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MTMW abstracts 2012
Friday, May 18
9:15-10:45: Modalities
“Unorthodox Modal Treatments in the Early Keyboard Works of Giovanni Gabrieli” (Nicole DiPaolo, Indiana University)
The music of Giovanni Gabrieli (c. 1557–1612) reflects a transitional time in the history of Western art music: whereas Renaissance modal systems had dominated in the sixteenth century, the early seventeenth century saw them beginning to lose their grip in favor of functional tonality. Though Gabrieli is best known for his polychoral and basso continuo works that employ emergent tonal hierarchies, he also composed a number of keyboard pieces extemporizing on the twelve modes; however, discussions of Gabrieli’s modal writing are largely absent from analytical discourse. In this paper, I will examine two of Gabrieli’s solo keyboard works, the Fuga on the 9th Tone and the Ricercar on the 8th Tone (1595) —both of which partially or completely “break the rules” of Glarean and Zarlino—with the aim of situating their modal irregularities within the musical fabric of each piece as well as within the changing musical climate of Gabrieli’s time.
“Ravel’s “Laideronnette” from Ma Mère L’oye: A Fusion between Javanese Gamelan and the West” (Samantha Wagner, Ball State University)
Known for its fantastical program set in a fairy tale world, Ma Mère L’oye journeys even farther to another culture for its third movement, “Laideronnette, Impératrice des Pagodes.” During an interview in 1931, nearly twenty years after “Laideronnette’s” composition, Ravel admitted that harmonic and melodic material for the movement reflects his understanding of Javanese gamelan music. While it is known that Ravel was introduced to the Javanese gamelan at the 1889 Paris Exhibition, little research has been done on Ravel’s associations with the tradition. One area of study that has been largely ignored is how Ravel might have translated such a vastly different musical system, as found in Java, into turn-‐of-‐the-‐century Western tonality.
My goal is to shed some light on this area of study by proposing relationships between “Laideronnette” and Javanese gamelan music through the investigation of harmonic and melodic aspects from the movement. This study will examine the construction and use of scales from both traditions as well as a discussion on mode. Melodic aspects include the use of countermelodies and phrasing. Lastly, I will also explore large-‐scale features such as tempo and form.
“Lydian Tonality in 1970s Rock Music” (Brett Clement, University of Cincinnati)
This presentation aims to bring attention to one of the most neglected modes in rock music and scholarship: the Lydian mode. I will argue that the Lydian scale plays a larger role in rock music than previously acknowledged, particularly in songs of the 1970s. My purpose will be to outline the ways in which the Lydian scale can manifest itself as a true “tonality” distinct from the familiar major/minor system. This will be achieved by positing a hierarchy of pitches and chords in the scale, which will then establish a series of expectations for melodic and harmonic events that are characteristic of a variety of 1970s rock songs.
Following a discussion of Lydian pitch fundamentals, I will identify two structural chords in the mode: Lydian I and II. I will demonstrate how the remaining diatonic chords are put into relation with these primary chords, and will present musical examples from several artists that realize these harmonic relations in different ways. This will lead to a list of three “tonal stability rules” for Lydian structures. The final analytical portion of the presentation will address controversies surrounding Lydian interpretations of rock progressions. I will argue that previous denials of Lydian tonality have resulted from unfamiliarity with Lydian norms. A concluding analysis of Todd Rundgren’s “Love of the Common Man” (1976) will detail interplay between “relative” modes A Lydian and E Ionian, creating tonal ambiguity and effects of tonicization.
9:15-10:45: Across the Pond
“Britten’s Harmonic Stasis” (David Forrest, Texas Tech University)
Leading analyses of Benjamin Britten’s music seem largely incompatible with each other. Many authors suggest that Britten replaces tonal harmonic motion with other unifying devices such as tonal stratification, motion between members of structural interval cycles, or axial centricity. While the variety of approaches provides us with an appreciation for Britten’s rich, complex technique, the disparity between them fails to capture the unity in his oeuvre. This paper will reveal commonalities between seemingly contradictory analyses and thus highlight Britten’s compositional signature. First I will introduce and define Britten’s harmonic stasis. Next I will review and expand on leading analyses of Britten’s music, showing how each contributes to the harmonic stasis model. Finally, I will introduce new analyses which further explore the concept of harmonic stasis.
Harmonic stasis is, simply put, the complete denial of expected harmonic motion. Britten’s use of pitch centricity and a triadic surface creates an expectation for progression between structural tonic, dominant, and predominant areas. However, much of Britten’s music does not display such motion beyond the musical foreground. While temporary
denial of harmonic expectations is a fundamental expressive tool used by many composers, Britten often leaves tonal harmonic expectations completely unfulfilled. This complete denial of structural expectations distinguishes Britten’s harmonic syntax from the common practice and creates a sense of stasis. Harmonic stasis also provides a common thread between the approaches of a wide variety of Britten analysts.
“Vaughan Williams’s Circular Forms” (Ian Bates, Lawrence University)
In this paper, I argue that the formal strategy of returning to a work’s or movement’s opening material at its conclusion is a central feature of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ musical style, one that has previously been identified in specific works but whose significance to the composer’s output as a whole seems to have gone unnoticed. What is particularly striking is the frequency with which these returns of opening material remain substantially unaltered from their original presentations. Because these pieces literally return to the place where they began, their form is essentially circular, making them seem perpetually incomplete and lacking closure.
A cursory examination of these works reveals that such unaltered returns vary in the degree to which they create a sense of incompleteness and formal circularity. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the sense of circularity is strongest in works whose circular form is supported by cyclical processes in other domains, and I show that the Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1 is truly exceptional in this regard. I also consider the reasons why Vaughan Williams’ use of unaltered returns to generate circular forms seems to have peaked during the years 1914-‐34. These formal designs may be a natural outgrowth of the non-‐developmental melodic organization adopted by the composer during this time. However, these changes in Vaughan Williams’ melodic and formal writing may also reflect the synthesis of his theories of musical evolution with a world-‐view profoundly coloured by his experiences during World War I.
