Sunday, 11:00 a.m. –12:30 p.m.
 Room 2105 (Iger)

Schoenberg    

Chair: Daniel Jenkins (University of South Carolina School of Music)

  • Schoenberg and the Concerto: A Study in Drama and Structure
    Brian Alegant (Oberlin College Conservatory) & Andrew Mead (University of Michigan)
  • Transformations and Hexatonic Cycles in Schoenberg’s Modern Psalm op. 50c
    Joe Argentino (U. of Western Ontario)
    • Program

    Schoenberg and the Concerto: A Study in Drama and Structure

    This presentation explores the ways in which Arnold Schoenberg exploits the dramatic possibilities of the concerto to articulate large-scale structure in two of his mature twelve-tone compositions, the Violin Concerto (op. 36) and the Piano Concerto (op. 42). It addresses the individual properties of each work, as well as rhetorical and structural features that they share. Ultimately, we will show how certain insights derived from this study can illuminate a broader range of Schoenberg’s compositions.

    We pay particular attention to the timbre, partitioning schemes, and dramatic roles of the cadenzas. We summarize the observations that scholars have made about the first movement cadenza in op. 36 and the piano’s cadenza in the third movement of op. 42, then analyze the two other cadenzas in op. 36 and the “orchestral cadenza” in op. 42. One structural feature shared by these cadenzas is a construct we call a dyadic complex, a procedure used by Schoenberg to combine the dyads of inversionally-related rows into tetrachordal collections that are not available as row segments. We trace the history of the dyadic complexes in these works, investigate the range of possible collection types that can be so derived, and discuss the limitations on their invariance properties under various operations.

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    Transformations and Hexatonic Cycles in Schoenberg’s Modern Psalm op. 50c

    Schoenberg’s final and largely ignored musical statement, Modern Psalm Opus 50c, is a hexachordally combinatorial work based on a 6-20[014589] hexachord. Set class 6-20’s trichordal generators contain at least one instance of interval class 4, and thus these trichordal subsets can symmetrically divide the aggregate by interval cycle 4, or the interval classes of the 3-12 trichord. The significance of the 3-12 trichord extends from guiding hexachordal regions and formal design, to representing Schoenberg’s God.

    An enhanced understanding of Schoenberg’s final serial work, and the sources of his strict compositional techniques, enriches our perception of not only this notable composition, but also his earlier adoption of these techniques, including serial and atonal compositions. This paper adapts Cohn’s hyper-hexatonic space for both local and large-scale serial applications that include newly formed cycles (Tac,Tea, hTc), and reveals new hexachordal groups of contextual transformations (SDR and SWAP). The theoretical constructs that I have derived from analysis of Modern Psalm may be used as a prism through which to investigate other serial and non-serial works based on the 6-20 hexachord and/or subsets. Thus my paper provides not only an innovative way of viewing the particular works of this important composer, but also a theoretical framework for investigating other serial and atonal works.

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    Program