Iannis Xenakis sternly criticized serial music in the mid-fifties. In response, he proposed and developed a set of compositional procedures which were mainly based on probabilistic laws that he framed under the principle of indeterminism. The sieve theory he developed in the sixties represented a return to deterministic strategies for composing. Following examination of Xenakis’ notes and sketches from the period spanning his time auditing Messiaen’s classes to his composition of Nomos Alpha, I argue that sieve theory is better understood when viewed through the lens of his personal earlier speculations on twelve-tone music techniques.
{"title":"Xenakis’ Sieve Theory","authors":"José L. Besada","doi":"10.30535/mto.28.2.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30535/mto.28.2.2","url":null,"abstract":"Iannis Xenakis sternly criticized serial music in the mid-fifties. In response, he proposed and developed a set of compositional procedures which were mainly based on probabilistic laws that he framed under the principle of indeterminism. The sieve theory he developed in the sixties represented a return to deterministic strategies for composing. Following examination of Xenakis’ notes and sketches from the period spanning his time auditing Messiaen’s classes to his composition of Nomos Alpha, I argue that sieve theory is better understood when viewed through the lens of his personal earlier speculations on twelve-tone music techniques.","PeriodicalId":44918,"journal":{"name":"Music Theory Online","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45183619","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Review of Joel Lester, Brahms’s Violin Sonatas: Style, Structure, Performance (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020)","authors":"David Keep","doi":"10.30535/mto.28.2.12","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30535/mto.28.2.12","url":null,"abstract":"<jats:p />","PeriodicalId":44918,"journal":{"name":"Music Theory Online","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47025920","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This essay uses analytical sketches of Indigenous DJ collective A Tribe Called Red’s “How I Feel” as a starting point for critiquing the white colonial Eurocentric norms of music analysis as currently practiced in the discipline of music theory. I expand on previous calls for greater diversity and inclusion within the field by exposing colonial and Eurocentric analytical strategies. I then propose some possibilities for decolonizing and Indigenizing music analysis that reflect individuals’ differing capacities for growth and change while also challenging music analysts to move beyond tokenistic gestures.
本文使用土著DJ集体A Tribe Called Red的“How I Feel”的分析草图作为起点，批评目前在音乐理论学科中实践的白人殖民欧洲中心音乐分析规范。我通过揭露殖民主义和以欧洲为中心的分析策略，扩展了之前呼吁在该领域内增加多样性和包容性的呼吁。然后，我提出了一些非殖民化和本土化音乐分析的可能性，这些分析反映了个人不同的成长和变化能力，同时也挑战了音乐分析师超越象征性的姿态。
{"title":"The Many Paths of Decolonization","authors":"Robin Attas","doi":"10.30535/mto.28.2.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30535/mto.28.2.11","url":null,"abstract":"This essay uses analytical sketches of Indigenous DJ collective A Tribe Called Red’s “How I Feel” as a starting point for critiquing the white colonial Eurocentric norms of music analysis as currently practiced in the discipline of music theory. I expand on previous calls for greater diversity and inclusion within the field by exposing colonial and Eurocentric analytical strategies. I then propose some possibilities for decolonizing and Indigenizing music analysis that reflect individuals’ differing capacities for growth and change while also challenging music analysts to move beyond tokenistic gestures.","PeriodicalId":44918,"journal":{"name":"Music Theory Online","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48584903","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Vocal tone quality is a highly emotive musical resource in popular vocal songs. However, it is also one of the most difficult aspects to analyze due to the complexity and variety of the voice. This article presents a novel analytical approach to the sung voice by considering how emotion is conveyed through tone quality and text. The aim of the approach is to provide a system for annotating vocal tone quality and for analyzing its emotive content. The approach is informed by findings from psychology, music studies, and the social semiotics of sound—taking into consideration how our everyday experience of voice in communication contributes to our emotional perception of singing. Different modes of annotation, from static annotation to real-time annotation, are demonstrated and two new analytical parameters are introduced: the Affect Map and Cohesiveness. This paper first presents the theoretical underpinnings of the approach, followed by an outline of the approach itself, and finally demonstrates the approach through an analysis of the voice in Kris Kristofferson’s 1970 song “Casey’s Last Ride.”
