Britten’s Third Cello Suite has been compared to Beethoven’s “Razumovsky” quartets, and Britten’s Lachrymae and Nocturnal after John Dowland on the basis of their formal similarity—these works comprise thematic matter derived from an older source-work that is revealed in a concluding epiphany. In the Suite, the epiphany comprises four Russian melodies. However, although the melodies are convincing sourceworks for the thematic content of the preceding movements, the suite remains curiously open-ended. The epiphany seems to resist the work’s ending, so that one is impelled to speculate on the significance of the melodies. In this paper, I investigate the Suite’s ‘unfinished’ quality through analysis before suggesting that the melodies reveal Britten’s ambivalent outlook on contemporary circumstances. I begin by theorizing that a work’s time structure affects its sense of closure. After demonstrating that works that culminate in epiphanies typically create hermetic time loops, I consider two variant structures that frustrate temporal closure, one of which applies to the Suite. In part two, I analyse temporal forces to show how they condition one’s response to the epiphany. Specifically, I suggest that recurrent anticipations of the future in preceding movements cause one to expect similar references in the epiphany. It is the frustration of this expectation that impels one to go beyond the work in search of referential meaning. The final part presents research supporting speculation on the significance of the melodies. The issues explored include the meaning of the ‘absent’ text and the kontakion’s ritual significance.

The act of writing a musical epitaph—compositions such as requiems, laments, and elegies—carries with it special requirements, in particular, confronting representational issues of death. Whereas some would claim, as Sarah Webster Goodwin and Elisabeth Bronfen do, that “there is no knowing death, no experiencing it and then returning to write about it…,” I follow Richard Stamelman in arguing that, through our emotions surrounding the deaths of others, “we work to change an irreversible absence and shape it into a tangible presence.” In other words, given the irreversible nature of death, the presence of the deceased is a representational issue; in terms of representation, death necessarily assumes form as the presence of an absence. This paper will discuss Igor Stravinsky’s Élégie for solo viola (1944) in terms of its representational strategies of profound loss. Throughout my study I will demonstrate the compositional techniques that Stravinsky utilizes in his Élégie that contribute to its character of loss, beginning with some of its more apparent aspects. I will then examine in detail the other ways that Stravinsky more specifically highlights the presence of an absence in this work, focusing on one particular compositional technique: melodic despondency. I will conclude by investigating the respective endings of the outer sections of the piece’s ABA’ form, focusing on what makes them different and how this affects our understanding, using Derrida’s discussion of the property of man as a model.

Numerous authors have shown that passages with different formal functions (e.g., themes versus transitions) are often characterized by different types of texture. Many such textural differences involve the relative prominence of concurrent lines. In a sonata-form movement, for example, the first theme is likely to have one melody that is unambiguously more prominent than its accompaniment, but the subsequent transition might feature imitation between two equally prominent lines. This paper argues that the prominence of lines is partly determined by their predictability. An Alberti bass, for example, is usually more repetitive and predictable than the melody it accompanies, and this melody, I contend, is thereby more interesting and more likely to attract the listener’s attention. Like several previous authors, I quantify a line’s predictability as its information entropy. My approach, however, differs on two counts. While most previous authors examine just melodies, I consider both melodic and accompanimental lines. And while these authors compute the entropy of full lines, I divide lines into motives and compute the entropy of these motives. To assess whether the relative predictability of concurrent lines is tied to formal function, I examine two corpora of string quartets, Haydn’s op. 20 and Beethoven’s op. 18. Each movement’s form was analyzed, each string part was segmented into motives, and each motive’s entropy—with respect to both melodic intervals and rhythmic durations—was computed. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses of these data suggest a link between formal function and the relative entropy of the four string parts.

Rentaro Taki (1879-1903) composed several vocal pieces at the end of his short life. His song cycle, Shiki-The Four Seasons, reached the artistic maturity of art song and created a new musical form in Japan. This paper presents an analytical investigation of the way in which Japanese folk tunes developed into art songs under the influence of Western music around 1900, with emphasis on the work of Taki. I focus on the song because it is the genre that the Japanese government first used to expedite the Westernization of music in Japan. Most of the songs written in this period were called “Shoka” and were composed and edited under the auspices of the government to educate elementary and middle school students. In Shoka, we are able to find rudimentary employment of Western tonality as well as traditional elements of Japanese folk tunes. To discuss Japanese
folk tunes and Shoka, I employ the notion of the “nuclear tone,” which was first observed by a Japanese ethnomusicologist, Fumio Koizumi. In these songs, nuclear tones clearly function as a frame for the folk melodies. Taki mastered tonal harmony and songwriting faster than any of his contemporaries, so his compositions can be easily recognized as totally Westernized pieces. Analyses of Taki’s compositions reveal, however, that the nuclear tones are subtly hidden and remain in his music. By investigating his innovative work, I show why his compositions are still seen as the most authentic and popular art songs in Japan.

