Saturday, 9:00 am–12:00 pm
(Room 2330)
All in the Family: A Transformational-Genealogical Theory of Musical Contour Relations
Although the relatively recent proliferation of research in musical contour theory has yielded many vital analytical insights, a crucial phenomenological problem has yet to be fully addressed: the implicit reliance upon what Michael Friedmann has described as a “nonsynchronous” analytical perspective, whereby a contour’s constituent elements, though ordered in time, are in fact interpreted as fully and simultaneously present sonic entities. The temporal musical processes that these contours describe (melodies, rhythms, etc.), however, obviously do not present themselves in this manner—their constituent elements occur in direct succession, not simultaneity. Such contours, therefore, cannot be regarded as truly autonomous entities; rather, they represent but a single link, so to speak—albeit, the crucial culminating link—in a cumulative transformational contour chain. The contour <1023>, for instance, actually begins as the singleton <0>, and evolves successively into the contours <10> (its first two elements) and <102> (its first three elements) before coming to exist as such.
This paper presents a system of musical contour relations that is fully contingent upon this implicit transformational process. A “sexually reproductive” model for contour generation is employed to construct a universal contour “family tree,” which provides the foundation for relating contours based on their common “ancestry.” Subsequent analyses of Webern’s “Wie bin ich froh!” from his Drei Lieder, Op. 25 and Beethoven’s “Spring” Sonata, Op. 24 will demonstrate how contour relationships of this kind work to reinforce significant textual and rhythmic parallels in the former, and in the latter, to subtly subvert, and then ultimately reaffirm prominent thematic associations and formal procedures.
Atonal Voice Leading and Harmonic Progression in Webern’s Die Geheimnisvolle Flöte, op. 12, no. 2: Problems with Contemporary Theories
Recently, Joseph Straus has brought the traditional concepts of tonal voice leading and harmonic progression into the world of atonal music. During the transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, composers such as Schoenberg and Webern tried to escape the order of tonality, searching instead for ways of creating new sonorities in which each note could enjoy equal structural importance. They not only abandoned the old rules of voice leading, but also explored new voice leading techniques that would bring coherence to their atonal harmonic progressions. To test the limits of Straus’s theory, I analyze the initial section of seven-measures from Webern’s second song of Opus 12, “Die Geheimnisvolle Flöte” (1917). While Straus’s techniques do reveal some important aspects of voice leading and harmonic progression in Webern’s atonal style, in some textures they nonetheless seem problematic or musically misleading. My findings clearly suggest that Straus’s “Law of Atonal Harmony” applies only when the complete texture, piano plus voice, is analyzed. That is, the structure articulated by the accompaniment alone is negated or contradicted when the voice introduces pitch classes that do not appear in the accompaniment; in fact, in this section the piano does not repeat simultaneously any pitches appearing in the vocal line. My analysis may point towards a weakness in Straus’s theories; but I believe it verifies a unique feature of Webern’s atonal lieder: that each pitch of a structural sonority can carry equal—if not competing—voice leading integrity. It is a theory requiring further development in the future.
Order, Unity, and Discipline: Copland’s Use of Two Symbiotic Rows in Inscape
Copland’s change to serialism produced novelties, but it also refocused and systematized some of his traditional interests, especially in whole-tone and diatonic formations. Inscape was completed in 1967 and is the last of Copland’s four twelve-tone works. Copland once remarked that the work was inspired by the principles of order, unity, and discipline, which were expounded by his teacher, Nadia Boulanger. Inscape is unique in its use of two intricately related, symmetrical twelve-tone rows that have distinct functions, which the composer called “row 1” and “row 2.” The row identified by Copland as row 2 is used mainly as a source of harmonic material, while row 1 was in fact extrapolated from row 2, and is the main source of linear material. Row 1 was in fact extrapolated from row 2, suggesting that Copland’s identification of the two rows appears to have been based not upon the chronology of derivation, but rather on the prioritization of melody over harmony. Rows 1 and 2 are founded on a unique kind of whole-tone complementation that also informs the surface level, and both can be partitioned in specific ways into smaller numbers of families. Significantly, there are intriguing similarities between Inscape and Copland’s other twelve-tone works such as the Piano Fantasy, which also employs a symmetrical row and features the articulation of whole-tone collections on multiple structural levels.
Rhythmic Precision in Performances of “New Complexity” Composition
In February of 1994 the British composer Roger Marsh published a short, incendiary essay in which he implicated violinist Irvine Arditti for failing to accurately perform various rhythms in Brian Ferneyhough’s Intermedio alla Ciaccona, a work for solo violin written especially for Arditti. Using an informal assessment of Arditti’s recorded performance Marsh mounts nothing less than a full frontal assault on the ‘New Complexity’, as practiced by Ferneyhough. Marsh’s assessment of the role of rhythmic precision in ‘New Complexity’ scores reflects a common criticism of this music – that the rhythms are impossible to perform as notated. This is not unlike what was said about Beethoven’s late string quartets in his day. But, Marsh assumes that Ferneyhough intended his rhythms to be performed in an inflexible, mechanical fashion. He wants us to believe that the notation of extremely complex subdivisions of the beat is a red herring, or a kind of superfluous, eye music. This paper argues that this particular red herring is a red herring itself. In fact Marsh and similar critics miss the point about why a composer might want to employ nested tuplet rhythms and the like. There are musical, psychological, aesthetic, and technical reasons for doing so. Reasons that Marsh’s article either dismisses outright, or simply does not mention. Using audio processing programs to precisely measure durations and attack times in recorded performances of Intermedio alla Ciaccona, as well as other violin solos from the twentieth-century and Common Practice Era, this paper attempts to quantify the degrees of variance in each case, between what is notated and what is performed. An attempt is made to discern whether there is a significant difference, and whether this difference significantly alters our perception of the compositional structure. In his informal assessment, Marsh conflates the notions of langue with parole, whereas ‘New Complexity’ notation succeeds in foregrounding their differences. He expects Ferneyhough’s compositional praxis to approach “a coherent musical language,” yet it resembles a sign system, marked-up with attributes from what composer Herbert Brün once called “antilanguage.”