A Model of Triadic Post-Tonality for a Neoconservative Postmodern String Quartet by Sky Macklay

Abstract

This article proposes a non-plural perspective on the analysis of triadic music, offering Sky Macklay’s Many Many Cadences as a case study. Part one is a discussion of the work’s harmony-voice leading nexus, followed by a discussion of the five conditions of correspondence as implied by this string quartet that articulate a single tonal identity. Part three focuses on a strictly kinematic analysis of the work’s harmonic progressions that evinces this identity and establishes its general applicability. In the final section, the data generated by this analysis conveys the inherent possibility of a single, all-encompassing kinematic, thereby pointing beyond the particularities of Many Many Cadences while informing my formal interpretation of the work.