Florida State University Libraries

2016

Juxtaposition, Allusion, and Quotation in

Narrative Approaches to Music Composed
after 1975
Cara E. Stroud

Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact lib-ir@fsu.edu
 FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF MUSIC

JUXTAPOSITION, ALLUSION, AND QUOTATION

IN NARRATIVE APPROACHES TO MUSIC COMPOSED AFTER 1975

By

CARA E. STROUD

A Dissertation submitted to the

College of Music
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

2016

© Cara E. Stroud
Cara Stroud defended this dissertation on June 28, 2016.
The members of the supervisory committee were:

Michael Buchler
Professor Co-Directing Dissertation

Joseph Kraus
Professor Co-Directing Dissertation

Denise Von Glahn

University Representative

Evan Jones
Committee Member

The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and
certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements.

ii
Dedicated to Felix and Conlan, my constant writing companions

iii
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I owe an incalculable debt to those who have supported me throughout the process of developing
and writing this dissertation. The music theory faculty at Florida State, my friends and colleagues
who provided support and feedback during critical times, my family who stood by me during
trying times. My deepest, most heartfelt thanks can only begin to acknowledge your contribution
to my growth and development as a scholar.

iv
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. vi

List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. viii
Abstract ............................................................................................................................................x

1. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................1

2. QUOTATION, NOSTALGIA, AND IRONY IN JOHN CORIGLIANO’S

SYMPHONY NO. 1 .................................................................................................................13

3. DENARRATION AND DISNARRATION IN ALFRED SCHNITTKE’S CONCERTO

GROSSO NO. 1 ........................................................................................................................74

4. NON-NARRATIVE IN LIBBY LARSEN’S DOWNWIND OF ROSES IN MAINE ...............89

5. CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................108

APPENDIX: CORIGLIANO, SYMPHONY NO. 1: REDUCTION OF B SECTION SHOWING

REMEMBRANCE THEMES AND TANGO ........................................................................113

References....................................................................................................................................118

Biographical Sketch .....................................................................................................................123

v
 LIST OF TABLES

1.1 Compositions in the Dissertation .........................................................................................4

1.2 Reyland’s Suggested Postmodern Narrative Strategies for Music ....................................12

2.1 Possible Formal Divisions Suggested by Corigliano.........................................................16

2.2 Emotional Trajectory Associated with ABA' Formal Interpretation.................................17

2.3 Formal Interpretation Informed by Thematic Content.......................................................18

2.4 Instances of the A–Gs–A–Eb Motive .................................................................................19

2.5 Instrumentation in Multiple Acceleration Chords, mm. 43–65 .........................................21

2.6 Pitches and Spacing for Three Repeated Chords in Multiple Acceleration.......................22

2.7 Emotional Valence of Nostalgia and Remembrance .........................................................26

2.8 Effect of Musical Distance Created by Differences Between Concurrent

Musical Streams.................................................................................................................29

2.9 Emotional Correlations with Materials in B Section .........................................................30

2.10 Quotations of Albeniz Tango, arr. Godowsky, in Measures 80–178 of Corigliano

Symphony No. 1, Movement 1 ..........................................................................................35

2.11 Tango Fragments Heard from On-Stage Instruments in mm. 131–140.............................37

2.12 Repeated Chords in Measures 144–149.............................................................................38

2.13 Spacing for Repeated Chords in Measures 144–149 .........................................................39

2.14 R'' Heard Through the End of the B Section......................................................................40

2.15 Tango Fragments Heard from On-Stage Instruments in mm. 160–208.............................40

2.16 Pitches and Spacing of Repeated Chords in mm. 231–249 ...............................................42

2.17 Quotations of Albeniz Tango, arr. Godowsky, in Measures 284–296 of Corigliano

Symphony No. 1, Movement 1 ..........................................................................................43

vi
2.18 Disintegration Process in Tempo and Meter......................................................................50

2.19 Disintegration Process in Phrase Structure and Pitch Center ............................................51

2.20 Disintegration Process in Timbre and Instrumentation .....................................................51

2.21 Descriptions of the Third Movement in the Program Note ...............................................59

2.22 Form of “Chaconne Giulio’s Song”...................................................................................61

2.23 Form of the Chaconne, Compared with Chaconne Cycles ................................................61

2.24 Return of Motives/Themes in the Chaconne, measures 128–176......................................66

2.25 Narrative Trajectory of the Giulio Melody and Chaconne Sequence Versus the
Tritone Theme....................................................................................................................68

2.26 Form of the Epilogue .........................................................................................................72

3.1 Transformations of the Sigh-Neutralization Motive in Schnittke’s

Concerto Grosso No. 1.......................................................................................................76

3.2 Stylistic Allusions to the Baroque......................................................................................84

3.3 Instrumentation of Disrupting Microcanons......................................................................85

4.1 Form as Differentiated by Contrasting Pitch Content, Rhythmic

Patterns, and Timbres.........................................................................................................96

4.2 Opposing Woodwind Textures ........................................................................................104

4.3 Percussion Timbres and Accompaniment Patterns..........................................................105

vii
 LIST OF FIGURES

1.1 Klein’s Second Map of Narrative Discourse, from “Musical Story” ..................................9

2.1 Initial Instance of the A–Gs–A–Eb Motive ........................................................................19

2.2 Multiple Accelerations in mm. 43–65 ...............................................................................20

2.3 First Instance of Fanfare in Trumpets and Horns, m. 27 ...................................................23

2.4 First Phase of the Remembrance Theme (R), First Violins, mm. 74–85...........................26

2.5 Second Phase of the Remembrance Theme (R'), Cellos, mm. 99–115 .............................27

2.6 Third Phase of the Remembrance Theme (R''), Violas, mm. 143–154 .............................27

2.7 Underlying Diatonic Step Patterns in R and R'..................................................................28

2.8 Initial Entrance of Tango and Concurrent Orchestral Remembrance

Melody, mm. 77–93...........................................................................................................32

2.9 Tango Tonicization of B minor and Concurrent Remembrance Melody, mm. 94–102 of
First Movement, mm. 8–11 of Tango ................................................................................33

2.10 Poignant Sustained D6 in mm. 159–161, Reduction .........................................................39

2.11 “Tarantella Theme,” Reduction of mm. 40–53 of Corigliano,

Symphony No. 1, Mvt. II ...................................................................................................52

2.12 Premature Ending in Rotation #3, mm. 136–140 ..............................................................54

2.13 Disruptions to Tarantella at End of Rotation #4, mm. 177–181........................................55

2.14 Lugubrious Chromatic Transformation in Rotation #5 .....................................................56

2.15 Reduction of Chaconne Sequence, from Chaconne Cycle 1 in mm. 1–34 ........................63

2.16 Reduction of Chaconne Sequence, from Chaconne Cycle in mm. 66–118 .......................63

2.17 12-Note Series in mm. 60–65 ............................................................................................63

2.18 Embedded 12-Note Series in Chaconne Sequences...........................................................64

2.19 First Iteration of the Giulio Melody in Measures 9–18, Solo Cello 1 ...............................64
viii
2.20 Reduction of Tritone Theme Near End, Measures 164–167 .............................................66

3.1 Transpositional Relationships Between Sigh–Neutralization Motives..............................78

3.2 Relationships Between Motive Instances Shown Using Klumpenhouwer

Networks ............................................................................................................................79

3.3 Dual Transformation Relationships Between Sigh–Neutralization Motives.....................80

3.4 Denarration and Disnarration.............................................................................................81

3.5 Voice-Leading Reductions of Cadence Patterns in Fourth and Fifth Movements ............87

4.1 Tertian Strings and Diatonic Harmonies in the Flute and Clarinet, mm. 24 and 27..........98

4.2 [F,G,Ab,C,Eb] Diatonic Collection in Vibraphone, m. 70..................................................98

4.3 Woodwind Passages in Parallel Thirds, mm. 30–34, 66–67, 69, and 88–90.....................99

4.4 Ending on CM7 Harmony................................................................................................100

4.5 Ten Dyads in Percussion..................................................................................................101

4.6 Pitch Collection and Pitch-Class Collection of Dyads M–S............................................101

4.7 Pitch Collection and Pitch-Class Collection of Dyads W–Z ...........................................101

4.8 “Wind Chime” Dyads in Woodwinds, mm. 45–52 and 76–80........................................102

4.9 Some Rhythmic Units Associated with Wind Chime Dyads...........................................102

ix
 ABSTRACT

The search for unity, structure, or large-scale coherence in post-tonal music has

preoccupied music theorists for many decades. In this dissertation, I present a different approach

that focuses on striking moments of juxtaposition in recent music through the lens of musical

narrative. Carefully supported narrative interpretations can give us a way to unite analytical

observations and interpret large-scale relationships between disparate musical events, and I

explore one way that this can work in John Corigliano's Symphony No. 1 (1989), Alfred

Schnittke's Concerto Grosso No. 1 (1977), and in Libby Larsen's downwind of roses in Maine

(2009).

In Corigliano's Symphony, I first explore the individual vignettes created by each of the

first three movements, then consider the overall narrative trajectory of the symphony as a whole

in my final discussion of the third movement and of the fourth movement. While the two inner

movements fit into the paradigm associated with the ironic narrative archetype, the first and last

movement do not fit this paradigm.

In Schnittke's Concerto Grosso, I posit a narrative account of the piece that links the

transformations of an expressive “sigh” motive with the narrative challenges of projecting a

utopian past. I apply the concepts of denarration and disnarration (coined by literary theorists

Richardson and Prince and extended to postmodern music by Reyland) both to clarify the

relationships between contradictory musical events and to contextualize these events in my

narrative account. Richardson’s “denarration” describes events whose inherent contradictions

destabilize a story. Prince’s “disnarration” describes a fantasy or daydream that is clearly not part

of the story’s plot. I initially interpret transformation of the sigh-neutralization motive as a

x
denarration: a new narrative (in which functional harmonic syntax presides over the alternatives

provided by microcanons and tone clusters) conflicts with the previously established narrative

(neutralization and disruption of Baroque-style gestures). When an intensified version of the

reversed motive appears in mm. 182–83 of the fifth movement, we might expect this gesture to

likewise lead back to a functional cadence and the expressive world of nineteenth-century tonal

harmony, but we instead hear the prepared piano playing over dense orchestral tone clusters.

Ultimately, tonal closure is denied, and we come to realize that the possibility of musical

expression through functional harmonic syntax was instead a disnarration.

Larsen's downwind of roses in Maine serves as an example of a non-narrative that

encourages us to listen “in the moment.” Just as music can encourage a narrative interpretation in

a variety of different ways, I first survey the possible ways that have been suggested for the

trajectory of a “non-narrative,” then I use Larsen’s and Von Glahn’s descriptions of the work as

points of departure for my analysis, in which a variety of conflicting trajectories defy

interpretation as a traditional narrative.

xi
 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Purpose and Scope

The search for unity, structure, or large-scale coherence in post-tonal music has

preoccupied music theorists for many decades. In this dissertation, I present a different approach

that focuses on striking moments of juxtaposition in recent music through the lens of musical

narrative. Carefully supported narrative interpretations offer us a way to unite analytical

observations and interpret large-scale relationships between disparate musical events, and I will

explore some ways that this can work for an eclectic sample of compositions written after 1975.

In the 1990s Carolyn Abbate, Jean-Jacques Nattiez, and other scholars criticized musical

narrative for its perceived shortcomings in relation to literary narrative, including music’s lack of

a past tense1 and fixed semantic meanings.2 Over the past ten years, Byron Almén and Michael

Klein (among many others) have provided detailed counter-arguments to these objections, and it

seems clear that interpretation of musical narrative has entered the mainstream of music theory.

Not only did Almén and Klein respond to skeptical questions from Abbate and Nattiez, but they

did so with analytical demonstrations of ways in which music tells stories.3 These recent

narrative interpretations of tonal music paved the way for narrative readings of music after 1900.

Narrative analyses of Lutosławski’s music from Michael Klein4 and Nicholas Reyland,5 and

1
Carolyn Abbate, “What the Sorcerer Said,” 19th-Century Music 12, no. 3 (1989): 228.
2
Jean-Jacques Nattiez and Katharine Ellis, “Can One Speak of Narrativity in Music?,” Journal of the Royal Musical
Association 115, no. 2 (1990): 240–57.
3
See Byron Almén, A Theory of Musical Narrative (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008) and Michael L.
Klein, “Chopin’s Fourth Ballade as Musical Narrative,” Music Theory Spectrum 26, no. 1 (2004): 23–56.
4
Michael L. Klein, “Narrative and Intertext: The Logic of Suffering in Lutosławski’s Symphony No. 4,” in
Intertextuality in Western Art Music (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), 108–136.
5
Nicholas Reyland, “Livre or Symphony? Lutosławski’s Livre pour Orchestre and the Enigma of Musical
Narrativity,” Music Analysis 27 (2008): 253–94.
1
analyses published later in their edited collection, Music and Narrative since 1900, provide more

examples of the very individual ways in which music theorists choose to interpret narrative in

recent music.

The interpretation of musical narrative provides a way of navigating the common

problem in atonal analysis of organizing vast amounts of analytical data into a musical reading

that can be engaging for listeners and performers in addition to music theorists. As demonstrated

by Robert Hatten6 and Byron Almén,7 narrative theory can draw from a variety of analytical

details, including tonal structures. Analyses in Klein and Reyland’s collection demonstrate that

tonality is certainly not a prerequisite for a musical narrative. Instead of focusing on one

dimension of a composition, such as the behavior of a specific pitch-class set or the use of certain

rhythmic patterns, a narrative interpretation can address music on a broad level that includes

multiple musical parameters. Additionally, narrative interpretations allow us to explore a new

way to listen to recent music, a hearing that is not limited to a composer’s program notes, a fixed

structure, or to abstractions of musical geometry. Systematically integrating agency, emotions,

and associations into the way we understand twentieth-century music allows us to investigate

this narrative mode of listening and interpretation that has, until recently, remained unexplored in

the field of music theory.

I hope that my analytical explorations in this dissertation provide a template for study of

a variety of recent music, but I limit my analysis to three compositions that offer diversity in

instrumentation, genre, scale, and compositional techniques (Table 1.1). John Corigliano’s

Symphony No. 1 (1989) features quotations and references to genres that lead to the

interpretation of emergent meaning, intertextuality, and both novel and traditional narrative

6
Hatten’s interpretations refer to a piece’s “expressive genre.” See Robert Hatten, Musical Meaning in Beethoven:
Markedness, Correlation, and Interpretation (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994).
7
Byron Almén, A Theory of Musical Narrative (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008).
2
strategies. This work integrates quotations of a tango by Isaac Albéniz with evocations of the

tarantella, the chaconne, and a quotation of a previously recorded improvisation. I consider ways

that these quotations and stylistic juxtapositions interact with the composer’s detailed program

notes, including his suggestion that the piece “was generated by feelings of loss, anger, and

frustration” in response to the deaths of several friends and colleagues who fell victim to the

AIDS epidemic.8 The two inner movements of the symphony present structures that closely align

with traditional musical narratives, while the outer movements present narrative strategies that

are in dialogue with literary narrative techniques for which they are titled, “Apologue” and

“Epilogue.”

I focus on archetypal narrative structures and novel techniques related to traditional

literary narrative techniques in Corigliano’s Symphony No. 1, while my interpretation of Alfred

Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso No. 1 (1977) explores a narrative hearing influenced by postmodern

literary theory. In response to the detailed, traditional narrative interpretations of the Corigliano

Symphony, my analysis of the Concerto Grosso focuses on ways that juxtapositions and stylistic

allusions interact on a “meta-narrative” level involving denarration9 and disnarration.10 Using

these strategies, I contextualize surprising musical events that would otherwise resist a narrative

interpretation in accordance with the methodologies presented by Almén and Hatten.

While Corigliano’s Symphony and Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso demonstrate traditional

and novel applications of narrative interpretation, I also include a work by Libby Larsen,

downwind of roses in Maine, that invites a wholly non-narrative approach. In Music and the

Skillful Listener, Denise Von Glahn writes, “There’s no room for teleological thinking, which

8
John Corigliano, program note to Symphony No. 1 for Orchestra (New York: G. Schirmer, Inc., 1990).
9
Brian Richardson, Unnatural Voices: Extreme Narration in Modern and Contemporary Fiction (Columbus: Ohio
State University Press, 2006), 88–94.
10
Gerald Prince, “The Disnarrated in Narrative Theory and Criticism,” Style 22, no. 1 (1988): 1–8.
3
potentially hurries people away from where they are. Taking the time to sink into the music and

forget clock time becomes the essence of downwind of roses in Maine.” Von Glahn notes that, at

the premiere of this piece, “Larsen invited [the audience] to sink deep where they were; to not

seek after narratives.”11 While this work could certainly be interpreted in a variety of ways, I will

use Larsen’s and Von Glahn’s ideas as a point of departure for my own discussion. My analysis

of downwind of roses in Maine serves as a brief example of a non-narrative that creates a sense

of constantly shifting timelessness that resists the kind of change over time that narrative

interpretations describe.12 Non-narrative is a large category because it describes music based on

what its structure is not, so this piece is an important counterexample in my dissertation. I hope

to demonstrate that, just as music can encourage a narrative interpretation in a variety of ways,

numerous musical features can encourage us to listen “in the moment.” In my analysis of this

work, I describe ways that non-overlapping trajectories emerge from conflicting information in

pitch materials, rhythmic choices, and timbral associations.

Table 1.1: Compositions in the Dissertation

Appx.
Title Composer Year Genre Instrumentation
Duration
John
Symphony No. 1 1989 Symphony Full orchestra 40 min.
Corigliano
2 violin soloists,
Concerto Grosso No. Alfred
1977 Concerto keyboard, string 30 min.
1 Schnittke
orchestra
downwind of roses Libby Chamber Flute, clarinet,
2009 8 min.
in Maine Larsen work percussion

11
Denise Von Glahn, Music and the Skillful Listener: American Women Compose the Natural World (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 2013), 267.
12
Jonathan D. Kramer, The Time of Music: New Meanings, New Temporalities, New Listening Strategies (New
York: Schirmer, 1988), 385–87.
4
 In summary, Corigliano’s and Schnittke’s works feature juxtapositions of different styles

in ways that seem specifically to encourage narrative interpretations, while the juxtapositions and

sudden shifts in Larsen’s composition can work against a narrative interpretation. I hope to

demonstrate that the discontinuities created by the use of musical quotations, allusions, and

contrasting styles can both encourage and discourage the hearing of emergent meanings that lead

to a musical story.

1.2 Methodology

Byron Almén (2008) and Robert Hatten (1994, 2004) have been influential in promoting

the application of narrative and semiotic theories to the analysis of tonal music,13 and their co-

authored essay in Music and Narrative since 1900 posits possible extensions of their work to

music of the twentieth century and beyond, even though their earlier methodologies do not

necessarily preclude application beyond tonal repertoires.14

Almén and Hatten’s central contribution in their 2013 essay is a detailed list of possible

extensions to their theories that would encompass novel narrative strategies in music since 1900.

In short, Almén and Hatten group their extensions into five categories, according to the musical

features that demand an extension to the existing theory: (1) temporality, (2) tropological

narratives, (3) agential narratives, (4) myth, and (5) ideological and cognitive constructions.

Additionally, Almén’s and Hatten’s earlier work in tonal music prove just as helpful for my

study. Following Liszka, Almén suggests that all narratives, including musical narrative, involve

transvaluation, which is a process in which “a hierarchy set up within a system of signs is

13
Byron Almén, A Theory of Musical Narrative (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008); Robert Hatten,
Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, and Interpretation (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1994); and Robert Hatten, Interpreting Musical Gestures, Topics, and Tropes: Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004).
14
Byron Almén and Robert S. Hatten, “Narrative Engagement with Twentieth-Century Music: Possibilities and
Limits,” in Music and Narrative since 1900, eds. Michael L. Klein and Nicholas Reyland (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 2013), 59–85.
5
subjected to change over time; this change, filtered through an observer’s design or purpose, is

interpreted as being isomorphic to a change applied to a cultural hierarchy (whether social or

psychological).”15 If transvaluation can be interpreted from a variety of different cues, then it

stands to reason that Almén’s method of interpreting narrative need not be limited to tonal music.

Tellingly, Almén’s 2008 publication demonstrates the application of his methodology to

repertoire from Bach through Schoenberg, Debussy, and Britten.

Although he does not explicitly mention narrative, Robert Hatten’s method of

interpreting continuities and discontinuities in the context of “expressive genre” enriches his

analysis of harmony, phrase structure, large-scale form, topics, and tropes in Beethoven’s String

Quartet op. 132.16 Hatten posits six possible ways to interpret a musical discontinuity in

Beethoven’s late music. Of these six, four possible interpretations also seem to have wide

application to recent music: shifts in temporality, shifts in level of discourse (i.e., to a meta-

discourse that comments on the previous musical action), or troping triggered by extreme

juxtapositions. The final possible interpretation of a musical discontinuity, as part of a dramatic

trajectory, relates directly to my project. Hatten’s analysis of discontinuity provides a good

model not only for Beethoven’s music, but also for twentieth-century music in general and

Schnittke’s music in particular. Hatten provides a theoretical foundation for making the kinds of

interpretive leaps that lead to a dramatic trajectory incorporating musical discontinuities that

might not be addressed from the perspective of narrative approaches to common-practice music.

15
Almén, Theory of Musical Narrative, 40. In other words, transvaluation involves change over time that an
interpreter correlates with an existing cultural system.
16
Hatten, Musical Meaning, 278.
6
 In addition to Hatten’s work in gesture and discontinuity, I draw upon musical topics.

Marta Grabocz17 has demonstrated the applicability of topic theory to music after 1900, and

Danuta Mirka18 hints at the rich ground that is yet to be covered on topics in twentieth-century

music. Ratner,19 Monelle,20 and Hatten21 have laid the philosophical groundwork for topic

theory, and I will employ topics as one criterion for building narrative interpretations of recent

music.

Klein’s and Reyland’s earlier publications on narrative in works by Lutosławski also

provide valuable models for the application of narrative interpretation to recent music. The final

chapter in Michael Klein’s 2005 book, Intertextuality in Western Art Music, is, to my knowledge,

the earliest extended narrative analysis of a work from the twentieth century (covering

Lutosławski’s Symphony No. 4).22 Klein’s methodology for interpreting narrative in Lutosławski

relies on understanding the causal relationships that support emplotment (how events can be

interpreted in a causal series), and he interprets these relationships as they surround a moment of

peripeteia (dramatic reversal), embodied by a theme that he refers to as the “apotheosis theme.”23

Klein previously employed the concept of apotheosis in his narrative analysis of Chopin’s Fourth

Ballade,24 and he uses this concept again in relation to additive techniques, textural unfolding,

and rhythmic drive that intensify the later impact of the dramatic reversal and spur the listener to

17
Márta Grabócz, “ ‘Topos et Dramaturgie’: Analyse des Signifies et de la Stratégie dans Deux Mouvements
Symphoniques de Béla Bartók,” Degrés 30 (2002): j1–j18.
18
Danuta Mirka, list of twentieth-century topics published in Kofi Agawu, Music as Discourse: Semiotic Adventures
in Romantic Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
19
Leonard Ratner, Classic Music: Expression, Form, and Style (New York: Schirmer, 1980).
20
Raymond Monelle, The Sense of Music: Semiotic Essays (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).
21
Robert Hatten, Interpreting Musical Gestures, Topics, and Tropes: Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 2004).
22
Klein, “Narrative and Intertext,” 108–136.
23
Klein, “Narrative and Intertext,” 128.
24
Michael L. Klein, “Chopin’s Fourth Ballade as Musical Narrative,” Music Theory Spectrum 26, no. 1 (2004): 30.
7
interpret a narrative.25 Although Cone first wrote on apotheosis in the context of music by

Chopin, Liszt, and Wagner, Klein’s use of apotheosis in works by both Chopin and Lutosławski

provides a good model for using this concept in narrative interpretations, and the poignant return

of an originally drab theme is undeniably a stereotype of late-Romantic-era music to which many

twentieth-century composers refer.26 Interpreting “apotheosis” will be significant in my own

narrative interpretations of music.

In addition to a brief and engaging overview of narrative theory in general, Michael

Klein’s introductory essay to Music and Narrative since 1900 proposes an extension to Byron

Almén’s system of narrative archetypes. Klein suggests considering the “meta-narrative” level,

which refers to how a piece of music might seem to comment on its own action (or lack thereof).

