Recent by Steven D Mathews
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[Ph.D. Diss.] Getting to the Crux: The Inner/Outer-Form Dynamic and the Type 2 Sonata in Select Symphonic Movements by Mozart, Haydn, and J. C. Bach
University of Cincinnati, 2021
This dissertation explores a specific type of musical form from the mid-eighteenth century: sonat... more This dissertation explores a specific type of musical form from the mid-eighteenth century: sonata forms without double-return recapitulations. James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy (2006) refer to these kinds of forms as Type 2 sonatas. This dissertation applies a dual method of analysis to select Type 2 sonatas by Mozart, Haydn, and J. C. Bach: one method that focuses on the outer form (Sonata Theory) and another that focuses on the inner form (Schenkerian analysis). This plural approach to musical form analysis provides a way to disclose perceived tensions within an inner/outer-form dynamic.
This dissertation contains five chapters, which are organized into two larger parts: Theoretical Considerations (Part I) and Analysis (Part II). Part I contains two chapters. In the first chapter, I present a general review of Sonata Theory (outer form) and Schenkerian theory (inner form) as parameters for musical form analysis. I also introduce the limitations and conceptual issues related to Schenker’s approach to sonata form, such as issues related to the interruption: the early-dominant preference, the Reprise Constraint (Marvin 2011), and the parallel-linear-close problem. The second chapter discusses the specific concepts related to the Type 2 sonata (development and crux). Further, it considers how the interruption problems affect the inner-form approach to the Type 2 sonata, which is a genre that Schenker himself did not analyze. Instead of an interruption, I propose the late-dominant-preference paradigm (an undivided fundamental structure) as a model for the Type 2 sonata’s inner form. According to this model, the structural dominant is delayed until the tonic key is regained following the crux point and during the tonal resolution.
Part II of this dissertation contains three analytical chapters that focus on sixteen Type 2 symphonic movements from the mid-eighteenth century (ca. 1760s). Chapter 3 considers the early Type 2 symphonic movements written by Mozart from an inner-form perspective. Following the late-dominant-preference model, the analyses of these movements follow the Reprise Constraint and avoid the parallel-linear-close problem. Chapter 4 considers a different issue concerning the development section in slow symphonic Type 2 movements by Haydn: the early double return (i.e., when the P-theme in tonic occurs near the beginning of the development section). In this case, the inner form complements the outer form, which creates a tension between sonata types. Other Type 2 movements by Haydn are considered. Chapter 5 presents analyses of the Type 2 slow movements in J. C. Bach’s Symphonies (Op. 3) and proposes the concepts of harmonic crux and linking dominant as integral parts of the inner-form analysis. A correlation between inner/outer form is suggested based on the reemergence of the Kopfton in Rotation 2 of the form and the cadence at the medial caesura in Rotation 1. The linking dominant serves as a liminal threshold between the middleground and background layers of the fundamental structure.
Peer Review by Steven D Mathews
The following essay argues that Caplin, Gjerdingen, and Hepokoski and Darcy explicitly and implic... more The following essay argues that Caplin, Gjerdingen, and Hepokoski and Darcy explicitly and implicitly borrow ideas from the works of Heinrich Schenker while simultaneously relegating Schenkerian concepts, making anti-Schenkerian protests, and opposing certain Schenkerian interpretations in their own work. It also proposes that Schenkerian analysis can be used as a complement to the three aforementioned approaches. The first part demonstrates that Caplin’s terminology and hierarchical conception of musical form invites accompanying Schenkerian graphs. The second part suggests that Schenker, in his 1923 analysis of the first movement of Mozart’s K 545, noticed a schema similar to Gjerdingen’s Prinner. The third part contends that a Schenkerian interpretation of K 545 by Snyder aligns with Hepokoski and Darcy’s Type 2 sonata. The conclusion takes note of recent significant developments in field of Schenkerian studies that promote a healthy engagement with other theories.
Book Reviews by Steven D Mathews
Indiana Theory Review, 2017
Music Research Forum, 2011
Conference Papers by Steven D Mathews
Haydn and the Type 2 Sonata: Getting to the Crux in Three Slow Symphonic Movements from the 1760s
Haydn Society of North America, 2016
An Indication of Infinity: Mozart the Romantic
Northeastern American Society for Eighteenth Century Studeis, 2014
Realizing Schenkerian Formenlehre through Twenty-First-Century Lenses
EuroMAC 2014, Leuven, Belgium, 2014
Integrating Form and Voice Leading in Select Type 2 Sonatas by Mozart
Third Annual Mannes Graduate Student Conference, 2014
Victoria's Secret: Harmonic Bass Lines?
