Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Analytical Essays
on Music by Women
Composers
Concert Music, 1960–2000
1
1
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
About the Companion Website ix
Chapter 1. Introduction 1
Laurel Parsons and Brenda Ravenscroft
PA RT I : O R D E R , F R E E D O M , A N D D E S I G N 15
PA RT I I I : M U S I C , W O R D S , A N D V O I C E S 153
Glossary 221
Bibliography 225
Index 237
vi Contents
Acknowledgments
viii Acknowledgments
About the Companion Website
www.oup.com/us/musicbywomencomposers
Username: Music5
Password: Book1745
I have no doubt that women think and feel differently than men, but it is not very
important whether I am a woman or a man. What matters is that I am myself and
develop my own ideas strictly toward the truth.
—Sofia Gubaidulina
This book celebrates, through musical analysis, the work of eight out-
standing composers active in the late twentieth and early twenty- first
centuries: Elisabeth Lutyens (1906–1983), Ursula Mamlok (b. 1923), Sofia
Gubaidulina (b. 1931), Norma Beecroft (b. 1934), Joan Tower (b. 1938), Libby
Larsen (b. 1950), Kaija Saariaho (b. 1952), and Chen Yi (b. 1953). Their
compositions—in genres ranging from solo song to symphony, opera, film,
and electroacoustic music—represent some of the most important musical
trends of the twentieth century. Many of them have won the highest awards
available to contemporary composers and have been honored by prestigious
fellowships and commissions. Collectively, their lives and careers extend
from Edwardian England to twenty-first-century North America, and their
individual creative voices have thus been forged in environments shaped
by the major political and cultural events of this period, including Nazi
Germany, postwar Soviet Russia, and China’s Cultural Revolution. As we
write in 2014, six of the eight composers—some now in their 80s and
90s—continue to pursue lively, successful, and productive careers.
Each chapter in this volume presents a detailed analytical exploration of
a single representative composition in the genres of song, chamber, and
large-
scale orchestral or choral music. (Electroacoustic, computer, and
other contemporary musical genres will be represented in a later volume.)
The compelling nature of the music, both aurally and intellectually, has
been the primary motivation in the analysts’ selection of these particular
compositions, as well as each work’s ability to demonstrate fundamental
1
aspects of its composer’s characteristic musical language. Without
exception, these are the first published analytical studies of the works in
question—hopefully, the first of many.
The analytical approaches taken by the authors are as individual as the
compositions they have chosen to analyze, ranging from Joseph N. Straus’s
meticulous diagrams of hexatonic pitch-class structures in Mamlok’s Panta
Rhei to Nancy Rao’s critical exegesis of Chinese operatic gestures in Chen Yi’s
Symphony No. 2, and from Judy Lochhead’s examination of Gubaidulina’s
Second String Quartet through the perspective of Gilles Deleuze’s critical
theories of différence to John Roeder’s illumination of Saariaho’s song “The
claw of the magnolia …” through a blend of rhythmic, pitch, and poetic
analysis. What they have in common, however, is the technical nature of the
approach, and the depth and detail of the analytical insights into the music.
As professional musicians making their living in the late twentieth and
early twenty-first centuries, the composers featured in this collection—all
women—have helped shape a remarkable period in the history of music in
the classical Western tradition. While women have composed throughout
that thousand-year history, it is only in the past century, propelled (as in
many fields) by the early fight for women’s suffrage and, later, the civil
rights movements of the 1960s, that they have flourished and gained public
recognition as professional composers. Access to higher musical education
has allowed women not only to attain the same level of advanced training
in composition as their male peers, but also to begin forming the kind of
social and institutional networks that have always been crucial in securing
performances and establishing a professional reputation. In recent years,
what James Briscoe has optimistically called the “new, powerful wave of
composition by women” has brought with it an unprecedented opportunity
for listeners to hear and explore a rich array of fresh, contemporary musical
voices, born out of the experiences and ideas of female composers.1
Why, then, is it necessary or even justifiable today to link these essays
together as exemplars of music by “women composers,” with that term’s
old-fashioned and potentially marginalizing adjective? In many present-
day societies, particularly in the developed world, activism and legislation
have led to high levels of equity in professional fields, and women have
achieved proportional representation in many areas, rendering terms such
as “the woman doctor” antiquated if not obsolete. Surely when Gubaidulina
asserts that “it is not very important whether I am a woman or a man,” she
is stating a contemporary truth, an acknowledgment that in the twenty-first
century there should be no need to distinguish music based on the sex of
the composer.2 Her declaration expresses a desire—one expressed by many
female composers over the last century—to have those who listen and con-
sider her music receive it as an integral part of the world of contemporary
Introduction 3
While we have not sought similar data for books and monographs
that have published analytical research into music by women compos-
ers, they are relatively rare, often blending biographical and analytical
perspectives. An increasing number are available, however, including
significant books by Straus on the music of Ruth Crawford Seeger and
by Ellie M. Hisama on music by Crawford, Marion Bauer, and Miriam
Gideon.8
Research presentations on music by women composers in scholarly fora
such as the Society for Music Theory (SMT) annual meetings also remain
infrequent. Since 1994, of 1,372 SMT conference presentations, only 34,
or 2.47 percent, were on compositions by women. This ratio is skewed
upward, however, by the fact that 18 of the 34 papers were presented in
special sessions sponsored by the Society’s Committee on the Status of
Women in 2001, 2002, and 2010, making these annual conferences the
only ones in the Society’s history to include more than three presentations
on music by female composers; the rate for the other 17 conferences over
this period is 1.41 percent.9 This low representation of women composers in
theoretical and analytical presentations is paralleled in the European schol-
arly environment, where 1.98 percent (11 of 555) of the papers in 14 recent
conferences focused on music by women.10
To appropriately interpret data representing scholarship into music by
women composers, we need to take into account factors such as the ratio
of female-to-male composers in a given period. Is the dearth of analytical
writing about music by female composers because this music has been dis-
proportionately ignored, or because it reflects a similarly low rate of partici-
pation by women in classical Western composition owing to a lack of access
to higher education and the social restrictions placed on women’s creativity
until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? Our research into
this question has found that ascertaining this ratio is no easy task. Even in
the field of contemporary music definitive data is unavailable, but, based
on consultations with several national and international composers’ orga-
nizations, it would seem that approximately 20 percent of contemporary
composers are female—unquestionably a remarkable increase, but still a
minority.11 There are many other factors that complicate the interpretation
of the data we have presented above, including the degree to which analyti-
cal research has also overlooked much worthy repertoire by male compos-
ers owing to enduring interest in music by composers such as Mozart,
Beethoven, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky. What even the raw data highlight,
however, is the disparity between the continuing near-absence of music by
women from scholarly music-t heoretical discussion and the unprecedented
rise in professional activity and compositional achievement of women over
the past century.
Introduction 5
The chapters in this volume are grouped thematically by analytical
approach into three sections, each of which is preceded by a short intro-
duction placing the analytical methods used in the essays that follow into
the context of late twentieth-and early twenty-fi rst-century music theory.
The essays in the first group, by Joseph Straus, Christoph Neidhöfer,
and Jonathan Bernard, focus on pitch organization in serial or octatonic
works by Mamlok, Beecroft, and Tower respectively. The second group
of essays, by Judy Lochhead and Nancy Rao, takes a different approach,
invoking gestural and cross-c ultural theory to gain insight into the music
of Gubaidulina and Chen Yi. Finally, the essays in the third group, by
John Roeder, Brenda Ravenscroft, and Laurel Parsons, analyze in detail
the ways in which Saariaho, Larsen, and Lutyens have responded musi-
cally—even in a wordless orchestral movement—to texts they have cho-
sen to set.
Within these sections, each essay is preceded by a brief biographi-
cal sketch of the composer, providing the reader with a glimpse into the
composer’s career and cultural-historical context. Each sketch highlights
her greatest professional successes, the influential forces and figures that
helped to shape her compositional language, and the ways in which she, in
turn, has influenced younger composers or otherwise had an impact on the
development of contemporary classical music.
In addition to the print version of the book, the companion website
offers important resources such as all examples and figures available in
a format that allows readers to zoom in for closer examination, includ-
ing several in their original color versions. The website also features a
recording by the University of British Columbia Symphony Orchestra of
an excerpt from Elisabeth Lutyens’s Essence of Our Happinesses, the only
full recording of which is unavailable to listeners except by appointment
at British Library’s National Sound Archive in London.13 Recordings of
the remaining compositions explored in this volume are commercially
available either on compact disc or through Internet music sources such
as iTunes.
While the analyses are complete with appropriate musical examples, we
recommend that the reader wishing to use a particular analysis as a spring-
board for further research or teaching have the accompanying full score
close at hand. Full scores for all works can be accessed either through uni-
versity library holdings or directly from publishers.
In both scholarly and popular discourse surrounding female creators
in all the arts, the question often arises of whether the artistic creations
of women exhibit common characteristics that bind them together as a
group, making them in some way distinct from those of male creators.14
In the realm of musical composition, arguments about these potential
Introduction 7
an audience for what I write. I would like to know there’s a listener
out there.19
Introduction 9
Notes
1 James R. Briscoe, ed., Contemporary Anthology of Music by Women (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1997), xi. Women’s participation in the world of music perfor-
mance has also expanded. Women are regularly seen on the concert stage as soloists and,
occasionally, on the podium as conductors. Female membership in orchestras is increas-
ing, albeit gradually, and even the Vienna Philharmonic, with its notoriously misogynist
policies, finally hired its first permanent female member in 1997 (William Osborne, “Art
Is Just an Excuse: Gender Bias in International Orchestras,” Journal of the International
Alliance for Women in Music 2, no. 1 [October 1996]: 6–14).
2 Cited by Michael Kurtz in Sofia Gubaidulina: A Biography, ed. Malcolm Hamrick
Brown, trans. Christoph K. Lohmann (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007), vi.
3 Marcia J. Citron, Gender and the Musical Canon (1993; Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 2000); and Jill Halstead, The Woman Composer: Creativity and the Gendered Politics of
Musical Composition (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997). In her 2007 reflection on the 15 years that
had passed since the publication of Gender and the Musical Canon, Citron lauds the progress
made in the “repertorial and disciplinary canons” of musicology, and in the dissemination
of music by women composers. However, she cautions “we need to be careful lest historical
women become erased again” (214) and emphasizes that “women’s music—scores, record-
ings, books—must continue as an important priority” (215) (“Women and the Western Art
Canon: Where Are We Now?” Notes 64, no. 2 [Summer 2007]: 209–15).
4 Rhian Samuel, “Women’s Music: A Twentieth-Century Perspective,” in The Norton/
Grove Dictionary of Women Composers, ed. Julie Anne Sadie and Rhian Samuel (New York
and London: W. W. Norton, 1995), xiii.
5 Such scholarship focuses primarily on issues of gender and social context rather
than technical analysis of the music, reflecting feminist music theory’s rejection of tra-
ditional analysis, with its valorization of an impossible objectivity and its lack of interest
in the impact of composers’ gender, social, and cultural identities on the music they
create. These views are presented in two notable issues of Perspectives of New Music
(PNM) from the early 1990s, where a “Feminist Theory Forum” was followed in the sub-
sequent volume by four papers grouped under the heading “Toward a Feminist Music
Theory.” Pertinent articles include Fred Everett Maus, “Masculine Discourse in Music
Theory,” PNM 31, no. 2 (Summer 1993): 264–93; Suzanne Cusick, “Feminist Theory,
Music Theory, and the Mind/Body Problem,” PNM 32, no. 1 (Winter 1994): 8–27; Marion
Guck, “A Woman’s (Theoretical) Work,” PNM 32, no. 1 (Winter 1994): 28–43; Marianne
Kielian-Gilbert, “Of Poetics and Poiesis, Pleasure and Politics—Music Theory and Modes
of the Feminine,” PNM 32, no. 1 (Winter 1994): 44–67; and Susan McClary, “Paradigm
Dissonances: Music Theory, Cultural Studies, Feminist Criticism,” PNM 32, no. 1
(Winter 1994): 68–85. Founded a few years after these groundbreaking issues, the schol-
arly journal Women and Music publishes articles that explore “the relationships among
gender, music and culture” (http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Women-and-
Music,673171.aspx) but to date has published no detailed analyses of music by female
composers. The Journal of the International Alliance for Women in Music includes a broad
spectrum of items about the professional achievements and activities of female compos-
ers, but, again, no detailed analyses. Karin Pendle and Melinda Boyd’s annotated bibliog-
raphy, Women in Music: A Research and Information Guide, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge,
2010), assembles more than 25 years of feminist scholarship on music.
6 Journals reviewed for these statistics include the Dutch Journal of Music Theory, the
Indiana Theory Review, the Journal of Music Theory, Music Analysis, Music Theory Online,
Music Theory Spectrum, Perspectives on New Music, and Theory and Practice. For the
Introduction 11
from Steve McNabb, Information Architect/Senior Developer, on May 21, 2014, indi-
cate that 149 of 695, or 17.6 percent, of Canadian composers are female. The percentage
of women composers listed in the American Composers Alliance database (accessed
May 17, 2014, http://www.composers.com/content/aca-archive-collections) is lower, at
12 percent (62 of 515 composers), the lower percentage likely reflecting the fact that
this includes both living and deceased composers. Given the size of the American
population, it is clear that their methodology for compiling the database means that
these numbers are too low to reflect the current gender distribution among American
composers.
12 The early development of this collection included a widely publicized call for pro-
posals, the responses to which, although more numerous than we had expected, revealed
unfortunate gaps. One of the goals of this collection is to stimulate research that will
result in these gaps being filled.
13 The recording on the companion website of the second movement’s orchestral
“Chronikos,” discussed by Parsons in c hapter 9, has been made available thanks to Dr.
Jonathan Girard, director, and the University of British Columbia Symphony Orchestra.
The National Sound Archive’s recording is a reel-to-reel tape of the BBC Orchestra’s pre-
miere of Essence of Our Happinesses under the direction of Norman del Mar.
14 The French poststructuralist literary critic and writer Hélène Cixous’s ground-
breaking notion of l’écriture feminine holds that women’s bodies and experiences must be
inscribed in women’s writing through (in part) the cyclical, nonlinear use of language,
in direct opposition to the so-called phallogocentric norms of the male tradition. See
Cixous, “Le rire de la Méduse” (1975), in Le rire de la Méduse et autres ironies (Paris: Galilée,
2010), translated into English as “The Laugh of the Medusa,” Signs: Journal of Women
in Culture and Society 1, no. 4 (Summer, 1976): 875–93. See also Christine Battersby,
Gender and Genius: Towards a Feminist Aesthetics (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1989); Hilde Hein and Caroline Korsmeyer, eds., Aesthetics in Feminist Perspective
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993); and Gisela Ecker, ed., Feminist Aesthetics,
trans. Harriet Anderson (Boston: Beacon Press, 1986), among others.
15 Telling examples of the “quality” debate since the late nineteenth century can be
found in Havelock Ellis, Man and Woman: A Study of Secondary and Tertiary Sexual
Characteristics (1894; London: Heinemann, 1934), and in a series of articles published
over the past century bearing remarkably similar titles. In chronological order, these are
George Trumbull Ladd, “Why Women Cannot Compose,” Yale Review 6 (July 1917): 789–
806; Carl E. Seashore, “Why No Great Women Composers?” in In Search of Beauty in
Music: A Scientific Approach to Musical Esthetics (New York: Ronald Press, 1947): 363–67;
Grace Rubin-Rabson, “Why Haven’t Women Become Great Composers?” High Fidelity/
Musical America 23 (February 1973): 47–50; and Eugene Gates, “Why Have There Been
No Great Women Composers? Psychological Theories, Past and Present,” Journal of
Aesthetic Education 28, no. 2 (1994): 27–34.
16 See Citron, chapter 4 (especially 130–32), and Halstead, chapter 6 (171–214).
Halstead opens her chapter by citing the English psychologist Glenn Wilson, writing in
1989: “Many women have written successful songs … but they have seldom put together
musical works on a grander scale such as operas, symphonies or even musical comedies.
It is difficult to escape the conclusion that some factor such as intrinsic motivation or
‘scale of thinking’ is another contributor to artistic genius” (171).
17 “Because it released these composers from the strictures of a common musical
style by giving them the technical means to forge new musical procedures and narratives,
modernism did not prove harmful to them, but rather stimulated their work in inventive
and liberating ways.” Hisama, Gendering Musical Modernism, 11.
Introduction 13
Part I
15
In chapter 3, Christoph Neidhöfer introduces readers to the Canadian
composer Norma Beecroft’s 1961 twelve-tone flute concerto Improvvisazioni
Concertanti No. 1, written in Italy during a period in which she studied in
Rome and attended the summer schools of Darmstadt and Dartington. While
little known, this short but intense work perfectly encapsulates the dichotomy
in the contemporary music of its time between the total compositional con-
trol offered by approaches such as integral serialism, and the renunciation of
that control exemplified by the revolutionary chance music of John Cage. As
Neidhöfer points out in his essay, despite her use of the word Improvvisazioni
in the work’s title, Beecroft does not in fact allow the performer much free-
dom. Rather, she creates the illusion of extemporization through her flexible
segmentation of the row coupled with precise notation of complex but aurally
unpredictable rhythms. Following a careful explication of Beecroft’s sketches
as well as her final score, Neidhöfer explains how this paradoxical composi-
tion fits into the broader aesthetic dialogue of the time, represented particu-
larly in the writings of Umberto Eco.
