Analytic Approaches to Twentieth-Century Music by Joel Lester; Meta + Hodos and METAMeta + Hodos: A Phenomenology of 20th-Century Materials and an Approach to the Study ofForm by James Tenney; The Time of Music: New Meanings, New Temporalities, NewListening Strategies by Jonathan KramerReview by: Robert CarlNotes, Second Series, Vol. 47, No. 4 (Jun., 1991), pp. 1107-1110Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/941618 .Accessed: 14/01/2012 06:27

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Book Reviews

Analytic Approaches to Twentieth-Century Music. By Joel Lester. New York: W.W. Norton, 1989. [x, 303 p. ISBN 0-393-95762-4.]

Meta + Hodos and META Meta + Hodos: A Phenomenology of 20th- Century Materials and an Approach to the Study of Form. 2nd ed. By James Tenney. Oakland, Calif.: Frog Peak Music, 1988. [116 p.] The Time of Music: New Meanings, New Temporalities, New Listen- ing Strategies. By Jonathan Kramer. New York: Schirmer Books; Lon- don: Collier Macmillan, 1988. [xviii, 493 p. ISBN 0-0287-259-05.]

These three books share a common point of origin-they are serious analytic texts written by musicians who are also theorists. Joel Lester is violinist for the Da Capo Play- ers in New York; James Tenney and Jonathan Kramer are respected composers. All have solid academic credentials, teach- ing at, respectively, the City University of New York, York University, and Columbia University. These authors bring fresh per- spectives to analysis, based on their musical experience. Lester provides an exceedingly lucid and common-sensical introduction to twentieth-century analytic techniques, re- flecting his concern for concrete, perceiv- able structures, the knowledge of which can enrich interpretation. Tenney and Kramer both approach analysis with a more "stra- tegic" attitude, reflecting the composer's awareness of composition as an ongoing sequence of decisions.

Joel Lester's Analytic Approaches to Twentieth-Century Music succeeds admirably in introducing "theories with as little jargon as possible, emphasizing those aspects that lead to more informed hearing of the mu- sic's structure and content" (p. ix). I ap- proached this book with some skepticism, because several substantial texts in the field already exist, including George Perle's Se- rial Composition and Atonality (5th ed., Berke- ley: University of California Press, 1981; 6th ed., 1991), John Rahn's Basic Atonal Theory (New York: Longman, 1980), and Charles Wuorinen's Simple Composition (New York: Longman, 1979). But Lester proves the specific worth of his text by tak- ing an approach different from that of the other authors. Perle's work is a superb trea- tise, but does not easily serve as a core text- book for an analysis course; Rahn's book, while a pedagogic success, is really de- signed as an introduction for future spe-

cialists; and Wuorinen takes the composer's viewpoint, providing a series of abstract creative exercises that comprise a sort of contemporary Gradus ad Parnassum.

Lester, on the other hand, has written an eminently practical text that is geared to- ward an undergraduate (or non-theory- major graduate) audience. The work consists of (1) an introduction to the twentieth-century revolutions in rhythm, timbre, and texture; (2) a lucid presenta- tion of set theory techniques and their ap- plications to a variety of models; (3) a comprehensive introduction to serial tech- niques; and (4) a brief summary of con- temporary innovations. Lester's work in the second and third of these is especially ad- mirable, in that he both expands set theory to embrace the analysis of larger tonal/ modal regions and demonstrates that seri- alism is a diverse network of techniques- more an attitude than a system-that includes such products as Milton Babbitt's time-point system, Igor Stravinsky's non- dodecaphonic serial pieces, and Peter Max- well Davies's reinterpretations of medieval music. Further, on purely pedagogic grounds, the book is well-suited to class- room use. The analyses tend to focus on a particular principle under discussion, rather than attempting comprehensive- ness. A series of summaries, questions, and exercises follows every chapter.

If I have any criticism of Lester's work, it is that his literary and analytic skills are such that he could easily present an even greater range of "approaches," rather than reinforcing the idea that set theory and serialism are the only two legitimate sys- tematic models for analysis. For example, why not consider the processes of motivic/ harmonic transformation in the music of Jean Sibelius? Timbral/registral "modula-

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NOTES, June 1991

tions" as a generative principle in Edgard Varese? Tonal "punning" overlaid on non- functional relations in the neo-classical Stravinsky? Tonal "subversion" in Satie? Literary/cultural reference in Charles Ives? In short, the variety of analytic strategies is wider than Lester might have us believe. While there is no doubt that the techniques he presents are by far the most solidly es- tablished in the field, there is now an ex- plosion of new theoretical thinking that admits a less hermetic approach and de- lights in attacking aesthetic issues that might have been considered too amor- phous earlier. By avoiding it, Lester takes a conservative route, but within this frame- work evidences real thoughtfulness and openmindedness. I only hope that he brings these qualities to bear on future ex- panded editions of (or companion volumes to) this satisfying text.