“Frederick Delius’ The Song of the High Hills (1912): Two-‐Dimensional Sonata Form, Cumulative Variation, and “the wide far distance”” (David Byrne, University of Cincinnati)
One hundred and fifty years after the birth of Frederick Delius, there are still few analytical studies of his distinctive music, often criticized for its “rhapsodic” formal structures. While Deryck Cooke and Anthony Payne have mentioned the sonata-‐based forms in Delius’ concertos, the more creative adaptations of sonata form in Delius’ tone poems remain unexplored. James Hepokoski has shown how modern sonata theory can profitably engage both the musical structure and the programmatic content in Strauss’ tone poems. I propose a related view of a work cited as one of Delius’ finest: The Song of the High
Hills, for large orchestra and wordless choir. This work demonstrates what Steven vande Moortele has recently termed two-‐dimensional sonata form, in which “the different movements of a sonata cycle are combined within one single-‐movement sonata form”. Between the development and recapitulation sections, Delius inserts a slow movement that displays an inventive process of cumulative variation, in which the main theme is only fully revealed at the work’s climax, before the compressed recapitulation that is the sonata cycle’s finale. The overall form has been compared to the ascent and descent of a mountain; my analysis aptly reflects this perspective, highlighting the structural contrast between vertical motion (sonata) and horizontal stasis (variation). The sonata sections feature rapid harmonic rhythm and purposeful dynamic direction, vividly portraying the exhilaration of the climber. In contrast, the inserted “plateau” episode and variation movement perfectly convey what Delius marked in the score as “the wide far distance – the great solitude”.
11:00-12:30: Tonalities
“Dissolving Monotonality: Competing Tonics in a C.P.E. Bach Free Fantasia” (Haley Beverburg Reale, Youngstown State University)
Free fantasias may offer the best insight into the compositional mind of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, as they embody the characteristics most associated with his style: harmonic surprises, sudden shifts in texture, formal experimentation, stylistic diversity, and a unique expressive language. Bach’s fantasias are also emblematic of the significant differences between the composer’s practice and that of his contemporaries, especially with regard to modulation, form, and harmonic structure. For example, the use of specific key areas to create dramatic distance between the two choirs in the Heilig for double choir demonstrates that Bach sees remote modulations as more than mere chromatic inflections, lending credence to a multiple tonic perspective on Bach’s works. In this paper, I show that the Fantasy in C Major (Wq. 59/6, H. 284) can be viewed as being driven by a double-tonic complex, evidenced by a struggle between two primary themes, the Andantino and the Allegretto. Tracing the roles of these two themes allows the complexity of the form to be distilled into a ternary-rondo hybrid, and a study of harmonic and voice-leading aspects of the fantasy reveals a rivalry between the keys most associated with the two themes—C major and E minor—and their parallel keys. Many of the eccentricities of the piece, such as semitonal key relationships and enharmonic paradoxes, can be encompassed by a reading of the fantasy as a C major-minor and E major-minor double-tonic complex, an analysis in keeping with C.P.E. Bach’s own unorthodox views of form and harmony.
“Representations of Key Species in the Music of Béla Bartók” (James N. Bennett, University of Wisconsin-Madison)
The endeavor to label each of Béla Bartók’s works with a particular tonality has long since fallen out of fashion; after all, his frequent claim that pieces having significantly different harmonic vocabularies can nevertheless belong to the same key does little to inspire the analyst. What if, however, we view “C major” as labeling a tonal genus and Bartók’s famous designation, “Phrygian-‐colored C major,” as labeling a particular species within that genus? This view resonates not only with Bartók’s own evolutionary model of folk music—in which tunes, having no original version, are endlessly varied, but also with the idea, first observed by Milton Babbitt, that Bartók managed a balance between “functional tonal relationships, existing prior to a specific composition” and “unique, internally defined relationships.” In this paper—part of a larger project exploring Bartók’s evolutionary model of folk music and concomitant philosophies—I extend the parallels that Edward Gollin has recently drawn between Bartók’s compound interval cycles and Moritz Hauptmann’s key representations, thus providing a means to conceptualize and visualize such key species. In particular, I posit two forces (“augmented” and “diminished” tendencies) that are immanent to tonality and—just as Bartók described forces that press on folk tunes and guide their evolution—influence traditional keys, encouraging them to evolve into various key species. The first of Bartók’s Five Songs Op. 16 (1916), “Three Autumn Teardrops,” the opening of which defines a species of B minor heavily influenced by the augmented tendency, serves as my primary analytical example.
“Notes of Completion and Contradiction: Strategic Uses of Pentatonicism in American Popular Songs of the 1920s–50s” (David Carson Berry, University of Cincinnati) In American popular songs of the 1920s-‐50s, pentatonicism may serve a strategic role within the melodic design. In this essay, I will explore two broad instances, one of which involves set completion, and the other set contradiction.
In the first strategy, the composer fashions an interplay between two different pentatonic sets that intersect in all but one note. For example, the I-‐set (i.e., the pentatonic subset of the diatonic collection that contains the I triad) and the IV-‐set differ by one scale degree: they share scale degrees {1̂, 2̂, 5̂, 6̂}, and if 3̂ is added the result is the I-‐set, whereas if 4̂ is added the result is the IV-‐set. If what is heard first is the subset common to both sets, then the subsequent appearance of either 3̂ or 4̂ will become a marker of set completion. And if first one, then the other note is added to the common subset, then first one, then the other pentatonic set will be completed. The result will be an interplay between the sets that hinges on the stepwise change between 3̂ or 4̂.
In the second strategy, the melody initially uses only the notes of a pentatonic set, and subsequently a new, non-‐pentatonic note is introduced. The latter is cast into greater relief because it contradicts the prior melodic basis. Furthermore, this new note is often reserved for a significant word of the lyrics, and/or a significant formal juncture. Thus, such moments of extra-‐pentatonic advent have rhetorical significance, and I will draw on both traditional rhetoric and the musica poetica authors of the Baroque to demonstrate how this is so.
11:00-12:30: Into the New Millennium
“Harmonic Structure as Place in Crumb’s River of Life” (Abigail Shupe, University of Western Ontario)
In George Crumb’s essay “Music: Does it Have a Future?” he refers to the “natural acoustic” he acquired as a child growing up in rural West Virginia. His comments about the importance of landscape in his compositional practice have prompted my study of place as an integral aspect of Crumb’s musical expression. In this paper, I examine harmonic structure as a part of Crumb’s musical landscape, and the connections between that landscape and death, in the 2003-‐song cycle River of Life for soprano and percussion. The recent attention to place and landscape in musicological scholarship also led me to ask whether place would be a meaningful way to study Crumb’s works, and if so, would the traditional tools of music theory be useful to such an interpretation? My harmonic analysis demonstrates that the piece enacts a return to a landscape like the one Crumb describes as his boyhood home. This return to a familiar place at death creates a symmetry in Crumb’s life that is further emphasized by his pervasive use of symmetry in this cycle. I suggest that in this piece, death has two elements, each represented by an interval class. The tritone, interval class [6], represents the painful, physical aspects of death and loss while interval class [5] (either a perfect fourth or fifth) represents death as a metaphysical transformation. Ultimately interval class [5] subsumes [6] as part of a larger narrative that, along with the songs’ lyrics, depicts death as a longed-‐for homecoming.
