The Rocky Mountain Chapter of the American Musicological Society The Southwest Chapter of the Society for Ethnomusicology The Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Society for Music Theory Lamont School of Music, University of Denver March 31 - April 1, 2006 ABSTRACTS 9:30 - 11:30 Images of the Female (AMS) Richard Agee, Colorado College, chair Recital Salon (room 121) Stond wel, moder, under roode: A New Perspective on Marian Worship and the Feminine Kristen LaRue Arizona State University The English crucifixion laments of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, based on Latin sequences, are poetic interpretations of an intimate Biblical moment: the Virgin Mary's last interactions with her dying son. But while suggesting reverence, the songs' texts also present the Mother of God in a very human light. Through analysis of the Middle English lyrics, as well as of historical Marian worship, this study will provide a contextual reading of the laments. Further illumination is found in the songs' portrayals of femininity and motherhood, and their significance for the medieval English laity. In order to understand the crucifixion laments, a consideration of descriptors is useful. One can refer to these songs as "woman's song" which John Plummer defines as, "the artistic use of the female voice (as role, persona, or rhetorical stance)." Though Plummer's discussion centers chiefly on the troubadour compositions of high Middle Ages, I argue that the term "woman's song" can also apply to the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century crucifixion laments. In these pieces, the Virgin Mary was fashioned as the ideal of medieval womanhood, however inimitable: socio-culturally, sexually, and spiritually. Seen through the lens of Marian veneration, these songs represent both ideals and realities of women's experience during the Middle Ages. Although at least four extant songs (and perhaps more) of Middle English stock could be classified as crucifixion laments, this paper will discuss one in particular. Stond wel, moder, under roode (Stand Well, Mother, Under the Cross) is a thirteenth-century monophonic creation based textually and musically on a Latin hymn. A dramatic, highly emotional dialogue between Mary and the dying Jesus, it incorporates various facets of Marian identity: saint and intercessor (Sancta Maria), virgin and divine feminine (Virgo Redemptrix), and sorrowful mother (Mater Dolorosa). In grief, perhaps, Mary reflected medieval women’s experiences most candidly. A Missing Portrait and Mathieu Gascongne’s Canonic Motet Ista est speciosa: New Evidence for a Reinterpretation of the Origins of MS Pepys 1760 John T. Brobeck University of Arizona The canonic motet Ista est speciosa attributed to Mathieu Gascongne (fl.1512-1535) poses special problems of interpretation both in terms of its musical realization and its codicological significance. This composition, hitherto unpublished in modern edition, appears in only a single early source, Cambridge, Magdalene College, Pepys MS 1760. It occupies a prominent position in the Pepys MS, on the back of the first, highly decorated folio containing music, and right below a now missing portrait excised from the manuscript sometime after 1697 that an early cataloguer identified as the “Prince of Wales” at “the time of King Henry VII” (r.1485-1509). Although a wide variety of evidence argues strongly that this manuscript emanated from French royal circles sometime between 1498 and 1516, the precise occasion of its bestowing remains elusive. Virtually all of the motets and chansons found in Pepys 1760 were composed by musicians known to have served at the French royal courts of Louis XII (r. 1498-1515) and his queen Anne of Brittany (r. 1491-1514) during the first two decades of the sixteenth century, including such luminaries as Antoine de Févin, Johannes Prioris, and Jean Mouton. Numerous aspects of the manuscript’s decoration also suggest a French provenance, including its ermine tail continuation sign (associated with the duchy of Brittany) and the presence of red shields used by the French military order of Saint Michael. The date of compilation and the identity of the recipient are clouded, however, by certain problematic aspects of the manuscript’s decoration (some of which has been painted over, suggesting that the intended recipient may have changed during the manuscript’s preparation), and the text of the motet Ista est speciosa, “She is most beautiful among the daughters of Jerusalem.” Given the motet’s placement directly below the missing portrait, it hardly seems likely that the original painting depicted a male member of the English royal family. And given the unique breadth and sonority of the motet, which proves to be a twelve-voiced canon in which each successive voice enters one step higher at a remove of two breves and which has no parallel elsewhere in the manuscript, it seems highly unlikely that the placement of this particular work and text was mere happenstance. Detailed analysis of the texts of the 57 motets and secular works contained in Pepys 1760 suggests that the original portrait may have portrayed not Henry VIII, but rather Mary Tudor of England (1496-1533), Henry’s younger sister and (briefly) the wife of King Louis XII of France during the final three months of his life. This identification makes sense of the manuscript's remarkably homogeneous group of motets dedicated to the Virgin Mary, many of which emphasize her motherhood, and the inclusion of a chanson cycle by Févin about a young women mal mariée to a much older spouse. If this analysis is correct, it would raise the probability that the manuscript was originally intended in late 1514 to serve as a royal wedding present, and only later was redirected to Henry. Lauda filia Sion: Investiture Ceremonies during the Ancien régime Deborah Kauffman University of Northern Colorado The investiture, or clothing, of a postulant was the first major step on the path for a girl to become a nun, and provided an opportunity for the convent and the community to strengthen their ties through the participation of the girl’s family in the investiture ceremony. As with all Catholic ritual, music played an important role in the delivery of sacred texts and as a means of reinforcing the solemnity of the occasion. A number of investiture rituals performed in the French-speaking areas of Europe have been preserved in sources published from the seventeenth and early eighteen centuries. While these ceremonials offer a detailed look into the texts and actions that welcome a girl into a religious community, only a few include the music to which a number of the texts were sung. It is still possible to form a picture of the use of music