Hans Keller and the Media of Analysis

Abstract Developed in the late 1950s, Hans Keller’s method of “functional analysis” (FA) sought to analyze music in audible form, without verbal argument or conceptual labels. Keller composed analytical interludes which repeated, recontextualized, and recomposed recognizable thematic and rhythmic elements from the compositions he studied, and placed them in between the movements of those works in live performances or radio broadcasts. Drawing on early twentieth-century music analysis, mid-century media theory, and recent studies of analysis for performance, this chapter reads Keller’s early analyses against a series of annual updates he published, chronicling FA’s development from a polemical philosophy of music criticism to a dynamic mode of wordless musical argument.