Society for Music Theory

Editor’s Message

Greetings gentle readers of MTO,

It is a great pleasure to introduce volume 16.3 of MTO - a Journal of the Society for Music Theory. This volume includes six impressive works of scholarship, each touching on some aspect of music in the past century: four articles and two reviews. From stunning manuscript images in full color to interactive animations, each of the articles takes advantage of MTO’s unique multi-media capabilities. I invite you to take a moment away from the early semester rush to enjoy the discoveries and delights in this volume.

In his thoughtful and probing article, “After the Harvest: Carter’s Fifth String Quartet and the Late Late Style,” J. Daniel Jenkins explores Elliott Carter’s recent compositional style, focusing particularly on the surprising stylistic shift found in Carter’s Fifth String Quartet.

Nicholas Stoia’s article, “Mode, Harmony, and Dissonance Treatment in American Folk and Popular Music, c. 1920–1945,” employs compelling audio examples, graphs, and charts to describe certain unconventional dissonances found in recent popular idioms, particularly those of the “dropping” and “hanging” third.

Supporting his thesis with gorgeous images from the original manuscripts, Daniel Walden’s article, “Noting Images: Understanding the Illustrated Manuscripts of Mendelssohn’s Schilflied and Hindemith’s Ludus Tonalis,” examines how these unique visual media reflect the composers’ conceptions of musical composition and form.

In their article, “Modeling Diatonic, Acoustic, Hexatonic, and Octatonic Harmonies and Progressions in 2- and 3-Dimensional Pitch Spaces; or Jazz Harmony after 1960,” Keith J. Waters and J. Kent Williams use interactive animations to model diatonic, acoustic, hexatonic, and octatonic harmonic progressions drawn from post-1960s jazz compositions.

Stephen Rodgers provides a thorough review of Matthew Santa’s Hearing Form: Musical Analysis With and Without the Score (New York: Routledge, 2010).

Finally, Elise O. Takehana’s review takes a close look at Nicola Dibben’s book, Björk (London: Equinox Press, 2009).

As always, we would like to encourage new and creative submissions to MTO. Although we are uniquely 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 commentaries, and entire special volumes. We are continuing to develop a new feature, “analytical essays,” which would include brief, but high quality, analyses of single works, using appropriately targeted media.

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 new submission guidelines, if you are interested in submitting a proposal or an essay.

As always, we are grateful for the indefatigable work of the many people behind the scenes at MTO: Brent Yorgason, our managing editor; and all of our editorial assistants, Sean Atkinson (UT Arlington), John Reef (Indiana University), Sarah Sarver (Florida State University), Emily Gertsch (Florida State University), Gregory Decker (Florida State University), David Easley (Florida State University), Chelsey Hamm (Florida State University), Andrew Gades (Florida State University), Gregory McCandless (Florida State University), Judith Ofcarcik (Florida State University), Crystal Peebles (Florida State University), and Jennie Smith (Florida State University).

Our dynamic listings for job announcements, upcoming conferences, calls for papers, new dissertations, and new books are updated automatically as soon as we receive and approve any new listing. Readers can check the MTO listings at any time to find current information on recent announcements. We also have links for submitting announcements online.

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.