James Tenney's Meta + Hodos and META Meta + Hodos are a pair of texts from either side of an original career. Ten- ney is both composer and theorist, a rig- orous intellect who has always been drawn to the experimental tradition of Ives, Henry Cowell, Charles Ruggles, and Harry Partch. Meta + Hodos, the earlier and more substantial text, dates from 1961 and was Tenney's master's thesis at the University of Illinois. As such, it is a brilliant work, the

product of a student who had already ab- sorbed and transcended most of the ana-

lytic models submitted to him. The book presents three major theses:

1. The basic unit of any musical work is that smallest possible event-called a temporal gestalt, or "TG" -that can be perceived as a unity, while still maintaining its own internal structure on the even smaller scale of musical elements. TGs can in turn be organized into monophonic or poly- phonic sequences whose similarities and differences generate a concept of mu- sical form for a work.

2. The various parameters of any musical TG combine to give it a contour or shape. For example, Tenney devotes attention to the dynamic envelope on the third note of Varese's Density 21.5, maintain- ing that it is just as important to the

piece's first TG as its series of pitches or intervals. Only when the progressive de- velopment of every significant parame- ter is taken into account can an accurate

shape of a TG or sequence be rendered. There is no set hierarchy of parametric significance; though some parameters' spectra (such as those of timbre or vol- ume) are more difficult to judge pre- cisely than others, this does not preclude their being the determining factors in a work's structural profile.

3. Once a series of TGs and sequences is identified, their relative similarities and differences can begin to delineate a mu- sical form on several levels. These com- parisons set up a standard for grouping that can in turn identify patterns on even higher levels. Thus, a hierarchy of cor- respondences is created that is in fact the music's form and structure.

The particular power of Tenney's thought is its abstractness. Free of any sin- gle parametric association, it provides not just an analytic tool, but also an approach to composition in any medium. As such, it has been highly influential on a whole school of composers, in particular those, such as David Rosenboom and Larry Po- lansky, who have applied these ideas to music software design for interactive com- positional systems.

When we confront Tenney's META Meta + Hodos from 1975, however, a prob- lem arises. This is a highly condensed out- line of his constructs that reads like notes for a fascinating seminar. Although the

cryptic definitions and axioms (many of which refer back to the earlier text) are tantalizing, one yearns to see this thought applied in greater depth to real analytic or

compositional situations. Tenney refers to certain mathematical equations and scien- tific concepts without fully explaining their

application to musical situations (Meta + Hodos, by comparison, includes an excellent glossary). These observations are not meant to challenge the validity of Tenney's thought; rather, one hopes that he will fill the gap between these two "bookends" with a work that extends the discoveries made in the earlier text and fleshes out the ideas

proposed by the later one. Doing so seems more necessary for Tenney than it would for Lester, because Tenney is more ambi- tious in his desire to redirect analytic think-

ing. Such a work would make his thought more a part of the discourse, a fate it de- serves.

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Book Reviews

Jonathan Kramer's The Time of Music is the most wide-ranging work of the three-in fact it is several books in one. This is an unusual book in style, form, and content: Kramer alternates between de- tailed analysis and personal anecdote, cul- tural essay and psychological speculation, overviews of others' work and highly per- sonal theories. At times, the style is "learned" and then it suddenly pulsates with boyish enthusiasm. Such shifts are dis- concerting at first-the first few chapters, while very readable, seem disconnected and somewhat scattershot. But with time, the pieces fall into place and this discur- siveness becomes an almost novelistic plea- sure for the reader. In attempting to cover a topic as vast and slippery as musical time with the range of approaches that it merits, Kramer may have produced the first major "postmodern" analytic treatise. (His work calls to mind that of Leonard Meyer, John Barth, and Roland Barthes.)

Kramer's primary aim is to provide a tax- onomy of the different temporal modes in which music is conceived, realized, and per- ceived. As a standard by which to identify different temporal modalities, he proposes an axis of linearity/non-linearity (perhaps related, he writes, to the different hemi- spheric functions of the brain). One is goal- directed, relying on anticipation (and possible frustration) of projected events to create a teleological experience; the other is holistic, creating a comprehensive im- pression of the music through cumulative listening. Within this spectrum there exists an almost infinite number of hybrid time forms (including such seeming paradoxes as non-linear functional tonality and linear atonality).

