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“Understood at Last”?: A Memetic Analysisof Beethoven’s “Bloody Fist”
Steven Jan
June 13, 2015
Abstract
As a singular moment in the western canon, the opening of therecapitulation in the first movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony,op. 125 (1824) has prompted a variety of structural/analytical (“intro-versive”) and expressive/hermeneutic (“extroversive”) readings. Thispaper explores its intertextual connections with a number of pas-sages from Mozart’s Don Giovanni (1787/8) from a memetic per-spective, outlining certain extra-musical interpretations – some re-lated to Susan McClary’s controversial reading (McClary, 2002) ofthe passage – one might infer from the strong musical similarities.The memetic-psychological-neurobiological basis of these musical andverbal-conceptual connections, understood in terms of Nicholas Cook’sConceptual Integration Network (CIN) (Cook, 2001) and WilliamCalvin’s Hexagonal Cloning Theory (HCT) (Calvin, 1996), is amenableto computer-aided analysis and simulation.
Keywords
Beethoven, Ninth Symphony, Mozart, Don Giovanni, memetics, ConceptualIntegration Network (CIN), Hexagonal Cloning Theory (HCT)
1 Introduction: Introversive and Extrover-
sive Perspectives on the First Movement
of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony
The opening of the recapitulation in the first movement of Beethoven’s NinthSymphony is one of the most awe-inspiring moments in Western musical lit-erature. It has motivated comment from a variety of perspectives, from the
1
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“introversive” – the purely musical dimension – to the “extroversive” – therealm of extra-musical relationships. The latter include interpretations ofmeaning ranging from depictions of war, cosmic conflict and, most contro-versially, of sexual violence.
I attempt here to sketch a fresh reading of the passage, albeit one draw-ing partly on existing accounts; and I invoke memetics, both to support myinterpretations and to exemplify its own virtues. Memetics fosters the for-malization of intertextual relationships between the symphony and a workwhich is arguably one source for Beethoven’s passage, namely Mozart’s operaDon Giovanni. The hypothesized connections lead me to contend that, froman introversive perspective, Beethoven’s passage is not as singular as somecommentators argue; and that, from an extroversive perspective, its connec-tion to a work with text allows arguably more secure connotative readingsof Beethoven’s passage than have hitherto been advanced.
2 AMemetic-Introversive Analysis of Aspects
of Op. 125, I and Mozart’s Don Giovanni
Figure 1 xv shows bb. 299–329 of Beethoven’s movement on a “meme par-ticella”, with “antecedent coindexes” (hypothesized precursors) to it shownon the smaller staves above and below, these numbered according to theirsequential order in Don Giovanni.
In brief, the hypothesized memetic connections are as follows:
• Museme a is a falling 1̂–5̂–1̂ melodic pattern and associated I63 har-mony in Beethoven’s bb. 301–303. Antecedent coindexes in Mozart areshown in Figure 1 i, iv, v, vi, viii and ix.
• Museme b is the harmonic progression from a diminished seventh to afirst inversion major chord in Beethoven’s bb. 300–301. An antecedentcoindex in Mozart is shown in Figure 1 ix.
• Museme c outlines the scale degrees 5̂–1̂–7̂–6̂–5̂–4̂ in Beethoven’sbb. 318–319. Antecedent coindexes in Mozart (as 2̂–5̂–4̂–3̂–2̂–1̂ in Gminor) are shown in Figure 1 iii and xii.
• Museme d , the scale-degree sequence 5̂–5̂–4̂–3̂–2̂–1̂ in Beethoven’sbb. 318–320, partially overlaps with Museme c. An antecedent coindexin Mozart is shown in Figure 1 viii.
2
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(c)
Page
3of
3
5
• Museme e is the descending diminished-seventh line of Beethoven’sbb. 327–9. Antecedent coindexes in Mozart are shown in Figure 1 ii,vii, x and xi.
• Museme f is a progression spanning Beethoven’s bb. 312–326 andconsisting, here and in various contexts in Mozart, of three harmoniesmarked x ([II6[4), y (]iv]6
5 /G6) and z (i64) on Figure 2.
3 A Conceptual-Extroversive Reading of Op.
125, I
These connections may well be purely introversive. But if Don Giovanniwere one source of Beethoven’s passage, we might ask whether the musemicreplication was motivated by Beethoven’s intending an extroversive connec-tion between musemes and “verbal-conceptual memes”. Table 1 summarizesthe attributes and locations of Musemes a–f in both works, together withtheir text-associations in Don Giovanni.