To this end, Klein produces a chart that can be used to consider the narrative trajectory of a piece

of twentieth-century music (Figure 1.1). This chart can represent the degree to which pieces

seem to support or work against interpretation at the narrative or meta-narrative level. Works that

can be interpreted with Almén’s four archetypes would be in the lower left quadrant (narrative).

Works that deny all possibility of narrative interpretation would fall in the lower right quadrant

(non-narrative). In short, meta-narrative might be interpreted in a piece of music that seems to

respond to its own discourse,27 either by commenting on prior musical action, presenting the

dramatic return of musical material that allows for a narrative interpretation when that initially

seemed unavailable (as in a neo-narrative, upper left quadrant), or by using the language of

established tonal music to thwart listeners’ expectations as they attempt to interpret a musical

25
Klein, “Narrative and Intertext,” 127.
26
Cone describes apotheosis as “a special kind of recapitulation that reveals unexpected harmonic richness and
textural excitement in a theme previously presented with a deliberately restricted harmonization and a relatively drab
accompaniment.” Edward T. Cone, Musical Form and Musical Performance (New York: W.W. Norton: 1968), 84.
27
Meta-narrative has been discussed in literary criticism. See Paul Cobley, Narrative (London: Routledge, 2001)
and Patricia Waugh, Metafiction (London: Methuen, 1984).
8
narrative (as in an anti-narrative, upper right quadrant). Klein supports the concept that a single

piece could seem to employ any of these narrative strategies at a given moment, and that the

chart is not a rigid set of four bounded categories, but a map of possible narrative moves that

might happen in a given piece of music. That said, my readings of the three compositions in my

dissertation generally fall into three different quadrants on this chart. Corigliano’s Symphony

mostly falls in the traditional “narrative” quadrant, my interpretation of Schnittke’s Concerto

Grosso falls in the “neo-narrative” quadrant, and my hearing of Larsen’s downwind of roses in

Maine falls in the “non-narrative” quadrant.

After this chart, Klein presents some brief musical examples of musical meta-narrative,

leaving many possibilities open for further exploration. Musical meta-narrative could work in a

variety of ways that have not been systematically investigated, and my discussion of denarration

and disnarration contributes to this work.

Like Klein, Nicholas Reyland’s earlier work in narrative theory and post-tonal music

began with an exploration of narrative strategies as they might apply to a work by Lutosławski.

Figure 1.1: Klein’s Second Map of Narrative Discourse, Modified from “Musical Story”28

28
This diagram reproduces a slightly modified version of Klein’s Figure 1.1. Klein, “Musical Story,” 9.
9
In a 2008 article Reyland uses strategies inspired by Roland Barthes’s “Introduction to the

Structural Analysis of Narratives” to interpret logic or action in Lutosławski’s Livre pour

orchestre. Essentially, Reyland identifies “functional sequences” that contain static and dynamic

events (determined by texture) and key events that contribute to the emergence of a plot based on

interval content. Because his narrative interpretation is based upon texture (dynamic vs. static)

and interval content (based on two key sets, [0257] and [0347]), Reyland demonstrates the

potential for narrative interpretation of post-tonal music that does not rely on tonality or even on

“tonal allusions.”29 Reyland’s 2008 analysis of Lutosławski’s Livre is detailed and strongly

supported by work from Barthes and by the composer’s own words, so it also provides a model

for musical narrative interpretation grounded in literary theory and in context provided by the

composer, which I also use in my interpretation of Corigliano’s Symphony No. 1.

In his introductory essay to Music and Narrative since 1900, Reyland discusses four

possible means of narrative negation or negotiation from contemporary literary theory, and

briefly refers to some potential musical examples of these narrative strategies.30 Table 1.2

provides a summary of Reyland’s postmodern narrative strategies. Reyland’s examples are brief

but suggestive, and I will further investigate the musical application of disnarration and

denarration in Chapter 3 of this dissertation.

Narrative interpretation allows analysts of post-tonal music to integrate a variety of

analytical details into a compelling, broad picture that could include, for example, pitch and

rhythm with the expressive connotations of the musical styles, quotations, and allusions

suggested by rhythmic motives, phrasing, chord progressions, and accompanimental patterns. I

29
Almén relies on “tonal allusions” when interpreting narrative in Schoenberg’s opus 19, nos. 2 and 4, in A Theory
of Musical Narrative, 90–91 and 183–86.
30
Nicholas Reyland, “Negation and Negotiation: Plotting Narrative through Literature and Music from Modernism
to Postmodernism,” in Music and Narrative since 1900, eds. Michael L. Klein and Nicholas Reyland (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 2013), 29–56.
10
hope to demonstrate the mutually reinforcing relationship between music analysis and narrative

interpretation by including a wide variety of analytical techniques established for tonal and

atonal music. Pitch-class set theory has long been one of the dominant analytical paradigms for

post-tonal music, and I also use it in my dissertation. In addition to simply segmenting music and

identifying salient sets, I consider contour and pitch inversion (instead of pitch-class inversion,

which offers a much broader standard for relatedness) and I use directed intervals to relate the

sets in pitch space (and not only pitch-class space).

Transformational analysis, as popularized by David Lewin in Generalized Musical

Intervals and Transformations, offers an active way of interpreting the paths between sets,

motives, and other musical segments. The mode of interpretation suggested in GMIT can be used

in a way that is philosophically in sync with the listener-focused approach that I take to

interpreting musical narrative. I employ transformational analysis most significantly in my

interpretation of Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso No. 1, but I do not limit my tools to the

transformational methodology that Lewin describes in GMIT. Shaugn O’Donnell’s method of

dual transformations provides an opposing perspective for my analysis of paired semitones in

Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso No. 1.31

Although the earliest piece in my study dates from 1977, not all of the music in my study

is atonal. Each of the compositions in this dissertation have moments that call upon tonal syntax

and harmonic function, which I will describe using, among other techniques, Schenkerian-style

voice-leading sketches.

One of the great advantages of a narrative approach to music is its ability to integrate

analytical details about pitch, rhythm, and other musical parameters into an interpretation that

31
Shaugn J. O’Donnell, “Transformational Voice Leading in Atonal Music” (Ph.D. diss., Graduate Center of the
City University of New York, 1997).
11
Table 1.2: Reyland’s Suggested Postmodern Narrative Strategies for Music

Strategy Definition32 Reyland’s Musical Example

Disnarration33 A set of events is recounted in the discourse Hatten’s vision of grace in
but is NOT part of the story.34 “Hammerklavier”—could be a
fantasy in context of tragic
grief.35
Denarration36 Event in the discourse contradicts the status Shift of pitch focus from D/F to
quo, destroying the established logic of the C/G at end of Birtwistle’s Earth
37
plot. How certain is the interpreter that Dances could lead the listener to
this event is (not) part of the story? This question the entire premise of the
certainty determines the continuum between earlier pitch focus (D/F), and any
disnarration and denarration.38 plot based around those
pitches.39
Subjunctive The discourse is missing crucial information The ambiguous and tonally
narration40 needed to (re)construct the story. unstable ending of Vaughan
Williams’s Symphony No. 6
does not confirm a key.41
Bifurcated Two unrelated narratives disrupt each other, Berio’s Rendering weaves
narrative42 juxtaposed as discourse switches between together fragments of Schubert’s
the two stories. sketches and music composed by
Berio.43

both informs and is enriched by the listening experience. I hope to demonstrate this advantage by

calling upon a variety of analytical methodologies.

32
All definitions below are paraphrased and essentialized from their literary criticism sources. Any inaccuracies are
mine and not Reyland’s.
33
Gerald Prince, “The Disnarrated in Narrative Theory and Criticism,” Style 22, no. 1 (1988): 1–8.
34
FitzPatrick summarizes Prince’s earlier work. Martin FitzPatrick, “Indeterminate Ursula and ‘Seeing How It Must
Have Looked,’ or ‘The Damned Lemming’ and Subjunctive Narrative in Pynchon, Faulkner, O’Brien, and
Morrison,” Narrative 10 (2002): 248.
35
Reyland, “Negation,” 37–38.
36
Brian Richardson, Unnatural Voices: Extreme Narration in Modern and Contemporary Fiction (Columbus: Ohio
State University Press, 2006).
37
Richardson, Unnatural Voices, 94.
38
Richardson suggests that denarration and disnarration can lie on a continuum, and I suggest the question of
certainty can help an interpreter understand where an event lies on this continuum. Richardson, 88.
39
Reyland, “Negation,” 39–40.
40
See FitzPatrick, “Indeterminate Ursula.”
41
Reyland, “Negation,” 41.
42
Alan Soldofsky, “Bifurcated Narratives in the Poetry of Robinson Jeffers, C. K. Williams, and Denis Johnson,”
Narrative 11 (2003): 312–31.
43
Reyland, “Negation,” 42.

12
 CHAPTER 2

QUOTATION, NOSTALGIA, AND IRONY

IN JOHN CORIGLIANO’S SYMPHONY NO. 1

Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein.
And if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
—Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146

2.1 Introduction

John Corigliano’s Symphony No. 1 (1989) was one of the most widely-performed new

symphonies of its time, and won the prestigious Grawemeyer Award in 1991.44 Corigliano writes

in his program note that the symphony was “generated by feelings of loss, anger, and

frustration,” following the deaths of friends to AIDS.45 While the symphony was shaped by the

composer’s own personal loss, its story of grief and acceptance reaches beyond the specific

context in which it was composed. In this chapter, I explore the individual narrative trajectories

of the three main movements of the work, and consider how they relate to the trajectory of the

symphony as a whole in my discussion of the third and fourth movements.

The first three movements of this symphony are substantial enough that each movement

can stand on its own with a unique discourse and narrative structure. In the way that works of

fiction sometimes tell multiple stories before weaving them together, or that a triptych in visual

art features three separable paintings, the first three movements act as a series of vignettes that fit

into genre-defined expectations for a symphony (especially those set by Beethoven, given the

scherzo second movement and slow third movement). The first movement features two

44
Matthew Christen Tift, “Musical AIDS: Music, Musicians, and the Cultural Construction of HIV/AIDS in the
United States” (Ph.D. Diss., The University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2007), 50–51.
45
John Corigliano, program note to Symphony No. 1 for Orchestra (New York: G. Schirmer, Inc., 1990).
13
dramatically contrasting themes, the second movement quotes a fast dance, and the third

movement is slow and lyrical. The symphony departs from genre-defined expectations in the

fourth movement, which is shorter than the previous three and largely features themes from the

first three movements. In this chapter, I first explore the individual vignettes created by each of

the first three movements, then consider the overall narrative trajectory of the symphony as a

whole in my final discussion of the third movement and of the fourth movement.

The composer’s detailed program notes inform my interpretation of the piece’s emotional

trajectory, but my analysis seeks to explore how aspects of the music convey these emotions and

the structure of their trajectory. In doing so, I uncover additional layers of meaning and

relationships between this work and its cultural context. Exploring musical meaning beyond the

composer’s program notes can account for the powerfully expressive impact this piece has, even

for listeners who are not intimately familiar with Corigliano’s life.

2.2 Movement 1: Apologue

The symphony’s first movement, “Apologue: Of Rage and Remembrance,” calls upon a

literary tradition, specifically the tradition of moral storytelling, in the same vein as fables and

parables. Literary theorist Sheldon Sacks is,46 by one account,47 the first to coin the term

“apologue” for a specific genre of moral fables in which a work is “organized as a fictional

example of the truth of a formidable statement or closely related set of such statements.”48 While

correspondences between literary and musical narrative structures are rarely one-to-one,

Corigliano is directly cuing the narrative associations held by “apologues” in referring to this

literary genre in the title of this movement.

46
Sheldon Sacks, Fiction and the Shape of Belief: A Study of Henry Fielding, with Glances at Swift, Johnson, and
Richardson (University of California Press, 1964). On apologues, see pages 1–60.
47
M. D. Fletcher, “Rushdie’s Shame as Apologue,” The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 21, no. 1 (March 1,
1986): 120–32.
48
Sacks, Fiction, 8.
14
2.2.1 Form

My interpretation of this movement’s expressive trajectory is broadly built on the piece’s

form. Because different formal interpretations can inform different interpretations of the piece’s

emotional journey, I present two formal readings of the piece. The first is informed by

Corigliano’s program notes and relies on distinctive sections of music that provide formal

boundaries. My second reading of this work’s form focuses on the divisions created by

contrasting thematic material. Without the crisp boundaries created by dedicated form-defining

material, the blending of thematic material is highlighted and this thematic blending can support

a nuanced interpretation of the work’s emotional trajectory, an interpretation that comments on

the complex emotions associated with intense grief and loss. While the crisp boundaries of the

first interpretation are provided by the composer and they are satisfying in their decisiveness,

both interpretations can ground a detailed narrative analysis.

Corigliano describes the first movement as “cast in a free, large-scale A-B-A form,” and his

detailed description of motives and musical events in the program note gives a clear impression

of how the composer might be inclined to describe the large form of this movement. Tift

describes the form of the movement as “related to sonata form,” and argues that the presence of

two contrasting themes in this movement places it in the symphonic tradition of using a sonata

form for the first movement.49 While I would suggest that the presence of two dramatically

contrasting themes does not automatically entail a sonata form, a number of works of the

Romantic era use a large-scale ternary form that does provide a reasonable interpretation for the

form of this movement, which maintains the connection of this work’s form to the classical

tradition without needlessly forcing it into a sonata form interpretation. In Table 2.1 I have

matched descriptions from the composer’s program note with what I believe are the
49
Tift, “Musical AIDS,” 75ff.
15
corresponding measures in the score; when aligned with measures of the score, these notes also

outline the composer’s ternary formal concept for this movement.

Table 2.1: Possible Formal Divisions Suggested by Corigliano

Section Text from Program Note Measures

A 1–65

1–3
"nasal open A of the violins and violas. . . . grows in intensity and volume"
"answered by a burst of percussion" 3
"A repeat of this angry-sounding note" 4–6
7–11
"entrance of the full orchestra, . . . accompanied by a slow timpani beat."
"start of a series of overlapping accelerandos interspersed with antagonistic 12–42
chatterings of antiphonal brass."
"A final multiple acceleration" 43–65
B 65–208
"reaches a peak climaxed by the violins in their highest register, which begins the 65–79
middle section (B)."
"a distant (offstage) piano is heard, as if in a memory" 80–103
"an extended lyrical section in which nostalgic themes are mixed with fragmented 104–169
sections of the Tango."
"the chattering brass motives begin to reappear, interrupted by the elements of 170–179
tension that initiated the work"
"lyrical 'remembrance' theme is accompanied by the relentless, pulsing timpani 180–195
heartbeat."
"the lyrical theme continues in its slow and even rhythm, but the drumbeat begins 196–208
simultaneously to accelerate."
A' 209–299
"a recapitulation of the multiple accelerations heard earlier in the movement, 209–231
starting the final section (A)."
"the accelerations reach an even bigger climax in which the entire orchestra joins
together playing a single dissonant chord in a near-hysterical repeated pattern that 231–249
begins to slow down and finally stops."

"A recapitulation of the original motives along with a final burst of intensity from 250–288
the orchestra and offstage piano concludes the movement"
"which ends on a desolate high A." 289–299

Considering that Corigliano’s large formal divisions often occur with a passage of

layered, multiple accelerations, these seem to be his main priority for interpreting form, while

16
formal divisions in nineteenth-century symphonic works are largely determined by changes in

thematic content, as in a sonata form. This choice to identify form-dividing rhythmic passages

instead of thematic content is understandable, given that thematic boundaries become blurred in

the end of the B section and throughout the A' section. Because the themes presented in the A

and B sections are correlated with emotions (rage and nostalgia, respectively), the interpretation

of the large form of the piece, and the emotions conveyed in each section, have a significant

effect on the interpretation of this piece’s emotional trajectory. Corigliano’s suggested formal

interpretation aligns with a specific emotional trajectory, as shown in Table 2.2.

Table 2.2: Emotional Trajectory Associated with ABA' Formal Interpretation

Section Thematic content Role in Emotional Trajectory

Presents initial state: rage
A Rage motives
Rage intensifies until it becomes exhausted
Remembrance themes Contrasting emotional state: nostalgia
B
Tango quotation Memories bring about painful thoughts
Return to rage
Rage motives
A' Rage intensifies due to painful memories, becomes
Remembrance themes
exhausted

While an interpretation of form that is driven by thematic content (instead of form-

defining rhythmic features) must allow for blurry boundaries as themes overlap in the second

half of the piece, this interpretation also provides an ending that is amenable to multiple

interpretations, allowing for a kind of emotional ambivalence that complements the work’s

program.

Instead of a negatively-valenced ending on a “desolate” high note in the violins, this

interpretation brings the emotional trajectory to a more neutral close. Although the presence of

the remembrance theme at the end of the work does not seem to provide an emotional resolution

17
to the pure rage shortly before it, allowing it to influence the work’s form and affect the

emotional trajectory brings the work to an ambiguous emotional state at its close. Indeed, as I

discuss later in this chapter, multiple interpretations of the final emotional state are possible.

Table 2.3: Formal Interpretation Informed by Thematic Content

Section Thematic content Role in Emotional Trajectory

Presents initial state: rage
A Rage motives
Rage intensifies until it becomes exhausted
Remembrance themes Contrasting emotional state: nostalgia
B
Tango quotation Memories bring about painful thoughts
Return to rage
Rage motives
A' Rage intensifies due to painful memories, becomes
Remembrance themes
exhausted
Painful memory exposed, nostalgia exhausted—multiple
Coda Tango quotation
interpretations possible

2.2.2 Rage: Motives and Topics in the A Section

Corigliano’s program notes give clear indication of his intention to convey rage in the A

section of this movement, and the motives and topics used in this section align with this program.

Additionally, the music quickly passes through all of these motives and topical melodies, often

without pause or closure at the ends of the brief musical ideas. Taking the metaphor of the

orchestra as a representative of a virtual consciousness, this Stravinskian use of juxtaposition

creates the effect of a racing mind, careening through a succession of unrelated thoughts,

represented by the variety of musical ideas, in the confusion surrounding anger and grief.

In both formal interpretations, the violence of pure rage begins the work. This wail,

performed by the strings, is associated with an A–Gs–A–Eb motive, which I will refer to as the

“rage motive.”

18
Figure 2.1: Initial Instance of the A–Gs–A–Eb Motive

Table 2.4: Instances of the A–Gs–A–Eb Motive

Sect. Meas. Inst. Musical Example

1–6 all strings see Figure 2.1

˙ .b œ w ˙
English horn (A–
œ w w
mm.14–23 English Horn Solo violin √
Gs); 4 3 j 4
& 4 œ . w 4 œ#. œ œ 4 ˙ . Œ Ó Œ Ó
15–16, and oboe

p
19–23 solo violin and
oboe (A–Eb) n p n π π
A ^j ^j b œ^ b œ^
? 44 w #œ
43 # œ ‰ Œ Œ 44 w
43 b œ ‰ Œ Œ
all strings, tuba, mm.28–31
trombones, w bœ w
28–31
basoons, clarinets, w # œ. Jw
English horn f ß ß f
. œ ßbut A with wide
similarf to˙opening,
bw ˙
B ->
A'
183–207 violins ˙ wisßsustained longer
f vibrato
bw ˙ œ
? 44 ˙ . œ #œ ˙. Œ Ó ˙ w J
mm.254–259
A' 254–259 solo horn J
p 3
p

19
 43

8-1 (01234567) ã 44 œ Œ Œ Œ œ Œ Œ Œ œ Œ Œ Œ œ Œ Œ Œ 22 œ . ‰ Ó œ. ‰ Ó œ. ‰ Ó œ. ‰ Ó

j
3-3 (014) ã 44 ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ 22
∑ ∑ Œ Œ Œ œ‰ ∑

51

8-1 ã˙ Ó ˙ Ó ˙ Ó ˙ Ó ˙ Ó ˙ Ó ˙ Ó

3 3 3
j
Œ ‰ œj
j
(014) ãÓ œ‰Œ Ó ∑ Ó œ‰Œ Ó Œ œj ‰ Ó Œ œ Œ Œ Œ œ Œ Œ œ

(0147) ã ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ Œ Œ œ Œ

58

8-1 ã ˙ . Œ 21 ˙ . Œ ˙ . Œ ˙. Œ ˙. Œ ˙. Œ ˙. Œ w w 41 w w w w w w w w
5 3 3 3 3

(014) ã Œ œ œ œ 21 œœœœ œœœœ œ œœœœœœœœœœœœ œ!œ!œ!œ!œ!œ!œ!œ! œ!œ!œ!œ!œ!œ!œ!œ! 41 œ!œ! ˙@ ˙@ ˙@ ˙@˙@˙@˙@ ˙@ ˙@ ˙@ ˙@ ˙@ ˙@ ˙@ ˙@

3
3 3

(0147) ã ∑ 21 ∑ ∑ œ Œ 6 ∑ Ó œŒ Ó œŒ ∑ œ Œ Œ œ 41 ŒŒ œ Œ œ Œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ˙@˙@˙@˙@ ˙@ ˙@ ˙@ ˙@ ˙@ ˙@ ˙@ ˙@

Figure 2.2: Multiple Accelerations in mm. 43–65

The A–Gs–A–Eb motive can be found throughout the work’s “rage” sections, at varying

pitch levels. Different instances of the motive are united by their consistent directed interval

patterns (<-1 +1 +6>) and by their rhythmic features, with longer durations on the first and third

notes of the motive, emphasizing that they are the same pitch.

The partitioning of each layer by instrumentation (since each layer has a unique

instrumentation) makes the different trajectories of acceleration quite audible in this case (Figure

2.2). Also note that the acceleration process is different for the 8-1 (01234567) cluster than it is

for the 3-3 (014) and the 4-18 (0147) chords. For the 8-1 cluster, the duration of time between

articulations does not change, only the duration of the time the chord is held. The duration

between articulations of the other two chords does rapidly accelerate, from one articulation for

20
multiple measures to multiple articulations per measure. In other words, interonset duration

changes for the 3-3 and 4-18 sonorities, but not for the 8-1 cluster. Instrumentation of each chord

is shown in Table 2.5 for the excerpt in Figure 2.2.

Table 2.5: Instrumentation in Multiple Acceleration Chords, mm. 43–65

Measures Set Pitches Instrumentation

8-1 Bass, Cello, Timpani, Tuba, Contrabassoon,
43–65 Gb,G,Ab,A,Bb,B,C,Db
(01234567) Bassoon, Contrabass Clarinet
49–65 3-3 (014) Eb,E,G Viola, Violin, Harp, Piano, Marimba
Xylophone, Glockenspiel, Trombone,
57–65 4-18 (0147) Fs,A,C,Cs
Trumpet, Clarinet, Oboe, Flute

In this case, the different timbres and pacing of each chord seem to be far more important

than pitch class set in partitioning the chords. For instance, the repeated chord that is an instance

of set class 8-1 (01234567) sounds similar in some ways to the chord that is an instance of set

class 3-3 (014). I use Robert Morris’s “spacing function,”50 which is simply a list of semitone

distances, to help clarify the relationships between the repeated chords in this first multiple

acceleration in Table 2.6, which also includes information on the chords’ range.

While the set classes of the three repeating chords are quite different, with differing

numbers of members and different interval vectors, the way that the sets are realized in pitch

space reveals some similarities. Instead of focusing on the fact that 3-3 (014) is an abstract subset

of all three of the vertical sonorities, I focus on the doubling and spacing of each of the chords, a

feature that makes them sound somewhat similar.