Finally, in chapter 4, Jonathan W. Bernard examines Joan Tower’s com-
plex but creative use of octatonic collections in her highly successful orchestral
composition Silver Ladders (1986), identifying a constellation of composi-
tional strategies that he finds unprecedented in the works of earlier twentieth-
century composers. Not limiting herself to a single transposition or rotation at
a time, Tower combines simultaneous octatonic collections in multiple but dis-
tinct instrumental layers, and uses different techniques to gradually transform
one octatonic collection into another or to transition from an octatonic to a
non-octatonic collection. On the basis of meticulous analytical observation,
Bernard develops a useful typology outlining the specific compositional mech-
anisms Tower uses to achieve these transformations and considers how their
deployment may contribute to an understanding of the work’s formal design.
He closes his exploration of Tower’s music by relating his analytical findings
to her own statements describing her working methods, and her thoughts on
contemporary composition. Given the originality of the compositional strate-
gies he finds in Silver Ladders, Bernard’s essay represents an important con-
tribution to the study not only of Tower’s music, but also of octatonicism in
postwar American music.
Ursula Mamlok was born in Berlin in 1923.i Barely one step ahead of the
European conflagration, she emigrated with her family to Ecuador in 1939.
One year later, at the age of 17, she moved on her own to New York to study
composition with George Szell (much better known as a conductor than as
a composer) at the Mannes School of Music.
In New York Mamlok was introduced to modernist, atonal music, an
experience she initially did not enjoy.ii During the 1940s, however, her
appreciation of this repertoire grew, particularly after 1944, when she
attended Black Mountain College in North Carolina; there she heard regu-
lar performances of the Schoenberg string quartets by the Polish Quartet.
She also had the opportunity learn from Ernst Krenek, Eduard Steuermann,
and Roger Sessions, whose influence led her away from tonality and toward
the adoption of serialism.
Mamlok completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in her 30s at
the Manhattan School of Music. Composition lessons with Stefan Wolpe,
Milton Babbitt, Charles Wuorinen, and George Perle exposed her to more
systematic approaches to serialism, while subsequent studies with Ralph
Shapey taught her to “take away the squareness” and develop a more imagi-
native rhythmic language.iii
After teaching for over 40 years at the Manhattan School of Music and
other universities, in 2006 she returned to her native Berlin, where she
i. Biographical information about the composer is drawn from Barbara A. Petersen, “Mamlok,
Ursula,” in Grove Music Online, ed. Deane L. Root, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com, and the
composer’s website, www.ursulamamlok.com, both accessed September 10, 2014.
ii. Ursula Mamlok, interview with Roxane Prevost, “Conversations with Ursula Mamlok,” Ex
Tempore 11, no. 2 (Spring–Summer 2003): 125.
iii. Ibid., 129.
17
now lives and works. She has written more than 60 works for piano and
various instrumental ensembles, large and small, and recordings of her
music are currently available on nearly 20 CDs, four of them devoted exclu-
sively to her compositions. Among the honors she has received are fellow-
ships and commissions from the Guggenheim, Fromm, and Koussevitzky
Foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the American
Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
Although Mamlok is known today as a serial composer, her approach is
as intuitive as it is systematic:
I will wait until I find something that gives me a system for that particu-
lar piece. . . . And what’s interesting was for me to see that I can [mix
serial and free atonal movements] because you don’t want to become
a slave of the system.iv
Joseph N. Straus
Mamlok’s piano trio, Panta Rhei, dates from 1981 and has been widely per-
formed, recorded, and discussed.1 The work is in five movements, the third
of which is a lyrical, meditative slow movement, marked molto tranquillo.
Example 2.1 provides the score for mm. 1–15, roughly the first half of the
work, with some analytical annotations .
Throughout this excerpt, and throughout the whole movement, there
are three independent lines. In mm. 1–7, the violin plays Ostinato 1 (sus-
tained F ♭s, punctuated with a snap pizzicato); the piano right hand plays
Ostinato 2 (short, repeated Ds, with the performance instruction to stop
the string inside the piano with a finger of the left hand); and the cello,
high in its register, plays a slow-moving melody, marked espressivo. In m. 8,
these three lines change instrumentation: Ostinato 1 moves from violin to
piano, Ostinato 2 moves from piano to cello, and the melody moves from
cello to violin. Then, in m. 15, the lines change instrumentation again. The
movement as a whole consists of four distinct formal sections, articulated
by these shifts in instrumentation and texture (see Figure 2.1 ).
iv. Ibid., 131.
(Continued)
The three different lines move systematically through the three instru-
ments (and vice versa), with the fourth section restoring the arrangement of
the first.2 In instrumentation and texture, then, we have a four-stage process,
involving the systematic departure from and return to the original state. In
the domain of pitch, shaped by a twelve-tone plan to be discussed shortly, the
second half of the piece is the rough retrograde of the first: the P and I forms
of the first half are repeated in retrograde and in reverse order in the second.
Figure 2.1
Formal chart
Looking in more detail at the pitch organization of the first two sections
(see again Example 2.1), we note a profusion of consonant triads (members
of sc(037)) and members of sc(014). These lie mostly within the melody,
although some involve the combination of two melody notes with one note
from one of the two ostinatos. In some passages, the music features tri-
ads gradually morphing into other triads (with occasional hints of 014),
while in others the music features 014s gradually morphing into other 014s
(with occasional hints of major or minor triads). And all of this activity
the outer circle, the triads are linked by two common tones, and together
they project the notes of HEX1,2, the complement of HEX3,4.
For both the Northern and Southern systems, I depart from Cohn by
inserting a new circle inside the outer, triadic circle. This inner circle con-
nects forms of 014 in the same way that the outer circle connects triads.
Each move around the inner circle holds two notes in common and moves
the third one, taking us to another form of 014. We still have a chain of
harmonies, with two common tones retained, moving around a circle and
projecting a hexatonic collection. The dotted lines connecting the 014s in
the inner circles with the triads in the outer circles indicate the multiplica-
tive operation M5, by which dissonant 014 trichords can be transformed
into consonant 037 triads and vice versa.5
(b)
Figure 2.3a and 2.3b
Pitch-class series and duration series
In this movement, and in much of her music, Mamlok is also inter-
ested in bringing the durations under some kind of serial control, and she
has a number of different strategies for doing this. Figure 2.3b shows the
duration series for this movement: 24 durations, measured in sixteenth
notes, that mostly range in length from one to six sixteenth notes. After
the P form of the duration series, we hear the same thing in retrograde
(labeled R). In the duration series labeled I, each value in the P duration
series is replaced by its complement mod 6: 5 becomes 1, 4 becomes 2, 3
stays as 3, and 6 stays as 6. Inversion in this case thus means complementa-
tion mod 6. There are a few glitches in the scheme, indicated by parentheses
and asterisks on the chart (parentheses indicate omission of expected dura-
tions, and asterisks indicate durations that are slightly off). But for the most
part, the durations are systematically serialized. They are also coordinated
with the pitch series, as indicated at the right of Figure 2.3b: duration series
P is projected by pitch series P; duration series R by pitch series I; duration
series I by pitch series RI; and duration series RI by pitch series R.
While the basic arrangement is clear enough, its musical motivation is
more obscure. It is not obvious why the composer uses values between 1
and 6 (and thus relies on complementation mod 6 for her definition of
inversion), how this 24-note duration series is internally organized, or how
it relates to the pitch-class series. In other works, including the fourth
movement of this piece, Mamlok uses a 12-note duration series that corre-
sponds exactly with the 12-note pitch-class series, but in this movement she
uses a 24-note duration series understood in terms of mod 6. It may be that
she was not attempting an integration of pitch-class and duration series
but instead was creating the duration series in an entirely free and possibly
random way, perhaps by literally rolling the dice to produce random values
from 1 to 6. That notion, purely conjectural, leads me to experience the free
and unpredictable rhythms of the melody as a deliberately and perhaps
literally aleatoric aspect of this piece.
Example 2.2 presents the complete score of the movement. A 12-count
of the pitch-class series is indicated by numbers corresponding to the order
positions within the two series forms shown at the top of the example. The
circled notes in the series (in order positions 1 and 5) are assigned to the
two ostinato lines. The duration series, which unfolds within the melody
(not within the two ostinato lines), is indicated by numbers in parentheses.
The two ostinato lines have distinctive rhythmic patterns of their own.
Ostinato 1, which starts with repeated F♯ s in the violin, projects a pattern
of alternating values: from the initial attack to the pizzicato in the first
measure is a duration of 10½ sixteenth notes. Seven sixteenth notes of rest
follow. Then we hear another F♯ for 10½ sixteenth notes, and another rest
of 7 sixteenth notes. Although this ostinato line moves from instrument to
(Continued)
slight glitches, throughout the movement. The periodicities of the two osti-
nato lines do not coincide with each other, and neither coincides in any simple
way with the beats of the notated $ 3 meter. The result is a sense of kaleido-
scopic rhythmic interplay, with the aleatory but serialized durations of the
melodic line interwoven with the regular patterns of the two ostinatos.
This is a beautiful musical work, deeply thought out, richly imagined,
and highly expressive. In each of those respects, it is typical not only of
Mamlok’s music, but also of the best twelve-tone music of the postwar
From the 1960s onward, I’ve refined my style and have been doing
that ever since. I think the moment you stop learning, that’s the
end. As years go by, you change and your inf luences and goals are
different. Now my music is less complex than it was in the ’50s
and ’60s. I’m very comfortable writing 12-tone music but you will
hear composers say, “That’s passé.” That’s the same as saying the
C Major scale is passé—you can’t go by that, you have to have your
own language.11
1. “Panta rhei” is a term from Heraclitus meaning “time in flux” or “everything flows.”
There are two published recordings of the work: American Masters—Ursula Mamlok, vari-
ous artists, CRI 891, 2002, compact disc; and Contemporary American Piano Trios, Vol. 2,
with the Francesco Trio, Music and Arts 933, 2000, compact disc. Published discussions
of the work include Roxane Prevost, “A Woman Composer among Men: A Theoretical
Study of Ursula Mamlok’s Serial Works” (PhD diss., State University of New York at
Buffalo, 2003); Roxane Prevost, “Metrical Ambiguities in Ursula Mamlok’s Panta Rhei,
IV,” Canadian University Music Review 23, nos. 1–2 (2004): 147–67; and Joseph Straus,
Twelve-Tone Music in America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
2. The twelve-tone origin of these lines, identified in the chart as P, I, R(I), and R(P),
will be discussed later in this chapter (see Figure 2.3a).
3. Richard Cohn, “Maximally Smooth Cycles, Hexatonic Systems, and the Analysis of
Late-Romantic Triadic Progressions,” Music Analysis 15, no. 1 (1996): 9–40.
4. Cohn and other neo-Riemannian theorists have been particularly interested in the
minimal distance (a semitone) through which the moving note moves, considering this
an instance of parsimonious voice leading. In the analytical discussion that follows, I will
ignore this aspect in order to accommodate progressions of 014 as well as 037.
5. Pitch-class multiplication by five, mod 12 (M5), has the effect of mapping the chro-
matic scale onto the circle of fourths, and vice versa. Intervallically, its effect on a pitch-
class set involves preserving the instances of ics 2, 3, 4, and 6, while exchanging the
instances of ic1 and ic5. Tn(M5) maps members of sc(014) onto members of sc(037) and
vice versa, retaining the minor and major thirds common to both sc, while replacing the
perfect fifth of the triad with the semitone of the 014. In Figure 2.2 the dotted lines in the
Northern system connect sets related by M5 followed by T4; in the Southern system the
dotted lines connect sets related by M5 followed by T8.
6. On the structural and affective qualities of the hexatonic pole relationship, see
Richard Cohn, “Uncanny Resemblances: Tonal Signification in the Freudian Age,”
Journal of the American Musicological Society 57, no. 2 (2004): 285–324.
7. This movement uses only P6 and I3 (a combinatorial pair) and their retrogrades (R6
and RI3). The series forms are labeled without subscript in the discussion that follows.
8. RI-chains are a recurrent point of interest in the theoretical and analytical work of
David Lewin. See Generalized Musical Intervals and Transformations (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 1987).
9. Straus, Twelve-Tone Music in America, offers close readings of more than 30 twelve-
tone works and a refutation of the many myths that have gathered around it. The follow-
ing discussion condenses material found there.
10. Straus, “The Myth of Serial ‘Tyranny’ in the 1950s and 1960s,” Musical Quarterly
83, no. 3 (1999): 301–43.
11. Liner notes to CRI recording (2002).
12. Ursula Mamlok, interview with the author, May 11, 2010.
i. Biographical information about the composer is drawn from The Canadian Encyclopedia, s.v.
“Norma Beecroft,” by Kenneth Winters and Betty Nygaard King, last modified December 15,
2013, http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/norma-beecroft-emc, and from Norma
Beecroft, interview by Eitan Cornfield, Canadian Composers Portraits: Norma Beecroft, Centrediscs
CD-CMCCD 9303, 2003, compact disc. A transcription of this interview is available at http://www.
musiccentre.ca/sites/,www.musiccentre.ca/files/resources/pdfmedia/beecroft-portrait-en.pdf.
32
lectures on twelve-tone technique. But Darmstadt also introduced her to
the aleatory music of John Cage, and there she heard an early performance
of Stockhausen’s Kontakte for four-channel tape and live instruments, an
experience that led her to devote the remainder of her compositional career
primarily to electroacoustic music.
Following her return to Canada, Beecroft worked with Myron Schaeffer at
the University of Toronto and Mario Davidovsky at the Columbia-Princeton
Electronic Music Center. As she developed her own electroacoustic musical
voice throughout the 1960s, she also continued her broadcasting career,
first with the CBC and later as a freelancer. Her contributions to contempo-
rary Canadian musical life are remarkable: she produced many documen-
taries and a 13-album set of records featuring twentieth-century Canadian
composers and computer music, hosted a weekly radio series called Music
of Today, and cofounded and managed the Toronto New Music Concert
series for nearly 20 years. In the 1980s, Beecroft taught electronic music
and composition at York University in Toronto. She has been the recipi-
ent of many honors for her contributions to Canadian music, including the
Canada Council’s Lynch-Staunton Award for composition (twice), the Major
Armstrong Award for her 1975 documentary The Computer in Music, and an
honorary doctorate from York University. Today Beecroft is retired and lives
north of Toronto.
Christoph Neidhöfer
Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1 for solo flute and orchestra (1961), together
with Tre Pezzi Brevi for flute and harp (1960–61), marks the beginning of
the Canadian composer Norma Beecroft’s international career.1 Both works
were written during her three years in Europe, where she studied composi-
tion with Goffredo Petrassi, attended the summer courses and festivals in
Darmstadt and Dartington (1960–61), and took flute lessons with Severino
Gazzelloni, the virtuoso who inspired and performed much of the new
music written for flute in the context of Darmstadt and other contemporary
music venues.
simultaneous forceful brass swells. (Example 3.2b shows the serial com-
bination used, reordered and with some pcs filtered out, in the brass and
strings of mm. 19–21; I will return to this in Examples 3.13 and 3.14.)
Contrasting with the improvisatory discourse between soloist and orches-
tra in the first two examples, the section shown in Example 3.3 , which
follows these earlier passages, features a more steady and coordinated
flow of materials. The high strings enter with chains of note-against-note
dyads in opening and closing wedge counterpoint in quasi-canonic imita-
tion (mm. 37–42) over continuing, disquieting rustling in the percussion,
followed by a distant echo of an opening and closing wedge in the muted
trumpets of mm. 43–44. The solo flute remains silent here, but when it
reenters soon afterward (not shown), it again alternates between impulsively
agitated and more lyrical improvisatory gestures, building up to an aggres-
sive response from the orchestra in m. 65, as shown in Example 3.4 .
36 Part I: Order, Freedom, and Design
Example 3.1
(Continued)
(Continued)
The leaps and runs in the flute of mm. 63–64 use only six different pitch
classes, as annotated in the example, presented in various orderings as if
the soloist were freely improvising on a hexachord against the backdrop of
sustained tremolos in the lower strings holding the complementary hexa-
chord. (My labeling of the hexachords will become clear later on.) The two
hexachords then clash head-on in the sound masses of m. 65.
Sound masses burst onto the scene a few more times in the ensuing
measures, leading into the section shown in Example 3.5 . This passage
generates a strong continuous harmonic pull via a progression of sustained
and pulsating chords built from fourths and fifths that progress via semi-
tones (mm. 74–77) and an added fourth (m. 78)—as summarized below the
example—culminating in the brass and percussion eruption of mm. 80–82.
Examples 3.1–3.5 give a clear idea of the improvisatory character of the flute
part, which, while fully written out, seems to unfold from spur-of-the-moment
(Continued)
gestures of a clearly distinct identity; and (4) in a few places the soloist seems
to be improvising while the orchestra is in a holding pattern (Example 3.4).
