Music analysis is a stage and musical parameters merely players. Some become darlings of analysts, headlining monographs, conference programs, and syllabi; others suffer neglect, earning a curt nod in a footnote. Every now and then, a theorist attempts to revive a parameter's flagging career, upgrading it from bit player to star. This is what Brent Auerbach seeks to do in Musical Motives: A Theory and Method for Analyzing Shape in Music (2021). Motivic analysis was once fashionable—its champions, such as Arnold Schoenberg and Hans Keller, even had receptive nonprofessional audiences willing to listen to their demonstrations on the radio—but it has since fallen on hard times. Auerbach's aim is nothing less than “to revive discussion, and, if possible, faith in the discipline of motivic analysis” (22). The result is easily the most complex and probing treatment of this subject in decades.
The scope of Auerbach's ambition is immediately striking. He...