声乐音质是流行声乐中一种情感性很强的音乐资源。然而，由于声音的复杂性和多样性，它也是最难分析的方面之一。本文提出了一种新的分析方法，通过考虑如何通过音质和文本来传达情感。该方法的目的是提供一种用于注释音调质量并分析其情感内容的系统。这种方法是根据心理学、音乐研究和声音的社会符号学的研究结果得出的，考虑到我们在交流中的日常声音体验如何影响我们对唱歌的情感感知。演示了从静态注释到实时注释的不同注释模式，并引入了两个新的分析参数：情感图和内聚性。本文首先介绍了该方法的理论基础，然后概述了该方法本身，最后通过分析Kris Kristofferson 1970年歌曲《Casey’s Last Ride》中的声音来证明该方法
{"title":"Emotional Tones and Emotional Texts","authors":"K. Spreadborough","doi":"10.30535/mto.28.2.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30535/mto.28.2.7","url":null,"abstract":"Vocal tone quality is a highly emotive musical resource in popular vocal songs. However, it is also one of the most difficult aspects to analyze due to the complexity and variety of the voice. This article presents a novel analytical approach to the sung voice by considering how emotion is conveyed through tone quality and text. The aim of the approach is to provide a system for annotating vocal tone quality and for analyzing its emotive content. The approach is informed by findings from psychology, music studies, and the social semiotics of sound—taking into consideration how our everyday experience of voice in communication contributes to our emotional perception of singing. Different modes of annotation, from static annotation to real-time annotation, are demonstrated and two new analytical parameters are introduced: the Affect Map and Cohesiveness. This paper first presents the theoretical underpinnings of the approach, followed by an outline of the approach itself, and finally demonstrates the approach through an analysis of the voice in Kris Kristofferson’s 1970 song “Casey’s Last Ride.”","PeriodicalId":44918,"journal":{"name":"Music Theory Online","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45834660","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Within the stratified harmonic behavior known as melodic-harmonic divorce, this paper identifies a gesture repeated idiomatically across rock repertory. Dubbed “sub-circle” motion, this idiom is specifically a form of syntax divorce wherein a melodic layer unfolds in a way consonant with and suggestive of circle-of-fifths root motion (+P4) between two accompanying major chords; however, the harmonic layer’s root instead moves up by a minor third (+m3), creating a stratified dissonance, or divorce. The paper then identifies a standard set of paradigms—specific transpositional instances of the idiom—and catalogues numerous examples of their use in rock music. One paradigm, V-".fn_flat('')."VIIadd9, is the subject of special analytic and historical inquiry, due to its proliferation as a deceptive cadence in the late twentieth century. This previously untheorized cadence is the most prominent instance of the sub-circle idiom.
{"title":"An Idiom of Melodic-Harmonic Divorce","authors":"S. Reed","doi":"10.30535/mto.28.2.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30535/mto.28.2.6","url":null,"abstract":"Within the stratified harmonic behavior known as melodic-harmonic divorce, this paper identifies a gesture repeated idiomatically across rock repertory. Dubbed “sub-circle” motion, this idiom is specifically a form of syntax divorce wherein a melodic layer unfolds in a way consonant with and suggestive of circle-of-fifths root motion (+P4) between two accompanying major chords; however, the harmonic layer’s root instead moves up by a minor third (+m3), creating a stratified dissonance, or divorce. The paper then identifies a standard set of paradigms—specific transpositional instances of the idiom—and catalogues numerous examples of their use in rock music. One paradigm, V-\".fn_flat('').\"VIIadd9, is the subject of special analytic and historical inquiry, due to its proliferation as a deceptive cadence in the late twentieth century. This previously untheorized cadence is the most prominent instance of the sub-circle idiom.","PeriodicalId":44918,"journal":{"name":"Music Theory Online","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47419976","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article proposes that engaging with structural melodic content can expand how we conceive of cadential function and add nuance to the more harmonically driven approaches of Caplinian form-functional theory. Drawing on discussions by Schenker, Marx, and Schoenberg, we posit parallels between structural melodic configurations and the temporal formal functions of Caplinian theory. Through several analytic examples we suggest that certain melodic directions have default association with Caplin’s temporal functions: ascending lines are typically associated with initiating functions, while the static prolongation of structural tones typically serves as either initiating or medial functions. Conversely, descending melodic lines, especially terminating on ".fn_scaledegree(1)." (authentic cadences) or ".fn_scaledegree(2)." (half cadences) are endemic of concluding functions. We do not suggest that melodic considerations replace harmonic ones, but rather conclude that the two domains are symbiotic in the sense that melodic consideration can reinforce or undermine harmonic ones, and vice versa. Ultimately, we use this rebalancing of analytic focus as a means of reengaging with various problematic phrase types and suggest further efficacy for this approach with respect to nineteenth-century formal expansions.