50
Robert D. Morris, “Equivalence and Similarity in Pitch and Their Interaction with PCSet Theory,” Journal of
Music Theory 39, no. 2 (1995): 208.
21
Table 2.6: Pitches and Spacing for Three Repeated Chords in Multiple Acceleration

Set 8-1 (01234567) 3-3 (014) 4-18 (0147)

Measures 35–37, 39–41, 43– 32, 37–38 49–65 34, 42, 57–65
65
Pitches Spacing Pitches Spacing Pitches Spacing Pitches Spacing

Bb 2 1 G6 4 G6 4 C7 3
A2 1 E b6 8 E b6 8 A6 3
Ab 2 1 G5 3 G5 3 Fs6 5
G2 1 E5 1 E5 1 C s6 1
Gb2 5 E b5 8 E b5 8 C6 3
Db2 1 G4 3 G4 3 A5 3
C2 1 E4 1 E4 1 Fs5 5
B1 1 E b4 8 E b4 8 C s5 1
Bb 1 1 G3 3 G3 3 C5 3
A1 E3 13 E3 A4 3
E b2 12 Fs4 5
E b1 C s4 1
C4 3
A3 3
Fs3 5
Number C s3
of Pitches 10 12 10 16

Table 2.6 shows the pitches in each of the chords, along with the total number of pitches and the

spacing for each of the sonorities. Spacing was calculated according to Morris’s SP(X) function,

in which one creates “an ordered list of the adjacent but unordered pitch-intervals in the pset

from low to high.”51

In addition to the fact that all of the notes in the chords are heard at once, the spacing

helps clarify the relationships between pitch and the sounds of the vertical sonorities. The 8-1

(01234567) cluster has the largest number of distinct pitches, but it features only two doubled

pitch classes (Bb and A), and its range only covers 13 half steps in a low register. In contrast,

every pitch class in the 4-18 (0147) chord is doubled across 4 octaves, and its range covers 47

51
Morris, “Equivalence and Similarity,” 208.
22
half steps spanning low, middle and high registers. Each repeating chord has a distinct pitch set,

doubling pattern, range, and instrumentation. To clarify, many pitches within each chord are

doubled at the octave, often at multiple octaves, as in the 3-3 (014) and 4-18 (0147) sonorities.

As discussed above, the unique instrumentation for each chord is ultimately the feature that most

distinguishes the vertical sonorities aurally.

In addition to the A–Gs–A–Eb motive and the multiply accelerating chords, a distinctive,

rhythmically indeterminate “fanfare” in the brass has clear associations with the military topic or,

more specifically, with the social purpose that a fanfare serves: a call to attention, or a call to

arms. Figure 2.3 below shows the first instance of this fanfare in the brass.

Although the trumpets and horns are not in rhythmic unison, their parts mostly

approximate rhythms that are commonly found in fanfares, such as a dotted eighth–sixteenth

pattern or a dotted quarter–triplet sixteenths. The trumpets sustain a high Bb 5 that serves as the

longer note value (the dotted eighth or the dotted quarter) in the fanfare rhythmic units, and this

high, resonant Bb also suggests the “attention-grabbing” function that fanfares serve.

Figure 2.3: First Instance of Fanfare in Trumpets and Horns, m. 27

23
In addition to the rhythms and the high Bb in the trumpets, the melodic leaps of a P4 in

combination with the dotted rhythms further signify a fanfare topic. Although the horns have a

rhythmic profile similar to the trumpets, they do not use the same open Bb pitch, and the horn

portamentos cover an augmented fifth or a major seventh instead of the perfect fourth in the

trumpets. Still, the use of brass in this passage also contributes to the signification of a fanfare

topic.

In addition to the musical features discussed above, one final feature is motivically

important for the “rage” section. Corigliano’s program note describes a “steady pulse—a kind of

musical heartbeat” in the A section, and later refers to a “relentless, pulsing timpani heartbeat”

that intrudes on the nostalgic melodies in the B section of the work. The steady timpani heartbeat

might be easily recognized by listeners familiar with common-practice symphonic works.

Dickensheets describes “throbbing” repeated chordal accompaniment patterns as an identifier for

the Stile Appassionato topic. Although this topic is often associated with romantic passion

(Dickensheets gives the first movement of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique as an example for

this use), she provides a section from Liszt’s Funérailles that presents an elegiac melody

immediately followed by the Stile Appassionato, demonstrating a use of the impassioned

heartbeat in an elegiac, memorializing context. The impassioned timpani heartbeats of

Corigliano’s symphony also call an intertextual reference with the low, pulsing timpani C3 in the

introduction to the first movement of Brahms’s Symphony No. 1, which conjures an image of

dread in combination with chromatic ascending and descending lines in the rest of the orchestra.

Considering the associations of the musical heartbeat with extreme emotions and with dread, the

low timpani pulse in the rage sections in this piece can be identified with the intense emotion of

rage, perhaps also terror or horror. Without additional programmatic associations, a musical

24
heartbeat might remain a somewhat neutral reference to the pulse that sustains both music and

the human body. However, in the context of Corigliano’s program and the other musical

associations of this movement, a musical heartbeat suggests a throbbing pulse, felt while

experiencing intense emotion.

2.2.3 Remembrance: Musical Nostalgia in the B Section

In the “remembrance” section of the symphony, the orchestra plays slow, lyrical melodies

as the tango is quoted by the offstage piano. In Corigliano’s program note, these lyrical melodies

are referred to as both “nostalgic themes” and as a “remembrance theme,” so I will later refer to

these melodies as different phases of a “remembrance” theme. As the B section progresses, the

effect of musical nostalgia is created and then shifts, fading as negative memories infiltrate

happy memories from the past, pulling the orchestral “stream of consciousness” back into what

becomes a return to rage.

I stress the distinction here between “nostalgia” and “remembrance,” which may explain

Corigliano’s conflicting usages of these two terms in his program note. Although nostalgia is

sometimes recognized in popular culture as a positive emotion, as when one fondly looks back

on a happy memory from the past, this sense obscures the more complex side of the emotion,

which is also commonly described as “bittersweet.” Jenefer Robinson’s and Robert Hatten’s

description of nostalgia characterizes it as a complex emotion involving both happiness (from a

past, happy memory) and sadness (that the happy past is no longer a reality).52 In other words,

nostalgia involves a happy memory and a sad present emotion. On the other hand,

“remembrance” is a more neutral term for memories, and can involve any combination of

sad/happy memories and sad/happy present emotions.

52
Jenefer Robinson and Robert S. Hatten, “Emotions in Music,” Music Theory Spectrum 34, no. 2 (October 2012):
87.
25
Table 2.7: Emotional Valence of Nostalgia and Remembrance

Valence of Memory Valence of Present

Nostalgia + (e.g., happy) – (e.g., sad)
Remembrance + or – + or –

Table 2.7 clarifies the specific emotional valences, positive or negative, associated with nostalgia

and with remembrance. Because remembrance can entail a variety of combinations of emotional

states in memories or in the present, its emotional valences can be positive or negative in both

the memory and in the present.

As the B section of the symphony begins, the violins play a slow, high melody. The

tempo is so slow that entrainment is almost impossible, and the melody is so high that exact

pitches are difficult to perceive (especially because these pitches are not even a finger-width

apart on a violin fingerboard!). Even so, this begins the remembrance theme played by the

strings in this section—a melody that grows and intensifies through the B section and the A'

section of the movement. As shown in Figures 2.4 through 2.6 below, three distinct phases of the

remembrance theme are found throughout the B section.

Just as the process of a memory surfacing into one’s consciousness can be gradual, so are

the transformations of the remembrance theme.

w w ˙ n˙ ˙
√
2 bw 32 w .
74

&2 bw
(√)
3

√w w ˙ ˙ ˙ w ˙ #˙ w
2
80

&2
3

Figure 2.4: First Phase of the Remembrance Theme (R), First Violins, mm. 74–85
26
 99 w w ˙ #œ œ #w ˙
? 22 œ œ #œ œ ˙

˙ # œ œ ˙. œ ˙ #w w ˙ nœ bœ nw
? 3 2
105

2 2
˙ œ #œ œ #œ ˙ #˙ w ˙ ˙
? 3 #w 2
111

2 2

Figure 2.5: Second Phase of the Remembrance Theme (R'), Cellos, mm. 99–115

2 œ ˙ #œ œ ˙ œ nœ ˙
143

&2 w œ b˙ bœ bœ nw œ bœ

bœ w ˙ b˙ œ ˙. 32 ˙ . œ ˙
& b˙. #˙
149

Figure 2.6: Third Phase of the Remembrance Theme (R''), Violas, mm. 143–154

Iterations of the theme are never identical, but I have grouped them into three “phases” that

contain instances of the theme that are similar to each other. Appendix A contains a reduction of

the entire B section with remembrance themes and tango quotations indicated. As the three

phases of the remembrance themes are constantly varied, some melodic patterns and underlying

voice-leading patterns emerge that link the three phases together. R and R', the first two phases

of the remembrance theme, both elaborate a pattern of two descending diatonic steps (sometimes

whole steps, sometimes half steps), followed by two diatonic steps ascending and descending to

the initial note. Figure 2.7 illustrates the underlying voice-leading pattern involving diatonic

steps. In this reduction, pitches that are part of the voice-leading pattern are represented with

white noteheads, and pitches elaborating this pattern are represented with black noteheads.

Beams connect the white noteheads, and directed pitch intervals are in angle brackets above the

27
beams. Note that R' begins with a descending diatonic half step, while R begins with a

descending diatonic whole step. In analysis of tonal music, these would both be recognized as

descending third progressions, and I also hear that similarity between these two descending step

patterns, even though the context of the remembrance themes in the orchestra is not overtly

tonal. Figure 2.7 demonstrates the process of embellishment and intensification that develops R

into R'. This prepares for yet another intensification later in this section, the transformation of

what initially appeared as chromatic embellishment in R' into a chromatic descending line in R'',

intensifying the emotional content of the passage with the association of the chromatic

descending line and grief, doom, and despair.53 Indeed, passages featuring R'' in the B section are

marked “lamentoso” in the score.

At the opening of the B section, the strings play 12 measures of the gradually changing

remembrance theme R, and the offstage piano enters in measure 80 of the movement with a

quotation of Leopold Godowsky’s arrangement of Albeniz’s Tango.

< -2 -2 > < +2 +2 -2 -2 >

˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ #œ ˙
˙ œ b˙ bœ ˙
R &
< -1 -2 > < +2 +2 -2 -2 >

˙ #œ œ # ˙ œ œ #œ œ ˙ #œ ˙ ˙ œ #˙ nœ bœ n˙ œ #œ œ # œ ˙
R'
?

Figure 2.7: Underlying Diatonic Step Patterns in R and R'

As in a memory that is just below the level of conscious thought, the quoted tango is distanced

from the remembrance theme in a number of ways. The effect of musical distance is created by

several obvious differences between the two concurrent musical streams: in tonality, tempo,

53
Monelle describes the passus duriusculus, and its associations with grief and weeping, in The Sense of Music.
Raymond Monelle, The Sense of Music: Semiotic Essays (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).
28
compositional source, instrumentation, physical location in the concert hall, musical texture,

continuity, and register, as shown in Table 2.8.

Table 2.8: Effect of Musical Distance Created by Differences Between Concurrent Musical
Streams

Remembrance Theme Tango

Tonality “Pseudo-tonal” Tonal with chromaticism
Tempo Extremely slow, pulse hard to Slow, but pulse can be perceived
perceive
Compositional Newly composed Quoted from an arrangement
source
Instrumentation Strings Piano
Musical texture Polyphonic, canonic Melody and accompaniment
Register High to very high register of Wide register on piano, includes
strings highs and lows
Physical Location On stage, seen Offstage, unseen
Continuity Continuous, unbroken stream, Fragmented, discontinuous, music
does not stop starts and stops

The effect of distance between these two streams of music aligns with a musical

depiction of nostalgia, in which the two musical strands correlate with the two conflicting

emotions involved with nostalgia (happy vs. sad) and the two timelines associated with nostalgia

(past vs. present). As discussed by Hatten and Robinson, nostalgia is a complex emotion,

requiring “happiness at the memory of a happy past that is gone forever, together with sadness

and regret at its passing.”54 The presence of two concurrent musical streams at the beginning of

the B section creates a musical effect akin to the complex emotions involved in nostalgia: the

off-stage piano begins as a happy, distant memory (correlated with the major-mode dance

offstage), while the remembrance theme in the strings can be interpreted as a virtual stream of

54
Robinson and Hatten, “Emotions in Music,” 87.
29
consciousness, flowing between thoughts as the lamenting remembrance theme gradually

changes.

The complexity of nostalgia and its relationship with memories and loss informs my

interpretation of the events in the B section. While nostalgia involves a happy memory from the

past (signified here by the tango), it also necessarily involves a sense of loss in the present

(signified by the remembrance theme in the orchestra). In my interpretation, the distant tango is

correlated with memories, and the flowing orchestral melodies on stage are correlated with a

stream of consciousness in the present, as shown Table 2.9. I also use the typical association of

major mode with happy or positively valenced emotions, and minor mode with sad or negatively

valenced emotions. These correlations are established at the beginning of the section.55

Table 2.9: Emotional Correlations with Materials in B Section

Instrumentation Thematic Content

Past (memory)
Present (consciousness)
Tango minor mode:
negative aspect of memory
Offstage piano
Tango major mode:
positive aspect of memory
Orchestra Remembrance themes

In the B section of the movement, the major-key passages of the offstage tango (taken to

signify positive aspects of memory), together with the negative or ambivalent emotional

association of the remembrance theme in the orchestra, form a musical depiction of the complex

experience of nostalgia: a happy memory (major mode tango offstage) together with a sense of

loss in the present (remembrance theme on stage). The initial entrance of the offstage tango and

the concurrent orchestral remembrance melody, creating the effect of nostalgia, are shown in

55
Note that this interpretation treats memory as something separate from present consciousness, almost like a
recording playing in the mind. While many psychologists would likely disagree with this interpretation of memory,
it seems to be a very clear way to differentiate these two mental states or timelines in music.
30
Figure 2.8. This excerpt only includes the measures of the tango arrangement that are performed

during the measures of the symphony that are shown in the reduction. Tango m. 2 enters in m. 80

of the symphony, and tango m. 7 ends in m. 93 of the symphony, when the reduction in the

example ends.

Even as the musical features outlined in Table 2.8 create the musical effect of distance

between the two musical streams, the pitch content of the remembrance melody in mm. 77–93

further separates it from the quoted tango. The sustained G6 in mm. 80–82 of the remembrance

melody is heard as a dissonance against the first three beats of tango m. 2, which firmly establish

the key of D major with D-major harmonies. Other sustained pitches in the remembrance

melody, such as the C6 in mm. 83–85 and the G6 in mm. 85–87, also clash with the alternating

tonic (D major) and dominant (A7) harmonies sustained in mm. 3–5 of the tango, with which

they are concurrently heard. As the remembrance melody continues, an Eb6 and Bb5 in m. 90

further distance the pitches of the remembrance melody from the pitches of the D-major tango.

This musical distance enhances the effect of nostalgia in this section, and the dissonances created

by the remembrance melody encourage its interpretation as a negative emotion, especially given

the programmatic context. As quickly as this nostalgic effect is established, it is undercut by a

brief tonicization of B minor at the end of the first tango quotation in m. 98–102 of the

symphony. A reduction of this portion of the remembrance melody and its accompanying tango

measures (mm. 9–11) are given in Figure 2.9.

Just as painful aspects of a memory stir up changes in our thoughts about a memory,

tonicizations of B minor in the tango trigger changes in the remembrance theme played by the

orchestra.

31
Reduction of Remembrance Melody in Orchestra, mm. 77–93

(√) w w ˙ ˙ ˙ w ˙ #˙ w
bw 32 w . 22
77

& bw
3
offstage tango enters: mm. 2–11 ˙ w w
& ∑ ∑ 32 ∑ 22 ∑ ∑ ∑ Ó

w w ˙ ˙ bw w ˙ ˙ ˙ w
b˙
3 2 3 2
86

& 2 Ó 2 ∑ Ó 2 2
3 3

˙ ˙ #˙ w
& 32 w ˙ 22 w w 32 ∑ 22 ∑ ∑
3

Albeniz Tango, mm. 2–7

Figure 2.8: Initial Entrance of Tango and Concurrent Orchestral Remembrance Melody, mm.
77–93

Instead of a misalignment between the pitches heard in the tango and in the remembrance

melody, the first instance of R' (the second phase of the remembrance theme) can now be heard

beginning with a sustained D4, emphasizing 3 of the B minor tonicization heard concurrently in

the tango quotation.

32
Reduction of Remembrance Melody in Orchestra, mm. 94–102

w ˙ #˙ w #˙ w
w w ˙ #œ œ #w
3 2
94
?
& 2 2 ∑
#˙ #˙ w ˙ #w offstage tango tonicizes B minor

& 32 22 w ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑
w w w w
32 22 #w w w w
94

& ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑

? 32 22 Ó Ów ˙
∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ˙ w

Albeniz Tango, mm. 8–11 .

Figure 2.9: Tango Tonicization of B minor and Concurrent Remembrance Melody, mm. 94–102
of First Movement, mm. 8–11 of Tango

In m. 100 of the symphony, the sustained pitches in the on-stage orchestra sound a B minor triad

(plus A6, sustained in mm. 97–101). The change in the orchestra’s remembrance melody also

aligns it melodically with the B-minor tonicization in the tango. The melody in m. 10 of the

tango begins with a triplet D5–Cs5–B4, and the first three pitches of the R' phase of the

remembrance theme can be heard as an augmentation of this melodic descending third, D4–Cs4–

B3 in mm. 99–101. Emphasizing the significance of this alignment between the offstage and

onstage music, the Cs4–B3 in m. 101 are marked desolato in the score. Further, the presence of

33
R' in a lower register than R was initially heard (see Figure 2.8) closes one aspect of the distance

between the offstage tango and the onstage remembrance melody. Beginning with the entrance

of R' in m. 99, the range of the remembrance melody now overlaps with the range of the tango

played offstage. Just as the tango moves into a tonicization of B minor, the minor-mode

quotation ends abruptly after beat two of the eleventh tango measure, stopping before the tango

would have begun a move away from B minor. The remembrance theme R' continues in the celli

for several more measures.

The alignment between the tango (signifying memory) and the on-stage orchestra

(signifying conscious thoughts and emotions in the present) is elusive, as if this powerful

memory has just started to touch the consciousness and fades as quickly as it appeared—as soon

as it began to “sour” by moving from D major to B minor. At this point in the B section, this

represents a victory for nostalgia, which relies on positive memories. Even though the move to B

minor in the offstage tango (representing memory) temporarily aligns with a B minor chord in

the orchestra and triggers a change to the R' remembrance theme in the orchestra, featuring

chromatic embellishment and intensification, the negative aspects of memory (the B minor

section of the tango) are temporarily vanquished, allowing the orchestra to eventually return to

the initial remembrance theme, R, in m. 114, as if restoring the nostalgic mood, and its

association with positive memories. Table 2.10 lists all appearances of the quoted tango in the B

section of this movement.

After m. 103 the R' remembrance theme continues in the celli, ascending from its initial

B3 to higher sustained pitches Fs4 and E4 in mm. 107 and 110, respectively. This registral

intensification of the R' theme seems to bring about a return of the first phase of the

remembrance theme, R, in m. 114, with flute and celli (in a high register).

34
Table 2.10: Quotations of Albeniz Tango, arr. Godowsky, in Measures 80–178 of Corigliano
Symphony No. 1, Movement 1

Measures Function from Original Measures of Formal Position in Instrumentation

from Tango Tango Arrangement Symphonic Symphony of Quoted
Movement Material
First full repeated period B section: initial intro. of
(HC, IAC; HC, IAC), brief quoted tango
2–11 80–103 Offstage piano
tonicization of B minor in
mm. 10–11
Move away from B minor,
12–13 back to 125–128 Offstage piano
V/D Major
2–3 131–132 B section: Fragments of Clarinets
4–5 132–133 opening tango measures Harp and violas
2 136–137 heard from on-stage; Flutes
rhythms are modified Bassoons and
3–4 138–140 (usually slower) and
Opening measures of tango Celli
2 melody 167–169 quotations are transposed Clarinets
3 175–176 (to a variety of registers) Oboes

4 176–178 Solo clarinet

Following the return of R in m. 114, the texture of the orchestral accompaniment to R thickens

from dyads in mm. 102–116 to a triad in m. 117 and following. The harmonic language of the

remembrance theme is consistent, featuring misalignment between the Eb minor triad sustained

by the basses, violas, second violins, and clarinets in mm. 118–121 and the sustained pitches in

the remembrance theme, F5 in mm. 118–119 and G6 in mm. 119–122. The violins’ return to the

high G6 in m. 125 with remembrance theme R coincides with the second return of the tango

quotation, this time featuring measures 12 and 13 of the tango, the measures that move away

from B minor in order to return to D major, in the offstage piano. The return of the offstage

tango and R in the violins initiates another alignment between the quoted tango and the

remembrance theme: the high B6 in the violins in mm. 127–8 is sustained under the final melody

note in this segment of the tango, B4 on the second half of beat 2 in tango measure 13. This time,

35
R' quickly appears in the oboe in m. 129, beginning with a sustained C6 just as the second

violins begin R with a sustained C6 in m. 128. In summary, the alignment between the tango and

the R theme is followed in short succession with an alignment between the R and R' themes.

This tango quotation ends on beat 2 of tango measure 13, on an E7 chord that would have

preceded an A harmony on beat 3, heard as the dominant of D major. Although tango measures

12 and 13 do not tonicize B minor, as before, they are also not yet in D major, either. The tonal

ambivalence in the offstage tango, in concert with the distinctive alignments between parts,

incites a drastic change in the orchestra: for the first time, fragments of the Albeniz tango can

now be heard from the orchestra (associated with the present consciousness) instead of being

limited to the offstage piano (associated with past memories). The memory has broken through

into consciousness. As shown in Table 2.10, the fragments of the tango quotation that are now

heard in the orchestra come from tango measures 2–5, the major mode portion of the tango.

Happy memories from the past have broken through into the conscious clarity, and one-

to-two measure fragments of the tango can now be heard coming from onstage instruments: the

clarinets, strings, flutes, and bassoons in mm. 131–140. However, the move from subconscious

memory to active reflection has taken its toll on the tango melody, which is modified in rhythm,

register, and harmony, as shown in Table 2.11.

Just as the previous alignment between memory and present consciousness could not be

sustained, this attempt to elicit happy memories (signified by the offstage tango) into present

consciousness (signified by the tango fragments performed by the orchestra onstage) can only

bring about a brief moment of respite from present mourning. Exemplifying the bittersweet,

complex quality of nostalgia, the thought of happy memories brings about an even more

powerful sadness in the present.

36
Table 2.11: Tango Fragments Heard from On-Stage Instruments in mm. 131–140

Original Tango Measures Changes to Original Tango Fragment in Orchestra

last eighth of m. 2–beat 2 1. piano right hand only Clarinets, mm. 131–132
of m. 3 2. rhythms modified to fit orchestra’s
x=60 tempo
3. final chord of fragment changed
from Bs–Fs–B to Cs–Eb–Fs–B
last eighth of m. 4–beat 2 1. piano right hand only Harp and viola soli, mm.
of m. 5 2. pitches one octave higher 132–133
3. slightly slower than offstage piano
tempo, not proportionally slowed
4. harp only plays higher dyads,
emphasizing stepwise motion in
compound melody
beats 1–3 of m. 2 1. piano right hand only Flute, mm. 136–137
2. pitches one octave higher and
doubled melody at original octave
3. slower than offstage piano tempo
4. melody doubled in thirds throughout
last eighth of m. 3–beat 4 1. same tempo as offstage piano, as in Bassoons and cello soli,
of m. 4 clarinet fragment mm. 138–140
2. piano right hand only
3. one octave lower than original
4. doubled in thirds throughout

The entrance of the tango quotations in the orchestra in m. 128 coincides with a

thickening of the musical texture, which now features the tango fragments, continuous

remembrance themes, and a slowly shifting accompaniment of sustained dyads and trichords.

The layered texture changes dramatically beginning in m. 142, when the continuous

remembrance themes and tango fragments fade away, and the entire orchestra sustains the

pitches of an E minor triad. The third form (R'') of the remembrance theme can be heard in the

violas beginning in m. 144, marked “lamentoso” and replete with descending chromatic steps,

which have long been associated with grief and loss. A series of repeated verticalities enters with

a regular half-note pulse in mm. 144–149, recalling the repeated pulsing chords of the angry A

37
section and initiating a dramatic textural change in the accompanimental pattern. These pulsing

vertical sonorities continue the tonally ambiguous or “pseudo-tonal” harmonies now established

as typical for this section. As shown in Table 2.12, none of these chords fits into a functional

harmonic context, but they all have some surface features that create a vague sense of tonality,

including a proliferation of minor thirds—all three chords contain a diminished triad 3-10 (036)

as an abstract subset.

