A Theory of Virtual Agency for Western Art Music [Hardcover]

In his third volume on musical expressive meaning, Robert S. Hatten examines virtual agency in music from the perspectives of movement, gesture, embodiment, topics, tropes, emotion, narrativity, and performance. Distinguished from the actual agency of composers and performers, whose intentional actions either create music as notated or manifest music as significant sound, virtual agency is inferred from the implied actions of those sounds, as they move and reveal tendencies within music-stylistic contexts. From our most basic attributions of sources for perceived energies in music, to the highest realm of our engagement with musical subjectivity, Hatten explains how virtual agents arose as distinct from actual ones, how unspecified actants can take on characteristics of (virtual) human agents, and how virtual agents assume various actorial roles. Along the way, Hatten demonstrates some of the musical means by which composers and performers from different historical eras have staged and projected various levels of virtual agency, engaging listeners imaginatively and interactively within the expressive realms of their virtual and fictional musical worlds.

Robert S. Hatten is Marlene and Morton Meyerson Professor in Music at The University of Texas at Austin and President (201719) of the Society for Music Theory. He is author ofMusical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, and InterpretationandInterpreting Musical Gestures, Topics, and Tropes: Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert.

Robert HattensA Theory of Virtual Agency for Western Art Musicis a magisterial contribution to music theory. It is substantial in content; immensely wide-ranging in musical and critical reference; penetratingly thought through and argued; and superbly written and organized. It is a joy to watch the arc of Hatten's thought as it builds on his earlier writings and fulfills his trilogy of books.

1. This book draws on theories of musical gesture andl3.