Illustration of metric deletion
metric deletion
- Definition:
As used by
Bernstein
(1976), the removal of (often repetitious) musical
material to provide an enriched, variegated musical surface
structure. The most usual deletive technique is
elision,
but
larger excisions are possible. For example, the one-bar introduction
in Mozart's Symphony no. 40 can be viewed as a metrically reduced
version of what might, in the hands of an uninsipred composer,
have been a boring four-bar vamp.