Let us now examine these passages and the rest of the concerto in more
detail in order to explore how the dramaturgy of the work interconnects
with the serial construction.
Norma Beecroft, Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1 (1961) 39
Example 3.2a
(Continued)
Example 3.2a
(Continued)
Example 3.2b
Combination of P6+I6, arranged as shown in Beecroft’s sketch
(Continued)
Example 3.3
(Continued)
Example 3.4
Mm. 63–66 (© 1973 by Norma Beecroft)
(Continued)
unison F♯ followed by major second (ic2) and tritone (ic6), continuing with
a decrease in interval-class size from a major third (ic4) and major ninth
(ic2) to a unison on C, with another shorter wedge immediately following
(minor sixth, major third, major second). Below this, Beecroft notes the
“increase of tension” in the interval succession. She indicates this with a
hairpin, the opening of which presumably symbolizes the approximate
overall increase of both dissonance (tension) and interval size up to the fifth
dyad (the major ninth B3–C ♯5), the insertion of the consonant and smaller
fourth dyad notwithstanding.9
Beecroft’s attention to the tension of intervals was likely influenced by
composer and conductor Bruno Maderna, whom she heard lecturing in
Dartington in 1960, the year before the composition of Improvvisazioni.
The Norma Beecroft Fonds of the University of Calgary Library, Special
Collections, hold the notes that Beecroft took during Maderna’s lecture,
partially reproduced in Example 3.15 . The excerpt at (b) shows how
Maderna classified intervals, which loosely follows the categorization
proposed by Paul Hindemith.10 As Beecroft demonstrates in her notes,
Maderna assigned number values to the intervals, except the tritone, clas-
sifying them from most consonant (+3 for the perfect consonances) to least
consonant (–2 for minor second and major seventh).11 Beecroft noted the
cognitive rationale behind this ordering at the bottom: “Intervals are typed
in this order for psychological reasons (of tension + consonance).”
As we know from Maderna’s sketches for his own music, he had himself
made use of this interval classification while teaching it to his students,
including Luigi Nono.12 Like Maderna, Nono constructed, permuted, and
analyzed twelve-tone series with respect to “tension profiles,” meticulously
keeping track of the distribution of interval qualities within a series.13
Although Beecroft does not specifically plot out interval tension profiles in
her sketches for Improvvisazioni, her notes from Maderna’s lecture and the
reference in the sketch of Example 3.14 (“increase of tension”) suggest that
she must have been thinking in terms of such profiles as she reordered
the dyads from P6+I6 in the high strings of Example 3.3.14 Example 3.16
lists the succession of dyads from the second violins of Example 3.3 and
visualizes the palindromic tension profile, using the number values from
Example 3.15b.15 As the graph at the bottom of Example 3.16 illustrates, the
(Continued)
progression fluctuates between dyads of higher and lower degrees of dis-
sonance. For present purposes I have placed the otherwise nonclassifiable
tritone at the juncture between dissonant and consonant intervals (between
values –1 and +1), even though Beecroft (following Maderna) would probably
not have assigned a number value to the tritone (Example 3.15b).16
By way of an overview, Table 3.2 describes the form of Improvvisazioni, as
delineated by changes in texture and in the ways soloist and orchestra inter-
act, and summarizes the serial organization of the work. I have highlighted
all serial labels in the table to illustrate how the work is built primarily from
P6, isolated statements of its hexachords A and B (often internally reor-
dered), I6, and the combinations of P6+I1 and P6+I6. The prevalence of these
materials is what focuses the work around a handful of pitch-class constel-
lations: I1 shares the same (unordered) hexachords A and B with P6 and R6
(Example 3.7). The discrete hexachords of I6 share five pitch classes with
hexachords A or B from P6 respectively (Example 3.13). As a result, the first
half of Example 3.13 expands hexachord A by one pitch class (E) to a chro-
matic heptachord, while the second half extends hexachord B by one pitch
class (A ♭) to an inversionally symmetrical (0234568) heptachord. In other
48 Part I: Order, Freedom, and Design
Example 3.5
(Continued)
2. Invariants in a chain Series P6, RI3, I3, and R6 share the four invariants a {G♯, A,
of series (Exx. 3.9–11): C, C♯}, b {F, G}, c {D, E}, and d {B♭, B} (Ex. 3.9). Of these,
a (partly fragmented) and b are most prominently featured
in the opening solo line, in different registers (Ex. 3.10).
Beecroft overrides serial principles in m. 14 in order to add
one more (incomplete) statement of a and b. Compare
m. 14 in Ex. 3.11 (which shows the original series from
Beecroft’s sketch) with m. 14 in Ex. 3.10 (final version,
altered to feature another partial statement of invariant a
while preserving the melodic contour). The four invariants
are internally ordered the same in P6 and RI3, and ditto in
retrograde ordering in I3 and R6.
(continued)
Table 3.1 (Continued)
Example 3.7
P6 and I1
Example 3.8
Similarity between the discrete hexachords of P6 and I1
Example 3.9
Chain of P6, RI3, I3, and R6 and salient invariants
Example 3.10
Opening of solo flute part, mm. 1–16 (© 1973 by Norma Beecroft)
Example 3.11
Mm. 13–16 as they appear in Beecroft’s sketch, with serial analysis added
Example 3.12
(a) Note-against-note combination of P6+I1; (b) tritone transposition (P0+I7)
Example 3.13
Note-against-note combination of P6+I6
Example 3.14
Excerpt from a sketch for Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1 showing intervallic tension profile.
Reproduced by permission of Norma Beecroft.
Example 3.15
Excerpts from the notes Beecroft took during Bruno Maderna’s lecture. Reproduced by permis-
sion of Norma Beecroft.
(a)
(b)
Example 3.16
Fluctuating tension profile in the second violins of mm. 37–41
Table 3.2 Form and serial organization in Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1
(strong eruptions)
↓
Serial organization: Interlocking chain Mm. 19–23: combine dyads 1–4 from Mm. 37–42: dyads from P6+I6 wedge Mm. 45–51: flute slowly
of P6–RI3–I3–R6 P6+I6 with fragment of first four pitch reordered. Vibraphone and traverses P6, frequently
classes from P6, fragment of first glockenspiel play fragments from P6. repeating pitch-class
three pitch classes from Pt, and an Mm. 43–44: dyads 1–4 from P6+I1 wedge segments on the way. Horn,
incomplete statement of P6. (they continue into the following strings, and harp add dyads
Mm. 24–28: two interlocking statements passage). from P6+I1 (these dyads
of P6 with some pitch classes omitted intersect with the flute line).
(mm. 24–26), followed by improvisatory Mm. 52–57: flute and strings/
passage in the flute based on hexachord harp share dyads from P6+I6
A and then dyads 1–4 from P6+I6 (mm. (mm. 52–53), P6+I1 (mm.
27–28). Brass of mm. 27–28 repeat and 54–55), and again P6+I6 (m.
sustain pitch classes from before. 56 with pickup). Strings and
Mm. 29–36: several statements of the first harp share dyads from P6+I1
hexachords of P6 (hexachord A), P8, and in m. 57 (with pickup), ending
I6interlocked (mm.29–30), incomplete on a fermata. The flute line of
statement of P6(m. 31), mm. 52–57 maintains much
dyads from P6+I6 (in original order with of P6.
entry of F and B delayed, mm.32–36).
(strong eruptions) (final eruption, at end of section)
↓ ↓
After a fermata, the solo flute Brief, very violent tutti outburst (mm. 65–66), followed by two Quiet percussion texture with much Final cadenza of the solo flute,
takes the lead in a gradual, further outbursts (mm. 67–73) and a nervous buildup to resonance from the pitched flaring up and then quieting
improvisatory buildup to the another eruption that then quickly calms down (mm. 74–85). instruments (glockenspiel, vibraphone, down (mm. 103–4).
outburst of orchestral sound The solo flute participates in all of this. harp, timpani). Flute enters in m. 91 Woodblock attacks,
masses in m. 65. with mostly high and medium-range accelerating into tremolo and
sustained pitches and flourishes, while overlapping with the end of
the double basses (divisi) gradually this cadenza, lead into the
form a carpet of sustained harmonics. concluding measures of the
Over this double-bass chord with work (mm. 105–8). These
added bass drum roll and a few combine quietly resonating
vibraphone attacks, the flute performs percussion (triangle, tam-
a written-out cadenza (mm. 96–100) tam, cymbals, harp) with
that leads into a final eruption in the soft pointillist echoes in the
percussion (mm. 100–101), followed muted brass, over which
by an echo of sustained brass harmony the soloist performs high
(m. 102 with pickup). harmonics, concluding
with an upward leap to an
accented and fading B♭6.
Flute unfolds P6 and fragments The sound masses in mm. 65–66 superimpose hexachords Mm. 86–91 extract and reorder the discrete Flute cadenza starts out with
thereof, sometimes reordered. A and B. The following two outbursts both start with trichords from P6. Flute enters with hexachord B (continuing
Fragment of P8 (fifth toeighth hexachord B in the brass followed by hexachord A in the solo I6(mm. 91–94) and projects dyads 1 from previous hexachord A in
note) at end of m. 61. Starting flute and some of the other instruments (mm. 67–73). The and 2 from P6+I1 (mm. 94–95). Double- the brass), then uses dyads
in m. 59, the lower strings following buildup initially focuses on hexachord B (mm. 74ff). bass harmony is built from (reordered) from P6+I1 and fragments
outline hexachord A (P6) over which the flute and other instruments present P6 and hexachord B (mm. 92–100). from P6 and I6 (mm. 103–4).
which gradually enters in mm. selected dyads from P6+I6 (mm. 77–85). Flute cadenza in mm. 96–100 permutes Concluding four measures
59–62 and whose pitches hexachord A. Hexachord A is echoed in are built from the dyads
are sustained as tremoli and the brass of mm. 101–2. of P6+I1 or P0+I7 (both
harmonics into mm. 63–64. combinations form the same
Over this sustained harmony in dyads).
mm. 63–64, the flute permutes
hexachord B.
Example 3.17
Improvisatory elaboration of hexachord A and first heptachord of P6+I6, mm. 27–28 (© 1973
by Norma Beecroft)
fewer than five pitch classes with hexachords A or B, the overall focus on
the latter and on constellations closely resembling them (Table 3.2) centers
the work mainly on one twelve-tone “area.”18
5. No conflict
Another hearing, whether conceiving of flute and orchestra as one or sev-
eral bodies, might reject the idea of conflict in Improvvisazioni altogether. In
such a hearing, the orchestral sound masses that burst onto the scene would
not feel confrontational, nor would the many “agitated” flute gestures. To
some listeners—I am among them—Beecroft’s gestures come across not as
aggressive but as beautifully and nonconfrontationally vibrant, in a discourse
that vividly explores instrumental timbres, contrasts (but not conflicts) in
harmony and register, and so forth. The overall “plot” that I hear is one of
gradual intensification, in terms of sequence of ideas as well as of richness
in combination. The beginning conveys a sense of open space (through wide
registral gaps and a slow pace; Example 3.1) that is then filled in and thinned
6. Biographical dimension
Further interpretative angles could consider the biographical dimensions
of Improvvisazioni. The work features Beecroft’s own instrument, the flute,
in the solo part. With this in mind, we could hear the solo instrument as
representing the composer conversing, dialoguing, struggling, or however
we hear it, with the orchestra. Or we could experience the orchestra as an
extension of the soloist, as suggested before, and thus as a dimension of
the composer herself in the “plot,” whatever it may be. At the time Beecroft
composed the work, she was studying with Severino Gazzelloni, whose
unparalleled virtuosity had inspired many composers in Darmstadt and
elsewhere to write solo pieces or works featuring solo flute for him.22 As she
mentions in the 1982 interview, Improvvisazioni “was written essentially for
Gazzelloni because I was so fascinated with the incredible things that he
could do on the flute.”23 We could thus hear the solo instrument represent-
ing Gazzelloni and weigh possible interpretations accordingly, perhaps in
conjunction with points 3, 4, and 5 above.And there is a third figure that
belongs in the biography of the work and that could inform a reading of it:
Beecroft’s composition teacher in Rome, Goffredo Petrassi, to whom the
work is dedicated.
7. Serial construction
Details of serial construction could provide further clues for interpreta-
tive readings of the work. We may, for instance, wonder about the serial
relationships between protagonists. Do they pit different serial materials
against each other or are their parts integrated on the serial-structural (as
opposed to the gestural) level? This question, as the analysis has shown,
has a clear answer: soloist and orchestra are for the most part intricately
intertwined in terms of serial structure. For example, serially speaking,
the opening of the work develops from one, not several, “lines.” It is almost
Joan Tower is one of the most successful and highly regarded American
composers of our time. Born in New Rochelle, New York in 1938, her fam-
ily moved to La Paz, Bolivia, when she was nine. There her immersion in
the vibrant music and dance rhythms of Bolivia profoundly influenced the
rhythmic language of her later music.i After returning to the United States
in 1954, Tower enrolled at Bennington College in Vermont, initially studying
physics and later taking music courses with the composer Henry Brant,
who inspired in her a revelatory interest in composition.ii
After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in music in 1961, Tower moved
to New York, where the twelve-tone composers Milton Babbitt, Charles
Wuorinen, and Mario Davidovsky became important mentors for her. She
enrolled in the master’s composition program at Columbia University and
studied with Otto Luening, Benjamin Boretz, Chou Wen-chung, and Ralph
Shapey. In 1969 Tower founded the Da Capo Chamber Players, a contempo-
rary music chamber group with herself as pianist, whose contributions to
new music were recognized in 1973 by the esteemed Walter W. Naumburg
Chamber Music Award; she remained with the group for 15 years.
Tower began teaching at Bard College in 1972. By the mid-1970s she
was becoming disenchanted with what she perceived as the limitations of
serialism and its lack of connection with most contemporary audiences.
Beginning with Breakfast Rhythms II in 1975, Tower began to devise her own
pitch systems “in which every pitch had a unique identity and a ranked
order of importance in relation to all other pitches”—a principle that led
i. Biographical information about the composer is drawn from Ellen K. Grolman, Joan
Tower: The Comprehensive Bio-Bibliography (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2007).
ii. She later asserted that physics “fascinated me from the point of view of studying action and
reaction phenomena in nature—something I have explored in music all my life.” Joan Tower, as
cited in Grolman, Joan Tower, 15.
67
her back toward tonality.iii She also became dissatisfied with the arcane
“rhythmic acrobatics” of much contemporary music, returning instead to
the compelling rhythmic vitality of Latin dance music:
Jonathan W. Bernard
iii. Ibid., 27. For an analytical discussion of Breakfast Rhythms II, see Judy Lochhead, “Joan
Tower’s Wings and Breakfast Rhythms I and II: Some Thoughts on Form and Repetition,”
Perspectives of New Music 30, no. 1 (Winter 1992): 132–56. This landmark article was the first
full-length, English-language analytical study of music by a female composer to appear in a
peer-reviewed music theory journal.
iv. Tower, as cited in Grolman, Joan Tower, 28.
v. The album on which it was recorded won two additional Grammys, for Best Classical Album
and Best Orchestral Performance.
(Continued)
by the percussion alone in the first 11 measures, gets properly under way
in m. 12 with most of the rest of the orchestra entering full force, in a new
beginning on C. By m. 21 the entire scale, projected by way of staggered
entries, is complete up to B; the octave of the initial C arrives at the fermata
three measures later (see Example 4.1) .1
And as even the most cursory of hearings will bear out, the promise
embodied in this dramatic gesture is delivered on as Tower’s work opens
up before us: octatonic structures of various types seem to be everywhere.
Prominent among these structures are, specifically, scales, as readers of
the prefatory note to the score of Silver Ladders will already have been led
to expect: “The first section is based on upward-moving scales (the ladder)
formed largely of whole and half steps.”2 It is in the nature of such prefa-
tory notes to simplify, of course, and also to avoid technical language where
possible; however, the statement does at least suggest a plausible analytical
approach to the work. First, one may infer that the upward-moving scales
are not unrelievedly octatonic, even if the phrase “whole and half steps” is
taken to mean regularly alternating whole and half steps, since the scales
Example 4.2
Strings, mm. 177–81: Category 2 (doubling at minor third/major sixth)
Example 4.3
Strings, mm. 61–64: Category 3 (doubling at major third/minor sixth)
Example 4.4a
Brass, mm. 246–47: Category 4 (2-variant)
Example 4.4b
Strings, mm. 289–90: Category 4 (3-variant)
Example 4.5
Scalar parts only, mm. 221–26: Category 5
(Continued)
(Continued)
Example 4.7
(Continued)
Example 4.7
(Continued)
collection is heard and passages during which two or all three collections
are deployed simultaneously. For a while, this approach is helpful. As sum-
marized below in Table 4.1, after an initial, almost entirely chromatic rise
in parallel major thirds (mm. 151–62), the major thirds are doubled in the
manner of a 3-variant (Category 4) in mm. 163–64, as parallel major seventh
chords (all three octatonic collections); then T0 takes over entirely for mm.
