Claudio Naranjo’s hermeneutics and the legacy of Tótila Albert: a Narratological vision of Sonata form

Abstract

In the last decades, authors such as Hatten, Tarasti and Grabócz have developed musical discourse analysis under the narrative aspect, revealing new possibilities to understand the latent meanings in instrumental works. The musician and psychiatrist Claudio Naranjo (1932 – 2019) affirms that the sonata form is an organic form that allows the expression of mythical experiences and that its different ways of structuring bear significant similarities with the archetypal narratives known by scholars of myths as “The hero’s journey.” Developing this theme, we will present the narrative analysis of the 1st movement of Schumann’s Quintet for piano and strings in Eb major op.44, based on a poem that corresponds note by note to the melodic lines of this work. Its author, Tótila Albert Schneider (1892-1967), a famous Chilean sculptor and poet, created an original poetic-musical work that he called “Musical Dictations”, original poems in German that must be read in sync with the musical discourse, like a song. The content of these poems is articulated with the formal and harmonic processes revealing surprising possibilities for the narrative analysis of the corresponding works. Through thematic analysis and harmonic regions, a comparison will be made between the sections of the 1st movement of this work and the corresponding parts of the poem synchronized with its melodic lines. The narrative logic of the poem is intimately related to the formal processes that constitute this work built in the sonata form and opens up new possibilities for the field of study of musical narratology.