within the investiture ceremony, and to begin to evaluate its importance within the public component of the ritual. The ceremonials are representative of different religious orders and institutions, which is reflected in the marked degree of variation in terms of the order of the events that make up the ceremony and in the texts spoken and sung by the participants. The differences between the ceremonies are especially remarkable when compared to the daily celebrations of the Office and mass that form a crucial part of the nuns’ religious life. In this light, the ceremonies of investiture and profession can be viewed more as an expression of convent culture than of liturgy; tradition and repetition were most likely the forces that molded their form. Because the functions of these ceremonies were the same in all of these convents, the individual rites share certain points of contact, but the actual expression of how the rites were carried out vary a good deal. Much of the variety between the ceremonies relates to where participants are placed, where they move, and when certain actions (kneeling, blessing, the presentation of various items) occur. Moreover, the texts that make up the ceremony—hymns, antiphons, psalms, responses, etc.—vary as well. Still, certain events form a core that is common to all the ceremonies: the request of postulant to be admitted as novice; the blessing of the habit and white veil; the actual act of clothing itself, in which the postulant puts on the habit; and the placing of the white veil on the head of the new novice. In addition, two of the sources include other symbolic actions in the clothing ceremony: the entrance of the girl through the convent door and the ceremonial cutting of her hair (tonsure). Within the context of these actions, music can function as a frame, as an accompaniment, or can be absent while important texts are recited. The surviving music reinforces these functions by consisting primarily of plainchant or newly-composed monophonic plain-chant musical, with only a few examples of concerted music. Twenty-one Years Later: Paradis’s Sicilienne -- Is It Still Spurious or Authentic? Hidemi Matsushita Arapahoe Community College In 1985, I presented a paper at the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the American Musicological Society conference discussing my theories of why Sicilienne, once considered as an authentic work by the blind Viennese composer, Maria Theresia Paradis (1759-1824), should be considered spurious. I presented evidence that the real authorship of Sicilienne was actually Samuel Dushkin, the purported discoverer of this work. Since my paper, I found more evidence of fraud: there are similarities in harmony and rhythm that link Sicilienne to an authentic work by Carl Maria von Weber and an arrangement of it by Fritz Kreisler—famous for his musical “forgery” and once a teacher of Dushkin! Since my presentation and dissertation, many authors writing about women composers have agreed with my conclusion and Sicilienne has been deleted from the list of authentic works by eighteenth-century women. However, in 2005, Marion Fürst published her biography of Paradis in which she challenged my findings and conclusion. She felt that the composition was authentic—or possibly authentic—and presented her own theories. In this paper, I will compare my research with Fürst’s in the areas of historical background, editions and stylistic analysis as well as relationships and similarities among Dushkin, Kreisler, Paradis and Weber. 20th-Century Analysis (SMT) Lisa Derry, Albertson College of Idaho, chair Room 209 Schoenberg’s “Idea” in Op. 20 Herzgewachse Bruce Quaglia University of Utah Schoenberg’s song Op. 20 Herzgewachse was written in December 1911 in one or two brief sittings. It was composed for inclusion in Kandinsky and Marc’s Blaue Reiter Almanac along with Schoenberg’s essay The Relationship to the Text. That essay goes to the core of Schoenberg’s beliefs about musical expression and is integral to the understanding of what Schoenberg meant by the “idea” of a musical work, particularly one involving text. Using that essay as a point of departure and integrating it with Schoenberg’s various other writings on the “idea”, I develop a reading of Herzgewachse that interprets the work simultaneously at the level of the Gedanke (or musical idea) and Einfall (or spiritual idea). The interplay of these two levels of the idea demonstrates a theory of correspondences between them that draws upon certain occult, or spiritualist ideals descended from Swedenborg through the novels of Balzac (whom Schoenberg admired), as well as other intellectual trends in literature and philosophy that held considerable currency in Schoenberg’s milieu: Goethe, Schopenhauer and Karl Kraus. The occasion and text of the song, along with its somewhat unusual shape, design and textures all coincide to make this work particularly suitable for this kind of study. This paper examines that work as a model for Schoenberg’s musical “idea’ not merely as a technique for generating form by manipulating motivic materials, but one that is born of a theory of expression with deep aesthetic and spiritualist roots. Copland’s Fifths Stan Kleppinger Butler University Starting approximately with El salón México (1936), the perfect fifth and its inversion became ubiquitous features of much of Aaron Copland’s music. The composer’s melodic and harmonic attention to this interval class, coupled with his penchant for pitch centricity, did much to define the style most often identified with him and, eventually, with an entire “school” of composition often described as “American.” On the other hand, little has been done to explore the innovative role Copland frequently grants this interval in the large-scale tonal organization of his music from this period. This paper demonstrates that interval class 5 is a crucial element in understanding not only individual melodies and harmonies, but also the large-scale tonal structure of many Copland works of the 1940s. To demonstrate the impact of perfect fifths on tonal structure, this discussion focuses on two representative works: “Nature, the gentlest mother” from Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson (1949) and the Sonata for Violin and Piano (1943). In each composition, two potential pitch centers separated by interval class 5 are simultaneously stressed using various salience factors, creating an ambiguity that is “worked out” through the music and its organization around specific pitch centers. Becoming Berio: Evidence from His First Three String Quartets Richard Hermann University of New Mexico The Luciano Berio we know best stems from his Thema (Omaggio a Joyce), Circles, Sincronie, Folksongs, Sinfonia, Linea, Points