165–67, doubled in minor thirds (Category 2). In m. 168, the doubled minor
thirds continue, but the <C ♯, B, A ♯> figure, carried over from mm. 163–64,
is now extended to A ♮ , introducing a chromatic tinge. In m. 169, the minor
thirds are now doubled in the manner of a 2-variant (Category 4), bringing
all three octatonic collections into the texture and connecting clearly with the
previous mm. 163–64 even though the chordal structures are different. (One
hears the connection also by way of the C ♯ –B –A ♯ of those earlier measures, as
well as more locally to the version of that figure extended to A ♮ in the immedi-
ately previous m. 168). At m. 170, T2 takes over completely in doubled minor
thirds (Category 2). At m. 179, E and G from the previous measure (top part)
shift to E ♭ and G ♭ respectively, and C ♯ and E in the lower part shift to C ♮ and
E ♭ (Category 5), returning the octatonic identity to T0.
From mm. 179 through 222, T0 remains in place, at first rising and falling
in doubled minor thirds in by now familiar fashion; then getting stuck on a
rising five-note figure (m. 185). At m. 190 the minor-third doublings disap-
pear, leaving just the rising <F♯, G♯, A, B, C> in three octaves, projected as an
ostinato. Under this rapid motion, longer notes in the lower parts (marked
with stems in Example 4.6), beginning with G ♭ in m. 195, project an eventu-
ally complete T0 scale. Just as this scale is reaching its final notes, a Category
5 shift occurs in the ostinato (in m. 223, G♯ and B mutate to G ♮ and B ♭ respec-
tively), changing the reigning collection to T1. T1’s duration is considerably
shorter than that of the preceding T0 passage: at m. 239, another Category 5
shift (F♯ and A to F♮ and A ♭) introduces T2—which, however, is heard unadul-
terated only as a five-note figure for one measure.
The action of mm. 151–239 is summarized in Table 4.1. Up to the end of this
section, the fluctuations between octatonic transpositions, and the categories
of usage into which they fall, are characterized by relatively long passages
Example 4.8
Brass, mm. 268–71: Categories 4 (2-variant) and 5 combined
Example 4.12
Thread of ascending and descending perfect/augmented fourths, mm. 544–48
You see, I don’t do sketches in advance. I do start out with a basic idea,
but basically I’m not very “pre-compositional” in my thinking. I used to
be, but that was because I felt insecure and needed some sort of map
to get me through the infinity of choices that were available. Now I’m
more of an “organic” composer.
I start. Then I take a look at what I’ve done and reshape it until it’s
the way I think I want it to be. Then I go on. Then I take another look at
what I’ve done. I spend more and more time reshaping, more and more
time working on the music’s left side.17
Elsewhere, putting it perhaps more bluntly, she has said: “I never plan,
because I don’t trust it, I don’t trust the planning.” And: “There’s a logic
that you can do with pre-planning that is perfectly therapeutic, … because
it gives you the feeling that you know where you’re going; but the problem
is that it may not be very musical.”18
Notes
1. All score excerpts appearing as illustrations in this essay are notated at concert pitch
in all instruments. However, the conventions of octave transposition (higher or lower) for
certain instruments (contrabass, contrabassoon, piccolo, glockenspiel, et al.) are observed
throughout.
2. Sandra Hyslop (“in collaboration with the composer”), “Program Note,” in Joan
Tower, Silver Ladders, score (New York: Associated Music Publishers, 1989), unpaginated
front matter. The only recording of Silver Ladders that has been released commercially
to date is Leonard Slatkin’s rendition with the St. Louis Symphony: Joan Tower, Silver
Ladders; Island Prelude; Music for Cello & Orchestra; Sequoia, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra,
conducted by Leonard Slatkin, Meet the Composer Orchestra Residency Series, Elektra
Nonesuch 79245-2, 1990, compact disc.
3. Arthur Berger, “Problems of Pitch Organization in Stravinsky,” Perspectives of New
Music 3, no. 1 (Fall–Winter 1963): 11–42. Berger’s approach was massively developed
and expanded in its explanatory power in the work of Pieter van den Toorn: “Some
Characteristics of Stravinsky’s Diatonic Music” [Parts I and II], Perspectives of New Music
14, no. 1 (Fall–Winter 1975): 104–38; 15, no. 2 (Spring–Summer 1977): 58–95; and van
den Toorn, The Music of Igor Stravinsky (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983).
Richard Taruskin has made abundant use of the octatonic in many of his analyses of
Stravinsky’s music; see, for example, “Chernomor to Kaschei: Harmonic Sorcery; Or,
Stravinsky’s ‘Angle,’” Journal of the American Musicological Society 38, no. 1 (1985): 72–142;
“Chez Pétrouchka: Harmony and Tonality chez Stravinsky,” 19th-Century Music 10, no. 3
(1987): 265–86; Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions: A Biography of the Works through
“Mavra,” 2 vols. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996); and
“Stravinsky and the Subhuman,” in Defining Russia Musically (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1997), 360–467, especially 434–48.
4. For the octatonic in Bartók’s music, see Elliott Antokoletz, The Music of Béla
Bartók: A Study of Tonality and Progression in Twentieth-Century Music (Berkeley and
Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984); Richard Cohn, “Bartók’s Octatonic
Strategies: A Motivic Approach,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 44, no.
2 (1991): 262–300. The octatonic in Messiaen’s music appears by his own designa-
tion as mode 2 among his modes of limited transposition; see Messiaen, Technique de
mon langage musical (Paris: Alphonse Leduc, 1944), and Traité de rythme, de couleur, et
d’ornithologie, 7 vols. (Paris: Leduc, 1994–2002), especially vol. 7. Studies of these modes
Discussions of how particular composers have worked toward their own sig-
nature compositional styles often invoke the phrase “searching for a voice.”
“Voice,” in this context, usually means a characteristic and original constella-
tion of technical procedures in a variety of musical parameters such as rhythm,
pitch, timbre, and so on, often held together by the composer’s personal phi-
losophies of musical composition. The authors of the three previous essays, for
example, illustrate how Mamlok, Beecroft, and Tower have adapted serial or
octatonic principles of pitch organization to create distinct sonic worlds in
three of their compositions.
Inevitably, however, the notion of voice also connotes an expression of per-
sonal identity. The idea that the meanings of an aesthetic creation are to be
found in its creator’s identity has been vigorously contested since the mid-
twentieth century, most famously with Roland Barthes’s proclamation of the
“death of the author” in his eponymous essay of 1967.1 But the poststructur-
alist challenge to authorial identity paradoxically coincided with the rise of
feminist and cultural theories arguing that author’s identities were inevitably
inscribed in their artistic creations, even if those identities were multiple, over-
lapping, and mutable.2 In the next two essays, Judy Lochhead and Nancy
Rao examine interweavings of authorial identity and compositional tech-
nique in works by Sofia Gubaidulina and Chen Yi, revealing the significant
role of musical gesture in the creation of form and meaning.
In chapter 5, Lochhead explores Gubaidulina’s 1987 Second String
Quartet and questions of female authorial identity through the lenses of
Deleuzian and feminist theory. Her detailed analysis of the quartet illu-
minates Gubaidulina’s shaping of small-and large-scale musical gestures
through compositional nuances of timbre, articulation, pitch, register, and
dynamics. Most important, Lochhead examines the composer’s use of repeti-
tion and contrast, concluding that the quartet “musically thinks difference.”
99
Chapter 6, an analysis by Nancy Rao of Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2, pres-
ents a different perspective on identity, gesture, and musical composition. Rao
first explains how the symphony, written in 1993 to commemorate the death
of Chen Yi’s father, is replete with allusions to rhythmic percussion gestures
from Chinese opera called luogo dianzi, typically used to signify particu-
lar character traits or dramatic situations. In her analysis, Rao traces Chen
Yi’s use, development, and combination of these musical signifiers through-
out the work, illustrating how their interaction contributes to an overarching
symphonic narrative of spiritual transformation, from grief and despair at
the opening of the symphony to peace and transcendence at its close. More
broadly, Rao argues that Chen Yi’s transfer of these signifiers from Chinese
opera to Western symphony exemplifies her identity as a transnational com-
poser. Rao further contends that in the global multiculturalism of the early
twenty-first century, awareness of the cultural sources of musical gestures is
essential for both analyst and listener.
Notes
1. The literary critics W. K. Wimsatt and M. C. Beardsley first challenged the
idea that the author’s identity was relevant to the meaning of a work in their land-
mark article “The Intentional Fallacy,” Sewanee Review 54, no. 3 (July–September
1946): 468–88. Barthes’s “The Death of the Author” was first published in Aspen: The
Journal in a Box 5–6 (1967), but later more conventionally in Image—Music—Text,
ed. and trans. Stephen Heath (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1977), 142–48.
2. See chapter 1 (introduction), n. 15.
i. Biographical information about the composer is drawn from Michael Kurtz, Sofia
Gubaidulina: A Biography, trans. Christoph K. Lohmann, ed. Malcolm Hamrick Brown
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007); and Valentina Kholopova, “Gubaydulina, Sofiya
Asgatovna,” in Grove Music Online, ed. Deane L. Root, article updated January 31, 2002, http://
www.oxfordmusiconline.com.
ii. Sofia Gubaidulina, recorded interview with Elizabeth Wilson, cited in Wilson, Shostakovich:
A Life Remembered (London: Faber & Faber, 1994), 306. Italics in the original.
101
European folk instruments along with those of their own invention, such as
the “friction rods,” made of rubber balls attached to metal rods, featured in
her String Quartet No. 4.
Gubaidulina’s music came to the attention of the West with Gidon Kremer’s
performances of Offertorium, the violin concerto she had dedicated to him
and completed in 1980. Since then her powerful, expressively nuanced, and
often intensely spiritual music has attracted the attention and admiration of
performers, audiences, critics, and scholars. Her compositions range from
solo vocal and chamber to large-scale choral and symphonic works, many of
which have been commissioned and recorded by the world’s major artists and
ensembles, including the Kronos and Arditti Quartets, Anne-Sophie Mutter
and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic and
Boston Symphony Orchestras. Gubaidulina holds honorary doctorates from
Yale University and the University of Chicago and has received many inter-
national awards, including the Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement
at the 2013 Venice Biennale music festival. After the collapse of the USSR in
1991, Gubaidulina moved to Germany, where she resides today.
For Gubaidulina, “there is no more serious reason for composing music
than spiritual renewal,” an ideal more important to her than musical inno-
vation for its own sake: “The public strives for active spiritual work …
Listening to a musical composition … helps people restore themselves,
even though critics might give a negative evaluation because ‘there was
nothing new in this music.’”iii
Judy Lochhead
Difference requires artful negotiation for the woman who has chosen to
take on the authorial role of music composer. The composer who is female
must carefully control how her difference from male colleagues, in par-
ticular, is figured. She must hew out a place not only in which her compo-
sitional voice is heard as unique and hence different, but also in which her
compositions are heard as “just” music—not marked as an exemplar of an
identity group. Difference not only affirms originality but also serves as a
This was the first time in my life I set myself the task of realizing a
certain musical problem of great importance to me personally, not in a
large scale form but in a small scale one.
In the course of many years my attention has been persistently drawn
to an idea I call “Musical Symbolism.” This means that what appears as a
symbol (i.e. a knitting together of things of different significance) is not
some sound or other, nor yet a conglomeration of sounds, but the separate
constituent elements of a musical instrument or the properties of those ele-
ments. Specifically in this particular context, the discourse springs from the
difference between the means of extracting the normal sound from stringed
instruments and the means by which harmonics can be made to sound.
It is possible to consider the passage across this difference as a purely
mundane acoustical phenomenon and to make no particular issue out
of it. But it is just as possible to experience this phenomenon as a vital
and essential transition from one state to another.
And this is a highly specific aesthetic experience, the experience of
a symbol. It is just such an experience which distinguishes between
everyday time and true essential time, which distinguishes between
existence and essence.
Figure 5.1
Depiction of the overall design of Sofia Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2. Reproduced by
permission of Ji Yeon Lee.
swirling blue mass on the left depicts Part 1, the snaky green-yellow-orange
figure over the right depicts Part 2, and the dark blue–red rectangular figure
at the bottom right depicts the concluding passage. The map elegantly evokes
not only the timbral shadings and distinctions in the three parts of the quar-
tet, but also the gestural movements that inhabit them. My own, more tradi-
tionally analytical map, given as Figure 5.2, shows the three parts and labels
the types of functions that the music of each part enacts . I name each of
the three parts according to their function: Part 1, Reaching Out and Tethering;
Part 2, Reaching Up and Renewing; and Part 3, Affirmation. The processes of
each part entail significant amounts of simple musical repetition that reveals
difference. In the following, I explain in more detail the functions of the parts,
particularly as they are manifest in musical sounds, and demonstrate how the
musical details of the quartet effectively think the forces of sonic differing.
The Reaching Out and Tethering function of Part 1 arises from the
“reaching-out” gestures, which move above and below a generalized pitch
hub—a hub defined by G4—and the consequent tethering back to that hub
(to G4 or a close pitch, with some exceptions). This effect is created by
three types of events: (1) “Continuous-G” events—the continuous articu-
lation of G4 played with one of two timbral types: harmonic non vibrato
or ordinario vibrato; (2) “Inflections-of-G” events—inflections of G4 played
with five timbral types (ordinario vibrato, harmonic sul ponticello, ordinario
non vibrato, tremolo ordinario, and tremolo sul ponticello); and (3) “Reaching-
Out” tremolo gestures in the first violin and cello that move predominantly
by half-or whole-step linear movements above and below G4.16
The function of Reaching Out and Tethering depends on the Continuous-
G and Inflections-of-G types, which establish a kind of hub from which
the Reaching-Out gestures pull away and to which they tether back. The
Example 5.1
Rehearsal numbers 1–2, mm. 1–6
8 10 G4 G4 G4 G4 Same, 8 E♭5
offset
10 19 G4 G4 G4 G4 Mirror, 8 E♭5
offset
11 10 G4 G4 G4 G4 Mirror, 8 E♭5
offset
12 14 G4 G4 G4 G4 Same, 9 E♭5
offset
13 15 G4 G4 G4 G4 Same, 10 F5
offset
14 21 G4 G4 F5 A3 Mirror, 11 F♯5
offset
16 16 G4 G4 G5 G3 Mirror, 13 G♯5
together
of notes and the greater distance from the pitch hub in successive gestures.
The totality of the effect of these processes of differing and intensification
over Part 1 is suggested in Figure 5.5, which visually schematizes the over-
all function of Reaching Out and Tethering that manifests over Part 1 .
Time is depicted on the vertical axis with the beginning of the passage at
the bottom of the figure, and register on the horizontal axis, with the hub of
G4 as the middle column. The Inflections of G are shown as the horizontal
“stitches” across the column, and the Reaching-Out gestures emanate out
Figure 5.5
Part 1, Reaching Out and Tethering
from the G4 hub according to their intervallic distance from it. The lines at
the top of the G4 column are the meandering gestures by the second violin
and viola that conclude Part 1. The sense of tethering intensifies gradu-
ally over the course of the passage as the Reaching-Out gestures become
The mosaic design of Part 2’s initial stage (rehearsal numbers 21–25, mm.
45–67) is suggested by the layout in Figure 5.6 . All three types of events
are introduced initially (mm. 45–51), but then the progressive variation of each
type—entailing changes in pitch and register, timbre, texture, and duration, and
their continuous recombination—creates a mosaic-like sequence for Part 2.
The overall function of the part is characterized by two gestures that
emerge from the mosaic events. The Reaching-Up gesture is characterized
by chromatic ascent and occurs several times during Part 2. As shown by
the pitch names in boldface in Figure 5.6, the first Reaching-Up gesture
begins with the A4 in m. 58, occurring in both the Sonority and Cry events,
and rises chromatically to an F♯5 in m. 67. Since the notes of the Reaching-
Up gesture play a role in mosaic events, it effectively emerges from the
mosaic design, largely because of the force of the rising chromatic line.
The Renewing gesture (not shown in Figure 5.6) consists of a dyad of either
interval class 3 or 4, which because of either dynamic or textural emphasis has
the effect of renewing the overall ascent at various moments throughout Part 2.
This gesture is an element of the Sonority events, but because of its musical
emphasis, it takes on an added role—that of reinitiating upward passage.
As noted above, the overall Reaching Up and Renewing function of Part 2
is enacted through eight stages. Each stage begins with a Renewing ges-
ture, and all but two also entail occurrences of the Reaching-Up gesture.
As Figure 5.7 indicates, the upward trajectory of this passage spans three
octaves, from A4 through A7, but the upward ascent is not smooth—it stalls in
Stages 2 and 4 and is steeper in some stages (“steeper” being a function of time
and size of interval) . The Renewing gestures, also indicated in Figure 5.7,
mark the beginning of each stage of the trajectory, renewing afresh the sense
of progress upward. For instance, as the score excerpts of Example 5.4 show,
the Renewing gesture of Stage 2 (m. 67) is set off by texture and dynamics,
and the gesture of Stage 5 (m. 86) is set off by texture, register, the vibrato in
the viola and cello, and the dynamic swells in the violins. It is noteworthy that
the Renewing gestures initiate an upward chromatic ascent for each stage
with two exceptions: Stages 2 and 4. The Renewing gestures have the effect
of restarting the ascent, but in these two stages the ascent stalls.
