1996 Reviews

Hearing, Remembering, Cold Storage, Purism, Evidence, and Attitude Adjustment

Dubiel, Joseph

What does it mean for the celebrated D#s in the first movement of
Beethoven's Violin Concerto to "stay in one's ear" during the time between their initial unresolved occurrence and their eventual resolution? What is it to hear such a thing? Or is the relevant experience not to be described as an auditory one?
Supposing that an account of an auditory experience can be given (one is offered), what if it is of such a nature as to seem unsuited to generalization? Then, presumably, occasion will have been found to countenance a music-theoretical posit without consistent auditory significance. Is this acceptable? To what conception of music theory might it be most congenial?