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The Poetics of Silence, the Necessity of Form: KAFKAMUSIK
A Duodrama in Two Books
The tumultuous early decades of the twentieth century saw drastic changes in all the arts. In
Germany where the origins of Expressionism began, writers from all genres sought to create new
forms and experiment with sentence structure, syntax, and grammar. Visual artists were no
longer confined by literal representation of the external world. Composers broke free from the
gravity of tonality through polytonality, modality, synthetic scale structures, and atonality with
Viennese composer Arnold Schoenberg’s proclamation of the “emancipation of the dissonance”
(Dahlhaus 120). A common interest shared by many artists from this era was combining and
working in different genres in new ways. In the eponymous poem Chopin, Gottfried Benn
abstracts one of the composer’s preludes in writing by spelling out the notes of a chord
composed of an altered whole-tone scale (Benn 620 – 621). In his ground-breaking Pierrot
Lunaire, Schoenberg sets symbolist poet’s Albert Giraud cycle to music featuring a new vocal
technique he called Sprechstimme (a cross between speaking and singing) (Neighbour, Griffiths,
and Perle 44). As well, Schoenberg painted numerous abstract self-portraits and in Georges
Braque’s painting, Still Life with Score, he incorporates a fragmented image of a guitar and a
score by French composer Erik Satie (Kerman and Tomlinson 321).
Among the artists working at this time was the Austro-Czech writer Franz Kafka, whose
expressionist novels portrayed a vision of the world in which unseen forces ensnared its victims
in an atmosphere of hallucinatory angst. Throughout his writing career he referenced music in
his works; however he did so sparingly and in very unusual ways. His oeuvre stands in stark
contrast to many of his literary contemporaries such as Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse when
music appears as a topical element in the narrative. Their characters are usually accomplished
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instrumental performers, composers, theorists, or enthusiasts who discuss music knowledgably
and frequently. However, even when music is occasionally referenced in his stories and novels,
Kafka’s protagonists on the other hand are depicted as being inept at, ill-informed or completely
ignorant of music and his portrayal of musicians is frequently negative. But despite the limited
role music plays in his works it is nevertheless referenced and woven into the fabric of his
writing and often acts as a silent metaphysical force within the subtext of the narrative.
Orientation
The genesis and approach to the composition of my duodrama KAFKAMUSIK owes a great
deal to the field of reader criticism and reception aesthetics, in particular the work of Wolfgang
Iser and his theories about the codependent liaison between reader and text. About this
partnership he states: “meaning must clearly be the product of an interaction between the textual
signals and the reader’s acts of comprehension . . . As text and reader thus merge into a single
situation, the division between subject and object no longer applies, and it therefore follows that
meaning is no longer an object to be defined, but is an effect to be experienced” (Iser 9 – 10).
In reading Kafka one is made particularly aware of this convergent relationship. Many of the
hallmark themes found in the arts during the Expressionist era which permeate his work—
alienation, abstraction, extreme subjectivity—create many challenges for the reader. Especially
in his early work “Kafka staged the metamorphosis of metaphors of art and life as an
interpersonal struggle for meaning . . .” (Corngold 286). His writing is at once a psychologically
probing cathartic impulse and a craft approached with clinical deliberateness. However he
demands much cooperation from his readers. Many of his works are fragmented in structure with
internal divisions abruptly juxtaposed against one another. In some cases there are missing pages
or a text is left unfinished. There oftentimes appear discontinuities or incongruous elements
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within the narrative and readers are frequently required to agree to irrational premises before
entering into one of his singularly unique literary journeys. For example, in The Metamorphosis
we must accept as an initial premise that Gregor has actually been transformed into a giant bug;
that a society of canines’ greatest achievement is their musical skill in Investigation of a Dog;
that a captured ape in Report to an Academy has learned to mimic human behavior during his
captivity to the degree that he is able to deliver a lecture about his experience; or that there really
was a time when an artist could achieve fame and fortune by fasting in a cage for the public as
the protagonist does in A Hunger Artist (Kafka Stories). These are just a few of many examples
found throughout his work but it does underscore the fact that readers’ previous notions of what
literature is must be left at the door to experience Kafka’s world which he so deliberately etched
out in prose. But it is through the lens of Wolfgang Iser’s reception theories that the selected
texts were adapted and interpreted during the creation of KAFKAMUSIK. Many of his ideas
concerning the relationship between text and reader have been transposed into the music and will
be discussed as they relate to Kafka’s texts.