Table 2.12: Repeated Chords in Measures 144–149

Measures Normal Order Set Class IC Vector 3-10 (036) Subset

144–145 [G, Bb,B,Db] 4-12 (0236) <112101> [G, Bb, Db]
146–147 [Fs,A,C,Cs] 4-18 (0147) <102111> [Fs,A,C]
148–149 [Gs,B,C,D,E] 5-26 (02458) <122311> [Gs,B,D]

The arrangement of the repeated vertical sonorities in pitch space is perhaps even more

indicative of their “pseudo-tonal” harmony. All three of the chords are spaced with a prominent

minor third between the highest two pitches, and either a perfect fifth or a minor sixth between

the lowest two pitches, giving the impression of a harmonic succession without using tertian

harmony. I use Morris’s spacing function to illustrate this in Table 2.13.

These pulsing vertical sonorities are followed by sustained accompanying tetrachords in

the horns, harp, cellos, and basses in mm. 150–155, as R'' continues in the violas. The

accompanimental tetrachords move into a sustained D-minor triad in m. 156. This is perhaps a

subtle alignment with the tango, which is in D major.

38
Table 2.13: Spacing for Repeated Chords in Measures 144–149

Set 4-12 (0236) 4-18 (0147) 5-26 (02458)

Measures 144–145 146–147 148–149
Pitches Spacing Pitches Spacing Pitches Spacing

Db 4 3 C4 3 D4 3
As3 15 A3 8 B3 3
G2 8 Db 3 7 Gs3 8
B1 Fs2 C3 8
E2

As the D-minor triad is sustained by the trombones, cellos, and basses in mm. 156–160, the

violins enter with R', beginning with a sustained D6. The violins continue their sustained D6 as

the sustained triad changes to B minor in m. 161. This move between minor mode triads with

roots separated by a minor third is emphasized in an especially poignant manner through the

foregrounding of the common tone in the violins’ sustained, high D6.

Figure 2.10: Poignant Sustained D6 in mm. 159–161, Reduction

39
The poignant high D6 in the violins in m. 160 initiates a prominent sequence of the final, R''

phase of the remembrance theme. As shown in Table 2.14, this sequence featuring the R''

remembrance theme lasts through the end of the B section.

Table 2.14: R'' Heard Through the End of the B Section

Measures Instrumentation
All parts doubling the same, 160–181 First violins
continuous theme (i.e., not 167–181 Second violins
canonic entrances) 173–181 Piccolo and flute
179–208 Horns
All parts doubling the same, 187–193 Trombones
continuous theme 194–208 Oboes
194–208 Violas

Following the entrance of the R'' remembrance theme, the quoted tango is only heard three more

times in the orchestra, in increasingly slow forms quoting only a measure at a time, as shown in

Table 2.15.

Table 2.15: Tango Fragments Heard from On-Stage Instruments in mm. 160–208

Original Tango Changes to Original Tango Fragment in

Measures Orchestra
beats 1–2 of m. 2 1. piano right hand only Clarinets, mm.
2. pitches 1 octave higher 167–169
3. slower than offstage piano tempo
4. melody doubled in thirds throughout
beats 1–2 of m. 3 1. piano right hand only Oboes, mm. 175–
2. slower than offstage piano tempo 176
3. final chord of fragment changed from Bs–Fs–
B to Eb–B
last eighth of m. 3–beat 1. melody only Solo clarinet, mm.
4 of m. 4 2. pitches 1 octave higher 176–178
3. significantly slower than offstage piano
tempo

40
In general, the tango fragments heard over R'' in the end of the B section are significantly slower

than the original tempo played by the offstage piano, and they include less of the tango than was

quoted in the fragments in mm. 131–140. In my interpretation of the B section, correlating the

tango with memories of the past and remembrance theme with thoughts in the present, the

progressively slower tempo and shorter length of the tango fragments heard in the orchestra

could be interpreted as a fading of the positive memories in the present consciousness, as

thoughts turn to another aspect of remembrance. For this reason, the overall trajectory of the B

section can be interpreted as an attempt to nostalgically relive happy memories of the past that

ultimately fails, as those happy memories fade when they are processed by the consciousness.

However, the consciousness is changed across the course of the B section, indicated by the

increasingly chromatic phases of the remembrance theme, with the most chromatic version, R'',

dominating the end of the section. This changed consciousness makes way for an emotional shift

back to rage, as motives from the A section begin to blend into the end of the B section.

2.2.4 Culmination of Rage and Remembrance in the A' Section

Following the foregrounding of the R'' remembrance theme along with the accelerating

heartbeat pattern at the end of the B section, the A' section commences in m. 209 with the

beginning of a multiple acceleration pattern that uses the same pitches and groupings for the

accelerated chords as the pattern beginning in m. 43, which was shown in Figure 2.2. Instead of

the multiple acceleration layered with the “woodwind chattering” as in m. 43, this time the brass

fanfare can be heard at the beginning of the multiple acceleration pattern. Although the brass

fanfare in mm. 209–212 is heard from the trumpets, it is largely similar to the fanfare played by

the horns in m. 27. Exchanging the chattering woodwinds with the brass fanfare at this

recapitulatory moment could bring the beginning of the A' section into question, since we have

41
not yet heard the A–Gs–A–Eb wail followed by woodwind chattering that announced the

beginning of the A section. On the other hand, the association of the fanfare with announcements

and declarations56 can also work to establish this point as a formal boundary, as a “new

beginning.” The chords in the multiple acceleration, the exact same vertical sonorities used in

measures 43 and following, continue as the pace accelerates to a climactic tremolo in mm. 226–

230.

Table 2.16: Pitches and Spacing of Repeated Chords in mm. 231–249

Set 8-19 (01245689) 4-18 (0147)

Measures 231–234 235–249
Pitches Spacing Pitches Spacing

Bb 7 13 C4 3
A6 7 A3 8
D6 4 D b3 1
Bb5 1 C3 6
A5 3 G b2 5
F s5 3 D b2 7
E b5 5 G b1 5
Bb4 1 D b1
A4 8
D b4 3
Bb3 3
G3 5
D3 3
B2 4
G2 8
B1
Number of Pitches 16 8

At this point, the layered chords from the multiple accelerations have coalesced into a single

repeated cluster, an intensification of the earlier “musical heartbeat” idea, since this cluster now

contains many more pitches. This unified “heartbeat” cluster culminates with most of the

56
Raymond Monelle, The Sense of Music: Semiotic Essays (Princeton University Press, 2010), 34.
42
orchestra now in rhythmic unison, maintaining a tempo (not accelerating) and playing as loud as

possible (“tutti f possibile”) from mm. 231 to 234. As if exhausted by the effort of performing in

rhythmic unison at a fast pace, as loud as possible (which can be exhausting for both the listener

and the performer!), the arrangement of the pitches in the vertical sonority changes in m. 235,

which also marks the beginning of a rallentando—still as loud as possible—described as: “the

result should sound like a monstrous machine slowing to a stop, but still full of energy” in the

score.57 Table 2.16 shows the pitches and spacing of the steady cluster in mm. 231–234 as well

as the pitches and spacing of the rallentando chord in mm. 235–249.

Table 2.17: Quotations of Albeniz Tango, arr. Godowsky, in Measures 284–296 of Corigliano
Symphony No. 1, Movement 1

Measures Function from Original Measures of Formal Position in Instrumentation of

from Tango Tango Arrangement Symphonic Symphony Quoted Material
Movement
10–11 Tonicization of B minor 284–287 Coda: Quoted tango is Off-stage piano
2 Opening 289–291 reprised from off-stage and Violas and Celli
18–19 291–294 on-stage; movement ends Off-stage piano
Second tonicization of B with repeated m. 18 from
18 294–295 Off-stage piano
minor in the tango tango
18 (partial) 296 Off-stage piano

I suggest there are a range of possible interpretations of the emotional state at the end of

the movement, and that this lack of evidence in favor of any one interpretation is not a failure of

the composition or of the theoretical apparatus, but aligns quite well with the work’s program:

grieving can be a complex process, with multiple conflicting emotions that are not easily named

or categorized by the grieving person. As Klein suggests, the final state of the work is important

for my interpretation, since it acts as a master signifier for the analytical choices made earlier in

the piece.58 The convergence of the minor-mode tango (signifying negative memories from the

57
John Corigliano, Symphony No. 1 for Orchestra (New York: G. Schirmer, Inc., 1990), 43.
58
Michael L. Klein, “Ironic Narrative, Ironic Reading,” Journal of Music Theory 53, no. 1 (2009), 99.
43
past), the remembrance melodies, and the quiet wail in the high register (signifying loss of

energy) could represent acceptance of a negative outcome, defeat, or possibly even abnegation.

While the rage emphasized at the beginnings of the A and A' sections is no longer present, one

might interpret the absence of rage either as the defeat of rage or as the momentary lack of rage,

while it boils away just below the conscious surface. Multiple interpretations at the end of the

first movement allow for a kind of musical analogue of the complex emotions associated with

grief and loss, making room for future clarity and catharsis in later movements.

If we follow the narrative thread of striving for nostalgia, attempts for reviving positive

memories of the past have failed at the end, as we only hear the minor-mode tango quotations,

associated with negative memories. In this scenario, the absence of high-energy emotions (such

as rage) suggests that energy was exhausted in the attempts to revive positive memories, but the

grief and negative emotions continue. Just as the attempts to revive positive memories have

failed, the futility of that act of revival remains clear, as positive memories from the past can do

nothing to heal emotional wounds in the present.

Corigliano, in his own program note, presents an interpretation of an overall negative

outcome at the end of the movement, but his description focuses on isolation rather than

nostalgia (these two negative emotions can easily coexist). The composer writes:

“Unexpectedly, the volume of this passage remains loud, so that the effect is that
of a monstrous machine coming to a halt but still boiling with energy. This
energy, however, is finally exhausted, and there is a diminuendo to piano. A
recapitulation of the original motives along with a final burst of intensity from the
orchestra and offstage piano concludes the movement, which ends on a desolate
high A.”59

For Corigliano, the musical “energy” is “finally exhausted,” and we are left with the final,

“desolate” high A6. The composer’s characterizations of the end as “exhausted” and “desolate”

59
Corigliano, program note.
44
paint a picture of an outpouring of grief that, painfully, is powerless to change a tragic situation.

From the context provided by the program note, that tragic situation is the suffering and death of

friends and colleagues.

2.3 Movement II: Insidious Irony

The second movement of the symphony is constructed around a quotation of the

“Tarantella” from Corigliano’s Gazebo Dances (1970) that contrasts sharply with the somber and

expressive mood established in the first movement of the symphony. With its bouncy leaps,

rambunctious dance rhythms, and its tonal emphasis on C major, the tarantella quotation initially

seems an unlikely choice for a symphonic theme in a movement that depicts the tragic loss of a

friend to AIDS. Ultimately, the tarantella theme is torn apart—destroyed by musical disruptions

that gradually distort and remove original features of the theme.

Corigliano writes in the program note that his first symphony was “generated by feelings

of loss, anger, and frustration” that he felt having “lost many friends and colleagues to the AIDS

epidemic.” The composer dedicated each of the first three movements to a close friend, and

Corigliano writes this about the second movement:

“[It] was written in memory of a friend who was an executive in the music
industry. He was also an amateur pianist, and in 1970 [Corigliano] wrote a set of
dances (Gazebo Dances for piano, four hands) for various friends to play and
dedicated the final, tarantella movement to him. This was a jaunty little piece
whose mood, as in many tarantellas, seems to be at odds with its purpose. For the
tarantella, as described in Grove’s Dictionary of Music, is a ‘South Italian dance
played at continually increasing speed [and] by means of dancing it a strange kind
of insanity [attributed to tarantula bite] could be cured.’ The association of
madness and [his] piano piece proved to be both prophetic and bitterly ironic
when [his] friend, whose wit and intelligence were legendary in the music field,
became insane as a result of AIDS dementia.”60
One analytical approach might have been to investigate ways that the movement tells the story of

Corigliano’s friend. However, this approach is very closely linked with Corigliano’s biographical

60
Corigliano, program note.
45
details, and it does not account for the powerfully expressive impact this piece has, even for

listeners who are not intimately familiar with Corigliano’s life. The work was one of the most

widely-performed new symphonies of its time, and won the Grawemeyer Award in 1991.61 My

interpretation takes biographical details into account, but I also allow myself the freedom to

consider ironies in this piece at a variety of different interpretive levels. I systematically explore

the way that the tarantella theme tears itself apart. In combination with the biographical details

given in the program, my analysis of multiple layers of musical irony in the piece points to tragic

cultural ironies in society’s response to AIDS both in the 1980s and today.

2.3.1 Irony

To say that irony is confusing for many would be an understatement. Conventional

categories such as dramatic irony, romantic irony, situational irony, and so forth can often seem

either unrelated or inextricably tied together. For the purposes of my interpretation of this

movement, I’d like to stick with a generally-accepted definition of conventional irony: a

communication that has two directly opposed meanings.

Music scholars including Michael Klein, Byron Almén, and Esti Sheinberg provide

examples of how one might interpret irony in music. Esti Sheinberg bases her study of irony in

the music of Shostakovich on the identification of structural negation as the foundation for her

interpretations of finite irony, which has a clear hidden meaning, and infinite irony, which

remains a paradox. Sheinberg identifies parody, satire, and the grotesque as subcategories of

irony, and uses criteria she develops as a way to interpret these different kinds of conflicts within

a message or between a message and its context.62 Sheinberg’s monograph remains the largest

study dedicated to irony in the work of a twentieth-century composer.

61
Tift, “Musical AIDS,” 50–51.
62
Sheinberg, Esti. Irony, Satire,Parody and the Grotesque in the Music of Shostakovich. Burlington: Ashgate, 2000.
46
 Almén’s interpretations of irony in music are inspired by the ironic narrative archetypes

identified by Northrop Frye and a semiotic system constructed by James Liszka. In Almén’s

interpretations, a positively-viewed order (such as the reassurance that a piece in rondo form will

feature the return of the refrain a number of times) is established at the beginning of a piece, but

this order is later undermined by a transgressor who strikes us as negative or uncertain (such as

the incomplete fragments of the rondo theme at the end of Haydn’s “Joke” Quartet op. 33, no. 2).

The irony here is in the way that the transgression leads us to question the utility of continuing to

uphold the positive value of the original order. Almén writes in reference to the “Joke” Quartet,

“In light of the dismantling of the opening sentence, the previous regularity now seems

overplayed and confining.”63 In other words, instead of feeling relief with the triumphant return

of the rondo theme at the end, the transgressive fragmentation in the coda asks, “Aren’t you a

little bit glad to hear this boring theme coming apart?” This is the irony in the ironic narrative

archetype: a positively-valued order is established at the beginning of the piece, then it is

questioned, contradicted, and we’re ultimately left unsure if that order was quite so good in the

first place. The cultural values upheld at the beginning of the piece are called into question at the

end, leading into something that could be an infinite loop of contradiction when the piece is

considered as a whole.

Michael Klein points out that, although the ironic narrative archetype is an analytical

choice and not necessarily a structural feature in the way that Almén seems to suggest, an ironic

reading of a piece still relies on the kinds of contradictions identified by Almén. For Klein,

“ironic narratives place particular emphasis on the conventional nature of [cultural] values and

the possibility that they could be placed in a crisis for which there is no resolution.”64 Like

63
Almén, A Theory of Musical Narrative, 173.
64
Michael L. Klein, “Ironic Narrative, Ironic Reading,” Journal of Music Theory 53, no. 1 (2009): 101.
47
Almén, Klein builds on Frye’s and Liszka’s work, pointing out that the ironic narrative archetype

is characterized by sparagmos, or the tearing apart of the heroic, as a confused society renders

the hero powerless to change the status quo. Neither Sheinberg, nor Almén, nor Klein go in

detail to address irony in very recent 20th-century music, but I would argue that the layered irony

of Corigliano’s symphonic “Tarantella” provides one example of the many possibilities for ironic

readings of recent music.

Both Klein and Almén suggest that an ironic reversal in music often asks us to

retrospectively identify features that lead up to this reversal. In an ironic narrative archetype,

musical features might retrospectively take on the role of incipient, or emergent, transgressions,

especially if they act in a way to tear apart the musical order established at the beginning of the

work. I’ll adopt this strategy to assist me in analyzing musical irony within the “Tarantella”

movement, referencing expectations derived from common-practice symphonic literature.

2.3.2 Thematic Disintegration and Irony

In the second movement of the symphony, we hear the quoted tarantella theme a number

of times. I divided the iterations of the tarantella theme into 7 “rotations,” as each instance of the

theme is quite different from the previous one. For example, the significant changes that occur

with each rotation are so dramatic that they give the effect that the tarantella theme is

disintegrating before our ears, spiraling out of control. Not only does the theme lose more and

more of its original features with each rotation, but the insidious process of thematic

disintegration in this movement involves features of the original theme that were normative and

highly associated with common practice music, such as the expected tempo for a tarantella, C as

a major key or as a pitch center, or the timbre of a Bb clarinet.

48
 The thematic disintegration I identify in the second movement of this symphony is

closely aligned with the sparagmos, or tearing to bits, that characterizes the ironic narrative

archetype. Recall that in this narrative archetype, a positive, pre-existing order (in this case, a

tarantella theme quoted from a pre-existing piece) is subjected to the whims of a confused,

destructive transgression. Here, normative features of the theme that link it to common-practice

symphonic repertoire are exaggerated in a way that distorts the theme, sometimes beyond

recognition.

The ironic narrative archetype points to musical ironies that I hear in Corigliano’s

symphonic tarantella: idealized pastoral timbres of solo woodwinds are revealed to be too weak

to be sustainable, a dance tempo loses the predictive power of entrainment through extreme

fluctuations, C Major becomes trite and overly simplistic in a piece that can begin and end in

different tonal centers, or use no tonal center at all. In this ironic landscape, the pastoral becomes

the grotesque, a dance spins out of control, and the solid foundation of diatonic tonality crumbles

in the face of atonal uncertainty. This kind of irony, the kind that uncovers weaknesses in the

norms of common practice music by reversing the conventional context of these norms, is a

common mode of musical discourse in the late 20th century. In the context of this piece, ironic

negations of the pastoral woodwinds, dance tempo, and function of a tonal center question the

value of those features in the original theme. The ironic narrative asks, “What is the alternative if

we can no longer rely on predictable features of common practice music to provide stability and

unification?”

2.3.3 Insidious Irony in Action

In my analysis, thematic disintegration is the gradual process that points to incipient

transgressions against the orderly tarantella theme. I’ve identified thematic disintegration in three

49
somewhat-overlapping domains: (1) tempo and meter, (2) timbre and instrumentation, and (3)

phrase structure and pitch center. Tables 2.18, 2.19, and 2.20 display the overall trajectories of

thematic disintegration in these domains. In my analysis, I focus on thematic disintegration in

Rotations 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7.

Table 2.18: Disintegration Process in Tempo and Meter

Starting Melody–Tempo Ratio

Rotation Meter Marked Tempo
Measure (compared with Rotation 1)
6
1 40 c.= 132 1:1
8
6
2 70 c.=132 1:1
8
3
3 132 c=162 ¯¯
1:1.227
4
6
4 169 c.=108 ¯¯
1:0.81
8
3 6 x=81 ¯¯
1:0.10227
5 203
1...8 accel. accel.
x=96
2 ¯¯
1:1.45
6 245 “as fast as
2 1:“as fast as possible”
possible”
2 “as fast as
7 260 1:“as fast as possible”
2 possible”

The first full presentation of the tarantella theme in the symphony establishes the initial

order of an ironic narrative archetype. In other words, the features of the tarantella theme are

presented here in a way that aligns the theme with common-practice symphonic music. Note the

major key, normative tempo, simple melodic and rhythmic patterns, and pastoral solo woodwind

timbres. These are aligned with positive values in common-practice music (in this case, simple

contentment).

50
Table 2.19: Disintegration Process in Phrase Structure and Pitch Center

Original Ends on
Starting
Rotation Measures Pitch Center(s) pitch
Measure
Quoted center?
1 40 7+7 C yes
2 70 7+7 C yes
3 132 7+5 Ab yes
4 169 7+4.5 C no
203 3 none -
5
220 7 none -
6 245 7 A no
C, G, Bb, Ab,
260 2 no
7 A
265 7 A no

Table 2.20: Disintegration Process in Timbre and Instrumentation

Starting
Rotation Timbre and Instrumentation
Measure
1 40 solo clarinet; solo oboe and clarinet
solo flute; “pointillistic melody” (trombone, clarinet, horn,
2 70
trumpet, Eb clarinet, piano, strings, xylophone)
3 132 solo Eb clarinet; solo flutes, piccolo, and Eb clarinet
4 169 solo clarinet; solo oboe and clarinet
gradual ascent in register (contrabassoon, contrabass clarinet,
5 203
tubas, trombones, horns, trumpets, clarinets [bells up])
6 245 piano, xylophone, flutes, and piccolo
260 trombones, horns
7
265 3 piccolos and glockenspiel (as fast as possible)

For listeners familiar with common-practice symphonic literature, these two woodwind solos

could convey the pastoral effect of two shepherds passing time in the fields.

51
 qd = 138-144
œ. œ œ œ œ.
6
&8 ! Œ œj œ œJ œ œ œ n œ œ œ
Œ.
Bb clarinet

œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ # œœ œœ œœ œœ # œœ œœ œœ œœ
Strings œ
? 68 œ J J J J J J J J Jœ J
œ œ œ œ

œ œ œ œ œ œ œ. œœ œ œ œ #œ
œ œ œ # œ œ j œ œj œ œ œ
& J J œ
œ
nœ œœ œ nœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ. J
? œ œœ œ œ œœ œ œ œ œœ œ œ .. # œœœ œ b œœ œœ œœ œœ
J J œ J J J J œ œ J J J
œ œ
jœ œ
nœ œ œ œ. œ. nœ œ œ œ . œ œ œ œ œ œ œ .œ œ œ œ nœ œ œ ‰
& œ œœœœ nœ œ œ œ. œ œ œ œ œ œ œ . œJ œ œœœœ œ
J œ œœœ ‰
J
Oboe
œ œœ œ œ œœ œ n œ œ œ œ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ # œœ .. œœ
? #œ œ œ œ #œ œ œ œ œ œœ œ J J J J
J J J J Jœ J œ . œ ‰
œ œ œ œ

Figure 2.11: “Tarantella Theme,” Reduction of mm. 40–53 of Corigliano, Symphony No. 1, Mvt.
II65

In concert with the ostinato patterns and pedal tones in the accompaniment and simple melody

comprised largely of stepwise motion, a clear association can be drawn with other pastoral

melodies such as those found in the (respective) third movements of Berlioz’s Symphonie

Fantastique and Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony (“Pastoral”). In addition to carrying an

association with the naïve simplicity of the pastoral, the solo clarinet and oboe in the first

rotation set our expectations for solo woodwinds, even solo clarinet and oboe, in later iterations

of the theme. So far, we initially have no reason to expect that these somewhat mundane features

65
This is my reduction of the symphonic score, some details are omitted for clarity.
52
will become important over the course of the piece. Given norms in the common practice

symphonic repertoire, on our first listening of the movement, we might be constantly expecting

the return of the full-fledged theme.

Also note the pitch center and quirky phrase structure of the original theme, as shown in

Figure 2.11. The quirks of the original theme can be heard as playful in their original context, but

are now heard as grotesque in the context of the increasing insanity of the symphonic tarantella.

Although the harmony is not tonal in exactly the same way as in common-practice works,

emphasis on C as an ostinato note in the accompaniment and as a melodic goal strongly

emphasizes C as a pitch center. Prominent use of a C/E dyad in the introductory measures gives a

hint of C major, and the overwhelming majority of the pitches in the melody fit within a C-major

diatonic collection. The first 7-measure phrase ends with the melody on D and the accompanying

strings playing an Fs–G–A–C tetrachord, creating an effect similar to a tonicized half cadence. A

melodic return of the opening measures marks the beginning of the second phrase; indeed it

sounds like a parallel period. Finally, the second 7-measure phrase ends conclusively on C in the

melody, with a center-confirming C-major triad in the accompaniment. In summary, Rotation #1

presents three features that, in retrospect, become noteworthy as the theme disintegrates:

normative tempo and meter associated with tarantella dances of the common practice era, solo

clarinet and oboe associated with the idealized pastoral, and a 2-phrase structure akin to a

parallel period, with a tonal emphasis on C major.

