Editor’s Message
Dear Esteemed MTO Readers,
Baroque pendant portraits and Handel’s aria pairs, Hollywood Cadences, Bob Dylan’s “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” and Brad Mehldau’s cover of “Paranoid Android”—these are the topics of articles in MTO Volume 19.4. I am thrilled to announce this new issue, which also includes reviews of books by Dora Hanninen and Allan Moore, a review of Matthew Bribitzer-Stull’s new anthology of scores, and a report on the inaugural meeting of the Russian Society for Music Theory.
Before introducing this new issue in further detail, I would like to offer my enthusiastic congratulations to the authors of three MTO articles that won awards this year. David Clampitt and Thomas Noll received the SMT 2013 Outstanding Publication Award for “Modes, the Height-Width Duality, and Handchin’s Tone Character.” Mitchell Ohriner received the SMT 2013 Emerging Scholar Award for “Grouping Hierarchy and Trajectories of Pacing in Performances of Chopin's Mazurkas.” And Henry Martin received the Steve Larson Award for Jazz Scholarship from the SMT Jazz Interest Group for “Charlie Parker and ‘Honeysuckle Rose’: Voice Leading, Formula, and Motive.”
I am also very pleased to congratulate our founding editor, Lee Rothfarb, for his SMT Honorary Lifetime Membership award. A statement in Professor Rothfarb’s honor—which is fascinating reading for all those interested in the early days of MTO—is available here.
And now to the articles and reviews in our new issue! I am excited to present four articles:
- Gregory J. Decker, “Pastorals, Passepieds, and Pendants: Interpreting Characterization Through Aria Pairs in Handel’s Rodelinda.” Decker enriches our understanding of music and character by situating Handel’s arias in pairs, and he demonstrates analogous pairings in pendant portraits from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
- Frank Lehman, “Hollywood Cadences: Music and the Structure of Cinematic Exposition.” Lehman’s study provides a powerful new tool for the analysis of musical meaning in film; he identifies cadences in flexible categories (or “genres”) and shows how they contribute to narrative and audience expectation.
- Steven Rings, “A Foreign Sound to Your Ear: Bob Dylan Performs ‘It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),’ 1964–2009.” Rings presents a rich and multifaceted study of “It’s Alright Ma,” balancing the iconic 1965 studio recording with a survey of live performances since 1964, and he makes a compelling case for the musical study of Dylan’s vast output.
- René L. Rusch, “Crossing Over with Brad Mehldau’s Cover of Radiohead’s ‘Paranoid Android’: The Role of Jazz Improvisation in the Transformation of an Intertext.” With remarkable transcriptions, Rusch demonstrates how Mehldau’s cover highlights motivic repetitions in the original rock song and heightens themes of anxiety and apprehension.
Three book reviews:
- Zachary Bernstein reviews Dora Hanninen, A Theory of Music Analysis: On Segmentation and Associative Organization (Rochester University Press, 2012).
- Christopher Endrinal reviews Allan Moore, Song Means: Analyzing and Interpreting Recorded Popular Song (Ashgate, 2012).
- Mary Wennerstrom reviews Matthew Bribitzer-Stull, Anthology for Analysis and Performance (Oxford University Press, 2014).
And a conference report: Philip A. Ewell reports on the Inaugural Meeting of the Russian Society for Music Theory.
My sincere thanks to Karen Bottge (associate editor) for working with me diligently and wisely on all aspects of MTO. Steven Rings has completed an outstanding term as book reviews editor—a total of thirty-seven reviews were published under his editorship (2011–14). I heartily welcome Heather Platt as our new book reviews editor, working together with Kyle Adams. My thanks also to Brent Yorgason (managing editor) for his tireless work behind the scenes, to all members of the editorial board for their thorough and constructive reviews, and to the editorial assistants for their dedication, hard work, and attention to detail.
We would like to encourage new and creative submissions to MTO. Although we are especially well 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 essays and commentaries, conference reports, 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 submission guidelines, if you are interested in submitting.
We host job listings and a dissertation index; please submit announcements for both to MTO.
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.
