Adlington, Robert C. "Temporality in Post-Tonal Music"
AUTHOR: Adlington, Robert C. TITLE: Temporality in post-tonal music INSTITUTION: University of Sussex, UK BEGUN: October, 1993 COMPLETED: September, 1996 ABSTRACT: Existing accounts of musical temporality presume concepts of time which are, arguably, not adequate to experience. They also serve to marginalise post-tonal music. Experiential absolutes might better be sought in the cognitive sciences, in the form of principles governing our organisation of change. Lerdahl and Jackendoff (1983) claim to identify some of these universal principals, and they would seem to support prevailing concepts of time. But Lerdahl and Jackendoff's dependence upon intuitions about experience betrays a simplistic view of the relation between automatic cognitive processes and conscious experience. The complexities of consciousness make it difficult to correlate cognitive activity and musical temporality. Descriptions of music appear to confirm the existence of certain absolutes in temporal experience. But the description of musical activity in terms of motion (for instance) is problematic. However, the alternatives are not obviously preferable; rather, competing descriptions 'determine' music differently. Dennett's model of consciousness (1991) suggests that linguistic thought may be involved in musical experience, but the descriptive 'determining' of experience does not constitute a faithful rendering. The difficulty of identifying experiential absolutes, and the limitations of describing, suggest that accounts of musical temporality are touched by the interpretative interests of the describer. Favoured concepts of musical form are examined in this light. Claims that music presents a 'narrative', or a 'structure', serve certain interests and institutions, and discriminate against others. As changing sound, music may be organised by listeners in ways less analogous to language and visual objects. Adorno's is the most ambitious attempt to interpret musical meaning on the basis of music's temporality, but his music criticism too readily smooths over the difficulties raised in earlier chapters. Paul de Man's defiantly anti-spatial concept of temporality is a useful corrrective, and can be accommodated within the broader trajectory of Adorno's philosophy. Ideas raised in earlier chapters are revisited in a discussion of the first movement of Ligeti's Violin Concerto. KEYWORDS: time, temporality, intuition, motion, description, narrative, structure, form, Adorno, Ligeti TOC: INTRODUCTION (Temporality. Post-tonal music) I. MUSIC AND TEMPORALITY (Temporality, time, clocks. Other concepts of time: Barry and Kramer. Conceptualising time. 'Psychological' temporality and 'interpretative' temporality.) II. 'PSYCHOLOGICAL' TEMPORALITY (The cognitive organisation of tonal music: Lerdahl and Jackendoff. Intuition about experience. The structural representation of music. Memory. Metre, memory and measuring. Cognitive processes and consciousness. Limitations of the cognitive approach.) III. DESCRIBING MUSICAL TEMPORALITY (Post-tonality and stasis. Music: 'time in motion'? Metre and musical 'motion'. Describing music. Interpreting musical temporality. Temporality and spatiality.) IV. MUSIC'S TEMPORAL FORM (Narrative. Plot. Sequential form. Verbal organisation. Unfolding structure. The construction of musical form. Musical sound: questions of organisation and form.) V. TEMPORALITY AND MUSICAL MEANING (Adorno's critique of musical temporality in context. 'Negative Dialectics', antinomy, and the concept of dialectic. Adorno and temporality: a summary and a suggestion. De Man and temporality. De Man and musical temporality. Critical temporalities.) VI. TEMPORALITY IN LIGETI'S VIOLIN CONCERTO CONTACT: Dr R C Adlington Music Faculty Essex House University of Sussex Falmer Brighton BN1 9RQ UK e-mail: R.C.Adlington@sussex.ac.uk phone: +44 1273 678019 fax: +44 1273 678644
AUTHOR: Douw, Andre, M.