Rotation #3 brings significant timbral changes, a faster tempo, and a shift in pitch center

(to Ab). Considering the ultimate fate of the tarantella theme, the subtle changes in tempo and

pitch center can retrospectively signal the impending catastrophe to close listeners. In this

rotation, the theme begins with solo Eb clarinet, and the composer’s indications to perform the

53
melody in a “rude” and “course” manner, with the clarinet’s bell up, gives this rotation a brash

timbre that moves even further away from the kinds of solo clarinet timbres that would be

associated with the idealized pastoral. To my ears, the heavy emphasis on Eb clarinet recalls the

Eb clarinet solos in the “Witches’ Sabbath,” the fifth movement in Berlioz’s Symphonie

Fantastique, a movement that is also in 6/8 and programmatically associated with a dance of

death, frenzy, and the uncanny. The Eb clarinet now continues through the second half of the

tarantella theme, where it is joined in imitation by a trio of piccolos, another timbre that now

sounds like a grotesque distortion of the pastoral solo woodwind timbres in the first two

rotations. As shown in Figure 2.12, Rotation #3 ends prematurely, interrupted 2 measures before

the close of the second phrase.

136

Figure 2.12: Premature Ending in Rotation #3, mm. 136–140

Rotation #4 features a return to solo woodwind timbres, a return to C Major as a tonal

center, and compensates for the faster tempo of Rotation #3 with a marked tempo 81% slower

than the original tempo in Rotation #1. However, any hope for a triumphant return of the theme

remains thoroughly in question by the end of this fourth rotation, where fits and starts of the

theme are disrupted, prevented from ending on the pitch center and reaching tonal closure, as

shown in Figure 2.13.

54
 177

Figure 2.13: Disruptions to Tarantella at End of Rotation #4, mm. 177–181

These disruptions create the very audible effect of the theme disintegrating in the face of a

powerful force that is preventing it from reaching closure at the end of the second phrase. By the

fourth rotation, the stable pitch center of the original theme is entirely absent at the end of the

theme.

The apparent inability of the tarantella theme to reach closure at the end of the fourth

rotation seems to engender a dramatic transformation of the theme in the following rotation.

Instead of emphasizing a C Major diatonic collection (with a hint of Lydian-Mixolydian),

fragments of the theme are transposed by varying intervals to produce a lugubrious chromatic

transformation, as shown in Figure 2.14.

Now played at an extremely slow tempo, the theme is almost unrecognizable at the

beginning of the fifth rotation. Additionally, the imitative entrances of the chromaticized theme

only feature the equivalent of three measures from the original theme. This sudden change in

tempo, pitch center, and number of measures quoted from the theme creates a sharp division in

the form of the piece and in the trajectory of my interpretation. After these dramatic

transformations, a return to the original theme seems difficult or impossible.

55
Figure 2.14: Lugubrious Chromatic Transformation in Rotation #5

The tonal center, tempo, and phrase structure of the original utterance that initially linked it to

common practice music have been destroyed. The tonal theme is transformed into an atonal

negation of itself, the dance tempo has slowed to a glacial pace that makes entrainment all but

impossible, and only three measures of the original 14 are used as a point of imitation.

From Rotation #5 to the end, the most we hear of the tarantella is its first seven measures.

You might recall that the first phrase ends away from the melody’s pitch center. Only hearing the

first seven measures emphasizes the theme’s inherent tonal instability, exploiting a feature that

becomes increasingly important in retrospect. In this way, a subtle quirk of the original theme, its

7+7 phrase structure similar to a parallel period, is also subjected to thematic disintegration, in

the manner of a tragic flaw. This situation is similar to the way that Oedipus’ desire to avoid the

Oracle’s prophecy resulted in his moving to Thebes, which was the very act that caused the

tragic result in the classic Greek story.

In Rotation 7, the melody spins out of control, whirring by in an uncanny blur. I interpret

the extreme tempos at the end of the movement as the fullest disintegrations of the original

56
tempo. As the normative, orderly tempo is subjected to extreme and unstable fluctuations, the

original tempo retrospectively loses its power as a dance with a predictable pattern of strong and

weak beats to which we can easily tap along. I am reminded of a fast dance that actually can’t

cure any illnesses, or that the perky compound-meter dance rhythms were only a brief distraction

from the serious program of this symphony.

As the tempo reaches its most extreme state, timbres are significantly altered. Rotation #7

begins with fast, antiphonal trombones in imitation (the trombones are placed on opposing sides

of the stage), followed in short succession by antiphonal, bells up horns. The combination of a

low/medium register, set with antiphonal brass, creates a large, imposing sound to my ears, and

when this timbre is followed in short succession by the extreme high register and wrenching

timbre of the piccolos and glockenspiel playing as fast as possible, now joined by screaming high

violins, the whole registral space is filled with imposing, turbulent sounds. The sounds of this

mechanical leviathan continue at a frenzied pace, up to the end of the movement, when every

instrument in the orchestra accelerates and crescendos into an uncanny shriek at its highest

possible pitch.

2.3.4 Irony in Context

For the second movement of Corigliano’s Symphony No. 1, my interpretation of an

ironic narrative archetype does more than connect the piece to its musical context. The ironic

narrative archetype is only one layer to be uncovered in a deeper and deeper story that draws

together ironies at different interpretive levels, from the intra-musical archetype to the extra-

musical biographical and cultural context in which the Symphony was written.

Finally, I’d like to consider the social role of dances and symphony concerts. Many

dances bring people together and reinforce social relationships. Corigliano’s symphonic

57
tarantella ironically points to the isolation of a single man as progressive dementia robs him of

the ability to participate in society. Unlike the stylized references to death present in the

traditional tarantella dance, the symphonic tarantella ironically uses a dance and a symphony

concert (both social events that serve to bring people together through shared experience) to

point to the tragic end of a life, isolated in the 1980s by the stigma and stereotypes surrounding

AIDS.

The still-small AIDS-awareness movement in the late 1980s was struggling for

recognition and legitimacy from American leadership and culture. The association of AIDS with

gay men meant that these members of the population struggled with yet another barrier to feeling

recognized by the government and accepted by society at large. By dedicating his Symphony No.

1 to victims of AIDS, Corigliano made a strong statement in 1990. It is certainly possible that

fear of such a polarizing statement may have had some impact on Corigliano’s decision to redact

the program notes from performances of the piece in Kiev.66

Considering ironies in the context of this symphonic movement and correlating ironies in

American culture surrounding AIDS in 1990 points to a flawed society deafened by fear and

blinded by stereotypes to the fact these deaths are a tragic loss. Corigliano’s First Symphony was

one of the most widely performed symphonies of its time, and its musical and social messages

still speak very clearly today. Interpreting thematic disintegration as it relates to musical irony

helps us to explore the meaning of this movement, a musical utterance that ultimately sends a

positive message, eliciting our empathy and a call to action, by telling a very negative story.

2.4 Chaconne: Giulio’s Song

Although the third movement is titled a “chaconne” and presents a series of chords at the

beginning, a series that would traditionally be repeated multiple times, this full series of chords is
66
Tift, “Musical AIDS,” 68–69.
58
repeated only one other time. In addition to the chaconne pattern, Corigliano presents a lyrical

melody, “Giulio’s song,” that provides the majority of the melodic content for the movement.

Eventually, the chaconne pattern and the lyrical elegy crumble, their elegiac catharsis consumed

by a “tritone theme” and by the return of the extreme tension symbolized by the “heartbeat” from

the first movement. I use Almén’s methodology with this movement, which leads me to

interpret the third movement as another ironic archetype. As with the second movement, I focus

on analytical details and how they serve the overall narrative structure, instead of simply

identifying the archetype. Corigliano’s program note provides detailed information about the

form and genre of the movement.

Table 2.21: Descriptions of the Third Movement in the Program Note

Text from Program Note Measure

“a chaconne, based on 12 pitches (and the chords they produce), which runs
through the entire movement. The first several minutes of this movement are played
1
by the violas, cellos, and basses alone. The chaconne chords are immediately heard,
hazily dissolving into each other
the cello melody begins over the final [chaconne] chord. 9
Halfway through this melody a second cello joins the soloist. 40
A series of musical remembrances of other friends . . . played against the recurring
67
background of the chaconne, interspersed with dialogues between the solo cellos
At the conclusion of the section, as the cello recapitulates Giulio’s theme, the solo
125
trumpet begins to play the note A that began the Symphony.
This [A] is taken up by other brass, one by one 126
The entire string section takes up the A . . . a restatement of the initial assertive
130
orchestral entrance . . .
The relentless drumbeat returns, but this time it does not accelerate. 134
. . . slow and somber beat against the chaconne, augmented by two sets of
antiphonal chimes tolling the 12 pitches as the intensity increases and the 137
persistent rhythm is revealed to be that of a funeral march.
Finally, the march rhythm starts to dissolve, as individual choirs and solo
instruments accelerate independently, until the entire orchestra climaxes with a 173
sonic explosion.
After this, only a solo cello remains, softly playing the A that opened the work and
176
introducing the final movement.

59
In Table 2.21, I have matched descriptions from the composer’s program note with what I

believe are the corresponding measures in the score.

According to Corigliano’s program note, this movement includes musical material from a

recording of Corigliano improvising at the piano with his friend Giulio on the cello. Thus, this

movement includes yet another type of pre-existent music. The first movement of the symphony

directly quotes an arrangement of Albeniz’s Tango, the second movement quotes a piece already

published and composed by Corigliano himself, while this movement quotes a recorded

improvisation. The musical sources for the quoted materials in these movements progress from

published music that was not composed by Corigliano (Godowsky’s arrangement of Albéniz),

published music that was composed by Corigliano, to a recording that has not been published

and that is not widely available. In a sense, as the movements progress, Corigliano allows the

listener deeper and deeper into his personal musical life. As with the quotations in the earlier

movements, the improvisation quoted in the third movement is from 1962, many years prior to

the completion of Symphony No. 1 in 1989.

2.4.1 Form of the Third Movement

As a chaconne, the third movement includes the repeated series of chords that defines this

genre, but the harmonic series is 12 chords long and the chords are sustained in a way that blurs

their boundaries. As a result, the repetitions of the harmonic pattern are quite difficult to hear

clearly, instead forming a diffuse, kaleidoscopic background for the melodic material. As with

many nineteenth- and twentieth-century chaconnes, other parameters beyond the repeating

harmonic pattern help define this movement’s form. In this work, the melodic material derived

from Giulio’s improvisation defines the A section, contrasting remembrance melodies are

present in the B section, and the “Giulio” melody returns in the third A' section of the work,

60
followed by a significant coda that transitions directly into the final movement. Table 2.22

outlines the form of this movement.

Table 2.22: Form of “Chaconne: Giulio’s Song”

Section Measures Description

Intro. 1–8 Chaconne chords begin in the orchestra
A 9–39 “Giulio” melody heard in solo cello. Chaconne background continues
in orchestra.
B 40–110 Remembrance melodies heard from second solo cello and from
orchestra, interspersed with additional instances of the “Giulio”
melody. Chaconne chords continue under the melody. First entrance of
the tritone theme heard in m. 107
A' 111–127 Significant return of the “Giulio” melody, now doubled by flutes in
the orchestra. The Giulio melody continues, performed by the soloists
and by the orchestra.
Coda 128–176 A–Gs–A–Eb wail from first movement returns. “Heartbeat” enters in
low register of the orchestra while quotations from earlier parts of the
symphony can be heard: tango and chattering woodwinds from the
first movement, and the Giulio melody and tritone theme from earlier
in the third movement.

Although I use thematic content as the main delimiter of form for this movement, the

chaconne chords are also aligned with the piece’s form, and can provide a more nuanced formal

reading, articulating a formal divide at measure 66, when the chaconne cycle restarts.

Table 2.23: Form of the Chaconne, Compared with Chaconne Cycles

Sections
Chaconne
Defined Measures Measures
Cycles
Thematically
Intro. 1–8 1 1–34
A 9–39 - 35–65
B 40–110 2 66–118
A' 111–127 - 119–176
Coda 128–176

61
Table 2.23 highlights three unusual features of the chaconne cycles in this movement. Not only

are the chaconne cycles misaligned with changes in thematic material that could be used to

define form, but there are only two cycles through the sequence of chaconne chords, and those

two cycles are very long, 34 measures and 53 measures. Although a chaconne in the 20th century

might not be expected to include every feature of chaconnes from previous centuries, these

deviations from the norm are significant, and they will play an important role in my narrative

interpretation.

2.4.2 The Chaconne Chords

Not only are the 12 chaconne chords spread out over several measures, playing an

accompanimental role with their very slow changes, but they are difficult to isolate aurally, as

the beginning of the next chaconne chord often happens before the ending of the previous

chaconne chord. This “elided” presentation of the chords creates the effect that they are, in

Corigliano’s words, “hazily dissolving into each other.”67 In addition to the difficulty of aurally

isolating the chords, Corigliano’s provocative hint that the 12 chords are “based on 12 notes”68

could suggest that the 12 chords are based on a row, though the piece is not overtly serial.69 A

12-note series played by the two solo cellists in mm. 60–65 is repeated later in mm. 122–127 by

the orchestra, and this series can also be found embedded, nearly hidden, in the sequence of 12

chaconne chords, as illustrated by the blue note heads in Figure 2.18. Although this 12-pitch-

class series is overtly presented twice in the movement and is hidden in the two cycles through

the chaconne sequence, this work does not follow any other principles of serial twelve-tone

67
Corigliano, program note.
68
Corigliano, program note.
69
Bergman describes a solo mezzo-soprano from the choral chaconne Of Rage and Remembrance (composed later
and based on this movement of the symphony) as: “Using the twelve-note series embedded in the chaconne
harmonies (and stated as a row most clearly in mm. 60–65, a duet between cellos).” Elizabeth Bergman, “Of Rage
and Remembrance, Music and Memory: The Work of Mourning in John Corigliano’s Symphony No. 1 and Choral
Chaconne,” American Music 31, no. 3 (2013): 354.
62
composition. Figures 2.15 through 2.18 illustrate the chaconne sequence and the embedded 12-

note series.

Not only does the chaconne harmonic sequence contribute to formal divisions within the

movement, but it also functions as one of the main identifying features of the work that connect

it to the chaconne genre. Later in this chapter I discuss the narrative implications of the chaconne

chords.

Figure 2.15: Reduction of Chaconne Sequence, from Chaconne Cycle 1 in mm. 1–34

Figure 2.16: Reduction of Chaconne Sequence, from Chaconne Cycle 2 in mm. 66–118

Figure 2.17: 12-Note Series in mm. 60–65

63
Figure 2.18: Embedded 12-Note Series in Chaconne Sequences

2.4.3 Other Themes in the Third Movement

Since the full sequence of chaconne chords can only be heard twice in the movement, and

the chords function as a “hazy” accompaniment, I use the “Giulio” melody to define the formal

sections I have labeled A and A' in Table 2.23. In the movement’s A section, the Giulio melody

is heard exclusively from the solo cellists, and it enters in measure 9. As with themes in the

previous two movements of the symphony, the melody is transposed or slightly varied with each

iteration, recalling a free style of improvisation in the programmatic context of this movement. I

show the first iteration of the Giulio melody in Figure 2.19 below.

Figure 2.19: First Iteration of the Giulio Melody in Measures 9–18, Solo Cello 1

64
Note that the melody’s four initial notes outline moves up by whole step, Cb–Db–Eb–F, followed

by an additional melodic move up by a major third. The first four notes outline a melodic

augmented fourth from the initial pitch to the pause on F4 in mm. 9–10. This distinctive melodic

pattern becomes significant in my interpretation of this movement’s narrative trajectory, as an

emphasis on tritones later in the movement coincides with the dissolution of the Giulio melody.

For Elizabeth Bergman, this distinctive melodic choice is the first of many intertextual

connections with Berg’s Violin Concerto and the quotation of Bach’s “Es ist genug” in that

work. This intertextual reference aligns with Corigliano’s program of memorializing his lost

friends.

In addition to the Giulio melody, which provides the majority of the thematic content of

this movement, “remembrance” melodies can be heard in the section I have labeled B in Table

2.22. These melodies are not identical to the Giulio melody or to the “remembrance” theme from

the first movement, mainly because they are short melodies lasting only a few measures, but they

have a lyrical, pseudo-tonal style similar to the earlier remembrance theme and the Giulio

melody. Corigliano explains in his program note that these melodies were composed by setting

short eulogy texts from librettist William H. Hoffman and then interweaving only the melody

into the movement.70 The texts used for the composition of the remembrance melodies in this

symphonic movement can be found in a later choral work based on this chaconne.71

Over the course of the A' section and into the coda of the movement, tritone leaps gain

increasing prominence. The fullest version of what I call the “tritone theme” can be found near

the end of the movement, as shown in Figure 2.20.

70
Corigliano, program note.
71
John Corigliano, Of Rage and Remembrance, (New York: G. Schirmer, Inc., 1991).
65
Figure 2.20: Reduction of Tritone Theme Near End, Measures 164–167

In addition to the tritone theme, numerous other themes from earlier in the symphony also return,

including the A–Gs–A–Eb wail, woodwind chattering, and heartbeat from the first movement,

and the other themes from earlier in the chaconne.

Table 2.24: Return of Motives/Themes in the Chaconne, measures 128–176

Theme/Motive Measures of First Chaconne Measures in which

Appearance Return Occurs
A–Gs–A–Eb /wail Mvt I, 1–6 128–133
Woodwind chattering Mvt I, 6–12 132–137
Heartbeat Mvt I, 7–11 134–172
“Mark Pearson and Jim Mvt III, 84–85 136–137
Moses” motive
Giulio theme Mvt III, 9–11 141–142
Tritone theme Mvt III, 104–107 164–172

2.4.4 Narrative Interpretation

My narrative interpretation relies on two key components of the movement’s thematic

content and genre: the Giulio melody and the movement’s success as a chaconne. These two

components are crucial to the overall form: they define major sections, and their importance is

also emphasized by the title of the movement, “Chaconne: Giulio’s Song.” These two

components together provide a basis for the initial state at the beginning of the movement. The

chaconne chords are heard alone in mm. 1–8, and the Giulio melody enters in m. 9, followed by

66
varied repetitions of the melody. The Giulio melody and chaconne indicators, such as the chord

sequence at the very beginning, together represent “order” for this piece. They are highly valued

since they directly constitute the identity of movement. The sequence of chaconne chords marks

the movement as a chaconne, and the Giulio melody aligns the work with its purpose as a

musical memorial of sorts. Additionally, these two motives comprise the majority of the

harmonic and melodic content (respectively) of the A section.

As in the ironic unfolding of the second movement, the transgression in the third

movement also emerges from a notable aspect of the material representing musical order. In this

case, it is the distinctive Lydian flavor of the Giulio melody. Its initiating three whole steps also

create an unmistakable intertextual connection between Corigliano’s symphony and the

quotation of the chorale melody “Es ist Genug” (which also begins with three consecutive whole

steps) in Berg’s Violin Concerto, another work inspired by the tragic loss of a close loved one.72

The tritone spanned in the lyrical Giulio melody also provides the basis for an intertextual

connection relating to loss, but the tritone becomes the tragic undoing of the Giulio melody. The

transgressive interval emerges from its role as a melodic quirk to become the destructive “tritone

theme” that later prevents the Giulio melody from being fully recapitulated, finally providing the

ultimate outburst of negative emotion at the end of the third movement. Table 2.25 outlines the

third movement in terms of the narrative arc of the orderly Giulio melody and chaconne

sequence, as they are overtaken by the destructive tritone theme.

As emphasized in Table 2.25, the tritone gains prominence through the course of the

movement, finally emerging in the fully orchestrated version of the tritone theme in mm. 164–

172.

72
Bergman discusses this in more detail. Bergman, “Of Rage and Remembrance,” 349.
67
Table 2.25: Narrative Trajectory of the Giulio Melody and Chaconne Sequence Versus the
Tritone Theme

Measures Description Role of Tritone Presentation of Giulio

Melody and Chaconne
Sequence
1–39 Chaconne chords and *Incipient in Giulio *Giulio melody in solo cellos
Giulio melody melody only
introduced Chaconne chords in orchestra
40–59 Memorial themes and Hints of C–Fs Giulio melody in solo celli
hints of C–Fs tritone tritone theme in only
theme begin in solo mm. 42–46
cellos
Giulio melody continues
in solo cellos
60–65 Chaconne 12-note series Use of Fs–C in Chaconne 12-note series in
in solo cellos accompaniment, solo celli only
m. 63
66–100 Memorial themes Incipient in Giulio Memorial themes in orchestra
continue theme segments Chaconne chords in orchestra
Chaconne chord cycle A few segments of Giulio
begins theme in solo cellos
Solo celli play segments
of Giulio theme
101–110 Segments of Giulio theme Incipient in Giulio Segments of Giulio theme in
in flutes and clarinets theme segments orchestra (flutes and
Tritone theme reappears *“Tritone theme” clarinets)
is fully present
in mm. 104–107
111–127 Giulio theme re-enters Incipient in Giulio Giulio theme begins in solo
Chaconne chord cycle theme cello doubled by orchestra
ends m. 118 *Giulio theme ends in solo
Chaconne 12-note series cellos, m. 118, continued
in mm. 122–127 by orchestra alone in mm.
118–121
128–163 Heartbeat and references Incipient in *Chaconne 12-note series in
to earlier themes segment of chimes
Chaconne 12-note series Giulio theme,
in mm. 137–163 mm. 141–142
164–172 Tritone theme in orchestra *Fullest version of *Chaconne series and Giulio
tritone theme melody now absent
173–176 Codetta - -

68
At the same time, the Giulio melody and chaconne sequence lose their footing: first, as the solo

cellos abruptly end the Giulio melody in m. 118 (which is briefly picked up in the orchestra in

mm. 118–121), then as the final appearance of the chaconne cycle is in its reduced 12-note series

form—heard from the chimes in mm. 128–163 during a dramatic return of the low “heartbeat”

from the first movement and the return of themes and motives from earlier in the work. The loud,

low-register chimes are now reminiscent of tolling church bells, aligning with Corigliano’s

description of this section as a “funeral march.”73

Taking the Giulio theme and its accompanying chaconne sequence contrasted with the

disruptive tritones, this movement easily fits Almén’s ironic archetype. In this reading, the

dignified Giulio melody and chaconne represent the orderly past, gaining our sympathy due to

their connection both with the musical past and with Corigliano’s friend. The chaotic, disruptive

tritones represent the transgressive present, destroying both the chaconne series and the Giulio

melody as tritones emerge from the original structure of the Giulio melody. Interestingly, this

tragic ironic structure resembles the narrative structure I interpret in the second movement of the

symphony, in which a pre-existent melody (the tarantella theme or the Giulio melody),

associated with an orderly past, is destroyed by elements that arose as seemingly innocent quirks

that were incipient in the original melody itself (7+7 bar phrase structure in the second

movement tarantella).

Although the overall narrative structures of the second and third movements seem

similar, my ultimate interpretation of the third movement differs from my interpretation of the

second movement both because of the musical content of the movements themselves and also the

role of each movement in the overall trajectory of the symphony. Presaging my discussion of the

final Epilogue movement, we learn that the end of the third movement becomes retrospectively
73
Corigliano, program note.
69
interpreted as the culmination of the dramatic trajectory for the entire symphony. The dramatic

close of the third movement is the denouement for the symphony as a whole. This interpretation

is reinforced not only by my reading of the final movement, but also by the close relationship

that the chaconne has with the first two movements of the symphony. The third movement is the

first time in the symphony that we hear themes quoted from an earlier movement (the first

movement), and the similarity of the second and third movements’ narrative structures seals their

relationship, even without directly quoting material from the tarantella. As a single movement,

the chaconne might represent the tragic ironic failure of the Giulio melody and chaconne

sequence to continue in the face of the destructive force of the tritone theme. But in the context

of the symphony as a whole, two interpretations are possible for the ending of the third

movement.

As the end of the third movement represents the culmination of themes and dramatic

action from the entire symphony, the third movement in total can represent the final purging of

the extreme emotions elicited up to this point—the ultimate achievement of catharsis. In this

interpretation, the tragic-ironic destruction of the Giulio melody and chaconne chords is

ironically required in order to bring about a successful final outcome for the symphony as a

whole—the peace that accompanies catharsis and the purging of painful grief.