Benjamin Britten's music frequently begs—but then resists—an interpretation based on the unifying principles of tonality. A fascinating species of this relationship is found in “Villes,” from Les Illuminations, which pits some elements of tonal unity—clear contrapuntal coherence and triadic harmony—against others destructive to it, such as cross-relations and tonal incompletion. "Villes" begs the relevance of melodic fluency and structural level throughout, but problematizes middleground harmonies through chromatic transformations: they become "disoriented." This perplexing aspect of the tonal idiom can be understood in relation to the bewildering scene of the text, in which a naive protagonist first thrills to—but is soon overwhelmed by—the excesses of masked revelers. Tonal disorientation arises from the way in which the contrapuntal coherence of the song is infiltrated by the semitone. Britten uses chromaticized 5–6 expansions to access a kaleidoscopic array of triads. Under this influence, a 5–6–5 neighbor figure can create a different—or "disoriented"—version of the original harmony. This disorientation plays out across shorter and longer time-spans, creating moments of jarring disjunction and a final uncertainty that mirrors the poet's feelings of remorse and dissatisfaction. While Romantic music invokes ambiguity as  uncertainty between competing tonalities, "Villes" calls into question whether tonal coherence is indeed operative. It plays out an expressive structural confrontation between a hearing based on symmetrical, chromatic pitchspace and one based on asymmetrical, diatonic pitch-space. From either perspective, the interest is surely in the tension that obtains.

This paper explores the interrelationships among the form, tonal centres, and pc collections of the first movement of Alberto Ginastera’s Piano Sonata No. 1, Op. 22. In the process, it gradually uncovers a single narrative of disruption and eventual reconciliation in which the movement’s form, tonality, and pc content all participate. The paper first examines the movement’s sonata form and tonal organization and shows that both are relatively straightforward when considered separately from one another. However, when the movement’s formal and tonal plans are considered together, a more complex interpretation emerges, one that casts tonal centres C and G as consistently disruptive to the sonata process. The paper then notes the close association between the disruptive tonal centres C and G and hexatonic and octatonic pc collections, which contrast with the pentatonic and diatonic pc collections associated with the movement’s other tonal centres. Finally, after noting both the symmetrical arrangement of the movement’s principal tonal centres about its overall tonic A and the symmetrical voicing exhibited by the work’s opening, the paper closes by examining symmetrical pc collections in the movement and assessing the interaction between axes of symmetry and tonal centres. This leads to the conclusion that it is only by purging the movement of its octatonic and hexatonic elements that the work’s disruptive tonal centres ultimately are reconciled with its primary and secondary tonal centres.

This paper is part of an attempt to theorize the locus of one’s subjectivity in musical experience, with particular attention to the listening experience. We can identify three basic positions: first-person, secondperson, and third-person, where first-person involves performing music, second-person involves listening to music, and third-person involves reflecting on musical experience. Not only are these categories permeable, but also we continuously migrate among them, consciously or otherwise, and one’s subjectivity is an emergent amalgam of these meanderings. It may be commonly acknowledged that the third-person, analytical position and the second-person, listening/receptive position mutually inform one another. What is less commonly acknowledged is the quasi-first-person position that results from projection (Clifton) and/or from some other form of mimetic identification whereby we vicariously take part in the performance of the music (Lidov, Cumming, Mead, Cox, Godoy, Leman). If listening to and recalling music involve a quasi-first-person position, then musical experience includes the strange and seductive situation of not only being affected by music, but also of feeling what it would be like to be the force that is affecting listeners – including oneself. In their music, composers variously encourage and discourage first-person subjectivity, and this shapes both the experience and conceptualization of their music. Similarly, music theorists implicitly (and occasionally explicitly) discourage first-person subjectivity, and thus help perpetuate an illusion that blinds us to a crucial factor in how musical meaning is constructed – a process that involves not only listening and conceptualizing but also covertly participating in musical performance.

Small pitch movement is characteristic of sadness in speech prosody (Fairbanks & Pronovost, 1939; Banse & Scherer, 1996). Small melodic interval size is similarly known to be correlated with judgments of sadness in music perception. Suppose one were trying to transform a major-mode melody so that it sounded sadder. More specifically, suppose one were trying to increase the sadness of a major-mode melody by reducing the average melodic interval size as much as possible. What pitch modifications to the major scale would have the optimal effect? Starting with melodies in the major mode, a study is reported in which the effect of different scale modifications on the average interval size is examined. Excluding modifications that eliminate scale tones (such as flat-4) or modify the tonic (such as sharp-1), lowering the sixth and third scale tones from the major scale provide a nearly optimum way of reducing the average melodic interval size for a large sample of major-mode melodies. The results are consistent with the view that the melodic organization and the major-minor polarity are co-adapted, and that the minor mode is well tailored to evoke, express or represent sadness as compared with the major mode.

While topic theory has long been associated with the study of eighteenth-century music, recent work by Monelle reminds us that topics are not mere by-products of Classical style, but independent cultural units with the potential to emerge and develop in any historical context. As an illustration of how a topically aware approach can be applied to a more recent body of music, this paper considers the network of meanings afforded by a number of topics in John Adams’s Nixon in China (1987). These topics include two distinct variants of minimalist style which I identify as the epic and the comic, as well as a dance hall style evocative of the big bands of the 1940s. My discussion details the stylistic markers that indicate and articulate these topics, as well as the respective constellations of meaning to which they provide access. In an examination of the opera’s third act, I trace how instances of various topics oppose, interpenetrate, and inflect each other in such a way as to expose and critique the dichotomous social and cultural categories with which they correlate. In particular, I consider a spectrum of political register that mirrors the differing stylistic registers occupied by the opera’s various topics. By way of this discussion, I argue for topics as a valuable conceptual tool in the analysis of Adams’s opera—as well as of other polystylistic works in which the narrative element is expressly attenuated.