TITLE: The Construction of Order and Direction in Igor Stravinsky's
In Memoriam Dylan Thomas, Canticum Sacrum, and Threni
INSTITUTION: Utrecht University
BEGUN: July 1989
COMPLETED: March 1995
ABSTRACT:
This study presents complete analyses of In Memoriam Dylan
Thomas, Canticum Sacrum and Threni. In the material tables
of the period, the original set is connected with its
inversed reversion in In Memoriam Dylan Thomas and
Canticum Sacrum, and with its inversion in Threni. Numbered
zero, this original double set is transposed by falling
fifths, and the transpositions are numbered 1 to 11. While
the transposition sceme is traced back to Webern's
Variations for Orchestra, the additional technical idea of
double sets is taken from Schoenberg, as is the structural
idea of equivalence. Enriched with the Stravinskyan concept
of implication, the technique enabled the composer to
create connections between remote parts of the compositions.
This method was also used to create two layers of
organisation in Canticum Sacrum and three in Threni.
A motivation is proposed which explains the great number of
non-serial irregularities in the scores. They constitute
another system of organization next to the first. A
comparison is made with compositions from earlier periods
of Stravinsky's creative life where styles and techniques
of other composers were 'Stravinskyfied' by means of changes
in the text. The hypothesis is that this system was
developed simultaneously with the development of the serial
technique and that both techniques reached their apogee in
Threni.
The suggestion is made to regard the scores as written texts
rather than as scripts for a performance. The notation of
accidentals, measure numbers and double barrings refer to
'deeper' levels of organisation. This is increasingly the
case in the course of the research period and probably
thereafter. The notation of accidentals points at a
consciousness of late Renaissance problems of equal
temperament while the notation of double barrings in Threni
refer to the existence of several layers of organization
and to the message encoded by those levels.
KEYWORDS:
Stravinsky, serialism, equivalence, implication,
constructionism, order, direction.
TOC:
CHAPTER I: Technical Background
1 Introduction
2 Change of style
a. The traditional approach
b. Some new proposals
3 Technique
a. The original sets
b. The material charts
c. Equivalence and implication
4 Text and subtext
a. Two examples
b. Two levels of organisation
c. Stasis
5 Inconsistencies
a. The traditional approach
b. A new approach
c. Rotations
6 Visualisation
a. Accidentals
b. Measure numberings
c. Crosses
7 Conclusion
a. Survey
b. Conclusions
CHAPTER II: In Memoriam Dylan Thomas
1 Introduction
2 Technique
a. The traditional approach
b. A proposal for a new approach
c. Set and material tables - 1
3 Analysis
a. Dirge-Canons
b. Song: ritornelli
c. Song: the even forms
d. Song: the odd forms
e. Serial inconsistencies
f. Notation
g. Construction
4 Conclusions
a. Use of numbers
b. Set and material tables - 2
c. Stravinsky, Thomas and Webern
CHAPTER III: Canticum Sacrum ad Honorem Sancti
Marci Nominis
1 Introduction
2 Level I: Analysis
a. Dedicatio
b. Movement I: Euntes in Mundum
c. Movement II: Surge, Aquilo
d. Movement III:De Tres Virtutes Hortationes
e. Movement IV: Brevis Motus Cantilenae
f. Movement V: Illi
CONTACT:
Andre M. Douw
Sweelinck Conservatory
van Baerlestraat 27
1071 AN Amsterdam
The Netherlands
telephone: 020 - 6647641
telefax: 020 - 6761506
andre@ahk.nl
AUTHOR: Jardim, Antonio
TITLE: Music: another density of real - to a philosophy of a
substantive language
INSTITUTION: Conservatorio Brasileiro de Musica
BEGUN: 3-1987
COMPLETED: 3-1988
ABSTRACT:
The propose of this work is:
In the first place, to show that music is a product of social
life as other products.
In the second place, to raise a series of characterizations
showing that music is a language with a determinate degree of
speciality, that become a substantive one. In the third place, to
show through analysis and the exposition of a series of concepts that
the instituitions of musical teaching as they neither see music as a
product of social life nor as a substantive language, they play the
part of reproducer instead of producer.
