There are numerous works in music history that refer to earlier works through borrowing or direct allusions, although these procedures became particularly prominent during the late-twentieth century. By reworking and assimilating earlier musics, composers leave marks that enable the characteristics and scope of the dialogue established with them to be assessed. This article presents an introduction to works by Gerardo Gandini and Marta Lambertini focused on music analysis and the interpretation of these uses in accordance with cultural discourse. To this end, I have drawn on the confluence of the ideas of Gerard Genette and Linda Hutcheon, with the objective of establishing certain coordinates for a textual analysis that takes into account the different ways in which those musics of the past are introduced into the form of the work and the discursive use the composer makes of them.