J. S. Bach’s allemandes for solo keyboard feature a remarkable approach to metric structure. Surveying these 18 works, one makes two observations: first, that the hypermetric fabric of the music, while frequently gesturing toward regularity, is complex and varied, only rarely allowing a consistent pattern to persist throughout a reprise or movement; and second, that the total number of bars in each reprise is nearly always a multiple of four, and absolutely invariably a multiple of two. The framework I propose for interpreting these seemingly incommensurable facts is generically determined metric dissonance. In Harald Krebs’s (1999) influential formulation of “metrical dissonance,” two or more regular metrical layers are established within the confines of a single work: a main metrical layer and one that conflicts with it either by displacement or by grouping (hemiola). In Bach’s allemandes, by contrast, the regular metric layer is not necessarily strongly present in any individual piece at all; rather, it is from the intertextual evidence of the consistently regular bar-number totals that I hypothesize that these allemandes should be heard as if “composed against” an imagined regular metric grid. In a remarkable inversion of our normal thinking about metric dissonance, the “main metrical layer” is inaudible—implied by the generic fact and heard only in the listener’s mind—while the dissonant metrical layer is the audible surface of the music. Some of the compositional possibilities inherent in generically determined metric dissonance are introduced using the allemande from the B minor French Suite; suggesting the pervasiveness of the technique—and its ability to create a dramatic play of metric expectation.

Over the past 80 years, studies of expressive timing have emphasized the communication of group structure in performance through group-spanning patterns of acceleration and deceleration. When examining multiple performances of the same piece, these approaches highlight similar projections of structure and presume that they ways in which performances differ are incidental or even accidental. Yet a pair of performances may differ to such an extent that no model of performance based on score features can predict both performances with any accuracy. In this presentation I explore timing decisions in two highly distinct performances of Chopin’s Nocturne in C Minor, Op. 48, No. 1. I’ll argue that a primary means of recognizing the difference between the two performers is their markedly different approach to musical tension. In performing Chopin, one may linger on moments of tension to project a sense of difficulty in continuing, or one may accelerate through such moments to project a kind of assured virtuosity. In either case, the projection of tension is a vital aspect of one’s performative persona and can serve as a useful feature with which to cluster performers. By introducing an analytic method that can accommodate drastically different interpretations, it is hoped that the presentation will enable a kind of analysis that recognizes performative difference in light of the growing recognition of performers as co-producers of
musical meaning.

In performance, rhythmic events can be played with varying degrees of synchrony. Dispersal is a subtle type of expressive asynchrony in which the elements of a single rhythmic event are very slightly spread apart from one another. Dispersal occurs along a continuum ranging from perfect synchrony to clear rhythmic displacement. Whenever adjacent attacks are played closely enough together that we can perceive them as belonging to the same rhythmic event, we may group them and hear them as part of a single dispersed event. A common instance of dispersal in music is the rolled chord. In this paper, I will describe some of the temporal effects of dispersal, including its expressive and structural functions. For example, dispersal can be used to create expressive artistic delay, to soften vertical sonorities, or to facilitate voice independence. Dispersal may also be used as a structural marker (heralding the arrival of new thematic ideas or expressively lingering at important structural boundaries) or as a textural or temporal pivot between sections of contrasting characters. Additionally, dispersal can be used as part of larger temporal processes. Progressive dispersal is an effective way of curtailing momentum, which can lead naturally to a slowing of the tempo. I will discuss the ideas outlined here by examining a number of short illustrative excerpts, taken primarily from the piano literature of the Romantic Era. In the course of the paper, I will also address the manner in which a listener might choose to interpret dispersed rhythmic events metrically.

William Rothstein’s article “National metrical types in music of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries” (2008) proposes what he calls “metrical habits” in German music of that time that distinguish it from Italian and French music. These metrical habits include barring practices and the location of phrase beginnings and endings, as well as treatment of compound meter. Rothstein’s assertions are essentially hypotheses that are testable using common procedures in empirical musicology. This paper presents the results of a study designed to determine whether and to what degree Rothstein’s characterizations of national metrical types are present in a slightly later genre, that of 19th-century French and German art song. Results indicate that many of the characteristics Rothstein proposes as metrical habits for German and French/Italian music of the 18th and early 19th centuries are present in the art song tradition of the mid to late 19th century, but the important differences that arise may provide a lens into the changing metrical conceptions of 19th century theorists and composers, as well as to the metrical habits and compositional style of individual 19th century French and German art song composers. This study also illustrates that large-N database studies can provide musically relevant and meaningful results. Previous large-N database studies have focused solely on cross-language results, which are of limited appeal to music theorists. By looking at data for individual composers, this study provides meaningful information about each composer’s compositional style.

