,’ he argues, ‘locates the entire work within a particular referential and affective space.’Footnote ²⁵

Musical topic can thus provide large-scale context for interpretation, acting as the starting point for assignments of markedness and rank within a semantic musical system. Changes of topic may also serve to articulate global characteristics or ‘expressive turning points’, with the potential to ‘reinforce, highlight, or even constitute the primary oppositions within a narrative trajectory’.Footnote ²⁶ Understanding the contrasting topical environments that distinguish the two halves of nuun in these terms can assist in assigning markedness and rank to the characteristic elements of their constituent isotopies and, ultimately, in understanding the narrative trajectory of the piece.

Almén labels these progressive stages of narrative analysis using technical language appropriated from Liszka and the music-specific theory of Tarasti and Hatten. At the agential level, ‘musical-semantic units are identified, characterized, and located in time’.Footnote ²⁷ These units, or isotopies, can then be assigned markedness or unmarkedness values according to the positionality of the work in question, the analyst's proclivities and, where relevant, the semantic contribution of the topical environment. The actantial level articulates the dynamic relationship of these markedness characteristics, as manifested in ‘an increase or decrease of a certain expressive quality or characteristic in successive appearances of related isotopies’.Footnote ²⁸ The relative status of musical units thus changes as the narrative unfolds, breaking through ‘the inherently bounded quality of units at the agential level (or of any expressive units per se, including individual topics)’.Footnote ²⁹ The narrative level then interprets these interactions as ‘the playing out of tensions between an order-imposing hierarchy and a transgression of that hierarchy’, with potential for mapping on to any number of political, social, interpersonal, psychological or ideological systems of real-life power, conflict and tension.Footnote ³⁰ Thinking in this way, Almén concludes:

A Narrative Analysis of nuun

nuun's narrative trajectory is defined by the progress and interaction of two principal elements: upwards chromatic movement (the chromatic element) and rhythmic periodicity (the periodic element). Each element is paired with the antithesis of the other, such that upwards chromatic movement, principally enacted by the strings, appears in different aperiodic or irregularly inflected rhythmic configurations, while rhythmic periodicity, principally enacted by the two pianos, appears on static pitch centres. Both elements are marked, in that they transgress the chaotic yet static harmonic and rhythmic state of the opening isotopy (bars 1–4; see Example 1).Footnote ³² It is the relative markedness of each element that gives rise to a hierarchical order, whose balance shifts across the two halves of the piece, thereby enacting a complex yet coherent narrative.

Example 1: Beat Furrer, nuun, bars 1–4. © Universal Edition.

The relative rank of each element is determined according to certain criteria. Greater rank is conferred, for example, by textural salience. The salience of each element depends first and foremost on the density of the orchestral texture, which may illuminate, reinforce or detract from their respective harmonic or temporal markedness characteristics, or simply obscure them. Speed also plays a key role. Expressive tempo directions and changes of metronomic tempo appear in nuun's second half, with a bearing on narrative developments; proportional tempi, however, are dictated throughout by Furrer's characteristic use of temporal layers.Footnote ³³ These range from crotchet octuplets (that is, demisemiquavers) through septuplets, sextuplets and quintuplets – whose superimposition in isotopy 1 establishes the chaotic topical environment from which the order-imposing transgressions of the two principal elements emerge – to the presence of extremely long durational intervals between chromatically ascending attacks in the final isotopy of the piece (bars 316–21; see Example 2). If rates of chromatic change or periodic repetition surpass a certain threshold, their divisible characteristics become more difficult to perceive; they become qualitative rather than quantitative and thus less distinct as narrative agents. The duration and consistency of these states of textural and temporal markedness is also important, with longer, stable appearances asserting greater dominance.

Example 2: Beat Furrer, nuun, bars 316–21 (only the active instruments are shown). © Universal Edition.