on a Curve to Find, Coro, and early members of the Sequenza series. Before these established him as a composer of international renown, there were three previous styles. Serial works such as Cinque Variazioni, Chamber Music, Nones, Quartetto, Serenata, and Sequenza for Flute are his best known precursor style. Music from a neo-classical style (Milan Conservatory study with Ghedini) has surfaced only recently. He negotiated the stylistic distances between neo-classicism and serialism and onward to become the Berio we know in the relatively short span of eleven years, 1947-58. But there is an unknown third atonal stylistic precursor between these two styles. The Study for string quartet (1952) written while studying with Dallapiccola is an example that eventually reached print. Given a publication record for his earliest music that is incomplete, is this quartet an anomaly in his oeuvre? Yet it provides us with an opportunity with the Quartetto and Sincronie to grasp his becoming through the quartet medium. To appreciate the stages of the journey, we revisit key aesthetic and generative ideas represented, in part, by his Sincronie, the end point of this study. They are structuralism via linguistics (Jakobsen) and anthropology (Levi-Strauss), using multiple binary oppositions and continuums of states between the binary poles, radical discontinuity or interlaced and superimposed continuities (Joyce’s Ulysses), process, and, as Osmond-Smith has called it, a commentary technique. We also examine Berio’s temporary “rejection of history” as was done in the early to mid-50s by his Darmstadt colleagues Boulez, Maderna, Pousseur, and Stockhausen. Techniques employed include not only traditional contrapuntal ideas such as cumulative rhythm, but also transpositional combination, contour theory, the Fibonacci series, sequential time, strata, interval cycles, and pitch-space graphs as well as some new theoretical ideas. Musical Equivalency of Alphabetical Order in Torke’s Telephone Book Stuart Deaver University of Kansas Is there a way to conceive of a musical work's beginning and ending keys, even if there are exactly the same, as symbolized by two different places? If so, what is the kind of journey that unfolds in between, if it does not involve a homecoming? This analysis applies an innovative analytical technique published recently by Yale music professor Daniel Harrison ("Nonconformist Notions of Nineteenth-Century Enharmonicism", Music Analysis 21/2 (2002): 115-160.) to one of Michael Torke's most popular chamber works: Telephone Book (1985/95). Torke’s Telephone Book with its many full-circle modulations is a musical depiction of the alphabetical ordering found in phone books. Application of Harrison’s new theory now enables these modulations to be coherent with the idea of alphabetical order, with each move around the circle-of-fifths now seen as a move to a new entity like the alphabet cycling through letters and arriving at new ones (A’s to B’s etc.) There are eight such modulatory cycles in Telephone Book. A collection-by-collection analysis reveals pivot tones that are often at the forefront of melodic activity and ensemble interplay. Using Harrison’s ideas of enharmonicism to reveal a unique tonal path for every modulatory cycle in Torke’s Telephone Book shows a musical equivalency of alphabetical order. A telephone book arranged in alphabetical order, is a linear event, never returning but gradually moving to new letters. Torke’s Telephone Book does this musically and Harrison’s new analytical technique helps us to see how. 1:30 - 3:00 Mozart (AMS) Janice Dickensheets, University of Northern Colorado, chair Recital Salon (room 121) Die Zauberflöte: Mozart’s Magical Musical Instruments Harrison Powley Brigham Young University Scholars have argued over the Zauberflöte for many years. Is it a fairy-tale opera, a metaphorical discussion of Masonic and Rosicrucian beliefs, or a political or philosophical commentary on the 1780s and the Enlightenment? It can be all of these and more, but for many in the audience during the fall 1791 it was entertainment pure and simple. In a work so rich with literary, visual, and musical symbols, it is easy to gloss over the most obvious ones: the magical musical instruments. Musical instruments of Mozart's day were similar in some ways to instruments in common use today yet quiet different in construction, sound, and performance techniques. As performers and conductors try to communicate music of past centuries, they have turned in recent years to performing music on instruments for which the composers wrote the music, using either surviving instruments or modern reconstructions in an attempt to recreate the timbres or tone colors, tempi, ornamentation, tunings, and the like of the past. This paper focuses primarily on Mozart's use of two instruments: the Zauberflöte and the Zauberglöckchen. We know what a flute is and what bells are, but why and how are they "magical?" In fact, why do Schikaneder and Mozart use these instruments at specific times in the work, what meanings did they convey to Mozart's audience? We will also discuss several surviving instruments that could have influenced Mozart's music. Antonio the Alcoholic? Musical Depictions of Intoxication in Mozart’s Operas Sarah Kleinsteiber University of Denver In his well-known The Libretti of Mozart’s Completed Operas, Nico Castel claims to give word-for-word text translations. But in the directions for the Act II finale of Le Nozze di Figaro, Castel provides his own interpretation of the gardener's entrance: "They are interrupted by the arrival of Antonio who enters, half-drunk, carrying a broken pot of carnations." Inexplicably, Castel does not inform his readers that he has added the words “half-drunk” to this translation, and has thereby perpetuated a prevalent misinterpretation in the performance of this famous opera scene. This paper will demonstrate that Mozart undoubtedly had a clear conception of whether of not the drama called for “intoxicated” musical depictions. I will argue that if one examines Mozart’s musical characterizations of intoxication throughout his other operas and compares them to the musical setting of this questionable scene it becomes clear that Mozart’s depiction of Antonio was with sober intentions indeed. Using examples from Don Giovanni, Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, La Finta Semplice, Die Zauberflote. I will illustrate that Mozart characterizes drunkenness—when explicitly referred to in stage directions and in the text itself—through his use of specific melodic and rhythmic devices, tonality, articulation and tempo. I will then argue that Mozart did not apply these “intoxicated” characterizations to Antonio’s