“Integrity and Coherence: The Role of Tempo in Determining Perceptible Structure in Roger Reynolds’ Variation”(Eric Slegowski, American University)
In his 1988 piano piece, Variation, Roger Reynolds creates a fabric of related elements derived from three “core themes”. As part of the structural framework of this composition Reynolds employs a set of seven related tempi that, as I will demonstrate, function as important form defining elements. I have labeled three of these seven tempi
the first series (54:81:108), due to their essential function in shaping the work. These tempi were determined by the composer early in the compositional process and are identified in a number of his initial notes and sketches for the work. A second series (48:60:72:96), consisting of four additional tempi, arose as the composer actually began rehearsals for the premiere of the work. The four tempi of the second series were introduced to the piece rather intuitively, after the composition essentially had been completed.
The purpose of this paper is to understand how these seven tempi help to project a clearly perceptible musical structure. I will show that the tempi used in Variation are not intended to create a steady tactus; rather, they are used to control the speed of surface level activity that is immediately audible to the listener. As a result, it is through the various speeds of surface activity that this structure is projected.
“Gesture and Time in Louis Andriessen's De Tijd: How the Body Shapes Our Temporal Experience” (Mariusz Kozak, University of Chicago)
Influenced by interdisciplinary work on embodied cognition, it has become increasingly common in recent years to talk about music in terms of its affordances –– features of objects and events that influence our actions –– especially in the context of musical gestures. In this paper, I use this approach to revisit the problem of musical time, and show that rather than existing metaphorically in the music, time is a literal dimension of direct experience, found in the domain of listeners’ gestural interpretations of musical sounds –– their music-‐accompanying actions. From this perspective, I propose that our experience of time demonstrates how we cope with the affordances in our environment, including those of music: through our actions we maintain temporal alignment with events happening around us, in a process that I call temporal calibration. Two kinds of calibration are evident in listeners’ movements: synchronization and coordination. In this paper, I argue that it is these bodily experiences of time that give rise to our concepts of time, and that observing music-‐accompanying actions –– explicit movement to music –– gives us a window into how listeners temporally organize musical sequences.
I illustrate this point with an analysis of Andriessen’s De Tijd, a piece that manifestly addresses matters of time and eternity. I focus on its timbral characteristics and how they “fill” intervals of time for the listener, and propose that the different gestures they engender create disparate experiences of time: one unfolding in the present, and the other anticipating future events.
2:15-3:45: Defining Form
"Counterpoint and Form in Machaut’s Isorhythmic Motets" (Justin Lavacek, Indiana University)
In this paper, Machaut’s motets 12 and 14 are taken as examples of the potential of contrapuntal actions to refine the formal design of a borrowed tenor in fourteenth-‐century polyphony. Through analysis of the florid surface down to its fundamental contrapunctus, it is found that by carefully varying his treatment of recurring tenor segments, Machaut fashioned motets whose organic formal progression transcends the mere aggregation of discrete isorhythmic units. Such contrapuntal recontextualization is counted as evidence of the newly-‐composed voices’ dynamic and not fixed relationship with their tenor basis.
My concept of contrapuntal contest will be introduced as a guide to the interpretation of music in which the traditionally subordinate upper voices occasionally recontextualize a tenor’s pitch implications and phrasing. As opposed to faithful conformance, moments of contest undermine the typically foundational role of chant in sacred polyphony. In motet 12, a pattern of contest progressing through each of its colores as well as across the piece as a whole provides a progression, rather than a mere succession, from an initial modal center, largely created by contest, to the concluding one, determined by the tenor.
Thus, form in this motet emerges from contrapuntal actions rather than being fixed by isorhythm. In motet 14, increasing acts of contest by the upper voices may alter the modality of the work, but order is restored at the very end by the inflexible will of the tenor. The program of striving for the unachievable resonates with the conventional narrative of Machaut’s chivalric poetry.
Dass ich hier gewesen: The Notion of Double Correspondence Measures and Their Effects on Temporality in Schubert’s Sonatas (Jonathan Guez, Yale University)
The positing of a temporality unique to Schubert’s instrumental works is a trope in the reception of his music, but rarely do analysts offer up more than a superficial explanation of the musical means by which this might be possible. The present paper begins from the hypothesis that if Schubert’s music truly presents a unique temporality, “puts into play a different physics,” as Scott Burnham has memorably written, then perhaps some of the strategies that he uses to realize this temporal richness might be isolatable. It will be the specific claim of the paper that one such strategy, which I here term “double correspondence measures,” is directly responsible for a sense, in Schubert’s mature instrumental music, of simultaneous multiple presents, and indeed does constitute a theretofore unique representation of time. I will first outline the theory of double
correspondence measures in the abstract, with a focus on two different compositional strategies and their effects on our possible perception of a sonata narrative. The two compositional strategies are shown to be compatible with temporal and topographical analogies—for the former the idea of the possibility of conflicting multiple presents, and for the latter the idea of a unique Schubertian topography in which landmarks are presented simultaneously from different “angles.” Finally, I will conduct an investigation into a handful of mature sonata movements by Schubert that deploy double correspondence measures to different ends.
“Cadence in Mahler: Principles, Types, and Transformations” (Ryan C. Jones, CUNY Graduate Center)
Gustav Mahler’s music employs a rich cadential practice based on a remarkably consistent set of techniques. This paper seeks to demonstrate both the richness and the consistency by presenting cadences from throughout Mahler’s works and proposing a simple but robust framework for interpreting them.
Dealing exclusively with tonic-‐affirming cadences, I argue that a basic distinction between authentic and plagal cadences is appropriate to Mahler, and that each of these basic types may be transformed in three ways: 1) tonic-intrusion, where one or more unexpected elements of the tonic triad appear in the penultimate harmony, either as displacements or additions, 2) Phrygian, where the tonic note is approached by step from the flattened supertonic, and 3) Invertible counterpoint, where the bass approaches the tonic note by step or by leap of a third. Each of these transformations is common enough to amply repay special attention. It will also be shown that the transformations are not mutually exclusive, and often work together in creative and powerful ways.
