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Canonic Threads And Large-Scale Structure In Canons, Alan Gosman

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

This article introduces the concept of canonic threads: patterns made of alternating dux and comes notes, in which the notes are separated by the time interval of the canon. Canonic threads are developed using as focus pieces Bach’s Goldberg Variations and Brahms’s Variations on a Theme by Schumann, op. 9. Both sets present a compendium of canonic threads, and demonstrate how threads can integrate a theme’s harmonic and phrase-structural constraints into a variation with strict canonic form. The article also considers various techniques that allow an underlying template of canonic threads to function over a wide range of …

Svetlana Kurbatskaya On Serial Music: Twelve Categories Of "Twelve-Toneness", Zachary Cairns

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

Published in Moscow in 1996, Svetlana Kurbatskaya’s book Serial Music: Questions of History, Theory, Aesthetics (Seriynaya muzïka: voprosï istorii, teorii, estetiki) carries the interesting distinction of being the first Russian-language monograph devoted entirely to the study of serial music. In the second chapter, Kurbatskaya defines twelve different categories of what she calls “twelve-toneness” (dvenadtsatitonovost’). Considering this source alongside the Russian Musical Encyclopedic Dictionary (Muzïkal’nïy entsiklopedicheskiy slovar’), which includes different definitions for a number of terms that Western readers would generally consider to be essentially synonymous (i.e., serial music, serial technique, dodecaphony, twelve-tone music), one can begin to accept …

Disciplining Knowledge In Music Theory: Abstraction And The Recovery Of Dialectics, Karl D. Braunschweig

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

A critical rethinking of disciplinary tendencies in music theory reveals several important historical moments when the process of abstraction has reshaped aspects of tonal theory in profound ways, notably in the areas of counterpoint, harmony, and form. These moments of abstraction prioritize one musical feature over others, and frequently involve a discursive process of dissociation to solidify the legitimacy of the abstraction and resolve lingering logical contradictions. This often leads to a theoretical and historical distancing from the contexts in which certain practices emerged, and risks severing aesthetic connections between technique and meaning. The resulting imbalance in one or more …

Agency And The Adagio: Mimetic Engagement In Barber's Op. 11 Quartet, Matthew Baileyshea

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings (1936) is undoubtedly the most famous elegiac work of the twentieth-century. We know it from movies, television, and highly publicized memorial services. Yet the music was originally written as the second movement of Barber’s string quartet, op. 11, with a number of interesting connections to the outer movements. This article highlights several recurring gestures throughout op. 11 that suggest the will of an individual “agent” struggling against gravity and weight. It proposes a broad, multi-movement narrative that draws together the three movements with a special focus on mimetic engagement, leading-tone resolution, and the quest for …

In Memoriam Carl Kristian Wiens (1964-2012), David Carson Berry, Andrew Mead, Karl Braunschweig, Gregory Marion, David Sommerville

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Gamut Editors

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

No abstract provided.

Review Of Foundations Of Diatonic Theory, By Timothy A. Johnson, Matthew Santa

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

No abstract provided.

Webern’S “Heavenly Journey” And Schoenberg’S Vagrant Chords, Matthew Shaftel

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

The five Dehmel Lieder (1906–08) act as a bridge in Anton Webern’s musical development. Along with the earliest of the fourteen George Lieder, they represent an initial exploration of a new musical style, while still maintaining substantive ties with the Romantic Lied of Webern’s predecessors. Because the five Dehmel settings are the only songs written by Webern under the direct tutelage of Arnold Schoenberg, they also provide unique insight into Schoenberg’s role as Webern’s teacher at this moment of stylistic shift. This article focuses particularly on the fair copy and sketches of the most extended of the Dehmel songs, …

Fauré, Through Boulanger, To Copland: The Nature Of Influence, Edward R. Phillips

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

Using tonal and post-tonal analytical methods, this article examines two early songs of Aaron Copland and compares them with the music of Gabriel Fauré, in order to determine if the notion that the compositional techniques of the older composer had an influence on those of Copland is valid and worthy of further research.

This article is part of a special, serialized feature: A Music-Theoretical Matrix: Essays in Honor of Allen Forte (Part III).