musical setting because Mozart had no intention of portraying Antonio as drunk. Off-Tonic Returns in the Music of Mozart Amy Holbrook Arizona State University The most commonly-cited example of an off-tonic return in the music of Mozart is the subdominant recapitulation in the first movement of the Piano Sonata in C Major, “For Beginners,” K. 545. Although this well-known recapitulation of the C-Major main theme in F Major is generally regarded as an oddity for Mozart, there are approximately a dozen other examples of off-tonic returns in the instrumental music, plus a handful of vocal works with this device. Instances of thematic return not coordinated with return of the tonic key or triad appear in binary, rondo, and sonata-form movements and arias whose dates of composition span Mozart’s career, from the early 1770s to 1791. Given this range of genres, forms, and chronology, it is no surprise that Mozart’s uses of this technique are widely diverse, that they cannot be attributed to a single influence, and that each produces an effect uniquely suited to its context. This survey of Mozart’s off-tonic returns begins with the three Minuet and Trio movements from the early symphonies in which the return of the head motive in a binary form takes place while the modulation back to the tonic key is still in progress. Next, off-tonic recapitulations in sonata-form examples are summarized, especially multifunctional recapitulations in which the process of development overlaps with thematic return. One humorous example comes from the slow movement of Ein musikalischer Spass, K. 522. Finally, off-tonic returns in rondos are discussed, with particular attention given to the exquisitely chromatic bIII return of the main theme in the Adagio and Rondo for glass harmonica, flute, oboe, viola, and ‘cello, K. 617. New Concepts of Form, Organization, and Transformation (SMT) Richard Hermann, University of New Mexico, chair Room 209 Sonata Rhetoric and Transformational Processes in the First Movement of Rochberg’s String Quartet No. 6 Mustafa Bor University of British Columbia Despite the rising interest in transformational theory in the past two decades, few scholars have considered its relation to form (the exceptions are Lewin 1993 and Cohn 1999). Specifically, they have not studied correlations between the formal sections and the transformations that take place within them. In this paper, I discuss how changes in transformations in the first movement of George Rochberg’s sixth string quartet articulate specific formal functions, in the sense of Caplin’s theory of tonal form (1998). Although this movement is called “Fantasia” and lacks triadic tonality, it can be understood as being in sonata-allegro form, partly because of the nature of the transformational processes that characterize its sections. The contrast between the types of transformations (transposition versus inversion) in the first two sections is analogous to the contrast of first and second themes that is characteristic of classical sonata form. The third section functions as a development section, blending both transpositional and inversional processes of the exposition. The last two sections act as a recapitulation, in which the second-theme group is transposed. Rochberg is often criticized for imitating traditional musical structures, but this analysis demonstrates how he successfully reinvents sonata form with non-tonal transformations. DSCH as the Composer’s Voice: Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8 Richard vonFoerster University of Denver The autobiographical meaning of Shostakovich’s music has been hotly debated. His String Quartet No. 8, the most overtly autobiographical of his works, has generated divergent readings. While differences of opinion partly reflect the music’s richness and polysemy, preferred interpretations do emerge from a thorough examination of the evidence, and one source has been insufficiently studied: the composer’s “monogram motto” (the pitches D-S-C-H, or D-E flat-C-B natural). I propose that a close study of the motto’s occurrences in their various melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, and contrapuntal contexts offers important insights into the work’s meaning as the composer’s personal statement. From the identification and description of the various types of DSCH presentations found in the quartet, a narrative reading emerges, one that emphasizes the creative and triumphant elements of the quartet, rather than its dysphoric and tragic aspects. The results of this approach dovetail with David Fanning’s interpretation of the quartet, which is based primarily on the quartet’s tonal structure, use of quotations and allusions, and extra-musical referents. This convergence of opinion suggests that the combination of historical and biographical inquiry with rigorous musical analysis offers the most incisive insights into the work’s musical meaning. Three Cadences and a Linear Diatonic Trichord: A Story of Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte Clare Sher Ling Eng Yale University There is a dearth of theoretical or analytical discourse on Ravel’s music, mainly because although many of his works retain connections to tonality, the proliferation of extended harmonies and non-archetypal voice-leading mean that his harmonic progressions often do not use the rhetoric of common practice tonality. This paper avoids creative chord-labeling only to fit them into common practice harmonic theory. Instead, a musical narrative is constructed from Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte by examining only linear motivic sets, with particular attention paid to three sectional cadences. The narrative focuses on the musical ‘problem’ constituted by four ‘rogue’ sets which dominate the first cadence and traces the process of its ‘solution’ through the progressive ‘rectification’ of these ‘rogues.’ The teleological theme of the narrative was inspired by Kaminsky’s “begin-end transformation,” a compositional strategy he introduced for his analyses of Ravel’s vocal works. The paper also invokes aspects of diatonic set theory developed in the writings of Clough and Clough and Myerson, and argues that the mod7 pc nomenclature of diatonic set theory better reflects the tonal character of the Pavane and allows one to relate motivic sets that would otherwise not belong to the same sc in the mod12 system. 