Arranging the associated text of Mozart’s musemes in the order they arereplicated by Beethoven does not outline a coherent “episodic” narrative.The connection appears more “semantic”, in that the primary conceptualtopos of Don Giovanni, the notion of retribution, together with various an-cillary ideas, is generically attached to Beethoven’s passage by virtue of thestrong musemic connections. In Mozart, these musemes highlight encountersbetween Don Giovanni and the Commendatore, and thereby articulate theconflict between liberty and order.
If we accept Donna Anna’s account of her confrontation with Giovanniat the start of the opera, the hypothesized connections align with SusanMcClary’s controversial “rape” metaphor for Beethoven’s passage. Indeed,it recuperates her original reading, despite her strategic retreat from it.McClary argued that “the point of recapitulation . . . unleashes one of themost horrifyingly violent episodes in . . . music”. This was coded as a specifi-cally sexual violence in her initial reading, outlined in a 1987 article, in whichshe spoke of “the throttling, murderous rage of a rapist incapable of attainingrelease”.
In the article’s reprint, in her 1991 book Feminine Endings, McClaryexcised this passage and foregrounded violence rather than (failed) rape.Nevertheless, the interpretation of sexual violence is sustained by McClary’sre-quotation in Feminine Endings of Adrienne Rich’s poem “The Ninth Sym-phony of Beethoven Understood at Last as a Sexual Message” (1972), with
6
Figure 2: V7/[II versus G6 Harmonic Museme in Mozart’s Don Giovanniand Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, I
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7
Table 1: Musemes a–f in Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Beethoven’s NinthSymphony, I
M useme Attributes Number and
Bar location
in Don
Giovanni
Explicit and Implicit Text content in Don
Giovanni
Bar
location in
Op. 125, I
a 1–5–1 recitative
figure
Overture: 1–4
No. 24: 433–436
–
‘Don Giovanni, a cenar teco’/‘Don Giovanni, you
invited me to dine with you’ (hedonism, retribution)
301–303, and
passim
b vii65/V–V63
or
vii43–I63
harmonic
progression
No. 24: 433–436 ‘Don Giovanni, a cenar teco’ 299–301
c 5–1–7– 6–5–4 in i
or
2–5–4–3–2– 1 in
iv
melodic figure
No. 1: 145–146
No. 24: 514–515
‘[Va, non mi degno] di pugnar teco’/‘[Go, I don’t
want] to fight with you’ (evasiveness)
‘[Ho fermo il cuore in petto:] non ho timor:
[verrò!]’/‘[My heart is beating steadily] I’m not afraid.
[I’ll come!]’ (masculine resistance)
318–320
d 5–5–4–3–2–1
or
3–3–2–1–7–1
melodic figure
No. 24: 6–7
No. 24: 18–19
‘Già la mensa è preparata’/‘The table is already
prepared’ (appetite/excess/hedonism)
318–320
e sometimes
infilled falling 6–
(2/2)-7 melodic
figures
Overture: 77–78
No. 13: 176–180
No. 24: 449–450
No. 24: 455–459
–
‘Bisogna aver coraggio’/‘We must be courageous’
(retribution)
‘Ah padron! Siam tutti morti!’/‘Oh master! We’re all
going to die!’ (retribution)
‘Non si pasce di cibo mortale, chi si pasce di cibo
celeste’/‘No nourishment from mortal food for one
who is nourished by celestial food’ (higher purpose)
327–329
f V7/II versus G6
harmonic
museme
Overture: 27–9
No. 2: 36–42
No. 24: 538–540
–
‘[Caro padre! ] Padre amato! Io manco [, io
moro.]’/‘[Dear father!] Beloved father … I am fainting.
[I am dying.]’ (Anna as victim)
‘Pentiti! – No!’/‘Repent! – No!’ (retribution;
aggressive resistance)
312–326
8
its shocking imagery of incipient sexual violence. It is that first reading,despite McClary’s partial renunciation, from which I primarily draw here.