It is important to dethrone the classical authentic cadence, and while doing to recognize the new characteristic roles it takes on as one cadence option among many. Conversely, it is important to recognize the range of non-‐classical cadences that can convincingly fulfill the cadential function, each in its own way. In the course of examining these cadence types, numerous principles will arise that relate to Mahler’s tonal language more generally.
2:15-3:45: Schenkerian Approaches
“When Shall I Find You on Earth?: The Six-‐Four as a Symbol of Longing” (Stephen C. Grazzini, Indiana University)
This paper is an analysis of Brahms’s “Die Mainacht” (Op. 43/2) that focuses on the song’s unusual treatment of the six-‐four chord. The song begins with a six-‐four sustained for several measures, and the singer’s first complete phrase actually ends on a six-‐four. In each case, the context suggests that the chord ought to represent tonic harmony, but Brahms doesn’t stabilize either of them by connecting it to a root-‐position tonic. Nor (arguably) does he allow either of them to resolve to a dominant. Instead, he seems to relish the six-‐four’s ambiguity, preserving it as long as possible, and withholding a definitive root-‐position tonic until the final measures of the song.
The paper examines this ambivalent treatment of the tonic triad from a broadly Schenkerian perspective. It describes the six-‐fours by reference to two patterns of usage. These are termed the “missing bass” and “illusory tonic” patterns, and illustrated with examples drawn from the music of Schumann and Mendelssohn, among others, as well as with published analyses by Schenker, Salzer, and Schachter. It then suggests that these types of six-‐four take on symbolic meaning in Brahms’s setting of “Die Mainacht”, where they serve as apt musical counterparts to the poem’s themes of incompleteness and alienation. The paper concludes by reassessing a famous anecdote, in which Brahms compares the opening melody of “Die Mainacht” to a “seed-‐corn” that germinates in the unconscious.
“A Further Look at the Reprise: The Reinterpretation and Recomposition of Earlier Music in Selected Tonal Works” (Joyce Yip, University of Michigan)
The varied reprise is a topic rich in possibilities for music analysis. Building on the work of Laufer (1993), Burkhart (1997), and others, this paper focuses on two types of varied reprise: 1) those beginning with a subtle harmonic alteration; 2) those displaying concluding expansions.
After some general observations on the functions of the reprise, such as a motivic summary, a reinterpretation of previous music, or an expansion of musical ideas, the paper turns to Chopin’s Mazurka Op. 68/4, where a subtle harmonic change at the opening of the reprise affects a significant span of the following music, calling for a harmonic reinterpretation despite a literal melodic return. In Mendelssohn’s Song without Words Op. 85/4, a concluding expansion challenges the established hypermeter, reinforcing and at the same time developing earlier musical ideas. A main feature of the piece is Mendelssohn’s highlighting of the focal pitch F#—first as the peak note of the opening arpeggio, then as the Kopfton constantly searching for tonic support, and finally as an ending gesture, the highest note of the piece.
The paper shows the imagination composers bring to sectional forms as they reinterpret and recompose earlier music. As with the opening and middle sections of a three-‐part form, the reprise should be considered a vital section worthy of our study.
“Multiply-‐Interrupted Structure in Clara Schumann’s “Liebst du um Schönheit”” (Michael Baker, University of Kentucky)
Schenker’s concept of interruption represents a vital link between tonal structure and thematic design. However, his initial presentation of the concept in Free Composition has led to the modern understanding that interruption refers exclusively to a halt in the Urlinie at
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ˆ 2 over V, followed by a reinstatement of the Kopfton and a complete descent to
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ˆ 1 . In fact, many introductory writings on Schenker’s theories claim that this is interruption, and not merely a type of interruption. Recent studies (Samarotto 2005 and Baker 2010) have shown that a more general concept of interruption may take many outward musical configurations that differ from the type mentioned above, proposing a flexible approach to interruption in the description of myriad foreground musical events.
This paper examines Clara Schumann’s “Liebst du um Schönheit,” Op. 12 no. 4, illustrating that a multiply-interrupted structure exists within the song, where the notion of interruption occurs in multiple configurations and at differing structural levels. Following a brief survey of the important literature on this topic I will demonstrate that the numerous incomplete linear progressions and striking harmonic events in this song emanate from the generic concept of interruption, and are closely related to the overall form and message of Rückert’s poem.
4:00-5:30: Redefining Form
“The Double-‐Conversion Effect: Formal Reinterpretation in Schubert’s Ternary P-‐themes” (Gabriel Ignacio Venegas, University of Arizona)
This paper focuses on a particular formal strategy in Schubert’s ternary P-‐themes: the “double-‐conversion effect” as a process of form-‐functional transformation that features the reinterpretation of formal functions not once but twice in a self-‐contained formal zone. The paper builds on the analytical and theoretical work of Janet Schmalfeldt, the form-‐functional approach of Arnold Schoenberg, Erwin Ratz, and William Caplin; and the dialogical formal perspective of James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy.
The paper starts by proposing a threefold categorization of form-‐functional transformations:
1- Intrathematic level. The form-‐functional transformation takes place at the level of the theme type.
2- Interthematic level. The form-‐functional transformation takes place in formal units operating at a higher level of formal syntax.
3- Multiple levels. The form-‐functional transformation takes place at both intrathematic and interthematic levels at the same time, i.e., an intrathematic function becomes an interthematic function or vice versa.
The main part of the paper will illustrate the double-‐conversion effect at work in three expositions from Schubert’s late music. First, an overview of the formal organization in the P-‐themes of the String Quintet in C, D.956/I, and the Piano Sonata in G, D.894/I, will demonstrate how the double-‐conversion effect can work in the context of a small ternary structure. Finally, a more detailed consideration of the third example, the Piano Sonata in B-‐flat, D.960/I, will address aspects of large-‐scale formal implications related to the double-‐conversion effect.
“Bruckner’s Formal Principle as Beyond the Sonata Principle” (Nicholas Betson, Yale University)
This paper uses the methods of Sonata Theory to reevaluate a claim about "Bruckner's formal principle" made by Ernst Kurth (1925): that in working out the problem of sonata form in finales, Bruckner was working out the problem of modern (here meant typologically, i.e. as post-‐Classical) sonata form as such. Kurth argues that while Bruckner at first imagines the finale only in opposition to some other version of a (modern) sonata form offered in the first movement, the strategies of finale come to infuse both movements to the point where any opposition between first and final movements becomes impossible. In this way the problem of the finale becomes the problem of modern sonata form. Kurth substantiates this claim by tracing the development of strategies from the finale of Symphony No. 4 (in its non-‐Volksfest version) as they emerge through their displacement to the first movement of Symphony No. 9.
