Music Theory Southeast
14th Annual Meeting
Friday, March 4–Saturday, March 5, 2005
ABSTRACTS
Interphrase Connections
in Gesualdo's Six Books of Madrigals
John Turci-Escobar, University of Georgia
Critics have often adduced the stark discontinuities
of Gesualdo's late madrigals as evidence of expressionistic excess or, worse,
compositional ineptness. Indeed, Gesualdo's music is an extreme manifestation
of the tendency towards increased fragmentation inherent to the late Italian
madrigal, a tendency fueled by Humanist aesthetics, which urged composers
to move the passions by vividly depicting every word in the poetic text.
Yet, there are many ways in which Gesualdo's highly expressive music
encourages the perception of musical continuity, even between highly contrasting
phrases. This paper examines five types of musical devices that create interphrase
continuity in Gesualdo's madrigals: (1) weakened cadences, (2) phrase overlapping,
(3) the resolution of hanging
tones, (4) overarching melodic lines, and (5) motivic connections.
I discuss representative examples of each type, often tracing the genealogy
of a particular device as it changes over the course of Gesualdo's madrigal
production. In particular,
I am concerned with uses that both express the poetic text and create musical
continuity, thus serving both mistress and master (pace Giulio Monteverdi).
"How one thing leads
to another":
The Notion of
Process and Unity in WebernÕs Atonal Music
Carolyn Mullin, University of Oregon
In a 1932 lecture, Webern said "Unity...
is the establishment of the utmost relatedness between all component parts. So in music, as in all other human utterance,
the aim is to make as clear as possible the relationships between the parts
of the unity; in short, to show how one thing leads to another." A process
that I call "focusing" contributes to the coherence of Webern's
Three Short Pieces, Op. 11. This process reflects Webern's notion of "how
one thing leads to another" mentioned in The Path to the New Music.
My interpretation of the work offers a different analytic perspective
from previously published analyses—adding another 'piece to the puzzle'
of our understanding of Webern's atonal music.
I demonstrate a three-stage overarching
process called "focusing".
This process unfolds through a network of subsets and supersets around
6-Z19 [013478] and 6-Z44 [012569] that is suggested in the first movement,
realized in the second movement, and then is distilled or condensed to its
bare essentials in the third movement.
Traditional pitch-class set relations appear to be the most effective
means for describing my understanding of this work, but I also discuss patterns
created by contour, pitch interval successions, and rhythm that reinforce
my interpretations. The analytic tools employed here all demonstrate
intricate networks of relationships, which not only contribute to form, but
also provide global coherence in each movement and coherence over the entire
work. By examining the processes
that contribute to coherence in Op. 11, we can not only provide a thorough
picture of how Webern creates unifying structures across an entire work, but
also reflect Webern's own notions about unity and process.
Dovetailing
in John Adams's "Chain to the Rhythm"
Alex Sanchez-Behar, Florida State
University
Minimalist composers have used the overlapping
technique of musical dovetailing since the 1970s. John Adams's "Chain to the Rhythm,"
from Naive and Sentimental Music
(1998-99), exemplifies this principle.
The term dovetailing can be defined as a precise method of connecting
neighboring formal sections of a work.
It allows smooth transitions through an overlap of old and new musical
material. Block and textural subtractive processes, in conjunction with decreasing
dynamics, are common indicators of a dovetailed entry. A block subtractive
process involves gradually removing notes from a repeated or ostinato figure,
while a textural subtractive process entails a reduction of instruments playing
collectively. Each of these factors
enables a reduction of sound. The opposite effect—a block and textural additive process—frequently
signals the closing stage of dovetailing.
This paper explores John Adams's recent approach to dovetailing as a form-defining element. Part I examines ways in which recurring motives can be modified to allow the process of dovetailing. Here, I expand on additive and subtractive processes, and include more general modifications such as transposition, beat-class transposition, and inversion. Part II illustrates different models for dovetailing and demonstrates an interrelation between formal sections and dovetailed transitional passages. Next, I consider a recurring "Adamsian" set class, 4-26 [0358], as a signal for new formal sections. This study concludes with a comparison of dovetailing passages in terms of duration, formal beginnings of sections, and their initial sonorities.