Because Kramer is a composer, and be- cause twentieth-century music has been heavily influenced by non-linear ap- proaches, it is not surprising that the most satisfying portions of the book deal with "less-linear" temporalities. Of particular delight is an analysis in chapter 6 that re- orders the material of the first movement of Beethoven's String Quartet, op. 135, in order to show that it is a "multiply directed" piece-that is, several related musical works that intercut and leapfrog over one another. An analysis of Frederic Rzewski's Les moutons de Panurge is one of the first instances I have ever seen of a serious at-

tempt to explain the global structure of a "vertical time" piece (one that creates a sense of timelessness). And studies of Schoenberg's Klavierstiick, op. 19, no. 1, and the first movement of Webern's Cantata no. 1, op. 29, make convincing cases for their respective atonal non-linearity and linear- ity, while simultaneously giving such con- vincing evidence of different tendencies on other musical levels as to support exactly the opposite conclusion, should one desire. (Kramer cheerfully admits such a possibil- ity; part of his point is that the intersection of different, sometimes contradictory tem- poralities gives good music its richness and ambiguity.)

But Kramer presents his most origi- nal and provocative idea in discussing "moment-time." Using Stravinsky's Sympho- nies of Wind Instruments as a model, he builds an elaborate case for this work as the prototype for music that tries to make each successive event in a piece a self-contained unit, thereby creating a series of musical "presents." This analysis is so elaborate that one can easily miss the forest for the trees. Once we have passed through the detailed description, however, Kramer uses his findings to draw an important conclusion: moment pieces do create a larger musical form, through the projection of perceiv- able and consistent proportions between sections, measured in real-time duration. Fur- ther, Kramer claims that in Symphonies and Agon, a single ratio for each controls most of these proportions on every level.

His thesis strikes home, because our era is one whose experience is increasingly fragmented, disordered, and "clock- driven." It makes sense that composers who eschew the old teleologies, but who want to create a new sense of artistic balance, would turn to such a strategy-consciously or not-that relies on cumulative rather than narrative listening to limn a form.

Inevitably, much remains in dispute on this point. First, one may not agree with all of the moment and submoment demarca- tions in Kramer's analysis. Second, one must wonder if differences of tempo and musical material warp our perception of duration. Kramer attempts to address this question in a chapter on temporal percep- tion, but his survey of research in the field-while lucid, comprehensive, and fascinating-shows only too well how slip-

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NOTES, June 1991 NOTES, June 1991

pery the subject really is. Thus, his pre- mises cannot yet be proved, but they remain a bold point of departure for both theoretical and creative work.

A book this large and ambitious can only whet one's appetite for more. I would have enjoyed seeing Kramer's treatment of such topics as the use of historical styles or ma- terials as symbols of time itself (that is, time not just as a musical parameter but as an artifact); the impact on our perception of time by improvised music, which comes from a "sustained present" maintained by the player during performance; and an

pery the subject really is. Thus, his pre- mises cannot yet be proved, but they remain a bold point of departure for both theoretical and creative work.

A book this large and ambitious can only whet one's appetite for more. I would have enjoyed seeing Kramer's treatment of such topics as the use of historical styles or ma- terials as symbols of time itself (that is, time not just as a musical parameter but as an artifact); the impact on our perception of time by improvised music, which comes from a "sustained present" maintained by the player during performance; and an

analysis of a classic non-Western piece (from Indonesian gamelan or Japanese gagaku, for instance) to illustrate non-linear techniques that have been refined for cen- turies. Despite these cavils, The Time of Music is a major work, open and non- dogmatic; in its creativity and eclecticism it is a challenge and foundation for specu- lation about musical issues previously dis- missed as unanalyzable.

ROBERT CARL Hartt School of Music University of Hartford

analysis of a classic non-Western piece (from Indonesian gamelan or Japanese gagaku, for instance) to illustrate non-linear techniques that have been refined for cen- turies. Despite these cavils, The Time of Music is a major work, open and non- dogmatic; in its creativity and eclecticism it is a challenge and foundation for specu- lation about musical issues previously dis- missed as unanalyzable.

ROBERT CARL Hartt School of Music University of Hartford

MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE

The Monophonic Lauda and the Lay Religious Confraternities of Tuscany and Umbria in the Late Middle Ages. By Cyrilla Barr. (Early Drama, Art, and Music Monograph Series, 10.) Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan Uni-

versity, 1988. [xvii, 213 p. ISBN 0-918720-89-3; 0-918720-90-7 pbk.]

