The Music Criticism of Jacob Siskind: A Case Study of Corpus Linguistic Analysis By Keely Mimnagh A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies in Partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Music and Culture Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario ©2012 Keely Mimnagh Library and Archives Bibliotheque et Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du 1+1 Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-94329-8 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-94329-8 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distrbute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non­ support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. 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Canada ABSTRACT In this thesis, I adopt corpus linguistic methods to study the critical language of influential music critic Jacob Siskind (1928-2010) in the early 1990s and place it in the context of his life and of Canadian classical music criticism at that time. An examination of the Siskind archival collection recently bequeathed to Carleton University and interviews with Siskind’s close colleagues helps us to understand his approaches to music criticism (first chapter). The second chapter explains how corpus linguistics fits within the field of empirical musicology, followed by an introduction to corpus linguistics and a brief survey of the surviving literature investigating evaluative language and music discourse from a linguistic perspective. This chapter concludes with an outline of the methodology for the subsequent corpus linguistic analysis described in chapter 3. In the third chapter, results are interpreted using keyword, concordance and move structure analyses to determine Siskind’s writing style in comparison to that of theMontreal Gazette music critic Arthur Kaptainis. The thesis is a demonstration of how corpus linguistics can be employed to future studies on music discourse. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not have been possible without Jacob Siskind’s wit and flair for life that he expressed so poignantly in his daily music reviews. It would also have been difficult to complete this project had he not intended to leave his treasured material to a Canadian university for students like me to exploit these resources. I also could not have done this project without having the memories of Siskind shared by William Littler, Elizabeth Dobie-Sarsam and Jean-Jacques Van Vlasselaer. I am indebted to my supervisor, Professor James Deaville, who acquired the task of overseeing this complex interdisciplinary project. Thank you for your meticulous proof reading and for keeping the project focused and balanced. I would also like to thank the following Carleton faculty members for their influence and encouragement: Professors Alexis Luko, William Echard, Jesse Stewart, and Anna Hoefnagels. I am especially appreciative of Professor James Wright for introducing me to Siskind’s work and for creating the catalyst which shaped the central theme of my thesis. I am indebted to Professor Guillaume Gentil for his selfless advising on the methodology of my research. I was also fortunate to have Patti Harper allow me to rummage through the unprocessed material in the Archive and Research Collections. As well, I am grateful to have had the Music and Culture Graduate Student Society (MCGSS) as a support system. I wish also to acknowledge Professor Laurel Trainor for introducing me to academic research. My graduate career of course could not have taken off if it were not for Professor David Shore’s encouragement and belief in my future success. Last but not least, I would like to thank my family for their guidance and moral support and finally Scott for never giving up on me and trudging the road of happy destiny with me. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF APPENDICES v INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1: Jacob Siskind’s Life, Career and Philosophy 12 BIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................................................................ 12 PHILOSOPHY OF MUSIC CRITICISM ....................................................................................................................... 20 ARTHUR KAPTAINIS.........................................................................................................................................................37 CHAPTER 2: Theoretical and Methodological Approach 39 EMPIRICAL MUSICOLOGY .............................................................................................................................................39 CORPUS LINGUISTICS...................................................................................................................................................... 44 RESEARCH ON EVALUATIVE LANGUAGE..........................................................................................................48 CORPUS LINGUISTIC STUDIES EXAMINING CRITICAL REVIEWING.................................................56 PROCEDURE ADOPTED IN THE PRESENT STUDY ..........................................................................................67 CHAPTER 3: Analysis and Discussion of Context 71 WORDLISTS AND KEYWORD LISTS OVERVIEW ............................................................................................ 71 CATEGORIZED KEYWORDS.........................................................................................................................................74 CONCORDANCES................................................................................................................................................................ 83 ARTICLE COMPARISON ...................................................................................................................................................91 THE CANADIAN CONTEXT ......................................................................................................................................... 100 CONCLUSION 109 BIBLIOGRAPHY 117 V LIST OF APPENDICES INTRODUCTION TO APPENDICES 126 APPENDIX I: Interview Questionaires 128 APPENDIX II: Log-Likelihood Calculation 130 APPENDIX III: Siskind Corpus Wordlist (top 50 words) 132 APPENDIX IV: Kaptainis Corpus Wordlist (top 50 words) 134 APPENDIX V: Siskind Corpus Keyword List (top 100) 136 APPENDIX VI: Kaptainis Corpus Keyword List (top 100) 139 APPENDIX VII: Verbs 142 APPENDIX VIII: Evaluative Adjectives 144 APPENDIX IX: Evaluative Adverbs 145 APPENDIX X: Evaluative Descriptive Nouns 146 APPENDIX XI: Concordances 147 APPENDIX XII: Annotated Selected Articles 155 1 INTRODUCTION Part of the job is reporting on the cultural and anti-cultural events that surround us. That may be o f some use to an archaeologist sorting through the detritus of our civilization a thousand years hence. It is probably of little importance to the average reader today. Part o f the job is trying to provide a context for what is taking place on the stages across which we play out our lives. Some so-called artists are blissfully unaware of either the historical or contemporary context in which they are framing their efforts and audiences are even more perplexed by the goings on (Ottawa Citizen , November 15, 1992, Siskind). Jacob Siskind (1928-2010) may have been one of the last music journalists of his kind. Musically literate, well-educated, and also a trained musician, Siskind’s wit, charm and sharp tongue brought insight and influence to his musical communities in Montreal, Quebec and Ottawa, Ontario from 1949 to 1993.1 At the time of writing, music newspaper criticism in North America is not what it once was, nor is classical music. Its “audience is graying” and popular music is now the main attraction amongst younger audiences.2 In the early 1990s, around the time Siskind got out of the business, many critics began to believe their profession was in crisis or in a decline.3 Newspaper music critics are generally not known as being cultural