Metric and hypermetric design are engaged in two of Debussy’s Ariettes Oubliées: “L’ombre des arbes” of 1885 and “C’est l’extase langoureuse” of 1887. Both are early settings of Verlaine poems, composed by a young Debussy in his early twenties. These Ariettes evince that strategic metric design is integral to Debussy’s early compositional palette. Discourse on hypermetric tension in art songs is a topic of recent scholarship. Harald Krebs has illustrated streams of hypermetric irregularity in songs of Josephine Lang. Carlo Caballero discusses Gabriel Faure’s innovative “multivalence” among metric layers and orientations in his songs which “have the effect of dissolving and attenuating (the) force (of the songs’ metric dissonances)”. This paper-presentation continues in those veins—investigating, more specifically, the effect that strategically offset hypermetric constructs have on local phrase structures, text setting and overall formal design in these early songs. Both songs possess conflicting hypermetric orientations between and among piano and voice. Loosely borrowing from Harald Krebs’ lexicon, I refer to this dynamic interaction as “hypermetric displacement,” which occurs as temporally displaced hypermetric constructs sound against one another in conflict. Such displacements are alternately restored and re-engaged to create elusive formal and phrase-group boundaries that complement the poetic text and narrative.

Nineteenth-century critic Hermann Kretzschmar’s description of the first four songs of Brahms’s op. 57 song cycle as a “great tragic opera” offers a fitting departure for this analysis of “Ach, wende diesen Blick,” the fourth song of the cycle. This analysis traces a pitch conflict that unfolds as a musical dramatization of the poetic conflict through voice-leading analysis, as well as explication of a prominent melodic disjunction. A melodic disjunction is a linear construction that is often composed of more than one strand of linear motion (as in a compound melody). It features a seemingly anomalous leap that is created when one of the melodic lines is abruptly abandoned, and any residue of melodic implication in the line is not resolved immediately, or at all. “Ach, wende diesen Blick” begins on a first-inversion tonic triad, and moves immediately to a half-diminished seventh chord featuring D-flat and G-natural as boundary pitches. This striking beginning introduces a conflict between D-flat and G-natural that accumulates significance as the song unfolds. While there are several unwieldy leaps in the song’s opening, the most striking takes place in measure 11, where D-flat is left hanging. The abrupt breaking off of this upper trajectory creates a melodic disjunction that is not explainable by either reaching over or contour expansion. The gap between the two levels of melodic activity created by this leap persists throughout the rest of the song, and no true resolution of either the pitch or dramatic conflict occurs.

In Structural Functions of Harmony (1956) Arnold Schoenberg systematically represents chord relationships as topographical regions within a “monotonality.” In a similar way, his 1937 orchestration of the Brahms Op. 25 G minor Piano Quartet systematically relates various instrumental colors within a rather monochromatic, organ-like orchestral sonority. Schoenberg’s “Chart of the Regions in Minor” arranges eight harmonic regions around a central “tonic minor” (t) according to four degrees of relatedness: (1) the tonic major (T), minor subdominant (sd), mediant major (M), and five-minor (v) are “closely related,” (2) the dominant (D) and submediant major (SM) are “indirect but closely related,” (3) the subdominant major (SD) is “indirectly related,” while (4) the subtonic (subT) is “indirectly and remotely related.” Instrumental sounds operate within a similar structure in Schoenberg’s orchestration of the Brahms Piano Quartet: strings, clarinets, and horns realize the tonic as well as closely related harmonies (sd, M, v) while the solo oboe italicizes the remote subtonic. For Schoenberg, the relatively small pitch and dynamic ranges of the solo oboe circumscribe its characteristic identity and sharpen its colorful, “plastic” individuality while the clarinet, horn, and string sections create a relatively colorless, “transparent” sound throughout a fairly large pitch and dynamic range. Just as Brahms uses subtle differences between a violin and a viola to underscore harmonic changes, Schoenberg’s various string-wind doublings realize structural functions of harmony with a structurally functional orchestration.

The four-voice organum works of Perotin are considered landmark achievements in the history of Western music. Although the Magnus liber organi contains only two of these works, Viderunt Omnes and Sederunt Principes, their influence is wide-ranging. In order to explicate the breadth of Perotin’s influence, I examine Sederunt Principes with respect to two highly temporally distinct contexts: the thirteenth-century treatises of Johannes de Garlandia and Anonymous IV, and the much more recent case of Steve Reich’s music and writings. The application of rhythmic modal theory found in the treatises of Johannes and Anonymous IV helps indicate transcription  inaccuracies in the l’Oiseau Lyre edition of the Magnus liber organi. My analyses of Sederunt Principes also pursue an approach never explicated in the aforementioned treatises: an
exploration of how rhythmic modes may be combined and juxtaposed to create direction, to create textural shifts, and to exploit the ambiguities of metric perception. Steve Reich’s writings openly acknowledge the influence of Perotin’s organa on the structure of his Music for 18 Musicians. Interestingly, there are additional parallels (including exploiting metric ambiguities) between Perotin and himself that Reich does not draw. Like Reich, Perotin’s innovation lies not just in the fact that he used repetition, but also in the ways in which he was able to integrate subtle variation into repetitive figures. Viewing Perotin’s music from these perspectives helps provide significant analytical insights into his unique sound world (a sound world that paradoxically sounds at once ancient and modern).