On the other hand, if catharsis is not heard as the goal of the work, a far more negative

outcome might be interpreted. In this interpretation, the sacrifice of the dignified Giulio melody,

chaconne chords, and the themes memorializing the dead to the destructive force of the tritone

represents, as in the end of the second movement, the needless and horrifying loss of lives to a

disease. Ultimately, the positive interpretation of the outcome of the chaconne (as the final

achievement of catharsis in the symphony) or the negative interpretation of the chaconne (as yet

70
another sacrifice of a pre-existing melody to a destructive force) likely depends on one’s frame

of reference. The negative outcome is more closely aligned with the narrative structure of the

movement alone, while the positive outcome considers the role of the third movement in the

symphony as a whole.

2.5 Movement IV: Epilogue

In literature, epilogues function as a final layer of completion after a story has ended. For

example, we might get a glimpse of the characters’ future after the story is finished, or perhaps

we are left with a concluding perspective that helps us make sense of what still seemed

incomprehensible at the end of the story. Gerald Prince emphasizes that an epilogue comes “after

the denouement,” that it should not be confused with the end of the story, and that it “helps to

fully realize the design of the work.”74 By titling the final movement of his symphony an

“epilogue,” Corigliano connects the function of this movement with the function of epilogues as

a narrative device, suggesting both that the primary narrative action of the symphony has already

occurred and that the epilogue offers a final perspective that helps us “fully realize” the

trajectory of the symphony as a whole. While symphonies traditionally include a lengthy and

substantial final movement, Corigliano’s “Epilogue” is only 64 measures long, a mere four

minutes—the shortest movement by far in this large-scale, four-movement work. Although the

final movement is concise, it plays an important role in the symphony as a whole,

contextualizing the music heard in the previous three movements.

Just as the detailed program notes for the earlier movements provide one path into the

movement, Corigliano’s comments on the final movement present a valuable perspective on the

Epilogue:

74
Gerald Prince, A Dictionary of Narratology (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2003), 27.
71
 “ . . . only a solo cello remains, softly playing the A that opened the work and
introducing the final movement (Epilogue).
This last section is played against a repeated pattern consisting of ‘waves’
of brass chords. To me, the sound of ocean waves conveys an image of
timelessness. I wanted to suggest that in this Symphony by creating sonic
‘waves.’ To help achieve this, I have partially encircled the orchestra with an
expanded brass section in back. Against these waves, the piano solo from the first
movement (the Albéniz/Godowsky Tango) returns, as does the tarantella melody
(this time sounding distant and peaceful), and the two solo cellos interwoven
between, recapitulate their dialogues. A slow diminuendo leaves the solo cello
holding the same perpetual A, finally fading away.”75

Although the orchestra’s slowly arpeggiating chords might not evoke the image of waves for

every listener, the reminders of motives heard in the previous three movements are immediately

recognizable.

Table 2.26: Form of the Epilogue

Measures Description Reference to Earlier Movement

177–228 “Sonic waves” introduced, continue to end of New material
Epilogue
187–197 Albeniz tango in offstage piano, D major Mvt I
portion
186–199 Remembrance theme R' in first and second Mvt I
violins
197–215 Two solo cellos trade arpeggiating patterns Solo cellos refer to Mvt III
199–201 Tarantella theme in solo clarinet, including Mvt II
rhythmic misalignment with addition of
vibraphone and harp in m. 201, at end of
tarantella fragment
204–207 Fragment from tarantella movement, not Mvt II
tarantella theme (cf. Mvt II, mm. 25–26).
Begins in flutes; oboes and clarinets enter in
m. 206
208–end Sustained chords in strings accompany “sonic New material
waves” in brass
229-end Giulio melody slightly modified to end on A4 Mvt III and Mvt I
in solo cello

75
Corigliano, program note.
72
In this way, the Epilogue, connected with a narrative device that is completely dependent on

what came before, can be formally interpreted by prioritizing the role of quoted material, with

the new musical material (the “sonic waves”) serving a background role to music that has

already been heard. Table 2.26 describes the form of the Epilogue in these terms.76

Instead of strongly defined formal divisions as in the earlier movements, the Epilogue

includes layered references to earlier themes, now heard out of order, tumbling one after the

other and layered on top of one another, set against the accompanying background waves. This

formal design also emphasizes the function of the Epilogue. Instead of a form emphasizing

contrasting sections or thematic development, we are, at this point, simply moving through a

haze of musical recollections that blend freely with one another.

76
Note that measures in the third and fourth movements are numbered continuously. Due to this, the first measure of
the fourth movement is 177, not 1.
73
 CHAPTER 3

DENARRATION AND DISNARRATION IN

ALFRED SCHNITTKE’S CONCERTO GROSSO NO. 1

To compose the Quixote at the beginning of the seventeenth century was a reasonable
undertaking, necessary and perhaps even unavoidable; at the beginning of the twentieth,
it is almost impossible. It is not in vain that three hundred years have gone by, filled with
exceedingly complex events. Amongst them, to mention only one, is the Quixote itself.
—Borges, “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” 41–42

3.1 Introduction

Around 1970, Alfred Schnittke wrote about nostalgia in Berio’s Sinfonia, a work he

described as “permeated” by “the impossibility of achieving [the] conceptual and formal

perfection which had distinguished West European music of the nineteenth century” and the

futility of attempting to bring “these wonderful [musical] memories back to life.”77 In this study,

I contemplate the degree to which Schnittke was wrestling with these same “impossibilities” in

his Concerto Grosso No. 1, and I posit a unique narrative account of the piece that links the

transformations of an expressive “sigh” motive with the narrative challenges of projecting a

utopian past.

Cast in six movements, Schnittke’s first Concerto Grosso is scored for two violin soloists,

harpsichord doubling prepared piano, and string orchestra. A “sigh” or pianto-like motive is

introduced at the beginning of the work, and its varied manifestations over the course of the

piece inform my reading of its narrative trajectory. In Schnittke’s brief program notes on the

77
Alfred Schnittke, “The Third Movement of Berio’s Sinfonia: Stylistic Counterpoint, Thematic and Formal Unity
in Context of Polystylistics, Broadening the Concept of Thematicism,” in A Schnittke Reader, ed. Alexander
Ivashkin (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2002), 223.
74
Concerto Grosso, the composer explicitly described the presence of “sighs.”78 In a separate essay

on Ligeti’s orchestral music, Schnittke described the expressive impact of a series of minor

seconds, writing: “a falling minor second is deprived of conventional expressive effect (the

traditional motif of a ‘sigh’) by a return to the initial note, which neutralizes it.” Given

Schnittke’s own rich description of a descending semitone followed by an ascending semitone

that returns to the original note as a sigh followed by its neutralization, I interpret certain

prominent descending and ascending semitones in Schnittke’s own Concerto Grosso No. 1 as

manifestations of a similar idea, which I call the “sigh–neutralization” motive.

3.2 The Motive and Its Transformations

I have provided a lengthy, though by no means complete, list of sigh-neutralization

motives in Table 3.1. Within the first three movements’ musical environment of microcanons

and tone clusters, the ascending semitones immediately negate the traditional expressive effect of

the descending semitones. The first entrance of the violin soloists in the prelude provides the

musical impetus for later events. In m. 12 of the first movement, the first violin soloist initiates

the conversation with a descending semitone from Eb5 to D5. The second violin soloist answers

with an ascending semitone from D5 to Eb5, set to the same rhythm. In the first three movements

of the Concerto Grosso, sighing descending semitones (occasionally displaced by octaves) are

followed by ascending semitones, connected by some intervening interval.

Although the sigh-neutralization motive is presented in varied forms throughout the

piece, its rhythmic profile and pitch contour remain remarkably consistent. For example, many

presentations of the motive listed in Table 3.1 use the rhythmic configuration of an eighth-note

followed by a longer value (usually a rhythmic duration lasting seven eighth notes) for the initial

78
Schnittke’s notes on this piece can be found in A Schnittke Reader, 45–46.
75
sigh, followed by the same rhythmic configuration (that is, an eighth followed by longer value)

for the neutralizing response.

Table 3.1: Transformations of the Sigh-Neutralization Motive in Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso

No. 179

Reduced Musical Directed

Location Set Class Notes
Excerpt Intervals
solo vln 1
bœ œ ˙. œ bœ œ First presentation of the sigh and its
I.12 & (01) <-1, +0, +1>
neutralization. Soloists are unaccompanied.
solo vln 2

solo vln 1 Sigh motive invariant; neutralizing response

bœ œ ˙. œ nœ œ stretches past its original bounds. Soloists
I.16 & (012) <-1, +0, +2>
accompanied by sparse harmonics in low
solo vln 2
strings.
solo vln 1 Sigh motive intensifies, moving to a higher
œ nœ ˙. œ bœ œ register, while neutralizing answer returns to
I.22 & (0123) <-1, -2, +1>
original pitches. This produces a chromatic
solo vln 2
tetrachord.

œ nœ ˙. œ bœ œ
solo vln 1 solo vln 2
Sigh motive invariant, neutralizing response
I.25 & (0156) <-1, +5, +1> intensifies, moving up by T7.

b˙
harpsichord
‰ b ˙ ..
Both sigh and response are stretched across
& Ó ? <-13, -26,
I.30–31
‰ œ. w
(0123)
+13>
four octaves. Harpsichord is accompanied
by static tone cluster in strings.
Return of sigh and response in original
solo vln 1
rhythmic and registral configuration,
III.13 & œ # œ ˙.# œ œ œ (01) <-1, +0, +1> moving down by T6 from first presentation.
solo vln 2 Soloists are accompanied by tone cluster in
strings.
œ solo
œœ vln˙˙.1 œ œ œ Sigh and response are stretched over an
œ bœ ˙
III.18–
19 & (0123) <-1, -14, +1> octave and produce a chromatic tetrachord.
solo vln 2
Soloists are unaccompanied.

& œ # œ ˙ . # ‰˙ n œ .
solo vln 1 Sigh and response return at a lower register
III.53 (0123) <-1, -2, +1> still, moving down by T5 from III.13.
solo vln 2 Soloists are unaccompanied.
œœ
n œn œ b œb œ
b b œ œn œœ b œ Œ
pizz. Additional voices added under sigh-
top
& œœ œ Œ
neutralization motive in unaccompanied
IV.11
œ œœ voice: <-1, -2, +1>
cadenza. Highest voice forms chromatic
solo vln 1 solo vln 2
(0123) tetrachord.
nœ œ
pizz. œ wn œ Initial sigh motive is invariant from IV.11.
bœ b œ œ nœ top
& œ œ Œ œ œ Œ
Neutralizing response intensifies: highest
IV.14 voice: <-1, +5, +1>
œ œ solo vln 2 (0156)
voice moves up by T7 from IV.11. This
voice now forms a member of SC (0156).
solo vln 1

œ bœ

79
Locations are given as “Movement.measure number.” For example, “I.12” refers to m. 12 in the first movement.
76
Table 3.1- Continued

Set Directed
Location Reduced Musical Excerpt Notes
Class Intervals
Dramatic reversal of sigh-neutralization
œ bœ bœ
solo vln 1
˙
motive is combined with its appearance
IV.28–29 & (0156) <+1, -7, -1> over a functional harmonic progression
with Romantic-era harmonic syntax at the
end of the soloists’ cadenza.
œ
harpsichord
? nœ œ Registrally-stretched chromatic tetrachord
& &
<-13, -26,
#œ œ
n wœ
V.33 (0123) returns, similar to I.30–31. Harpsichord is
+13> unaccompanied.
#œ œ œ
#˙ Dramatic reversal of sigh-neutralization
V.182– œ motive is intensified, in higher register
83 & (0156) <+1, -7, -1> with full orchestral accompaniment
solo vln 1
(sustained chords).

œ· œ· ˙· .. ·œ b b ·œ ·œ
solo vln 1
Very high register (artificial harmonics).
VI.23 & (0123) <-1, -2, +1> Same pitch classes as III.18–19 and IV.11.
solo vln 2

This rhythmic consistency links varied forms of the motive even when it is stretched to

encompass multiple octaves (as in movement I, mm. 30–31) or voiced as the top line in a series

of chords (as in the pizzicato chords in mvt. IV, mm. 11 and 14). The directed interval series of

the motive also reveals the consistency of the sigh–response pattern. Aside from two notable

exceptions, all of the examples in the figure feature an initial descent of a semitone in pitch space

(or in pitch-class space for the registrally displaced versions). Again, a substantial majority of

presentations of the motive feature an ascending semitone (in pitch or pitch-class space) in the

“response” portion of the motive. The rhythmic and intervallic consistency of these presentations

links them as varied manifestations of the sigh-neutralization motive.

The motive is obscured by significant transformations in the fourth and fifth movements,

and these transformations require a bit more interpretive analysis to bring their dramatic

reversals to light. At these moments, the sigh–neutralization motive is reversed. Instead of the

order presented at the beginning of the work and throughout the piece, the ascending semitones

77
at these moments are followed by musical sighs, which are left without being “neutralized” by a

subsequent ascending semitone. We could describe a variety of transformations that map the

original sigh motive onto the altered versions in movements IV and V. Strict transposition maps

motive forms that are members of the same set-class, but using set classes requires us to

disregard the order of the pitches as they appear in the music. Figure 3.1 shows transpositional

relationships between the motive manifestations.

In order to track transpositions of entire motive forms, the instances of the motive must

be grouped according to set class, and this analysis reveals that a variety of transpositions are

used, especially by perfect fourth or perfect fifth (T5 and T7) and by major third or minor sixth

(T4 and T8), which each constitute three of the ten transformations between the chosen sets.

Since all of the set classes are symmetrical, inversion is not useful for this analysis.
Chart of Transformations Between Set Classes

Some Manifestations of the Sigh-Neutralization Motive
01 I.12 III.13
DEb T6 GsA
Set Class

012 I.16
DEbE T4 T 8
0123 I.22 I.30–31 III.18–19 III.53 IV.11 V.33 VI.23
DEbEF T10 CDbDEb T9 ABbBC CsDDsE ABbBC T7 EFFsG T5 ABbBC
0156 I.25 IV.14 IV.28–29 V.182–83

EFABb T7 BCEF GAbCDb T1 GsACsD

T8

- check bug with vertical text (“set class”) when converting to PDF

Figure 3.1: Transpositional Relationships Between Sigh–Neutralization Motives

Expressing the motives as ordered pitch-class sets with directed intervals reveals additional

information that was obscured by reordering pitches into normal form. For example, RI0 maps

the ordered motive from mvt. IV, m.14 onto the ordered motive from mvt. IV, mm. 28–29. Once

again, this only works to map motive forms that are members of the same set class, but at least it

shows a distinction between the whole group of motive forms in Table 3.1 and the unique motive

forms in the ends of the fourth and fifth movements.

78
 Several analytical tools could be used to demonstrate the unique differences of these two

motive forms compared with all other manifestations of the motive. Klumpenhouwer networks

might allow us to compare instances of the motive that are of different set classes (Figure 3.2),

but the abstract structures presented in K-nets don’t easily show the uniquely musical nature of

these two striking moments at the ends of the fourth and fifth movements. Or perhaps we could

use a series of dual transformations, such as those proposed by Shaugn O’Donnell, 80 to invert

and transpose each semitone individually. For example, I7 maps the first semitone of the motive

from mvt. IV, m. 14 to the first semitone of the motive from mvt. IV, mm. 28–29, and I5 maps

the second semitone of m. 14 to the corresponding semitone of m. 29. Dual transformations

allow us to map manifestations of the motive that instantiate different set classes, as shown in

Figure 3.3. Dual transformations that focus on the ordered transformations from semitone to

semitone clearly reveal the unique motive forms in mvt. IV, mm. 28–29 and in mvt. V, mm.

182–83 as related to the other motive forms by inversion.

Figure 3.2: Relationships Between Motive Instances Shown Using Klumpenhouwer Networks

80
I use Shaugn O’Donnell’s methodology for describing dual transformations, from his dissertation. Shaugn J.
O’Donnell, “Transformational Voice Leading in Atonal Music” (Ph.D. diss., Graduate Center of the City University

79
 As useful as transformational set theory, Klumpenhouwer networks, and O’Donnell’s

dual transformation methodology can be in other contexts, these kinds of pitch-class-centered

structuralist approaches do not reveal the significant musical relationships that can be

interrogated with the tools provided by narrative theory. The striking moments in this piece are

all-the-more poignant because of their dramatic power.

Figure 3.3: Dual Transformation Relationships Between Sigh–Neutralization Motives

Although it is difficult to consistently and concisely map the motive’s transformations, it

is clear that dramatic changes to the motive occur at the end of the fourth and fifth movements.

These dramatic reversals seem to be marking musically important events.

3.3 Denarration and Disnarration

I apply the concepts of denarration and disnarration (coined by Brian Richardson and

Gerald Prince and extended to postmodern music by Nicholas Reyland) both to clarify the

relationships between contradictory musical events and to contextualize these events in my

narrative account of Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso No. 1. Richardson’s “denarration” describes

of New York, 1997).

80
events whose inherent contradictions destroy the logical continuity that allows us to interpret a

story. Prince’s “disnarration” describes a fantasy or daydream that is clearly not part of the

story’s plot. It is no coincidence that these terms seem nearly identical at first, as they both

describe ways in which events told in the discourse are separated from the plot of the story.

Richardson suggests envisioning these terms on a spectrum, and I find it helpful to envision this

continuum in terms of how clear it is that events are or are not part of the story, as shown in

Figure 3.4.

Events that are so contradictory that they destroy the logic of the story also make it

impossible for us to determine whether those events are or are not part of the story, so they

would fall to the denarration end of the continuum. In a disnarration, we can be fairly sure that a

fantasy or daydream is not part of the story, so it would fall to the other end of the continuum.

Figure 3.4: Denarration and Disnarration

Here’s an example of denarration from Richardson: “Yesterday it was raining. Yesterday

it was not raining.” These statements are so contradictory that they question the logical

continuity of the plot. In this case, we must choose between contradictory events, and we do not

have enough information to decide which events are or are not part of the story. In Prince’s

example of disnarration, Humbert Humbert (in Lolita) addresses the reader and describes an

imaginary event (pulling out a gun) that he says never happened in the story. In this example, the
81
reader is fairly certain that Humbert never pulled out a gun. In short, disnarration involves an

event that is clearly not playing a role in the plot of a story. While disnarration involves signals

that cue the interpreter that the event is presented in the discourse but it is not part of the story,

denarration uses no such signals. I find that these concepts — disnarration and denarration —

help contextualize the role of surprising musical events in Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso No. 1. In

turn, the musical context (or lack of context) of these striking moments invites comparison with

Schnittke's own comments about the “impossibility” of recapturing musical memories.

3.4 Disruptions and Distortions of Baroque-Style Music

Before I relate these literary concepts to the Concerto Grosso, let’s return to our

analytical discussion of the piece and foreground some of the musical contradictions that form

the basis for interpreting disnarration and denarration. There are two inherent contradictions

between the musical events in the first three movements and the musical events at the end of the

fourth movement: (1) “sighs are neutralized” versus “sighs are not neutralized” and (2)

“Baroque-style music is interrupted by microcanons” versus “Baroque-style music successfully

reaches a functional cadence.” Earlier, we heard examples of the first contradiction in the

neutralizations of the sigh motive in the first four movements and of the sighs not being

neutralized in the dramatic reversals of the motive at the end of the fourth and fifth movements.

Let’s examine the second contradiction as it unfolds in Schnittke’s allusions to Baroque-style

music. The Baroque-like passages in this piece share a variety of characteristics including: a trio

sonata texture (2 violins and continuo); functional, tonal harmony; and melodic figuration that

would be expected in late-Baroque examples, such as scalar passages and sequential patterns,

and even, square rhythms, such as running eighth or sixteenth notes.

82
 As shown in Table 3.2, the second movement, “Toccata,” features two brief stylistic

allusions to Baroque music. The first of these consists of only five measures before it is disrupted

by its distortion in a dense microcanon, and the second Baroque allusion in the Toccata lasts four

complete measures before quiet microcanons begin to cover the trio-sonata texture created by the

soloists and harpsichord.

I use “microcanon” to describe polyphonic contrapuntal techniques similar to those

identified by Jane Piper Clendinning in Ligeti’s compositions.81 Microcanons involve strict

canonic writing in which entrances pile on top of one another in very short succession to form a

dense texture. In both of the Toccata’s Baroque allusions, a microcanon disrupts the Baroque

musical texture before it can reach a cadence. In both of the allusions, it is as if the music

attempts to express itself as a Baroque piece, perhaps a trio sonata or even a concerto grosso, but

those attempts are disrupted by the microcanons. In these examples, the microcanons enter with

material derived from the Baroque allusion, subverting the Baroque expressions by presenting

distortions of the same Baroque melody.

The third Baroque allusion works somewhat differently than the previous two. It occurs

immediately after a tonal cadence pattern at the end of the fourth movement, the pattern that

features the dramatic reversal of the sigh motive. This time, the trio-sonata texture lasts for 14

full measures before the entrance of a microcanon, and the Baroque melodic material reaches a

harmonic close, with a complete tonic–subdominant–dominant–tonic progression at its end. This

dramatic cadence pattern at the end of the fourth movement is followed by the Baroque allusion

at the beginning of the fifth movement. Now, it is as if the sigh motive in its tonal context, no

longer being neutralized, calls forth the complete Baroque phrase that begins the fifth movement.

81
Jane Piper Clendinning, “Structural Factors in the Microcanonic Compositions of György Ligeti,” in Concert
Music, Rock and Jazz Since 1945, ed. Elizabeth West Marvin and Richard Hermann (Rochester, NY: University of
Rochester Press, 1995), 230.
83
Table 3.2: Stylistic Allusions to the Baroque

Duration
Mvt Baroque Allusion Subsequent Disruption
mm. sec.
no clear Baroque
I
allusion
5
Toccata Episode 1 10 microcanon in m. 6
(1–5)
II
4
Toccata Episode 2 7 microcanon in m. 35
(31–34)
no clear Baroque
III
allusion
no clear Baroque
IV
allusion
14
V Rondo Refrain 1 22 microcanon in m. 15
(1–14)
pale echo of Toccata 3 presented only as a microcanon, set over
VI 4
Episode 1 (16–18) sustained tone cluster in string orchestra

This is the second way that the musical story of the fourth and fifth movements contradicts the

musical story established earlier. Instead of Baroque allusions being distorted by microcanons

almost as soon as we hear them, the Baroque allusion following the expressive sigh motive is

allowed to reach a cadence before the entrance of the next microcanon. Additionally, the next

microcanon begins not with an exact repetition of the melody from the Baroque allusion, as

before, but with an accompanimental figure. This final Baroque allusion is more robust, and not

so quickly disrupted by microcanons.

Not only do the relationships between Baroque allusions and their subsequent

microcanons change over the course of the piece, but the three Baroque allusions also differ in

their length and harmonic plan. Table 3.3 describes the continually changing instrumentation in

the disrupting microcanons.

84
Table 3.3: Instrumentation of Disrupting Microcanons

Starting No. of Canon

Mvt Instrumentation Canon Material
Measure entrances
Immediate repetition of entire Baroque
II 6 violins 12
allusion from mm. 1–7
Violas enter in m. 35 (4-part canon)
violas and echoing second half of Baroque allusion;
II 35 12
violins Violins enter in m. 39 (8-part canon) with
presentation of entire Baroque allusion
Cellos and violas enter in m. 15 (4-part
canon) with accompanimental figure;
cellos, violas,
V 15 8 Violins enter in m. 17 (4-part canon) with
and violins
incomplete presentation of Baroque
allusion

The first distorting microcanon features only violins, and gradually more and more of the

orchestra participates, with the third disruption involving the entire orchestra. As the

microcanons encompass more of the orchestra, the number of canonic voices decreases from

twelve to eight, with the lower four voices in the later two instances disrupting microcanons

involved in a slightly different canon only using a portion of the Baroque-allusion melody

(microcanon two) or only a tone cluster (microcanon three). Thus, the microcanons that distort

the Baroque allusions change from exact canons that distort the melody in a dense, cacophonous

texture (as in the first disrupting microcanon) to canons that involve more instruments

performing fewer lines, with only accompanimental statements and partial statements of the

Baroque melody. For this reason, the disruption of the third Baroque allusion in the fifth

movement can be interpreted as a break from the other two disruptions because the destabilizing

force is no longer “appropriating” the entire melody as a means of overthrowing the Baroque

texture.

