9:00 AM-12:00 PM

Session IV: Narrative and Performance

Janet Bourne, University of California at Santa Barbara, Chair

Rhapsody Hall (room 113)

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Coffee (9–9:15)

 

“Altered Consciousness in Chopin’s Nocturne in F-sharp Minor, Op. 48, no. 2”

Ian W. Gerg (Austin, TX)

 

“Functions of Gesture in Music by Gubaidulina and Sciarrino” (10:00–10:25)

Sara Everson (Florida State University)

 

“The Deformation of the Pastoral in Rebecca Clarke’s Piano Trio”

Sacha Peiser (University of Connecticut)

 

“Towards a Theory of Performance: Its Rules and Layers”

Nathan Pell (CUNY Graduate Center)

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ABSTRACTS

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Session I (Friday, 2:00–5:00): Transformation and Space

 

“Gustav Holst's Terzetto ​and Its Maximally Smooth Triad of Keys”

Dustin Chau (University of Kansas)

 

This study uses existing ideas of polytonality and neo-Riemannian theory to analyze the smooth "key-leading" relationships within Gustav Holst's Terzetto, written in 1925 for flute, oboe, and viola. Neo-Riemannian theory states that major and minor triads can voice lead smoothly from one to another and will maintain similar harmonic structures ([037]). Analogously, a triad of keys is maximally smooth when two of the three diatonic collections stay the same, and the third transposes by perfect fifth or perfect fourth. The only triad of keys that can “key lead” to two other triads of keys of the same type with maximally smooth motion is [014]. This is expected: as semitones and perfect fifth are related by the M7 (multiply-by-7) operation, and [037] and [014] are M-transforms of one another.

 

The two movements of Holst’s Terzetto take full advantage of this potential of the [014] triad of keys. [014] is the first, the last, and the most common type of triad of keys in both movements of the composition, and the motions between adjacent [014] triads of keys are often quite smooth, and frequently maximally so. Through modulation of diatonic sets in each of the separate parts of Terzetto, this smooth “key leading” approach is pertinent to the analysis of triple tonality in this composition. This presentation uses a modified Tonnetz to visualize how these triple tonalities unfold over time. 

 

 

“The Space Between: Connecting Narrative and Tonal-Center Relationships in the Music of Dave Matthews Band”

Micheal Sebulsky (University of Oregon)

 

Modulation, a common aspect of rock music harmony, is implicitly connected to narrative. Shifts in narrative, often by dramatic and/or manic means, are frequently paired with tonal-center modulation to non-closely related keys. This case study focuses on the music of Dave Matthews Band. The group’s catalogue contains many songs that possess the modulation-narrative paradigm. The study explores new systematic relationships through analyses of three representative songs: “Pantala Naga Pampa,” “Rapunzel,” and “When The World Ends.” Furthermore, the employment of Neo-Riemannian transformations showcases analytical connections between non-closely related tonal-center modulations, while also highlighting parsimonious voice leading within song sections.

 

The main character portrayed in the band’s “Pantala Naga Pampa” and “Rapunzel” (regularly performed as a single unit) grows increasingly manic after the loss of his love interest. His love transmogrifies into obsession and mania, accompanied by vacillating tonal centers, analyzed as paired Neo-Riemannian PL and LP transformations. A similar manic love story is uncovered in the band’s “When The World Ends.” Apocalyptic realizations of the main character’s imminent demise are paired against his insatiable lust. The main character’s inability to reconcile his soon-to-be ending existence with his carnal desire is manifest in the song’s tonal-center shifts. These modulations are shown as pole-to-pole motions within hyper-octatonic cycles.

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Modulation is a forerunner of improvisation. Further study establishes the importance of modulation for “jam” sections, the addition of purely improvisational forms to the song’s existing structure. Jams alter existing song form, and create a need for new means to analyze song forms.