This paper accepts Margaret Bent's (1996) assertion that counterpoint must be primary to our understanding of Renaissance music. Thus, rather than using a "mode" to define tonal structures, this paper takes notated pieces of music as its primary documents, and uses the way their voices interact (their counterpoint) to define the unique spaces through which they move. Focusing on how objects move in implied spaces shows how composers might have thought of different diatonic and chromatic spaces. This paper will show that we need not assume such a musical and historical disjunction between music that uses the traditional “hard” or “soft” scales (generally accessible to modal analysis) and music that mixes these scales or implies a truly chromatic space (problematic for modal analysis). Where the two scales are mixed within one piece, their interactions are often defined in ways required by contrapuntal motion. And when a true chromatic space is implied, the motions between chords often suggest that it is organized in such a way as to show relationships among more traditional diatonic spaces. Modern “modal” analysts are likely to label such excerpts with multiple modes (perhaps with one “primary”), but focusing instead on the composer’s craft (the counterpoint) more accurately reflects the smooth, logical flow of most pieces. Examples with unique uses of chromatic and diatonic spaces will be taken from Zarlino, Gesualdo, Palestrina, and Josquin, and demonstrate that simply labeling a piece with a "mode" ignores many of the truly interesting aspects of pitch structure in Renaissance music.

A great deal of music written since the twilight of the tonal era projects into prominence a single pitch class above the others without attending to the other principles of harmonic progression and voice-leading typically associated with traditional tonality. Such music invites analysis that places pitch centers at the heart of a perspective of the music’s structure. This paper proposes an analytical model that begins by focusing upon the pitch classes and other pitch events that figure most prominently in aural perception of this repertoire. This gives rise to speculation about connections between these pitch elements and other aspects of the work. Investigation of these potential correlations may confirm their existence and significance or may lead to revision of the speculative ideas about such correlations. A perspective of the tonal principles (or tonal ambiguity) governing the music eventually emerges from this process. Conditions of salience (adapted from Fred Lerdahl) and of “tonal residue” (evocation of tonic-defining techniques from the tonal era) provide criteria by which we can describe how particular pitch classes are made  prominent. At times, a pitch class might be only weakly emphasized, or multiple pitch classes might vie for centricity by simultaneously invoking different conditions. Taking cues from David Epstein, I follow this exploration of perceptual criteria with a frank assessment of the roles of subjectivity and ambiguity in the perceptual and speculative aspects of this method. To  demonstrate this approach, and its limits, I provide analyses of works by Ligeti, Carter, and  Bartók.

This presentation advances a pedagogical framework for an aural skills class devoted to post-tonal music. The class was designed to teach the skills required to perform new music in an ensemble setting. The curriculum was based on approximately two dozen compositions that students learned and prepared for performance. Classes were run as workshops in which students learned to problem-solve melodic and rhythmic challenges, and to learn various strategies for honing these skills. There were no tests, quizzes, transcriptions, or dictation, and only a bit of sight reading. Students were assessed solely on their ability to perform the literature accurately and fluently. I will summarize the syllabus, the learning outcomes, the grading scheme, and the sequence of repertoire for the course. I will then describe what worked and what did not work, based on my own observations and the students’ informal and anonymous evaluations. My primary aims are: to suggest that a performance-based approach to a post-tonal aural skills has several distinct advantages, to shed light on several recent works that are worthy of study, and to stimulate thought about the pedagogy of post-tonal aural skills.

This paper examines Heinrich Schenker’s notes on invertible counterpoint and fugue contained within the Oster Collection as preparations for a study on form. Although the content of some of the notes ended up in Counterpoint, Schenker alluded to reserving the discussion of invertible counterpoint and fugue for a separate study on form. The paper is in three parts. First, the paper lists the contents and concepts pertaining to invertible counterpoint and fugue as contained within File 83 of the Oster Collection. Second, the paper examines those concepts that Schenker focused on most intently, including behavior of consonances and suspensions under invertible counterpoint. Third, the paper analyzes two fugues written by Schenker within File 83 that demonstrate aspects of invertible counterpoint and form.

This paper introduces a partition of Schoenberg’s signature set, the 6–Z44 hexachord, into four systems (orbits), in close analogy with Cohn’s four systems of maximally smooth cycles of hexatonic triads, and offers analytical examples of pairs of adjacent sets from this perspective. The partition may be naively constructed by noting that an element of 6–Z44, e.g., X={012569}, may be inverted in two distinct ways that (1) hold fixed a pentachord (that is, the maximum number of common tones) (2) exchange pcs separated by ic 2 (rather than ic 1, as stipulated in Cohn 1996). For example, sliding pc 2 in X to pc 4 yields x'={014569}, while sliding pc 6 in X to pc 8 yields, x"={012589}. By inspection, x' and x" are distinct inverted forms of X. As detailed explicitly in the theoretical portion of the paper, the above implicitly defines two contextual inversions J and K that act on 6–Z44 (just as the neo-Riemannian contextually defined inversions P and L are defined on the harmonic triads). An analytical application involves an aspect of the well-studied second movement of Webern’s Op. 27 that has been overlooked, because it is secondary to the row-forms employed in the piece, while depending upon the registral deployment of these rows about A4 as a pitch-space axis of symmetry.