The interactions of the mosaic events and Reaching-Up/Renewing ges-
tures enact the overall function of Reaching Up and Renewing. Tracing
these interactions in an abbreviated form, Figure 5.8 maps out their occur-
rences in order to suggest how the function emerges from the events and
gestures . As the figure suggests, each stage and each occurrence of the
events and gestures differs from the one preceding, such that an overall
process of differing characterizes the upward trajectory of the passage. In
other words, the repetitions of the chromatic ascent and of its renewal allow
the process of differing to become salient.
Example 5.5
Alternating sonorities, mm. 123–26
Concluding Remarks
Notes
Born in 1953 in Guangzhou, Chen Yi studied violin and piano in the con-
servatory system from the age of three and was exposed by her parents
to Western classical music.i Her family life changed dramatically with the
onset of China’s Cultural Revolution in 1966, and when she was 15 they were
separated from one another and sent to forced-labor assignments in differ-
ent parts of the country. Chen Yi was sent to the countryside in southern
China, where she helped to build military fortifications and grow rice.
For all the difficulties she endured during this time, Chen Yi found value
in her musical experiences. When she was 17 the local authorities appointed
her concertmaster of an orchestra comprising both Western and traditional
Chinese instruments that performed revolutionary Chinese operas, and
she credits the countryside experience with allowing her to encounter and
understand her Chinese cultural roots:
i. Biographical information about the composer is drawn from Grove Music Online, s.v. “Chen
Yi,” by Joanna C. Lee, article updated August 27, 2003, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com,
and “Chen Yi,” Theodore Presser Company, updated March 22, 2013, http://www.presser.com/
Composers/info.cfm?Name=ChenYi.
ii. Cited in John de Clef Piñero, “An Interview with Chen Yi,” accessed October 5, 2012, http://
www.newmusicon.org/v9n4/v94chen_yi.htm (web page discontinued).
127
In 1979 Chen Yi began composition studies at the Central Conservatory
of Music in Beijing, where the curriculum included both Western and tra-
ditional Chinese music, as well as field trips into rural China to collect
songs from local villagers, further sowing the seeds for the cross-cultural
fusion that would later characterize her music. In 1986 she became the first
woman to complete a master’s degree in composition in China, an event
that was celebrated by a concert of her orchestral works performed by the
Central Philharmonic Orchestra in Beijing.
After graduating, Chen Yi moved to New York to complete her doctorate
of musical arts at Columbia University, where she studied with Chou Wen-
chung and Mario Davidovsky. Her music—its distinctive style engaging a
wide range of musical traditions from fugue to serialism to American ver-
nacular, as well as everything from traditional Chinese ensembles to choirs,
orchestras, and symphonic bands—has attracted commissions by such
eminent performers as Yehudi Menuhin, Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, and Evelyn
Glennie. She has been recognized with numerous prizes, including the
Charles Ives Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters,
the Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the
ASCAP Concert Music Award, and a Guggenheim fellowship. She is also the
subject of two documentaries, the 1989 series Sound and Silence (ISCM/
Adamov Films) and a 2002 film entitled Chen Yi in America (A Cantonese in
New York) (Guangdong TV).
Currently teaching at the University of Missouri–Kansas City Conservatory
of Music and Dance, Chen Yi has also taught at the Peabody Conservatory
and from 2006 to 2015 served as Distinguished Visiting Professor at the
Beijing Central Conservatory of Music and Tianjin Conservatory of Music
in China.
Nancy Yunhwa Rao
Since musical gestures are inevitably culturally coded, and since Chen Yi’s
Symphony No. 2 draws on gestures and genres that traverse cultural and
national borders, questions arise about how to situate the composer herself
in the transnational context. There is no simple answer: the borderlines
in such late twentieth- century cross-cultural significations are formu-
lated in flexible and sometimes unexpected ways. For Chen Yi, immersed
since early childhood in Western classical music and having gone through
rigorous conservatory training and, later, doctoral studies in the United
States, knowledge of the European music tradition is firmly established.
At the same time, she is deeply rooted in Chinese traditional and con-
temporary music, cultivated through her experiences as a child growing
up with Cantonese opera and music around her, as a teenager receiving
“re-education” by being sent to live and labor in the countryside, as the
concertmaster playing in a revolutionary Chinese opera orchestra, and
as a conservatory student studying subjects of Chinese traditional music
Example 6.6b
Chinese opera percussion pattern leng chui
Example 6.7
CY theme in Chen Yi, Piano Concerto
The two primary musical gestures of agony and epiphany in Chen Yi’s sym-
phony first appear successively and in contrasting occurrences but eventu-
ally merge to effect an expressive transformation. If the opening darkness,
expressed by agony gestures, alludes to grief and torment, and the epiphany
gesture the sudden “sparkle” of a new vision, then the merging of the two rep-
resents a transformational process from the former through the latter to a new
sense of revelation. In the following discussion I describe how Chen Yi’s music
enacts this process throughout the three major sections of the symphony.
The first section (mm. 1–61) opens with repeated agony gestures, expressed
in dark and heavy timbres, and moves through a gradual expansion of reg-
ister, activity level, and volume before the bright, startling strokes of the
epiphany gesture intervene. These gestures provide a continuum against
which other musical materials are set, such as the melancholy tritone-
inflected melodies and the staggered ostinatos formed by twelve-tone row
fragments noted earlier. At times several elements are stacked up to create
a thickly textured sound mass, as for example in mm. 31–34 (not shown).
While recurrences of the agony gesture may sustain a listener’s visceral imi-
tation of relentless physical exertion at a constant level, successive entries
of the epiphany gesture work to surprise, echo, or interrupt. The CY theme
gradually becomes more central to this epiphany gesture, eventually creat-
ing the final ascending motion of the gesture in mm. 57–59. Gradually,
though, the differences between the agony and epiphany gestures subside,
and, as their musical features merge, they become one large combined ges-
ture leading to the climax of the symphony in the third section. This merg-
ing and augmentation is achieved in part through the common references
in both agony and epiphany gestures to the ji-ji-feng figure. As we have seen,
the agony gesture prolongs ji-ji-feng’s rapid strokes and opening crescendo;
the first segment of each epiphany gesture incorporates ji-ji-feng’s charac-
teristic beginning (quick strokes, with crescendo and accelerando, but this
time leading to a sharp downbeat).
The second section (mm. 61–165) alternates between arching melodies
and passages of tonal and timbral stasis. Again, the tritone-inflected melo-
dies have a prominent presence. The section begins with solo flute (recall-
ing the timbre and pitch inflections of the Chinese xiao [vertical bamboo
Example 6.9a
Chinese opera percussion pattern chongtou
with Chinese theater, but sensitive to the physical “feel” of the gesture, the
rhythmic gesture suggests an unrushed yet steady pace. Comprehending
the latter would perhaps be sufficient, as in Chen Yi’s words, the ending
“carries a mysterious dream toward the future.”29 This music’s solemn ref-
erence to chongtou crystallizes not only the composer’s ultimate homage to
her late father, to whom the symphony is dedicated, but also the integrity,
compassion, and unbounded optimism that he represented.
Conclusion
[The symphony’s] rhetorical force and dark beauty are undeniable. The
dramatic shape is a large, cresting wave, building up from glowering
primordial dissonances in the percussion and lower strings and gath-
ering mass and momentum as it goes. The piece’s crushing climax is
persuasively prepared by the dense accumulation of material that has
come before.33
Notes
1. Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2 was her first composition as the three-year resident
composer of the Women’s Philharmonic in San Francisco; the orchestra also produced
a recording. See Chen Yi, Symphony No. 2 (Bryn Mawr: Theodore Presser, 1993); and
Chen Yi, Symphony No. 2, on The Music of Chen Yi, Women’s Philharmonic, conducted
by JoAnn Falletta, New Albion Records NA 090, 1997, compact disc. More than twenty
graduate theses or dissertations have been written about Chen Yi’s music. Representative
works include Wendy Hoi-Yan Wong, “Recurrence as Identity in Chen Yi’s Music” (MPh
thesis, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007); Wendy Wan- Ki Lee, “Unpacking
Aspects of Musical Influence in Three Piano Works by Chinese Composers” (PhD diss.,
University of Michigan, 2006); Xiaole Li, “Chen Yi’s Piano Music: Chinese Aesthetics
and Western Models” (PhD diss., University of Hawai’i, 2003); and Xin Guo, “Chinese
Musical Language Interpreted by Western Idioms: Fusion Process in the Instrumental
works by Chen Yi” (PhD diss., Florida State University, 2002). Though none of these
studies treats issues of musical gesture directly, Xin Guo discusses at length the shape of
Symphony No. 2 in terms of registral choices, timbre, and texture.
2. Suzanne Cusick, “Feminist Theory, Music Theory, and the Mind/ Body
Problem,” Perspectives of New Music 32, no. 1 (1994): 8– 27; Andrew Mead, “Bodily
Hearing: Physiological Metaphors and Musical Understanding,” Journal of Music Theory
43, no. 1 (1999): 1–19.
3. Naomi Cumming, The Sonic Self: Musical Subjectivity and Signification (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 2000), in particular pp. 190–94. In their study, Daphne Leong
and David Korevaar focus on the “feel” of musical gestures in the performance situation.
See “The Performer’s Voice: Performance and Analysis in Ravel’s Concerto pour la main
gauche,” Music Theory Online 11, no. 3 (2005), http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.05.11.3/
mto.05.11.3.leong_korevaar.html.
4. David Lidov, “Mind and Body in Music,” Semiotica 66, no. 1 (1987): 69–97; Lidov,
“Emotive Gesture in Music and its Contraries,” in Music and Gesture, ed. Anthony
Gritten and Elaine King (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 24–44; Robert Hatten, Interpreting
Musical Gestures and Tropes (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004); and Arnie
Cox, “Hearing, Feeling, Grasping Gestures,” in Gritten and King, eds., Music and
Gesture, 45–60.
5. Nancy Yunhwa Rao, “Sonic Imaginary after the Cultural Revolution,” in Listening
to China’s Cultural Revolution: Music, Politics, and Cultural Continuities, ed. Paul Clark,
Laikwan Pang, and Tsan-huang Tsai (London: Palgrave, 2015), 213–38.
6. Here I use Edward Said’s concept and terms to describe Chen Yi’s position; Said,
Reflections on Exile and Other Essays (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000),
186. I have also addressed the issues of cultural boundaries more fully in a separate essay,
“Cultural Boundary and Intercultural Memories: Recent Works of Tan Dun, Chen Yi,
and Bright Sheng,” in Contemporary Music in East Asia, ed. Hee Sook Oh (Seoul: Seoul
National University Press, 2014), 211–40.
In the final three essays, voices proliferate, both literally and figuratively, and
identity takes on new meaning as words and music are combined. In vocal
works for unaccompanied soprano and mezzo-soprano duet; soprano and
piano; and tenor, chorus, and orchestra, the respective compositional voices of
Kaija Saariaho, Libby Larsen, and Elisabeth Lutyens intertwine with those of
poets and singers, both female and male. In music with text, whose voices do
we hear, and whose identities are conveyed?
The concept of polyvocality animates John Roeder’s examination of
Saariaho’s 1988 cycle of vocal duets From the Grammar of Dreams, based
on writings of Sylvia Plath. Saariaho views the cycle as a multivoiced rep-
resentation of a single identity, describing the soprano and mezzo-soprano
parts as “two voices … which are as if the same person.”1 In his essay Roeder
carefully traces the interweaving of these voices in the third song, illuminat-
ing Saariaho’s artful superpositions of multiple meters and tonalities through
detailed analysis of the motivic, tonal, registral, and metric relationships
between soprano and mezzo. Finally, he considers the possible implications
of the song’s polyvocality in light of feminist theories of “double-voicedness,”
and of the composer’s own “cultivation of a distinctively feminine identity” in
her music.
Libby Larsen’s understanding that her vocal settings reflect her own beliefs,
as well as her interpretation of the poet’s text, provides the starting point for
Brenda Ravenscroft’s essay in chapter 8 on Larsen’s 1997 song cycle Chanting
to Paradise, for soprano and piano. Her examination of “Bind Me” and
“In This Short Life” shows how Larsen’s adaptation and reconstruction of
Emily Dickinson’s poems in her musical settings further blur the distinctions
between the identities of the poet and the poem and those of the composer
and the composition. Analyzing Larsen’s symbolic use of constrained pitch-
class, intervallic, rhythmic, and gestural materials in her intimate settings,
153
Ravenscroft argues that not only do the songs mirror the verbal nuances and
possible meanings of Dickinson’s poetry, but also the relations between the
composer and poet, resonating with feminist concerns of power and escape,
and with the role of the woman composer in contemporary society.
In the final chapter, Laurel Parsons considers Elisabeth Lutyens’s Essence
of Our Happinesses (1968), for tenor, chorus, and orchestra. In contrast with
the voices of female poets and singers in Saariaho and Larsen’s compositions,
Lutyens sets male-authored texts for a male soloist (sometimes supported
by a mixed chorus). But her own voice is still unmistakable, particularly in
her choice of text for the second movement: a meditation by John Donne on
the nature of time and human happiness that echoed her own regrets as a
woman in her sixties looking back on her life. During the first section of the
movement, tenor and chorus sing Donne’s text. But, as Parsons shows, in the
short instrumental dance that follows the orchestra itself voices the temporal
imagery of Donne’s meditation through Lutyens’s irregular juxtapositions of
fleeting melodic motives and gestures against a relentlessly ticking ostinato.
Note
1. Kaija Saariaho, “Kaija Saariaho on her From the Grammar of Dreams,” article pub-
lished February 29, 2012, http://www.carnegiehall.org/BlogPost.aspx?id=4294984862.
i. See for example Vesa Kankaanpää, “Displaced Time: Transcontextual References to Time in
Kaija Saariaho’s Stilleben,” Organised Sound 1, no. 2 (August 1996): 87–92; Damien Pousset,
Joshua Fineberg, and Ronan Hyacinthe, “The Works of Kaija Saariaho, Philippe Hurel and
Marc-André Dalbavie—Stile Concertato, Stile Concitato, Stile Rappresentativo,” Contemporary
Music Review 19, no. 3 (2000): 67–110; and Tim Howell with Jon Hargreaves and Michael Rofe,
eds., Kaija Saariaho: Visions, Narratives, Dialogues (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011).
ii. Biographical information on the composer is drawn from Pirkko Moisala, Kaija Saariaho
(Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2009).
iii. Ibid., 9.
155
attended a course at IRCAM in Paris that she felt she had found the ideal
environment for the development of her musical ideas, and in 1982 Paris
became her permanent home. Saariaho spent several years at IRCAM
experimenting with technology and timbre and producing such works as
her tape piece Vers le blanc (1982), as well as several compositions combin-
ing acoustic instruments with live electronics.
In the 1990s Saariaho’s music moved into a new phase, characterized by
greater expressivity and rhythmic activity. Her violin concerto, Graal théâtre
(1995), was composed for Gidon Kremer, and 1996 saw the composition
of two works for the soprano Dawn Upshaw, Château de l’âme and Lonh,
for soprano and electronics. Many other collaborations and commissions
have followed, for orchestras such as the New York, Los Angeles, and Berlin
Philharmonics, the Orchestre de Paris, the Boston Symphony and the
Cleveland Orchestra. Her first opera, L’amour de loin (2000), was staged by
Peter Sellars at the Salzburg Festival and won her the Grawemeyer Award
for Music Composition in 2003.iv Her music has also been recognized by
the Prix Ars Electronica, the Nordic Council Music Prize, the Léonie Sonning
Music Prize, and, in 2013, the Polar Music Prize.
John Roeder
iv. Two additional operas, Adriana Mater and Emilie, were premiered in 2006 and 2010
respectively.
(a)
(b)
and because there are some clear instances of sets related by transposition
or inversion.9 Indeed, the timing and ordering of related sets support hear-
ing m. 10 as an important articulation in the flow of the music, just as do
the changes in registral behavior, imitation, and density at that moment
(recall Example 7.2). This is the moment that initiates the repetition of sets
introduced earlier. Also, the intense activity preceding m. 10 interlocks two
types of tetrachords, 0236 and 0135, whose other instances are organized
similarly, as shown by Example 7.3b. For both series of tetrachords, two
sets related by T3 are linked by I9 to two other instances of the same set
class, themselves linked by I9. Before they entangle, only 0236 is present
(in m. 5); after m. 10, only 0135.
Some recurrences associate words of the poem. For example, the 0147
type {F♯ , B, C, E ♭} sets both “drunk” and the soprano’s “asks nothing.” Also,
the final four notes, {F, F♯ , A ♯ , B}, setting “nothing of life,” reprise the tet-
rachord that set “the claw” at the start of the song, linking those allusions
to death. There are no other instances of this 0156 set class, and these two
have exactly the same pitches except for A ♯ , which appears an octave lower
at the end. The significance of this change will be discussed below.
