Philosophy of the Performing Arts

60 performance and the classical paradigm
On the basis of this analysis, Goodman proposes that we identify literary
works with texts , where texts are individuated in terms of the notational
features just described. In the case of performable musical works, he gives
the musical score the notational role accorded to the literary text. But since,
as we have seen, many of the appreciable properties of musical works are
given only in performance, he identifies the musical work not with the score
itself but with the class of performances that “comply with” – satisfy the
requirements set forth in – the score.
As we saw in Chapter 2, there are serious problems with the idea that a
musical work can be identified with the class of its actual, or indeed of its
possible, performances. But Goodman’s insistence that the significance of
the score lies in its ability to divorce status as an instance of a work from
history of production merits further consideration. For a contextualist like
Levinson, at least, does not allow status as a work-instance to be so divorced.^12
He requires that the performers of a work-instance stand in the right kind
of intentional-historical relation to the prescriptive act of the composer.^13 As
we shall now see, Goodman takes the role of the score in divorcing status as a
work-instance of a work from history of production very seriously indeed.
The primary function of the musical score, Goodman maintains, is “the
authoritative identification of a work from performance to performance.” In
order to fulfill this function, he claims, a score must do two things. First, it
must “define a work” (Goodman 1976, 128), that is, it must sort perform-
ances into those that do and those that do not “belong to” the work. In this
respect, a score functions like a traditional definition that provides neces-
sary and sufficient conditions for falling under a concept. On the traditional
definition of “bachelor,” for example, we can tell whether or not someone is
a bachelor by determining whether that person is male, adult, and unmar-
ried. Similarly, according to Goodman, given the score for a work W , we
can tell whether or not a given musical event is a performance of W. The
second thing that a score must do, however, is much more demanding. The
score, Goodman claims, must in turn be “uniquely determined” by each of
its instances (130). What this means is that, given a musical event that is a
correct performance of a work and given a system of scoring, there must be
only one score in that system – that of the work in question – with which it
complies. No analogous requirement obtains in the case of ordinary defini-
tions. While the definition of “bachelor” in English allows us to tell if some-
one is a bachelor, a given bachelor may fall under a number of different
English definitions – the definition of “accountant,” for example.
If a score is to fulfill its primary function by doing both of these things,
Goodman maintains, it must be a “character” in a “symbol system” that sat-
isfies certain logical requirements. It is these requirements that qualify a
symbol system to be what Goodman terms a “notation.” We need not go