About the Music
Before proceeding to individual works, a short discussion about the music and overall
structure of the KAFKAMUSIK cycle may allow for a more complete understanding of some
distinguishing features of the piece as it relates to Kafka’s work. First and foremost is the
question, why devote such a large scale project to this writer? The nearly one hundred minute
cycle spans nearly a decade in its creation: from the beginning of the initial sketches, followed
by numerous performances of sections within the piece, to its eventual completion and full studio
recording. The answer is very simple. More than any other writer in the last one hundred years,
Kafka in particular is well suited for such an undertaking. There is something about the nature of
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his style, the quantity, structure, length, and open-endedness of his work (and life) which all
contribute in making his texts a ready source for a musical setting (Gross 7).
The selection of a duodrama, (spoken text accompanied by music), is the medium through
which several sets of symmetries lend support to its overall structure. The cycle begins and ends
with the two speakers who convey the texts: the voice of Franz Kafka in the opening Prologue
and the voice of his good friend and publisher Max Brod in the concluding Codetta. The thirtyone pieces within the cycle are divided into two halves, Book I and Book II. Each book in turn is
divided into three chapters, each grouped according to common topical elements found in the
texts. At the conclusion of each chapter there is a Close which serves as both the transition
between the internal chapters as well as a bridge between the two halves. The voice of Max Brod
is assigned four texts near the beginning and end of each half with the voice of Kafka appearing
four times within the body of each half. The pieces which introduce the opening chapters at the
beginning of each half are the only two in the cycle composed in strict counterpoint.
The score features a chamber music quartet consisting of violin, clarinet/oboe, guitar, and
soprano (who sings without text), which alternate between solo, duet, or trio with the ever
present cello. This delicately balanced instrumentation was selected for these instrument’s
differing means of sound production—bowed string, blown wind, plucked string, voice—and are
meant to reflect the intimate relationship between the four main perspectives which allow prose
to be fully realized: the narrator, the characters, the plot, and the fictitious reader. Although at
any given point in the text they may vary in importance, “none of them on its own is identical to
the meaning of the text. What they do is provide guidelines originating from different starting
points, continually shading into each other and devised in such a way that they all converge on a
general meeting place. We call this meeting place the meaning of the text” (Iser 35).
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Many of the pieces contained within KAFKAMUSIK are written using fixed pitch fields, a
compositional technique whose origins can be traced back to Schoenberg and his twelve tone
music. “Form in the arts, and especially in music, aims primarily at comprehensibility. . . .
artistic value demands comprehensibility, not only for intellectual but emotional satisfaction.
Composition with twelve tones has no other aim than comprehensibility” (Schoenberg 215).
However, the fixed pitch process endeavors to transform Schoenberg’s basic idea by applying to
music an idea central to Iser’s notion of the aesthetic experience which takes place during the act
of reading:
Each sentence correlate contains what one might call a hollow section (“Leerstelle”),
which looks forward to the next correlate, and a retrospective section, which answers the
expectations of the preceding sentence. Thus every moment of reading is a dialectic of
protension and retention, conveying a future horizon yet to be occupied, along with a past
(and continually fading) horizon already filled. . . . (Iser 112).
One form of aesthetic experienced in reading a work by Kafka is derived within this
pretension/retention reading moment. This is especially the case in his texts whose narrative
structure is characterized by discontinuity such as Description of a Struggle or Amerika. In The
Castle as well much of the reader’s aesthetic experience is derived by making connections
between a mesh of disparate elements Kafka uses in creating a parallel world that ultimately
refuses meaning. Many passages in the text are overdetermined, inundating the reading with
over-precise extraneous meanings which divide the narrative into a whole semantic spectrum
graduating the variety of semantic levels (Boa 62).
