Music analysis

This essay forms part of a larger project on music and metapoesis in Trecento song, in which I examine the use of the poetic lexicon that might be understood as referring to the mechanics of the text or its musical setting, if there is any, and acknowledging its formal poetic and musical constitution. In particular, I focus on the semantic field established by some potentially metapoetic concepts, two of which are explored in the two case studies presented in this article (and drawn from the recent edition of the San Lorenzo palimpsest): “return” and “metamorphosis”.
The first case study, Giovanni Mazzuoli’s madrigal "A piè del monte", aims at illustrating in a straightforward fashion the basic tenets of the proposed methodology. In the second and central case study, Piero Mazzuoli’s three-voice ballata "A Febo", I offer a detailed examination of this song’s form and content, arguing that the metapoetic motif of transformation/mutation creates multiple echoes across this song’s amorous content (via Ovid’s Metamorphoses); poetic structure (which, I argue,might be viewed as metamorphic); and musical setting (via mutatio in its hexachordal structure and extensive use of musica ficta).

"Two works (Treber, Denton 2010; Luong, Montreal 2012) have recently reconsidered the collection of papers about opus 90 by Schenker and Elias housed in the Ernst Oster Collection, New York.
Vivian Luong examines the question of Schenker's concepts of performance and analysis, using Agawu's and Smith's definitions of ambiguity and incorporating revisionist Schenkerian theories of multiple analytical and performance interpretation. Her research on Schenker ́s conflicting graphs and annotated scores outlines two critical passages: the exposition ́s transition and the development ́s end. The ambiguity of the placement of the subordinate theme (mm. 45 or 55?) in Schenker's graphs is supported by a consideration of Caplin's formal functions.
On the other hand, Luong's explanation of the transition ignores the Eb (mm. 37-38) in the enharmonic reinterpretation of Bb (mm. 37-44) and underestimates the „few textural changes“ in the recapitulation. Why does the transition begin at the distance of a third (mm. 24/167) and land at the distance of a fifth (mm. 45/188)? I will insert my analysis (Hamburg 2012) here, integrating tools of historical and systematical German-speaking theory, and then compare my results for the first movement with Schenker's ambiguity among “apparent tripartite organization” and “underlying two-part interrupted structure”.
Stefan L. Treber embeds his Schenkerian analysis in a biographical-historical frame: according to Schindler/Krones, a program could explain the two-movement-structure of opus 90. My approach renounces to any non-musical references but the category of Historicism in art applied to Beethoven's harmonics. It extends the definition of enharmonischer Wendepunkt (Besseler 1955, Bahr 2005), reflects on funktionale Mehrdeutigkeit (s. Holtmeier 2011) and opens to a multi-level interpretation of subthematics:
1) Single ton: Distinctiveness principle, autonomous and integrated tone, signum (Hohlfeld) 2) Several tones: Tonfolge (“ton succession”), model(s), paradigm
3) Abstraction: Formel (Dahlhaus/Hohlfeld?), Vehikel (Sprick 2011).
This path conducts to a coherent large-form including both movements of the sonata."

This article surveys the reception of Arnold Schoenberg's theoretical ideas in English-language music theory, with a primary (though not exclusive) focus on their reception in the United States. William Rothstein has chronicled how Heinrich Schenker's ideas were modified to conform to the American music-theoretical discourse ("Americanization"). The question then arises: Were Schoenberg's theoretical ideas also similarly modified? After a preliminary overview of the availability of Schoenberg's theoretical writing in English translation, four topics in Schoenberg's thought are traced, with a focus on the postwar era: 1) harmony; 2) form; 3) thematic and motivic transformation ; and 4) aesthetics. The American reception of Schoenberg's theoretical ideas has tended to focus on the music-technical dimension of his theoretical texts and has, to a significant extent, ignored the more philosophical and aesthetic aspects of his thought. It has tended to place emphasis on how music is structured and how that structure is unified; there has been less concern with why such unity is important in a broader sense. Dieser Aufsatz gibt einen Überblick über die Rezeption von Arnold Schönbergs theoretischem Denken in der englischsprachigen Musiktheorie, wobei der Fokus, wenn auch nicht ausschließ-lich, auf der Rezeption in den Vereinigten Staaten liegt. William Rothstein hat dargestellt wie Heinrich Schenkers Theorie im Zuge einer Anpassung an den amerikanischen musiktheoretischen Diskurs modifiziert wurde (»Americanization«). Dies legt die Frage nahe, ob auch Schönbergs theoretisches Denken in ähnlicher Weise modifiziert worden ist. Nach einer einführenden Über-sicht über die Verfügbarkeit von Schönbergs Schriften in englischen Übersetzungen werden vier Themenbereiche von Schönbergs Denken in der anglophonen Musiktheorie verfolgt, wobei der Schwerpunkt auf der Nachkriegszeit liegt: 1) Harmonik; 2) Form; 3) thematische und motivische Transformation; 4) Ästhetik. Die amerikanische Rezeption von Schönbergs Theorien tendierte dazu, die technischen Aspekte in seinen Schriften herauszuheben, und vernachlässigte dabei in einem signifikanten Ausmaß die stärker philosophischen und ästhetischen Aspekte seines Den-kens. Die Schönberg-Rezeption in den USA hat also ein starkes Gewicht auf Fragen musikalischer Struktur und struktureller Einheit gelegt; weniger wurde hingegen danach gefragt, warum eine solche Einheit in einem umfassenderen Sinn erstrebenswert ist. In his 1986 article entitled "The Americanization of Heinrich Schenker," William Roth-stein explores the development of Schenkerian theory and analysis in North America in the decades following the Second World War. Reflecting on how Schenker's ideas had been absorbed, disseminated, and, to a certain extent, adapted by the English-speaking academic community in the United States, Rothstein remarks: 1 I would like to thank Severine Neff and Jonathan Dunsby for reading an earlier version of this article and offering useful comments. I would also like to thank the editors of the journal and the anonymous readers for their valuable feedback and suggestions.

