Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

A ssociate E ditor ’ s N ote

A ssociate E ditor ’ s N ote ‘Analogical thinking may . . . suggest novel ways to envision familiar objects and concepts’. Scott Murphy's dictum, presented as part of his analysis of the rondo finale from Brahms's Op. 25, could well apply to all three articles published in this issue. Proceeding from David Lewin's beguiling analogy between harmony and metre (a hemiola relationship is analogous to a dominant relationship because they both depend on 3:2 ratios), Murphy demonstrates that the analogy might fail whilst, at the same time, leading the theorist to see a new world of hypermetrical relationships – notions, for instance, that Brahms's coda tonicises the ‘subdominant metre’. What began as an exploration of the analogical target – metre – ends by re‐evaluating the tonal source when Murphy reaches a flexible and pragmatic concept of ‘tonic’ as a regulative idea. Nancy November's disclosure of register in Haydn's string quartets as a ‘primary’ rather than ‘secondary’ parameter performs a similar inversion. Building on Schenker and Oster's ideas that register helps sign‐post major structural events, November shows that it projects coherence often by going its own way. We thus appreciate registral effects in their own right, and notes projected in the highest register do not necessarily coincide with the descent of the fundamental line. Liberated from the exigencies of voice‐leading and harmonic support, register can enter into unexpected new partnerships, such as the fascinating analogy between increasing range and falling dynamics November discovers in the ‘Capriccio’ of Haydn's Op. 20 No. 2. Mark Anson‐Cartwright's study of Bach's preludes again approaches the centre from the margins – in this case, from the standpoint of what he terms ‘the embellished final cadence’. This perspective enables Anson‐Cartwright to throw new light on a work we may feel we know inside‐out, such as the Prelude in C major from the Well‐Tempered Clavier , Book I (revealing, for instance, that the cadential elision creates a hypermetrical relationship between the opening and closing four‐bar frames). The function of the cadence is shown to be more radical than the mere discharge of unfinished business: on the contrary, it implicates the entire body of the piece in the process of closure, confirming Kofi Agawu's thesis that closure is a ‘global mechanism’ not confined to the structural cadence. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Music Analysis Wiley

A ssociate E ditor ’ s N ote

Music Analysis , Volume 26 (3) – Oct 1, 2007

Loading next page...
 
/lp/wiley/a-ssociate-e-ditor-s-n-ote-OUQS4yQvVr

References (0)

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
© 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
ISSN
0262-5245
eISSN
1468-2249
DOI
10.1111/j.1468-2249.2008.00258.x
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

‘Analogical thinking may . . . suggest novel ways to envision familiar objects and concepts’. Scott Murphy's dictum, presented as part of his analysis of the rondo finale from Brahms's Op. 25, could well apply to all three articles published in this issue. Proceeding from David Lewin's beguiling analogy between harmony and metre (a hemiola relationship is analogous to a dominant relationship because they both depend on 3:2 ratios), Murphy demonstrates that the analogy might fail whilst, at the same time, leading the theorist to see a new world of hypermetrical relationships – notions, for instance, that Brahms's coda tonicises the ‘subdominant metre’. What began as an exploration of the analogical target – metre – ends by re‐evaluating the tonal source when Murphy reaches a flexible and pragmatic concept of ‘tonic’ as a regulative idea. Nancy November's disclosure of register in Haydn's string quartets as a ‘primary’ rather than ‘secondary’ parameter performs a similar inversion. Building on Schenker and Oster's ideas that register helps sign‐post major structural events, November shows that it projects coherence often by going its own way. We thus appreciate registral effects in their own right, and notes projected in the highest register do not necessarily coincide with the descent of the fundamental line. Liberated from the exigencies of voice‐leading and harmonic support, register can enter into unexpected new partnerships, such as the fascinating analogy between increasing range and falling dynamics November discovers in the ‘Capriccio’ of Haydn's Op. 20 No. 2. Mark Anson‐Cartwright's study of Bach's preludes again approaches the centre from the margins – in this case, from the standpoint of what he terms ‘the embellished final cadence’. This perspective enables Anson‐Cartwright to throw new light on a work we may feel we know inside‐out, such as the Prelude in C major from the Well‐Tempered Clavier , Book I (revealing, for instance, that the cadential elision creates a hypermetrical relationship between the opening and closing four‐bar frames). The function of the cadence is shown to be more radical than the mere discharge of unfinished business: on the contrary, it implicates the entire body of the piece in the process of closure, confirming Kofi Agawu's thesis that closure is a ‘global mechanism’ not confined to the structural cadence.

Journal

Music AnalysisWiley

Published: Oct 1, 2007

There are no references for this article.