Redating Schoenberg’S Announcement Of The Twelve-Tone Method: A Study Of Recollections, Fusako Hamao

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

Arnold Schoenberg recalled that he gathered about twenty of his students in 1923, in order to announce his new compositional method based on twelve tones, which he had kept confidential for nearly two years. His reminiscences about this announcement appear several times in his writings, yet his reference to the date of the occasion varies from recollection to recollection. The reminiscences of his students are not consistent in this regard either, although “February 1923,” identified by Josef Polnauer, has been widely accepted as the date of the meeting. However, this date has become a point of debate in recent studies, …

Schenker’S First “Americanization”: George Wedge, The Institute Of Musical Art, And The “Appreciation Racket”, David Carson Berry

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

A quarter of a century ago, William Rothstein first spoke of the “Americanization of Heinrich Schenker,” meaning the accommodation that had to be made to bring his ideas into the American academy. The focus of this process has largely been on activities following the Second World War. However, the earliest attempt at Americanizing Schenker seems to have come from an American-born pedagogue who had not studied with Schenker or his pupils: George A. Wedge, a theory instructor at New York’s Institute of Musical Art (a precursor to The Juilliard School). He started teaching something about Schenker in his classrooms as …

The Marriage Of Note And Word In Two Songs By The Gershwins, Allen Forte

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

The author investigates various ways in which George Gershwin’s music and Ira Gershwin’s lyrics are ingeniously interconnected in two songs: “How Long Has This Been Going On?” (1927) and “Who Cares” (1931). The music’s melodies, motives, harmonies, and forms are tied to the lyrics’ rhymes, alliterations, and semantic meanings. The author demonstrates that the designs found in the songs are multi-directional: notes refer to other notes and words, and words refer to other words and notes; the relations are symmetrical.

This article is part of a special, serialized feature: A Music-Theoretical Matrix: Essays in Honor of Allen Forte (Part III) …

Multiply Directed Moments In A Brahms Song: “Schön War, Das Ich Dir Weihte” (Op. 95, No. 7), Melissa Hoag

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

Brahms’s song “Schön war, das ich dir weihte,” op. 95/7, offers a melancholy setting of a brief text by Georg Friederich Daumer. Several melodic disjunctions figure prominently in Brahms’s setting of the poem; in treating these disjunctions, normative voice-leading expectations are thwarted in ways that never meet satisfactory resolutions. Around these violations are crystallized the central expressive issues of the song, involving ambiguities not only in the domain of melody, but also of harmony, phrase structure, and form; this web of ambiguity is termed a “multiply directed moment.” Other issues in the song include the discursive phrase structure in the …

Classical Models, Sonata Theory, And The First Movement Of Liszt’S Faust Symphony, Howard Cinnamon

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

Recent theories of sonata form compensate for a perceived overemphasis on harmonic structure during the latter half of the twentieth century by emphasizing thematic organization as the determining feature of formal function. The present study demonstrates how an analytical method based on earlier practice can be valuable in the analysis of one of Liszt’s most unconventional pieces, the first movement of the Faust Symphony. Initially, it considers “problematic” passages often thought to deviate from earlier conventions, and by offering alternative readings, it shows how they are actually consistent with those earlier practices. Once clarified, the movement’s large-scale tonal structure, and …

A Study Of Donald Grantham’S Fantasy Variations: Broad Musical Connections In Core Theory Classes, Amy Carr-Richardson

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

This article contains analytical comments on Donald Grantham’s Fantasy Variations, which is based on George Gershwin’s Prelude II (“Blue Lullaby”), focusing on its pedagogical use in a core undergraduate theory class. It proposes encouraging students to make broad musical connections regarding tonality, temporality, and developmental process, across a wide range of musical repertoire. The article discusses the analysis of Fantasy Variations in relation to these topics: pedagogical transitions between the study of tonal and post-tonal music, the process of development, non-linear aspects of twentieth- and twenty-first century music, and musical borrowing.

Progressive Trends In Variation Form: Robert Schumann’S Piano Sonata In F Minor, Op. 14, Quasi Variazioni, Hiu-Wah Au

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

Entitled Quasi Variazioni, the third movement of Schumann’s Piano Sonata in F Minor, op. 14 (1835–36), displays features that are not usually associated with variation form. In a typical eighteenth- and nineteenth-century variation set, the theme is usually a self-contained unit, whose form and voice leading are often preserved throughout the set. But in this Schumann movement, the theme presents an unusual, tripartite ABC form, its half-cadence ending evoking the tradition of continuous variation. Along with the theme’s peculiar formal plan, the variations also diverge markedly from the theme’s form and middleground structure. These differences are engendered by Schumann’s …

Table Of Contents

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

No abstract provided.