A striking aspect in select homophonic sections of Tomás Luis de Victoria’s choral and polychoral... more A striking aspect in select homophonic sections of Tomás Luis de Victoria’s choral and polychoral compositions is his expressive use of circle progressions, or sequential motion by descending fifths in the bass. These enigmatic pseudo-Rameauian bass lines are remarkable because of Victoria’s historical status as a pre-tonal composer. Moreover, they present analytical problems in light of the celebrated rules of sixteenth-century counterpoint.
Recent scholarship on the "progressive" aspects of Victoria’s cadential rhetoric has sought a common ground between the prima and seconda prattica at the turn of the seventeenth century (Adams 2011). The present paper adds to this reception by discussing the implications of Victoria’s circle progressions vis-à-vis the analysis of early music and the history of music theory. For the former, one must decide what combination of historicist and presentist methodologies will produce ideal insights into the peculiarities of Victoria’s musical language. In this vein, my study seeks to identify early exemplars of an emerging harmonic compositional style within an ostensibly modal environment. Concerning historiography, these progressions persuade us to revisit the general origins of functional tonality and specifically consider the role of recursive formulas, the emancipation of the bass, methods of vertical composition, and sixteenth-century theoretical discussions. The development of a structural discant-bass duo and description of descending fifth progressions in a sixteenth-century treatise by Tomás de Santa Maria may provide evidence for the apparent historical paradox found in select passages of Victoria’s oeuvre: common eighteenth-century bass figures within the context of a late-sixteenth-century repertoire.
Transformations and Musical Form: Oriented and Disoriented Networks in Two Concerti by Alexander Glazunov
This presentation reveals interesting interactions between transformational structures and musica... more This presentation reveals interesting interactions between transformational structures and musical form in two late-Romantic concerti by Alexander Glazunov, Opp. 82, Violin Concerto (1905), and 109, Saxophone Concerto (1934). The first part of this presentation demonstrates how the middleground key structures of both concerti rotate around Richard Cohn’s “hexatonic” systems (1996, 2012). While Cohn’s theory primarily focuses on “pan-triadic” foreground phenomena and triadic cycles that exist “on the thinly veiled level of the middleground,” the first part of my analysis concentrates on deeper middleground relationships. The second part of my presentation presents a dichotomy of transformational networks based on Steven Rings’s concept of the “oriented network” from his Tonality and Transformation (2011). Proceeding from the very general premise that formal units in tonal music can either display a tonal disposition or a developmental drift, I use Rings’s oriented networks and introduce “disoriented networks” as models for each respective unit. As a consequence, hierarchical structures are created over the course of the entire piece: oriented networks exist in the conceptual middleground, while disoriented networks are transitory surface level events that may incorporate Cohn’s “pan-triadic” systems. Together, the transformational models revealed in this presentation provide a means to depict accurately the collaboration of chromatic and tonal ingredients that contribute to the perception and analysis of large formal structures.
Musical Process and Rhetoric in Arnold Schoenberg's Violin Phantasy
Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference (University of Cincinnati), 2012
Representing Linear Intervallic Patterns in Schenkerian Notation and Pedagogy: Problems of Presentation and Prolongation
When analyzing tonal music from a Schenkerian perspective, decisions must be made regarding appro... more When analyzing tonal music from a Schenkerian perspective, decisions must be made regarding appropriate prolongational spaces, and one often encounters thorny interpretive situations. A frequent instigator of dilemmas is the contrapuntal sequence or linear intervallic pattern (LIP), which is sometimes graphed in a manner that makes prolongational boundaries and foreground events seem equivocal. These problems are compounded when the pedagogy of Schenkerian analysis is considered. When, and in what manner, is it appropriate to introduce LIPs?
In this presentation, I will highlight some of the problematic issues surrounding the interpretation and notational representation of LIPs through critiques of published Schenkerian analyses. The first part will address the current status of the LIP from a pedagogical view by examining its treatment in widely circulated Schenkerian textbooks (e.g., Forte and Gilbert 1982, Cadwallader and Gagné 2007). A common problem is the imprecision in showing graphically how an LIP functions in the context of a phrase. Another problem involves the pedagogical placement of the LIP concept within Schenkerian analysis textbooks.
