Brahms's late setting of Klaus Groth's poem "Im Herbst" has recently come under special scrutiny by theorists, an attention well deserved and for more than just the extraordinary quality of the music. Groth's meditation on autumn-as-end-of-life seems particularly opposite to Brahms's position in the tonal tradition. What has not been noticed is the extent to which Brahms's setting is a complex essay that reassesses the state of the musical language at the same time that it expresses the poem's underlying images. The heart of this is the duality of Groth's metaphor: autumn as an ending. In the natural world it has its place in an endless cycle, but for the individual, the prospect of death must be accepted and perhaps transcended. This yields three processes: the cyclical, an endless return amounting to stasis; the progressive, a straight-line unidirectional motion toward a single goal; and the spiral, which restricts goal-directed motion within a continual cycle. Brahms creates musical metaphors for each of these processes; for the cyclic, an unusual motivic palindrome, (linked to a turn figure); for the spiral, a recurring harmonic progression; and for progression, the linear progression of Schenkerian theory. This paper will explore the interactions and conflicts among these three structural processes, and the way these are utilized by Brahms to create a subtly-nuanced reading of the text, and will also show the part that Brahms's revisions play in this picture. Especially acute is the problem of accommodating cadential closure in a work in which this process has come to symbolize death. Brahms's ending aims to demonstrate that closure as a tonal norm can be simultaneously reasserted and questioned.
In this paper I explore the role of motivic development in Liszt's symphonic poem, Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne. The premise of my paper is twofold: primarily, I propose that Liszt's concept of motivic development takes place on different levels in this work, and secondly, that this development is directly linked with Liszt's intended poetic idea. The most accessible, that is, audible level of development occurs on the surface with the intermingling of four important melodic motives. More significant, however, is the motivic development that takes place on deeper structural levels. My analysis reveals that Liszt uses symmetrical partitionings of the octave into major and minor thirds as motivic entities that are also intertwined along with the melodic motives throughout the composition. In my presentation, I show that the symmetrical partitionings are initially presented in conjunction with two of the more prominent melodic motives, the voice of nature and of humanity. I also describe a process of motivic development in which the musical elements of the motives are developed separately: each motive and its associated harmony, rhythm, and intervallic structure are developed independently and exchanged freely with that of other motives. It is through this fusion of the various motives and their elements that I am then able to describe a correlation between the motivic development and a possible poetic idea for this symphonic poem.
In general, the objectives of a performer are not all that different from those of a theorist: both strive for comprehensive understanding of a musical work. Understanding, which is thus central to the tasks of both musicians, is a concept widely critiqued in the twentieth century. In opposition to the traditional idea of understanding as the possession of objective knowledge, writers like Gadamer and Heidegger think of understanding in terms of empathy with a text. Gadamer, for instance, equates understanding with interpretation and believes that dialogue is necessary in order to attain true understanding about a subject. In his view, then, a "conversation" between the interpreter and the object takes place in which the two participants play equal roles, each striving for greater understanding and more useful knowledge. Performers very naturally integrate understanding and interpretation; they would understand Gadamer's point very well, I think. Theorists, however, tend not to see the musical object as something that can enter into a dialogue; they tend to see it objectively, as something which can be explained. It is here, I will argue, that a performer can provide the theorist with much needed insight, not just about specific details in the music, but about one's very relationship with the musical work. What this paper will argue for, then, is dialogue between the theorist and the performer rather than simply dialogue between the performer and the musical work or the theorist and the musical work. It is with these ideas that I will approach Hugo Wolf's Mignon I, constructing a possible dialogue between a singer and theorist.
If past and present students of Jean Philippe Rameau's fundamental bass theory could make one request of the great master, they would likely agree on one particular wish to be granted: provision of a practical guide to composition using fundamental bass principles. Readers encountering Rameau's pedagogy in the Traite de l'harmonie of 1722 might indeed wonder if Rameau actually taught what he preached or preached as he taught. Though none of Rameau's theoretical publications was devoted exclusively to composition, one particular manuscript source of Rameau's was: "L'art de la basse fondamentale" (MS2474, Institut de France). "L'Art de la basse fondamentale" is believed to be the textbook draft for a six-month composition course that Rameau taught between 1739-1744. Though Rameau never published the contents of "L'Art," an Italian emigre by the name of Pietro Gianotti did. Thus, in 1759, Gianotti published his reworking of the contents of "L'Art de la basse fondamentale" in Paris under his own name as Le Guide du compositeur. Gianotti's publication of Rameau's ideas under his own name might lead to plenty of speculation regarding matters of plagiarism, adaptation, and reworking. This paper will not only reveal how Gianotti presented Rameau's ideas, but also examine how Gianotti's Guide perhaps fulfilled Rameau's own wish for a definitive published version of his practical theory. It will also uncover many of Rameau's asides in "L'Art" omitted by Gianotti in the Guide that reveal some hidden glimpses of Rameau as teacher.
The harmonic circles devised for guidance and ease of modulation are easily traced back to the eighteenth century. Previously, however, Andreas Werckmeister often alluded to the harmonic Circul in his discussion of modulation and transposition. His opinion was that the advantages of flexibility offered by tempered systems of tuning far outweighed the loss of purity found in non-tempered systems. He considers movement by several different intervals, but the interval of a third seems to take a prevalent position in his writings. Werckmeister provides, in his Nothwendigsten Anmerckungen und Regeln wie der Bassus Continuus oder General=Bass wol konne tractiret werden (Aschersleben 1698), a table which is, in essence, a circle of thirds. An analysis of this circle, its evolution, and its applicability to the music provide important insights into the transitional period between the modal system and the major/minor tonal system of harmony.