 

 

“Lotus, Blossom, and Dream:

Octatonicism in Toshio Hosokawa’s Lotus under the Moonlight: Hommage à Mozart”

Hei Yeung John Lai (University of British Columbia)

 

Toshio Hosokawa’s Lotus under the Moonlight: Hommage à Mozart depicts a lotus bud on a moonlit night, just in the moment of its blossoming, and it presents a dream that expresses the admiration for Mozart’s music by quoting passages from that composer’s Piano Concerto No. 23 (K. 488). Lotus, however, is pervasively structured by the octatonic collection OCT0,1. How does Hosokawa incorporate the quoted tonal materials into the octatonic framework? How does he portray a process (the blossoming lotus) with only a single eight-note collection? And what, actually, is the lotus/composer’s “dream”?

 

In this paper, I shall first demonstrate how the motivic set class 3-5, which might have been derived from Mozart’s materials, contributes to the extensive octatonic writing. I suggest that the set class 3-5 symbolizes the lotus. By tracking how different set class 3-5s in OCT0,1 are organized over the course of the piece, one can hear a transformational process that may be taken to represent the blossoming of the lotus. Transformations of the associative set class 3-5, however, do not account for the brief non-OCT0,1 passages in Lotus nor do they suggest the content of the lotus’s dream.

 

In the final section of the paper, I suggest a hermeneutic reading that engages the different octatonic harmonizations of Mozart’s theme in Lotus, harmonizations that also participate in the overarching structure of the piece. Together these analytical observations throw light on Hosokawa’s intertextual techniques as well as on the symbolism of the lotus in this composition.

 

 

“Dynamized Space and Sedimented Time: Louis Andriessen's 'De Stijl' and Potential Relationships Between Painting and Music”

Damian Blättler (Rice University)

 

In the movement “De Stijl” from his oratorio De Materie, Louis Andriessen uses the dimensions and placement of the quadrilaterals in Mondrian’s 1927 painting Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue (ii) to set the piece’s structural rhythm. Beyond general description of the process, this cross-medium translation has received little analytic or hermeneutic treatment (Andriessen 2002, Trochimczyk 2002; Everett 2006); this paper attends to the details of the piece in order to read “De Stijl” as an intriguing case study in the relationship between the visual and musical arts.

 

The paper reveals a network of relationships not present in a direct conversion of the Mondrian, including a movement-spanning transformational arc towards its final chord, the “1-2-3-4 chord” present in each movement of the oratorio; also discussed is how the piece contains many of the hallmarks of postmodern time, including fragmentation, discontinuity, and play with beginning-, middle-, and end-gestures. The resulting interpretation is a tiered one – in moving from the Mondrian to the Andriessen, first the space of the painting is infused with temporality, and then those temporal relationships are given some of the free-wheeling, postmodern possibilities available in space – which can accommodate both Adorno and Langer’s competing conceptions of the relationship between music and painting, and demonstrates how ‘De Stijl’ participates in Andriessen’s broader fascination with time as explored in pieces such as De Tijd and De Snelheid.

 

 

Session II (Saturday Morning, 9:00–12:30): Schoenberg and Ligeti

 

“Fantasia as Form: Logic and Freedom in Schoenberg's Phantasy for Violin and Piano Accompaniment, Op.47”

Rina Sugawara (University of Minnesota)

 

Form in Schoenberg’s mature works exhibit a unity and coherence that is based upon the relational aspects of his twelve-tone system as well as the working out and expression of the musical idea, or Gedanke, that those implicit tonal relationships comprise. Fantasia is developed further to deviate from this logic, described by Schoenberg (1964) as similar to a rhapsody in its improvisatory construction but containing effective passage work. Carl Dahlhaus (1987) speculates that a turn to aleatory techniques and improvisation is a natural consequence to counter the extreme rationalism of serialism. In Schoenberg’s Phantasy for Violin and Piano Accompaniment, Op.47, the composer seems to toy with reconciling these two extremes. It exhibits the logic of ordered hexachords and their organization into harmonic areas (Lewin, 1967), while also temporarily deviating from them for harmonic and melodic possibilities liberated from the rigid system. Given the psychoanalytic implication of the term phantasy, it is curious that his fantasia attempts to organize subconscious impulses, like those that drive improvisations, under the conscious rationality of mature serial technique and form. Thus, Schoenberg’s fantasia exhibits two opposing compositional priorities. It is neither perfectly organized nor purely improvisatory because one hinders the other. Yet, their coalescence through fantasia as form is a sort of equilibrium.