The second part of my presentation offers pedagogical guidelines for which a beginning Schenkerian student may consult upon encountering LIPs. The guidelines gradually proceed from the identification of the LIP toward the accurate representation of its function within an intricate musical context. Furthermore, this study draws attention to notational peculiarities in Schenkerian analyses intended for pedagogical use as a sign for Schenkerians to reflect on the importance of clear and precise interpretations.
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Recent by Steven D Mathews
This dissertation contains five chapters, which are organized into two larger parts: Theoretical Considerations (Part I) and Analysis (Part II). Part I contains two chapters. In the first chapter, I present a general review of Sonata Theory (outer form) and Schenkerian theory (inner form) as parameters for musical form analysis. I also introduce the limitations and conceptual issues related to Schenker’s approach to sonata form, such as issues related to the interruption: the early-dominant preference, the Reprise Constraint (Marvin 2011), and the parallel-linear-close problem. The second chapter discusses the specific concepts related to the Type 2 sonata (development and crux). Further, it considers how the interruption problems affect the inner-form approach to the Type 2 sonata, which is a genre that Schenker himself did not analyze. Instead of an interruption, I propose the late-dominant-preference paradigm (an undivided fundamental structure) as a model for the Type 2 sonata’s inner form. According to this model, the structural dominant is delayed until the tonic key is regained following the crux point and during the tonal resolution.
Part II of this dissertation contains three analytical chapters that focus on sixteen Type 2 symphonic movements from the mid-eighteenth century (ca. 1760s). Chapter 3 considers the early Type 2 symphonic movements written by Mozart from an inner-form perspective. Following the late-dominant-preference model, the analyses of these movements follow the Reprise Constraint and avoid the parallel-linear-close problem. Chapter 4 considers a different issue concerning the development section in slow symphonic Type 2 movements by Haydn: the early double return (i.e., when the P-theme in tonic occurs near the beginning of the development section). In this case, the inner form complements the outer form, which creates a tension between sonata types. Other Type 2 movements by Haydn are considered. Chapter 5 presents analyses of the Type 2 slow movements in J. C. Bach’s Symphonies (Op. 3) and proposes the concepts of harmonic crux and linking dominant as integral parts of the inner-form analysis. A correlation between inner/outer form is suggested based on the reemergence of the Kopfton in Rotation 2 of the form and the cadence at the medial caesura in Rotation 1. The linking dominant serves as a liminal threshold between the middleground and background layers of the fundamental structure.
Peer Review by Steven D Mathews
Book Reviews by Steven D Mathews
Conference Papers by Steven D Mathews
Recent scholarship on the "progressive" aspects of Victoria’s cadential rhetoric has sought a common ground between the prima and seconda prattica at the turn of the seventeenth century (Adams 2011). The present paper adds to this reception by discussing the implications of Victoria’s circle progressions vis-à-vis the analysis of early music and the history of music theory. For the former, one must decide what combination of historicist and presentist methodologies will produce ideal insights into the peculiarities of Victoria’s musical language. In this vein, my study seeks to identify early exemplars of an emerging harmonic compositional style within an ostensibly modal environment. Concerning historiography, these progressions persuade us to revisit the general origins of functional tonality and specifically consider the role of recursive formulas, the emancipation of the bass, methods of vertical composition, and sixteenth-century theoretical discussions. The development of a structural discant-bass duo and description of descending fifth progressions in a sixteenth-century treatise by Tomás de Santa Maria may provide evidence for the apparent historical paradox found in select passages of Victoria’s oeuvre: common eighteenth-century bass figures within the context of a late-sixteenth-century repertoire.
In this presentation, I will highlight some of the problematic issues surrounding the interpretation and notational representation of LIPs through critiques of published Schenkerian analyses. The first part will address the current status of the LIP from a pedagogical view by examining its treatment in widely circulated Schenkerian textbooks (e.g., Forte and Gilbert 1982, Cadwallader and Gagné 2007). A common problem is the imprecision in showing graphically how an LIP functions in the context of a phrase. Another problem involves the pedagogical placement of the LIP concept within Schenkerian analysis textbooks.
The second part of my presentation offers pedagogical guidelines for which a beginning Schenkerian student may consult upon encountering LIPs. The guidelines gradually proceed from the identification of the LIP toward the accurate representation of its function within an intricate musical context. Furthermore, this study draws attention to notational peculiarities in Schenkerian analyses intended for pedagogical use as a sign for Schenkerians to reflect on the importance of clear and precise interpretations.