The convergent future/past reading moment Iser suggests as one phenomenon which occurs
during the act of reading may be replicated in music through the fixed pitch process. By
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restricting one note to a single registral location or frequency during the course of a composition,
the listener’s concentration is directed to the parameter of pitch. Within the pitch field individual
notes operate as differentiating points within a temporal sound spectrum rather than serve as part
of any harmonic structure. Divorced from any tonal, modal, pantonal, or even atonal relationship,
the developing sound formation draws listener reception to its constituent note groups which
break apart and reform in and around an x y axis of sound as it passes through time; the
individual fixed frequencies thereby serve as pretension/retention reference points within the
musical moment. Used in this way pitches seek to function within their own self-contained yet
continually evolving syntactical units in the same way words and sentences do within the textual
field. Embracing the convergent moment as part of the aesthetic experienced in reading Kafka
allows for more seamless transitions between sections within non-linear narratives and greater
assimilation of incongruous constituent parts of unformed, undeveloped materials that pass in
and out of the textual weave.
The pieces utilizing fixed pitch fields are strategically placed throughout the KAFKAMUSIK
cycle and are designed to emphasize thematic elements or characteristics of that Kafka text. On a
structural level they segment the interior sections and freeze the flow of the music, in order to
emphasize that text and set the piece apart from those written utilizing more conventional
harmony. As well, the application of this technique underscores and amplifies the discontinuity
of the text. Fixed pitch composition ultimately seeks to replicate an experience in music similar
to the one has in the pretension/retention moment while reading Kafka.
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Essence as Expression
So what exactly is the nature of Kafka’s music as it appears in his texts? What is consistent
throughout his writing is that for the most part it is not music in any real sense of the word, as is
the case with Thomas Mann for example, and his description of pieces by twelve-tone composer
Adrian Leverkühn in Doktor Faustus, or Joseph Knecht’s mastery of music theory of the future
in Hermann Hesse’s Glass Bead Game”. Kafka’s music “is certainly not a systematized music, a
musical form . . . it isn’t a composed and semiotically shaped music . . . but rather a pure
sonorous material” (Deleuze, Guattari 5). Kafka does not use music simply to enhance the
ambiance within his narratives, (even Adrian Leverkühn’s atonal works were designed to be
performed at public concerts), but rather to intrude, and invade his literary space.
In Kafka’s The Castle, sounds of all kinds are a prominent feature enriching the narrative
texture throughout the course of the novel. The telephones there emit a continual “humming and
singing” which sounds like “it was like the hum of countless children’s voices—but yet not a
hum, the echo rather of voices singing at an infinite distance—blended by sheer impossibility
into one high but resonant sound that vibrated on the ear as if it were trying to penetrate beyond
mere hearing.” When K. is finally able to talk on the phone he hears, “a severe, arrogant voice
with a small defect in its speech . . . which its owner tried to cover by an exaggerated severity”
(27 – 93) Later, an intense, penetrating sound emanates from the castle tower, “a bell began to
ring merrily up there, a bell that at least for a second made his heart palpitate for its tone was
menacing, too, as if it threatened him with the fulfillment of vague desire. This great bell soon
died away, however, and its place was taken by a feeble, monotonous little twinkle.” (21)
In the “Metamorphosis” Gregor’s voice is the first indication to his family that something is
terribly wrong as he tries to answer back to them through his door (Kafka Stories). “The words
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he uttered were no longer understandable, apparently, although they seemed clear enough to him,
even clearer than before, perhaps because his ear had grown accustomed to the sound of them.”
