Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
Articles 1 - 6 of 6
Full-Text Articles in Musicology
What Adorno Makes Possible For Music Analysis, Kofi Agawu
What Adorno Makes Possible For Music Analysis, Kofi Agawu
Publications and Research
Conceived as a commentary on four responses to Adorno’s 1928 essay, “Schubert,” by Esteban Buch, Jonathan Dunsby, Scott Burnham, and Beate Perrey, this article explores some of the implications of Adorno’s essay as they center on notions of hybridity, the interstitial and especially the provisional. It urges a critical strategy that is self-critical, that seeks to name without naming, and that draws on rigorous formal analysis without presenting its outcomes as ends but as means toward various narrative ends.
Schubert's Sexuality: A Prescription For Analysis?, Kofi Agawu
Schubert's Sexuality: A Prescription For Analysis?, Kofi Agawu
Publications and Research
What can Schubert's sexuality have to do with the analysis of his music? Four years ago, Maynard Solomon told a compelling story about a leading Austro-Germanic composer, one whose works are unlikely to be excluded from the narrowest definitions of the canon of European music since 1700: he was probably homosexual. Since then, Solomon's tentative argument has hardened into "fact" in the popular musicological imagination, not because additional evidence has become available, but because, in a field starved of headlines and scandal, such a revelation promised a much needed change of critical perspective.
Does Music Theory Need Musicology?, Kofi Agawu
Does Music Theory Need Musicology?, Kofi Agawu
Publications and Research
Understood as a search for "the abstract principles embodied in music and the sounds of which it consists," music theory casts a wide net: it calls for a comparative sample and insists on a systematic methodology. As " the scholarly study of music, wherever it is found historically or geographically," musicology casts an even wider net. In practice, however, it has not been possible to transcend historical and geographical boundaries. (How often have you read an article on contemporary rock in JAMS or on Asian music in 19th-Century Music?) Obviously, any attempt to explore the juncture between music theory …
Variation Procedures In Northern Ewe Song, V. Kofi Agawu
Variation Procedures In Northern Ewe Song, V. Kofi Agawu
Publications and Research
The major organizational principle of Northern Ewe song is one shared by numerous African, Oriental, and European musical traditions: a small number of models (variously described as "basic shapes," "archetypes," "background structures," "basic designs," "core patterns," "deep structures") is transformed in a wide variety of ways during performance. Variation takes place on different hierarchic levels both within and between songs and includes practically all of a song's dimensions (rhythm, interval, register, contour, harmony, and so on). This principle, although widely demonstrated in the literature on African song (see, among others, Jones 1976; Kauffman 1984; Schmidt 1984; and Erlmann 1985), is …
Tonal Strategy In The First Movement Of Mahler's Tenth Symphony, V. Kofi Agawu
Tonal Strategy In The First Movement Of Mahler's Tenth Symphony, V. Kofi Agawu
Publications and Research
During his summer retreat of 1910, Mahler sketched a five-movement symphony in F# major that was to be his tenth. He did not live to see the work completed. In spite of this, or rather because of it, the Tenth has accumulated a fascinating history, evident in the series of attempts to "realize" Mahler sketches, the best known of which is Deryck Cooke's "performing version."
The Musical Language Of Kindertotenlieder No. 2, V. Kofi Agawu
The Musical Language Of Kindertotenlieder No. 2, V. Kofi Agawu
Publications and Research
Three times during his compositional career, Mahler turned to the medium of the orchestral song cycle either to experiment with or to refine certain technical procedures. This resulted in a variety of methods for establishing large-scale tonal coherence, using song as a resource for later symphonic composition, and stylizing folk material, melodically and rhythmically. These compositional techniques are clearly exemplified in Mahler's three cycles, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (1883-85), Kindertotenlieder (1901-04), and Das Lied von der Erde (1907-08).