By the early nineteenth century, some composers began to bend the ‘common practice’ of monotonality by allowing two or more keys to co-exist within the same composition, each salient enough to render a monotonal understanding of the composition problematic. Such uncommon tonal structures exhibit what is known as polyfocal tonality, also known as directional or progressive tonality. The process of analyzing these structures is the topic of this paper. As Edward Cone puts it, there are three ways of reading a detective story, or in this case polyfocal structures. Cone believes that there should be three stages of hearing a work and that each stage may constitute much consideration and many hearings before the next stage can be reached. The First Stage represents a relatively naïve perception, the Second Stage a polished monotonal analysis, and the ideal Third Stage a conglomeration of the first two stages. In this paper, I will present polyfocal Lieder of Schubert along with a new method of analysis that allows multiple keys and their interactions to be included in a single graph as a means of representing the Third Stage of analysis.

For Theodor Adorno, a twelve-tone row is an idealized spatial arrangement in which each pitch class is equidistant from the others, obliterating music’s spatial and temporal relationships. An analysis of Schoenberg’s Fourth String Quartet, a late twelve-tone piece that mimes sonata form, explicates Adorno’s thoughts on the new music’s uneasy balance of temporality and atemporality, subjectivity and objectivity. Unimpressed by the systematic manipulation of row forms, Adorno argues that these static objects must instead be animated on the musical surface, by rhythmic manipulations. The result is a fractured musical surface, characterized by “gestures of shock,” and strikingly similar to the rapidly oscillating moods of Schoenberg’s Erwartung. Henri Bergson’s idea of duration, and his critique of spatial metaphors for time (concepts invoked only briefly by name in Philosophy of New Music, but which seem to animate much of its thought about musical form and temporality) show how Erwartung, in Adorno’s words, “unfolds the eternity of a single instant in four hundred measures.” By avoiding repetition, it subverts the ongoing processes of perception and memory that, for Bergson, characterize our durational experience of time. In this way, Erwartung has no memory, and is trapped in a perpetual, traumatized present. In contrast, the Fourth Quartet actively attempts to create a sense of memory, using repetition to foreground the passage of time and self-consciously diagram itself with the framework of sonata form, in an effort to impose order on the rhythmically fragmented twelve-tone surface, and to “remember” and connect with a lost tonal tradition.

During his first period of mature works, beginning in 1960 and ending in 1968, Arvo Pärt belonged to a small cadre of talented young composers who publicly experimented with serialist techniques, despite an official ban that style, which the Soviet Union regarded as a symbol of Western decadence. Pärt soon renounced serialism and has since gained international acclaim for his tintinnabuli works, leaving the compositions of this period the least understood and certainly the least appreciated of his career. In this paper I present detailed analyses of Perpetuum mobile (1963) and Symphony No. 2 (1966) in order to examine the nature and extent of Pärt’s serial techniques. The techniques found in these works reveal significant differences between Pärt’s use of the row and practices found in the West. These differences extend not just to the relatively recent experiments in total serialism being explored by the avant-garde composers of the Darmstadt school, but also to some of the techniques employed by Schoenberg himself in the early days of serialism. Nevertheless, it is clear that Pärt had a good understanding of the basic tenets of serialism and these pieces serve as a clear example of a Soviet composer’s attempts to forge connections with compositional techniques developed in “the West” during the post-Stalin Thaw. The analyses I present lead to a consideration of Pärt’s early works first as an essential part of the wave of serial composition that occurred in the 1960s in the Soviet Union, but also as an interesting moment in the history of serial composition, which enjoyed perhaps its final serious adoption in the Soviet Union in the 1960s, coinciding with Pärt’s first decade of mature composition.

Musicologists have identified instances of modular structure in compositions from a variety of styles and historical periods. Compact musical modules, often just a few notes in length, are the elemental materials from which modular compositions are constructed. Because of their brevity and simplicity, these modules can be interchanged, recombined, transformed, or otherwise reconfigured into a number of different formations. The multi-functionality of each module and the diverse structures that emerge from the initial modular array are the main ideas explored in modular compositions. Listeners attend to the multiplicities intrinsic to modular structures, and to the musical processes that make these multiplicities audible. Certain contemporary composers, notably Anthony Braxton and Roscoe Mitchell, have used modular strategies to coordinate improvisatory performances. The characteristic qualities of modular compositions—complex, multivalent structures generated from simple, reconfigurable modules—are especially apparent in Braxton and Mitchell’s pieces for improvising ensembles, where each performer is tasked with independently articulating and developing a single module. This talk centers on the Roscoe Mitchell composition “Checkmate.” I examine its modular architecture and analyze two very different performances from 1972 and 1977. The analyses show how the ensemble’s interactions and the individual performers’ interpretive decisions are continuously inflected by the modular framework of the composition. I also argue that further studies of modularity could offer a way out of the interactionist paradigm that has dominated improvisation studies since the 1990s.