{"title":"Cadential Melodies","authors":"Kyle Hutchinson, M. Poon","doi":"10.30535/mto.28.2.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30535/mto.28.2.4","url":null,"abstract":"This article proposes that engaging with structural melodic content can expand how we conceive of cadential function and add nuance to the more harmonically driven approaches of Caplinian form-functional theory. Drawing on discussions by Schenker, Marx, and Schoenberg, we posit parallels between structural melodic configurations and the temporal formal functions of Caplinian theory. Through several analytic examples we suggest that certain melodic directions have default association with Caplin’s temporal functions: ascending lines are typically associated with initiating functions, while the static prolongation of structural tones typically serves as either initiating or medial functions. Conversely, descending melodic lines, especially terminating on \".fn_scaledegree(1).\" (authentic cadences) or \".fn_scaledegree(2).\" (half cadences) are endemic of concluding functions. We do not suggest that melodic considerations replace harmonic ones, but rather conclude that the two domains are symbiotic in the sense that melodic consideration can reinforce or undermine harmonic ones, and vice versa. Ultimately, we use this rebalancing of analytic focus as a means of reengaging with various problematic phrase types and suggest further efficacy for this approach with respect to nineteenth-century formal expansions.","PeriodicalId":44918,"journal":{"name":"Music Theory Online","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47040248","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article investigates Billy Joel’s chromatic excursions in his contemplative songs, many of which infuse modal mixture chromaticism against a prevailing major key backdrop. In particular, I spotlight Joel’s exploration of “enharmonic duplicity,” in which chromaticism reflects the complexity of human nature through enharmonic transformations. Part 1 explores enharmonicism in “Honesty,” the first of several analyzed B♭ major songs that reinterpret mixture scale degrees (".fn_flat('').fn_scaledegree(3)." and ".fn_flat('').fn_scaledegree(6).") along its route; I also consider how Joel introduces mixture in his opening descending bass lines. Part 2 explores the harmonic and functional ambiguity in the complex song, “Laura.” Part 3 considers the enharmonic complexities of “Vienna” through the lens of the opening bar’s augmented triad; I also consider comparative examples of augmented triads in “Zanzibar” and “Where’s the Orchestra?”. In response to Joel’s vast exposure to the common-practice canon, my approach fuses perspectives from nineteenth-century music with contemporary theories of pop/rock harmony.
