Conference Agenda
The Online Program of events for the 2026 AMS Annual Meeting appears below. This program is subject to change. The final program will be published in early November.
Use the "Filter by Track or Type of Session" or "Filter by Session Topic" dropdown to limit results by type. Some of the sessions are also color-coded: purple indicates performances, grey indicates paper forums, and orange indicates sessions which have been organized by one of the regional associations of IMS (ARLAC or IMSEA). (Sessions which are both IMS sessions and performances are only colored orange.)
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Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 1st Sept 2026, 02:57:20am EDT
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Daily Overview |
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Brahms Reception Session Chair: stephen husarik, University of Arkansas - Fort Smith | |
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Performance as Communication: Semiotics of 19th-Century Art Song Quotation Indiana University One of the persistent questions regarding art song quotation is that of the communicability of musical meaning to a competent listener. In this paper, I build on Robert Hatten’s concept of the competent listener, who is assumed to be one who has a reasonable familiarity with, but not necessarily intimate knowledge of, the classical style. As such, that listener is not expected to be aware of the presence or the precise sources of art song quotation in instrumental music. This paper examines the ways in which a performer can communicate the musical meaning of such quotations to a “merely” competent listener by using the lens of Piercean semiotics: in particular, the iconic and indexical sign/object relations. I argue that in art song quotation, the underlying poetic meanings of the texts are transferred into their new context, and as such can be communicated to the audience via deliberate interpretative decisions. I draw on previous work by Robert Hatten [1982, 2010], Nicholas Cook [2001, 2021], and Thomas Turino [1999] to create a model of competencies necessary for this communication. By influencing the competent listener through interpretative choices, the informed performer may simulate the semiotic comprehensions of art song poetic texts that an extremely informed listener may otherwise receive from an average performance. Finally, this model allows for historically informed narrative readings in performance. I use the finale of Brahms’s Op. 78 Violin Sonata (1886) and its quotations of the Op. 59 Regenlieder (Nos. 3 and 4; 1870–73) as a case study. My analytical reading of the sonata’s finale showcases a gradual evolution from a prospective rain-attitude to a retrospective one as the implied quotation accumulates new layers of meaning throughout the movement. I demonstrate how this understanding can be achieved in performance only through direct engagement with the sources of the quotations (the Regenlieder) and their texts, and how the informed performer can produce such an effect for the competent listener. | |