While Kurth’s argument could be questioned on philological grounds alone, this paper explores how Sonata Theory can both (1) model and (2) reevaluate it. To do this it reconfigures Kurth’s Brucknerian principle in terms of a second principle whose critique has been constitutive for Sonata Theory: the Sonata Principle (first proposed by Cone). This reconfiguring gives special attention to tensions in meaning of the phrase “Beyond the Sonata Principle” in Sonata Theory, as both (1) a refinement of a general rule for Classical sonata form and (2) formal principles that may lie beyond Classical composition, i.e. precisely a principle of modern sonata form.
“Interpretation as Analysis: Sonata form in the first movement of Ravel’s String Quartet” (Sigrun Heinzelmann and Amy Hess, Oberlin Conservatory of Music)
From the perspective of Hepokoski and Darcy’s Sonata Theory, the first movement of Ravel’s String Quartet (1902) exhibits a number of formal ambiguities. These open up multiple pathways for the interpretation of the movement’s sonata form. Examining nine recordings of the movement, our presentation explores how each recording presents an implicit analysis that shapes how a listener perceives the movement’s form.
We focus on two areas of ambiguous formal articulation, the onset of the transition in the exposition, and the boundary between exposition and development; listening samples demonstrate how the interpretive choices of each ensemble change the functional meaning of the formally ambiguous sections. Our analyses of recordings address musical parameters that articulate form and thus influence the listener’s perception of it: tempo changes or fluctuations (including breathing and rubato) that delineate sections or create a sense of departure or arrival, dynamic choices, and changes of timbre. Spanning from 1927 to 2008, three of the recordings were made during Ravel’s lifetime; the remaining represent nearly each decade after WWII. Four of the recordings are by French ensembles, the other five include ensembles based in the US, Eastern Europe, and Asia.
In conclusion, we offer cautious assessments of the mutual relationships between the analysis, performance, and perception of form; e.g., do the most ambiguous formal areas lead to the largest discrepancies among the various interpretations?1 We also engage the question whether the 1927 recording by the International Quartet, supervised by Ravel, presents an interpretation that resolves or maintains the formal ambiguities.
4:00-5:00: Jazz
“Revisiting Thematic Improvisation and Form in Jazz: Goal Orientation in Brad Mehldau’s “Unrequited”” (Daniel J. Arthurs, University of North Texas)
Melodic connections between the repeated, cyclical improvisations in a jazz tune and the head theme have been pursued as important steps toward the application of Schenkerian analysis to jazz. Yet goal-‐oriented facets of Schenkerian theory, facets that would seem to be an essential condition for its applicability, remain to be fully worked-‐out. This paper presents a compelling example that features the kind of goal-‐directed voice-‐
1 Woodley 2000 compares style and sound of early recordings of the Quartet but does not engage the question of form.
leading trajectory that has made Schenkerian theory a powerful method for tonal analysis: Brad Mehldau’s Unrequited (1998).
Recalling Gunther Schuller’s notion of “thematic improvisation” through a motivic analysis of a Sonny Rollins blues solo, to Schuller a motive needn’t have any connection to the head tune in order to feature coherence. By contrast, Henry Martin’s use of Schuller’s term is couched within Schenkerian theory, where he examines bebop solos of Charlie Parker. Martin’s top-‐down approach all too predictably demonstrates hidden voice-‐leading references to the structure of the head, a kind of motivic parallelism in Schenkerian terms. I argue that it remains to be seen how the head and solo section can work to form a broader musical discourse. In my analysis of Unrequited I will illustrate during the solo section how structural melodic deviations from the head tune are important clues that reveal a predisposition towards a single, overarching goal, bringing together the head and solo sections. The analysis presented here demands a subtler approach to the Schenkerian analysis of modern jazz when the music features goal-‐directed voice leading over a repeated harmonic plan.
“The Evolution of In Medias Res in Jazz Standards” (Daniel Shanahan, Ohio State University)
By beginning a piece in medias res, as in Chopin’s Prelude Op.28 no.2, and Brahms B-‐flat-‐minor Intermezzo Op. 118, No.1, the composer is able to discard this barrier, throwing the listener into what seems to be a work in progress. While off-‐tonic openings have been analyzed at length in the works of eighteenth and nineteenth century composers, there has been little done on the evolution of such openings in a genre where the practice seems especially prominent: jazz. This paper examines the evolution of in medias res openings in popular jazz standards through a corpus study of 1,150 jazz pieces encoded in electronic form.
By codifying the various types of off-‐tonic openings, this paper explores the nature of tonal ambiguity, and the role various types of openings play on perceived tonality. As each type of opening presents a different type of ambiguity, a diachronic approach to off-‐tonic openings in jazz allows for a discussion of how jazz composers began to disavow standard notions of formal perception. The increasing inversion of the archetypal stable-‐unstable-‐stable paradigm created a sense of resolution, rather than progression. Tracing the evolution of these progressions in a corpus study such as this illustrates the nature of harmonic expectation in jazz music in the 20th century, and allows for a more well-‐ rounded view of the genre’s compositional practices.
Saturday, May 19
9:00-10:30: Rules and Regulations
“Simplicity and Similarity: Extending the Concept of Smoothness to the Theory of Pitch Contour” (Yi-‐Cheng (Daniel) Wu, University at Buffalo)
Among most of the current pitch contour similarity measurements, two common defects beg for a discussion. First, they all use a complex arithmetic formula/algorithm to test the degree of contour similarity. This process is both cumbersome and time-‐consuming. Second, some of these theories apply only to melodies with the same number of contour pitches (cps). Consequently, these theories become overly limited in terms of their practical use. Regarding these issues, I propose a new similarity measurement, which is both inclusive and efficient.
My project develops by analogy the concept of smoothness described in Richard Cohn’s Maximally Smooth Cycle. In Cohn’s theory, a cycle contains six triads. Each pair of adjacent triads shares two common pitches, while the uncommon ones are smoothly related by one semitone apart. Significantly, I borrow Cohn’s concept of smoothness to my contour theory, deriving a contour smooth network. It contains fifteen distinctive contour types. Each type outlines the boundary cps of a melody and, thus, can include melodies of any length. Within this network, a line smoothly connects two types if they have only one different cp. Additionally, we can efficiently measure contour similarity by simply counting the fewest lines between any two types— the fewer the lines the more similar the contours. Finally, to better understand the practical advantages of my method, I use Kurtág’s song— “Intermezzo sul `An die aufgehend Sonne´”— as a demonstration, showing how Kurtág manipulates his personal language of pitch contour to imitate and reflect the meaning of the text.
