Society for Music Theory

Editor’s Message

MTO volume 13.1 features three full-length articles, three commentary essays, and a book review. Two contributions on Chopin analysis explore how performers’ interpretive choices can provide insights in the analytical process. The numerous audio clips include excerpts from historical performances by Busoni and Rachmaninov. The issue also lists current announcements of jobs, conferences, new dissertations, and new books.

The exponential growth of MTO in recent years would not have been possible without the hard work of our terrific Editorial Board and our multi-talented managing editor, Brent Yorgason. I want to take this opportunity to welcome new Editorial Board members David Cohen, Nora Engebretsen, Joel Galand, Kevin Korsyn, and Scott Murphy. I thank our departing board members, Marion Guck and Peter Schubert, for their many contributions. Our continuing veteran board members are Michael Buchler and Rebecca Leydon.

In this issue:

Gregory Marion proposes that innovations in Debussy’s musical language depend on interrogations of a musical past in “Debussy and Recollection: trois apercu.” The article examines shifts in temporal orientation in three works: the song, “De rêve” from Proses lyriques, Pour le piano, and “Golliwogg’s Cakewalk,” illustrating that Debussy evokes remembrance of the past for the very purpose of eclipsing it.

In “Bruno Maderna’s Serial Arrays,” Christoph Neidhöfer investigates the constructive principles of Maderna’s tone rows as documented in sketch materials, describing how serial arrays were employed as a source for innovative multi-serial strategies in the composition of three works: Improvvisazione N. 1, Musica su due dimensioni, and Serenata N. 2.

Diane J. Urista explores intersections and digressions among performances and analyses in her article, “Chopin’s Prelude in C Major Revisited: Integrating Sound and Symbol.” She studies seven performance recordings of Chopin’s Op. 28, No. 1, showing how performative and written approaches may interrelate in communicating interpretive possibilities within a musical passage.

Our Reviews Editor, Jeff Perry, discusses music theory as an art of conversation, enjoining us all to participate in the exchange of ideas by submitting essays for the MTO Commentary section. In “Music Theory as Conversation,” he draws on a well known debate between Joseph Straus and Steve Larson to underscore how fruitful scholarship in music theory evolves in the manner of an ongoing conversation.

Fernando Benadon offers a commentary on Matthew W. Butterfield’s “The Power of Anacrusis: Engendered Feeling in Groove-Based Musics" in MTO 12.4 (December 2006), proposing alternatives in the microtiming analysis of the main groove in Herbie Hancock’s “Chameleon.”

Daniel G. Barolsky’s commentary essay, “The Performer as Analyst,” suggests ways that performances can inform and guide the direction of our analytic projects. Examples are drawn from recorded performances and analytical interpretations of the final movement of Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor Op. 35.

Kimberly A. Francis reviews Multiple Masks: Neoclassicism in Stravinsky’s Works of Greek Subjects (University of Nebraska Press, 2002) by Maureen Carr.

Also included are listings of employment opportunities, calls for papers, conference announcements, new dissertations, and new books, in a continually updated dynamic format.

Submissions to MTO are welcome at any time. We invite full-length articles, shorter commentaries, and innovative electronic formats. Comments in response to this issue’s articles may be submitted to the Editor for publication in the next issue.

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 and welcome new listings to keep our postings current.

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 for your support of MTO!



Matthew Shaftel      
Music Theory Online
Florida State University
College of Music
Tallahassee, FL 32306
U.S.A.