Rebecca Day Society for Music Analysis: TAGS 2014

Beyond the Phallus: “Feminine” closure in Brahms’s Symphony no. 3 in F major, op.90

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Brahms’s third symphony is a document that speaks of heroism, adventure, conflict, conquest, the

constitution of the self, the threat of the Other, and late-nineteenth-century pessimism.1

—Susan McClary

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The gendered associations of the sonata principle— presented as a discourse of conflict between a

“masculine” subject heard in alterity with a second “feminine” subject before eventual masculine

triumph—have caused much controversy, yet have created valuable space for social and critical

theory to come into contact with music formal analysis2. Susan McClary’s writings perhaps provide

the most notable example of such controversial dialogue; her “rape” analogy for the recapitulatory

violence of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is known even by those who have not read her works3.

For McClary, tonal forms rely on tension-and-release patterns, categorised as “phallic”, that instill

in the listener ‘an intense desire…for the final tonal cadence’, for closure in the form of a withheld

tonic or tonic triad4. In her analysis of Brahms’s third symphony, often overlooked in the shadow of

Feminine Endings, McClary elaborates the sonata principle to the cast of “hero narrative” which

affords ideological significance to the oppositions of self and Other through their predetermined

terms of resolution.5 That the second, feminine subject/Other is expected to submit to the tonal and

1Susan McClary, ‘Narrative Agendas in Absolute Music: Identity and Difference in Brahms’s Third
Symphony’ in Musicology and Difference ed. Ruth A. Solie p.343
2Susanne G. Cusick, for example, discusses the development of gender studies within musicology from the
perspective of arbitrary social constructions. See ‘Gender, Musicology, and Feminism’ in Rethinking Music
ed. Nicholas Cook pp.471-499.

John Shephard also insightfully discusses male hegemony within music from the context of ‘Difference’. See
‘Music and Male Hegemony’ in Music as Social Text pp.152-174, and ‘Difference and Power in Music’ in
Musicology and Difference ed. Ruth A. Solie, pp.46-66
3See Susan McClary, ‘Getting Down Off the Beanstalk: The Presence of a Woman’s Voice in Janika
Vandervelde’s Genesis II’ in Feminine Endings pp.112-132
4Pieter van den Toorn, ‘Politics, Feminism, and Contemporary Music Theory’ in The Journal of Musicology
9/3, 1991 p.281
5Susan McClary, ‘Narrative Agendas in Absolute Music: Identity and Difference in Brahms’s Third
Symphony’ in Musicology and Difference ed. Ruth A. Solie. pp.326-345
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rhetorical principles of the masculine “One” spells the destruction of identity when read alongside

nineteenth-century formal conventions. McClary reads Brahms third symphony against the

‘grammatical and structural syntax of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European music’, which

leads her to conclude that the principle tension of the movement is ‘not between the first and second

theme, but, rather, between a first theme that is dissonant with respect to the conventions that

sustain its narrative procedures and those conventions themselves.’6 For McClary, these

conventions are identified as ‘what it means to be in a key, to undergo recapitulation, to acquiesce to

closure in keeping with classical models’, and mean that tonal banality is the only form of closure

available at the end of this and every other composition in the tonal repertory.7 This enables

masculine, or for McClary, phallic conventions to prevail and leads McClary to conclude that the

feminine “Other” is gratuitous, a mere narrative pretext.

Such phallic associations remain underdeveloped in her analysis however, and seem to be based on

a misunderstanding of the relationship of the phallus to models of desire that have been

reformulated since Freud to hold a more meaningful place within symbolic analysis. Lacan’s theory

of sexuation charts the relationship of Man (the One) and Woman (the Other) to the phallus within

the symbolic form of desire in a way that resists the masculine triumph of the “hero” narrative that

McClary advocates. In this paper, I will offer a gendered re-reading of Brahms’s third symphony

alongside a form-functional one in order to rebut McClary’s claim that tonal closure is “phallic” and

banal. I will focus on the rhetorical parameters of closure before semiotically placing them within

Lacan’s theory of sexuation in order to demonstrate the potentially positive and constructive

elements of Brahms’s reaction to convention in the Third symphony.

6 Ibid. p.340
7 Ibid. p.342
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In McClary’s reading, gendered elements of form are assumed to be simultaneously applicable to

both the tonal and rhetorical aspects of the movement, yet neither aspect corresponds to its expected

role within the narrative it is set against. I have summarised and extended McClary’s analysis in

tabular form below, with the structure of the movement outlined against gendered characteristics,

tonal plot, and aspects of convention that are described in the article in order to fully critique the

narrative set out for the work.