The music is not as harmonically diverse as the numerous labels seem to
assert; to the contrary, they unify the song by maintaining a fairly constant
collection of intervals. Only six of the 29 tetrachord classes (counting the
two all-interval sets as different) contain the four ics of the opening set, 1,
4, 5, and 6. All six appear prominently. All the other tetrachords shown in
Example 7.2 also include ics 1, 4, and either 5 or 6. This consistency also mani-
fests more concretely in the similar dyadic organization of different passages;
for instance, mm. 7–8, 10–12, and 15–18 all feature the dyads {D, E ♭}, {G, A},
and {F♯, B}, even though those are combined into various tetrachords. Some
dyadic repetitions are associated with formal articulations: for instance, the
ordered dyad <E ♭, C> marks section beginnings at mm. 5, 12, and 15.
These overarching interval and pitch continuities are articulated by con-
trasts between simultaneous or successive tetrachords, which also clarify
texture or suggest harmonic progression. For example, a series of such con-
trasts at m. 5 breaks the voices’ initial entwinement within {F, F♯, A ♯, B}: first,
the singers shift to new notes (notably <E ♭, C>); then they present two ics (2
and 3) that were lacking in the opening tetrachord; and finally, they diverge
completely from each other in pc content and register. Changes to previously
unheard types of tetrachords also mark all other important registral, imita-
tive, and textural articulations (which correspond to syntactic articulations in
the poem): 0157 at m. 10, 0147 at m. 12, and 0237 at m. 15. Lastly, the sudden
change during the final text phrase “nothing of life” (mm. 15–16) from one
dyad pair, {{E ♭, C}, {D, G}}, to a completely different one, {{B, F♯}, {F, A ♯}},
dramatically highlights the return of the opening tetrachord.
the stem direction indicating the voice that sings it; attacks with stems
across both staves contribute to both streams. During mm. 10–11, a pulse
stream on the top staff arises from the recurring eighth notes, while the
regularly repeated peak on E ♭5, indicated by brackets over the staff, cre-
ates a sense of meter. Meanwhile, six attacks alternate between F♯/G ♭ 4 and
B4. They are not exactly regular—the second attack is a trifle early, and
the sixth attack quite delayed, like a ritardando—but can nevertheless be
perceived essentially as the five-sixteenth pulse shown in gray below the
staff. Its strong beats (on the F♯ s, recalling mm. 1–4) have the same tempo
as the other’s E ♭ strong beats but do not coincide with them. At m. 12 the
pulse streams change, each dividing the same time span differently. The
changing stem directions on each staff make it clear how, across the entire
Libby Larsen (b. 1950) is arguably one of the most prolific American com-
posers of today, having written over five hundred compositions ranging
from song cycles to an impressive 15 operas.i As a child growing up in
Minneapolis, where she still lives, Larsen studied piano and voice, gaining a
range of vocal perspectives through her participation in school choirs and,
later, as the singer in a rock band. She attended a Catholic school, where
she sang Gregorian chant and learned about music as a symbolic language
in the tradition of the medieval quadrivium.
i. Biographical information about the composer is drawn from Tina Milhorn Stallard, “Libby
Larsen,” in Women of Influence: Nine Contemporary American Composers, ed. Michael K. Slayton
(Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2010), 191–250, and Larsen’s official biography, available from
her website at http://libbylarsen.com, accessed August 12, 2014.
ii. Stallard, “Libby Larsen,” 203–4.
176
Early in her career Larsen decided she wanted to work independently
as a freelance composer, and one of her first professional successes was
her appointment as composer-in-residence with the Minnesota Orchestra
(1983–87), the first such position offered to a woman by any major American
orchestra. She has collaborated with orchestras and soloists from around
the world, and has held residencies with the California Institute of the Arts,
the Philadelphia School of the Arts, the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of
Music, the Arnold Schoenberg Institute, and the Charlotte and Colorado
Symphony Orchestras. Her works have been recorded on more than 50 CDs.
Among Larsen’s major prizes and honors are the Eugene McDermott
Award in the Arts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a
Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Academy of Arts and
Letters, and the Harissios Papamarkou Chair in Education at the Library of
Congress, the latter in recognition of her dedication to the cause of school
music education.
Larsen sees herself as a distinctly American composer, in the tradition of
Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland. She believes her music should be
relevant to the society she lives in and draws on America’s cultural heritage
for musical ideas, turning to its literature and poetry for her many vocal
settings. Her lifelong fascination with the interrelationships between music
and language is reflected in her “text-driven” approach to vocal composi-
tion, the music of which she derives from close study of the rhythms and
meanings of the libretto’s text on almost a word-by-word basis.iii
Brenda Ravenscroft
iii. Philip Kennicott, “Text Message,” Opera News 73, no. 2 (2008), 34–35.
Transcending the bonds
In her program notes for Chanting to Paradise, Larsen describes the central
theme of “Bind me—I still can sing” as a spiritual conundrum in which
“the spirit, bound by life’s challenges, is made stronger, more hopeful, and
more infinitely true, through steadfast being.”11
Dickinson Larsen
Slay—and my Soul shall rise Slay slay slay—and my Soul shall rise
my Soul shall rise
Chanting to Paradise— Chanting to Paradise—
Still thine— Still thine. Still thine. Still thine.
line. In essence, very little pitch or rhythm is able to escape.”17 In contrast, the
vowel i, like the speaker’s spirit, is freed from its limitations in the second part
of the phrase, where an emphatic “I” initiates a lyrical phrase that ends with a
melismatic flourish in rubato sixteenth notes on the word “sing.”
This setting of “bind me” introduces two important pitch elements—t he
descending semitone (especially <D5, C ♯5>) and the interval class to which
it belongs, ic1. Over the duration of the short song, Larsen focuses melodic
attention on the descending semitone motive to connect each word describ-
ing an act of oppression, as shown in Example 8.2.
Example 8.2
Semitone motive and pitch connections
Example 8.3
Pitch interval 11 in the setting of “banish”
Example 8.4b
Intervallic materials in the setting of “sing”
After outlining the piano’s <D5, E ♭ 4> dyad, an ascending whole-tone run
in the voice is followed by a four-note stepwise descending figure consist-
ing of two semitones enclosing a whole step, <-1, -2, -1>. This combination
figure, which I will refer to as “motive x,” is imitated in the piano’s left
hand in m. 5—t hree octaves lower and rhythmically intensified to a triplet
sixteenth figure—and plays a significant role later in the song.
Of particular interest is a passage in the emotionally charged center of
the song, the setting of the words “slay, slay, slay” (Example 8.5) , where
Larsen assembles the different pitch elements that unify the song and
draws explicit connections to earlier materials.
The passage opens with a statement of motive x in the piano’s right hand,
which is mirrored in the left hand by a rhythmically identical, melodically
inverted form of the motive. The sustained {A ♭ 4, G ♭ 4} dyad on which the
motives converge prepares the entry of the voice on A ♭ 4 while emphasiz-
ing the whole-tone intervallic element. Comparison of this passage with
the opening measure, shown in Example 8.4a, reveals several significant
connections. The wide leap in the piano’s left hand from F1 to B2 recalls,
“In this short Life,” the poem chosen by Larsen for the second song of the
cycle, is characterized by brevity and formal balance. Consisting of a single
two-line sentence, the poem ends with a full rhyme (“hour,” “power”), cre-
ating closure. The stability of the poem’s formal structure is reinforced by
its metrical symmetry, each line articulating five iambic feet.
Example 8.6
Primary pitch and rhythmic patterns in “In this short Life”
The second stanza of the song parallels the first musically, reflecting the
parallel construction of the first two stanzas of Larsen’s text. Both piano
and voice present the material of the first stanza transposed up a second,
with only minor variations occurring in the vocal part on the words “how
little” (see Example 8.10 below).
Example 8.7
Polyrhythm between voice and piano
Example 8.8
Fundamental unit, m. 1 and m. 5
Piano C/B♭ C/B♭ B/A D/C D/C C/B♭ A/G A/G E/free E/D C♯/B B/A A/G E/free
(RH/LH)
B♭1 pedal
The relative stability of the first two stanzas comes to an abrupt end in
the piano interlude leading to the third stanza, which introduces dramatic
changes to set up the culminating stanza of the song (see Example 8.9).
The fundamental unit is replaced in m. 17 by contrary motion runs that
rapidly extend the register from the center of the piano’s range up to A5 in
the right hand and a low B ♭ 1 pedal in the left. The total piano range, which
has been maintained at only 16 semitones (a major tenth) within each state-
ment of the fundamental unit, expands to 47 semitones, a span of nearly
four octaves. The significance of this moment is intensified by a crescendo
to f, the loudest dynamic level so far in the song, and, once the right hand
resumes its basic pattern in m. 18, by the addition of an inner-voice melody
in the left hand that imitates the pitch and rhythm of the opening vocal
melody, shown in Example 8.6.
Example 8.9
Piano interlude, mm. 17–19
After the mesmerizing repetitive patterns of the first two verses, these
changes in register, dynamics, and texture serve to alert the listener to the
imminent arrival of the climactic third stanza, in which the forces of oppo-
sition are brought together in an uneasy union.
The third stanza begins much like the first two, with the piano and
voice patterns transposed up another second (albeit with the right hand
displaced up an octave and the B ♭ 1 pedal lingering for the first four state-
ments); but now Larsen destabilizes the piano patterns, frequently trans-
posing and sometimes truncating or fragmenting the fundamental unit
as the singer vacillates between “much” and “little.” The volatility of the
third stanza is apparent from the diagram in Table 8.1, which provides an
overall “tonal” plan for the song showing the different pitch-c lass levels
at which the fundamental unit occurs (identified by the pitch classes
of the first notes in each hand) and the number of statements.23 (The
opening vocal pitch of each stanza is included to indicate how the voice
parallels the piano patterns.) To avoid unnecessary clutter, I have not
indicated register for the piano; with the exception of the right-hand “E”
pattern at the start of the third stanza, which is displaced into the C5
register, all fundamental units are located in the central piano register
between C3 and C5.
Example 8.10
Comparison of settings of “much” and “little”: (a) mm. 5–8; (b) mm. 13–16; (c) mm. 22–26
(a)
(b)
(c)
These analyses of “Bind me” and “In this short Life” elucidate the compo-
sitional tools Larsen employs to illuminate the details of sonic and verbal
patterns and to convey, on a symbolic level, her nuanced understanding
of the meaning of each poem. While music and text mirror each other
in multiple ways, it is intriguing to consider whether there is a similar
mirroring between the composer and the poet. Certainly Larsen’s posi-
tion as a female composer in a male-dominated profession resonates with
Dickinson’s status as a female poet in the patriarchal nineteenth-century
literary world. Although Larsen feels that her sex was not an issue when
she chose to become a composer, she has acknowledged that little has
changed to make the musical environment more welcoming for women.25
Suggesting that there are few role models to help young women “to envi-
sion their whole lives as composers,” she also recognizes that female con-
ductors “rarely move up the ladder” and that “the compositional canon is
overwhelmingly male.”26
Notes
1. The letter is reproduced in Appendix A of Killam, “Women Working: An Alternative
to Gans,” Perspectives of New Music 31, no. 2 (Summer 1993): 230–51. Killam’s is currently
the only analytical article in print about Larsen’s music, a fact that seems incongruent
with the range of Larsen’s compositional output and her status as a widely performed
contemporary American composer. Her music has, however, received a fair amount
of attention over the past decade in the form of doctoral dissertations, many of which
illuminate aspects of her vocal works. Examples include Gregory Paul Zavracky, “Libby
Larsen’s ‘My Antonia’: The Song Cycle and the Tonal Landscape of the American Prairie”
(DMA diss., Boston University, 2014); Christi Marie McLain, “Libby Larsen’s ‘Margaret
Songs’: A Musical Portrait of Willa Cather’s Margaret Elliot” (DMA diss., Arizona
State University, 2013); Christy L. Wisuthseriwong, “Libby Larsen’s ‘De toda la etern-
idad’: Creating Infinity through the Words of Sor Juana Inéz de la Cruz” (DMA diss.,
University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2011); Juline Barol-Gilmore, “‘Beloved, Thou
Hast Brought Me Many Flowers’ and ‘Sifting through the Ruins’: An Analysis of Two
Chamber Song Cycles by Libby Larsen” (DMA diss., University of Nevada, Las Vegas,
2010); and Angela R. Day, “A Performer’s Guide to Libby Larsen’s Try Me, Good King: Last
Words of the Wives of Henry VIII” (DMA diss., Louisiana State University and Agricultural
and Mechanical College, 2008).
2. Edward T. Cone, “Poet’s Love or Composer’s Love?” in Music and Text: Critical
Inquiries, ed. Steven Paul Sacher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 182.
3. David Lewin, Studies in Music with Text (Oxford and New York: Oxford University
Press, 2006), xii.
4. Lawrence Kramer, Music and Poetry: The Nineteenth Century and After (Berkeley and
Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984), 126–29.
5. Larsen has used both poetry and prose writing by women for her vocal works. In
addition to Dickinson, she has set poems by Sor Juana Inéz de la Cruz and Elizabeth
Barrett Browning, while her settings of prose have drawn on writings by Brenda Ueland,
Willa Cather, and Virginia Woolf. The texts for Try Me, Good King: Last Words of the Wives
of Henry VIII (2000) are taken from the queens’ letters and gallows speeches.
6. Susan Chastain, “A Conversation with Libby Larsen: A Transcription of a Taped
Telephone Interview from April 17, 1995,” International Alliance for Women in Music
Journal 2, no. 3 (February 1996): 5.
7. Ibid.
8. Libby Larsen, “Double Joy,” American Organist 18 (March 1984): 50.
9. Jo Gill explains that Dickinson was “deeply exercised by huge abstract questions of
life and death, faith and despair, love and loss”; Women’s Poetry (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 2007), 100. The brooding presence of Dickinson’s existential struggles
in her poetry, combined with the metrical freedom of her verse, help to explain why
her poems hold such great appeal for twentieth-and twenty-first-century composers: the
compelling intensity of their subjects and their temporal and rhythmic fluidity resonate
with contemporary preoccupations. A small sample of composers who have set poems
i. Stephen Banfield, The Blackwell History of Music in Britain, vol. 6, The Twentieth Century, ed.
Stephen Banfield (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), 488.
ii. Biographical information is taken primarily from Meirion Harries and Susie Harries, A
Pilgrim Soul: The Life and Work of Elisabeth Lutyens (London: Michael Joseph, 1989).
196
exceptions of O Saisons, O Châteaux!, Op. 13, a lush setting for soprano
and strings of a poem by Arthur Rimbaud (1946), and her Motet (Excerpta
Tractati Logico-Philosophici), Op. 27 (1954), based on the philosophical writ-
ings of Ludwig Wittgenstein.
The well-received 1962 premiere of Quincunx for soprano, baritone, and
orchestra marked a breakthrough for Lutyens in terms of public recogni-
tion, and for the rest of the decade she enjoyed the greatest successes
of her career. She often lectured at the Dartington Summer School and,
through teaching or encouragement, influenced a new generation of com-
posers including Robert Saxton, Malcolm Williamson, and Allison Bauld, as
well as the so-called Manchester School of Alexander Goehr, Peter Maxwell
Davies, and Harrison Birtwistle.
Despite Lutyens’s reputation as a twelve-tone composer and the fact
that many row charts can be found in her papers, analysis of her scores
shows that even when she did begin from a row of standard length, she
was rarely as systematic in her treatment of the row as the term implies.
Rows served as sources for melodic motives as often as they were used
in their entirety, and she put more trust in her aural instincts than in
systems.
In 1969 Lutyens was named Commander of the British Empire by Queen
Elizabeth II, and ten years later she was given a lifetime achievement award
from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, which cited
her as “one of the small number of British composers who has worked
successfully in the advanced idioms of the twentieth century.”iii She died
in 1983.
Laurel Parsons
Part 1 Title The Mi’raj of Abū Yazīd Their Criticall Dayes Enfin, ô bonheur
As noted earlier, the passage to which Lutyens refers comes from Devotion
14 of his Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, written while he was recover-
ing from a near-fatal illness. Lutyens set almost the entire devotion as the
centerpiece of Essence of Our Happinesses, which accounts for its extended
length.
For the outer movements, Lutyens was inspired in her choice of texts
by R. C. Zaehner’s book Mysticism Sacred and Profane: An Inquiry into
Some Varieties of Praeternatural Experience (1957), an explicit refutation of
Aldous Huxley’s claim in The Doors of Perception that mescaline-induced
psychedelic states were equivalent in nature and value to the transcendent
experiences described by religious mystics.4 Zaehner compares accounts of
altered states of mind by mystics, poets, users of psychotropic drugs (him-
self included), and the mentally ill. Lutyens was struck by the similarities
he points out between Abū Yazīd and Rimbaud:
While Zaehner himself never explicitly addresses the subject of time in his
book, Lutyens perceived a shared temporal dimension between the texts of
the two writers:
for example in mm. 55–56, where the three quarter-note beats of each mea-
sure are subdivided into four and five equal units respectively). Although
no regular meter is established in this part of the movement, the tenor’s
frequent returns to the opening passage nevertheless create recurring
moments of temporal focus.