This article follows on the heels of one by Holly Watkins, who argues that music, “a subsystem of the social system of communication,” can evoke the organic (the bodily and the psychic) not by forming a self-contained unity of parts and whole but through the “internal recursiveness” of musical works, their external “recursiveness vis-à-vis other music,” and – crucially – “the knowingness that music displays toward its own operations.” I adopt the premise that music evokes the organic most vividly not through recursive processes in individual systems but through the as-if intentional integration of such processes in multiple systems, of which I concern myself particularly with the harmonic, contrapuntal, and formal domains (or, more precisely, the motivic). I offer correctives to the organicist theories of Arnold Schoenberg and Heinrich Schenker, which similarly concern these domains, and especially to their reception. And I explore this direction through an analysis of Bach’s Prelude No. 7 in E-flat major from book 1 of The Well-Tempered Clavier, BWV 852, a singular piece that billows forth like an unfathomable blossom.

Cet article propose une étude approfondie de la Polonaise en la bémol majeur op. 53 de Chopin afin de mettre en avant des caractéristiques essentielles du dernier style de Chopin, qui s'exprime dans les années 1840, période difficile avant son décès. La Polonaise "héroïque", investie de manière plus traditionnelle mais également par le biais d'une approche plus narrative met en avant une évolution de la forme tripartite, déjà amorcée dans la Polonaise op. 44 et qui aboutira également à la forme téléologique de la Polonaise Fantaisie op .61 qui clot ce répertoire. En effet, l'usage des topiques et de leur concaténation sont particulièrement intéréssants pour comprendre une part de l'évolution stylistique du compositeur dans les dernières années.

Abstract: This chapter investigates the issue of the role of the computer,in musical analysis. Starting with a survey of the main approaches in computer analysis, we focus on the particular problem of Jazz chord sequences harmonic analysis. We propose a theory of chord sequence analysis, based on an explicit conceptual hierarchy of analysis objects. We discuss the implementation,of the theory

An element that remains consistently distinctive in the writings of the Greek composer Michalis Adamis (b. 1929) is his lifelong conviction to the dynamic interrelation between symbolism and abstraction that permeates the aesthetic orientation of his compositional outlook. Apart from, but not contrary to his belief in the inherently abstract nature of music, Adamis considers the symbolic qualification of his music’s semantic content commensurate with the historical or cultural distance from the shared frame of reference that defines its symbolic dimension. In terms of compositional practice, the abstract inherence of Adamis’s music is allowed to emerge not through the deployment of automated procedures upon semantically sanitized musical material but through an attempt to incorporate material and procedures from his Byzantine and Greek traditional musical inheritance. The structural means effectuating this attempt pertains primarily to the centonization of idiomatic melodic formulas...

O presente ensaio propõe uma análise estética e formal da obra Opus 11/3 (1914) de Anton Webern (1883-1945) sob a ótica da Momentform encontrada em obras como Kontakte (1958-60) de Karlheinz Stockhausen – conceito e peça elaborados na década de 1950 pelo mesmo.

This article is an overview of a study conducted at the Nova University Biofeedback Lab, resulting not only in a new approach to stress reduction, but also an innovative method to "exercise" our right brain hemispheres promoting its rightful and equal dominance with the left. Doing so results in an increase in creativity, mindfulness, and a higher degree of empathy towards others and the earth. In short, increased right-brain holistic thinking would improve our world-view to be more inclusive of both our bio-sphere and our human-sphere, and reconnect us with our essential creative and loving spiritual selves.

