ABSTRACT
The musical signifier is a rigid trope, comparable to what modal logic defines as a rigid designator: it carries a fixed, definite, and exclusive meaning. But it is less like an element in a system than like an item in a catalogue. Most of the catalogue entries are so-called musical topics: formations for signifying a galloping horse, a pastoral pipe, a funeral procession, each one immediately recognizable. The rigidity of the signifier, musical or otherwise, severely limits its uses. Fullness of meaning—the rhythmic flux of import, and feeling—comes primarily from fluid, not from rigid, tropes. Modest Il’ich. Tchaikovsky elevates the signifier by inserting music of one genre into music of another. The musical depiction retains the impulse to extravagant display but sublimates the emphasis. Francis Poulenc’s music signifies the sound of the guillotine for each offstage death.