These general criteria are supplemented by the specific instrumental, textural and figurative presentations of each element. The chromatic element, for example, is principally defined by its varied modes of textural presentation in the two pianos. Two archetypal characters are established in isotopy 1, emphasising the tonal centre of B, first in hocketing double-octave quintuplets (bars 1–7), and then in turbulent octuplets, spanning the keyboard (bars 8–16). The development of the former can be traced in two different stages: (1) a morse-code-like character, either on rising chords (see, for example, pianos I and II in bars 34–45) or a single low tone (see, for example, piano II in bars 46–51); and a punctual character (see, for example, pianos I and II in bars 89–91), for which gaps between the interlocking parts become increasingly pronounced. These transformations are further coloured by changes in temporal layer, such that faster base values, such as punctual octuplets, effect an increased sense of stuttering, then pointillism and, ultimately, disintegration, generally conveying a loss of assurance and rank. Development of the turbulent octuplets, meanwhile, can be heard in the introduction of rapid chromatic scales (see bars 86–88), whose overlap in the pianos creates the circular effect of Shepard tones, and later in the narrow ambitus of flowing legato sextuplets (see bars 127–31), both of which weaken the rank of the chromatic element by denying it ascendant progress.Footnote ³⁴

The periodic element has two principal modes of presentation: ‘ticking’ on a repeated pitch centre, first enacted by pizzicato violins and violas in isotopy 2 (bars 24–33); and motoric series of accented chords, first appearing in isotopy 3 (bars 34–45). Unlike the timbral consistency and contrasting figurations of the varied piano textures, the character of these presentations is distinguished by orchestral arrangement and speed. This is particularly significant in the second half, which features overlapping series of relatively rapid toneless attacks in the strings, brass and percussion, and, later, manually damped attacks in the pianos. These characters are summarised in Table 1 with codes to be used in subsequent tables.

Table 1 Character key

The way in which Furrer shifts between these elements and their characteristic presentations is fundamental to the narrative trajectory of the piece. In the first half, shifts are typically block-like, often accompanied by sudden changes in dynamic (hear, for example, the opening shift from hocketing to turbulent pianos in isotopy 1). Shifts are often heralded by the transitional signal of brass swells, crotales or other pitched percussion, and crescendi (hear, for example, the first and most striking example of this in bars 17–19). Within the stable context of the opening isotopy, these signals constitute a secondary marked element, foreshadowing shifts in rank in the principal elements. The second half, meanwhile, is characterised by a prevailing sense of drifting development, punctuated by sudden interjections, with textural changes heralded by increasingly clumsy and less discernible transitional signals.

Having defined these elements and their potential for markedness on the agential level, it is now time to explore their actantial interaction within and between different isotopies (see Table 2 for a schematic summary of the first-half analysis). Following the establishment of a normative state of chaotic stasis in isotopy 1, the introduction of new tones to the undulating piano texture in bar 20 signals the emergence of the transgressive chromatic element in isotopy 2 (bars 20–33), ascending in four-bar sequence from B to D♭, a steady increase in rank, subtly mitigated by the swirling textures and tonal conflicts within the piano parts. Ticking on C begins in bar 24 in the violins and violas, seemingly triggered by the first salient shift of the chromatic element. This staggered appearance signals the hierarchical precedence of the latter, whose textural character is established in isotopy 1, with the seed of chromatic movement similarly sown by the persistent semitonal tension between A# and B in the opening orchestral salvo. The rank of the periodic element is further mitigated by the polymetric friction between the two groups of strings, ticking at five- and seven-semiquaver intervals respectively.

Table 2 nuun first-half isotopy, character and element status scheme

The sequential progress of the chromatic element in isotopy 1 is interrupted after two bars of emphasis on D by a fourfold motoric presentation of the periodic element in minim septuplets, re-emphasising the A#–B harmonic tension of the opening tutti attack. Isotopy 3 (bars 34–45) thus begins with a strong statement of order by the periodic element – following the transgressive progress of the chromatic element in isotopy 2 – accentuated by powerful orchestration, optimal temporal salience and the reinforcement of a striking, morse-like rhythmic motif in the brass. The chromatic element, appearing in hocketing quintuplets, subsequently emerges from the orchestral texture (bars 36–40), followed by the attempted reassertion of the periodic element (bar 41), whose failure is signalled by weaker orchestration in the woodwinds, augmenting note values (affecting a ritardando), diminuendo and the underlying persistence of the chromatic element.

