Editor’s Message

Our fourth issue of 2007 offers theoretical models based on Medieval syllogistics and modern combinatorics, innovative uses of 3-D rendering and performance audio, and analyses of works from repertoires of Landini, Bach, 19th-century Lieder, Brahms, and Bartok. The volume also lists current announcements of jobs, conferences, new dissertations, and new books.

In this issue:

Julian Hook contributes “Why Are There Twenty-Nine Tetrachords?: A Tutorial on Combinatorics and Enumeration in Music Theory.” The article includes a brief history and primer on combinatorial theory followed by an exploration of advanced techniques and their music-theoretic applications.

In “Francesco’s Dream: Musical Logic in Landini’s Three-Voice Ballate,” Jeannie Ma. Guerrero proposes an analytical approach to Landini’s music based on dialectical principles from the 14th-century logician, William of Ockham. The logical syllogism provides a basis for studying features of harmony in two ballate, “Amor c’al tuo sugetto” and “Partesi con dolore.”

Peter A. Martens contributes “Glenn Gould’s ‘Constant Rhythmic Reference Point’: Communicating Pulse in Bach’s Goldberg Variations, 1955 and 1981.” The results of this empirical study suggest that Gould successfully realized a stated goal in his second recording through unifying inter-movement tactus relationships that could be perceived by listeners.

Jacob Reed and Matthew Bain apply animated three-dimensional modeling in “A Tetrahelix Animates Bach: Revisualization of David Lewin’s Analysis of the Opening of the F# Minor Fugue from WTC I.” The application models voice-leading with an animated triple helix, vividly depicting the geometric implications of patterns and relationships described in Lewin's analysis of the six measures.

Matt BaileyShea’s “Filleted Mignon: A New Recipe for Analysis and Recomposition” combines settings of the Goethe poem by Schubert, Schumann, and Wolf to form an intertextual analysis. His experimental rendering with score and audio explores recomposition as an analytical tool and highlights intertextual motivic associations in the original Mignon songs.

In “Exploring Complementation in Bartok’s Third Quartet,” Deborah Mawer develops an expanded concept of complementation, discussing complementary relationships not only among sets and pitches, but also in modes and other parameters such as texture, rhythm, and large-scale form.

Samuel Ng reviews Expressive Forms in Brahms’s Instrumental Music: Structure and Meaning in His Werther Quartet by Peter H. Smith (Indiana University Press, 2005).

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!



Timothy Koozin, Editor      
Music Theory Online
Moores School of Music
University of Houston
Houston, TX 77204
U.S.A.

mto-editor@societymusictheory.org
(713) 743-3318

prepared by
Tim Koozin, Editor
Updated30 March 2007

Updated 03 July 2013
Brent Yorgason

SMT