Adrienne Rich (1929–2012):“The Ninth Symphony of Beethoven Understood at Last as a SexualMessage” (1972)
A man in terror of impotenceor infertility, not knowing the differencea man trying to tell somethinghowling from the climactericmusic of the entirelyisolated soulyelling at Joy from the tunnel of the egomusic without the ghostof another person in it, musictrying to tell something the mandoes not want out, would keep if he couldgagged and bound and flogged with chords of Joywhere everything is silence and thebeating of a bloody fist upona splintered table.
Beethoven’s own circumstances may have motivated an imaginative trans-fer of the semantic constellation of the opera to the symphony movement.It is possible that, if the first movement of the symphony were indeed as-sociated by Beethoven, via the Don Giovanni borrowings, with notions oftransgression and violent retribution, then the focus of his various tensionsmay have been his sister-in-law, Johanna van Beethoven (1786–1869). Longan object of stony disapproval, Beethoven regarded her, rightly or wrongly,as the wellspring of his misery. Even though their legal conflict over thecustody of his nephew, Karl, had been resolved in Beethoven’s favour in July1820, Karl continued to see his mother surreptitiously and, in Beethoven’sview, came to be corrupted by her malign influence.
Is it conceivable that Beethoven regarded himself as in some sense a DonGiovanni figure in relation to his sister-in-law? If so, there are two scenariosthrough which this transference might have been channelled:
• either he saw himself as exacting revenge – in a distortion of the opera’stheme of retribution for sexual and physical violence – through imag-ined sexual and physical violence on his Joh/Anna;
9
• or he perhaps felt that he himself deserved punishment, imaginativelythrough musical cross-association, for a similarly imaginary violationof Joh/Anna.
For both of these horrible scenarios, we might also ask – despite theconsensus that the underlying motivation for rape often stems from a questfor power and control – whether the violence was perhaps motivated bysublimated desire for Joh/Anna on Beethoven’s part?
Thus, while Beethoven could never enact his feelings of violence against(or his desire for) his sister-in-law, he could certainly play them out imagina-tively in music, by means of memetic transference from an antecedent workwhich develops many of the same themes. In this sense, from the perspectiveof Mozart’s musemes, their association with verbal-conceptual memes rele-vant to Beethoven’s biographical and psychological circumstances conferredupon them a clear selective advantage.
4 Towards an Introversive-Extroversive Syn-
thesis
To formalize this mediation between the introversive and the extroversive, wemight invoke Nicholas Cook’s notion of the “conceptual integration network”(CIN). This proposes that even notionally “absolute” music can be treatedas an instance of multimedia, in that it integrates a number of spaces :
• a “music space”;
• a “text space”;
• a “generic space” (where “there must be common attributes presentedby the various media in question . . . [without] which there would be noperceptual interaction between them”); and
• a “blended space” (“in which the attributes unique to each medium arecombined, resulting in the emergence of new meaning”).
In the case of memetic transmission between works, we can extend thismodel, by means of a composite CIN, to represent connections and potentialsemantic transference. This allows mappings between compositions relatedin one or more of their spaces to be extended by means of extrapolated con-nections involving other, corresponding spaces. Figure 3 shows a compositeCIN for Don Giovanni and the first movement of the Ninth Symphony.
The CIN for Don Giovanni identifies:
10
Figure 3: Composite CIN for Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Beethoven’s NinthSymphony, I
Meta-Blended Space
Text Space
Blended Space
Biographical Space
Text Space
Op. 125, I
K. 527
* Aggressive, hedonistic masculinity * Anna as object of desire/violence * Punishment for norm-transgression
* Vengeance/ retribution * Fratricide
* Resoluteness * Fearless audacity * Terror
* Musemes a–f * Bold D major/minor sonorities
* Forcefulness * Power *Violence
* ‘Violence * Mindlessness * Maintenance of identity * Desire’
* Pent-up aggression * Johanna as object of desire/violence /retribution * Fratricide
* Musemes a–f * Bold D major/minor sonorities
* Misogynistic violence * Retribution * Fratricide
* Mozart’s relationship with his father * Beethoven’s relationship with his sister-in-law * Beethoven’s relationship with his father
Generic Space
Music Space
Music Space
Generic Space
Blended Space
11
• the music space elements of Musemes a–f and the bold D major/minorsonorities;
• the text space concepts of aggressive and hedonistic masculinity, Annaas the object of desire and violence, and punishment for transgressionof societal and class norms (derived from the italicized terms in Table1);
• the generic space concepts of resoluteness, fearless audacity, and terror;and
• the blended space concepts of vengeance and retribution, and fratricide.