Figure 1: Tabular analysis of Brahms Symphony no.3 in F major, Allegro con brio

Opening in F major, the movement presents two competing sonorities, A natural against Ab.

According to McClary, the ‘confusion over the proper mediant poses the terms of the entire

symphony’, and the Ab anomaly gives the movement its identity.8 This statement itself is valid, but

the gendered characteristics of each presentation of the first subject’s mediant conflict do not seem

commensurable with the heroic narrative for the thematic structure of the work.

8 Ibid. p.336
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For a movement in F major supposedly submitting to masculine convention, we would expect the

minor mediant to be the “Other” with which the tonic is resisting, and for the masculine theme

boldly to assert its identity with clear use of an A natural—the major mediant of the tonic key—as

its focus. If the gendered narrative were as straight-forward as McClary is suggesting, the minor

mediant could present a struggle for the dominance of F major as its feminine “Other”, but would

then be expected to form a significant part of the second subject to be eventually grounded and

removed with the return of the first subject. Instead, the presence of the Ab is interpreted by

McClary as ‘the secret of the hero’s strength’, and when resolved into A natural, it is problematised

as the option spelling the loss of identity.9


The Ab, following transition material in Db major, is gradually respelled as a G# which then

resolves into A major—representation of what would have been the ‘correct’ masculine mediant,

only to form the rival key centre of the feminine subject area. This feminine subject seems to be in

an unusual key not only against the terms of identity McClary sets out, but also against the

conventions of sonata form. A sonata in the major mode would be expected to present second-

subject material in the dominant key, with the mediant usually reserved for minor mode forms. As

such, the major mediant of the tonic searched for throughout the masculine first subject area does

not seem an obvious choice for the second, feminine subject. It does, however, show an awareness

of convention—movement away from the tonic is achieved through a key not completely alien to

traditional examples of sonata form, with allusions to minor-mode forms in the tonal plot perhaps

intended as confirmation of the struggle between the major and minor mediant in the masculine

subject. Nevertheless in McClary’s assumption that the A natural, rather than the Ab of the opening

motto is problematised as the option spelling loss of identity, the gendered narrative is based at its

very foundation on the belief that the minor mediant is a masculine, rather than feminine, identity. If

the Ab were taken as a signifier for the feminine, as it justifiably could be within a major-mode

9 Ibid. p.338
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sonata form, then a much more positive gendered narrative emerges. Rather than submitting to the

masculine, the feminine takes control—presentations of the masculine subject material occur on

numerous occasions in keys more closely related to Ab and to the mediant rather than dominant key.

The Ab is also never successfully expunged from the masculine subject, with restatements even in

the coda containing the same discrepancy between that and the A natural.

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The same challenges to McClary’s gendered narrative can be found in the rhetorical aspects of the

movement. Should we accept her narrative, we would expect the masculine theme boldly to assert

itself within the exposition, to adhere to semantic characteristics such as volume and aggression,

before the feminine subject is presented in complete alterity, with aspects of pastoral lyricism and a

dance-like nature. As can be seen from figure one, this certainly seems to be the case, however

beyond the first statement of each subject, the gendered characteristics appear to break down. When

restated towards the end of the exposition, the motto of the masculine theme is taken by the key of

the feminine subject area and removed from its rhythmic and motivic strength, replaced instead

with leggiero arpeggios and pizzicato string chords.

Figure Two: bars 48-53; masculine subject taken in feminine key

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The development section again begins as though it will adhere to the narrative McClary describes,

with a ‘savage transformation’ of the feminine theme now in C# minor, marked agitato against a

driving marcato rhythmic base.10

Figure Three: bars 77-81, marcato transformation of feminine theme

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But what then follows deviates entirely from the conventional narrative, with a serene presentation

of the masculine motto in Ab major, completely devoid of any force from within its initial

presentation, marked pianissimo and descending slowly towards the tonic F in the bass that only

catches in the final two bars of the section.

Further to this, in the recapitulation, the assertive return of the masculine tonic does not occur as

expected within the feminine subject area, or arguably very positively throughout the movement at

all. Following the transition to A major in the exposition, F major is not reestablished as the tonal

10 Ibid. p.339
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centre of the piece until a very fleeting, submissive resolution at the end of the development, and a

final resignatory descent towards the tonic at the end of the coda. The expected “metaphorical

ejaculation” of the triumphant climax is diverted at the end of the movement where tonic resolution

is achieved through abandonment of force; as McClary puts it, ‘the heroic motto drifts downward

without resistance to the accepted closure in F major.’11 The implication within McClary’s analysis

seems to be that resignation to convention results in the destruction of feminine identity. Yet she

pays little attention to the context and treatment of such examples of convention.