Besides, it's a propose in this work to discuss in a
philosophical degree a series of concepts and then to approach the
music and the musical teaching in a philosophical conception.
KEYWORDS:
Music, philosophy, education, economy, knowing, production
TOC:
I. A aspect: The Musical Production
The music and your productio process
The music's evolution
The music in the age industrial capitalist
The capitalist way of production and musical's production
The musical's production
Process of production and work's process in music
The musical work's process
The musical work's object
Musical work's Instruments
The musical work's force
The musical production's relations
The artesanal production
The manufactural production
The industrial production
The re-producion process
The productive forces
The consume's relations
The structure of musical production's process
The infra-structure and the super-structure
II. Another aspect: The Musical Language
The pseudo-concreticity
A qiestion of fundamentation
The knowledgement
The knowing's forms
The organic knowing
The mithic knowing
The philosophic knowing
The knowing: doxa, myth and philosophy
The theory and the practice
The music and the knowing's forms
The music how language
Music and doxa
Myth and music
Philosophy and music
The music's language
The hearings
The question of system
The hearing's points
The formation of hearing's points
III. A third aspect: The Music's School
The scool: a complex organization
The school
A truth
Another truth
Organization and truth
The process of "production" of the school
Education: domination or knowing?
Education: theory or practice?
Education: actualization or search of principles
The music school
The music school and the musical language
Music school: theory or practice?
The teaching and the representation's forms
Knowing: learning and teaching
Music school and production
Music school and hearing's point
The music school how a introductory process to music
Education and reproduction
Music school: truth and reproduction
Conclusion
Bibliography
CONTACT:
Antonio Jardim
Rua Sao Luis Gonzaga 445/601
Sao Cristovao - CEP 20 910-061
Rio de Janeiro - RJ
Brasil
e-mail: ajardim@openlink.com.br
AUTHOR: Laurson, Mikael
TITLE: "PATCHWORK: A Visual Programming Language and
some Musical Applications"
INSTITUTION: Sibelius Academy, Helsinki, Finland
BEGUN: April, 1994
COMPLETION: April, 1996
ABSTRACT:
Computer-assisted composition is a field calling upon various
disciplines such as computer science, artificial intelligence, visual
programming, music notation, music theory and representation of
musical objects. This study presents a platform, called PatchWork (PW)
which provides for the combination of these disciplines into an
integrated whole. PatchWork is a general-purpose visual language with
an emphasis on producing and analysing musical materials.
It is first studied how Common Lisp can be translated into a visual
language. Then several PW extensions are introduced including
abstractions. Two important concepts - musical objects and PW-editors
- follow, changing PW from a purely functional language into an
environment creating, storing and processing complex CLOS objects.
PWConstraints, the other main topic of this study, is a PW user
library specialised in rule-based programming. PWConstraints allows
the user to solve complex musical problems by describing the end
result. First PWConstraints is introduced from the user's point of
view. The discussion shows how the search-space is defined and how
rules are written. The introductory part also includes several musical
examples. After a technical discussion two case studies are
presented. The first one is an extension dealing with polyphonic
search problems. The second case study describes a large-scale musical
search problem. A precomposed melodic line is harmonised with the help
of a set of rules.
KEYWORDS: computer-assisted composition, computer music, visual
programming, rule-based programming
TOC: Definitions
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: PW in Perspective
Chapter 3: PW-Kernel
Chapter 4: Musical Objects and PW-Editors
Chapter 5: PWConstraints
Chapter 6: Conclusions
Appendix: Syyssonetti
Bibliography
CONTACT: E-Mail: laurson@siba.fi
Address: Sibelius Academy, P.O. Box 86, 00251 Helsinki, Finland
Voice: 358-0-485039
AUTHOR: McGinness, John, R.