3:30 - 4:30 Song Texts and Melodies (AMS/SEM) Jeremy Smith, University of Colorado, Boulder, chair Recital Salon (room 121) O’odham Song Language: Song Texts and Ritual Spoken Texts J. Richard Haefer Arizona State University Much has been written about word formation in the spoken language of the O'odham of Arizona, classified within the large Uto-Aztecan language family. However, the words of O'odham songs are quite different from those of the spoken language. Early authors labeled this phenomenon an “archaic” language, especially so since contemporary O'odham who listen to songs more often than not do not understand the text since it is significantly different from their spoken tongue. By the late twentieth-century researchers began to state that the O'odham do not use an “archaic” language but rather have a “song language” which is derived from the spoken text. I agree with this label and together with Bahr and others have examined and written about the relation between song language and spoken text. The songs that have been studied to date, however, examine only songs that exist within a “closed cycle” of songs (and song texts) and have no apparent relation to any other spoken text whether ritual text or dialogue. Ritual oratory among the O'odham has been studied by Bahr and others including the role of songs within the story, but not for their textual relationship. In this paper I discuss the unique relationship between the songs that are interpolated within the Akimel O'odham origin story as recorded by George Herzog in the late 1920s. Here we see not only the evolution of “song language” from the spoken words of ritual oratory, but also the emphasis of pertinent, significant “ideas” within the story through the vehicle of song. The Composer John Parry and His Collection of Welsh, English, and Scotch Airs Cathryn Clayton University of Arizona John Parry, though blind at birth, became one of the most celebrated harpists of the eighteenth century. He played for the most elite audiences in London and Wales, including the composer George Frederick Handel, the writer Thomas Gray, and the painter Joshua Reynolds, all of whom were inspired by his performances. He worked for Sir Watkin Williams Wynn of Wynnstay, the most powerful man in Wales. Parry was highly regarded as a performer, composer, and collector of ancient Welch, English, and Scotch melodies. Even in the twenty-first century, harpists continue to perform this composer’s sonatas. This presentation will focus on John Parry’s A Collection of Welsh, English, and Scotch Airs (1761) and its reflection of Parry’s desire to incorporate performance practice on the Welsh triple harp with the traditional Welsh melodies in his compositions. Further, it will look at the nationalistic trends occurring in Wales in the late eighteenth century through the continued tradition of Penillion singing, the publication of collected Welsh melodies, and the use of theme and variations as a means by which treasured melodies were preserved. Meaning in Vocal Music (SMT) Richard vonFoerster, University of Denver, chair Room 209 Irony and the “Composer’s Voice” in Wolf’s Mignon II Joelle Welling University of Calgary Generally speaking, irony is understood as something that undermines clarity by opening up vistas of chaos. In literature it is best seen when words are used to suggest the opposite of what they literally mean. Incongruities between what is said and what is meant are often the result. In his book on irony Wayne C. Booth concurs and goes on to state that irony does not work in the interests of stability, but rather entails sensitivity to instability. For Booth, irony and nineteenth-century romanticism are virtually synonymous. Non-verbal arts like music, painting and architecture do not seem to lend themselves as easily to a discussion of irony and indeed, some scholars do rule out the presence of irony in music. However, in this paper I will argue that irony is present in music. I will suggest that its very presence can be interpreted as an invitation to read between the lines and, as a result, to imagine unspoken meanings. Using Wolf’s Mignon II, I will show that irony can be an important aspect of a song and our understanding of it. I will also show that Wolf’s music is not a mere reflection of the words and that instead Wolf uses his “composer’s voice,” to borrow Edward T. Cone’s term, to add additional meaning—an ironic dimension in this case—to the text. Behind and Beyond: Threads of Meaning in Poulenc’s Tel jour telle nuit Carla Colletti University of Iowa There is an apparent disconnect between the performer’s Francis Poulenc and the theorist’s Francis Poulenc. Although performers consider Poulenc’s music to be of a high caliber, much of the existing music theoretical scholarship does not share the same opinion. Because of the focus on the conventional compositional elements within Poulenc’s music, many scholars are dismissive of Poulenc and his musical output. In response, I propose an alternative analytical methodology grounded in the very ideas that influenced Poulenc. Using concepts from surrealist artwork by René Magritte and Freudian dream theory I analyze Poulenc’s song cycle Tel jour telle nuit (1936-1937). My paper begins with an interrogation of the shortcomings associated with a linear, reductive analysis of Tel jour telle nuit. I then contrast my initial reading with an alternate interpretation that embraces the surrealist aesthetic, as portrayed in Magritte’s painting La condition humaine (1933), and Freudian definitions of consciousness and unconsciousness as outlined in The Interpretation of Dreams (1899-1900) and On Dreams (1899). Adopting such an interdisciplinary approach allows me to address musical swerves and transitions which remained veiled by the initial linear reading of the piece. Saturday, April 1 2006 9:30 - 12:00 Highbrow / Lowbrow Boundaries (AMS/SEM/SMT) Nilanjana Bhattacharjya, Colorado College, chair Recital Salon (room 121) Beethoven’s Folksong Settings and the Bildungsmusik Tradition Hee Seung Lee University of Denver Beethoven’s folksong arrangements and variations have been received coldly in current scholarship. Their “deviant” characteristics, such as melodic and harmonic simplicity, fusion of highbrow and lowbrow styles, seemingly diminished emphasis on originality, and the assorted nationalities of the tunes, have caused them to be viewed as musical rabble within the paradigm of Western art music. The canonic composer’s relationship with the Scottish amateur folksong collector and publisher George Thomson, as well as with his audience, amateur music lovers, has been largely downplayed in the history of Beethoven reception. Within the cultural and ideological contexts of the British Isles and German-speaking lands at the turn of the nineteenth century, however, Beethoven’s folksong settings embodied conventional meaning and value. Both a product of the composer’s agency and a property assigned by the audience, the repertory of folksong settings incorporated aspirations, interests, and anxieties of the Goethezeit (“age of Goethe”). Ideas