ABSTRACT
The interdisciplinary nature of music semiotics leads naturally to the study of musical topics. The theory of semiotics stipulates the principles of signification. Semiotics is a theory, and therefore it does not necessarily prescribe any particular method of communication or of sign reading. Reading and writing semiotics is a merciless enterprise, particularly when the writers are, first and foremost, musicians. Musicians writing about music need to be acquainted not only with literature, mythology, poetry, art and history, which so often are an inseparable part of a musical work, but also with a quite expansive array of philosophical, theological, psychological, linguistic and sociological studies. The interrelationship between music and literature was among the first to be explored in studies of music signification. Topic theory is one of the areas of music semiotics. Monelle's fascination with Jacques Derrida, throughout the 1990s, was probably related to the particular breakthrough that the French philosopher seemed to offer to music semiotics.