 

 

“Twelve-Tone Homophony: Texture, Form, and Comprehensibility in Schoenberg’s Third String Quartet”

Dan Viggers (Washington University in St. Louis)

 

Concerning perceptual difficulty, Schoenberg criticism presents a dilemma: The Agony of Modern Music depicts Schoenberg as unconcerned with intelligibility and musical tradition; On the other hand, The Pleasures of Modernist Music faults Schoenberg for “compromising” with audiences, finding a contradiction between his use of complex pitch techniques with traditional forms. This presentation aims to counter those ideas and to argue that Schoenberg did attempt to make his music comprehensible to his audience, and that his use of traditional textures and forms did not represent a contradiction.

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I argue that Schoenberg was aware of the complexities of his twelve-tone style, and took conscious efforts to enhance the intelligibility of his works. While the twelve-tone technique provided his works with coherence—enabling him to write longer instrumental forms, Schoenberg’s adoption of homophonic textures, use of developing variation, and restoration of textural-formal techniques from the common era enabled him to provide comprehensibility to these works.

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This talk proceeds in three parts: First, I briefly outline the historical changes in Schoenberg’s aesthetic thinking that led him from his expressionistic embrace of incomprehension and complex polyphony to his neoclassical endeavors for comprehensibility through homophony and form. Second, I use recent studies in textural theory to demonstrate Schoenberg’s use of hierarchic, homophonic textures, and discuss their importance to his developing variation technique. Finally, I demonstrate how Schoenberg articulated traditional formal models using textural cues from the common-practice era to provide comprehensibility to his works, focusing on the Intermezzo of his Third String Quartet (1927).

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"Death Metal Dodecaphony: Partition Schemes in Ron Jarzombek’s Twelve-Tone Music"

Michael Dekovich (University of Oregon)

 

Studies of twelve-tone music rarely have occasion to intersect with popular music studies because twelve-tone technique rarely occurs outside of classical music. A body of examples from the death metal subgenre bridges this stylistic gap. Since 2005, guitarist Ron Jarzombek has consistently applied a version of twelve-tone technique to his compositions for the band Blotted Science.

 

This paper discusses the formal and harmonic language behind Jarzombek’s twelve-tone compositions. These pieces often use a single row form (due to manner in which the tone row is visualized) yet contain diverse harmonic materials as a result of partitioning. Jarzombek’s row construction and mosaic partitions reveal a strong preference for symmetrical set classes including the whole tone scale (6-35), hexatonic scale (6-20), octatonic scale (8-28) and diminished seventh chord (4-28), as well as triadic material and added-member chords. Partition schemes are used as leitmotives, paralleling Arnold Schoenberg’s use of partition schemes in Moses und Aron as observed by David Lewin (1967), Michael Cherlin (1983), Jack Boss (2014) and others.

 

 

“Ligeti's Machine: An Examination of Rhythm in György Ligeti's Late Works”

Lauren Halsey (University of Washington)

 

Following his opera Le Grand Macabre (1977), there was a notable shift in Ligeti’s compositional style. This is evident by audible form, pitch, and rhythmic structures in his compositions throughout the 1980s, whereas in his earlier micropolyphonic music, Ligeti purposely hindered individual pitches and rhythmic structures from being audible. In this presentation, I will examine how Ligeti reconceptualized his compositional practices, specifically concerning audible rhythmic structures, in several of his works composed in his late period of composition. To do this, I will focus on two main rhythmic techniques used by Ligeti: pulse streams and rhythmic groupings.

