68 performance and the classical paradigm
means is included in the score, can a performance’s compliance with the score
be determined independently its history of production? Goodman’s reluc-
tance to include verbal elements in the score (see below) suggests that he
must reject the instrumentalist’s claim that instrumental means are partly
constitutive of the musical work. We don’t need to resolve these matters here,
however.
- Here and in my earlier discussion in Chapter 2, I follow the consensus
in the literature in taking the conditions for something to be a work-instance
(in the technical sense) of a performable work to be identical to the condi-
tions for correct performance established by the composer of that work, or,
in Levinson’s case, the latter conditions plus the requirement that the per-
formers stand in the right kind of intentional-historical relation to the com-
poser’s act of establishing those conditions. But, given that we have defined
the notion of work-instance in terms of fully qualifying to play the “experien-
tial role” in the appreciation of a work, this consensus might be challenged.
Suppose, for example, that we agree with the instrumentalist that it is part of
a work’s identity, qua norm-kind, that a correct performance must execute a
given sound-sequence on specific instruments I. Might it not be enough, for
something to fully qualify to play the experiential role in the appreciation of
the work, and thus to be a work-instance, that it sound the same as a perform-
ance on I and be heard by the receiver as if it were a performance on I? In
Chapter 2 note 13, we rejected such a strategy as a way of saving timbral soni-
cism. But the question here is whether adopting an instrumentalist conception
of the identity of the musical work requires that one adopt an instrumentalist
conception of work-instance. Similar remarks apply to Levinson’s contextual-
ist conception of work-instance. For further development of this theme, see
my remarks at the end of section 4. - Goodman spells out these requirements in chapter 4 of his 1976. For critical
discussion, see again S. Davies 2001, 135–150. - Goodman allows for a measure of redundancy, however. We might have two
differently “spelled” scores that have exactly the same function in the symbol
system. This is permissible because we can preserve identity of a work from
performance to performance even if we don’t preserve identity of score.
A musical work, then, is to be identified with a class of performances that
complies not with a score but with a class of semantically equivalent scores.
This complication can be ignored, however, for our purposes. - Goodman moves freely here from talk of “instances” to talk of “performances,”
whereas we have restricted the term “work-instance” so that only correct per-
formances can qualify. But in fact, as is clear from the passage, Goodman
wants to deny that a work can have performances that are not work-instances –
that is, he wants to deny that a work can have any incorrect performances.
The kind of reasoning that leads Goodman to the conclusion in the quoted
passage can be spelled out as follows. Suppose we were to hold firm to the
idea that the score of a work must be uniquely determined by each of its cor-
rect performances, but relaxed the “definitional” part of the primary function