of nation and nationhood, awareness of the past, and enthusiasm for cultivation geared towards the restoration of cultural treasures accounted for much of the significance of Beethoven’s folksong settings. Among the components of the spirit of the time, the idea of Bildung (“self-cultivation”) vigorously infiltrated into contemporary culture manifested itself in both literature and music. The shared wish to overcome the shadow of wars and revolutions during the Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic eras saw numerous legends of medieval heroes reinterpreted as the narrative of modern political and cultural role models. In literature, the heroic stories developed into the plot of the Bildungsroman (“novel of formation”), a new type of novel in which a young man or woman’s overcoming of turbulent youth, growth, and ultimate adaptation of the demands of his/her surroundings embodied the heroic concept of self and its reconciliation with others. In parallel with the tradition of Bildungsroman, amateur music lovers attempted to emulate professionals and their achievement in modern music. Elevating singing and playing an instrument as an essential part of their rising music culture, amateurs demanded pieces that could help improve their taste and skills, which formed a tradition, Bildungsmusik (“music for self-improvement”). The music’s somehow demanding but comprehensible nature involved a wide range of elements from folk, popular, and chamber music to Hausmusik (“house music”), Unterhaltungsmusik (“music for entertainment”), and even Gassenhauer (“street music”). Within the tradition of Bildungsmusik, adaptation of folksongs for domestic music making, re-composition of pre-existing materials, collaboration with professionals and amateurs, and incorporation of musics familiar and popular with contemporaries served as significant means for composers in communicating with the middle-class audience. The hybrid and flexible nature of Beethoven’s folksong settings was not an awkward mix of various kinds of “trivial” musics but rather a bourgeois manifestation of contemporary political and cultural phenomena. Magick and Mysticism in John Zorn’s Recent Music John Brackett University of Utah For the American composer John Zorn, compositional influences and inspirations are drawn from a variety of seemingly eclectic sources, ranging from cartoon music, pulp fiction, films, Japanese culture and society, and Judaism, to name just a few. This eclecticism persists in his recent music where we now see Zorn exploring aspects of occult philosophy or mysticism. Since the late-1990s, Zorn has recorded or published a number of compositions and projects that draw upon aspects of occult philosophy (IAO, Goetia, Hermeticum Sacrum, and Sortilége, among others). Often times, numerical symbolisms associated with various forms of mysticism serve to create a coherent – yet highly esoteric – form of musical-magickal unity in these works. This paper develops and expands upon many of the intricate and complex musical-magickal associations present in Zorn’s recent compositions, especially the string quartet Necronomicon and the recording project IAO. At the same time, I will attempt to situate these tendencies and practices within Zorn’s overall poetics of music. In particular, I will consider how mysticism relates to Zorn’s interest in pulp fiction and experimental films and how the traditions of mysticism upon which Zorn focuses sheds light on his own understanding of what it means to be a Jewish composer. Orchestra as Cultural Embassy: An Integrative Central American Response to Globalism Janet Sturman University of Arizona The operations of the Central American Orchestra of the Papaya in the domain of popular music and cultural policy represent a distinctive approach to transnational and collective agency. Called an "itinerant cultural embassy" by its director (personal interview), the Papaya Orchestra is a group of 14 musicians representing the seven nations of Central America who collectively arrange, compose and perform regional musical styles and genres such as bullerenge and parranda in a cosmopolitan blend that includes jazz, rock and pop elements. With comparison to theories of Appadurai, Gabardi, Yudice, and others, it will be argued that the orchestra is actively constructing a pan-Central American identity by creating a transnational dynamic that has timely implications for advancing regional control of an emerging local music industry. With reference to Paul Gilroy, the presenter aims to show how the Papaya Orchestra rejects myths of racial purity and divisions defined by ethnicity, nationality and social class, in order to create music that acknowledges relatively-ignored routes of history and experience, consciously connecting (and re-connecting) people across Central America, as well as between the isthmus and its Caribbean neighbors. The Bolero Cliché: A Reinterpretation Luke Howard Brigham Young University It was only a couple of years after its premiere in 1928 that Ravel’s orchestral ballet score Bolero “crossed over” into pop-culture contexts, appearing in music hall review shows and arrangements for big bands in the early 1930s. Since that time, the work has enjoyed tremendous popularity among lay audiences, while remaining something of an embarrassment to the academy and the art-music elite. Through an examination of the work’s reception history that focuses on the popularity of Bolero, manifest in a wide assortment of mass-mediated contexts, this paper asserts that the work’s place in the musical landscape is perhaps best understood in terms of an orchestral pop success rather than an over-popularized classical cliché. While the reputation of Bolero skyrocketed after its prominent use in the 1979 sex-comedy “10” (producing a rash of erotically charged contexts), many earlier and subsequent appropriations adopted the work into a sexually neutral aesthetic, further expanding Bolero’s potential meaning and appeal. Filmic appropriations such as Tarkovsky’s Stalker and Beresford’s Paradise Road couch their respective Bolero references in terms of nostalgia and defiance. Jazz, country, big band, “world” music, pop, rock, and synthesizer arrangements of Bolero connect to the original not always through the work’s form (with its easy parallel in sex) but rather more often through other musical parameters such as motoric rhythm, the ubiquitous snare drum, exotic scale forms, and the alternations between major and minor modes. The proliferation of Boleros in pop culture challenges the traditional divide between pop and art music, while demonstrating that time and context are crucial factors in the flexibility of musical meaning. Early Music (SMT) Frank Riddick, Northern Arizona