Elements Of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, And Deformations In The Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata, Mark Richards

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

No abstract provided.

Tosca’S Prism: Three Moments In Western Cultural History, Juan Chattah

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

No abstract provided.

A Russian Rhetoric Of Form In The Music Of Witold Lutosławski, Douglas Rust

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

The capacity to write music that clearly conveys one formal meaning in its immediate context, and yet expresses a different meaning in a wider context, is one of the most interesting attributes in the musical style of Witold Lutosławski (1913–94), who cultivated multiple temporalities in his compositions using the musical language of twentieth-century modernism. In developing these innovations, he was inspired by his Russian-trained composition teacher to use metaphors of rhetoric and drama to model the “psychology” of his musical forms on the example of Beethoven’s sonatas. This article will suggest ways in which Lutosławski’s manner of composing music in …

The Unfolding Tale Of Griffes’S “White Peacock”, Taylor A. Greer

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

This essay provides an interdisciplinary study of
Charles Griffes’s monumental piano work, “The White Peacock,” integrating historical, analytical, and literary perspectives. A strong correspondence exists between the poem’s central image, the bird’s unfolding tail, and three aspects of Griffes’s setting: (1) his style of “motivic magnification,” in which the initial lush dominant ninth chord is transformed into composed-out melodic spans in the bass; (2) a strategic expansion of register, coinciding with the recapitulation; and (3) his unusual treatment of form, which in the final measures suggests perpetual repetition. Finally, Griffes’s work underlines his ties to European artistic culture by reviving …

Schenker, Schubert, And The Subtonic Chord, David Damschroder

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

A close reading and critique of Heinrich Schenker’s treatment of the subtonic chord (for example, B♭-D-F in C major or C minor) serves as the foundation for a detailed assessment of the diverse contexts in which it was employed by Franz Schubert. Numerous analyses of musical excerpts by Schubert help to reveal the relationship between the subtonic chord and the dominant Stufe (scale-step) and to demonstrate various linear contexts in which it may arise. Although the chord often is labeled as VII in C minor or as ♭VII in C major, its subsidiary role within the projection or connection of …

How To Build A Development Section: A Schenkerian Perspective, Timothy Cutler

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

More than fifty years ago, Allen Forte rightly predicted that the theories of Heinrich Schenker would have a profound impact on music theory pedagogy. In particular, Schenkerian analysis benefits Fernhören (“distance-hearing”), which relates not only to musical connections severed by chronological remoteness, but also to the conceptual space that extends from the composition itself to its background structure. This essay examines one underutilized method for strengthening Fernhören. Using the fundamental structure of an unnamed composition as a starting point, a note or two at a time will be added to the background, working through the middleground and toward the foreground. …

Beats That Commute: Algebraic And Kinesthetic Models For Math-Rock Grooves, Brad Osborn

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

Math rock’s most salient compositional facet is its cyclical repetition of grooves featuring changing and odd-cardinality meter. These unconventional grooves deform the conventional rhythmic structures of rock, such as backbeat and steady pulse, in such a way that a listener’s sense of metric organization is initially thwarted. Using transcriptions from math-rock artists such as Radiohead, The Mars Volta, and The Chariot, the author demonstrates a new analytical apparatus aimed at making sense of the ways listeners and performers process these changing pulse levels: the pivot pulse. The pivot pulse is defined as the slowest temporal level preserved in a given …

What’S In A Theme? On The Nature Of Variation, Roman Ivanovitch

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

Most descriptions or taxonomies of variation suggest a conception of “theme” as a repository of elements from which the variations will select, emphasizing now one aspect, now another. When considered as a temporal phenomenon, however, a theme appears not as a static arrangement of “structural” elements, but instead stands in a complex and reciprocal relationship to the variations: it bequeaths to them a set of expectations about how they might proceed, and yet exists as a mutable collection of possibilities or potentialities to be activated and reshaped by the course of the variations themselves. The article explores some of the …

Compound Melody And Jazz Improvisations: A Reconsideration, John D. Check

Gamut: Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic

The concept of “compound melody” (a frequent component of Schenkerian analysis) pertains to the way a single line of music projects two or more voice-leading parts. While usually associated with works of the common-practice period, it also plays a role in jazz improvisations. This is especially so in an improvisation by alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, on “All The Things You Are” by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II. The voice-leading graphs of this solo, and the attendant commentary, suggest that an awareness and appreciation of compound melody can enable a deeper understanding of jazz styles.

This article is part of …