Speaking
Dramatically through Linear Analysis:
Characterizations
in Menotti's The Telephone
Elizabeth Lena Smith, Florida State
University
Menotti's The Telephone is a twenty-two
minute, one-act American realist opera in which Ben proposes to his girlfriend
Lucy. A seemingly simple task becomes an impossible
one as numerous telephone calls, the arias of this opera, interrupt Ben's
proposal attempts. The current study shows the interactions between musical
events (depicted on a strongly Schenkerian-based linear graph) and the dramatic
events with which they coincide. Menotti
informs our view of Lucy and her daily activities through the pairing of musical
and dramatic constructs within the first telephone call— specifically,
the pairing of structurally significant musical events with plot-forwarding
dramatic action and the treatment of key expectation as a parallel of conversational
expectation. After creating a normative behavioral
model for Lucy's telephone calls, identified within the linear analysis of
the first call, Menotti subjects Lucy to various deviations from her conversational
patterns. Structural changes within the music of subsequent calls show how
Menotti characterizes Lucy with a range of emotions responding to unanticipated
conversational patterns. Initially,
Menotti's musical settings for Ben conflict tonally with Lucy's.
As the story progresses, Ben gains an understanding of Lucy and eventually
overcomes the obstacle between them—the telephone.
With his newfound knowledge, he dashes to a phone booth and calls Lucy
to propose. Now in the same key,
they sing harmoniously of their love.
The
Referential Roles of G/Fx and A#/Bb
in
Johannes Brahms's
Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann, Op. 9
Hiu-Wah Au, Elizabethtown College
A referential entity—whether a
single pitch, a pitch-class cell, a chord, or a harmonic progression—can
relate discrete musical events separated in time. Referential relationships are uncommon in eighteenth-century
ornamental-style variations, since it is the principle of repetition that
underlies the construction of this form. But in the nineteenth century, freer
variation techniques arise that demonstrate increased flexibility, sometimes
producing variations with different middleground and even background schemes
than that of the theme. In such
cases where the harmonic-melodic scheme of the theme no longer serves as the
unifying factor for the variation set, composers might hinge voice-leading
changes upon particular musical entities, thereby establishing
inter-variational connections across an entire set.
This paper takes Brahms's Variations
on a Theme by Robert Schumann, Op. 9, as a case study.
Among the sixteen variations, fourteen of them exhibit middleground
and even background deviations from the theme.
This study will demonstrate how G/Fx
and A#/Bb direct
these deep-level alterations in some variations. Acting singly or in combination,
these two pitch classes generate harmonic progressions and voice-leading paths
that are absent in the theme. This study will also show how these new harmonic progressions
and voice-leading paths are developed over the course of several variations,
creating a means of large-scale progression from one variation to another.
Auxiliary
Cadences and First Movements
Mauro Botelho, Davidson College
Schenker once famously declared, "Anton Bruckner was not capable of starting a musical thought, much less a whole first movement, with the aid of an auxiliary cadence." In reality, this seems easier said than done: a census of the literature reveals only a handful of first movements that begin with an auxiliary cadence. Constructing a sonata-allegro's principal theme over an auxiliary cadence presents composers with several challenges, in particular, how to deal with the auxiliary cadence when the principal theme reappears at the beginning of the recapitulation. Composers may choose a policy of segregation, where the recapitulatory principal theme is separated from preceding material, or pursue a strategy of integration, weaving the auxiliary cadence and principal theme into the voice-leading fabric of the development. Beginning the recapitulation with what was heard initially as an auxiliary cadence creates intriguing effects and complex interplay between formal function and tonal structure.
