Indiana University
Music Theory Colloquium Series

Sponsored jointly by the Graduate Theory Association and Department of Music Theory, Indiana University

  Fall 2005 

All sessions take place in M267 (the large seminar room in the Music Library) at 3:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted.

September 19 (4:00 PM, Ford Hall)

Professor Cristle Collins Judd, University of Pennsylvania

“The Diffusion of Musical Knowledge: Anglo-American Theory in the Nineteenth Century”

Novello’s Library for the Diffusion of Musical Knowledge (London, 1854) was one of a number of nineteenth-century series in which English translations of continental music treatises were published with astonishing rapidity.  Competing editions often appeared almost simultaneously in London, New York, Boston, and Philadelphia in the context of a cultural climate that fostered an outpouring of writing about music. The authors translated represent a veritable “who’s who” of music theorists: Momigny, Choron, Fétis,
Albrechtsberger, Cherubini, Czerny, Berlioz, Reicha, Weber, and A.B. Marx.  Novello’s series was remarkable not least for its inclusion of translations by two of his daughters: Mary Cowden Clarke and Sabilla Novello.  These translations mark the entrance of women into a burgeoning British trade and raise fascinating questions about the ways in which such works offered an approximation of a theoretical voice to women.
 
These translations are routinely dismissed by twentieth-century historians of theory because of “inaccuracies” and “omissions,” and their translators are criticized for misreading and distorting the originals. They are, however, important documents in their own right. They reveal not only the musical competence of their translators, but, more importantly, testify to the music-theoretic priorities of an ever-growing Anglo-American readership of music theory and the context in which such treatises were read and musical knowledge communicated. This paper places these translations in the social climate in which they were generated and evaluates their significance as important theoretical artifacts in the history of Anglo-American music theory.

October 5

Professor Robert S. Hatten, Indiana University

"Beethoven's Italian Trope: Modes of Stylistic Appropriation"

Although Beethoven studied with Salieri, the most powerful proponent and exemplar of the Italian style in Vienna, what Salieri taught him was primarily the proper prosodic setting of Metastasio’s poetic texts for cantatas and operas. Beethoven had no need of musical instruction to absorb the typical character of Italian operatic melody and accompanimental textures, and (like Haydn and Mozart) he had already appropriated this style as a recognizable topic in his purely instrumental music.

 In many cases, the appropriation produced a serious hybrid style, as in the Adagio affettuoso ed appassionato of Op. 18, no. 1 (1798), a tragic instrumental aria intensified by sonata-form development. With the Adagio grazioso movement of Op. 31, no. 1 (1802), however, Italian operatic characteristics are a bit too self-consciously exposed and exaggerated, as if Beethoven were parodying the style or a contemporaneous aria and its performance (one possible model will be offered). An examination of Beethoven’s other appropriations of Italian operatic style reveals a range of tropological treatments.

In three of his instrumental adaptations, Beethoven also appears to be pioneering a lyrical 9/8 meter that was extremely rare in Italian opera of the time, one heard perhaps only in virtual form, as 3/4 with triplets. Although in his late style Beethoven utilizes 9/8 in contexts alluding to Bach’s own appropriation of Italian style in the Baroque, in his works from 1798-1802 he introduces 9/8 meter for expansive instrumental arias that allude to the current Italian style. In these movements Beethoven anticipates by nearly a generation the implementation of 9/8 (and 12/8) for lyrically expansive Italian operatic arias.

October 19

Professor Frank Samarotto, Indiana University

"Schenker's 'Free Forms of Interruption' and the Strict: Toward a General Theory of Interruption"

Schenker's concept of interruption (Unterbrechung) was one of the last to be added to the central body of theory as represented in Der freie Satz and it remains indispensable to understanding the relationship of voice-leading structure (by nature continuous) and formal design (often brought about by surface articulation and repetition). Nonetheless, interruption remains widely regarded as inherently problematic and even contradictory. Peter H. Smith has characterized the issue as a conflict between what he calls Type-1 and Type-2 derivations, which would seem to be inherently incompatible. To put the problem succinctly, which of the two 3^-2^s is the main one belonging to the deepest level? This paper will propose a perspective in which the apparent contradiction is made intelligible by being placed within a spectrum of freer interruption types, possibilities explicitly noted by Schenker but little recognized in current theory. It will demonstrate a possible origin for the concept of free interruption, and show how it is conceptually prior to the commonly recognized strict forms, suggesting that these freer forms of interruption may have served as the basis for the strict sense of interruption. Finally, a generalized concept of interruption will be to shown to provide a wider variety of analytical tools for synthesizing voice leading and articulative design.

October 26

Professor David Huron, Ohio State University

“The Explanatory Goals of Music Analysis”

Music exhibits a multitude of different kinds of structures.  Some of these structures reflect acoustical, biological, cognitive, perceptual, historical, idiomatic, economic, formal, religious, social, cultural, and other factors. This presentation offers a defense of the view that the principal goal of music analysis is to explain music -- in the sense of identifying plausible causes, motivations, or influences.  Several illustrative examples are offered.

November 16

Joerg Adler, Indiana University

“Aligning Media: Multimodal Gestures and Agency in Film Analysis”

Common models of multimedia, like Eisenstein's and Eisler's notions of synesthesia and counterpoint and Cook's metaphorical model, are based on the assumption that each medium is monolithic in character and that its content is unchangeable, due to an impermeable protective membrane between the different media. This theoretical presupposition does not reflect our perceptual process, but it merely reflects the independence of analytical modes in traditional analysis.

The movie "Kuhle Wampe" (Germany 1932) challenges traditional models of multimedia due to its experimental collective mode of production and Marxist didactic purpose. Instead of traditional single-character driven agency, energetic states from image and sound are combined to complex intermodal sets that signify even ideological messages. This process guided me to a new concept of medial interplay.

In contrast to traditional models of multimedia I make the radical proposal that in general the distinction between music and image in the analysis of film should be dropped completely. The effects of traditional cutting techniques in film can be described in terms of energetics. Since music as film can be interpreted as energetic embodiments of our most basic physical experience, the process of constructing agencies through gesture (Newcomb 1997) constantly crosses the borders of all media. The viewer/listener freely combines energetic states from all domains, regardless of whether they stem from sound or image (Hatten on intermodality 2004). By providing a level of alignment for all media,
the concepts of gesture and consequently agency become the most important elements of a unifying theory of multimedia analysis.


December 7

Pedagogy colloquium

"Topics Courses in Music Theory for Advanced Undergraduate or Graduate Students"

Members of Professor Mary Wennerstrom's T658 Seminar in Advanced Music Theory Pedagogy will present proposals for topics courses they have developed. The presentations will include a general description of the courses and the type of audience, along with course announcements which could be distributed to a curriculum committee and to potential students in the course. The seminar members will also discuss the goals of each course, and share syllabi and reserve lists of reference materials. There will also be a discussion of the place of such courses in a college curriculum, their benefits, and the challenges in designing and implementing work in special topics in music theory.

See Last Semester's Schedule