SMT-V 1.3-Edward Klorman, "Multiple Agency"
Comparisons between the string quartet and artful conversation have flourished since the genre’s birth. If a quartet performance resembles stylized social intercourse, each player may be understood to enact the role of an individual persona engaged in the discourse. This study introduces the concept of multiple agency, whereby musical events are interpreted through the actions and interactions of these individual personas. This analytical approach is demonstrated through the analysis of a passage from Mozart’s Quartet in G Major, K. 387. A more thorough exposition of multiple agency’s historical and conceptual underpinning appears in the author’s monograph, Mozart’s Music of Friends.