{"title":"Billy Joel’s Enharmonic Duplicity","authors":"A. Aziz","doi":"10.30535/mto.28.2.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30535/mto.28.2.1","url":null,"abstract":"This article investigates Billy Joel’s chromatic excursions in his contemplative songs, many of which infuse modal mixture chromaticism against a prevailing major key backdrop. In particular, I spotlight Joel’s exploration of “enharmonic duplicity,” in which chromaticism reflects the complexity of human nature through enharmonic transformations. Part 1 explores enharmonicism in “Honesty,” the first of several analyzed B♭ major songs that reinterpret mixture scale degrees (\".fn_flat('').fn_scaledegree(3).\" and \".fn_flat('').fn_scaledegree(6).\") along its route; I also consider how Joel introduces mixture in his opening descending bass lines. Part 2 explores the harmonic and functional ambiguity in the complex song, “Laura.” Part 3 considers the enharmonic complexities of “Vienna” through the lens of the opening bar’s augmented triad; I also consider comparative examples of augmented triads in “Zanzibar” and “Where’s the Orchestra?”. In response to Joel’s vast exposure to the common-practice canon, my approach fuses perspectives from nineteenth-century music with contemporary theories of pop/rock harmony.","PeriodicalId":44918,"journal":{"name":"Music Theory Online","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45401652","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Structured as a dialog, the “Annunciation of Death,” a duet in Act 2, Scene 4 of Wagner’s Die Walküre, centers on the changing dramatic relationship between Brünnhilde and Siegmund. A hardhearted, obedient warrior at the beginning of their first encounter, Brünnhilde learns sympathy and compassion from Siegmund’s profound love for Sieglinde; this knowledge transforms her into the woman who eventually sacrifices herself through love to redeem the divine world at the end of the cycle. The article examines how this narrative dynamic is reflected in the musical architecture. It reads the scene’s overarching form as a three-stage process in which the characters struggle for narrative control, from Brünnhilde’s declaration of Siegmund’s fate to his rewriting of that fate in his favor. The rotational principle is the primary formal function clarifying the transformations and interactions of leitmotifs in the playing-out of the dramatic narrative. The article thereby demonstrates the effectiveness of the rotational principle for understanding the scene’s teleological process as embedded in the music and drama.
{"title":"Rotational Principle as Teleological Genesis in the “Annunciation of Death” Scene from Wagner’s Die Walküre","authors":"Ji Yeon Lee","doi":"10.30535/mto.28.2.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30535/mto.28.2.5","url":null,"abstract":"Structured as a dialog, the “Annunciation of Death,” a duet in Act 2, Scene 4 of Wagner’s Die Walküre, centers on the changing dramatic relationship between Brünnhilde and Siegmund. A hardhearted, obedient warrior at the beginning of their first encounter, Brünnhilde learns sympathy and compassion from Siegmund’s profound love for Sieglinde; this knowledge transforms her into the woman who eventually sacrifices herself through love to redeem the divine world at the end of the cycle. The article examines how this narrative dynamic is reflected in the musical architecture. It reads the scene’s overarching form as a three-stage process in which the characters struggle for narrative control, from Brünnhilde’s declaration of Siegmund’s fate to his rewriting of that fate in his favor. The rotational principle is the primary formal function clarifying the transformations and interactions of leitmotifs in the playing-out of the dramatic narrative. The article thereby demonstrates the effectiveness of the rotational principle for understanding the scene’s teleological process as embedded in the music and drama.","PeriodicalId":44918,"journal":{"name":"Music Theory Online","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49536179","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The use of the harmonic series as a pitch-generating resource is a significant trend in twentieth- and twenty-first-century composition. While the principle of equal temperament prioritizes an additive understanding of intervals, the harmonic series implies a ratio-based approach to pitch relationships. Despite these philosophical differences and the sometimes polemical debates that have attended to them, the works of Julian Anderson (1967–) and Rand Steiger (1957–) draw simultaneously on overtone-based and equal-tempered harmonic thinking. These two composers are part of a group of musicians who have proposed various hybrid approaches to harmonic construction, and their works are also notable for playing out interactions between these influences in ways that reflect the composers’ political concerns. In this paper, I combine examinations of Anderson’s and Steiger’s characteristic harmonic strategies with close analyses of two quartertone-based works: Anderson’s Eden (2005) and Steiger’s Post-truth Lament (2017). I use these discussions to consider the pieces’ diverse political resonances. Ultimately, I argue that their hybrid harmonic approaches serve to highlight the multifaceted implications of ambiguity—not only its musically generative potential, but also its capacity to transform contemporary political life in ways both corrosive and constructive.