TITLE: "Playing with Debussy's Jeux: Music and Modernism"
INSTITUTION: University of California, Santa Barbara
Music Dept., Santa Barbara CA 93106
BEGUN: 9/92
COMPLETION: 9/96
ABSTRACT:
This dissertation takes the ballet, Jeux, as a point of focus in
order to discuss the ongoing evolution of musical modernism. Debussy's
music, composed in 1912-13, is now often regarded as "presciently
modern"; even, by some accounts, as a nascent "moment form." The inner
chapters concentrate on issues related directly to the music itself:
references to Stravinsky's Petrushka, the musical expression of
Debussy's Symbolist aesthetic, the collaboration between Debussy,
Vaslav Nijinsky, and Serge Diaghilev, and the influence of Emile
Jaques-Dalcroze's theories of movement on both the music and the
dance. (Nijinsky's notes for the choreography are discussed here for
the first time.) Framing the presentation of this material, the first
and last chapters focus on the remarkably disparate ways in which
Jeux's music has been, and continues to be, perceived; of particular
concern is the contrast between the early modern (pre-World War I)
aesthetic relationship to the musical "object" and the mid-century
("high modern") ideal of aesthetic autonomy.
Although I do not eschew the idea of Debussy's modernity, I posit that
the ballet's recent history is related as much to the aesthetic and
compositional concerns of both Pierre Boulez and the Darmstadt group
(i.e., those responsible for initiating its mid-century reception) as
it is to those of Debussy: Jeux, in fact, bears much more in common
with the music of other early modernists than is currently
believed. While making no claims to finality, the interdisciplinary
process used in this study does reveal an aesthetic vision in the
early years of the century that is significantly different from the
pure formalism of mid-century and that represented by my own late (or
post-) modern point of view.
KEYWORDS: Modernism, Aesthetics, Ballets Russes, Eurhythmics, Nijinsky,
Diaghilev, Darmstadt, Boulez
TOC: I. Playing with Debussy's Jeux: Music and Modernism
II. A Dancer's Angst; A Composer's Reluctance: Nijinsky's Notes for the
Ballet, Jeux
III. Debussy sur Stravinsky: Traces of Influence; Questions of Form
IV. New Acquisition; Re-Acquisition: The Museum in Stasis
CONTACT: P.O. Box 1755, Goleta CA 93116
(805) 687-2513
6500jrmc@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu
AUTHOR: Tjoeme, Berit K. TITLE: The Articulation of Sonata Form in Atonal Works by Fartein Valen. Analyses of his Violin Concerto, Op. 37 and Symphony No. 3, Op. 41. INSTITUTION: Department of Music and Theatre, Section for Musicology, University of Oslo, Norway BEGUN: January, 1990 COMPLETION: August, 1995 ABSTRACT: The aim of this study is to examine the most significant characteristics of the sonata-allegro form as it is reflected in Fartein Valen s two compositions. An introductory part of this dissertation illuminates Valen s relations to the tradition. More specifically, I throw light on the most significant inspirational sources of the composer s evolution toward his dissonant polyphony, which are primarily J. S. Bach s counterpoint, late Romanticism, and the new music by Arnold Schoenberg. These three historical aspects, more than any other sources, can be considered to form the premises for Valen s large-scale atonal works. This dissertation contains a broad spectrum of the stylistic hallmarks of Valen s atonality. The composer s development of a "modified row-technique" is viewed in the light of an "Ausfullung der Zwolftonskala". This is argued for on the basis of the composer s contrapuntal devices, the close relation between foreground and background in Valen s atonal pieces and his voice-leading procedures. The harmonic dimensions of this music, as well as the most significant characteristics of Valen s cadential formulas are discussed in relation to traditional tonality as well as to pitch-class set theory. This study also focuses on the composer s concern for musical continuity and coherence, and as such this will be examined in the