An intriguing development in recent passacaglia writing is the subversion of tonal closure, via themes that employ elements of traditional tonality but veer away from the putative tonal center. A conventional passacaglia is a kind of loop, but a rather flat one: the tonal motion proceeds primarily in one direction, from tonic to dominant, then drops rapidly back to the tonic. Modulatory passacaglias present manifold deformations of this model, including more nearly circular forms, with no obvious start or endpoint, and spirals or helixes that progress in an orthogonal dimension even as they circle back to their initial position. Some themes modulate stealthily, undermining the sense of key by replacing the half cadence of a traditional open passacaglia with a more conclusive cadence in a “pretender tonic”—only to return to the opening sonority in a trompe l’oreille. Others hover between two or more equally plausible tonics, with different cadence points suggesting different tonal centers. This transforms the traditional passacaglia loop into a Möbius strip, as tonally contrasting “sides” follow one another with no discontinuity. A common feature of modulatory passacaglias is Shepard-effect voice-leading, which creates the illusion that the prevailing motion continues in one direction even as the theme repeats. Beginning with a consideration of Henry Purcell’s ground-bass songs, whose wraparound technique foreshadows modern developments, I analyze examples by Dmitri Shostakovich, Philip Glass, György Ligeti, and Bill Evans.

György Ligeti stated that his micropolyphonic compositions were “governed by rules as strict as Palestrina’s or those of the Flemish school, but the rules of this polyphony are worked out by me.” (Ligeti in Conversation, Ernst Eulenberg, Ltd., 1983, p. 14) Some of the “rules” for Ligeti’s micropolyphony are preserved in his sketches, and others can be derived from the compositions themselves. While the canonic melodies and cluster-based harmonies of compositions like Lux Aeterna (1966), and the Requiem (1963-65) are well understood, the rhythmic procedures of these pieces are not, although they are worked out with equal care, showing regard for the balanced organization of different rhythmic layers, the placement of note changes within each layer, and the coordination of these note changes, beat by beat. Ligeti was well versed in the species of counterpoint developed in Fux’s Gradus ad Parnassum, and used in Knud Jeppesen’s writings on Palestrina, and it is apparent from his own sketches that he considered his own micropolyphony in a similar regard—as a new species of counterpoint, defined by the rhythmic organization of the voices. This paper presents an in-depth examination of the rules for Ligeti’s micropolyphony, their origins, purposes, and applications, using his Lux Aeterna as the purest expression of this style.

Few things in music provide listeners with a more consistent set of expectations than the ostinato. From microcanons to passacaglias, Ligeti seems to have been fascinated with repetitive textures throughout his career, yet he often uses ostinati to set up conflicting expectations and metric tensions between different musical strata. A crystalized example of this can be found in his piano etude Fanfares which can persuasively be understood as a compendium on how to destabilize the metric structure of an ostinato. Through a series of techniques that question the cyclic nature of this figure, Ligeti creates an intriguing question for listeners: which, if any, metric layer is primary? In addition to examining the interaction of conflicting rhythmic layers in Fanfares, this paper develops Andrew Imbrie’s categories of listening strategies using a scheme to describe a historian’s attitude towards political change. These new categories not only map out the general attitude towards emergent metrical structures (whether a listener is willing to let go of the previous meter), but also distinguish the relative duration that an alternative metric layer need be present before a listener makes the switch. In conclusion, my paper demonstrates how these categories are not only useful in evaluating some of the metric play in Fanfares, but can also be applied to other contexts

Topic theory, as first defined by Leonard Ratner, has become a useful tool for analyzing and interpreting meaning in music of the Classical style. This paper expands topic theory to the interpretation of popular music by defining a common topic from 1960s pop/rock music: the classical music topic, or the importation of classical music elements into a pop/rock song. I first define some of the topic’s distinctive features and their potential inspiration, and then demonstrate how the expressive content of the topic usually falls into four distinct categories: serious, nostalgic, ironic, or fantastic. These forms of expression were relatively new to pop/rock music at the time, and often were brought about by the expressive correlations of the classical elements themselves, such as the evocation of the past or the serious nature of this higher style. Additionally, the topic was often juxtaposed against the established pop/rock style to create the new emergent meanings of irony or fantasy. I will examine several songs by the Beatles from 1965–69 as exemplars of these four expressive categories: “Eleanor Rigby,” “In My Life,” “Piggies,” and “Because.” Songs by mostly British rock groups from the same era (e.g., the Rolling Stones and the Zombies) will also be mentioned as further examples of the topic’s use. Finally, I demonstrate how manipulating, diluting, or eliminating the classical music topic alters the meaning of the song using cover versions of “Eleanor Rigby,” especially Aretha Franklin’s 1969 cover.

Music theorists often use the words archetype and schema interchangeably: both words describe a musical pattern learned from the experience of listening. These words, however, have quite different epistemological underpinnings. In the context of style analysis, Leonard B. Meyer describes an archetype as a pattern that is “stable over time” and that “may help to illuminate the nature of the changes that have occurred in the history of…music.” Schema, on the other hand, comes from a cognitive bent and Robert O. Gjerdingen defines it simply as a “mental representation.” There may be merit in keeping these terms separate, with “schema” operating within a style and “archetype” transcending styles. This paper will first compare two Galant schemata—the Prinner and the Romanesca—with two analogous schemata from the vastly different music of Elton John—schemata that I have termed the Levon and the Chameleon. Then the style-specific features of these two pairs of structurally similar schemata will be removed to approximate the two metastylistic archetypes: the 4-3-2-1 stepwise bass descent archetype and the stepwise octave bass descent archetype. Finally, I will briefly discuss two possible uses for archetypes: archetypes as analytic tools used to detect changes in musical styles and archetypes as superordinate schemata abstracted from listening to a diverse repertoire of music.