University, chair Room 209 Rehearing Machaut’s Motets: Taking the Next Step in Understanding Sonority Jared Hartt Washington University Sarah Fuller’s work on harmony in the music of Guillaume de Machaut has established a useful set of terms suitable for discourse about sonority in 14th-century music. Her analytical approach – based on the premise that perfect consonances are stable and imperfect consonances unstable – provides a means to classify sonorities according to stability and instability. Fuller proposes three categories: perfect, which contain two perfect intervals and lie at the most stable end of the spectrum; doubly imperfect, which contain two imperfect intervals and are at the most unstable terminus; and, imperfect, which contain one perfect interval, and lie somewhere in between the other two. I propose refinements to this classification scheme that continue to be rooted in 14th-century thought, yet also respond to a 21st-century aural perspective. By looking at all sonorities sustained at least the duration of a breve in Machaut’s 19 three-voice motets, I describe how each of Fuller’s three categories can be further divided into subcategories. For example, I perceive a definite aural distinction between a sonority whose imperfect interval is located between the lowest and middle voices and a sonority whose imperfect interval is located between the outer voices. Within the perfect and imperfect categories, sonorities with differing intervallic constitutions, depending on context, function in decidedly different ways. My proposed nomenclature makes possible a more specific rendering of the voice leading, and allows for a richer rehearing experience and a greater understanding of sonority in Machaut’s motets. Half Revealed and Half Concealed: Contrapuntal Structure in the Music of Heinrich Schütz Katherine Schroeder University of California at Santa Barbara Building on the work of Joshua Rifkin in his article “Schütz and Musical Logic,” this paper will explore the relationship between surface dissonance usage and background contrapuntal structure in selections from Symphoniae Sacrae I (Venice,1629) by Heinrich Schütz. Chromatic gestures, as well as unresolved and unusually placed dissonances, can be reinterpreted as embellishments to typical voice-leading gestures and 16th century contrapuntal practice. The consistency with which this process functions allows the innovative musical surface to be conceptualized as omission, elision, decoration and displacement of the normalized structure. Analysis of this relationship between surface and background counterpoint reveals consistent compositional style elements for Schütz that operate across the concerti in Symphoniae Sacrae I. As Schütz published Symphoniae Sacrae I during his stay in Venice in 1628-29, these style features allow for analytical comparison between this and comparable Italian sacred works, such as Plaudite manibus by Alessandro Grandi. 2:00 - 4:00 Transformed Aesthetics in Performance and Composition (AMS/SEM) Jonathan Bellman, University of Northern Colorado, chair Recital Salon (room 121) Javanese and Balinese Gamelans: Relative Popularity and Mutual Perceptions Ted Solis Arizona State University Javanese and Balinese gamelans are among the most common academic world music ensembles in American academia. Each has had its “era” of popularity in this country: for Java, the 1960’s until the early 80’s; since then, Balinese gamelans have proliferated at a much faster rate. The reasons for this are rooted both in institutional history and in a number of “inherent” qualities. The two ensembles’ strong historical connection and obvious organological similarities notwithstanding, aesthetics, traditional pedagogical methodologies, and the performers’ responsibilities and musical challenges are very different. I attempt a preliminary assessment of the institutional history, inherent qualities which satisfy different types of musical and emotional needs, and the mutual perceptions of practitioners in both camps, modestly contributing to one might refer to as the “Discourse of What They Think of One Another.” The Music and Aesthetic Theory of Friedrich Nietzsche Jessica Gneiting Albertson College of Idaho Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) is best known for his highly complex and nihilistic philosophy of existence and political power. What often receives less focus is the development of his aesthetic philosophy, which began, punctuated and ended his writing career with such works as Birth of Tragedy, Thoughts out of Season, and Nietzsche Contra Wagner. Additionally, in the years before his philosophical writings were published, Nietzsche was a moderately prolific composer in a variety of genres and was influenced by Liszt, Chopin, Schumann and Schubert. Philosophers and musicologists alike, however, often treat this as no more than an incidental biographical fact. The result of this has been very little research done to date on the influences that his aesthetic ideals had on his music and vice versa. Nietzsche was relatively secretive about his music and very few of his close friends and family members were ever shown his drafts or completed musical works. Examining the development of Nietzsche’s compositional style reveals a stylistic and ideological trend that he would ultimately model in his first and second stage of aesthetic writings. This will be demonstrated with a theoretical and stylistic analysis of several representative musical works concurrent with a discussion of his relevant philosophical writings. This paper will conclude by attempting to explain the paradoxes of Nietzsche’s musical development and by suggesting further avenues for research into this topic. Reception to Reminiscence: The Transition to the Valved Horn in the Works ofWagner and Strauss Jill Rogers University of Denver The controversy surrounding the transition from the natural to the valved horn affected the way in which Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss wrote for the instrument. For both composers, a Romanticized conception of the horn led to prominent valved horn passages – among the best known in either composers’ output – particularly reminiscent of the natural horn. Much of the valved horn’s initial reception included praise for the many advantages the new instrument provided, and yet, many people despised the innovation of the valve and criticized it harshly. This paper will demonstrate that Wagner’s and Strauss’s composition for the horn exemplifies the reception of the valved instrument at this time. Wagner indicates his preference for the natural horn ideal in the abundance of passages that can be played within the harmonic series, with a minimum of notes that would require either