It is Ferrara’s goal is to reveal musical meaning, to open up all potential dimensions of meaning that
may emerge in a musical work. This goal is related to Ihde’s and Cliftons intentions of uncovering
unoticed aspects of the musical experience. However Ferrara’s project is more specific. He wants
to apply phenomenology to gain access to the ”human presence” that imbues music, and can be re-
vealed by the connection between composer and analyst. ”That presence is marked by the historical
being there of the composer and the equally historical being here of the analyst” (p. 357, Ferrara’s
italics).
For Ferrara, it is a distinctive phenomenological tactic that the analyst responds to questions posed by
the work. ”The interpreter discovers that, in the traditional sense of the terms ”subject” and ”object”, he
is now object; the music, as subject, questions the analyst” (p. 356, Ferrara’s italics). This is an inter-
esting and challenging statement. Ferrara refers to the kind of musical experience where a distinction
between subject and object appears to be irrelevant, and he shares Clifton’s experience of mutual
possession^22 , stating that the phenomenology-based analysis ”enables the analyst to be transported
into the work. One possesses the work as he is possessed by its unfolding message.” (p. 372)
In his subsequent book, Philosophy and the Analysis of Music, Ferrara concedes that the analyst can-
not be an object (1991:44). However, he maintains the idea that a phenomenological investigation can
respond to new questions posed by a musical work.^23 A possible clarification could be that music cap-
tures the attention of the listener, and he accepts to maintain and reinforce his attention. The process
of opening up to absorb the music and reaching out to grasp its meaning induces the listener to pose
new questions about the nature and meaning of the music and his own way of listening.
Ferrara’s five-step procedure for phenomenological analysis
It is Ferrara’s intention to broaden the scope of applied music theory. He is aware that traditional mu-
sic theory offers a multitude of methods for analysis of tonal music, and regrets that these methods
are not applicable to atonal and electronic music. Ferrara wishes to overcome this deficiency by in-
cluding phenomenological interpretation in music theory. He chooses Edgar Varèse’s Poème électro-
nique (1958) for the development of his procedure, which he specifies in five stages (pp. 359-61).
Step 1
Open listenings. No guidelines, no particular questions asked. Each open listening is followed by a
reflective description.
Step 2
First, listening for the sound as such. Subsequently, listening for the way the sounds connect in a musical
form, the syntactical meanings of the sounds. At this stage, Ferrara is inclined to supplement and support
phenomenological listening by means of traditional methods for describing musical syntax and form.
Step 3
Listening for semantic meaning. Asking whether the sounds and their syntax imply any kind of refer-
ential meaning.
Step 4
Listening for ontological meaning. Uncovering indications of the composer’s ”lived time” and its
values, outlooks, potentials and realities. Ferrara points out that ontological or semantic meanings
may not be forthcoming in all musical works.
22 Ferrara includes Clifton’s 1976 article in his references.
23 Ferrara finds support for his point of view in Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Truth and Method: ”Every sudden idea has the
structure of a question. But the sudden realisation of the question is already a breach in the smooth front of popular opi-
nion. Hence we say that a question too ’comes’ to us, that it ’arises’ or ’presents itself’ more that we raise it or present it”
(Gadamer 1975:329)