Concepts of Closure in Tonal Music: A Critical Study

Abstract

In the last twenty-five years much has been published on musical from a wide variety of perspectives. Music theorists and historians have described (and sometimes theorized) closure with reference to various parameters, including tonal structure, form, rhythm, and motivic organization parameters that need not coincide to bring about closure. Some writers have even drawn inspiration from studies of literary closure by critics such as Frank Kermode and Barbara Herrnstein Smith.1 The present article does not propose an all-encompassing theory or concept of closure in tonal music, which would be an unrealistic aim. Rather, it critically examines several different views of some of which may be understood as complementary rather than mutually exclusive. One assumption about closure has abided in discourse about tonal music: the idea that it is synonymous with tonal (or structural or syntactic) closure a state of rest articulated by a cadence, usually very close to, or even coinciding with, the end of a piece or movement (i.e., the last perceived event of the piece).2 William Caplin, however, has recently argued that closure specifically, formal closure is not cadential in nature.3 Caplin's theoretical work on the classical in general, and his ideas about formal closure at intermediate and global levels in particular, have stimulated my thinking about closure in positive ways. But whereas Caplin seeks increasing terminological precision for cadence and closure, I wish to acknowledge, and even celebrate, more than one meaning of closure.4 It must be admitted, though, that authors writing about closure frequently fail to specify the applicability of their concepts. A concept of closure may be for a given sample of tonal music be it a movement, a group of pieces in the same genre or by the same composer, or a stylisitically unified repertory without being relevant for other samples. Moreover, apt does not necessarily mean adequate or exhaustive; all concepts and interpretations, no matter how useful or insightfiil, have limitations.