In 1915, Debussy began work on a series of Six Sonates pour divers instruments, of which three were completed: the Sonata for cello and piano (1915); the Sonata for flute, viola, and harp (1916), and the Sonata for violin and piano (1917). Debussy's decision to use sonata form in these works is surprising since it seems to represent a reversal of his musical aesthetic of preceding years. Until the sonatas, both his compositions and the views expressed in his critical writings showed a preference for elasticity of form, that is, a freedom from traditional forms. Of the nine movements, the Prologue of the Cello Sonata stands out for its close adherence to the harmonic and thematic format of sonata form, with eight distinct sections that clearly imitate the functions of introduction, first theme, second theme, development; climax, retransition, recapitulation, and codetta. Yet even with these ovenvhelming correspondences, the Prologue emphasizes an aesthetic distance from sonata form. The most significant way Debussy establishes this aesthetic difference is by inverting the organic principle of nineteenth-century sonata form. By imitating (and thus invoking) sonata form but then rejecting the organic principles it came to embody, Debussy acknowledges sonata form conventions while simultaneously inverting them. This paper explores anti-organicism in the Prologue of Debussy's Cello Sonata, and identifies the compositional approaches that create anti-organicism amid the many sonata and sonata-form references.
Victor Young's "Stella by Starlight" has several features that make it of the more distinctive pieces in the repertoire of American popular songs. Jazz performances of "Stella" can be analyzed by considering how a performer regards these distinctive features. I will analyze one such performance by Oscar Peterson along these lines. Peterson's studio performance of December 3,1965 includes five choruses; I shall focus upon the first two. Like many jazz renditions of standards, Peterson's is based on the assumption that the listener knows the theme rather well. Instead of beginning with a clear and direct statement of the theme, Peterson only paraphrases the theme's melody during the first chorus. He also paraphrases the theme's harmony with an almost imperceptible tonal shift down a whole tone. The second chorus is further removed from the melody of the theme but closer to the harmony since the tonality does not shift. Because references to the melody are fewer and more veiled, one senses that Peterson is leading the listener from the theme to his subsequent fully improvised choruses. This analysis will demonstrate how a jazz artist presents a classic theme in various guises, each of which has a degree of conformance to the original. It will conclude with a consideration of the implications of such analyses for the pedagogy of jazz improvisation.
The musical manifestation of "minimalism" in music is frequently considered to be a reaction against the atonality and serialism pioneered by Amold Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School. Minimalism's seemingly endless repetitions, its apparent lack of motivic coherence, slow and relatively tame harmonic motion, and unabashedly strict diatonicity would seem to be diametrically opposed to the aesthetic view of music held by Schoenberg and his school. Yet in pieces such as Harmonielehre and the Chamber Symphony, the minimalist composer John Adams pays tribute to Schoenberg as a composer and theorist. This may possibly stem from the fact that Adams was exposed to Schoenberg's music and theories at an early age and received most of his compositional training from Leon Kirchner, who himself was a disciple of Schoenberg. Adams's Harmonielehre in particular demonstrates a fascination with the late Romantic music of Schoenberg (and to a lesser extent, Mahler) and with the aesthetic sensibilities of fin-de-siecle Vienna. Schoenberg's concept of the "tonal problem," as explained in his theoretical treatises, is incorporated by Adams into his Harmonielehre. A detailed examination of the Adams piece reveals the influence of Schoenberg's ideas on the musical idea, harmonic progression, and especially the analogy of tonality constituting a power struggle or open battle between competing tonalities. Adams's melodic and harmonic writing is compared to possible Schoenbergian models such as the First Chamber Symphony and the Gurrelieder, as well as to examples from Schoenberg's own Harmonielehre. Finally, a comparison is made between the compositional careers of both composers, showing remarkable parallels in the evolution of each composer's compositional style, as demonstrated by pieces that are related in terms of genre, harmonic vocabulary, and performing forces.
This paper presents an analysis of excerpts from Morton Feldman's Triadic Memories in order to explain the compositional process used in his late-period compositions. Proceeding from an understanding of Feldman's influences--abstract painters, aleatoric composers, and the minute detail and variation of Coptic rugs-along with insights gained from Feldman's own writings,--the presentation discusses how large-scale unity in his late-period works derives from a small-scale compositional process of change and repetition taking place from moment to moment, with unit durations often as short as an individual measure. The primary focus of this discussion is on how the boundaries of the moment are initially defined, how individual elements are introduced and differentiated, and how the duration of the moment can expand and contract.
Antal Dorati's Cinq pieces pour le hautbois, written in 1980-81, is for so!o oboe without accompaniment. The third movement, "Fugue a trois voix," is a three-voice fugue based on a twelve-tone subject. This paper addresses the elements that favor the emergence of perceptible independent melodic lines from a single-line instrument, lines that are necessary for the perception of compound melody in an a post-tonal context. Using the perspective of theorist and analyst Ernst Kurth (1886-1946), it examines the realization of these elements and their degree of success in the "Fugue a trois voix." A contemporary of Schenker (1868-1935), Kurth has a melodic-genetic approach which downplays the harmonic component of Bach's music and emphasizes the linear melodic considerations. He exhibits an ongoing preoccupation with psychological questions pertaining to composition, analysis, and cognition - all areas relevant to the understanding of Dorati's fugue. Three individuals are involved in the perception of compound melody: the composer, the performer, and the listener. This paper will address how these element pertain to all three and will include a performance of the movement by the author.