Society for Music Theory

Editor’s Message

My final greetings to you, charitable readers of MTO,

As the days begin to grow shorter and the reflections of garnet and gold leaves shimmer on our classroom whiteboards, I cannot help but recall with sad fondness Fauré’s heartrending setting of Armande Silvestre’s Automne. From its murky oscillating opening (Example 1) to the tonicized Neapolitan in its surprisingly poignant ending (Example 2), it touchingly juxtaposes the fog of regret with the clarity and light of relived memory:

Example 1

Automne au ciel brumeux, aux horizons navrants.
Aux rapides couchants, aux aurores pâlies,
Je regarde couler, comme l'eau du torrent,
     Tes jours faits de mèlancolie.

Sur l'aile des regrets mes esprits emportés,
—Comme s'il se pouvait que notre âge renaisse!—
Parcourent, en rêvant, les coteaux enchantés,
     Où jadis sourit ma jeunesse!

Je sens, au clair soleil du souvenir vainqueur,
Refleurir en bouquet les roses deliées,
Et monter à mes yeux des larmes, qu'en mon coeur,
     Mes vingt ans avaient oubliées!
Example 2

Autumn of foggy skies and depressing horizons,
Of rapid sunsets and pale dawns,
I watch them flow, like flood waters,
     Your days made of melancholy.

My senses swept off by the wings of regret,
—As if our time could ever be reborn!—
Wander in dream the enchanted hills,
     Where my youth once smiled!

I feel, in the bright sunlight of victorious memory,
The strewn roses re-blooming into bouquets,
And welling up in my eyes, the tears which in my heart
     At the age of twenty I had forgotten!

It is with these words of melancholy that I bid you adieu, though I will continue on these “enchanted hills” for one final issue as co-editor. It has been my honor and privilege to serve you, the faithful readers of MTO, and to continue a tradition of providing open access to quality, cutting-edge research in music theory and beyond.

Despite Silvestre’s distressing verse, we also know that October is a time of renewal—of celebrated harvests to be greeted in the songs and cheer of Oktoberfest. Indeed, MTO’s own harvest renewal has begun with the first of two co-edited volumes with our incoming editor, Yonatan Malin. Equipped with a wide range of expertise, an acute musicality, a gentle grace, and a keen editorial eye, Dr. Malin is ideally suited to take MTO to the next level and to face the many challenges on the road ahead. I know you will welcome him with open arms (and a flood of new submissions). To celebrate, I’d like to briefly raise our voices in a traditional Oktoberfest toast:

Ein Prosit, ein Prosit
Der Gemütlichkeit
Ein Prosit, ein Prosit
Der Gemütlichkeit.!

It is with absolute delight, and in the true spirit of Oktoberfest Gemütlichkeit that Yonatan Malin and I present Volume 17.3 of MTO: (Per)Form in(g) Rock.

As Nicole Biamonte’s eloquent introduction attests, this special volume reflects an integration of formal theory (“Form in Rock”) and performance (“Performing Rock”), in seven articles that traverse the terrain from diverse directions:

  • Jay Summach, “The Structure, Function, and Genesis of the Prechorus”
  • Christopher Doll, “Rockin’ Out: Expressive Modulation in Verse-Chorus Form”
  • Brad Osborn, “Understanding Through-Composition in Post-Rock, Math-Metal, and other Post-Millennial Rock Genres “
  • Timothy Koozin, “Guitar Voicing in Pop-Rock Music: A Performance-Based Analytical Approach”
  • Christopher Endrinal, “Burning Bridges: Defining the Interverse in the Music of U2”
  • Robin Attas, “Sarah Setting the Terms: Defining Phrase in Popular Music”
  • Drew Nobile, “Form and Voice Leading in Early Beatles Songs”

All seven articles are then discussed in a rockin’ response by Mark Spicer, who shares his own perspective through well-chosen transcriptions and music examples.

Volume 17.3 also presents a smorgasbord of reading selections in four book reviews:

  • Julian Hook reviews Dmitri Tymoczko’s A Geometry of Music: Harmony and Counterpoint in the Extended Common Practice
  • Harald Krebs reviews Danuta Mirka’s Metric Manipulations in Haydn and Mozart: Chamber Music for Strings, 1787–1791
  • Seth Monahan reviews Janet Schmalfeldt’s In the Process of Becoming: Analytical and Philosophical Perspectives on Form in Early Nineteenth-Century Music
  • Samuel Ng reviews Ryan McClelland’s, Brahms and the Scherzo: Studies in Musical Narrative

Many, many thanks to Steven Rings, our Reviews Editor, for successfully ushering in a new era of more succinct, more timely, and more numerous reviews. “Ein prosit!” As always, we are grateful for the unflinching dedication of our staff: Brent Yorgason (Marietta College), our managing editor, and all of our editorial assistants: Sean Atkinson (UT Arlington), John Reef (Indiana University), Michael McClimon (Indiana U), Emily Gertsch (Florida State U), and Judith Ofcarcik (Florida State U).

Thanks also go to our editorial board, whose careful, constructive, and timely reading of submissions insures the cutting-edge quality that you have come to expect from MTO. The 2011 editorial board includes the following scholars: Nicole Biamonte (McGill University), Karen Bottge (University of Kentucky), Steven Brown (Northern Arizona University), Guy Capuzzo (UNC Greensboro), Mark Anson-Cartwright (Queens College, CUNY), Dora A. Hanninen (University of Maryland), Gary S. Karpinski (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Jonathan Kochavi (Swarthmore College), Catherine Losada (CCM, University of Cincinnati), and Deborah Rifkin (Ithaca College). Several new editorial board members will be welcomed in the next volume, where we will once again celebrate the bittersweet renewal that annual rotations provide!

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, conference summaries, and entire special volumes.

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.

The dynamic listings for job announcements and upcoming conferences will soon be moving to the SMT homepage, but for now, please submit your announcements to MTO. We will continue to link to them from MTO for the foreseeable future.

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. It has been a pleasure to serve you, our reading public, for the past four years!