komponisto

[komponisto]

Schenker, Westergaard, and Form

From a reply I sent to a recent private message on Reddit, which seemed worth elevating to a miniature blog post:

Now, with regard to form: contrary to what some people think, Schenker had nothing against form. He talks about it all the time in his analytical writings. The point is that for him, what form consisted of was ways of articulating the musical content (which in his later period meant the Urlinie). What he disliked was talking about form in a way abstracted from musical detail. If you were going to talk about form in general way, you needed a way of talking about musical detail in a general way; this is where the Urlinie came from. Thus his whole theory is really a theory of form.  

Along with modernist composers and aestheticians (however ironic it may seem), Schenker basically upholds the view that form should depend on content. He sees schematic Formenlehre as treating form as if it could be independent of content; this is his problem with it. The Urlinie was basically invented so that he could be as general about form as the Formenlehre theorists while also keeping it tied to concrete (audiatable) musical gestures. In order to abstract form, he needed to abstract content too.

I think this is the right context in which to view Westergaard. (For many purposes, indeed, Westergaard can be seen as simply a toy version of Schenker.) The theme of talking about form in a way that directly links it to concrete musical constructs is blatantly evident in chapter 8 of ITT. Everything is discussed in terms of "making the structure clear to the listener" -- the point being that "the structure" refers to pitch and rhythmic constructs, not "formal" schemata. The purpose of the latter is to make the former clear, not the other way around.

So by all means, talk about motives and phrases and cadences and periods and so on. (The only one of these that Westergaard doesn't talk about is motives; this is, by the way, intimately related to the fact that he doesn't discuss Stufen either. But Schenker talks about both, a lot.) If you want, read Janet Schmalfeldt's article in In Theory Only, which is about the relationship of Westergaard to theories of form (actually, it's mostly about the differences between Westergaard's definitions of terms like "phrase" and those of other theorists, but there is some discussion of the reasons for and implications of this).

But really, the thing to do (to get the right perspective on form) is to read Schenker, most of all early Schenker, specifically the monographs on Beethoven: the Ninth Symphony book, and the Erläuterungsausgaben of the late piano sonatas. You will see right away that Schenker has no aversion to using traditional formal terminology. Later, of course, he tends to scarequote it, but that's because he views the Urlinie as the fundamental thing, which he is using to derive the formal organization as a byproduct. You'll eventually want to read his essays on fugue and sonata form in The Masterwork in Music, and the Eroica analysis and the material on form in Free Composition. But early Schenker is particularly good in the sense of filling in what's missing from Westergaard.

[komponisto]

Once, twice, thrice...

Once Twice Thrice Fource Fice Sixe Sevence Eightce Nince Tence Elevence Twelce Thirteence Fourteence (etc.) Twentice Twenty-once Twenty-twice (etc.) Thirtice (etc.) One-hundredce One-hundred-and-once (etc.) One-thousandce One-millionce (etc.) (Surprisingly easy to get used to!)

[komponisto]

Filler Post

(to avoid undesirable juxtaposition)

[komponisto]

The Lovely Month of May: Schumann op. 48 no. 1 revisited

Posted on my proper blog. 

[komponisto]

Re "Understanding the chromatic in terms of the diatonic: a reply", Of course there is a scale that people call a "diminished scale". See p134 of /Duke Ellington Studies/, edited by John Howland, in the article by Bill Dobbins. The page is available free from Google Books (your AMA text box does not allow me to paste the URL). It is an 8 note scale consisting of full step, half step, full step, half step, full step, half step, full step, half step. Is there another name for it?

"Octatonic scale" is the usual name for that, I believe.Personally, if I were going to use the name "diminished scale" for anything, it would be the Locrian mode -- indeed, one might even speak of a "diminished key" in that case.

[komponisto]

This is a test to see if LaTeX works, according to the instructions here :

\(sin^2(\theta) + cos^2(\theta) =1 \)

\( P(E)   = {n \choose k} p^k (1-p)^{ n-k} \)

\[f(x; \mu, \sigma^2) = \frac{1}{\sigma \sqrt{2\pi}} e^{-\frac{1}{2} (\frac{x-\mu}{\sigma})^2} \]

...Aaand the (updated) answer (after a long struggle) is : yes!

[komponisto]

This Blog is a Scratchpad

Now that I’ve started posting things here, I should mention what this is.

I dislike Tumblr, so I thought I would create an account and use it as a sort of scratch paper. Be advised that the ideas here may be less than fully baked; this is by design. If they make it to a more fully baked state, they may be posted (possibly in longer essays) at my “proper” blog . 

[komponisto]

John E-Thomas.

(Seriously.)

Freda Beacon-Poyser.

Mines not that good.

What’s yours? 😂