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</head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Interesting how the idea of narrative and music continues to ignite the passions, leading to some notably strong statements. </div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br></div><div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif">On the one hand, Prof. </font><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px;">Meeùs write that '</span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">narrative analysis, or music criticism, or anything of the like, as interesting as they may be, are </span><u style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">not</u><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> part of music analysis properly speaking’, and adds '</span>I see no reason why narratologists should claim [to be] performing music analysis properly speaking, nor why music analysts properly speaking should feel in any way dependent on narratology’. </div><div><br></div><div>On the other hand, I recently read Anahid Kassabian claiming, in the introduction to <i>Ubiquitous Listening</i>, that most forms of music analysis are narratological.</div><div><br></div><div>Weirdly, scholars who might justifiably consider at least some of their work to be ‘music narratology’ almost never make such sweeping claims. As Fred Maus has put it, in my experience quite typically of lots of work in this area by music theorists, ’The notion of narrative… is something to try, one way or another’ (quoted in Fred's chapter in <i>Music and Narrative since 1900</i>) . </div><div><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: AJensonPro;"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: AJensonPro;">A narrative approach is not the only, nor the best, way to
interpret </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: AJensonPro;">lots and lots of music</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: AJensonPro; font-style: italic;">: </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: AJensonPro;">it is never the <i>only</i> productive way to engage </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: AJensonPro; font-style: italic;">any
</span><font face="AJensonPro" size="3">piece of music, and music’s otherness always exceeds its grasp on the occasions when pieces <i>do</i> invoke the possibility of reading
through a narrative frame. Nonetheless, by examining some music through
narrative-informed approaches, one can access ideas that cannot be revealed in other ways and that therefore have the potential to make
a unique contribution to criticism and scholarship, productive for creators,
critics, performers, and audiences alike. I am very happy for this to be part of my work as a music analyst and theorist. And t</font>he internal evidence of the music, like Frank Kermode’s notion of the classic, has nothing to fear of such work, even when such work is intimately concerned with that very evidence: music ‘subsists in change’, remaining infinitely ‘patient of interpretation’. </div><div><br></div><div><font face="AJensonPro">With best wishes to all </font></div><div><font face="AJensonPro"><br></font></div><div><font face="AJensonPro">Nick Reyland</font></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div><div>____________________________________________</div><div><div><div><div> </div><div><span class="531590010-21072009">Dr Nicholas Reyland</span></div></div>Senior Lecturer</div><div>Music & Film Studies<div>Keele University<div><div><span class="531590010-21072009"></span></div><div><span class="531590010-21072009"></span> </div><div><a href="mailto:n.w.reyland@keele.ac.uk">n.w.reyland@keele.ac.uk</a></div><div>www.keele.ac.uk/music/people/nicholasreyland</div><div><span class="531590010-21072009">T: +44 (0)1782 733297</span></div></div></div>Music, The Clock House, Keele University, ST5 5BG, UK</div></div></div><div><br></div></div></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br></div></body></html>