Defending Musical Stage Theory

Abstract

Musical works pose interesting ontological problems. They are connected to performances, but appear to have a normative effect on performances. This means they must be a separate entity existing separately from, but interacting with, audiences and performances. In 2018, Caterina Moruzzi presented musical stage theory (MST) as a performance-centric ontology of musical works that reflects all musical practices (Moruzzi, 2018). This four-dimensionalist approach to musical works is based on Theodore Sider's exdurantism. MST proposes that Musical works are constructed by linking performances together to create an aggregate time-worm called a work-as-construct. In subsequent years, MST was criticized by Philip Letts for several reasons. The most important point being, performances are too long to constitute the stages required to create a musical work in the way Moruzzi proposes, meaning MST is not a viable ontology of musical works. Due to this, there has been little discourse about MST since. I argue that the criticisms levelled at MST by Letts can be addressed and that MST is not only viable, but also incorporates the strengths of other prominent ontologies of musical works. In this project, I give a brief overview of the current scholarship on the ontology of musical works to show what is required of a good ontology. I then introduce the strengths and weaknesses of MST in the form Moruzzi originally presented it. This is followed by Letts’ criticisms as well as my own. My primary issue with MST is that, despite MST's goal to reflect all musical practices, it is biased towards Western classical music traditions. I address these criticisms and show how MST can incorporate the strengths of some other ontologies, and reintroduce MST as a viable performance-centric, practice-focused ontology of musical work.