This study examines several first movements that begin with an auxiliary cadence. In the first movements of the Symphonies Nos. 73, 86, and 94, Haydn favors a strategy of segregation, although he does attempt integration in the String Quartet Op. 50, No. 6. Beethoven, however, achieves and surpasses integration in the first movements of the String Quartet, Op. 127, and the Piano Sonata, Op. 31, No. 3. In both movements, the principal theme, constructed over an auxiliary cadence, is gradually destabilized as it is pushed away from tonic—contextualized, as the movement progresses and modulates, within local harmonies. The principal theme reaches its most distant relationship with tonic precisely at the beginning of the recapitulation. Thus it must be recontextualized within tonic by exchanging its auxiliary-cadence underpinnings for a complete tonic progression.
A Behind-the-Scenes Look at compositional Method
(panel session)
Sketch study continues to change the face of Stravinsky scholarship.
Thanks mostly to the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel, Switzerland, Stravinsky scholars
enjoy the luxury of accessing many of the composer's original documents.
Indeed, the work of such researchers as Stephen Walsh, Gretchen Horlacher,
David Smyth, and Lynne Rogers, is steering us in new analytic directions,
directions that might not have come to light without access to the sketches.
This panel brings together four Stravinsky scholars with experience
working with his sketches. Don
Traut will begin, first by providing an overview of the role sketch study
has played in Stravinsky scholarship over the past few decades, then by presenting
his own work on the sketches from the "Grand Chorale," from The
Soldier's Tale. Mark Richardson will follow with a paper
devoted to the sketches of Agon, which include evidence of pre-compositional time limits and
secondary source material. David
Smyth will then describe some of the early sketches of Symphony of Psalms,
showing how Stravinsky's initial ideas relate to the work as we know it. In some cases, the differences are radical
and revealing, while in others, the essence of the music is already evident.
Finally, Joseph Straus will provide a response and commentary on the papers.
Overview and Initiation: The Sketches
for the ÒGrand ChoraleÓ from
The Soldier's Tale
Don Traut, University of North Carolina
at Greensboro
Stravinsky's sketches of "The Grand
Chorale" from The Soldier's Tale suggest that the composer struggled
mightily with this short piece, often considering multiple versions of a passage
before deciding on a definitive version.
This is particularly true of cadential figures, many of which went
through three to five revisions. Significantly, many of these discarded versions
reveal more overtly tonal formations than the published version.
Whether it's a leading tone that gets replaced by a non-harmonic tone,
or a key close to the home key of G major that becomes transposed, the sketches
strongly suggest that Stravinsky's formations do often derive directly from
altered tonal models. By lining
up the multiple sketched versions of particular passages with the corresponding
measures from the published version, these derivations become clearer. The paper also speculates about other
issues suggested by these sketches. For example, material from several different,
non-adjacent passages of the final version often appears on the same sketch
page, strongly suggesting that the chorale was not composed linearly, but
rather in discrete sections. These
and other aspects of Stravinsky's compositional process come to light in this
"behind the scenes" look at the chorale.
Some
Assembly Required: The Sketches for the "Saraband-Step" from Agon
Mark
Richardson, Eastern Carolina University
Stravinsky's nearly 140 sketches for his ballet Agon are loosely collected in a folder and written on manuscript
of various types and sizes. A
look at the collection reveals that Stravinsky had carefully saved nearly
everything relating to the creation of the work: music drafts, descriptions
of dance forms and rhythmic transcriptions from secondary sources, and even
his preliminary outline of the organization of movements, their timings and
assignment of dancers for each dance.
The four sketch pages for the "Saraband-Step" provide some insight into Stravinsky's method of sketching independent "musical blocks" that he then arranged in order. Each musical segment, though containing three or four contrapuntal strands, is independent and can be repositioned, transposed or slightly adjusted from one draft to the next. There is no written plan or numbering of musical blocks that suggests how these materials will be ordered specifically, though one sketch hints at the structural relationship between the two parts of the binary movement. Only when the sketches are compared with the final version, however, do the revisions made to the initial musical blocks and their arrangement begin to reveal Stravinsky's carefully devised plan—one in which the outer framework recalls features of the traditional dance form, while the inner details display an innovative technique in voice-leading and inversional relationships.