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Before moving on to outline elements of Lacan’s theory of sexuation, it would be useful to discuss

the semiotic significance of some of the models of closure that come to form McClary’s

descriptions of endings as “conventional”. This will help to see how Brahms’s reactions to

convention do not have to spell the perpetuation of masculine hegemony in form. Each of these

models centre around the elements of form that appropriate listener expectation in accordance with

tradition.

Anson-Cartwright, for example, defines closure as ‘that condition of imminent rest or finality which

begins near the chronological conclusion of a piece or movement, and lasts until such rest is

achieved.’12 The significance of convention is established through clarification of the terms

“imminent” and “near” in their relation to expectation and realisation. Korsyn further discusses the

ideological repercussions of such an ‘implication-realisation’ model that encourage binary

oppositions such as ‘congruence/non-congruence’ and ‘closure/non-closure’ to be read in a

hierarchical privileging of unity.13 He calls for a move towards heterogeneity in analysis, towards a

plurality of approaches to any given piece, in order to resist the ‘allure of closure’:

11 Ibid. p.341
12Mark Anson-Cartwright, ‘Concepts of Closure in Tonal Music: A Critical Study’, in Theory and Practice
vol.32, p.3
13Kevin Korsyn, ‘Beyond Privileged Contexts: Intertextuality, Influence, and Dialogue’ in Rethinking Music
ed. Nicholas Cook, p.66
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‘one can only induce a sense of closure by appealing to conventions, by enacting rituals of

closure; thus, paradoxically, the very factors that close a work off, sealing its borders and

creating a sense of autonomy, also refer to a plurality of events outside the text.’ 14

Rather than a method of plurality, however, perhaps an awareness of conventions and their resultant

avoidance within form is enough to resist the masculine narrative of closure. Agawu, with his

‘beginning-middle-end paradigm’, suggests the totality of the work is identifiable from the outset

through various syntactic and rhetorical components that work to define each progressive section.15

The elements that would typify closure could include a tonal V-I progression, and/or rhetorical

repetition on various levels. Each of these models relies on the expectation of adherence to

convention alongside the recognition of such signals of closure. As already established however, the

opening movement of Brahms’s third symphony does not seem to conform to convention. The

terms of identity that are challenged through the question of the “correct” mediant in the opening

theme are not resolved in either the recapitulation or the coda. Tonal resolution occurs at the very

last possible point, in a resignation of what could otherwise amount to circular struggle. The

movement ends softly, and there is an obvious diversion of climax—that would be the “phallic

destruction of identity”—in the final bars. (see figure four)

Figure Four: bars 217-24; diversion of climax in bar 220

14 Ibid. p.64
15 V. Kofi Agawu, Playing With Signs: A Semiotic Interpretation of Classic Music p.67
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Yet the inevitable tonic return still occurs. It does, however, seem heightened in its arbitrariness as a

result of the continued avoidance of convention throughout the movement. For McClary, last-

minute adherence to conventional closure through the tonic resolution spells the complete

destruction of individual expression that is created throughout the movement in all its deviations.

Yet the closure still seems to hold awareness of the terms of its convention; it does not seem as

assertively masculine, or to submit as destructively as McClary suggests.

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Turning to Lacan’s theory of sexuation here could show how this awareness through deliberate

avoidance of convention signifies a constructive, rather than destructive statement of feminine

identity.

The theory charts the masculine and feminine positions against the phallus through the ways in

which they each react to models of desire within the symbolic order of the subject. It is important to

emphasise, as Homer does, that within this theory ‘sexual difference is not a question of biology,

but of signification: in other words masculinity and femininity are not anatomically given but are

subject positions defined through their relationship to the phallus as a signifier.’16

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Figure Five: Lacan’s Sexuation Diagram

