The semiotic foundation of Ingarden’s analysis of music

Leblanc, Hélène [UCL]

Based on chapter 3 “The Musical Work and its Score” of Roman Ingarden’s The Work of Music and the Problem of its Identity, this paper examines the semiotic theory on which Ingarden bases his analysis of music. At first sight, Ingarden’s semiotic position seems staunchly traditional, fitting the Augustinian definition according to which the sign is “a thing which of itself makes some other thing come to mind, besides the impression that it presents to the senses”. Yet Ingarden’s notion of sign is more complex than the Augustinian, as we see in the distinction he makes between being a physical object and having a typical aspect, namely a characteristic feature manifesting itself in different, yet similar, objects. According to this view, the sign is to be understood as a typical aspect, based on a material object, performing an immaterial function, in virtue of the intentionality of a consciousness. Ingarden’s definition of ‘sign’ will be located with regards to the debate on the equivocity of the ‘sign’, focusing on the contributions of Edmund Husserl and Kazimierz Twardowski. In contrast to Husserl, who claims that the term ‘sign’ is equivocal, Ingarden states that it has to be unequivocally and strictly understood as a dual entity, combining a material and an immaterial side. And against Twardowski, Ingarden characterizes the sign as an intersubjective means of communication, and not as a larger notion erasing the difference between distinctive marks and communicational signs. In doing so, Ingarden stands by a strict ontological distinction between the sign and what it signifies, enabling him to show that the musical work must not be confused with its notation or score.