stopping or depressing a valve. Examples from Der Ring des Nibelungen, Rienzi, and Der fliegende Holländer reveal that Wagner attempts to keep the natural horn alive through music that not only sounds like it was written for the natural horn, but looks like it as well. Much like Wagner, many of Richard Strauss’s distinctive passages, in works such as Till Eulenspiegels Lustige Streiche, Ein Heldenleben, and the horn concertos, harken back to the time of the natural horn. Both men, taking a cue from the critics, allowed their affinity for the natural horn and composition for it by previous composers to show in their work, though neither could help but utilize the chromaticism that the valved horn offered. Dancing with American Sufis John K. Galm University of Colorado, Boulder The Dances of Universal Peace are probably the largest religious/spiritual dance/movement society in the United States today. This organization evolved from a transformation of Sufi dance/trance rituals found in Arabic, Turkish and Iranian Sufi traditions. In 1910 Hazrat Inayat Khan brought Chisti Sufism to the West and inspired Samuel Lewis to develop dance/movement as a ritual of spirituality. From a repertoire of some 50 dances from Lewis, the Dances of Universal Peace in 1982 were developed to embrace various religious traditions including Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity. Today there are over 500 dances worldwide. This ethnomusicological examination will explore the ancient traditional Zikr as developed in the Middle East based on trance experiences allowing some participants to eat glass, endure knife wounds, handle hot coals and other acts of ecstasy. With this background, the modifications in how this ritual was transformed into a spiritual ritual in the United States will be traced. Also, the use of music in this American Sufi expression will be demonstrated to illustrate how the quasi-trance tradition is maintained. The usual ritual procedure will be presented through audiovisual examples so that the ideals of openness, lack of initiation, use of amateur musicians and the instruction to the dancers/singers can be viewed. With these examples comparisons with the ancient Sufi Zikr can be made. This study is important in the area of comodification of music and movement in a contemporary setting while still based in the tradition of Middle Eastern musics. In addition a short appraisal of the future of the Dances of Universal Peace will be addressed as to how this unique blend of music and movement can be sustained. 20th-Century Theoretical Perspectives (SMT) Bruce Quaglia, University of Utah, chair Room 209 Timbre as a Psychoacoustic Parameter for Harmonic Analysis Aaron Einbond University of California at Berkeley Timbre can affect our subjective experience of musical dissonance and harmonic progression. We have developed a set of algorithms to measure roughness (sensory dissonance) and pitch correlation between sonorities, taking into account the effects of timbre and microtonal inflection. We proceed from the work of Richard Parncutt and Ernst Terhardt, extending their algorithms for the psychoacoustic analysis of harmony to include spectral data from actual instrumental sounds. This allows for the study of a much wider variety of timbrally-rich acoustic or electronic sounds which was not possible with the previous algorithms. Further, we generalize these algorithms by working directly with frequency rather than a tempered division of the octave, making them available to the full range of microtonal harmonies. Unlike previous measures of dissonance, we account for the reduction in roughness of dense harmonic clusters, which may be perceived as smoother than isolated dissonances. The new algorithms, by yielding different roughness estimates depending on the orchestration of a sonority, confirm our intuitive understanding that orchestration affects sensory dissonance. This package of tools presents rich possibilities for composition and analysis of music that is timbrally-dynamic and microtonally-complex. Introduction to Operand Set Analysis Russell Knight University of California at Santa Barbara Allen Forte’s recent presentation “Introduction to a Theory of Intervallic Harmony” (2003) is a theoretical exploration into previously uncharted interval-class space. His theory of “operands” (or “harmonic subsets”) can be easily adopted--Forte’s operands enhance the more traditional pc set analytical method by accounting for harmonic relations among sets that may or may not be related by pitch content. This idea is especially compelling in the context of so-called “athematicism,” where pitch-structures are vague and/or lack literal repetition. As a kind of balance to pitch-centric analysis, operand analysis seeks linear projections of harmonies, inclusion relations that are specifically not determined by pitch, and/or structurally significant interval collections whose numbers are “inexpressible” as pitch-class sets. In this project, I translate Forte’s theory of “operands” into a working analytical method, and demonstrate its practical application in the fourth of Schoenberg’s Sechs Kleine Klavierstücke Op. 19. Identifying operands in this short piece reveals a unity that has thus far gone unnoticed: highly controlled repetitive references to a limited harmonic collection. This analytical model motivates investigation into “athematicism,” stimulates interest in interval-class space, invites fresh interpretations of historically elusive works, and balances the theoretical pitch-class interval-class dichotomy. A Four-Dimensional Cube in Boulez’s Structures 1a Paul Lombardi University of New Mexico Boulez arrived at his serial scheme for Structures 1a independently from the American serialists. The standard twelve-tone matrix contains all 48 P, R, I and RI forms of a series. Boulez’s scheme, on the other hand, contains the 48 forms of the series in two separate matrices. This presentation builds upon the existing analyses of Structures 1a by combining the dimensions of Boulez’s serial scheme with the traditional twelve-tone matrix. Three- and four-dimensional serial objects are produced as a result of this combination. The ordinal positions of the pitch classes dictate how the rows are presented in the piece and relate the pitch classes to the durations, dynamics and articulations. The dynamic and articulation series are based on the diagonals of Boulez’s two matrices. These diagonals serve as a point of departure for an analysis of diagonals in the four-dimensional serial object. In addition, this presentation explores other hypothetical possibilities for serial objects that have more than two dimensions. The mathematical equations in this presentation are plotted in Maple 9.5.