(99) Later as his sister is playing her violin she is only able to scrape and pluck a few out tune
notes for the lodgers staying in their home who, “had been disappointed in their expectations of
hearing good or enjoyable violin playing . . . and out of courtesy suffered a continues disturbance
of their piece” (130). These are just two of the many examples found throughout his writing;
however they demonstrate how his interest in music as pure, intense sonority is one of the
distinguishing features of his style which sets his work apart from other writers during the
Expressionist era.
Silence, Resonance, Dissonance
The following set of compositions from KAFKAMUSIK will be examined as they correlate to
the texts. As previously alluded to the individual pieces in the cycle differ considerably in the
way they are related to the stories they represent, however the real meeting point between
KAFKAMUSIK and its subject invariable remains an inaccessible space suspended between notes
and words. Since it would be impossible within the confines of this study to discuss the entire
body of music that makes up the thirty-three piece cycle, three texts and their corresponding
music will be the only ones examined, but may stand as a representative example of the working
process involved in the creation of KAFKAMUSIK.
The story Description of a Struggle is one Kafka worked on for several years early in his
career. (Kafka, Stories) It has often been viewed negatively by critics as developmental and
unrefined; however the text is fascinating in its structure, characterized by segmentation and
discontinuity (Updike x - xi). The individual sections in the text are portioned as follows: I, II.i,
II.ii, II.iii.a, II.iii.b, II.iii.c, II.iv, III., with no apparent internal, organizational balance. Music
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only appears in three distinct places within the narrative, however when it does the sound is
never fully realized and is accompanied by movement and motion. The primary music/motion
theme will be discussed in conjunction with two other elements that are sonically reproduced and
appear thematically in the KAFKAMUSIK realization of the story.
The first episode pairs melody and (rhythmic) unsteadiness together with a closing negative
view of music. In the story’s opening section the central character is out late one night with a
man he met in a tavern earlier that evening. “So we walked on in silence. Listening to the sound
of our steps I couldn’t understand why I was incapable of keeping step with my acquaintance . . .
I realized that my acquaintance had begun to hum a melody . . . it was low, but I could hear it
distinctly . . . as for me, I was ready to do without the music” (11). After the initial appearance of
music and motion the second pairing occurs as the protagonist suddenly runs out into the street
with his arms raised. “But in front of a small door . . . I fell for there was a step which I had not
expected . . . from a tavern opposite the piano within continued playing, but fainter, with only
one hand, because the pianist had turned toward the door which, until now ajar, had been opened
wide by a man in a high-buttoned coat” (18). In the third and final appearance he enters another
tavern and addresses the piano player, “Do me a favor sir, of letting me play now . . .” But the
protagonist’s lack of even basic musicianship, “everyone seemed to know I couldn’t play”, is
revealed as a John Cage-like concert transpires:
I abruptly sat down at the piano. . . . The pianist stood up and stepped tactfully over the
bench, for I was blocking his way. ‘Please turn out the light, I can only play in the dark.’ I
straightened myself. At that moment two gentlemen seized the bench and, whistling a song
and rocking me to and fro, carried me far away from the piano . . . everyone watched with
approval (38 – 39).
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Although he does not play a note he nevertheless thanks the onlookers with a bow. The
unrealized music thus appears in the story as a sonorous interruption played out in two pairs of
contradictory stations within the scene: (1) the man wants to play/ but doesn’t know how, (2) he
doesn’t play at all/ but is still congratulated. Apart from the music and motion motif, physical
instability appears separately as a second theme which recurs throughout the story:
I . . . got up on my own, but with great pain. I began to sway. . . . As soon as my
acquaintance stumbled I pulled him up. . . . Now I even began to exaggerate my jumping
movements on my acquaintance’s broad shoulders. . . . I walked on unperturbed. But then
as the road threatened to slip away from under my feet and everything as weary as I
myself, began to vanish, . . . should I feel ashamed of not walking upright and taking
normal steps. . . . (18 – 43)
The third element is the rural setting that serves as the backdrop for the narrative.