This Part 2 describes the various structures of melodies as more complex versions of the metrical structures discussed in Part 1. In this way, the metrical structure and the grouping structure will be integrated into one theoretical entity.

In Chapter 5, the various structure of phrases will be understood as roughly being metrical unit. By returning to the metrical structure for analysis, the various irregular structures are clearly understood as the result of a kind of compositional technique.

In Chapter 6, the details of various phrases will be understood as a combination of metrical structures, as a complication of metrical structures. The way to create such combinations is through syncopation.

In order to discuss analytically spatial aspects of recorded sound William Moylan’s concept of ‘sound stage’ is developed within a musicological framework as part of a sound paradigm which includes timbre, texture and sound stage. Two Michael Jackson songs (‘The Lady in My Life’ from 1982 and ‘Scream’ from 1995) are used to: a) demonstrate the value of such a conceptualisation, and b) demonstrate that the model has its limits, as record producers in the 1990s began ignoring the conventions of stereo recording’s illusion of three dimensions and reached for a severing of the intimate relations between sound and Euclidic space.

This article discusses the functions of continuous processes in contemporary electronic dance music (EDM), providing an analytical framework for discussing their structural and aesthetic roles in this repertoire. Continuous processes are musical gestures with continuous changes to musical parameters, rather than discrete, "step-by-step" ones. Examples include pitch slides (glissandos), crescendos, fade ins, accelerandos, and filter sweeps. Continuous processes in this repertoire are created with "continuous controllers" such as sliders and knobs, or are programmed into tracks with "automation curves." Functionally, continuous processes often provide sonic instructions for dancers. They can be used by creators at strategic times to provide ornamentation, orientation (often accompanied by intensification or de-intensification), or disorientation (usually in breakdown sections). This article adds to existing analytical scholarship by drawing a ention to the many roles of continuous processes in EDM, and showing how they contribute to the emotional waves experienced when listening to this music.

Complete transcription and reconstruction of the canon a13 for Christ and his Twelve Disciples on the Apostles Creed. This piece is found in both the Eton Choirbook and the Baldwin Manuscript. This edition contained both the fully realized canon as well as a modern reconstruction of the original monophonic version of the canon, as found in the manuscripts.

For a recording with a score animation see the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBu66rLAv7I

As a word and a concept, “isorhythm” is in a state of flux. The practice’s modern name and its validity as a generic determinant have been called into question by Margaret Bent, while Anna Maria Busse Berger has argued that the structural regularity we have tended to see as an end in itself is in fact the result of mnemonic practices.

Within this revitalized discourse, one aspect of the narrative remains unquestioned: the tenor continues to be viewed as the primary shaping force in the construction of “isorhythmic” works. This received view has consequences for the analysis and interpretation of motets because it casts the upper voices in a supporting role, both structurally and semantically.

Attention to upper-voice rhythmic repetition in a number of fourteenth-century French motets brings to light structures that are more intricate—and more interesting—than those suggested by their tenors. While this phenomenon—sometimes called “Großtalea” or “supertalea”—has occasionally been observed in the analyses of individual motets, the dozen or so works involved have never been considered as a group. In fact, supertaleae have broad implications for our understanding of isorhythmic procedures.
The hermeneutic consequences of independent upper-voice structures are particularly clear in the case of Machaut’s S’il estoit/S’amours (Motet 6). There, the presence of “extra bits” in the tenor has led several commentators to construct narratives about imbalance and excess, but such narratives are not sustained by an analysis that begins with the upper voices. Supertaleae can also help account for Beatius/Cum humanum, a motet newly edited from fragmentary sources. Though its tenor has not survived, its upper voices hint at a form that no known tenor repetition scheme would be able to support. That some works may have forms into which the tenor is made to fit, rather than forms built on that tenor, has radical implications for the analysis and interpretation of ars nova motets, regardless of whether their taleae be super- or not.

Because of the use of guitar distortion, chords used in heavy metal are much more complex than the fingered guitar positions would indicate. Due to harmonic partials generated by distortion most chords have a major quality. However, heavy metal is mostly constructed on minor modes regarding the scalar construction. This creates an apparent modal dichotomy between the vertical and the horizontal harmonic construction. This article discusses acoustic characteristics of distorted guitar chords and a variety of compositional strategies that have been used in dealing with the major and minor thirds in “proto” and “classic” heavy metal music (ca. 1965-1985).

