Phil: I still am not sure what constitutes the identity of a work of art, since Eric assumes it in his discussion. [....] The sample works as a sample only if it maintains its identification as belonging to a different piece of music [....] Couldn't it be that the identity of a piece of work lies, at least in part, in its ability to be 'cited' or 'sampled'?
Though I sense a Popperian scolding drawing near, I'll venture some thoughts and see if we can make any sense out of them.
(1) IdentityRachmaninoff recorded the Chopin Second Sonata. In his performance, Rachmaninoff, as was then fashionable, took considerable "liberties" with Chopin's score, especially in the first and third movements. He added octaves, changed some chords, and employed idiosyncratic rubato. In my opinion, he improved the Sonata. He made it more eloquent and powerful. Unless you actually follow along with the score, you're unlikely to spot all the changes in a single hearing. Yet, regardless of my opinion about Rachmaninoff's performance, I think it's clear that the "identity" of the Chopin Second Sonata *was* preserved. Rachmaninoff's recording is a successful form of what any musical performance is -- the original composer's creation filtered through the talent of a recreative artist.
(2) SamplingThe identity of a work of art is not sufficiently defined by its ability to be sampled. You'll agree to that won't you? The identity of a a log floating in a stream is not sufficiently defined by noticing that it's not part of the stream. All you can say about the log is that it's not part of the stream. The identity of a work of art seems to be contingent on that work of art's being identified by the receptor audience. If that floating log is a few seconds of Beethoven's Archduke Trio, the stream is some larger work of contemporary music in which it is sampled, and yet the audience is unable to remark anything about that few seconds, I would assume the Trio's "identity" has been lost.
(3)Citation (partial preservation of musical "identity")Sir William Walton's "Facade" has a section called "Swiss Yodeling Song," which quotes (or cites) the "calm after the storm" section of Rossini's "William Tell Overture." Here the citation is a joke: both the title of Walton's section and the musical treatment of it imply that Walton's intended audience would know the Rossini. Maybe the identity of Rossini's Overture, though not fully preserved in Walton's piece, is signaled or pointed out? Offhand, I can think of a bunch of musical examples where the identity of a cited work is not fully preserved and *yet* it is pointed out: Shostakovitch's Leningrad Symphony is lampooned in Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra; Mahler's Fourth (and other works) are cited in Luciano Berio's Symphonia. In a lighter spirit, PDQ Bach's "The Unbegun Symphony" consists entirely of other music...from Mozart's Jupiter Symphony to "Turkey in the Straw." In fact, PDQ Bach's "The Unbegun Symphony" *only* works because the audience can recognize the quoted pieces and hoot and holler over how they are misused. Similarly, PDQ Bach's "1712 Overture" *only* succeeds because he transforms the Tchaikovsky "1812 Overture" into "Pop Goes the Weasel" and gives you Mussorgsky's "Great Gate of Kiev" in the finale by a subtle modulation.
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