16 Sean Homer, Introduction to Jacques Lacan p.98 (emphasis mine)

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Figure five shows the sexuation diagram taken from Lacan’s On Female Sexuality.17 Although it

may seem a complicated pictorial representation, it is worth offering as an aid to the description of

each position in order to understand the function of the phallus within both male and female models

of desire. The left side of the diagram represents the male position, and the right, female. Masculine

or phallic jouissance (which can be loosely translated as the drive towards desire, the process of

enjoyment as signification) moves from the left to the right side of the diagram. This phallic process

is characterised by failure in that it represents desire for an illusory object (a) that can never be

satisfied. As Žižek identifies, the ‘masculine economy tends to be “teleological”, it can only move

in one direction which means it is bound to repeat movement toward the unobtainable a through an

expectation-anticipation-release paradigm.’18 This draws unmistakable parallels with the tension-

release model associated with the conventions of progression and closure in musical form. Within

the tonal trajectory of sonata form for example, resolution of the tonic, first set out as a problem in

the exposition and then worked through in the development before attainment and release in the

recapitulation, represents movement towards the object a, unsuccessful in its resolution not in

denying its immediate satisfaction, but because the same desire will always be present when the

model is set up in another piece or performance of the same piece.19 The masculine position, then, is

wholly submitted to this phallic desire through the compulsion to repeat movement towards the

unobtainable object a.

Woman, however, through the inconsistency of her desire, attains the domain “beyond the

phallus”.20 Woman has access to the Other (non-phallic) enjoyment that the masculine position does

17Jacques Lacan, Feminine Sexuality p.78. For the sake of clarity in the following explanation, I have
simplified the diagram by removing the upper sections as they are superfluous to my argument here.
18 Slavoj Žižek, The Metastases of Enjoyment: On Women and Causality p.160
19
On this, see J.P.E Harper-Scott The Quilting Points of Musical Modernism: Revolution, Reaction, and
William Walton, particularly §2.1 ’Coke and Sex’ pp.48-56
20 Žižek, Metastases of Enjoyment, p.161
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not. The right side of the diagram shows how Woman can move between both the signified object of

enjoyment Φ, and SΑ, the sign of lack in the symbolic order. In this double movement, Woman has

the ability to recognise the arbitrary nature of the symbolic order, to move beyond the phallus in

resisting the phallic function that fixes the male position in the symbolic order. Woman sees through

the ‘fascinating presence of the Phallus’ and is able to discern in it the filler of the inconsistency of

the Other or symbolic order.21 As Žižek puts it in analogy, for the feminine position, “erotic pleasure

hinges on the seductive talk of the lover, on the satisfaction provided by speech itself, not just on

the act in its stupidity.”22 Such feminine pleasure at the level of the symbolic order, then, means that

the ultimate goal is to circle around the unobtainable object a, not to directly attain it.

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We can now reconsider the terms of closure in Brahms’s movement in light of these ideas. If the

phallic function described here is represented through the tonal plot to the final cadential resolution

in the tonic, then the feminine position against this would involve an awareness of convention that

has as its ultimate aim the path towards closure, rather than closure itself. It is clear from the

analysis set out that Brahms avoids the conventions of closure. Were we to accept a masculine

narrative for the work, the movement would submit fully to the conventions of sonata form, to the

narrative of self (tonic) against Other (movement away from the tonic, typically towards the

dominant) before the Other is overcome to emphasise the identity of the self. Instead, tonic

resolution is reluctantly achieved outside of sonata space proper, within the coda, and only through

a gradual resignation of momentum. In a chapter on parageneric spaces within Elements of Sonata

Theory, Hepokoski and Darcy highlight the function of the coda thus emphasising the significance

of the delayed tonal resolution within the movement. They state that the coda usually ‘begins once

21Slavoj Žižek, ‘Woman is One of the Names-of-the-Father, or How Not to Misread Lacan’s Formulas of
Sexuation’ in Lacanian Ink vol. 10 (1995) (accessed online at http://www.lacan.com/zizwoman.htm)
22Slavoj Žižek, ‘The Real of Sexual Difference’ in Interrogating the Real ed. Rex Butler and Scott Stephens,
p.298
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the recapitulation has reached the point at which the exposition’s closing materials, normally

including a final cadence, have been revisited in full.’23 As can be seen from the table, the

recapitulation avoids a return to the tonic, and there seems to be additional resistance toward closure

within the coda itself. Although the movement does eventually submit to convention, the treatment

around the closure does not suggest a masculine narrative. To refer back to Zizek’s analogy, the

resolution is not indicative of ‘the act in its stupidity’, but rather of ‘the seductive talk of the lover’,

by circling around closure. As stated earlier, the tension between the correct mediant of the tonic

key is never satisfied; the Ab is still present in the final statement of the ‘heroic’ motto.

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Figure Six: bars 217-224; Ab still present in bar 218

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23James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory: norms, types, and deformations in the
late eighteenth-century sonata p.281
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That the recapitulation presents the second subject material outside of the tonic in D major, a key

that balances symmetrically with its original key, suggests that although the direct convention is

avoided, it is still somewhat self-consciously acknowledged through tonal symmetry.