I dreaded the effort of climbing the mountainous road. . . . Because I love pinewoods I
went through woods of this kind. . . . The stars were already fading and I noticed the moon
sink feebly into the sky as though into troubled waters. The mountain already belonged to
the darkness, . . . from the interior of the forest I heard the approaching crash of collapsing
trees. . . . The river was wide and its noisy waves reflected the light (22 – 45).
Within the KAFKAMUSIK cycle Description of a Struggle is one of only two extended cello
solos and occurs in Book I as the third of five pieces in Chapter II, Group Portrait with
Landscape. The three narrative elements in the story, (1) music and motion, (2) physical
instability, and (3) the rural outskirts of the town the protagonist retreats to periodically after his
various excursions, are correspondingly depicted in the music as follows: (1) angular, broad
pitch leaps in the musical lines, (2) highly irregular metrical groupings, and (3) five different
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bowing styles and attacks. These three musical features in the cello solo are realized in the
following manner. For the first, the pitch material is derived from a 12-note fixed pitch field
divided into three groups of four notes according to register. In the second the individual
measures in the piece contain irregular numbers of beats as well as partial beats, with frequent
occurrences of measured accelerations and decelerations. Finally, because the forest is
referenced throughout the story, much of the piece is played col legno battuto, (striking the
strings with the wooden back of the bow). The battuto passages are mixed with four other
bowing styles for a wide variety of colors: dragging the wood of the bow across the string;
normal bowing; bowing near or on the bridge; and bowing over the fingerboard. These
contrasting timbres represent the different sights and sounds the protagonist sees and hears out in
the country: collapsing trees, noisy waves, sinking moon, fading stars, and precipitous
mountains. To replicate the overall fragmentary nature of the text, all of these elements appear
in different combinations, cast in several different tempi within abruptly juxtaposed short
asymmetrical sections. The result is a fast pace assault of sound which constantly shifts in
timbre, speed, and texture within short spans of time. The majority of the virtuosic solo runs as
follows:
Fig.1
Note some of the musical features in the opening measures above which mirrow the selected
themes in Kafka’s text: the wide chromatic pitch leaps and uneven lines, the 3:2 ratio of the two
tempi,
= 72 and
= 48, the highly irregular durations of the five measures which are 5.93,
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4.06, 3.125, 6.93, and 3.33 seconds in length respectively, and the ordinary bowing interrupted
by bow srikes and bow drags across the strings.
Fig. 2
In figure 2 the piece continues with an added whole note harmonic appearing in measure
three, in 4/4 time at a
= 60, a 125% acceleration in tempo before returning to
= 48. These
two measures are abruptly followed by a long measure of 4 quarter notes in the time of 5, or
a
= 38.4 played col legno tratto, (bowing with the wood), for sharp contrast.
The introduction of the harmonic in common time at this early point in the piece sets up the
following main passage within the cello solo near the end. The protagonist’s silent piano
performance in the bar during his wild night on the town is purposefully placed at a section in the
music approximating the location of the scene within the text. Out of the frenzied barrage of
abrupt tempo and dynamic changes accompanied by bowing noises, a carefully placed silence
announces a steady, half minute, pianissimo cadenza consisting of two harmonics, widely spaced
by two octaves and a major second, set in retrograde duration patterns in 4/4 time, recapitulating
the first harmonic’s initial appearance. It appears in the score as follows:
Fig. 3
The protagonist’s silent piano solo then suddenly breaks off and returns to jagged, battuto lines
as shown in figure 4.
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Fig. 4
In the story Investigations of a Dog, music is used thematically as a gift possessed by the
canines which emerges and retreats in and out of the non-linear narrative as the text progresses,
frequently interrupted by anecdotal commentary and symbolic references by the narrator. (Kafka
Stories) The composition is the first in Chapter I of Book I entitled Proportion, Commitment,
Necessity; the texts of which are selected from Kafka’s ‘animal’ stories.