Isotopies 4 and 5 (bars 46–60; bars 61–76) echo these processes with some structural changes. The ticking on C now starts at the beginning of isotopy 4, still mitigated by the same polymetric friction. The chromatic element, meanwhile, progresses further to E♭, though with a diminution in duration for each chromatic shift, signalling a heightened anxiety to secure hierarchical progress. Isotopy 5 then begins with sixfold repetition of the motoric septuplet groups, conferring an increase in rank from their fourfold appearance in isotopy 3. This time, the turbulent texture of the pianos continues, signalling an increased stability that counterbalances the ascendant rank of the periodic element. The latter makes a final, motoric fourfold appearance in bars 68–69, now dislocated from the reinforcement of the brass morse motif, which subsequently accompanies the resumption of hocketing quintuplets in the pianos.

The two mirrored ‘battles’ of isotopies 2–3 and 4–5 are followed by two less semantically coherent pairs of isotopies. Isotopy 6 (bars 77–96) begins with emphasis on D within the turbulent texture in piano I and in a low morse pattern in piano II, signalling chromatic progress gained through the negotiations of isotopies 2–5. The piano textures then proceed through a series of shifts, from vigorously rising hocketing quintuplets (bars 82–85), to the first introduction of octuplet Shepard tones (bars 86–88), to punctual sextuplets (bars 89–91), and finally to a gradually thinning resumption of the quintuplet layer (bars 92–96). Isotopy 7 (bars 97–126) then begins with the reassertion of the turbulent pianos (bars 97–108), emphasising a new high point of F. This then progresses through an extended return of the Shepard tones (bars 109–113) and a series of punctuated textures (bars 114–16; 117–23; 124–26), each gaining in register before ‘resetting’ and gradually losing momentum. The chromatic element thus undergoes a period of instability and progressive failure in isotopies 6 and 7, further accentuated by the looping presence of Shepard tones.

The ticking strings, meanwhile, now stripped of polymetric tension, gain in rank and stability during these isotopies, moving confidently through tonal centres on E (bars 86–91) and G (bars 97–102) at three semiquaver and five semiquaver intervals respectively, before attaining and sustaining the tonally significant highpoint of B at corresponding intervals (bars 104–108; bars 109–14). Having reached this ascendant rank, tellingly achieved at a time of indecision for the chromatic element, the ticking fades into the orchestral texture, as if unsure where now to proceed; it does not reappear until the second half.

Isotopies 8 and 9 (bars 127–43; bars 144–64) see the continued development of the chromatic element, each introduced by legato sextuplets, whose chaotic and narrow ambitus invokes a return to the static ambiguity of the opening. This is followed in isotopy 8 by a slow climb in increasingly punctual piano chords, perpetuating the loss of rank conferred during isotopies 6 and 7 through gradual thinning. With no interference from the periodic element, however, isotopy 9 witnesses a resurgence in rank in the chromatic element, with the turbulent texture in piano I moving from B through to F# (bars 148–61), with morse double octaves in piano II on E♭ (bars 151–53) and then hocketing in both pianos on the climactic F# (bars 161–64), accentuating the hierarchical significance of this ascent. As with the pyrrhic victory of the periodic element in isotopy 7, however, the dominant hocketing octaves subsequently thin out, giving way in isotopy 10 (bars 170–88) to the uncertain alternation of Shepard tone textures – now in double dyads – and increasingly stuttering chordal ascents in hocketing octuplets. The interruption of this texture by a general pause at the end of bar 187, followed by a jagged alternation of piano chords in the isolated bar 188, is therefore striking, but not entirely unexpected, given the failed progress of both elements in the narrative context of the first half.

