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Developing A Mathematically Informed Approach To Musical Narrative Through The Analysis Of Three Twentieth-Century Monophonic Woodwind Works, Wesley James Bradford

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This project applies mathematically informed narrative to monophonic music in the twentieth century, with a focus on three works for solo woodwinds: Debussy’s Syrinx (flute), Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for Clarinet, and Britten’s “Bacchus” from Six Metamorphoses after Ovid, Op. 49 (oboe). This music poses difficulties for traditional analytical methods due to a lack of explicit harmonies and unusual pitch language that is neither functionally tonal nor serially atonal. Additionally, these pieces present a variety of challenges due to differences in length, number of movements, and presence or absence of programmatic elements. Therefore, nontraditional methods could be beneficial for understanding these …