“Does Rock Play By Its Own Rules? An Empirical Investigation of Harmonic Expectation in Rock Music” (Bryn Hughes, Ithaca College)
Many chord successions in rock music truly sound like progressions, yet, through the lens of common-‐practice tonality, these successions are viewed as non-‐functional. This conundrum raises the question that will remain central throughout this study: does harmony convey different musical functions in rock and common-‐practice contexts, or does harmony behave in a universally consistent way?
This experiment investigated whether listeners expect chord successions presented in a rock context to adhere to common-‐practice syntax. Two groups of subjects listened to pairs of triads primed by a brief key-‐confirming passage of either rock or classical music.
Overall, the results of the experiment showed that in both contexts, listeners preferred successions that featured typical common-‐practice chord-‐root motion. However, subtle differences between rock and common-‐practice harmonic expectations were also revealed. Notably, the results showed that stylistic context affected listeners’ expectations of chromatic chords, and of the subdominant triad.
The results support the claim that harmonic expectations in rock music are similar to those held for common-‐practice music; further solidified by statistically significant correlations with several empirical studies (Krumhansl 1990; Bigand et al 1996) and theoretical metrics for judging chord relatedness (Lerdahl 2001). Nevertheless, the subtle differences found between stylistic contexts align with the speculative claims made by theorists advocating for unique harmonic function in rock (Moore 1992, 1995; Stephenson 2002), and are supported by recent corpus analyses of rock repertoire (Temperley 2011; Temperley and De Clercq 2011).
“Spontaneous Apprehension of Pitch Centricity” (Stanley V. Kleppinger, University of Nebraska–Lincoln)
Pitch centricity might fairly be described as the focus upon one pitch class above all others in a given musical context. Much music of approximately the last century falls into one of three categories in regards to pitch centricity: it creates a sense of pitch centricity without embodying common-‐practice tonal syntax, it doesn’t project pitch centricity at all, or it coaxes the listener into associating the music with pitch centricity without breeding certainty as to what that pitch center might be.
This paper focuses especially on the last of these categories. Under what circumstances do listeners reflexively and intersubjectively hear music as pitch-‐centric, even when consensus as to the identity of a pitch center is remote? I speculate that listeners reflexively bring pitch centricity to bear on musical situations that evoke specific, traditional (i.e., pre-‐twentieth-‐century) tonal elements. These characteristics catalyze the “listen-‐for-‐pitch-‐centers” mechanism of the auditory process, even when identifying a certain pitch center is a difficult or impossible task. Absent these markers, listeners are not only unlikely to identify a pitch center, but unlikely to seek one out spontaneously. This line of thinking highlights the importance of distinguishing between pitch-‐centric listening and pitch-‐center identification: the former may exist without the latter, and the gap between them is the source of rich aesthetic effects in music by Webern, Copland, Bartók, and others.
9:00-10:30: Re-evaluating Serialism
“In Zusammenhang mit dem Zwölftonwegs sprechen”: A Reconsideration of “Nacht” (J. Daniel Jenkins, University of South Carolina)
In summer 1911 Schoenberg sent his publisher a précis for a counterpoint text called Composition with Independent Voices. Although the project was never completed, a focus on polyphony emerges strongly in Pierrot lunaire. While many authors have noted the polyphonic textures in some of the Pierrot songs, none has considered how Schoenberg’s understanding of polyphonic composition informs their analysis. In this paper, I will show how Schoenberg’s conception of Abwicklung (contrapuntal composition), implicit in the counterpoint précis and explicit in later writings, informs my analysis of “Nacht.”
In contrapuntal music, “all development takes place through alteration of the mutual relation to each other. The components not only can remain unaltered but even must.” Thus, to consider “Nacht” as contrapuntal, we must focus not only on the immutability of its principal three-‐note motive, but also on the relationships between simultaneous voices. Recognition of the interaction of voices emphasizes the contrapuntal nature of “Nacht.”
Documentary sources including Stein’s “Neue Formenprinzipien,” Berg’s analysis of Pierrot, and the anonymous document, “Komposition mit zwölf Tönen,” reveal that within Schoenberg’s circle, “Nacht” held special significance. From Schoenberg’s Formenlehre perspective, “Nacht” shares much more in common with the serial works that followed it than the atonal compositions that preceded it, but since it is arguably the most analyzed of all of Schoenberg’s atonal works, many consider it representative of that period. Therefore, I conclude the paper with a discussion of what this analysis of “Nacht” might elucidate about Schoenberg’s atonal period music in general.
“A Spatial Representation of Webern’s “Synthesis” and an Analysis of “Blitz und Donner” from the Cantata I” (Brian Moseley, Furman University and CUNY Graduate Center)
For good reason, analyses of Webern’s twelve-‐tone music often proceed by identifying row forms and considering relationships that arise from their combination. Inherent in this analytical act is respect for the musical “synthesis” of which Webern frequently spoke, a synthesis created by music “unfolding not only horizontally but also vertically” (Webern, The Path to New Music, 34-‐5). In Webern’s music this polyphonic conception of the twelve-‐tone technique is always bound together with the projection of form. Referring to the task of the “new music,” Webern says that “it's not a matter of reconquering or reawakening the [polyphony of the] Netherlanders, but of refilling their forms by way of the classical masters […]. Naturally it isn't purely polyphonic [or harmonic] thinking; it's both at once ” (35).
In this presentation I discuss the opening movement of Webern’s Cantata I in precisely these terms. I propose a theoretical framework that uses row chains, like the RICH chains in Lewin’s GMIT, to generate musical spaces. These spaces assimilate the complexity of Webern’s “synthesis” into simple geometrical shapes that capture the formal potential inherent in a particular twelve-‐tone environment. My presentation utilizes the space to better understand particular formal decisions as a consequence of the space’s organization, and it allows me to promote an interpretation of ‘Blitz und Donner’s’ pitch and rhythmic structure as a reflection of Hildegard Jone’s text.