Stravinsky's Sketches for the Symphony
of Psalms
David
Smyth, Louisiana State University
Stravinsky wrote his sketches
for the Symphony of Psalms in a bound
notebook in which he ruled staves as needed. There are enough dates scattered throughout to confirm that
he worked through the pages in order, for the most part, filling the consecutive
openings as he went. This does
not mean that he always started at the top left one each verso.
Indeed, he frequently wrote only on the recto surface, leaving the
verso for later amplifications
or revisions.
Scholars who have consulted the sketches (Robert Craft
and Stephen Walsh, among others) have reported that the three movements of this
work, like those of the nearly contemporary Capriccio, were composed in reverse order, from last to first.
However, the genesis of the Symphony of Psalms is somewhat more complex. A closer look at the sketches shows that the composer
actually began with some experimental settings of the text of the second
movement, using musical ideas that eventually became the first. My presentation will describe some of
the early sketches in detail, showing how Stravinsky's initial ideas relate to
the work as we know it. In some
cases, the differences are radical and revealing, while in others, the essence
of the music is already evident.
Of particular interest are changes involving key signatures, time
signatures, or instrumentation, and passages that appear at more than one
transpositional level in the sketches.
The sketches provide glimpses into a compositional process considerably
less orderly than one might have expected from the Apollonian neo-Classicist.
Rhythm,
Resistance, and Analysis in Haydn's Quartet, Op. 20 No. 3
Eugene Montague, University of Central
Florida
Haydn's String Quartet in G minor, Op. 20, No. 3 has long been viewed as a confusing and somewhat intractable piece. James Hepokoski describes it as "a paragon of purposeful disorder and distraction," and William Drabkin states that it proves "resistant to analysis." These same commentators, however, do not deny intrinsic merit to the quartet—indeed, the features that both Hepokoski and Drabkin value about Haydn's quartet are also those that cause analytic confusion: the music's lack of continuity. This paper suggests, following these analytic insights, that it is the unsteady progress of this quartet through time—that is, primarily the rhythmic features of the music, understood in a broad sense—that is responsible both for the value of the piece and for its "resistance to analysis." Following from this I explore this quality of analytical resistance as an expressive feature of the quartet, rather than as a result of a purely intellectual understanding. Using analytic techniques drawn from the work of Christopher Hasty in rhythmic theory, I discuss the ways in which this music continually interrupts and subverts its own sense of forward progress. These same subversions function simultaneously as analytical problems—disturbing and intriguing an analyst of the music—and as disorienting aural experiences—affecting a listener (and performer) involved in the music. In reading these rhythmic events as both halting musical progress and "resisting" analysis, I suggest that the aesthetic and experiential values of analysis may not be so ineffable or intellectual as is often supposed.
Structuring
Timbre in an Octatonic Context: The Music of Bohuslav Martinu
Hubert Ho, University of California,
Berkeley
Recent theorists have debated octatonicism's ability to integrate the diatonic and chromatic elements of much early twentieth-century music. While many analyses rely primarily on pitch structure, recent research in the field of music perception and cognition has provided analysts with tools for using timbre as an essential element in delineating form. Timbre is dependent upon a number of variables, including (but not limited to) spectral content, loudness, attack characteristics, and pitch itself. The attractiveness of timbre as an analytical paradigm lies in its potential to permeate an entire musical work as it proceeds in time, perhaps doing for sound what Schenkerian analysis does for pitch in tonal music.
In the course of mapping out a terrain in
which timbre operates, this paper invokes the Terhardt/Parncutt model of pitch
perception, in particular the notions of pitch
The goal is not to turn musical works into
listening exercises, nor to use cognition results to validate any particular
way of hearing, but rather to use psychoacoustic knowledge to inform musical
readings, and to seek that elusive middleground between what Nicholas Cook
calls "attention-driven" listening and perception-driven "pre-attentive"
listening.