Felix Mendelssohn and Paul Hindemith, composing about one hundred years apart, integrated visual elements, including drawings and illustrated notations, into musical manuscripts they designed as gifts for women they admired. The two documents, illustrating Mendelssohn’s Schilflied (1842) and Hindemith’s Ludus Tonalis (1942), are strong declarations of compositional and artistic ideology. This article examines the scores as reflecting, respectively, aspects of nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century conceptions of musical composition and form, and their relation to visual media.

NB: Translated by Farshad Moshfeghi for Iran's Music Report Magazine (2012)

Abstract Although music analysis is a familiar syntagma for all those who have professional connections with music, today many researchers are trying to define its status, to reveal its place and role in the context of studying and understanding music. Usually the analysis is oriented towards the examination of the musical work as an artifact in order to discover the internal coherence of its components. Lately, the analysis is more and more open to the mobile aspects of the work, these being related to the interpretation, reception and its existence in a certain contextual environment. At the same time, in the conditions of diversifying the compositional practice during the XX-XXI century, musicology is forced to diversify its analytical methods. For these reasons, the analysis tends to turn into a concept that involves any approach and can explain the structures and meanings of any music. Thus, the analysis aspires to become a dialectical epistemology capable of ensuring on the one hand maximum openness and variety of interpretations, but also to impose fidelity to the analyzed work.
Rezumat. Deși analiza muzicală este o sintagmă familiară pentru toți cei ce au tangențe profesionale cu muzica, astăzi mai mulți cercetători încearcă să definească statutul ei, să releve locul și rolul ei în contextul studierii și înțelegerii muzicii. De regulă, analiza este orientată spre examinarea operei muzicale ca artefact cu scopul descoperirii coerenței interne a componentelor sale. În ultimul timp, însă, analiza tot mai frecvent se deschide către aspectele mobile ale operei acestea fiind legate de interpretare, recepție și existența ei într-un anumit mediu contextual. Totodată, în condițiile diversificării practicii componistice pe parcursul sec. XX-XXI, muzicologia se vede nevoită de a-și diversifica metodele analitice. Din aceste motive analiza tinde să se transforme într-un concept care presupune orice abordare și poate să explice structurile și semnificațiile oricărei muzici. Astfel analiza aspiră să devină o epistemologie dialectică capabilă să asigure pe de o parte maximă deschidere și varietate interpretărilor, dar totodată să impună fidelitate față de opera analizată.

The author’s composition for string quartet, “…from thatched hut” (2011) was written in response to an exhibition of furniture designed by Khai Liew, and was premiered in the exhibition space. The designer’s Chinese heritage and the nature of his work, which fuses modern Western design principles with techniques and aesthetics of Ming dynasty furniture, influenced the form and content of the music. The author’s own long engagement with Chinese culture led to the composition of a seven-movement work that fused techniques of contemporary Western music and Chinese traditional music. The work also drew inspiration from Chinese philosophy and poetry, in particular the work of Li Bai and Du Fu. There are many Chinese composers who have assimilated Western techniques – it is standard practice in China, where students are taught Western composition. However, examples of Western composers drawing on Chinese musical elements are rare in comparison, while other Asian musical traditions – from Indonesia, Japan and India – have exerted widespread influence in the West. In this paper the author examines the challenges of a transcultural approach to composition, and considers questions of influence and authenticity.

This study examines the ways in which a relationship is created between the piano and electronic sound in order to clarify the prismatic structure of the piece. The analysis will both isolate the acousmatic material and consider it together with the piano part, using the listening experience, rather than analysis software, as its basis. The features of the piece will be defined employing the concepts and terminology of Denis Smalley's spectromorphology, cross referencing his definition of electroacoustic score. The analysis will explore, on the one hand, the relationship between the piano part and the notation employed for the acousmatic material, and on the other hand the piano-specific writing.
The dialectic interaction between the two sound spectra will lead to observations on how various declensions of the concept of mimesis, as expressed by Simon Emmerson, are realised. The concept of mimesis in this case also informs the syntactic aspect of the piece, in terms of both its writing and its micro-structure, which is largely contrapuntal, as well as presenting canonical-imitative situations.
Taking into account that the use of typo-morphological aspects would be more appropriate, particularly when considering the intertextual nature of the context, the study will define the functions of the segments of the piece in the light of their antecedent-consequent relationships and their function within the macroform, and will go on to propose further levels of formal synthesis. This methodology will identify a relationship with the figure of Messiaen and demonstrate the necessity for semantic listening.
The study will conclude by demonstrating how, in a mixed context with an objective bonding linked to concrete data, electroacoustic material might form part of the formal definition of the piece, re-contextualizing concepts of archetypically acoustic form.