“The Concept of Indiscipline in the Music of Pierre Boulez” (Emily Adamowicz, University of Western Ontario)
There is arguably a single point in the evolution of Pierre Boulez's compositional theory that changed the trajectory of his musical style and affected virtually every piece of music that followed. While Boulez's aesthetic goals and compositional techniques continued to evolve throughout his lifetime, the introduction of "indiscipline" into his more stringent serial methods in the early 1950s freed the composer from his self-‐professed theoretical exaggeration that characterized serial "documents" such as Polyphonie X and Structures. Boulez’s indisciplinary techniques contributed to the formation of a more flexible, malleable compositional theory in his middle period works. These techniques translate his intellectual developments into concrete musical events. Boulez frequently returns to particular sets of pitch-‐class materials constructed for early, unpublished, or retracted works and developed them in new ways for later works. These materials coalesce into a broad catalogue of basic serial materials that are active at various points across the composer's development. Because Boulez continued to evolve and permute this catalogue of objects, different settings of common materials reveal how subjective decisions help shape material towards a desired aesthetic and formal end. The changing manner in which materials are used reveals Boulez's aesthetic goals to be moving targets that remain rooted in, and traceable to the fundamental concept of indiscipline.
10:45-12:15: Eighteenth-Century Procedures
“The Two F-‐Major Fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier: Dance Subjects and Their Phrase-‐Rhythmic Implications” (John S. Reef, Indiana University)
Normally, the imitative texture of fugue is not conducive to the establishment of regular phrase lengths and hypermeter. Some of Bach’s fugues with affinities to dance styles nevertheless contain sections that suggest such regularity. In this paper, I illustrate how tendencies toward regular phrases and hypermeter interact with fugal writing in the
two F-‐major fugues from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier (hereinafter, F/I and F/II)—fugues that suggest, respectively, characteristics of the passepied and the giga—and how the temporal shaping of phrases in the fugues’ expositional sections through contrapuntal and harmonic motion (qualities of tonal rhythm) affects phrase-‐rhythmic development throughout the pieces.
In both fugues, many thematic statements occupy four-‐measure phrases that cadence on their fourth measure; through repetition, they suggest sections of hypermetrical organization, although with some modification to accommodate imitative procedures. But the four-‐measure phrases of F/I’s thematic statements are traversed through contrapuntal progressions whose outer voices move in equal measure-‐length durations, whereas in F/II, tonal activity increases near phrase endings, as if displaying extra effort to cadence on time. Consequently, very different phrase-‐rhythmic designs emerge across these two fugues. F/II dramatizes conflict between thematic statements and sequential, episodic passages, in which contrapuntal progressions do unfold in equal durations. This conflict culminates in the synthesis of expositional and sequential writing at the end of the fugue. F/I’s phrase-‐rhythmic development is very different, with tonal rhythms uniting expositional and episodic sections rather than differentiating them. Interest arises instead through subtle hypermetrical manipulations, tensions between motivic design and hypermeter, and stretto.
“Unraveling Tonal Compound Melody” (Michael Callahan, Michigan State University)
Compound melody has been of interest to theorists both historically and in recent scholarship. Some studies seek to uncover, through rhythmic and registral realignment, the tonal counterpoint latent in or realized by a monodic surface; in contrast, Stacey Davis builds upon experimental studies to segment the implied-‐polyphonic surfaces of J. S. Bach’s solo string music into perceptual streams. I suggest that tonal implied polyphony can be elucidated by placing these two approaches, which may seem to be fundamentally opposed, into conversation with one another. I first examine the tensions between them, which center on the requirement for each sounding pitch to participate in a stream, but not necessarily in a contrapuntal voice. I explore passages from the cello suites of Bach in terms of the relative transparency or opacity of the surface with regard to its contrapuntal underpinning—ones in which a hypothetical stream segregation strongly supports, somewhat obscures, or strongly contradicts the independence of interpreted contrapuntal voices. Through comparison of excerpts with each other and with hypothetical recomposed versions, I then focus on the more opaque surfaces in which a preponderance of stepwise motion, continuous arpeggiations, and other surface factors masks the counterpoint. I also consider the fluctuations in longer excerpts between disjunct passages that unambiguously present a contrapuntal structure and more conjunct ones that
problematize it. Building upon these distinctions, I define a set of compound-‐melodic processes that render such counterpoint more or less clearly as polyphonic melody.
“Bach’s Codas” (David Castro, St. Olaf College)
One regular, though not universal, feature of the keyboard works by J. S. Bach is a coda that immediately follows the structural closure of the Ursatz. Within these codas various harmonies and voice leading patterns are typically presented over a tonic pedal, revealing their function as that of a tonic prolongation following the aforementioned tonal closure. In this paper I focus on these codas in order to reveal some of the harmonic and voice leading features employed by Bach.
The most common harmonic formula that is featured in Bach’s codas begins with a motion toward the subdominant triad. A destabilized tonic triad, now converted into the V7/iv through the addition of b7̂ (and #3̂ in minor keys), resolves to either IV or iv, which is then converted into vii°7 by replacing 1̂ with #7̂ and 2̂ (and b6̂ in major keys). The vii°7 then resolves to I, which is always major. When working within this harmonic formula, Bach unifies the coda with the rest of the piece by including in it surface and middleground motives that are presented earlier in the piece.
This study sheds light on one seemingly insignificant aspect of Bach’s compositional practice, revealing yet another facet of his contrapuntal skill. Each one of these codas is a testament to Bach’s ability to spin fresh new ideas from relatively limited resources.
10:45-12:15: Means of Communication
“From Uncanny to Marvelous: Poulenc’s Hexatonic Pole and the Creation of Musical Surrealism” (David Heetderks, Oberlin Conservatory of Music)
Francis Poulenc’s idiosyncratic use of the hexatonic-‐pole progression has received little analytical attention, despite the significant role this progression plays in many of his pieces. My presentation examines the hexatonic-‐pole progression that occurs at the conclusion of Poulenc’s song “Tu vois le feu du soir” (1938; text by Paul Éluard), and argues that the song’s surrealistic text provides a new context that expands the progression’s expressive and tonal implications.
Because the hexatonic pole is tonally ambiguous and blurs the distinction between consonance and dissonance, Richard Cohn suggests that during late Romanticism it frequently signified the Freudian concept of the uncanny, which arises when repressed psychic elements appear in defamiliarized form. I argue that in Poulenc’s song, by contrast,
the progression is associated with surrealists’ counter-‐concept of the marvelous, characterized by a union of real and unreal and a projection of the psyche outward and towards the future. The final stanza of Éluard’s poem creates the marvelous through gradually removing the barrier between observer and observed, combining uncanny elements of self-‐erasure with the possibility of a redemptive union with others.
I then analyze the tonal structure of Poulenc’s setting, using a guiding metaphor of tonic as self. The structure is in many respects homologous to that of Éluard’s poem: it creates a directed motion toward its concluding hexatonic-‐pole progression, but leaves open to question whether tonal closure occurs, creating a simultaneous self-‐loss and self-‐finding at its conclusion.
