Editor’s Message

[1] For many of us in the northern hemisphere, summer brings slightly more time for introspection; at any rate, it brings a change in routine, and possibly changes in perspective. Such changes are a topic for this issue of MTO.

[2] In February 2016, the College of Music and Dramatic Arts of Louisiana State University hosted a Symposium on Prokofiev and the Russian Tradition. This was in honor of the 125th anniversary of the birth of Sergei Prokofiev. My colleague Inessa Bazayev, who put together the symposium, describes it in greater detail in her conference report/guest editorial. This issue of MTO includes three articles themed around the topic of that symposium, by Bazayev, Deborah Rifkin, and Christopher Segall.

[3] Joseph Jakubowski, in ”Spectral Meter: Dramatizing Entrainment and Communicating Form in Gérard Grisey’s Vortex Temporum I (1994–96),” argues that focusing mainly on matters of sonority and intonation when discussing the work of the Spectral school ignores the elegance of the school’s formal innovations, and the play with and against rhythmic periodicity that enables it.

[4] Corpus studies, often linked to study of musical perception and cognition, are one of the moment’s most vibrant new areas of analytical inquiry. Christopher William White, in “Feedback and Feedforward Models of Musical Key,” continues the interrogation of the what, why, and how of corpus studies.

[5] In “Musical Mimesis in Orphans of the Storm,” Kendra Preston Leonard examines the score to D. W. Griffith’s 1921 film, composed by Louis F. Gottschalk and William Frederick Peters, from the point of view of both expression and structure.

[6] Henry Martin, in “Four Studies of Charlie Parker’s Compositional Processes,” applies both the methodology of score study and his own understanding of Parker’s life and music to illuminate the work of a composer and a genre whose genius has not been well explored using the customary analytical apparatus.

[7] On the topic of composers whose work has been poorly served by most music theory, and rounding out the issue, Nancy Murphy reviews The Cambridge Companion to the Singer-Songwriter.

[8] As always, we encourage submissions in formats both tried and true and new and creative. Although we are especially well suited for the publication of articles that incorporate recordings, videos, and other media, we also welcome text submissions in a variety of formats, including full-length articles, shorter essays and commentaries, conference reports, and entire special volumes. Commentaries in response to this issue’s articles, as well as announcements for our job listings and dissertation index, may be submitted to the Editor for publication in the next issue. Please refer to our submission guidelines.

[9] 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.