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The Online Journal of the Society for Music Theory |
Volume 5, Number 2 March, 1999
Copyright � 1999 Society for Music Theory
AUTHOR: Konstantinou, Elena
TITLE: Nikos Skalkottas: The Piano Music
INSTITUTION: University of Reading, Reading, U.K.
BEGUN: October 1998
COMPLETION: October 2001
ABSTRACT:
My research is concerned with the keyboard music of Nikos Skalkottas. Most of it is
unpublished and unperformed, and I propose to assess it with the assistance of supporting
analytical methods, addressing the primary sources. Problems to be examined include those
surrounding the validity of the texts of the composer currently available and the general
appraisal of these in the context of the output of Skalkottas, and his contribution to
twentieth-century compositional technique, especially in relation to the structural ideals
of his teacher, Schoenberg. Significantly, Skalkottas' idiosyncratic use of serial and
developmental techniques is of great interest, particularly viewed in conjunction with the
elaborate aesthetic, as opposed to purely technical, concepts with which the majority of
Skalkottas' writing is concerned.
KEYWORDS:
Skalkottas, keyboard music, analytical, primary sources, serial, structural, developmental
techniques, Schoenberg, aesthetic concepts, writings.
TOC:
CONTACT:
elenak@zetnet.co.uk
Voice:+44(0)181 948 6663
Fax: +44(0)181 948 6663
AUTHOR: Nelson, Thomas K.
TITLE: The Fantasy of Absolute Music
INSTITUTION: University of Minnesota
BEGUN:
COMPLETED: June 1998
ABSTRACT:
This dissertation addresses the genealogy of the fantasy of absolute music. It begins with
the pastoral of reconciliation in a prelapsarian alternative world compensating for the
dysfunctions of the social world. It concludes with the dissolution of the musical means
to support that fantasy. The Lieder of Schubert comprise the primary repertory of this
investigation of Austro-Germanic art music. The central chapters, 3 and 4, develop a
theory of romantic tonality based on Schubert's own poetics of the bVI complex as
manifested in his songs. Two preliminary chapters provide a wider cultural-historical
context of Schubert's practice. The first chapter explores the literary and artistic
figurations of the pastoral, the socio-psychological motivations for fantasy, and
Schiller's philosophical theorization of the elegiac idyll as an allegorical idealization
of the absolute. Chapter 2 discusses the poetics of 18th-century Galant-Classical musical
discourse.
The legacy of the fantasy of absolute music in the 19th century coincides with the
confusions and mystifications of aesthetic ideology. The concluding chapters discuss how
the allegorical approach to fantasy, cultivated in Early German Romanticism as a
collaboration of philosophy and poetics, succumbed to the desire for a purely symbolic
certainty in an age marked by growing pessimism. By the end of the century, the desire for
the musical absolute had driven the musico-poetic language of common practice tonality
toward its own absolution. Chapter 6 includes a detailed interpretation of two songs
composed in the 1880s that illustrate the full potential of bVI musical poetics.
The methodological premise of the dissertation rests on an Early Romantic form of
dialectical mediation based on the metaphor of Schweben (hovering or fluctuation) as a
means of transcendence. Schweben yields a fundamental concept of the romantic fantasy of
absolute music itself and the key to its understanding. Similarly, the bVI provides an
allegory for German music history in which the aesthetic experience of tonality is itself
subject to a temporal fate of disillusionment. Works examined include art by Klinger,
Poussin and Watteau; essays by Nietzsche, Schiller, Schenker and Wackenroder; music by
Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler, Marenzio, Mozart, Schubert, and Wagner.
KEYWORDS:
submediant, lieder, harmony, effect, pastoral, galant, aesthetics, ideology, Arcadia
TOC:
Introduction:
Accorde, or The Fantasy of Absolute Music 1
Chapter 1:
Pastoral Reconciliation of Modern Estrangement
Chapter 2:
The Romanticism of Galant Music 206
Chapter 3:
Theory of the bVI Complex: The Logic of its Arcadian Poetics
Chapter 4:
Schubert bVI Song Studies
(1) Erstarrung, D.911 #4
(2) Fahrt zum Hades, D.526
(3) Aus Heliopolis II, D.754
i. Ihr Grab, D.736
j. Tonic as bVI
(1) Geistes-Gruss, D.142
(2) Der Alpenjaeger, D.588
(3) Grenzen der Menschheit, D.716
(4) Selige Welt, D.743
(5) Am Fenster, D.878
(6) Laube, D.214
(7) Der Fluss, D.693
(8) Der Hirt auf dem Felsen, D.965
(9) Der Musensohn, D.764
(10) Bie dir allein, D.866
(11) Staendchen, D.889
(12) Mein!, D.795 #11
k. Meeres Stille, D.216
l. bVI = V as pivot to bII
(1) Gruppe aus dem Tartarus, D.583
(2) Prometheus, D.674
(3) Szene aus Goethes Faust, D.126
(4) Wehmuth, D.772
(5) Suleika I, D.720
(6) Ganymed, D544
(7) Der Zwerg, D.771
m. Auf dem Flusse, D.911 #7
n. The song cycles as tonal 'whole'
(1) Winterreise, D.911
(2) Schwanengesang, D.957
o. Kennst du das Land, D.321
(1) Beethoven
(2) Schubert
p. Conclusion
Chapter 5:
The Poetics of Absolute Music, or Schweben and its Ideological Discontents
Chapter 6:
The Absolution and Dissolution of Pastoral Fantasy
List of Works Cited 866
Appendices
Appendix # 1: Concordance of bVIs in Schubert's Lieder 903
Appendix # 2: Longer German Quotations 947
Appendix # 3: Outline of Pastoral Types in Western Culture 959
Appendix # 4: Examples of music and art 969
CONTACT:
Thomas K. Nelson
2733 40th Ave. South
Minneapolis, MN 55406
(612) 724-1651
tknlsn@earthlink.net
AUTHOR: Samplaski, Arthur G.
