Musicologica Olomucensia

The question of the relationship between musical historiography and semiotics is asked, in particular, in the most recent work of J. Jiránek. We are looking at a relationship which is significant and very close, mutually interchangeable to the point where it is easy to mistake one for the other; a relationship between primary and supporting disciplines. Even though semiotic analysis and even the practical semiosis of music is always valid only for a given moment, it is not completely arbitrary. Conditions for it are set not only by certain acoustic, physiological and even psychological givens (according to Jiránek "anthropological constants"), but, to an even greater extent, "sociological constants". These are almost always created over the course of history, and are sublimated and crystallized through the experience of history, as such, it is necessary to connect them with and involve them in the process of semiosis. Without them, the reception of music would be impoverished, as if it were only "punctually direct". The experience which history has given us, together with that which it has taught us, makes possible for a richer, more complex, more synthesizing semiotic interpretation of music, and that not only at the semantic level, but also at the syntactic and pragmatic (comprehension of function) levels, and in this process, the significance of the last two components is historically shifted, or even transformed.
For musical historiography, semiotics becomes an essential supporting discipline which is used for source interpretations. This is so even in the case of a historiographic work which is conceptualized in such a way as to accent the artistic essence of musical works, and with this its "object character" transforms history into a kind of "museum" or "gallery of works of art" (Dalhaus), or reduces it to a mere process of discovery and a preparation of the works of the past for their practical introduction into active practice, which nearly liquidates the true character and the mission, function or role of historiography. Semiotics, however, has meaning in all its components, even in source interpretation. This even reaches into the theory of historical sources itself. That is to say that if a historical source is the only means which is capable of providing us with historical information (Adler and even the contemporary method), it first becomes a real object - even the musical work or its register - a source, upon reaching the hands of historians, where it acquires its symbolic character. It is possible, therefore, even by means of source interpretation and using the Ogden-Richards triangle, which accents the part of the interpreting historian, to model a reference. In the case of narrative sources, the question to be discussed is, in fact, the connecting of two of these triangles modelling the origin of the source, when the position of the first subject is occupied by the "reporter" with the result being the source in the form of a news-item and the position of the second subject in the process of "reading" is, then, the source being read by the historian. In the case of sources of a "relic" character, that is, subjects originating as a direct part of the goings-on being researched and which are taking part in these events, it is a matter, of course, of the only interpretation, which is, therefore, being modelled by only one triangle. This simple categorization of sources, however, is not enough. In musical historiography, we have something to do even with sources, which, as direct components of the process of the existence and evolution of music have a relic character, but which are also news-items. These are musical criticism and musical journalism in general, which influence the opinion and taste of the audience, and further, music theory publications and - although we are talking about "news-items" which are specific and nonverbal - even register entries of musical works and sections. Here and everywhere, it is a matter of two and, in the case of musical register entries and works, even several (in the chain of the processional existence of musical work - see Černý 1974) interpretations - "origin" and even "reading" - and here even a multiplication of the symbolic situation and the application of semiotic interpretation. The measure and quality of these symbolic situations and interpretations is, then, different in individual cases which can happen even by means of classification criteria of the classification and typology of music history sources and individual "subject phases" of the being of a musical work.