Minimalism,
Structure, Salience (and their absence) in
John Adams's Lollapalooza
Michael Buchler, Florida State University
Though John Adams is often called a minimalist,
his works of the last two decades have rarely been as systematic or as repetitive
as that label would imply. This
talk examines Adams's recent orchestral work Lollapalooza (1995) vis-à-vis the conventions
of its style. Primarily, we will
investigate issues of perceived versus actual periodicities and the metrical/temporal
implications such techniques engender. Lollapalooza features both steady
processes that are difficult to perceive and also passages that only sound
regular. For example, there are some motives that
recur roughly every four beats (e.g. usually 4, but sometimes 3.5, 3.75, or
4.25 beats); there are other motives that recur in a strictly regular pattern,
but one that is so complex and anti-metrical that motivic iterations seem
arbitrarily placed. Both complex and loosely periodic repetitions tug at the
metrical fabric in different sorts of ways.
Perceived meter and, more generally, our
sense of how time flows, are also affected by the thick stratification of
motivic layers. At certain points
in Lollapalooza, five
or more distinct (and generally incommensurate) layers are deployed. The threshold between clearly hearing
multiple layers and falling into a sort of chaos that challenges hearing any
layer will also be explored.
Some
Thoughts on Measuring Voice-Leading Distance
Clifton Callender, Florida State
University
Much recent research in music theory, including neo-Riemannian theory and work on fuzzy transposition by Lewin and Straus, has focused on parsimonious, or smooth, voice leading. This work either implicitly or explicitly adopts measures of distance between pitch or pitch-class sets. This paper explores various metrics underlying intuitive notions of voice-leading distance (vld) and their consequences. In particular, many intuitions about vld between two sets can be formalized as a p-norm metric. For instance, the default metric used in most work on vld, the sum of the absolute intervals traversed by each voice, and Euclidean distance are examples of 1- and 2-norm metrics, respectively.
When applied to less familiar situations,
especially those involving continuous spaces or large cardinalities, both
measures can lead to counter-intuitive results, though 2-norm is generally
the more successful of the two. Approaches to vld privileging minimal motion
correspond to p
> 1, while other approaches privileging common-tone
Ramism in Sixteenth-Century Music
Theory:
Friedrich Beurhaus's Treatises
The pervasive influence of the Renaissance Arts of Logos (Rhetoric and Dialectic) in all of its manifestations (Aristotelian, Philippist, Ramist, neo-Lullist, as well as mixed versions) can be detected in a staggering number of musical treatises, music textbooks, and even musical compositions stemming from the northern European humanist activity (roughly the period 1500–1650). Here I would like to focus on Ramism, a very influential version of the "new"Dialectic Method that organized the music-theoretic output of the era. I undertake a reconstruction of the cognitive categories manifested in the musical taxonomies of the celebrated German Ramist Friedrich Beurhaus, as found both in his popular university-level treatise Erotematum Musicae Libri Duo (Nürnberg 1580) and in the synoptic textbook version Musicae Rudimenta (Dortmund 1581). What emerges is not only a deeper understanding of the musical system and praxis of that era as such, but also an interesting case-study of the cognitive processes by which strong methodological preconceptions are capable of both guiding and stifling the organization of a cognitive domain.
Limits
of Objectivity: Toward a Quantum Philosophy of Music Theory
Adrian P. Childs, University of Georgia
The "theory colloquium" surrounding
Matthew Brown and Douglas Dempster's "The Scientific Image of Music Theory"
in the Spring 1989 issue of the Journal of Music Theory is taken as
a point of departure for further consideration of whether music theory can
or should be "scientific" in some fashion.
The traditional dichotomies often invoked
A consideration of the history of the development
of quantum physics suggests a means for mitigating the tensions of the subjectivity/objectivity
debate through musical parallels to superposition and the Heisenberg uncertainty
principle. The resulting analytical philosophy contextualizes the meaning
associated with various (even competing) analytical systems in a manner concordant
with both scientificist and postmodern desiderata.
Brown and Dempster's conclusions about particularism and the desirability
of an implicitly statistical basis for ascribing musical meaning are corroborated
without recourse to claims of objectivity.