85
 3.5 Denarration and Disnarration, Take Two

Let us now consider these musical contradictions in the context of denarration and

disnarration. In order to hear a musical event as a denarration, events in the discourse must

contradict each other and question the logic of the story. The events at the juncture of the fourth

and fifth generate a contradictory narrative that questions what came immediately before them:

either the sigh motive is neutralized because it is followed by an ascending semitone and is found

in an atonal context, or it is not neutralized because it is followed by a descending semitone and

is found in a tonal context. Further, either the Baroque allusions are quickly distorted by

microcanons, or they are allowed to reach harmonic closure after several measures. Essentially,

the sigh motive in a tonal context at the end of the fourth movement suggests the possibility that

this Concerto Grosso could communicate in the manner of a Baroque piece. Similarly, the

unusually lengthy and harmonically closed Baroque allusion at the beginning of the fifth

movement contributes to the alternative narrative—one of successful Baroque expressions.

I initially interpret transformation of the sigh-neutralization motive and successful

Baroque allusion as a signal for denarration: a new narrative emerges in which functional

harmonic syntax presides over the alternatives provided by microcanons and tone clusters. This

new narrative conflicts with the previously established narrative in which Baroque-style gestures

were neutralized and disrupted, confusing the listener as to which narrative thread is the real one.

An anachronistic tango for the harpsichord and violin soloists in the fifth movement further

destabilizes our sense of what this piece seems to be “about.” When an intensified version of the

sigh motive reconfigured in a dramatic cadence appears at the end of the fifth movement (see

Table 3.1), we will likely expect this gesture to lead similarly back to a functional cadence and

the expressive world of tonal harmony with all of the “conceptual and formal perfection” that

86
Schnittke attributed to that world. As shown in Figure 3.5, the voice-leading of the two passages

is nearly identical, but the second cadence pattern differs from the first it its use of fuller

orchestration; it is also transposed up from beginning on C6 to beginning on Cs7, and its octave-

higher melody is doubled in thirds and sixths by the second violin soloist.



 

   
     
     

   

  



 


 



   


29









     
   
    
   

  

 



  

   

Figure 3.5: Voice-Leading Reductions of Cadence Patterns in Fourth and Fifth Movements82

Just as the first cadence pattern brought about a lengthy, tonally closed Baroque allusion,

this second cadence pattern prepares us for an even lengthier Baroque allusion that can end this

Rondo and bring about a functional, tonal close to the work.

But this is not to be. Instead of tonal closure in the Baroque style, the second, intensified

cadence leads to a dysphoric disfigurement of tonal materials – the prepared piano playing over

dense orchestral tone clusters. The preparation of the piano prevents us from perceiving

82
Thanks to Joshua Mills for assistance in electronically setting these sketches.
87
particular pitches, and the dense tone cluster in the strings similarly erases any tertian tendencies.

Ultimately, the Baroque allusion did not return when summoned by the cadence pattern. Tonal

closure is denied, and we come to realize that the possibility of musical expression through

functional harmonic syntax was instead a disnarration, an impossible fantasy of bringing tonal

memories back to life. In other words, the presence of the prepared piano and the strings’ tone

cluster at the moment when we might have expected a Baroque allusion clarifies the purpose of

the earlier Baroque allusion. Now that we know the end of the story, the transformation of the

sigh motive in a tonal environment and the lengthy, tonally closed Baroque allusion can be

interpreted as a passing fantasy. The entrance of the prepared piano reminds us that it is

impossible for this twentieth-century piece to truly express itself with the same musical language

as a Baroque piece, just as it was impossible for fictional author Pierre Menard to truly re-write

Don Quixote in Borges’s short story, “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote.”

3.6 Postlude

Tracing dramatic transformations of the recurring sigh motive and disruptions of

Baroque-style music in this Concerto Grosso No. 1 reveals a unique narrative structure that plays

on the very nature of emplotment itself, as understood from a traditional, nineteenth-century

narrative perspective. Hearing a disnarration in this postmodern work offers us a glimpse into

one potential example of, what was for Schnittke, the “impossibility” of resurrecting the

“wonderful memories” of Western European art music.

88
 CHAPTER 4

NON-NARRATIVE IN LIBBY LARSEN’S

DOWNWIND OF ROSES IN MAINE

“Forever—is composed of Nows—”

—Emily Dickinson, “Forever—is composed of Nows—”

4.1 Introduction

“There’s no room for teleological thinking, which potentially hurries people away from where

they are. Taking the time to sink into the music and forget clock time becomes the essence of

downwind of roses in Maine,” writes Denise Von Glahn in Music and the Skillful Listener. Von

Glahn also notes that, at the premiere of this piece, “Larsen invited [the audience] to sink deep

where they were; to not seek after narratives.”83 While this work could certainly be interpreted in

a variety of ways, I will use Larsen’s and Von Glahn’s descriptions as points of departure for my

own discussion, in which a variety of conflicting trajectories defy interpretation as a traditional

narrative.

downwind of roses in Maine (2009) will serve as an example of a non-narrative that

encourages us to listen “in the moment.” Just as music can encourage a narrative interpretation in

a multitude of ways, I first survey the possible paths that have been suggested for the trajectory

of a “non-narrative,” looking to Michael Klein’s coining of the type as well as to Jonathan

Kramer’s ideas about “moment time” from The Time of Music, which might (or might not!) be

seen as relating to this piece in particular.

83
Denise Von Glahn, Music and the Skillful Listener: American Women Compose the Natural World (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 2013), 267.
89
 downwind . . . is a short chamber work for flute, B-flat clarinet, and mallet percussion. As

with Corigliano’s First Symphony, examined in Chapter Two, Larsen gives a very specific

program for this work:

“Standing on the corner of a freeway and parking lot in Rockport, Maine it was
high noon. The sun was scorching hot and the noise and smell of car exhaust
assaulted our ears and noses. We stood, waiting for our ride—very late. We were
practicing patience which was running out. A sudden hint of elsewhere, just for a
whisper of time, the smell of wild roses. Then again, din. We turned to realize that
we were standing in front of a hedge of wild roses. We moved towards it, took
deep breaths and were transported on its current of delicate aroma. Downwind of
Roses in Maine creates the hedge of roses with mallet percussion and the delicate
scent of roses with clarinet and flute.”84

The composer’s specific attribution of the mallet percussion to the creation of the “hedge of

roses” and the woodwinds to the creation of the “delicate scent of roses” could possibly be

interpreted as an agential description, ascribing roles to the performing forces, but the

descriptions themselves are of static objects, similar to a landscape painting, not to actors

performing roles in a dynamic environment. On the other hand, Larsen’s description of her

inspiration from the perspective of the observer (waiting, moving, listening, and smelling) does

convey a clear trajectory. First, Larsen and her companions were standing and waiting, annoyed

by the sounds and smells of passing cars. The smell of roses emerges faintly, “just for a whisper

of time,” followed by a return of the “din.” Finally, the composer and her group realize they are

near the roses and move closer to them, away from the reality of their current situation.

As with my interpretation of the program as it relates to the Corigliano symphony, I do not

hold the composition and its program to an expectation that they have a “one-to-one” correlation.

Elements of the program do support an interpretation of the piece as painting a static portrait of a

moment (the attribution of the performing forces to the hedge and to the scent of roses), but other

aspects of the program support an interpretation of a trajectory over the course of the piece
84
Libby Larsen, program note to downwind of roses in Maine (Minneapolis, MN: Libby Larsen Publishing, 2009).
90
(Larsen’s experience first noticing and then moving toward the scent of roses in her

environment). While others have pointed out that the flexibility of the role of the observer in a

narrative interpretation can often leave open room for a narrative interpretation when it might

otherwise seem impossible,85 I choose to explore specific ways that this piece does encourage us

to “listen in the moment,” following descriptions by Larsen and Von Glahn.

4.2 Possible Analytical Approaches

4.2.1 Kramer’s Musical Time

Since Larsen seems to encourage listening “in the moment,” one might naturally look to

Jonathan Kramer’s “moment time” from Time of Music in interpreting this piece. However,

several important constraints on how Kramer interprets moment time prevent this work from

being interpreted under Kramer’s framework, even though the composer’s description and

Kramer’s type share a common word. Primarily, moment time has no beginning, middle, or end,

and no climax. As I describe later in the chapter, the clear formal trajectory of the work,

featuring initial material, contrasting material, and the return of material similar to the initial

material, prevents it from being a candidate for Kramer’s moment time, which is largely static.

While the composer and most listeners would likely agree that the piece’s program connects it to

a state of mind in which one is appreciating or “living in” the moment, Kramer’s moment time

ultimately does not help explain how Larsen creates a sense of relishing a moment.

Having problematized moment time for downwind . . . , perhaps Kramer’s more general

concept of vertical time, music without teleology, would work better as a conceptual framework

for the piece. Kramer’s comment that “vertical time brings us into a timeless present in which we

85
Joshua Banks Mailman, “Agency, Determinism, Focal Time Frames, and Processive Minimalist Music,” in Music
and Narrative since 1900, eds. Michael L. Klein and Nicholas Reyland (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
2013), 125–143.
91
begin to merge with the music,” seems to fit well with Larsen’s and Von Glahn’s descriptions of

downwind. . . .86 However, vertical time must also be “sonically and/or conceptually static.”87

The formal trajectory of downwind . . . is certainly not sonically static, but perhaps it could be

conceptually static? downwind . . . seems to share at least a small degree of conceptual

familiarity with Kramer’s description of Feldman’s music, described by Kramer as epitomizing

vertical time because Feldman simply writes “one beautiful sound after another.”88 On the other

hand, several of Kramer’s other examples of vertical time works are generically separated from

downwind . . . : Stockhausen’s Stimmung (1968), Reich’s Piano Phase (1967), Glass’s Music in

Fifths (1969). Considering downwind . . . as a vertical-time piece raises more questions than it

answers, and these questions move beyond the scope of this project.

4.2.2 Klein’s and Almén’s Non-Narratives

Among Kramer’s many other temporal categories, downwind . . . might fit best as an

example of “multiply-directed time.” Music fits this category when the “direction of motion is so

frequently interrupted by discontinuities, in which the music goes so often to unexpected places,

that linearity, though still a potent structural force, seems reordered.”89 Like other music in this

category, downwind . . . features contrasting musical gestures appearing one after the other, with

only a few common ideas reappearing, but not in succession. In keeping with Kramer’s

principles, I could interpret each of the “multiply-directed” gestures as grouped separately from

every other gesture. However, I choose to focus on the overall impression that the series of

gestures gives: a sense of being in a single moment, not drawn to any of the gestures in

particular. Although I will examine the materials of the piece in detail, I choose not to focus on

86
Jonathan D, Kramer, The Time of Music: New Meanings, New Temporalities, New Listening Strategies (New
York: Schirmer, 1988), 385.
87
Kramer, Time of Music, 385.
88
Kramer, Time of Music, 386.
89
Kramer, Time of Music, 46.
92
the revelation of multiple linear processes as the ultimate goal of my analysis, as these details do

not contribute to my ultimate interpretive goal: understanding how this piece encourages us to

hear it in the moment instead of as a narrative trajectory over time.

In order to contextualize the (lack of) narrative trajectory of this piece, I will first consider

the work’s potential narrative structure in relation to the narrative categories Michael Klein

proposed for recent music.90 Considering his four options (narrative, non-narrative, neo-

narrative, and anti-narrative), this work seems to fit easily into the non-narrative category, and I

am choosing to interpret its lack of a narrative strategy as a guiding force for my analysis.

However, Klein describes non-narrative works as: “music with no tonality, no themes, no sense

of causality or transformation, no organizing principle whatsoever, in fact: just a set of

independent sound worlds, textures, or blips of acoustic matter. Feldman's Projection 4 and Earle

Brown's Folio are found here.”91 At first blush, Klein’s description would not seem to fit

downwind . . ., which: (1) has a sense of contrasting material followed by a brief thematic return,

and (2) has certain musical gestures that are unified by common pitch materials and rhythmic

choices. This play of gestures and themes gives at least parts of the work a subtle sense of

organization.

This work certainly allows one to interpret the subtle sense of musical change, thematic

return, and hints of larger organization as feeding a traditional narrative, possibly one of Klein’s

other narrative types. My reason for not following this analytical path is that it works in

opposition to the work’s program (a wonderful moment spent appreciating an aroma), in

opposition to the composer’s own comments on the piece, and in opposition to Von Glahn’s

90
Michael L. Klein, “Musical Story,” in Music and Narrative since 1900, eds. Michael L. Klein and Nicholas
Reyland (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), 3–28. See Section 1.2 for further discussion of these
categories.
91
Klein, “Musical Story,” 4–5.
93
account of the piece as a listener. Later in Klein’s essay, he nihilistically points out that the map

of categories is “just a semiotic square, a structure, a categorical map that ultimately will fail

us.”92 While I do not suggest that my interpretation fundamentally questions the structure or

category, my analytical choice to focus on the lack of narrative structure instead of knitting one

together (one that might be quite logically sound) is itself a choice that can place the work into

Klein’s structure. That said, downwind . . . has little in common with the other members of this

category suggested by Klein (Feldman’s Projection 4 and Browne’s Folio), while it might be

said to have more in common with the “non-narrative” category suggested by Byron Almén.

A detailed discussion of non-narrative is beyond the scope of Almén’s Theory of Musical

Narrative, but, briefly, he does include two different types of non-narrative in his broader

discussion of topics: non-narrative pieces with topic, and non-narrative, non-topical works.

Almén’s category of non-narrative, non-topical works includes the minimalist and aleatoric

compositions that characterize Klein’s non-narrative category, in addition to total serialist

music.93 downwind . . . decidedly does not fit into this category of works without any “expressive

correlations” at all. 94 Almén’s other category of non-narrative pieces with topic fits

downwind . . . quite well. Although Almén seems to envision this category being largely

populated with “short, strophic works intended primarily to convey the meaning of the text via

word-painting, clarity of texture, and topical allusion,” I suggest that downwind . . . does include

the kinds of associative meaning we can link to topics (although not necessarily topics in a

traditional sense), while also working against a “fundamental opposition” that would lead one to

92
Klein, “Musical Story,” 6.
93
Narrative interpretation of highly serial music is certainly not the focus of Almén’s monograph, but I would
disagree that this compositional technique automatically works against any possibility of narrative interpretation. At
the time of writing, the narrative possibilities of highly serial music remain to be investigated.
94
Byron Almén, A Theory of Musical Narrative (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 91.
94
draw a narrative interpretation.95 While Almén’s text is filled with examples of nineteenth-

century character pieces that are very amenable to narrative interpretation, downwind . . . is a

sort of twenty-first-century programmatic work without the dramatic oppositions common to this

genre in the nineteenth century. Almén’s category provides a satisfying frame for interpreting

non-narrative in downwind . . . , but the fact remains that “non-narrative” is a broad and slippery

term because it describes music based on what its structure is not. Instead of attempting to

outline such a broad category, I choose to focus on unique ways that a sense of contrast and

return can emerge from this piece without goal-directed motivic development or the dramatic

changes that I have associated with narrative interpretations in the previous chapters.

4.3 Analysis of downwind . . .

In my non-narrative interpretation, I emphasize the multiple possibilities suggested by

various aspects of the piece. Instead of collecting analytical information under the auspices of a

single narrative interpretation, I focus on aspects of the piece that work against unity or an

overall narrative structure. This includes aspects that I discussed in previous chapters, such as

form, pitch, rhythm, texture, and intertextual relationships associated with those features, but this

analytical information now serves no larger narrative trajectory. Or, perhaps contradictorily, the

information serves to solidify my narrative interpretation of the work as a NON-narrative. As I

will discuss, the work’s program and Von Glahn’s and the composer’s suggested listening

strategies do play a unifying role, but they do not encourage identifying the kind of change over

time (more specifically according to Almén and Liszka, transvaluation) that plays a significant

role in narratives.

95
Almén, Theory of Musical Narrative, 79.
95
4.3.1 Form

The overall form of the work is largely episodic, a succession of short, seemingly

unrelated musical gestures, differentiated by contrasting pitch content, rhythmic patterns, and

timbres. This means that the form could be reflected by a number of different parameters. Table

4.1 illustrates one possible formal interpretation of the way that a select group of these

parameters coalesce.

Table 4.1: Form as Differentiated by Contrasting Pitch Content, Rhythmic Patterns, and Timbres

Measures Pitch Content Rhythmic Patterns Timbre

1–28 Percussion: repeated dyads
29–78 Percussion: ostinato
chromatic subsets
Winds: moments with series
of IC4-type intervals
79–95 Percussion: repeated dyads
in orch. bells; ostinato
chromatic subsets
Winds: moments with series
of IC4-type intervals
Percussion: repeated Percussion: Orchestra
dyads bells
Percussion: mostly Percussion: mostly
ostinato 32nd notes vibraphone
Winds: moments of Winds: increased use
rhythmic unison of tremolo
Percussion: repeated Percussion: Orch. bells,
dyads in orch. bells; vibraphone, and
ostinato 32nd notes marimba
Winds: moments of
rhythmic unison

Table 4.1 summarizes general features of each of these sections, and reveals a suggestion

of synthesis in mm. 79–95, as features of the two previous sections are now incorporated into the

final section. However, in summarizing general features for the purposes of form, I did not

include several musical details, such as the exact pitch-class sets played by the winds. As is often

the case, it is certainly possible to define the form of this work in other ways, prioritizing other

parameters, but I choose this formal interpretation because it reveals the suggestion of an

assemblage of musical motives and percussion timbres from the previous two sections in the

final section.

96
 As discussed earlier, the introduction of contrasting musical materials in the second

section and the recall of musical materials in the final section does contribute to a sense of

change and return over the course of this piece. This prevents the work from being interpreted as

a “moment form,” as each section is not a static, unchanging block. This sense of contrast and

return connects the form of this work to structural traditions in music, such as a three-part form

in which the third A' section includes some elements from the previous two A and B sections. In

summary, the formal strategy I interpret in this work clearly separates it from the organization

suggested by Kramer’s “moment form,” and loosely connects downwind . . . with traditional

expectations established in tonal repertoires. Although the form of this work has some

connections with traditional expectations, conflicting trajectories are present in other parameters.

Larsen’s kaleidoscopic variety of pitch constructions have only tenuous connections with tonal

music of the past.

4.3.2 Pitch

Some features of the harmonic and melodic materials used in the piece are consistent

throughout the work, while other features play more of a role in defining a sense of the work’s

overall formal trajectory. Several moments in the piece briefly feature non-tonal tertian or

extended-tertian harmonies. Tertian structures are not used exclusively, and the brief aural

glimpses of tertian harmony align with the piece’s program of a subtle perfume floating on a

breeze. In mm. 24–27, (extended) tertian strings can be found in the quiet flourishes from the

clarinet and flute. As shown in Figure 4.1, these tertian arpeggiations happen so quickly as to

pass almost before they can be interpreted as tertian, and their environment prevents these stacks

of thirds from functioning as tonal harmonies. Interestingly, the tertian flourishes in the final

upward gesture of m. 27 together form a complete diatonic collection (C,D,E,F,G,A,B) but, as

97
before, the diatonic flourish is so fast that it vanishes as these voices move on to new, non-

diatonic, musical material.

Figure 4.1: Tertian Strings and Diatonic Harmonies in the Flute and Clarinet, mm. 24 and 27

Arpeggiations of strings of thirds can also be found in mm. 64–65, and in a brief motive

that first appears in the vibraphone in m. 70, then sounds in the flute in m. 74, and later returns to

the vibraphone in m. 83.

Figure 4.2: [F,G,Ab,C,Eb] Diatonic Collection in Vibraphone, m. 70

98
 This motive, shown in Figure 4.2, is slightly different from the other stacked

arpeggiations through a series of thirds, since it involves fifths and thirds. Like some of the other

motives, it also creates a subset of a diatonic collection, this time a 5-note subset, [F,G,Ab,C,Eb].

Tertian harmonies are also suggested several times throughout the work when the winds

play in rhythmic unison, harmonizing in thirds. In mm. 30–34, 66–67, 69, and 88–90, the

woodwind melody differs every time, but the slower rhythms in these moments and

harmonization in thirds are striking in comparison to the quick flourishes and harmonic language

found in the rest of the movement.

Figure 4.3: Woodwind Passages in Parallel Thirds, mm. 30–34, 66–67, 69, and 88–90

The final striking use of pervasive thirds occurs at the very end of the work. The

woodwinds are once again in parallel thirds, ending on an E5–G5 dyad that is sustained while the

percussionist quietly sustains double-stops on the marimba and xylophone that further contribute

to the stack of thirds: C3–B3–C4–E4. The ending on what amounts to a non-functional CM7

chord is striking given the distinctly non-tonal music that precedes this moment.

99
 Taken together with the piece’s program and the kinds of repertoire most common to

woodwind chamber music, the pervasive use of thirds suggests an intertextual connection with

the kinds of extended tertian harmonies associated with composers such as Debussy and Ravel.

Figure 4.4: Ending on CM7 Harmony

Once again, in keeping with the piece’s program, the connection is not overt, as the pervasive

thirds are unusual in the overall sonic landscape filled by non-tertian sounds. In other words, we

can hear “just a whiff” of tertian harmony in downwind . . . .

While the strings of thirds and non-functional tertian harmonies do not play a significant

role in my formal interpretation, the series of dyads heard in the percussion is one of the main

form-defining elements. Six different dyads are heard from the orchestra bells in mm. 1–27, 45–

49, 79–80, and briefly in 93. These six dyads are labeled M–S in Figure 4.5. While the

percussion part includes a variety of other materials as well, these dyads strikingly resemble

wind chimes, due to the timbre of the orchestra bells, the chime sounds heard in close succession

followed by a pause, as well as the largely diatonic collection formed by the dyad pitches, as

shown in Figure 4.6. This collection might be best described as diatonic plus an extra pitch (Fs),

which contributes to the wind chime effect since wind chimes often sound a diatonic collection
100
or a subset of the diatonic collection. The absence of the orchestra bell dyads throughout mm.

28–44 and 50–78 mark a significant element of contrast in what I call the B section, and the

reappearance of the dyads at the end of the work, in concert with elements from the B section, is

striking. An additional series of orchestra bell dyads is heard in mm. 86–89, with pitches taken

from a different diatonic collection. These additional dyads, labeled in Figure 4.5 as W–Z, form

a hexachordal subset of the diatonic collection, as shown in Figure 4.7. This subset (6-Z26

[013578]) maintains the diatonicism necessary to convey an aural impression of wind chimes

while introducing an additional element of change in the final large section of the work.

Figure 4.5: Ten Dyads in Percussion

Figure 4.6: Pitch Collection and Pitch-Class Collection of Dyads M–S

Figure 4.7: Pitch Collection and Pitch-Class Collection of Dyads W–Z

The “wind chime” dyads can also be found in the woodwinds in mm. 45–52 and 76–80, as

shown in Figure 4.8.

The difference of register, articulation, and rhythm between the woodwind dyads and the

percussion dyads obscures their pitch connection, and covers the “wind chime” sound from the

101
dyads when heard from the orchestra bells. However, the consistent use of these dyads

throughout the work remains one of its strongest unifying features.

Figure 4.8: “Wind Chime” Dyads in Woodwinds, mm. 45–52 and 76–80

4.3.3 Rhythm

Just as the pitch dyads used in conjunction with the “wind chime” pattern return later in

the work, the specific rhythmic units associated with the various dyads also return in conjunction

with the dyads. Figure 4.9 shows the rhythmic patterns associated with the dyads; these are not

quite distinctive enough to be identifiably associated with the “wind chime” dyads, but they

contribute to the wind chime effect (by suggesting the effect of two chimes being gently nudged

by a subtle breeze, as opposed to the stormy effect of several chimes being hammered all at once

by a gale-force wind) and they do return in conjunction with the wind-chime dyads.

j
˙
ã œr ˙
˙ w ‰ œ ˙. ˙. ˙. ˙ œ
®Jœ .. œ w ≈ Jœ . ˙ . ˙. ®Jœ .. ˙ ˙ œ
Measure 1 1 2,6,19 3 4,8 5 7,9 7

r j
. ˙. ˙. ˙. ‰ œ œ
ã œr ˙˙ . w r w ˙
Œ
œ
˙.
‰ œJ ˙ w œ w w ˙
12 13–14 16 17 18 20

Figure 4.9: Some Rhythmic Units Associated with Wind Chime Dyads

102
 Because the rhythmic units are even more widely varied than the pitch dyads, the

analytical rewards are not as high for finding additional uses of these rhythmic units in other

parts of the work. However, the use of a limited number of rhythmic units in conjunction with

the limited number of wind-chime dyads gives this particular section a distinctiveness that makes

the return of the wind-chime dyads a significant moment in the work. Instead of a limited

number of subtle features uniting the original material and its return, the returning material uses

the same set of foundational units as the original material.