Analysis of these processes at the agential and actantial level suggests a coherent arc at the narrative level, whereby competing transgressive elements (chromatic ascent and periodic rhythmic stability) attempt and ultimately fail to impose order over an initial state of chaotic stasis (isotopy 1). This process commences with a phase of alternating dominance (isotopies 2–5), followed by a phase of failed attainment for the periodic element, in which the chromatic element is weakened (isotopies 6–7), and a phase of failed attainment for the chromatic element, in which the periodic element is entirely absent (isotopies 8–9). The final isotopy acts as a coda in this context, accentuating the impotent persistence of the failed chromatic element.

The narrative arc of the second half is characterised by less assertive statements of markedness and rank, with extended passages of drifting development, in which shadowy ideas emerge and disband, lacking the power – or the will, to borrow Tarasti's modal interpretation of isotopic imperatives – to assert themselves (see Table 3 for a schematic summary of the second half analysis).Footnote ³⁵ This state is notably informed by the shift in topical environment, with the teeming turbulence of the first half replaced by a sparse orchestral landscape, in which ideas are free to develop, while lacking the energetic impetus of a constant rhythmic presence. Most striking in their absence are the pianos, which, following the resumption of stuttering octuplets in isotopy 11 (bars 189–202), abandon their ascendant drive and, with it, the narrative dominance of the chromatic element for the majority of the second half.

Table 3 nuun second-half isotopy, character and element status scheme

Following the failure of the chromatic element in isotopy 11, strong statements of the periodic element in its motoric characterisation announce isotopies 12 and 13 (bars 203–25; bars 226–53). Each of these isotopies can be divided into three sections. Isotopy 12 begins with the decelerating iteration of the motoric characterisation in the woodwind and brass (bars 203–204); followed by a period of developmental ticking in the strings, toneless repetitions in the brass, the shadow of teeming octuplets in the percussion, and isolated points in the pianos (bars 205–17); and then a gradual disintegration, eventually accompanied by a directed rallentando (bars 118–225). After superimposing the decelerating and periodic iterations of the motoric characterisation (bar 226), Isotopy 13 cycles these subsections with a passage of disintegration in which the low punctual morse of the two pianos is recalled (bars 227–39). A further passage of development follows, chiefly characterised by toneless repetitions in the brass at two semiquaver intervals (bars 240–52).

This placid state, signalling a lack of hierarchical struggle, is interrupted in isotopy 14 (bars 253–58) by pizzicato ticking on B in the violins, giving way in isotopy 15 (bars 259–65) to a dramatic morse-like ascent across the full range of both piano keyboards. Isotopies 14 and 15 thus signal final statements of ascendant rank, first in the periodic and then in the chromatic element. With no space left to progress, the latter comes to rest on a damped ticking on the highest C of the piano in isotopy 16 (bars 266–82), thereby morphing into the characteristic presentation of the former. The chromatic element simultaneously appears in the woodwind for the first time – albeit mitigated by microtonal harmonisation – affecting a complementary exchange between the two domains. Both elements then drop out and the music again disintegrates into a state of near standstill (bars 278–82). Isotopy 17 (bars 283–97) resumes with a final muddled development, before spacious, alternating dyads emerge in the pianos at a reduced tempo in isotopy 18 (bars 298–321). The relative periodicity of these attacks, in by far the longest isotopy of the piece, and their meandering ascent to the final high point of double octave Bs in piano I signal the ultimate synthesis of the chromatic and the periodic elements and, with it, the conclusion of the narrative, an increase in volume and momentum in the final bars hinting at the possibility of a dramatic return to action.

A Narrative Interpretation of nuun

Narrative analysis in the context of contemporary music calls for an expansion of the traditional purview of markedness analysis to incorporate new conceptions and aesthetic manifestations of temporality, timbre, form, harmony and spatiality. In the case of nuun, markedness is afforded to the chromatic element and the periodic element by their contrast with the harmonic and rhythmic stasis of the opening isotopy and by the persistent presence of this chaotic topical environment in the first half of the work. In the second half a contrasting state – much like the negative image of a photograph or the residue of a printing procedure – presides, its competing elements accruing markedness through their relationship to sonic absence.