The passage shown in Example 9.2 returns periodically throughout the
movement, setting important text phrases (“Before you sound that word
present or that Monosyllable, now, the present, and the Now, is past,” “If we
consider Eternity into that, Tyme never entered. Eternity is not an everlast-
ing flux of tyme …”), and with B3 highlighting important words such as
“present,” “past,” “now,” “tyme,” and “eternity.” It also brings the vocal sec-
tion of the movement to a close, the last B3 melisma lending poignancy to
Example 9.3
Opening choral passage, mm. 1–18. Reproduced by permission of University of York Music Press.
After the long vocal section of the movement delivers a compelling setting
of Donne’s text, the brief orchestral choros in effect acquires a “voice” of its
own, offering a wordless commentary on the three ideas embedded in the
text that drew Lutyens’s attention: the dependence of human happiness on
time; the illusory forward motion of time’s “three stations, past, present,
and future” and its impossible “Now”; and the notion of time as a “short
parenthesis in a longe period.”
From the moment the choros begins, its most aurally salient character-
istic is the {A ♭3, B ♭3} eighth-note simultaneity in marimba and harp that
forms the “clock-like ostinato” to which Lutyens refers in her program
notes. Played without interruption at a constant dynamic level of piano
and a constant tempo of 108 eighth notes per minute, this insistent series
of pulses represents the only temporally predictable element in all three
movements of Essence of Our Happinesses. Against it, small instrumental
groups take turns in stating short motives or ideas, usually no more than
twice. A third layer, rhythmically linked to some degree with these motives,
is provided by the claves. Example 9.4 shows this three-layer structure for
the first six measures of the choros.
There are ten such motives, shown below in Example 9.5 in order of
appearance. While some of these motives display a distinctive melodic
profile (for example, motive d in mm. 11–13), others are little more than
Example 9.4
“Chronikos,” orchestral reduction, mm. 1–6
J 27–33 Flute, violin, viola 36 1 6 <7, 6, 5, 4, 3> fff, ff, f, mf, mp, p
Donne, by this time dean of St. Paul’s, would often have preached of the
Christian preference for the heavenly eternity that awaited the faithful after
death over this earthly life bound by time. His rejection of “Tyme” in favour of
“Eternity” is reflected in the relation of the choros to the first, sung half of the
second movement, with its metrically untethered delivery of the text floating
along in the seemingly unmeasured manner of plainchant. The two parts of
the movement thus exemplify Donne’s distinction between “Eternity” and
“Tyme,” a distinction that on a broader scale structures the work as a whole.
Conclusion
Is time a line? A circle? A river into which we cannot step twice? I raise
these perennial questions because the problem of how to conceive of time
geometrically was one that Lutyens herself puzzled over and addressed in
her music. As early as 1954 her music theater piece Infidelio told a love
story beginning with a woman’s suicide and moving backward through
time to her first meeting with her lover. Her unpublished opera “The
{ }—indicate an unordered set, i.e. a set whose elements may occur in varying order or
simultaneously.
< >—indicate an ordered set, i.e. a set whose elements are listed in the order in which
they occur.
acciaccatura—an ornament in which a principal, accented note is preceded by another
very quick, unaccented note either a semitone or whole tone below or above it.
Generally indicated by a small slashed eighth note.
aggregate—the complete set of all 12 pitch classes.
aleatory—a form of composition in which the composer relinquishes control over one
or more elements, for example by using dice to decide the order of pitch classes, or
allowing performers to choose the order in which they play the sections of a piece.
anacrusis—a relatively unaccented note, or group of notes, that begins a phrase and
leads to the downbeat of the next measure. Also known as an “upbeat” or “pickup.”
attack—the onset (beginning) of a sound.
attack density—the rate at which attacks occur within a given time span.
complement—for any group of elements (usually pitch classes) that is part of a larger
set, the group of remaining elements needed to complete the set. For example, in
music where the total set of pitch classes is the entire chromatic collection, the com-
plement of the six-note whole-tone set {C, D, E, F♯, G♯, A♯} is the other six-note whole-
tone set {D♭, E♭, F, G, A, B}.
complementation mod 6—the principle of complementation described above, but
involving a total of 6 elements rather than 12.
duration series—an ordered set of note durations, usually recurring in various contexts
and transformations throughout a composition.
durational potential—the listener’s sensation that an event that is just beginning will
have a particular duration.
dyad—a group of two different notes, played sequentially or simultaneously.
foreground—a term generalized from Schenkerian analysis referring to the most
immediately perceptible layer of a musical composition.
gesture—the synthesis of a sequence of notes or other elements into a single, indivisible
temporal gestalt.
hemiola—a metric device, usually across two measures of triple meter, in which the
shifting of accents from <1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3> to <1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3> creates the impression
of a faster duple meter (<1, 2>, <3, 1>, <2, 3>) or a broader triple meter (<1, 3, 2>).
[Note: Boldfaced type indicates accents.]
heptachord—a group of seven different notes, played sequentially, simultaneously, or
in some combination of these.
hermeneutics—the theory and practice of interpreting a verbal or nonverbal text.
hexachord—a group of six different notes, played sequentially, simultaneously, or in
some combination of these.
hexachordal combinatoriality— the relationship between two simultaneous row
forms such that the first hexachords of each row are complementary to each other,
as are the second hexachords. In this way, twelve-tone aggregates are formed both
horizontally, by each individual row, and vertically, by the combinations of the comple-
mentary hexachords.
hexatonic system—a term referring to the hexachordal set class (014589), which has
been favored by many twentieth-century composers because of its high degree of
symmetry.
I-ordering—an inversion or mirror image of a given series such that the order and size
of intervals between pitch classes are maintained, but the contour is reversed. For
example, two possible inversions or I-orderings of the pitch class series <C, E♭, D> are
<C, A, B♭> and <D, B, C>.
integral serialism—a form of serial composition in which aspects such as rhythmic
durations, dynamics, and articulations, as well as pitch, are organized into ordered
rows of elements. See also serialism.
inter-onset interval—the time span between the onsets (attacks) of two sequential
sounds or groups of sounds.
interval—see pitch interval and pitch-class interval.
interval class (ic)—the shortest distance between two pitch classes, measured in semi-
tones. See also pitch-class interval.
invariance—the preservation of one or more pitch classes between an original set and
a particular transposition, inversion, or other transformation of that set. For example,
the transposition of the set {F, G, A, B} by two semitones is {G, A, B, C♯}, and the
invariance between the two sets is the smaller set (or invariant subset) {G, A, B}.
inversion—the process of “flipping” a pitch or pitch-class set such that the order of
intervals is maintained, but the direction in which the intervals were originally mea-
sured is inverted (reversed). For example, two possible inversions of the pitch set <C4,
E♭4, D4> are <C4, A3, B♭3> and <D4, B3, C4>.
matrix—in twelve-tone theory, a 12 × 12 representation of the transpositions and inver-
sions of a row, usually with transpositions read from left to right and inversions from
top to bottom.
melisma—several notes sung to a single syllable.
moment form— a structural (or antistructural) principle introduced by Karlheinz
Stockhausen in which the sections of a work are to be experienced as present, inde-
pendent units (moments) equal to each other in importance, and whose order is
inconsequential.
motive—a short, recognizable melodic or rhythmic figure that recurs throughout a com-
position, either in its original form or varied in some way.
neo-Riemannian—a branch of music theory based on the transformational principles
introduced by the nineteenth-century theorist Hugo Riemann, developed and math-
ematically systematized since the 1980s by David Lewin and others.
222 Glossary
normal order (or normal form)—the most compact ordering of a pitch-class set. For
example, the normal order of the pitch-class set {F, B, E} is <B, E, F>.
octatonic—an eight-note scale that divides the octave into alternating whole tones and
semitones, either <2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2> or <1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1>. Owing to the intervallic sym-
metry of the scale, there are only three distinct octatonic collections.
ordered set—a group of elements (e.g., pitches, rhythmic durations) listed in order of
their occurrence in the music. In this book, ordered sets are enclosed in angle brack-
ets, e.g., <C4, F♯4, G4>. See also unordered set.
ostinato—a repeating rhythmic or melodic figure.
P-ordering—the original (“prime”) ordering of elements in a series such as a tone row
or duration series.
permutation—a reordering of the elements in a set.
phoneme—the smallest sound element of a syllable.
pitch—a specific frequency, usually designated by its musical letter name, and a number
representing its register. This book adopts the Acoustical Society of America conven-
tion, where A0 is the lowest key on the piano, C1 the lowest C on the piano, and the
register numbers increase with every subsequent C (e.g., C4 = middle C).
pitch class (pc)—a group of all pitches related by octave and enharmonic transposition,
designated by a musical letter name. For example, pitch class B♭ includes all possible
B♭s and A♯s. In post-tonal music the 12 pitch classes of the equal-tempered chromatic
scale are often represented by integers from 0 to 11, where C = 0 and 11 = B. Pitch
classes 10 and 11 may also be represented by the letters “t” and “e,” respectively. Pitch
classes are often represented around a circular clock face, with 0 (usually C) replacing
the 12 at the top.
pitch interval (pi)—the distance between two pitches, designated either by its tradi-
tional interval name, such as “major second” or “whole step,” or by the number of
semitones between them. For example, the pitch interval from A4 to B4 is two semi-
tones, but the pi from A4 to B5 is 14 semitones.
pitch-class interval—the distance between two pitch classes, measured in semitone
steps around a circular, clock-face diagram. An ordered pitch-class interval represents
the distance from one pitch class to another, measured clockwise around the clock;
e.g., the ordered pc interval <C, G> is 7. An unordered pitch-class interval (or interval
class) represents the shortest distance between two pitch classes; e.g., the unordered
pc interval {C, G} is 5.
pitch-class multiplication (M-operation)—an operation, Mx, in which integers rep-
resenting the pitch classes in a set are multiplied by a given number (x) to create a
new set. Resulting integers larger than 11 are reduced by 12, or multiples of 12, so that
they can be mapped onto the 12 pitch classes of the chromatic collection. For example,
multiplying the pitch class B (11) by M5 yields 55 less 48 (4 × 12) = 7 (G). Applying M5 to
the entire chromatic scale transforms it into (or “maps it onto”) the circle of fourths,
and M7 transforms it into the circle of fifths.
pitch-class set—a group of pitch classes. In an ordered pc set, represented in this book
by angle brackets, the order in which the pitch classes are listed matters. In an unor-
dered pc set, represented by curly brackets, the order of elements is irrelevant.
prime form—the numerical representation of a pitch-class set’s normal (most compact)
form, where 0 represents a reference pc and the remaining numbers the distance
of the other pcs in semitones “up” from that reference (or “down,” in the case of an
inverted set). For example, the prime form of the pc set {C, C♯, F♯, G} is 0167. See also
set class.
projective potential—the sensation that a just-completed duration will be reproduced.
Glossary 223
retrograde—in reverse order, from the end to the beginning.
retrograde inversion—an inversion of a set of notes, presented backward from the
end to the beginning.
RI-chain—a series of overlapping ordered pitch class sets related by retrograde inver-
sion. For example, the set <C, D, F, G, B♭ comprises three overlapping 025 trichords,
each a retrograde inversion of the previous one.
serialism—a broad category of composition wherein the structure of a work is drawn
from a series (or row) of elements in a particular order. Arnold Schoenberg’s develop-
ment of twelve-tone composition in the 1920s marked the beginning of serialism in
the twentieth century, but following the Second World War composers expanded this
concept to encompass series of rhythmic durations, dynamics, and articulations (see
integral serialism).
set—a group of distinct elements, for example, pitch classes, intervals, or rhythmic
durations.
set class (sc)—a group of all pitch-class sets sharing the same prime form, i.e., that
are transpositions or inversions of each other. For example, set class 013 or sc(013)
includes pc sets {E, F, G}, {C♯, D, E}, {B♭, A, G}, etc.
sound mass—a sonority conceived and intended to be heard in terms of its timbral, tex-
tural, or dynamic characteristics rather than its individual pitches.
spectral composition—a genre of composition, particularly associated with French
music since the 1970s, in which the acoustic properties of sound constitute the source
material for music composition, often manipulated through a computer.
Sprechstimme— a vocal part in which the style of vocalization approximates the
notated pitches but is halfway between speech and song; famously used in Arnold
Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire (1912), among other works.
superposition— the simultaneous presentation of two or more contrasting sonic
continuities.
tactus—the principal “beat” of a piece of music; e.g., the quarter-note duration in a com-
position in 3$meter.
tessitura—the prevailing registral range of a vocal or instrumental part, in which most
of the tones lie. For example, a pitch range of C4–G4 would be a relatively low tes-
situra for a soprano, but a very high tessitura for a bass.
tetrachord—a group of four different notes, played sequentially, simultaneously, or in
some combination of these.
texture—the interaction between layers of musical elements in a passage or a complete
work; for example, the degrees of independence between parts (monophony, polyph-
ony, homophony, polyphony, heterophony), or the relative density or sparseness of
instrumentation.
transposition—the process, Tx, of shifting all elements of a pitch or pitch-class set by
the same number (x) of semitones in the same direction; e.g., T1<C, D, E> = <C♯,
D♯, E♯>.
trichord—a group of three different notes, played sequentially, simultaneously, or in
some combination of these.
tritone—an interval of three whole tones or six semitones.
unordered set—a group of elements (e.g., pitches, rhythmic durations) where the order
of listing does not necessarily reflect the order in which elements occur, or where
elements occur simultaneously. In this book, unordered sets are enclosed in curly
brackets, e.g., {C4, F♯4, G4}. See also ordered set.
wedge counterpoint— a two-voiced pattern wherein the voices move in contrary
motion, so that on the staff they appear to outline a wedge shape.
224 Glossary
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Zhang, Boyu. Mathematical Rhythmic Structure of Chinese Percussion Music: An Analytical
Study of Shifan Luogu Collections. Turku: Turun Yliopisto, 1997.
Recording
Chen Yi. The Music of Chen Yi. Women’s Philharmonic. JoAnn Falletta. New Albion Records
NA 090, 1997, compact disc.
Score
Chen Yi. Symphony No. 2. Bryn Mawr: Theodore Presser, 1993.
232 Bibliography
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of Dreams (1988)
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by Charlotte Cross and Russell Berman. New York: General Music, 2000.
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Krebs. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996.
Browne, Richmond. “Tonal Implications of the Diatonic Set.” In Theory Only 5, nos. 6–7
(1981): 3–12.
Hasty, Christopher. Meter as Rhythm. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
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Hasty, Christopher. “Rhythm in Post-Tonal Music: Preliminary Questions of Duration and
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Dialogues. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011.
Jungheinrich, Hans-Klaus, ed. “Was die Träume erzählen: Textdeutungen in den
Vokalwerken von Kaija Saariaho.” In Woher? Wohin? Die Komponistin Kaija Saariaho,
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Stilleben.” Organised Sound 1, no. 2 (August 1996): 87–92.
Kimberley, Nick. “Kaija Saariaho: The Sound of Dreams (and a Few Nightmares).” The
Independent (London), November 18, 2001.
Lambright, Spencer N. “L’amour de loin and the Vocal Works of Kaija Saariaho.” DMA diss.,
Cornell University, 2008.
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Lerdahl, Fred. Tonal Pitch Space. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
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Moisala, Pirkko. “Gender Negotiation of the Composer Kaija Saariaho in Finland: The
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Beverley Diamond and Pirkko Moisala. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000.
Moisala, Pirkko. Kaija Saariaho. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2009.
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Rappresentativo.” Contemporary Music Review 19, no. 3 (2000): 67–110.
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Bibliography 233
Recording
Saariaho, Kaija. From the Grammar of Dreams. With Anu Komsi and Piia Komsi. Ondine
OSE 958-2, 2000, compact disc.
Score
Saariaho, Kaija. From the Grammar of Dreams. Helsinki: Edition Wilhelm Hansen, 1988.
234 Bibliography
Thomas, Laurel Ann. “A Study of Libby Larsen’s Me (Brenda Ueland), a Song Cycle for High
Voice and Piano.” DMA diss., University of Texas at Austin, 1994.
Wisuthseriwong, Christy L. “Libby Larsen’s ‘De toda la eternidad’: Creating Infinity through
the Words of Sor Juana Inéz de la Cruz.” DMA diss., University of North Carolina at
Greensboro, 2011.
Zavracky, Gregory Paul. “Libby Larsen’s ‘My Antonia’: The Song Cycle and the Tonal
Landscape of the American Prairie.” DMA diss., Boston University, 2014.
Recording
Larsen, Libby. Grand Larsen-y: Vocal Music of Libby Larsen. With Terry Rhodes and Benton
Hess. Albany Records TROY 634, 2004, compact disc.
Score
Larsen, Libby. Chanting to Paradise. Minneapolis, MN: Libby Larsen Publishing, 1997.
Bibliography 235
Parsons, Laurel. “Early Music and the Ambivalent Origins of Elisabeth Lutyens’s
Modernism.” In British Music and Modernism, 1895–1960, 269–92. Edited by Matthew
Riley. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010.