TITLE: A Comparison of Perceived Chord Similarity and Predictions of
Selected Twentieth-Century Chord-Classification Schemes, Using Multidmensional Scaling and
Clustering Techniques
INSTITUTION: Indiana University
BEGUN: November 1998
COMPLETED: May 2000
ABSTRACT:
There seems to be an implicit consensus among adherents of several classification systems
for the chord-types of twentieth-century Western art music that in some sense they reflect
listeners' perceptions. This dissertation will undertake one perceptual study to test
whether there is support for such a view of these theories. Subjects will listen to pairs
of chords under several different experimental conditions as played by a computer program,
which will collect their ratings of the chords' similarities. Two different pools of
subjects will be recruited, to assess the effects of experience in listening to non-tonal
music. Subjects' responses will be pooled and analyzed using multidimensional scaling and
cluster analysis. The derived configurations will be compared to the (qualitative)
clustering predictions of several chord-classification systems, to see if there is any
perceptual support for their grouping criteria. Emphasis will be given to testing
perceptual support for theories by Forte and Hindemith, but the method is also applicable
to other classification systems.
KEYWORDS:
music cognition, music perception, atonal analysis, pcset theory, Hindemith,
multidimensional scaling, cluster analysis
TOC:
CONTACT:
Art Samplaski
Music Theory Dept.
IU School of Music
Bloomington, IN 47405
asamplas@indiana.edu
AUTHOR: Santa, Matthew S.
TITLE: Studies in Post-Tonal Diatonicism: A Mod7 Perspective
INSTITUTION: City University of New York
BEGUN: February 1998
COMPLETED: May 1999
ABSTRACT:
There is a substantial body of music written in the 20th century in which the notes of a
diatonic scale predominate, but which often lacks one or more of the other basic
requirements necessary to be considered tonal: 1) a centricity around a single tone p
erceived as tonic; 2) a harmonic organization based on triads and seventh chords; 3) a
hierarchical organization of functional harmonies; and 4) a contrapuntal substructure
based on the laws of species counterpoint. Such music, by the likes of Barber, Copland,
Prokofiev, and Stravinsky, has always posed a problem for music theorists, since neither
traditional tonal analysis nor pc-set analysis yields satisfying analytic results. This
dissertation argues that the problems inherent in analyzing post-tonal diatonic music can
be solved by a careful application of set theory modulo 7, in interaction with the more
familiar mod12 set theory. The first chapter outlines a system of mod7 set theory designed
specifically for the analysis of post-tonal diatonic music . Chapter 2 then utilizes that
system to analyze a range of post-tonal diatonic works in order to demonstrate the
system's validity, its flexibility, and its explanatory power. Chapter 3 rigorously
examines chordal tone centers in post-tonal diatonic music, an aspect of centricity that
has thus far only been discussed in the vaguest of terms. Chapter 4 deals with structural
levels in post-tonal diatonic music, presenting an approach that considers both the
salience of individual pitches, and their place in the work's formal and motivic
structure, in determining their structural weight. The final chapter explores how diatonic
partitionings of the octave interact with pentatonic, whole-tone, octatonic, and chromatic
partitionings in much
music of the 20th c entury, and addresses the analytic problems posed by such
interactions.
KEYWORDS:
post-tonal, mod7, centricity, diatonic, set theory, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Bartok,
Copland, Barber
TOC:
Chapter 1: Set Theory, Mod7
Chapter 2: Motivic Analysis, Mod7
Chapter 3: Chordal Tone Centers
Chapter 4: Structural Levels
Chapter 5: Beyond Mod7: Relating Diatonic and Nondiatonic Materials
CONTACT:
Matthew Santa
120 W. 44th St., Apt. 914
New York, NY 10036
< msanta@aol.com >
(212) 921-2074
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Prepared by
Eric J. Isaacson, General Editor
6 April 1999