In the opening scene of the story an old dog reflects upon his first youthful encounter with
these unusual animals: “I greeted the morning with an uncertain barking . . . to the
accompaniment of terrible sounds such as I had never heard before . . . .” (280 – 281) Although
he has been exposed to music all of his life the narrator is “astonished” and “devastated” by the
artistry of the group as they gather together. What he finds most baffling however is that the
sound has no apparent source:
They did not speak, they did not sing, they remained generally silent, almost
determinedly silent; but from the empty air they conjured music. Everything was music,
the lifting and setting down of their feet, certain turns of the head . . . the positions they
took up in relation to one another, the symmetrical patterns which they produced . . . .
(281)
In KAFKAMUSIK violin and clarinet are chosen for the story because of their ability to make
large leaps within their respective registers effortlessly. The opening scene in the story is realized
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at the beginning of the piece pairing the two in unison with the cello, each sporadically
interrupting their parts with grace notes. The implied triad the trio plays off of contains both a
major and minor third, suggesting the astonishment the old dog experiences as he watches the
display taking place before him.
Fig. 5
Catching his breath the narrator then observes the seven dogs engaging in their craft.
However the music they make is contradictory and paradoxical. Beginning in fits and starts it is
described as loud and emanating simultaneously from all directions, while at the same time
perceived as far away and indistinct. These sonorous blasts leave the old dog “exhausted”,
“annulled”, and “feeble”, and the musical performers themselves appear to be under some duress
due to the physical exertion needed to produce such sounds: “I saw . . . on looking more closely,
that it was not so much coolness as the most extreme tension that characterized their
performance; these limbs apparently so sure in their movements quivered at every step with a
perpetual apprehensive twitching; as if rigid with despair. . . .” (283)
The dog’s inaudible, yet controlled, methodically constructed and choreographed music is
implied throughout the body of the composition by three distinct four measure rhythmic patterns.
Each instrument is assigned a separate three-note fixed pitch group covering a large four-octave
range, with one shared note placed at three different octaves. As the piece progress the rhythmic
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patterns are exchanged and segmented creating a continual contraction and re-expansion within
the overall sounding register.
Fig. 6
Some of Kafka’s most negative writing about music is put on display in his first novel
Amerika, an exemplary piece of broken narrative within Kafka’s body of work. The author
abruptly stopped working on the novel at some point and it remained unfinished, only first
appearing during his lifetime as a single chapter entitled The Stoker. The novel’s title was chosen
posthumously by Max Brod who assembled the unordered chapters and published the incomplete
manuscript (Kafka).
Within the KAFKAMUSIK cycle, Amerika is the first of the three novels which make up the
bulk of Book II. The three pieces in the opening chapter are taken from three scenes in the text
where music is featured topically. The first appearance is a quite literal description of the musical
ineptitudes of Karl Rossmann, a sixteen-year boy sent to the United States to live with his uncle
who has purchased a piano for him. When pressed to play by an acquaintance named Clara the
young man resists insisting that his repertoire consists of only a few pieces which he plays very
badly because his basic note reading skill is so poor. When Karl finally gives in to her request,
the result is as musically pitiable as it is excruciating to witness:
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and he began to play. It was a little air which . . . had to be played somewhat slowly to
make it even comprehensible . . . but he strummed it out in blatant march time. When he
ended it the shattered silence of the house closed round them again, almost distressfully.
They sat there as if frozen with embarrassment and did not move . . . “‘I’m not good’,”
said Karl after he had finished, gazing at Clara with tears in his eyes (90).
The music for this scene, entitled The Stoker, is expressed ironically in the second virtuosic
cello solo. Fast moving moto perpetuo triplet-sixteenth notes based in C-sharp minor are
reminiscent of an opening prelude from a Bach cello suite.
The second scene takes place in the Refugee chapter of the novel where Karl encounters the
opera singer Brunelda, the eponymous focus of the second composition in Chapter I. In this
character Kafka has depicted a diva par excellence: she is moody; she is impulsive; she is loud;
she is demanding; and she is tempestuous. The music featuring soprano consists of only three
broad arpeggios, written fortissimo and placed in the upper vocal register to display the
coloratura capabilities required of the singer.