Narrative
Codes and Voice-Leading Strategies:
Brahms's Intermezzo
in E Major, Op. 116, No. 6
Melissa Hoag, Indiana University
Brahms's Intermezzo in E major, Op. 116, No. 6 features a placid surface,
with seemingly fleeting disruptions to that placidity.
These momentary disruptions, however, increase in significance and
substance as the work progresses, and culminate with an emotional overflow
that seems to have been driven by some deeper process. Often when listening to music, one's attention is continually
drawn to various musical processes; this phenomenon is foregrounded in this
Intermezzo. Using Schenkerian voice-leading analysis as a foundation on which
to construct my hearing, I also invoke the literary theories of Roland Barthes
to structure three levels of musical narrative at work in Brahms. In particular, I use three of Barthes's
so-called narrative codes: the proairetic, the semic, and the hermeneutic
(see Barthes 1974 and McCreless 1988).
Barthes argues that as readers, we are seduced by the pull of a plot
line, or what he terms the proairetic (plot sequence) code, only to miss the
multiple strands and narrative gaps in the story. The semic code, which in
Barthes's theory refers to character development, serves as a musical analogy
to motivic and thematic development. The hermeneutic code in particular functions
in an important way in this Intermezzo, and serves as a musical foil to the
otherwise placid surface. Through
my analysis of this Intermezzo, I draw a music-listening analogy from Barthes's
argument which asserts that music listeners as well may be seduced by the
"plot" of a harmonic progression. Other processes, or musical narratives,
may be overlooked.
The purpose of this paper is to examine
alternative hearings of musical processes through Schenkerian analysis, as
well as alternative hearings through Barthes's narrative codes. Brahms's Intermezzo
Op. 116, No. 6 provides particularly fertile analytical grounds through which
complexities in hearing and analysis may be demonstrated.
Mickey
Mousing, Mood Music, and Conceptual Metaphor Theory
Juan R. Chattah, Florida State University
The processes through which one understands the meaning of music in film are analogous to the processes employed to recognize and understand metaphors. The Conceptual Metaphor Theory outlined by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson makes possible a rigorous theoretical approach for the analysis of film music. By mapping the visuals or the narrative into the aural medium, film music engages in a metaphorical process. The music coexists with the visuals and the narrative, but the uncovering of a meaningful link between these domains relies on our abilities to foreground some type of similarity between them. Examples from Hanna-Barbera and Disney cartoons illustrate the MOTION IN VERTICAL SPACE IS FLUCTUATION IN FREQUENCY, WEIGHT IS PITCH FREQUENCY, SIZE IS PITCH FREQUENCY, and SPEED OF PHYSICAL MOVEMENT IS NOTE VALUES conceptual metaphors. Examples from feature films illustrate how the techniques used for cartoons were adopted by many composers to score non-animated films. The function of music in film, however, is not limited to enhancing visual elements. Often, film music composers seek to portray a character's mood or state of mind. Examples from feature films illustrate the PSYCHOLOGICAL STATE IS INSTRUMENTAL TIMBRE, and MENTAL/PHYSICAL STATES ARE HARMONIC CONSTRUCTS conceptual metaphors. This theoretical approach allows for a better understanding of the function and structure of film music, and provides a framework for exploring how audiences derive meaning from the music that accompanies film.
An Interdisciplinary Approach to Musical Structure and Dramatic
Narratives in Opera
Matthew Shaftel, Florida State University
This paper explores the interaction between
formal structure and drama in opera, presenting an interdisciplinary model
of investigation and closing with a discussion of the first-act trio from
Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro as a case study.
The model integrates current music-theoretical approaches to form and
critical mechanisms from the fields of semiology, pragmatics, cognitive linguistics,
and iconology. The focus of the methodology is the analysis of signs in the
"language" of musical structure, but it allows a parallel track
for the interpretation of operatic drama, culminating in a final, integrated
level of exegesis. Ultimately, this critical examination
of form in conjunction with its intra-opus and extra-opus context leads to
a rich understanding of dramatic narrative, expanding the exiguous scope of
many music-theoretical considerations of opera.