 

In much of Ligeti’s music in the 1980s, he includes pulse streams, or regular, layered accent patterns that occur over a consistent, shorter pulse called the “meccanico” line. Ligeti makes small changes to these layered cycles, making the cyclic patterns slowly transform into a completely new set of patterns.  Ligeti also makes extensive use of multi-level grouping structures. In several of his late works, he layers multiple patterns with different periodicities, making each iteration of pattern cycles sound different even though the patterns stay the same. I argue that these rhythmic devices, devised from diverse influences, are defining elements of Ligeti’s late style. However, these seemingly new techniques do not signal an abandonment of his earlier compositional technique of micropolyphony, but rather a development of certain aspects of his earlier style. I will use my personal reproductions of several sketches from the Paul Sacher Stiftung to demonstrate this development.

 

 

Session III (Saturday Afternoon, 3:10–6:00): Form and Time

 

“Embellishing the Verse-Chorus Paradigm: Max Martin and the ‘Descant Chorus’” 

Stanley Fink (Florida State University)

 

Producer and song-writer Max Martin has written or co-written 22 Billboard Hot-100 number-one hits, from Britney Spears’ “…Baby One More Time” (1999) to Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” (2016). Though most songs on which Martin shares a credit as co-writer and/or co-producer are straightforward examples of verse-chorus paradigms (as described by Osborn 2013), such songs often include a special formal category that has thus far eluded description. After the bridge, these songs sometimes include a completely new melody for the chorus—with slight variations in the lyrics. I describe this formal section as the descant chorus and analyze several prototypical examples from Martin’s output.

 

In some of the most ornate song forms in which Martin shares credit, descant choruses combine with notable tonal features to express the text. Borrowing Mark Spicer’s (2017) concept of fragile and emergent tonics, in combination with Adam Ricci’s analytical approach to pump-up modulations (2017), I demonstrate how melody and harmony interacts with form to express the text in these songs. I conclude by situating the concept of the descant chorus within Martin’s total output as a song-writer/producer. While not every song in this corpus includes a descant chorus, the majority feature continuous melodic variations during the choruses and textural contrast after the bridge.

 

 

“Theorizing Silence”

Kristina Knowles (Arizona State University)

 

            Music theoretic discussion has been surprisingly mute on the topic of silence in music. With a few notable exceptions (Lissa 1964; Pearsall 2006; Margulis 2007a, 2007b), most approach silence as either a negation of sound, akin to the negative space which demarcates the edges of a sculpture (Barry 1990), or as a necessary condition of sound–its antithesis (Zuckerkandl 1956). Such a view ignores the vast variance in our perceptual experience of silence and the numerous ways it is utilized within compositions. While some scholars have used descriptive terms for silences, such as framing silences (Pearsall 2006), “suspense devices” or “expectancy” pauses (Lissa 1964), no unifying theory delineating types and functions of silences exists. This work seeks to fill that gap, proposing four different categories of silence, each containing three subtypes, with the aim of highlighting the variety of silences which occur in music and the value of including them in theoretic discourse. The proposed categories and subtypes provide a way to identify and discuss specific features of silences while using definitions that remain broad enough to allow for flexible application. Where possible, the perceptual effects of silences within their musical contexts are discussed.

 

 

“Seeking the Post-Tonal Cadence in Alfred Schnittke’s Viola Concerto”

Anabel Maler (University of Chicago)

 

Terms borrowed from theories of Classical form appear with surprising frequency in scholarly literature on post-tonal repertoires. But despite their pervasiveness, these terms are generally not well-defined. In this paper, I use the case study of Alfred Schnittke’s Viola Concerto to explore the complexity of meaning taken on by one such term, “cadence,” when it is transplanted into post-tonal contexts. In grappling with Schnittke’s unorthodox cadential gestures in the concerto, I face not simply an analytical challenge, but a definitional conundrum—and one that requires an expansion of the definitional frame.