In the early 1980s the art rock/noise band Sonic Youth became interested in hardcore music. They also incorporated elements of hardcore into their songs, but the style became transformed as they adopted it. In their early songs “Shaking Hell” and “I’m Insane,” riffs characteristic of hardcore break into repeated fragments and are juxtaposed to form dissonant chords locked in perpetual struggle with themselves. “White Cross,” from the 1987 album Sister, quotes and then inverts musical and lyrical elements found in thrash metal, one of hardcore’s descendants. Sonic Youth’s impulse to fragment and invert other styles stems from, in part, an ambivalent attitude they take toward popularity. They were fascinated with contemporary musical trends and at the same time wished to remain independent from means through which others achieved popularity. Harold Bloom’s concept of anxiety of influence, which suggests that artists create space for themselves by deliberately misinterpreting their predecessors, provides an apt model for their creative response to this pressure. This presentation maps connections between the ideological position of alternative rock bands and their songwriting. In addition, it provides insight into Sonic Youth’s musical techniques, which helped establish them as one of the most influential alternative bands of the 1980s.

Alexander Scriabin envisioned his Prometheus, op. 60 as a “symphony of sound” counterpointed by a “symphony of light.” However, the work premiered without the tastiera per luce (light organ) as hoped. Since then, the relationship between the lights and the music has not always been well understood. This paper reassesses this relationship based on 1) the “Parisian score,” a manuscript containing Scriabin’s annotations for the light part, and 2) a fresh staging of the work produced by this author in collaboration with lighting designer Justin Townsend for the Yale Symphony Orchestra. The luce part in the published score is a visual analysis of the work occurring on two temporal levels: a faster part corresponding to the harmonic rhythm, and a slower part dividing the work into seven formal sections. Additionally, the Parisian manuscript calls for spectacular effects which were impossible to realize with Scriabin’s available technology, and existed only in his imagination. New technology can bring a performance of Prometheus closer to Scriabin’s vision than ever before. Yet, staging Prometheus also generates questions related to the performance of an imaginary work. First, is a real-time temporal analysis visually interesting? Can analysis be performance? Second, the very fact that Scriabin’s effects are now possible somewhat diminishes the spirit of their imagined impact. Prometheus embeds a peculiarly modernist paradox: it was a vision of the future, so only in the future can an “authentic” performance be realized—a statement perhaps as true today as it was a century ago.

This talk theorizes the relationship between sound and sense in Bob Dylan’s singing via a study of multiple performances of “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” a fixture of his concerts for over 45 years. The paper both traces the diachronic evolution of Dylan’s vocal rendering of the song and drops the needle synchronically on specific performances, analyzing the ways in which his vocal techniques in a given era signify within and around the song’s words, and within the broader cultural formations that have provided the context for his career. In addition to a bewildering range of keys, tempos, and instrumental idioms, Dylan has employed a striking diversity of vocal styles when re-creating the song, from the laconic drawl of the mid 1960s, to the sharp-edged holler of the 1974 tour, to the guttural bursts of recent years. The first part of the talk offers a theoretical framework for exploring these technical aspects of timbre, pitch, and expressive timing. Part two then takes up questions of meaning. Building on the Peirce-inspired work of Turino, Cumming, and Clarke, I propose that we can conceive of Dylan’s voice as a special kind of sign, one that interacts with the sign systems of the lyrics, and with broader cultural signifiers, in diverse ways. Among other things, this ever-changing vocal sign provides an aural cue for Dylan’s mercurial, shifting personas: from the ambitious beat poet and protest icon of 1960s, to the inscrutable figure of the 2000s, curator of a quasi-mythical musical past.

Previous analyses of Ravel’s music have focused primarily on details of motive and sonority without adequately appreciating consistencies in the larger designs. I will show that an important group of Ravel’s works shares a design based on what I (following Straus 1982) will refer to as tonal axis. The first movement of Ravel’s Piano Trio features an A-minor/C-major double-tonic complex whose constituent pitches, A-C-EG, serve as a referential set that fulfills the conditions of Straus’s tonal axis: it consists of overlapping major and minor triads, functions as a referential sonority and harmonic generator of the piece, and embodies a conflict or polarity between its two constituent triads. I understand the Trio’s tonal axis as the pre-war pinnacle of a larger development in Ravel’s tonal practice, the evolving juxtaposition of relative major and minor modes—here viewed through the lens of sonata form in Ravel’s pre-war chamber music (1897–1914). While the single-movement Sonate posthume follows the classical convention for minor-mode sonatas (exposition i–III/recapitulation i–I), the String Quartet’s first movement inverts the major-minor relationship (I–vi/I–I). The Introduction et Allegro’s progression from minor to major (intro vi; I–vi/I–I) foreshadows the Piano Trio’s fully-fledged double-tonic complex, where the first movement’s i–I/i–III trajectory defers the attainment of the major tonic to the last movement. I propose that Ravel’s practice of juxtaposing major and minor triads evolves into the mixed-mode thematicism and ‘polytonality’ of the postwar chamber works (the sonatas for violin/cello and piano).