{"title":"The Poetics and Politics of Ambiguity","authors":"A. Stephenson","doi":"10.30535/mto.28.2.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30535/mto.28.2.8","url":null,"abstract":"The use of the harmonic series as a pitch-generating resource is a significant trend in twentieth- and twenty-first-century composition. While the principle of equal temperament prioritizes an additive understanding of intervals, the harmonic series implies a ratio-based approach to pitch relationships. Despite these philosophical differences and the sometimes polemical debates that have attended to them, the works of Julian Anderson (1967–) and Rand Steiger (1957–) draw simultaneously on overtone-based and equal-tempered harmonic thinking. These two composers are part of a group of musicians who have proposed various hybrid approaches to harmonic construction, and their works are also notable for playing out interactions between these influences in ways that reflect the composers’ political concerns. In this paper, I combine examinations of Anderson’s and Steiger’s characteristic harmonic strategies with close analyses of two quartertone-based works: Anderson’s Eden (2005) and Steiger’s Post-truth Lament (2017). I use these discussions to consider the pieces’ diverse political resonances. Ultimately, I argue that their hybrid harmonic approaches serve to highlight the multifaceted implications of ambiguity—not only its musically generative potential, but also its capacity to transform contemporary political life in ways both corrosive and constructive.","PeriodicalId":44918,"journal":{"name":"Music Theory Online","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49670174","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Wolfgang Rihm’s Fifth String Quartet poses numerous challenges to analysis because it contains little repeated material, no clear formal design, and contains a wealth of diverse musical gestures. I argue that the piece’s gestures should be understood in relation to an idealized Austro-German romantic music, common to much of Rihm’s work from the 1970s, but which fails to materialize in the Fifth Quartet. I trace the piece’s closeness to romanticism and demonstrate how the piece’s unpredictable formal process produces a large-scale gestural contour composed of smaller processes. I call processes directed toward romanticism, “becoming,” and those directed away from it, “disintegrating.” After surveying several noteworthy passages, I examine the quartet’s large-scale form. I conclude with a brief meditation on the relationship between Rihm’s aesthetics and German romanticism and the post-modernism of the 1970s and 1980s, and argue that Rihm’s music fulfills the demands of romantic theorists from the early 19th century, forming a new strain of romanticism built atop the ruined memories of the old.
Wolfgang Rihm的《第五弦乐四重奏》对分析提出了许多挑战，因为它几乎没有重复的材料，没有明确的正式设计，并且包含了丰富多样的音乐手势。我认为，应该将这首作品的姿态与理想化的奥斯特-德国浪漫音乐联系起来理解，这在里姆20世纪70年代的许多作品中都很常见，但在第五四重奏中却没有实现。我追溯了这件作品与浪漫主义的接近，并展示了这件不可预测的正式过程是如何产生由较小过程组成的大规模手势轮廓的。我把指向浪漫主义的过程称为“成为”，而那些远离浪漫主义的进程则称为“瓦解”。在考察了几段值得注意的段落后，我审视了四重奏的大型形式。最后，我对里姆的美学与德国浪漫主义以及20世纪70年代和80年代的后现代主义之间的关系进行了简短的思考，并认为里姆的音乐满足了19世纪初浪漫主义理论家的要求，形成了一种新的浪漫主义风格，建立在对过去被破坏的记忆之上。
{"title":"Becoming and Disintegration in Wolfgang Rihm’s Fifth String Quartet, Ohne Titel","authors":"David Hier","doi":"10.30535/mto.28.2.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30535/mto.28.2.3","url":null,"abstract":"Wolfgang Rihm’s Fifth String Quartet poses numerous challenges to analysis because it contains little repeated material, no clear formal design, and contains a wealth of diverse musical gestures. I argue that the piece’s gestures should be understood in relation to an idealized Austro-German romantic music, common to much of Rihm’s work from the 1970s, but which fails to materialize in the Fifth Quartet. I trace the piece’s closeness to romanticism and demonstrate how the piece’s unpredictable formal process produces a large-scale gestural contour composed of smaller processes. I call processes directed toward romanticism, “becoming,” and those directed away from it, “disintegrating.” After surveying several noteworthy passages, I examine the quartet’s large-scale form. I conclude with a brief meditation on the relationship between Rihm’s aesthetics and German romanticism and the post-modernism of the 1970s and 1980s, and argue that Rihm’s music fulfills the demands of romantic theorists from the early 19th century, forming a new strain of romanticism built atop the ruined memories of the old.","PeriodicalId":44918,"journal":{"name":"Music Theory Online","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46074774","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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