The CIN for Op. 125, I, after that abstracted by Cook from McClary’s(revised) reading, identifies:
• the music space elements of Musemes a–f and the bold D major/minorsonorities;
• the text space concepts (from McClary) of “violence, mindlessness, themaintenance of identity, and desire”;
• the generic space concepts of forcefulness, power and violence; and
• the blended space concepts of pent-up aggression, Joh/Anna as theobject of desire, violence and retribution, and fratricide.
The music spaces of both CINs are closely connected, given their hy-pothesized memetic relationships and their more general textural and tonalalignments (represented by the solid arrow connecting the two CINs). Giventhis, we can hypothesize correspondences between the two works’ genericspaces and their blended spaces, such that a “meta-blended space” might beextrapolated (dotted arrows). This identifies the concepts of misogynisticviolence, retribution, and fratricide as arguably common to the two worksand draws on a “biographical space” as supporting evidence for the linkage.
Fratricide further aligns Don Giovanni with the symphony. Hans Kellerimplicates Haydn as a father figure to Mozart, citing Mozart’s allegedly mock-ing uses of F minor in various works. Keller contends that “the ionisationof F minor was a subtle means whereby Mozart’s unconscious allowed itselfto discharge its ambivalence [to Haydn], which would have been absolutelyintolerable on the conscious level”. The death of the Commendatore, in apassage in F minor, might be understood in this context, but it is not in-conceivable that Leopold Mozart, for whom the Commendatore was a proxy,
12
was the intended “victim”. This is not a new reading, yet it is supported byMozart’s apparent ambivalence towards his father.
Beethoven is arguably also committing a form of fratricide by these con-nections, because he entertained a Freudian “family romance” which air-brushed his real father – the alcoholic court tenor Johann van Beethoven –from history and replaced him by a noble parent. For years, Beethoven didnothing to correct rumours that he was the illegitimate son of King FriedrichWilhelm II of Prussia. Indeed, the dedicatee of the Ninth Symphony wasFriedrich Wilhelm II’s son, Friedrich Wilhelm III – on the bizarre logic of thefamily romance, Beethoven’s own “half-brother”.
The various arrows in Figure 3 represent associations between phenomenain different dimensions by which meaning emerges. William Calvin’s Hexag-onal Cloning Theory (HCT) hypothesizes how these associations might beimplemented in the brain. It proposes that the neuronal “minicolumns”distributed regularly across the surface of the cortex are organized into res-onating triangular arrays in response to perceptual stimulation or memoryrecall. As represented in Figure 4 (Calvin, 1996, p. 48), arrays are organizedinto hexagonal plaques, each encompassing a set of coordinated attributes,such as the pitches of a museme. Copying of hexagons over the surface of cor-tex occurs according to Darwinian principles, the “victorious” configurationrepresenting the best alignment with a perceived or remembered pattern.
Within a given region of cortex, several hexagons may be supported byembedded “attractors” in the connectivity. This may account for the overlap-ping encoding of Musemes c and d, as two discrete musemes which neverthe-less share certain pitches. The HCT also offers a mechanism for introversive-extroversive linkages because, beyond the localized connections implicatedin hexagonal cloning, Calvin hypothesizes “faux -fax links”, longer-range con-nections between hexagons in one brain area – such as those encoding musemesin the auditory cortex – with hexagons in other areas – such as those encodingverbal-conceptual memes in the pre-frontal cortex.
5 Conclusion: A Truer Understanding?
This paper has offered only a limited overview of how introversive and ex-troversive thought is related. But it has at least suggested that accounts ofmusical structure and meaning can be built upon a memetic foundation; andthat this foundation can support fresh insights – many able to be exploredand modelled computationally – into particular works. In the case of theconnections hypothesized between Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Beethoven’sNinth Symphony, a number of structural, historical and biographical insights
13
Figure 4: Hexagonal “Paving” of Cerebral Cortex by Interdigitating Trian-gular Arrays (Calvin, 1996, p. 48)
14
– perhaps even, “at last”, a truer “understanding”, in Rich’s words – appearto have emerged.
References
Calvin, W. H. (1996). The Cerebral Code: Thinking a Thought in the Mosaicsof the Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cook, N. (2001). Theorizing Musical Meaning. Music Theory Spectrum,23 (2), 170–195.
McClary, S. (2002). Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality (2nded.). Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.
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