Roeder, John. “Interacting Pulse Streams in Schoenberg’s Atonal Polyphony.” Music Theory
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Tenant-Flowers, Sarah. “A Study of Style and Techniques in the Music of Elisabeth Lutyens.”
PhD diss., Durham University, 1991.
Zaehner, R. C. Mysticism Sacred and Profane: An Inquiry into Some Varieties of Praeternatural
Experience. 1961; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957.
Score
Lutyens, Elisabeth. Essence of Our Happinesses, Op. 69. London: Olivan Press, 1968.
236 Bibliography
Index
238 Index
in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 178, 182, in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of
183, 192 Dreams, 158, 160, 165, 170–71
of Lutyens’s Essence of Our Happinesses, in Saariaho’s Lichtbogen, 174–75n13
198t, 201–3 in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 90
in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third Hasty, Christopher, 158
Movement, 22–23, 25 Hatten, Robert, 129–30, 132, 133
in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 70, 88, hemiola, 187, 222
90, 96n7 heptachords, 48–49, 64n17, 222
formalism, rejection of, 7 hermeneutics, 35, 56, 222
fourths hexachordal combinatoriality, 23, 222
mixed chains of, in Tower’s Silver Ladders, hexachords
87–88, 89ex. in Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, 37, 47–56
stacked, in Tower’s Silver Ladders, defined, 222
90, 93, 94 in Lutyens’s Essence of Our
From the Grammar of Dreams Happinesses, 202
(Saariaho), 156–57 hexatonic system, 21–23, 222
Pintér on, 173n1 Hisama, Ellie, 7
processes shaping, 160–72 Hyslop, Sandra, 87
vocal collaboration in, 157–61
fundamental unit, in Larsen’s Chanting to identity/identities
Paradise, 187–90 difference and relation and, 103–7
merging of, in vocal music, 178
Gazzelloni, Severino, 60 voice and, 99
gestures imitation, in Saariaho’s From the Grammar
of agony in Chen Yi’s Symphony No. of Dreams, 163, 166, 170
2, 134–37 improvisation
defined, 132, 221 alluded to in Beecroft’s
of epiphany in Chen Yi’s Symphony No. Improvvisazioni, 34
2, 134–35, 137–41 incorporation of elements of, 34
in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2, simulated, in Beecroft’s
107–8, 109ex., 112–19, 120fig., 122 Improvvisazioni, 35–39
transformation through interplay of, in Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1
Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2, (Beecroft), 33–35
141–46 aspects informing interpretive readings
Gill, Jo, 193–94n9 of, 57–61
Grosz, Elizabeth, 103–4 in context of Darmstadt avant-garde and
Guattari, Félix, 103, 105 Eco’s The Open Work, 61–62
Gubaidulina, Sofia, 1, 2–3, 7. See also String flute solo in, 65n19
Quartet No. 2 (Gubaidulina) form and serial organization in, 54–55t
biographical sketch of, 101–2 musical plot for, 56–57, 65n21
Guo, Xin, 152n25 series, invariants, and interval tension
profiles in, 42–56
Halstead, Jill, 3, 7 “simulated improvisation” in, 35–39
harmony/harmonies indeterminacy, 34, 63n2, 65n27
in Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, 35, 37, Inexpressiveness, Myth of, 30
54t, 55t Infidelio (Lutyens), 216
in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2, Inflections-of-G events, in Gubaidulina’s
107, 121 String Quartet No. 2, 107–8,
in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third 109–11, 113–14
Movement, 21, 22–23 integral serialism, 15, 16, 222
Index 239
intensification Langer, Susanne, 215
in Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, 59–60 language, in Larsen works, 178
in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. Larsen, Libby. See also
2, 112–15 Chanting to Paradise (Larsen)
inter-onset interval (IOI) pattern, biographical sketch of, 176–77
207–9, 211 language in works of, 178
interpretant, 133, 151n14 mirroring between Dickinson and, 191–93
interval class, 42–45, 115, 157, 181, and rejection of formalism, 7
184, 222 Lee, Ji Yeon, 106–7
intervals leng chui, 138–40, 146
in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 182, Lerdahl, Fred, 174n11
183ex., 184, 190 Lewin, David, 65n18, 178
Maderna and, 64n10 luogu dianzi, 129, 132–34, 135–36, 138–40,
of Motivic Clusters in Essence of Our 146, 148. See also ji-ji-feng
Happinesses, 210ex., 212ex. Lutyens, Elisabeth, biographical
in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of sketch of, 196–97. See also
Dreams, 158, 160, 165 Essence of Our Happinesses (Lutyens)
in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 73, 88,
95, 97n16 Macarthur, Sally, 8, 13n21
interval tension profiles, in Beecroft’s Maderna, Bruno, 45, 53ex., 61, 64n10
Improvvisazioni, 42–56 Mamlok, Ursula, biographical
“In this short Life” (Larsen), 185–91 sketch of, 17–18. See also
invariance, 222 Panta Rhei, Third Movement (Mamlok)
invariants, in Beecroft’s mandolin gestures, in Larsen’s Chanting to
Improvvisazioni, 42–56 Paradise, 182, 194n19
inversion matrix, 30, 42, 222
in Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, 42, 50t, 51t melisma, 157, 181, 184, 190, 202, 203, 222
defined, 222 melody
in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2, 112 in Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2,
in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 183 136–37, 140–41
in Lutyens’s Essence of Our in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third
Happinesses, 202 Movement, 18, 20–21, 25, 27
in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third meter
Movement, 23, 25 in Lutyens’s Essence of Our
in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 73 Happinesses, 209–10
IOI (inter-onset-interval) pattern, 207–9, 211 in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of
I-ordering, 23, 222 Dreams, 158–60, 166–68, 171, 172
mimetic hypothesis, 133
ji-ji-feng, 133–34, 135–36, 141, 142, 143, 146 mimetic participation, 133, 134, 143–45
“Ji Ji Feng” Percussion Concerto (Chen “Mi’raj of Abū Yasīd, The” (al-Bistami), 198
Yi), 152n26 mirror, music as, 177
Journal of Music Theory, 3, 11n7 mirroring
Journal of the International Alliance for between Larsen and Dickinson, 191–93
Women in Music, 10n5 in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 184, 190
Jullien, François, 149 moment form, 61, 222
mosaic design and events, in Gubaidulina’s
Killam, Rosemary, 177, 192 String Quartet No. 2, 115, 117ex., 119,
Kosman, Joseph, 149 120fig.
Kramer, Lawrence, 178 motives
kuyin, 151n20 defined, 222
240 Index
in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, defined, 223
181, 183–84 in Lutyens’s Essence of Our Happinesses,
in Lutyens’s Essence of Our Happinesses, 205, 214, 215
205–7, 209–11, 213, 215 in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third
motivic clusters, in Lutyens’s Essence of Movement, 18, 20–21, 25–27
Our Happinesses, 207, 208ex., 209–11, in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 80, 82
212ex., 213
musical embodiment, 129–30 Panta Rhei, Third Movement
musical plot, for Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, (Mamlok), 18–30
56–57, 65n21 “Paralytic” (Plath), 156
“Musical Symbolism,” 104 partial rhyme, in Dickinson works,
Music Theory Online, 3 180, 194n14
Music Theory Spectrum, 3, 11n7 participation, mimetic, 133, 134, 143–45
mysticism, 199–200 pattern(s)
Myth of Antitonality, 29 blurry, in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet
Myth of Inexpressiveness, 30 No. 2, 109, 111–12, 122
Myth of Non-Repetition, 29 chongtou, 129, 147–48
Myth of Serial Demise, 29–30 IOI Pattern, 207–9, 211, 213
Myth of Serial Orthodoxy, 28 ji-ji-feng, 133–34, 135–36, 141, 142, 143, 146
Myth of Serial Purity, 28–29 in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 185–91
Myth of Serial Tyranny, 29 leng chui, 138–40, 146
luogu dianzi, 129, 132–34, 135–36, 138–40,
Non-Repetition, Myth of, 29 146, 148
Northern hexatonic system, 21–23 of periodicity influenced by shifan luogu,
“now” 142–43, 144t
and genesis of Lutyens’s Essence of our rhythmic, in Beecroft’s
Happinesses, 199–200 Improvvisazioni, 38
illusory nature of, 201 rhythmic, in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, 25–27
“Numbered, The” (Lutyens), 216–17 sibian yiluo, 138–40
in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 81
octatonic/octatonicism Peirce, Charles Sanders, 151n14
categories of, in Tower’s Silver percussion. See also luogu dianzi;
Ladders, 80t shifan luogu
defined, 75, 223 in Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2, 132–34
employed in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 72–82 chongtou, 129, 147–48
“leveled” projection of octatonic in ji-ji-feng, 133–34, 135–36, 141, 142, 143, 146
Tower’s Silver Ladders, 82–83 leng chui, 138–40, 146
opening octatonic scale in Tower’s Silver luogu dianzi, 129, 132–34, 135–36, 138–40,
Ladders, 68–71 146, 148
sphere of influence in Tower’s Silver shifan luogu, 142–43, 144t, 146, 148, 152n24
Ladders, 93 sibian yiluo, 138–40
in Western art music, 71 permutation, 61, 152n24, 223
open work, 61–62 Perspectives of New Music (PNM), 10n5
opposition, in Larsen’s Chanting to Petrassi, Goffredo, 60
Paradise, 185–86 phenomenal accents, 211, 219n13
oppression, in Larsen’s Chanting to philosophy, Deleuze and Guattari on, 105
Paradise, 179–85 phoneme(s), 157, 178, 223
ordered set, 207, 223 Pintér, Éva, 173n1
ostinati pitch
in Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2, 141 defined, 223
Index 241
pitch (Cont) psychedelic states, 199–200
in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 181–82, pulse stream, in Lutyens’s Essence of Our
183–84, 186–90 Happinesses, 211–12, 214–16
reduction in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 77– pure duration, 214–15
79ex., 84–86ex.
in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of “Reaching Out” gestures in Gubaidulina’s
Dreams, 158, 161–63, 164ex., 168–70 String Quartet No. 2, 107, 108, 109ex.
in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 87, 94–95 repetition
pitch class in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2,
in Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, 37, 121, 124
42, 47–48 in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 180,
defined, 223 185–87, 194n15
in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2, 122 in Lutyens’s Essence of Our Happinesses,
in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 189 207, 209, 213, 215
in Lutyens’s Essence of Our in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third
Happinesses, 202 Movement, 29
in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of
Movement, 19–23, 24fig., 25, 26–28ex. Dreams, 165
in octatonic structure, 75 repression, in Larsen’s Chanting to
in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 87, 88, 94–95 Paradise, 179–85
pitch-class interval, 223 retrograde
pitch-class multiplication (M-operation), in Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, 42, 50t
31n5, 223 defined, 224
pitch-class set in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2, 112
in Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, 42 in Lutyens’s Essence of Our Happinesses,
defined, 223 201, 217
in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third
Dreams, 164ex. Movement, 19, 23, 25
pitch interval retrograde inversion, 42, 112, 224
defined, 223 rhyme
in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2, in Dickinson works, 194n14
112, 115 in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 180, 185
in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 182 rhythm
in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of in Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2, 132–34
Dreams, 157 chongtou, 129, 147–48
in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 73 ji-ji-feng, 133–34, 135–36, 141, 142, 143, 146
Plath, Sylvia, 156–57 in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 186–90
plot, musical, for Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, leng chui, 138–40, 146
56–57, 65n21 luogu dianzi, 129, 132–34, 135–36, 138–40,
polyvocality, of Saariaho’s From the 146, 148
Grammar of Dreams, 153, 166–72 in Lutyens’s Essence of Our
P-ordering, 23, 223 Happinesses, 202–3
power, in Larsen’s Chanting to in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third
Paradise, 185–91 Movement, 25–27
prime form, 42, 223 in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of
projective meter, in Saariaho’s From the Dreams, 163, 168
Grammar of Dreams, 158–59, 166–68 shifan luogu, 142–43, 144t, 146, 148, 152n24
projective potential, 158, 223–24 sibian yiluo, 138–40
protagonists, in Beecroft’s RI-chains, 23, 224
Improvvisazioni, 58 Rimbaud, Arthur, 198, 199–200, 218n5
242 Index
Roeder, John, 211 in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2, 115,
rooted sonorities, superpositions of, in 116ex., 121–22, 123ex.
Saariaho works, 174–75n12 superpositions of rooted, in Saariaho
row forms, 30, 42, 50ex., 204 works, 174–75n12
in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 90
Saariaho, Kaija. See also sound mass
From the Grammar of Dreams (Saariaho) in Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, 35, 37,
biographical sketch of, 155–56 55t, 58, 59
and rejection of formalism, 7 in Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2, 141, 142
superpositions of rooted sonorities in defined, 224
works, 174–75n12 Southern hexatonic system, 21–23
Une saison en enfer [A Season in Hell] spectral composition, 170, 224
(Rimbaud), 198 Sprechstimme, 157, 224
Samuel, Rhian, 3, 9 String Quartet No. 2 (Gubaidulina)
Schoenberg, Arnold, 87, 94 Affirmation in, 121–22
science, Deleuze and Guattari on, 105 conclusions regarding, 124
Serial Demise, Myth of, 29–30 difference and relation and, 102–6
serialism, 7, 15, 17, 67, 224 Reaching Out and Tethering in, 107–15
serial construction, of Beecroft’s Reaching Up and Renewing in, 115–20
Improvvisazioni, 54–55t, 60–61 temporal design of, 106–7
Serial Orthodoxy, Myth of, 28 subjective accenting, 209
Serial Purity, Myth of, 28–29 superposition, 224. See also
Serial Tyranny, Myth of, 29 From the Grammar of Dreams (Saariaho)
set class Symphony No. 2 (Chen Yi), 128–30, 148–50
in Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2, 137 gestures of agony and epiphany in, 135–41
defined, 224 lightening of orchestral texture in, 146–48
in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third luogu dianzi as mimetic musical gestures
Movement, 19ex., 20–21, 31n5 in, 132–34
in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of transformation through interplay of
Dreams, 163, 165 gestures in, 141–46
in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 71, 93 transnational cultural context of musical
shi, 148–49 gestures in, 130–32
shifan luogu, 142–43, 144t, 146, 148, 152n24
sibian yiluo, 138–40 tactus, 166, 168, 171, 224
Silver Ladders (Tower) “telescope,” 152n25
boundaries between octatonic collections tessitura, 57, 224
in, 88–90 tetrachords
combinations of perfect and augmented defined, 224
fourths in, 87–88, 89ex. in Lutyens’s Essence of Our
conclusions regarding, 93–95 Happinesses, 202
“leveled” projection of octatonic in, 82–83 in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of
long-tone scales in, 83–87 Dreams, 163–65
octatonic employed in, 72–82 texture
opening octatonic scale in, 68–71 in Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, 35, 47, 58
simulated improvisation, in Beecroft’s in Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2, 142, 146
Improvvisazioni, 34, 35–39 defined, 224
Society for Music Theory (SMT), 4 in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2,
Songs from Letters (Larsen), 177, 192 115, 116
sonority/sonorities in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise,
in Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2, 136 184, 189
Index 243
in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third in Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2, 137, 140,
Movement, 18–19 141, 143, 146–47, 151n20
in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of defined, 224
Dreams, 158, 163, 165–66, 171, 174n13 in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 182
in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 72, 75, 80, in Lutyens’s Essence of Our
82, 97n12 Happinesses, 202
time in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of
Donne’s rejection of, 201, 215–16 Dreams, 157–60, 171
Lutyens and concern with, 198, in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 73
199–200, 216–17 twelve-tone composition
and pulse stream in Essence of Our Beecroft and, 32–33
Happinesses, 211–13 and Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, 16,
and relationship between event stream 42, 45, 56
and pulse stream, 214–15 and Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2, 136, 140,
Time Off? Not a Ghost of a Chance! 141, 148
(Lutyens), 217 and Lutyens’s Essence of Our
tonality/tonalities Happinesses, 201
in Saariaho’s From the Grammar and Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third
of Dreams, 160, 161, 166, 169ex., Movement, 15, 23, 27–30
170–72, 175n15 serialism and, 15
in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 87
Tower, Joan. See also Silver Ladders (Tower) Webern, Anton, 62
biographical sketch of, 67–68 wedge counterpoint, 36, 224
on pitch systems, 94 Wilson, Glenn, 12n16
process of, 93–94 women
on titles of works, 97n20 Citron on progress of, 10n3
transposition common characteristics among works
in Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, 49, 52ex. of, 6–8
defined, 224 compositional voice of, 8–9
in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 187 interpreting data on, 4
in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 80–81 Larsen on opportunities and role models
Tre Pezzi Brevi (Beecroft), 33 for, 191
triad(s) participation of, in music
in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third performance, 10n1
Movement, 19ex., 20–23, 29 and ratio of female-to-male composers,
in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of 4, 11–12n11
Dreams, 170–71 recognized as professional
in Saariaho’s Lichtbogen, 174n13 composers, 2–3
trichord(s) research into music by, 3–4
defined, 224 Women and Music, 10n5
in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third
Movement, 22, 23 Zaehner, R. C., 199–200, 218n5
tritone(s) Zarlino, Gioseffo, 64n10
in Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, 45, 47, 52ex.
244 Index