In recent years, the Italian lauda has be- come the subject of intense study from sev- eral points of view. American scholars have concentrated primarily on archival studies of the institutions that performed these re- ligious songs, while Italian musicologists and literary scholars have investigated the poetry and music along with the manu- script and printed sources themselves. The fourteenth-century lauda, in particular, has been of great interest because of the two extant manuscripts that preserve musical settings, one in Cortona and the other in Florence, both published in facsimile and transcription by Fernando Liuzzi in 1935 (La lauda e i primordi della melodia italiana [Rome: Libreria dello Stato]). Documen- tary evidence for the performance of this

repertory was first investigated by Frank D'Accone in the 1970s. Recent American research (especially by Blake Wilson and the author of the book being reviewed) has extended the documentary studies into the fifteenth century, and Italian work still in progress (by Giulio Cattin, et al.) has re-

The Monophonic Lauda and the Lay Religious Confraternities of Tuscany and Umbria in the Late Middle Ages. By Cyrilla Barr. (Early Drama, Art, and Music Monograph Series, 10.) Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan Uni-

versity, 1988. [xvii, 213 p. ISBN 0-918720-89-3; 0-918720-90-7 pbk.]

In recent years, the Italian lauda has be- come the subject of intense study from sev- eral points of view. American scholars have concentrated primarily on archival studies of the institutions that performed these re- ligious songs, while Italian musicologists and literary scholars have investigated the poetry and music along with the manu- script and printed sources themselves. The fourteenth-century lauda, in particular, has been of great interest because of the two extant manuscripts that preserve musical settings, one in Cortona and the other in Florence, both published in facsimile and transcription by Fernando Liuzzi in 1935 (La lauda e i primordi della melodia italiana [Rome: Libreria dello Stato]). Documen- tary evidence for the performance of this

repertory was first investigated by Frank D'Accone in the 1970s. Recent American research (especially by Blake Wilson and the author of the book being reviewed) has extended the documentary studies into the fifteenth century, and Italian work still in progress (by Giulio Cattin, et al.) has re-

turned to the two previously mentioned manuscripts for a reevaluation in light of current scholarship.

Cyrilla Barr's The Monophonic Lauda is a collection of essays dedicated to several as- pects of the lauda in north-central Italy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the first two chapters Barr presents the re- sults of her archival studies of the musical activities of two categories of confraternity, those whose principal activity was the sing- ing of laude and those whose devotions centered around self-flagellation. Chapters 3 and 4 are concerned with the two prin- cipal fourteenth-century musical sources, along with a few fragments, and chapter 5 is an essay on the "marginal liturgy" or Holy Week services of two confraternities. The value of this book lies principally in the first two chapters and the last, where much original material is presented, with exten- sive quotations (usually in good transla- tions, with the originals in notes) from the documents. The chapters on the musical manuscripts are much less useful, consist- ing primarily of summaries and discussions of work by other (mostly Italian) scholars. For the non-expert, such a summary in En- glish does have some interest. Barr, how- ever, makes no attempt to get to the most intriguing musical questions, those dealing with musical form and performance practices - in particular rhythm-other than to cite some conflicting opinions. The musicologist can do better by consulting the original books and articles, and the layper-

turned to the two previously mentioned manuscripts for a reevaluation in light of current scholarship.

Cyrilla Barr's The Monophonic Lauda is a collection of essays dedicated to several as- pects of the lauda in north-central Italy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the first two chapters Barr presents the re- sults of her archival studies of the musical activities of two categories of confraternity, those whose principal activity was the sing- ing of laude and those whose devotions centered around self-flagellation. Chapters 3 and 4 are concerned with the two prin- cipal fourteenth-century musical sources, along with a few fragments, and chapter 5 is an essay on the "marginal liturgy" or Holy Week services of two confraternities. The value of this book lies principally in the first two chapters and the last, where much original material is presented, with exten- sive quotations (usually in good transla- tions, with the originals in notes) from the documents. The chapters on the musical manuscripts are much less useful, consist- ing primarily of summaries and discussions of work by other (mostly Italian) scholars. For the non-expert, such a summary in En- glish does have some interest. Barr, how- ever, makes no attempt to get to the most intriguing musical questions, those dealing with musical form and performance practices - in particular rhythm-other than to cite some conflicting opinions. The musicologist can do better by consulting the original books and articles, and the layper-

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