light of the use of the complement relation, the concept of invariance, the importance of basic interval patterns and the significance of pc-set complexes. Furthermore, this dissertation takes a closer look at Valen s use of his developing-variation procedure, and his articulation of a so-called musical prose. Finally, the study focuses attention on the argument that Valen in his atonality makes a synthesis of the principle of variation, a fugal design, and the sonata form. KEYWORDS: Atonal music, pitch-class set analysis, sonata form, Norwegian music, Fartein Valen, atonal counterpoint, dissonant polyphony. TOC: Part I Fundamentals Ch. 1 Statement of Purpose Ch. 2 Valen s Premises for His Atonal Large-Scale Atonal Compositions Ch. 3 Methodological Considerations the Development of Analytical Approaches to Post-Tonal Music. A Historical Perspective Ch. 4 Theoretical Reflections the Problem of Abstraction in Pc-set Analysis Ch. 5 Theory and Analysis the Problem of Segmentation and Identification of Structural Components in Atonal Music Part II Analyses Ch. 6 The Violin Concerto, Op. 37 and Symphony No. 3, Op. 41 Ch. 7 Valen s Atonal Pieces Architectural Models or Developing Forms? a Focus on Cadential Patterns in his two Compositions Ch. 8 The Harmonic Vocabulary in Valen s Violin Concerto and his Symphony No. 3 Ch. 9 A Further Discussion on the Aspect of Harmony in Valen s Post-Tonal Works Ch. 10 Valen s Development of a "Modified Row Technique" the Composer s Concern about Musical Continuity and Coherence Ch. 11 Valen s Atonality as a Consecutive Process a New Conception of Musical Form in his Mature Atonal Works Ch. 12 Aesthetic Considerations Valen s Dissonant Polyphony Innovation and Tradition CONTACT: Nadderudveien 84E, N-1347 Hosle, Norway, Voice: +4767145935
AUTHOR: Waters, Keith, J.
TITLE: "Rhythmic and Contrapuntal Structures in the Music of
Arthur Honegger"
INSTITUTION: Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester
Department of Music Theory
26 Gibbs St.
Rochester, NY 14604
BEGUN: July 1994
COMPLETION: January 1997
ABSTRACT:
The dissertation examines fundamental principles of musical
organization in the music of Arthur Honegger. These principles are
based upon systematic rhythmic and contrapuntal strategies,
illuminated through a study of Honegger's compositions and
compositional sketches. While techniques of pitch organization are
diverse in the compositions of Honegger, the strategies of rhythm
and counterpoint provide an underlying source of compositional
unity.
The initial chapter provides a biographical summary, reviews
the analytically-based secondary literature, and examines
Honegger's prose writings. Chapter 2 discusses rhythmic
organization, and refines current thories of rhythmic consonance
and dissonance to highlight methods of rhythmic conflict.
Contrapuntal strategies are expressed through techniques of
inversional symmetry, considered here through contour symmetry,
generic interval symmetry, and specific interval symmetry: this
provides the focus of Chapter 3.
Chapters 4 and 5 provide extended analyses of two orchestral
works. Mouvement symphonique #2 (Rugby) establishes a series of
correspondences based upon pitch material, rhythmic groupings, and
rhythmic conflicts. The analysis of the first two movements of
Symphonie pour cordes is supplemented by the composer's sketches
which illuminate intervallic and contrapuntal processes. The final
chapter suggests avenues for future inquiry in pitch organization
of Honegger, in coordination with current analytical approaches for
the tonally-centric music of Stravinsky, Bart�k, and Hindemith.
KEYWORDS: Arthur Honegger, rhythmic (or metrical) consonance and
dissonance, inversional symmetry, interval cycle, pitch centricity,
Mouvement symphonique, Symphonie pour cordes, counterpoint
TOC: 1. Background; 2. Rhythmic Structures; 3. Contrapuntal
Structures and Symmetries; 4. Mouvement symphonique (Rugby);
5. Symphonie pour cordes
CONTACT: Keith Waters
1826 19th St., #213
Boulder CO 80302
watersk@stripe.colorado.edu
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