A final redrawing of Lacan’s diagram of sexuation supplanted with the narrative of this opening

movement could help to solidify my claims.

Figure Seven: Brahms’ Symphony no.3- Diagram of “Feminine” Closure: a redrawing of Lacan’s Diagram of Sexuation

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Rather than a masculine movement from S → a, of “conventional” sonata form, the work suggests

a movement from Woman to Φ phallus, through awareness of the inconsistency of the symbolic

order, of tonal and sonata-form conventions. Brahms rejects the perverse circling around the object

a of McClary’s phallic narrative, and instead recognises the inconsistency of models of closure,

offering arbitrary resolution through the deviation of convention. McClary’s reading is caught up in

masculine paradigms not only through application of the gendered sonata principle, which I have

attempted to thematically and tonally undermine in this paper, but also through interpretation of the

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final presence of resolution as the conventional destruction of feminine/Other identity. McClary

assumes that such presence of convention results in the feminine becoming wholly submitted to the

phallus, and in ignoring the context such closure is set within, the possibility for movement beyond

the phallus is denied. The presence of tonal closure at the end of the movement can be seen directly

against McClary’s masculine destruction of identity, through attention to the context and

preparation of the closure itself. The identity of the work is then not situated in the masculine

conflict between the gendered aspects of the themes, nor in attaining the ultimate return of the tonic

— it is found within the trajectory of the movement as a whole, within the treatment and diversion

of expected conventions, here interpreted as feminine.

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Bibliography

Agawu, V. Kofi, Playing with Signs: A Semiotic Interpretation of Classic Music (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1991)
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Anson-Cartwright, Mark, ‘Concepts of Closure in Tonal Music: A Critical Study’ in Theory and
Practice (Volume 32, 2007) pp.1-17
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Bowie, Malcolm, Lacan (London: Fontana Press, 1991)
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Cusick, Susanne G., ‘Gender, Musicology, and Feminism’ in Rethinking Music ed. Nicholas Cook,
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) pp.471-499
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Harper-Scott, J.P.E., The Quilting Points of Musical Modernism: Revolution, Reaction, and William
Walton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012)
!
Hepokoski, James and Darcy, Warren, Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types and Deformations
in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)
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Homer, Sean, Jacques Lacan (New York: Routledge, 2006)
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Hyland, Anne M., ‘Rhetorical Closure in the First Movement of Schubert’s Quartet in C Major, D.
46: A Dialogue with Deformation’ in Music Analysis (Volume 28/i, 2009) pp.111-142
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Korsyn, Kevin, ‘Beyond Privileged Contexts: Intertextuality, Influence, and Dialogue’, in
Rethinking Music ed. Nicholas Cook (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) pp.55-73
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Lacan, Jacques, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book III: The Psychoses 1955-1956, ed. J.A.
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Lacan, Jacques, Feminine Sexuality ed. Juliet Mitchell and Jacqueline Rose, trans. Jacqueline Rose
(New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1982)
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Marston, Nicholas, ‘“The Sense of an Ending”: Goal-directedness in Beetehoven’s music’ in The

Cambridge Companion to Beethoven, ed. Glenn Stanley, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2000) pp.84-102
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McClary, Susan, ‘Narrative Agendas in Absolute Music: Identity and Difference in Brahms’s Third
Symphony’ in Musicology and Difference ed. Ruth A. Solie. (California: University of California
Press, 1993) pp.471-499
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McClary, Susan, Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1991)
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Shephard John, ‘Music and Male Hegemony’ in Music as Social Text (Cambridge: Polity Press,
1991) pp.152-74
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Shephard, John, ‘Difference and Power in Music’ in Musicology and Difference, ed. Ruth A. Solie
(California: University of California Press, 1993) pp.46-66
!
van den Toorn, Pieter, ‘Politics, Feminism, and Contemporary Music Theory’ in The Journal of
Musicology (Volume 3, Issue 9, 1991) pp.275-299
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Žižek, Slavoj, The Metastases of Enjoyment: On Women and Causality (London: Verso, 1994)
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Žižek, Slavoj, ‘Woman is One of the Names-of-the-Father, or How Not to Misread Lacan’s
Formulas of Sexuation’ in Lacanian Ink Volume 10 (1995) accessed online at http://
www.lacan.com/zizwoman.htm
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Žižek, Slavoj, ‘The Real of Sexual Difference’ in Interrogating the Real ed. Rex Butler and Scott
Stephens (London: Bloomsbury, 2005) pp.293-317

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