The final and most typically Kafkaesque scene occurs in the last chapter of the novel, The
Nature Theatre of Oklahoma. As he arrives Karl encounters a most bizarre spectacle: “Before the
entrance to the race-course a long low platform had been set up, on which hundreds of women
dressed as angels in white robes with great wings on their shoulders were blowing on long
trumpets that glittered like gold” (274). But everything about the scene is viscerally
expressionistic. Upon closer inspection Karl notices that every angel is actually standing on her
own pedestal, which vary greatly in size and height, some so high “that one felt the slightest gust
of wind could capsize them.” The size of their faces and heads is disproportionately small in
relation to their long flowing robes and gigantic wings. Because the music the angels create with
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their trumpets is the most unusual in the novel, the score in the cycle is the only one featuring
violin, guitar, and cello. To mirror the varied heights of the myriad of pedestals at the theatre,
each line within the trio is angular and moves in contrary motion to the other two. As well the
piece is written in real time, with no metrical markings or note stems, and each of the three lines
has a different tempo.
Fig. 7
The close of the composition depicts the actual sound of the trumpets. After being handed one
of the instruments the boy tries it out for himself: “Karl began to blow into the trumpet; he had
imagined it was a roughly-fashioned trumpet intended merely to make a noise, but now he
discovered that it was an instrument capable of almost any refinement of expression” (277).
However when all the trumpets play Kafka creates a scene similar to the sonic blasts the old dog
hears in Investigations of a Dog, . . . .“he heard at once the noise of many trumpets. It was a
confused blaring; the trumpets were not in harmony but were blown regardless of each other.”
(273)
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Fig. 8
Note that once again the lines all begin at different tempos but here at the end of the piece the
tempos all change and when they do it is never at the same time. As well, the melodic contour of
each of the three lines is of a different intervallic shape adding an extra textual density intended
to represent the angel’s erratic cacophony!
Conclusion
As discussed throughout this study Wolfgang Iser has much to say about the relationship
between text and reader. But one important final condition that governs this interactive process is
the indeterminacy or “asymmetry” between the two. The specific moments during the act of
reading where indeterminacy occurs he designates as “blanks” or “gaps”, an idea first discussed
by Roman Ingarden through his concept of “Unbestimmtheitsstellen” (“spots of indeterminacy”)
(Ingarden). Iser borrows this idea and goes on to elaborate that, “it is the gaps, the fundamental
asymmetry between text and reader, that gives rise to communication in the reading process . . . ”
(Iser 167). One of the main challenges the texts discussed from the KAFKAMUSIK cycle present
to the reader, (a challenge found in much of Kafka’s work), is filling in the “blanks” and “gaps”
that occur frequently and often unpredictably as interruptions and segmentations within his
narratives. In approaching the author’s texts, especially those written during the early years of
Expressionism, one must be ever cognizant of the asymmetrical situation arising out of the
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reader/text interaction. A necessary precondition to encountering his work is the understanding
that full textual disclosure is never guaranteed nor should be an expected outcome. However the
imbalance in the reader/text relationship, though never completely defined, is the very means by
which the range of communication and variety of interpretations is made possible. Likewise the
cello based septet cycle remains but one realization within the variety of communications
possible of Kafka in music. Like so many of the writer’s works, The Poetics of Silence, the
Necessity of Form: KAFKAMUSIK, Volume I, ultimately remains open-ended, ever awaiting but
never promising continuation.
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Works Cited
Benn, Gottfried. Chopin. Deutsche Gedichte. Ed. Benno von Wiese. Berlin: Cornelsen Verlag,
1993.
Boa, Elizabeth. “The Castle.” The Cambridge Companion to Kafka. Ed. Julian Preece. New
York: The Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Corngold, Stanley. Franz Kafka, The Necessity of Form. Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1988.
Dahlhaus, Carl. Schoenberg and the New Music. Trans. Derrick Puffett and Alfred Clayton.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
Deleuze, Gilles, Felix Guattari. Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature. Trans. Dana Polan.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986.
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