 

My argument revolves around two types of cadences found in the first movement of the Viola Concerto: the dissonant, post-tonal cadence of mm. 7-8, which occurs via chromatic voice-leading in contrary motion and is repeated three times in ever-expanding iterations; and the decontextualized contrapuntal cadence in the movement’s final ten measures. By bringing into conflict different kinds of closure, I propose that Schnittke asks the listener what a cadence can mean in a post-tonal context. I argue that by confronting the difficulties of defining the cadence in the Viola Concerto, we can come to a better understanding of what “cadence” signifies in post-tonal music, and more broadly.

 

 

“Merging the Sonata and the Concerto: Analysis of ‘Compositional’ Improvisation in the High Classical Sonata”

Andrew Aziz (San Diego State University)

 

This presentation raises the issue of improvisational structures within masterworks of the High Classical period and reexamines the definition of “analyzing improvisation.” While the aesthetic of improvisation is often built into fantasia and concerto forms, I examine virtuosic passages within sonata form, which tend to resist analysis and blur the lines between compositional and improvisational domains. Part I first explores treatises by Koch (1793) and Galeazzi (1796), which prescribe possibilities for how composers might expand the second half of a sonata’s subordinate theme zone, analogous to an expanded Caplinian continuation (1998).

 

Since the virtuosity within such an episode invokes rhetoric found in concertos, Part II inserts concerto perspectives into theories of (solo) sonata form, using Dahlhaus’s “display episode” (1991) as a point of departure. While his episode encompasses only solo works, Hepokoski and Darcy (2006) apply the same term exclusively to concerto expositions and recapitulations; their passages, however, are not loosely-knit continuations within a larger sentential structure, but rather closed and autonomous structures that begin and end with a stable tonic. Their theory exposes an ambiguous and yet crucial point: the display episode may flexibly function within either the subordinate group or as part of the closing zone. The remainder of the paper showcases several examples in the solo piano sonata literature that highlight the display episode functioning in precisely the same manner as Hepokoski and Darcy’s concerto display episodes—sans orchestral accompaniment—thus becoming an integral part of the Formenlehre toolbox.

 

 

Session IV (Sunday Morning, 9:00–12:00): Narrative and Performance

 

“Altered Consciousness in Chopin’s Nocturne in F-sharp Minor, Op. 48, no. 2”

Ian W. Gerg (Austin, TX)

 

Chopin’s Nocturne in F-sharp minor, Op. 48, no. 2 has posed an analytical and interpretive problem for musicians since its publication in 1842. On the surface, the extended lyricism of the ternary form’s outer sections expresses “purity and simplicity” (Lennox Berkeley) with a “gracefully descending melody over a swaying accompaniment” (Victor Lederer). However, the fragmented character of the contrasting middle section remains an uncomfortable fit for scholars and performers. Biographer Herbert Weinstock once lamented that “[e]ven extremely able pianists cannot avoid making it sound a little like one piece interrupted halfway for the interpolation of another.”

 

In this paper, I reconcile the problematic discontinuity of the middle section by approaching the Nocturne as a psychological drama of oppositional thoughts and emotions. Notably, I characterize the thematic gesture that begins in m. 3 as the pensive gaze of a virtual agent, a type of fictive persona or character within the musical discourse. Building upon the structural analyses of William Rothstein and Alison Hood, I draw out this virtual agent’s mounting anxiety that is revealed in the subtle mixture of meter and mode within the A section. These musical oppositions are then fleshed out more fully in the starkly contrasting B section, which I argue represents an altered state of consciousness. Within this dreamlike or phantasmagoric space, time is warped and musical motives and emotions are distorted, appearing overtly foreign yet curiously familiar. This reading offers cohesion to the Nocturne and invites performers, listeners, and scholars to speculate further about the psychological complexity of a unified virtual agent.