"A Poetic Oasis: Methods of Text Setting in Steve Reich's Desert Music" (Jason Jedlicka, Indiana University)
Steve Reich has described his approach to setting text as intuitive. While composing the Desert Music (1984) for chorus and orchestra, Reich discovered that using rhythmic groups of two and three eighth notes with constantly shifting meters worked best in matching the accentual and cadential patterns of William Carlos Williams's poetry. The composer found a kinship with the text, written in what Williams called the "flexible foot"—the varied rhythms found in American speech. Reich's music serves these rhythms of the poetry, emphasizing expressive meanings and gestures. Moreover, the composer highlights the music within the poetry—the phonemic content, pacing, and cadence—elements the poet Robert Frost termed as sentence sounds. I offer a sonic interpretation of one of the five texts in the piece, illuminating phonemic content and meaning. I then demonstrate how Reich not only considers rhythmic and syllabic content in setting the poetry, but how he also brings latent features of Williams's verse to the surface through musical parallelism.
“The Aesthetics of Fragility in Stylistic Signification: A “Gnostic” Encounter with Beethoven’s “Heiliger Dankgesang”” (William Guerin, Indiana University)
Carolyn Abbate’s provocative essay “Music—Drastic or Gnostic?” served as an important check on the tendency of analysts to carry out their work in an abstract conceptual space, one detached from one’s real experience of music. Yet her eloquent revalorization of the “drastic” nonetheless invites charges of a regressive mode of listening—one incompatible with innumerable works composed self-‐consciously as art music and inarguably intended to provoke much in the listener beyond the force of their presence in performance. This paper aims to bring musical meaning and the listener’s
experience into closer contact by way of an examination of the famous “Heiliger Dankgesang” from Beethoven’s op. 132—a movement whose distinct styles act as topical signifiers. Pursuing the distinction between sign codification and sign production drawn by Umberto Eco in his semiotic, as well as Rosen’s conception of style as achievement, I propose an aesthetics of stylistic signification in which signifiers are revealed as intensely fragile and precarious entities. A refocusing of attention in our appreciation of musical meaning—from signified to signifier—carries the potential to reanimate our “gnostic” experience of music with a new sense of drama and—in the case of op. 132—a confrontation with issues of transcendence, disability, and mortality. My paper thus aims to extend topic theory by way of a new engagement with the sensuous material of music, while suggesting one means by which listener-‐centered approaches to music can accommodate considerations of musical meaning.
2:00-3:30: Theorizing about Theorizing
“Modes of Reflection in Debussy’s Reflets dans l’eau” (Jeffrey Vollmer, Indiana University)
In previous analyses of Reflets dans l’eau, the idea of reflection, a concept important enough to figure in the piece’s title, has received only scant and superficial attention. In-‐Ryeong Choi-‐Diel’s study from 2001 represents the most thorough investigation into the ways Debussy alludes to the title in the composition, but her analysis is limited to duplications of musical phenomena on the surface of the piece. I argue that the scope of Debussy’s reflections extends beyond just those relationships Choi-‐Diel finds within the score.
To distinguish between the various ways reflections are used in works of art in multiple media, I create three categories: first-‐person, second-‐person, and third-‐person reflections. These different modes of reflection receive their labels based on the relationship between the artist/composer and the reflected objects. I then show how Debussy evokes examples of each of the three modes in Reflets dans l’eau. I conclude with a close reading of a brief passage from the piece. The reading combines three analytical perspectives, each of which corresponds to a different type of reflected object. Along the way, it illuminates a rare species of the omnibus progression and rekindles the discussion of Wagner’s influence on Debussy.
“What do music theorists talk about when they talk about gender?” (Anna Gawboy, Ohio State University)
An understanding of the metaphor “Musical object X is to musical object Y as masculine is to feminine” depends on the associations one brings to the masculine/feminine relationship. Authors such as McClary, Kramer, Citron, and Chua have understood this metaphorical relationship according to the socially-‐ and culturally-‐constructed history of gender inequality. This paper examines the theoretical and intellectual contexts of seven often-‐cited uses of the gender metaphor: Sorge (1747), Marx (1848), Hauptmann (1857), d’Indy (1910), Schoenberg (1911), Apel (1969), and Cone (1989). I argue that not all theorists invoked the relationship between male and female in the manner we assume today.
Interestingly, the gender metaphor in music theoretical discourse often appears alongside allusions to religious or metaphysical texts: the Bible; the natural philosophy of Schelling, Goethe, and Hegel; and Swedenborg. These texts often construe the male/female relationship as one of organic complementarity, dialectical interaction, and/or oppositional fusion.
Metaphysical and occult overtones disappear from more recent uses of the gender metaphor. I conclude my paper by relating these historical shifts to a larger narrative of disenchantment in musical discourse. The story of analytical aesthetics over the past two centuries tells how ideals such as dialectics and organicism became desacralized, distorted, and flattened while they persisted as habits of speech and mind. Rather than merely participating in a perpetual rhetoric of female subjugation, the use of the gender metaphor in music theoretical writing reflects broader changes in the way music was described and conceptualized.
“Music Theory as Ethics; or, Music Theory Has Been Oughty, and Needs to be Disciplined” (Bryan J. Parkhurst, University of Michigan)
In this paper, I take a look at the language of aesthetic judgment and try to draw some conclusions about how it works.
Critical language, though, is a pretty big segment of language. So I want to restrict my inquiry to that part of it I’m most familiar with, where my confidence about my intuitions is greatest: what I will call “musical interpretations,” or “MIs” (pronounced “meez,” like the plural of the solfège syllable mi). The analysis I develop is an application of meta-‐ethical expressivism to the domain of musical aesthetics. I try to understand music-‐interpretive sentences as expressing attitudes of approval or endorsement, rather than as, in and of themselves, issuing statements of fact. This means pushing a brand of anti-‐realism about the kind of stuff music theory talks about-‐-‐chord functions, prolongations, and the like. I suspect this position will be unpalatable to some music analysts, who
probably regard themselves (if troubled by such considerations at all) as issuing truths about pieces, or as arguing about musical facts of the matter. So I'll need to defend the view against a variety of realist challenges. The hope is that many of the substantive conclusions I reach about MIs will generalize so as to shed light on our broader aesthetic discourse, by providing us with the right tools for giving an analysis of the wider domain of aesthetic predicates.
