Editor’s Message
Dear MTO readers,
The days are lengthening, regional conferences are afoot, and I am very pleased to announce the first MTO issue of the year. Volume 19.1 is diverse and path breaking in true MTO style, with articles on Schoenberg, Ravel, Schubert and Beethoven, Lassus and Palestrina, Radiohead, and Owl City. Topics range from song signing on Youtube to musical modeling in the Renaissance, from temporality in Ravel to rhythmic ambiguity in Radiohead, and from musical grafting in Schubert and Beethoven to music and theology in Schoenberg. Along with the articles, volume 19.1 features reviews of books by Steve Larson and Brian Alegant, and of a volume of essays edited by Elliott Antokoletz and Marianne Wheeldon.
Without further ado, here are the specifics:
- Joe Argentino explores rich parallelisms between music and text in his article “Tripartite Structures in Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw.”
- Jessie Fillerup discovers temporal innovations in Ravel, anticipating Debussy and Stravinsky. The article—with original recordings by Fillerup—is “Eternity in Each Moment: Temporal Strategies in Ravel’s ‘Le Gibet’.”
- Nathan Hesselink presents a conundrum of rhythmic ambiguity and a treasure trove of listener responses in his article “Radiohead’s ‘Pyramid Song’: Ambiguity, Rhythm, and Participation.”
- Anabel Maler explores American Sign Language translations of popular songs, showing how they adapt ASL signs to represent musical features; her article is “Songs for Hands: Analyzing Interactions of Sign Language and Music.”
- René Rusch draws on Derrida and the concept of “grafting” to explore a heterogeneity of texts in and beyond the Schubert/Beethoven nexus. The article—with original recordings by Rusch—is “Beyond Homage and Critique? Schubert’s Sonata in C minor, D. 958, and Beethoven’s Thirty-Two Variations in C minor, WoO 80.”
- Animated scores illustrate musical modeling in the Renaissance; authors Peter Schubert and Marcelle Lessoil-Daelman consider kyrie movements by Lassus and Palestrina, both based on a chanson by Lupi, in “What Modular Analysis Can Tell Us About Musical Modeling in the Renaissance.”
And here are the three new book reviews in this issue:
- Arnie Cox reviews Steve Larson, Musical Forces: Motion, Metaphor, and Meaning in Music (Indiana University Press, 2012)
- August Sheehy reviews Elliott Antokoltz and Marianne Wheeldon, eds., Rethinking Debussy (Oxford University Press, 2011)
- Alan Theisen reviews Brian Alegant, The Twelve-Tone Music of Luigi Dallapiccola (University of Rochester Press, 2010)
Other MTO news: we appointed a second book reviews editor to help keep up our ambitious pace of reviews—fifteen last year! I welcome Kyle Adams as our new reviews editor, working together with Steven Rings, and thank them both for their terrific service. I am also pleased to welcome Ragnhild Brøvig-Hanssen to the MTO editorial board. Brøvig-Hanssen brings valuable expertise on popular music and music technology and a keen editorial eye.
My sincere thanks to Karen Bottge (associate editor) for working with me diligently and wisely on all aspects of MTO, to Brent Yorgason (managing editor) for his tireless work behind the scenes, to all members of the editorial board for their thorough and constructive reviews, and to the editorial assistants for their dedication, hard work, and attention to detail.
We would like to encourage new and creative submissions to MTO. Although we are especially well suited for the publication of articles that incorporate recordings, videos, and other media, we also welcome submissions in any number of formats, including full-length articles, shorter essays and commentaries, conference reports, and entire special volumes.
Comments in response to this issue’s articles may be submitted to the Editor for publication in the next issue. Also, please refer to our submission guidelines, if you are interested in submitting.
We host job listings and a dissertation index; please submit announcements for both to MTO.
All MTO volumes dating back to our first issue in 1993 can be accessed from the contents page at http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/issues.html. Thank you, as always, for your support of MTO - a Journal of the Society for Music Theory.