 

 

“Functions of Gesture in Music by Gubaidulina and Sciarrino” 

Sara Everson (Florida State University)

 

The music of Sofia Gubaidulina, Salvatore Sciarrino, and other members of the post-serial avant-garde is underserved by our predominant analytical methodologies. The high degree of repetition, the subtlety of formal schemes, the intermixture of aleatoric and composed elements, and the use of tonal structures unmoored from tonality serve as common compositional threads among these seemingly disparate composers. Using extensions of Hatten’s theory of gesture (2004), and elements of phenomenological analysis drawn from Lochhead (1992, 2015), and Margulis (2014), this paper shows how the interaction between expressive gestures shapes the larger-scale organization in post-serial avant-garde works.

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I demonstrate gesture-based analyses of Sciarrino’s String Quartet No. 7 (1999–2000) and Sofia Gubaidulina’s Duo Sonata for Two Bassoons (1978), and put forward ideas of new types of gestures. Analysis at this level shows how musical development is driven by repetition and reinterpretation. By prioritizing the expressive elements, I show how these works are shaped by the gestures from which they are formed. While not defined by pitch or pitch class, these gestures are nonetheless the structural building blocks of this music.

 

 

 “The Deformation of the Pastoral in Rebecca Clarke’s Piano Trio”

Sacha Peiser (University of Connecticut)

 

Midway through Rebecca Clarke’s Piano Trio, an isolated instance of modal purity in the form of a plaintive folksong emerges from the dissonant landscape. The theme, and its mostly D-Dorian modal identity, emerges gradually from musical breadcrumbs sown in movement I and the opening of movement II. This fleeting moment of serenity is the nostalgic centerpiece of a work that continually corrupts memories. Throughout, material previously associated with consonance, modal inflection, and the pastoral topic will return in a corrupted, distorted guise.

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Drawing on theories of markedness and topics from Almén and Hatten, and the notion of music’s ability to express a past tense in Klein, Abbate, and Nattiez, this paper traces the emergence of the heavily marked central theme, its subsequent corruption, and the effect that it has on our notions of temporality. In the Trio, these ideas are manifested through the juxtaposition of various alternative pitch collections; the trajectory of clear-cut formal constructions to something less definable; and the altered recalls and juxtaposition of thematic material across movements. Pitch collections and themes often manifest as identifiable topics, often militaristic, that guide one through shifting temporal boundaries. In a larger sense, though, it is the contrast between the comparably consonant folk topics and the aggressively dissonant surrounding material that is essential to the narrative analysis.

 

 

“Towards a Theory of Performance: Its Rules and Layers”

Nathan Pell (CUNY Graduate Center)

 

Traditionally, authors have deemed the interaction of performance and analysis problematic mainly when their results do not align.  Thus, Lester:  “What power can an analytical assertion carry if clearly contradicted by a performance which is widely accepted as ‘effective?’”  But when an analytical insight invites a performer to play a certain way, or when a performer’s choice advises an analyst’s reading, a rich, mutualistic relationship emerges, along with a question:  how can we describe or model the interaction when it seems to behave in haphazard, or at least diverse, ways?

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I answer that analysis and performance represent sibling projections from the same source:  a piece of music (not to be conflated with its score).  Musical interpretation thus can take two paths to recreate a musical work:  one realizing sonically (performance), the other distilling verbally or graphically (analysis).  Like all siblings, they share many traits, but diverge in others, their difference in medium offering only a partial explanation.

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Analysis has a dual orientation:  on the one hand towards a piece of music, on the other towards theory.  I propose that performance has a rich and variegated theory too, and rules that compose it.  In the full model, therefore, both performers and analysts situate themselves between a musical work and a system for interpreting it.  If rules for performance exist, so too, I argue, must layers of performance, readings in which rules are weighed against each other hierarchically:   performers, like analysts, prioritize some events over others.

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