Annotation for Yeston, Maury.
The Stratification of Musical Rhythm.
Annotation (by Artie Samplaski):
- Yeston's goal is to provide a theory of rhythm that accompanies,
in a quantitative way, a Schenkerian theory of hierarchical
pitch structure. Such a theory attempts to provide a characterization
of the rhythmic activity in a piece of music as having
different levels of musical meaning; such a level of meaning
is termed a rhythmic
stratification by Yeston. He specifically distinguishes
between pitch-to-rhythm and
rhythm-to-pitch methodologies as a way of avoiding circular
logic. He begins with a basic analysis of how one might group
rhythmic events
without imposing hierarchical preference; the discussion owes
much to principles
of gestalt psychology, but does not make systematic use of
them or acknowledge
them as such. In the next two chapters, Yeston uses Schenker's
system of voice-leading reduction to develop his theory of
rhythmic strata, giving various examples
of how rhythmic organization at different foreground and
middleground levels is
used by composers to provide compositional interest.
Representative compositions
discussed in these chapters include Mozart: Eine kleine Nachtmusik,
Symphony no. 40 Minuet, Piano
Sonata K. 332; Bach: WTC I, C-minor Fugue, Twelve Little
Preludes no. 5; Chopin:
Mazurka Op. 59 no. 3; Grande Valse Op. 42. Two concepts are
important in this
discussion. First, rhythm for Yeston is a periodic
segmentation of time at some
level; meter, on the other hand, "is an outgrowth of the
interaction of two [distinct
Schenkerian] levels--two differently-rated strata, the faster
of which provides the
elements and the slower of which groups them." (p. 66) The
second concept is that
of rhythmic consonance vs. rhythmic dissonance: the former is
a set of two or more
levels where the divisor for one is a factor of the divisor for the other (e.g., a level of
half-notes divided into a level of quarter-notes), while the latter involves two or
more levels where one does not divide the other (e.g., a level of half-notes vs. a
level of dotted half-notes). In his fifth chapter, Yeston
discusses other inclusion
relationships with an intention of generalizing his rhythmic
dissonance idea. In his
brief concluding chapter he mentions some problems involved
in trying to provide
a theory of rhythm for atonal music.
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