Transvaluation of this narrative analysis calls for a return to the mythic and temporal allusions of the title. Fuhrmann's reference to the Breton goddess Nu offers a useful starting point, although Furrer's lack of comment leaves open the possibility of alternative readings. One such reading is the better-known myth of the Egyptian god Nu, or Nun as he is sometimes named, who ‘personified the primeval waters which existed at the time of creation and from which the creator sun god arose’.Footnote ³⁶ The principal characteristics of Nu are chaos, inertia and wateriness, corresponding affectively to the turbulent opening and prevailing topical environment of the first half of nuun.Footnote ³⁷ The action of Khepra, meanwhile, a form of the sun god Ra, who, in naming himself, both came into being and triggered the first act of creation from the watery mass,Footnote ³⁸ can be identified in the epiphanic quality of the opening tutti chord and the subsequent emergence of the transgressive elements that initiate the narrative trajectory of the piece. As with the mythic narrative of Egyptian cosmology, nuun can thus be read as a philosophical reflection on the ‘perennial issue of form appearing out of formlessness’.Footnote ³⁹

The temporal ontology and mutability of this mythic narrative may also inform the philosophical implications of the work's temporal and formal processes. For the Egyptians, the creation myth of Nu and Ra, encompassing the entirety of individual and collective human life, was re-enacted in the daily rising and setting of the sun, and in the yearly flooding cycle of the Nile river.Footnote ⁴⁰ This cyclical conception of nested temporal states manifests on several levels in nuun, not least in the inherent futility of the transgressive elements themselves. Chromatic movement and periodic repetition both affect dynamism, but lack a defined end goal other than looping back on themselves or continuing indefinitely, as reflected in the many failed assertions of rank that delineate the narrative trajectory. Only through synthesis do they reach a state of stable attainment, with the arrival on B and the gradual crescendo at the end of the final isotopy signalling the possibility of a cyclical return to the beginning of the piece. The temporal duality of night and day, further embodied for the Egyptians in the spatial opposition of sky and water, is also reflected in the dualities that underscore the composition, from its two halves, suggestive of primordial and earthly states of being, to the pairing of the pianos and the narrative elements themselves. The imperfect palindrome of nuun thus enacts a cyclical process of creation, entropy and rebirth, inviting reflection on different levels of temporal experience and narratives of becoming. Fuhrmann's reading of nuun as a mythic transvaluation of ‘the moment that comprises all time’ fits well within this mutable conception of cosmic experience. Understanding the temporal modality of the piece and its relationship to Furrer's broader practice, however, calls for further interrogation of the titular pun.

There is a distinction in German, lacking in English, between the substantive ‘jetzt’, translating roughly as ‘right now’, and the adverbial ‘nun’, translating roughly as ‘from now on’. In musical terms these words denote two modes of presentist thinking: a Cagean conception of the ‘now’, as a singular moment of reflection and focus, and a narrative conception of the moment as involved in a state of becoming. For Furrer, ‘nun’ is the now of storytelling, accounting for both linear processes of transformation and the non-linear interrelationship between momentary details and the compositional whole.Footnote ⁴¹ Narrative analysis of the kind proposed by Almén can be useful in tracing and comparing these processes and in situating Furrer's instrumental work in a wider range of hermeneutic contexts than have thus far been explored. It may also aid in establishing connections between topical archetypes that are both opened up by and precede the ‘new paths’ explored in nuun, such as the juxtaposition of drifting and periodic temporal elements in the First String Quartet (1985) or the block-like assemblage of punctual and racing textures in the Piano Concerto (2007).

Narrative analysis also invites dialogue with broader discourse on time in contemporary music, encompassing, to cite but a few relevant examples, compositional theory,Footnote ⁴² parsing of temporal modalities,Footnote ⁴³ comparative analysis of multi-temporal processesFootnote ⁴⁴ and analytical approaches to temporality in performances of contemporary repertoire.Footnote ⁴⁵ These abstract, theoretical, perceptual and/or philosophical perspectives may benefit in turn through cross-referencing with, or adaptation to, hermeneutic analysis of the kind pursued here. In this way, progressive models of temporality, such as those exhibited by Furrer's music, may be imbued with meaning and value in a wider variety of cultural, socio-political and psychological contexts.