"Composition, Chromaticism and the Developmental Process "

Author: Henry Burnett

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-05

Total Pages: 378

ISBN-13: 135157132X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Musicology, having been transmitted as a compilation of disparate events and disciplines, has long necessitated a 'magic bullet', a 'unified field theory' so to speak, that can interpret the steady metamorphosis of Western art music from late medieval modality to twentieth-century atonality within a single theoretical construct. Without that magic bullet, discussions of this kind are increasingly complicated and, to make matters worse, the validity of any transformational models and ideas of the natural evolution of styles is questioned and even frowned upon today as epitomizing a grotesque teleological bigotry. Going against current thinking, Henry Burnett and Roy Nitzberg claim that the teleological approach to observing stylistic change is still valid when considered from the purely compositional perspective. The authors challenge the traditional understanding of development, and advance a new theory of eleven-pitch tonality as it relates to the corpus of Western composition. The book plots the evolution of tonality and its bearing on style and the compositional process itself. The theory is not based on the diatonic aspect of the various tonal systems exploited by composers; rather, the theory is chromatically based - the chromatically inflected octave being the source not only of a highly ingenious developmental dialectic, but also encompassing the moment-to-moment progression of the musical narrative itself. Even the most profound teachings of Schenker, and the often startlingly original and worthwhile speculations of Riemann, Tovey, Dahlhaus and others, still provide no theory of development and so are ultimately unable to unite the various tendrils of the compositional organism into a unified whole. Burnett and Nitzberg move beyond existing theory and analysis to base their theory from the standpoint of chromatic 'pitch fields'. These fields are the specific chromatic pitch choices that a composer uses to inform and design a complete composition, utilizing

Bach's Numbers

Bach's Numbers PDF

Author: Ruth Tatlow

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-08-06

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 131635234X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

In eighteenth-century Germany the universal harmony of God's creation and the perfection of its proportions still held philosophical, moral and devotional significance. Reproducing proportions close to the unity (1:1) across compositions could render them beautiful, perfect and even eternal. Using the principles of her groundbreaking theory of proportional parallelism and the latest source study research, Ruth Tatlow reveals how Bach used the number of bars to create numerical perfection across his published collections, and explains why he did so. The first part of the book illustrates the wide-ranging application of belief in the unity, showing how planning a well-proportioned structure was a normal compositional procedure in Bach's time. In the second part Tatlow presents practical demonstrations of this in Bach's works, illustrating the layers of proportion that appear within a movement, a work, between two works in a collection, across a collection and between collections.

The Compositional Process of J.S. Bach

The Compositional Process of J.S. Bach PDF

Author: Robert Lewis Marshall

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2019-08-06

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 9780691200491

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Volume 1 of 2. Bach left few sketches for his music: writing for church and congregation obliged him to invent ideas quickly and to write them down at once. Bach's process of composition may thus be seen in his autograph scores, and is now reconstructed by Robert Marshall in an analysis of all the known autographs and sketches. The major part of his study investigates the musical material in the sources, with separate chapters devoted to the four-part chorales, the recitatives, and the arias and chorsuses. By interpreting corrections and sketches, Mr. Marshall works out the usual order of composition in each of these genres and uncvoers the reasons for changes in every musical parameter: melody, rhythm, harmony, texture, orchestration, and form. His analyses provide a greater awareness of Bach's musical personality--his likes and dislikes, his hierarchy of values, and his flexible response to a multitutde of compositional situations and problems. In addition to facsimile plates, the book includes over 20 musical examples and, in Volume II, rigorously faithful transcriptions of the complete sketch material. Readers can see immediately how Bach worked, revised, and polished his compositions. Robert L. Marshall is a member of the Department of Music, University of Chicago. He is currently editing a volume of Bach Cantatas for the Neue-Bach-Ausgabe. Princeton Studies in Music, 4. Originally published in 1972. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Compositional Process of J.S. Bach

The Compositional Process of J.S. Bach PDF

Author: Robert Lewis Marshall

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2019-08-06

Total Pages: 172

ISBN-13: 9780691200521

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Volume 2 of 2. Bach left few sketches for his music: writing for church and congregation obliged him to invent ideas quickly and to write them down at once. Bach's process of composition may thus be seen in his autograph scores, and is now reconstructed by Robert Marshall in an analysis of all the known autographs and sketches. The major part of his study investigates the musical material in the sources, with separate chapters devoted to the four-part chorales, the recitatives, and the arias and chorsuses. By interpreting corrections and sketches, Mr. Marshall works out the usual order of composition in each of these genres and uncvoers the reasons for changes in every musical parameter: melody, rhythm, harmony, texture, orchestration, and form. His analyses provide a greater awareness of Bach's musical personality--his likes and dislikes, his hierarchy of values, and his flexible response to a multitutde of compositional situations and problems. In addition to facsimile plates, the book includes over 20 musical examples and, in Volume II, rigorously faithful transcriptions of the complete sketch material. Readers can see immediately how Bach worked, revised, and polished his compositions. Robert L. Marshall is a member of the Department of Music, University of Chicago. He is currently editing a volume of Bach Cantatas for the Neue-Bach-Ausgabe. Princeton Studies in Music, 4. Originally published in 1972. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Lanterna Rally - Theme by Grace Themes