4.3.4 Texture and Timbre

While the “wind chime” music has specific pitch dyads and rhythmic units that unify this

material as it occurs throughout the work, subtler uses of texture and timbre mark changes that

contribute to the overall trajectory of the work. I interpret two significant textures and timbres:

(1) use of the woodwinds in rhythmic unison, often (but not always) in conjunction with parallel

motion in minor thirds; and (2) differing rhythms in the percussion accompaniment pattern,

which are associated with different percussion instruments used in the piece. Figure 4.3, above,

provides one instance of the “woodwind rhythmic unison” texture, which can be heard as

opposing the “both woodwinds fluttering separately” texture (see Figure 4.1 above). This

rhythmic unison texture occurs several times in the work, often in conjunction with the parallel

thirds described in Figure 4.3. Focusing exclusively on this textural opposition reveals a different

kind of trajectory in the work, as shown in Table 4.2, in which the rhythmic unison textures

alternate with non-rhythmic-unison textures. Notably, the B section includes far more changes of

woodwind texture than the first or third sections, marking it as a section of instability and

contrast.

103
Table 4.2: Opposing Woodwind Textures

Measures Woodwind Texture Large Formal Section

1–21 not rhythmic unison
22–23 rhythmic unison A
24–29 not rhythmic unison
30–34 rhythmic unison
35–43 not rhythmic unison
44–53 rhythmic unison
54–60 not rhythmic unison
B
61–63 rhythmic unison
64–65 not rhythmic unison
66–69 rhythmic unison
70–75 not rhythmic unison
76–81 rhythmic unison
82–85 not rhythmic unison A'
86–end rhythmic unison

The sections I identify as A and A' both include a single, short change of woodwind texture,

followed by a return to the texture that began the section, giving them a greater sense of stability.

Interestingly, it is the fluttering, non-rhythmic-unison texture that dominates the A section, while

the slower, more stable rhythmic unison texture dominates the A' section.

While the “slower, rhythmic unison” woodwind texture returns throughout the work, the

reappearance of the orchestra bells in conjunction with the wind-chime dyads marks a moment of

formal significance. The orchestra bells are only heard in the first and last sections of the piece,

where their distinctive dyads significantly contrast the other accompaniment texture: fast,

fluttering ostinatos, heard in the marimba and vibraphone. These two types of accompaniment

textures can also be placed in opposition to one another, just as the woodwind textures were

opposed in Table 4.2. Table 4.3 demonstrates opposed timbres in the percussion, which are

closely linked to the rhythmic features of the percussion accompaniment pattern used with

particular instruments.
104
Table 4.3: Percussion Timbres and Accompaniment Patterns

Measures Percussion Timbre Accompaniment Pattern Large Formal Section

1–28 orchestra bells wind-chime dyads A
29–34 vibraphone ripple roll chords
35–41 vibraphone 32nd-note chromatic segments
43–44 rest rest
45–46 orchestra bells wind-chime dyads
47 vibraphone 32nd-note chromatic segments
48–49 orchestra bells wind-chime dyads
nd
50–52 vibraphone 32 -note chromatic segments B
53 rest rest
54–56 vibraphone rolled chords
57–60 rest rest
61–69 vibraphone 32nd-note chromatic segments
70–72 vibraphone motivic pattern; tremolo
73–78 rest rest
79–80 orchestra bells wind-chime dyads
81–82 rest rest
83–84 vibraphone motivic pattern; tremolo
86–89 orchestra bells wind-chime dyads
90 rest rest A'
nd
91–93 marimba 32 -note chromatic segments
93 orchestra bells wind-chime dyad
94 rest rest
95–96 marimba and vibraphone measured tremolo chord

Here, the textural and timbral changes in percussion are highly related to the form I interpret.

The A section is the only one with a consistent timbre and texture throughout, and the B section

includes a greater variety of changes, again creating a sense of instability. Unlike the textural

changes in the woodwinds, the timbral/textural instability in the percussion continues through the

A' section, which is the only section to include use of the marimba.

The easy availability of oppositional relationships among the textural/timbral changes

discussed in Figures 4.11 and 4.12 (rhythmic unison vs. non-unison in the woodwind texture,

orchestra bells and wind chime dyads vs. other textures in the percussion) might provide the

105
basic structure needed for a narrative interpretation, but the narrative begins to fall apart soon

after the construction of an opposition. In addition to a fundamental opposition, a narrative

interpretation requires some sort of changing value over time, known as transvaluation. It would

certainly be possible to link my formal interpretation with the different outcomes of the two

types of oppositions and note a different kind of outcome, but judging a significant change over

time becomes difficult for this work. I have no doubt that it would be possible to identify some

type of meager transvaluation, but the subtle mood at the end of the work—although created in a

different manner than the subtle mood at the beginning—is not substantially different. Although

some change and contrast occurs in the B section, again, the work’s subtle flowing breeze is not

disrupted. As with Almén’s “non-narrative, with topic” category, the mood of the work is so

consistent throughout that it resists narrative interpretation.

4.4 What is a Non-Narrative?

While the analytical information described above could be united in the service of a

narrative interpretation, I chose not to do so for this particular work. I included this piece as a

counter-example to the other two works in the dissertation. A narrative interpretation that runs

counter to Larsen’s and Von Glahn’s words about the piece runs the risk of being contrary

simply for the sake of providing an opposing viewpoint. On the other hand, a non-narrative

interpretation runs the risk of simply echoing the perspectives of those who assert that the work

cannot or should not be interpreted as having a teleological structure. In order to avoid this, I

explore individual trajectories (or lack of trajectory) suggested by various gestures and aspects of

the work: texture, pitch, rhythm, and so forth. Ultimately, this reflects a personal choice on my

part as an analyst. Given the traditional and non-traditional narrative interpretations I have

already provided of Corigliano’s Symphony No. 1 and Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso No. 1, one

106
might wonder about the analytical freedom taken in order to an interpret a narrative. In other

words, if many of the “rules” of music and of narrative structure are re-written by recent music,

what is there to stop an enterprising analyst from interpreting everything as a narrative? My non-

narrative interpretation of Larsen’s downwind of roses in Maine offers one answer to this

question. Even when a narrative interpretation is possible, the analytical implications of this

interpretation can run counter to a work’s program or the work’s aesthetic principles. In these

cases, I suggest that narrative interpretations should enrich the analytical experience of a piece,

not work against it.

107
 CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSION

Narrative interpretations can help us learn more about a piece of music by knitting

together various sorts of analytical data to reveal a story (as in Corigliano’s Symphony No. 1), to

reveal postmodern questions and negations (as in Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso No. 1), or even to

reveal details about the interpretive context of a piece that work against narrative (as in Larsen’s

downwind of roses in Maine). Although this dissertation demonstrates three very different ways

that narrative theory can be employed in interpreting music after 1975, it only begins to explore

the multitude of applications narrative theory can have for recent music. In other words, like so

many explorations, my study of narrative interpretations of recent music raises far more

questions than it answers.

When I described the narrative structures of Corigliano’s individual symphonic

movements in Chapter Two, the second and third movements comfortably fit the patterns

established by Almén for the ironic narrative archetype, while the first and fourth movements did

not easily follow these traditional narrative structures. Instead of searching for ways to fit these

two outer movements into a traditional paradigm, I used features unique to the piece to guide my

narrative interpretation. In this case, Corigliano’s references to literary techniques in the titles of

the first and last movements and the specific value relationships associated with nostalgia were

useful for constructing my interpretation of both the movements and of the trajectory of the work

as a whole. Though I do not apply any techniques specifically derived from postmodern literary

theory in my interpretation of this piece, considering the equal validity of multiple outcomes at

the end of the work represents a step away from the more traditional narrative interpretations

108
presented by scholars such as Almén and Hatten. Some readers might argue that the refusal to

hew my interpretation to an ultimate fixed meaning reduces its impact, but I would suggest that

music’s ability to generate multi-faceted meanings is part of what makes it endlessly fascinating,

and analytical tools that allow us to explore multiple meanings within a work are especially

rewarding. As music after 1900 moves away from the widespread meanings traditionally

referenced in the common practice era, tools that explore multiple potential meanings become

especially valuable. On the other hand, a traditional interpretation of the symphony of a whole

certainly seems possible. How might this kind of hearing be constructed? What kinds of

analytical details would a traditional interpretation emphasize that were not emphasized in my

own interpretation?

My reading of denarration and disnarration in Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso No. 1 in

Chapter Three focuses on the narrative strands formed by the interactions of the sigh–

neutralization motive in the context of Baroque-style music and a musical language involving

prepared piano and tone clusters. While my interpretation using narrative techniques common to

postmodern literature reveals a message that ultimately conveys the futility of communicating

contemporary ideas using past languages, it focuses exclusively on two of the musical styles

present in this work. Further work might attempt a deeper exploration of the ways that other

styles function in the piece, such as the anachronistic tango, quotations from Schnittke’s earlier

compositions and from other works, and other non-tonal styles not involving the prepared piano

and tone clusters. Would it be possible to construct an interpretation that unites each of the

various narrative strands into a single whole? Would such a “complete” interpretation be able to

maintain the emphasis on postmodern negations that I demonstrated in my interpretation, or

would the “complete interpretation” rely on different kinds of theoretical underpinnings? Is

109
“completeness” an analytical goal worth striving toward, and how might this goal affect the ways

that details can be framed and presented?

I include my analysis of Larsen’s downwind of roses in Maine as a counterpoint to

Corigliano’s Symphony and Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso. As work in narrative theories of music

moves beyond the patterns established for tonal music, one might argue that “anything can be a

narrative if one tries hard enough.” Although the degree of “narrative impulse” remains solely in

the hands of the interpreter, this analysis demonstrates that careful consideration of a work’s

context can inform analytical decisions. Additionally, interpretations are rarely organized around

how a piece is not structured, and my hearing of downwind . . . provides an exploration into that

dimension. That said, the field of music theory is generally (and understandably) more concerned

with how to describe what the characteristics or underlying structures are—not what they are

not. On the other hand, an unusual perspective can sometimes provide startling insights. In my

interpretation, the conflicting trajectories of various parameters over the course of the piece can

be examined in detail. Understanding musical features that work against narrative interpretations

gives us insights into how narratives could work in other music. How might analysis and

interpretation of other non-narrative works provide a fuller picture of the musical features that

work against narrative interpretation?

My three analyses fall into two very broad categories that exemplify a great number of

narrative interpretations of recent music: (1) interpretations that follow the standard narrative

structures established for Classic- and Romantic-era music, possibly with some minor

modifications; and (2) interpretations that reflect aspects of postmodern culture and philosophy,

especially postmodern literary theory. These two interpretational styles can be mutually

supportive—as in my discussion of the way that the archetypal narrative structures (traditional)

110
of the inner two movements of Corigliano’s Symphony support the work’s overall trajectory

(postmodern in its multiplicity of interpretations). Or, they might reveal equally compelling but

contradictory hearings of the same work—as in my interpretation of Larsen’s downwind . . . as a

rebellion against teleology versus an interpretation of the same work using traditional narrative

techniques. More to the point, the very act of reducing types of narrative interpretations to these

two categories places the focus exclusively on the methodological and philosophical stance of an

interpretation. Although exploring the abstract details of methodologies is admittedly very

helpful in understanding biases incurred with analytical choices, it excludes a crucial feature of

analysis: how it helps us to better understand the music.

Instead of concentrating on methodological choices involved in the act of interpretation, I

hope to continue to explore the multitude of ways that a narrative can be possible. My

interpretation of Larsen’s downwind . . . is crucial in exploring this question—understanding the

conditions that work against narratives in recent music gives valuable insight into the range of

narrative possibilities that are still present. In my hearings of Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso and

Corigliano’s Symphony, I demonstrate ways that quotations, allusions, and musical

discontinuities can guide a narrative interpretation of a recent work, and I deliberately attend to

the ways that musical details work out over the course of the piece, instead of working from an

archetype or structure. This strategy allows me to focus on the unique features of each piece and

to draw from a variety of disciplines, such as the philosophy of emotions or postmodern literary

theory, as they seem appropriate to a given work. While my approach does not lead us to any

broadly applicable theory, it creates an expansive analytical space which allows us to address the

very individual musical languages used in recent music. Just as the musical language of any

111
given work might necessitate a specifically tailored approach, each interpretation broadens the

range of tools available for the narrative interpretation of all music.

112
 APPENDIX

CORIGLIANO, SYMPHONY NO. 1: REDUCTION OF B SECTION

SHOWING REMEMBRANCE THEMES AND TANGO

Legend:

Remembrance theme R is indicated in yellow

Remembrance theme R' is indicated in orange

Remembrance theme R'' is indicated in red

Offstage tango is indicated in dark purple

Tango played by onstage instruments is indicated in lilac

√b ˙ ˙ b˙ ˙ nw
2
67
w w n˙ w #˙. œ w w ˙ n˙ ˙
&2
3 3 3

(√) w w ˙ ˙ ˙ w ˙ #˙ w
bw 3 w. 2
77

& bw 2 2
3
offstage tango enters: mm. 2–11 ˙ w w
3 2 Ó
& ∑ ∑ 2 ∑ 2 ∑ ∑ ∑

w w ˙ ˙ bw w ˙ ˙ ˙ w
b˙
3 2 3 2
86

& 2 Ó 2 ∑ Ó 2 2
3 3

˙ ˙ #˙ w w
3 ˙ 2 w w 3 2
& 2 2 2 ∑ 2 ∑ ∑
3

113
 w ˙ #˙ w #˙ w
w w ˙ #œ œ #w
32 22
94
?
& ∑
#˙ #˙ w ˙ #w offstage tango tonicizes B minor

& 32 22 w ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑
w w w w
32 22 #w w w w
94

& ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑

? 32 22 Ó Ów ˙
∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ˙ w

?
103
˙ œ œ #œ œ ˙ ˙ #œ œ 3 ˙. œ ˙ 22
2 & #w w ˙ nœ bœ nw
offstage tango stops

3 2
103

& ∑ ∑ ∑ 2 ∑ 2 ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑

? w 3 ww .. 2 ww bw w b ww
w ww ww 2 2 w bw

32 22 w w ˙ ˙ w
111

& ˙ œ #œ #˙ ˙
œ #œ ˙ #w ˙

3 2
111

& ∑ ∑ 2 ∑ 2 ∑ ∑ ∑ bw w

? b ww ww 32 ˙w . n w 22 ww w
bw
w
w
w
w
bw
w

w ˙. œ ˙ #˙ 3 w 2 w w
119

& w w 2 Ó 2 ∑
w w w w ˙ ˙ ˙ b˙. w w ˙ ˙ ˙
bœ ˙
&Ó 32 22
3 3 3
offstage tango enters: mm. 12–13

3 2
119 (finishes tonicization of B minor)

&w w w ∑ ∑ 2 ∑ 2 ∑ ∑ ∑

? ww ww ww
bw w 32 w Ó 22
w w w ∑ ∑ ∑
w w w

114
 w w ˙ ˙ #˙ ˙
3 w 2 w w 3
128

& 2 2 ∑ 2
w ˙ #˙ #w
3
w #˙ nw w
3 2 3
& 2 2 ∑ 2
w w w. w ˙ œ œ w
3 2 3
128

& ∑ 2 2 2

3 Œ Œ œ œœ # ˙˙ œœ # œœ œj œ 2 œ ˙
tango: mm. 2–3 3

Ów ˙ 3
128 3 3

& 2 #œ œ 2 œ b # ˙˙˙ ˙˙ Œ w 2
˙˙
∑ ∑ ∑

# œœ œœ œœ œœ # œœ # œœ œœ
3 3

? 3 2 3
∑ ∑ ∑ 2 ∑ & 2 Œ Œ ∑ 2
tango: mm. 4–5

˙ œ œ ˙. w ˙ #œ #œ
3
135
œ œ #œ œ w œ ˙ 2 3
&2 2 2

3 . b ww .. 2 b ẇ b˙ #w
& 2 ww . www ... 3
135

2 # w 2

# tango:
j
˙˙ ˙˙m. 2˙˙ œœ ˙˙ # ˙˙ ww
2 Œ Œ œœ # œœ ˙˙
tango: mm. 3–4
œœ # œœ # œœ œœ ˙˙
& 32 3
?
∑ #˙ ˙ ˙ œ ˙ #˙ w 2 2
3 3 3
3
3

3 2 œ ˙ #œ
140

&2 ∑ 2 ∑ ∑ w œ b˙ bœ bœ nw
nw nœ œ œ œ ˙ w w
3 2
140

&2 2 ∑ ∑ ∑

3 #w.
140
w 22 ww ww ww
&2 ˙ # ww ww ww
b b ˙˙ ˙˙ b b ˙˙ ˙˙ n ˙˙ n ˙˙
œ œœ
3

? 3 œ # œ œ ˙˙ ww # œwœ œ ˙ . ww ww
22
2 ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ # # ˙˙ ˙˙
3
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
147
bœ w ˙ b˙ œ ˙. 32 œ ˙ 22
& œ ˙ œ nœ ˙ œ bœ b˙. #˙ ˙ ˙.

32 22
147

& n˙ n˙ œœœ b ˙ . w
# ˙˙˙ ˙˙˙ # ˙˙˙ ˙˙˙ w www b b ww ..
˙ ˙ ˙. w # ww
? #˙ ˙˙ n˙ n˙ n˙ n˙ œ ˙. w w 32 n ww .. 22
# ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ œ ˙. w w w
w

115
& 22 # ˙ . 32 ˙ 22
155

œ w bw ˙. œ w w #w ˙. œ

2 Ó ˙ ˙ œ œ w ˙ œ œ œ œ ˙ 3 ˙. Œ 2
&2 ∑ 2 2 ∑
w w #œ œ #w
2 3 2
155

&2 ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ 2 2

2 3 2
155

&2 w 2 2
w
∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑

? 22 ww Œ ˙˙ .. w w w w 32 w . 22 w
w w w w # ww .. www
˙. w w w w w.

#w w ˙ nœ bœ
32 22 w
# w ˙ nœ bœ
163

& w w w
∑
163 ˙ œ œ #œ œ ˙ ˙ #œ œ ˙. œ ˙
& 32 22 ∑ ∑ ∑

32 22 Ó # œœœ œœœ # œœœ œœ œœ œœœ œœœ œœœ œœœ œœ Œ Ó

163 tango: m. 2

& ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ œ

? w j 32 22
œ ‰Œ Ó ww .. ww bw b ww
ww œœ & ww w
w œ
w ˙
nw ˙ œ #œ #˙ w ˙ ˙
œ #œ ˙ #w ˙ w

116
 www œœœ w w. w w
w ˙
nw ˙ œ #œ #˙ w ˙ ˙
œ #œ ˙ #w ˙ w
nw ˙ œ #œ œ #œ ˙ 3 #w #˙ 2 w ˙ ˙ 3 2
170

& 2 2 2 2
˙
# ˙˙ 3 œœ # œœ ˙ ˙ ˙
tango: m. 3
3 2 2
170

& ∑ ∑ ∑ 2 ∑ 2 ∑ Ó Ó 2 #˙ b˙ ˙ 2
3
"nasty" melody in oboes "nasty" melody in bassoons 3

3 ˙w n w 2 n ww 3 b ww .. 2
(not shown) (not shown)

& b ww b ww ww 2 . 2 w 2 w. 2
bw
w ˙. œ œ ˙ œ ˙ w œ
w ˙. œ œ ˙ œ ˙ w œ
2 3 2
177

&2 2 2 Œ Ó ∑ ∑

2 3 Ó Ó 2
&2 2 ˙ 2 w ˙ œ œ w ˙
∑ ∑
œ œ
˙tango:
. m.œ 4 œ œ œ # ˙ .
2 3 2
177

&2 2 ∑ 2 ∑ ∑ Ó Œ œ w
3

b ww w.
"nasty" melody in trumpets and trombones

2 w 3 ww .. 2 w ww
& 2 b ww w ww ww
?
w 2 w. 2 ww w
w w ww ww

3 2
& 2 ˙. 2 nw w ˙ #œ #œ w
#œ œ ˙ ˙ œ œ œ ˙
3 2 nw
184

& ∑ ∑ 2 ∑ ?
2 w ˙ #œ #œ w

3 w. 2 w j
184

& w w 2 2 ˙. #œ ‰ ∑ ∑

bw r
# ## ˙˙
? w 3 b ww .. 2 ww ˙ œ .. # œ ww
w ww 2 bw. 2 w b ww œœ .... œ
ww ww w. w w # ˙ œ .. # œœ ww

3 j‰œ 22 œb˙bœbœ nw œ ˙ #œ œ ˙ œ nœ ˙ œ #œ b˙. Œ
& ˙ œœ œ œ ˙ 2
w œ
?˙ 32 w . 22
191

œœ œ œ ˙ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑

Ó Œ œ 32 w . 22 bœ
191

& ∑ w w w w w ˙. J ‰
bw b b www n ww n ww # wwww # wwww
? œœ ..# œœ œœ ˙˙ ww 32 ˙˙ œœ œœ .. œœ ˙˙ 22 b b wwww b ww w w
œœ ..# œœ œœ ˙˙ ww ˙˙ œœ œœ .. œœ ˙˙
n ww
w
n ww
w # #n wwwww # #n wwwww ww
w
ww
w
(accelerando in orchestral accompaniment not shown)

117
 REFERENCES

Abbate, Carolyn. Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991.

Agawu, Kofi. Music as Discourse: Semiotic Adventures in Romantic Music. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2009.

———. Playing with Signs: A Semiotic Interpretation of Classical Music. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1991.

Almén, Byron. A Theory of Musical Narrative. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008.

Almén, Byron, and Edward Pearsall, eds. Approaches to Meaning in Music. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 2006.

Barthes, Roland. Image, Music, Text. Translated by Stephen Heath. London: Fontana, 1971.

———. S/Z. Translated by Richard Miller. New York: Hill and Wang, 1970.

Brooks, Peter. Reading for the Plot. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.

Brower, Candace. “A Cognitive Theory of Musical Meaning.” Journal of Music Theory 44, no. 2
(2000): 323–79.

Clendinning, Jane Piper. “The Pattern-Meccanico Compositions of György Ligeti.” Perspectives

of New Music 31, no. 1 (1993): 192–234.

———. “Postmodern Architecture/Postmodern Music.” In Postmodern Music/Postmodern

Thought, edited by Judy Lochhead and Joseph Auner, 119–40. New York: Routledge,
2002.

———. “Structural Factors in the Microcanonic Compositions of György Ligeti.” In Concert

Music, Rock and Jazz Since 1945, edited by Elizabeth West Marvin and Richard
Hermann, 229–56. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 1995.

Cobley, Paul. Narrative. London: Routledge, 2001.

Cone, Edward T. The Composer’s Voice. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974.

———. Musical Form and Musical Performance. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.: 1968.

———. “Stravinsky: The Progress of a Method.” Perspectives of New Music 1, no. 1 (1962):
18–26.

118
Cook, Nicholas. “Uncanny Moments: Juxtapositions and the Collage Principle in Music.” In
Approaches to Meaning in Music, edited by Byron Almén and Edward Pearsall, 107–34.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006.

Culler, Jonathan. The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, and Deconstruction. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1981.

Cumming, Naomi. The Sonic Self: Musical Subjectivity and Signification. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 2000.

Durrani, Aaminah. “Chorale and Canon in Alfred Schnittke’s Fourth String Quartet.” Ph.D.
dissertation, Louisiana State University, 2005.

Eco, Umberto. A Theory of Semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976.

FitzPatrick, Martin. “Indeterminate Ursula and ‘Seeing How It Must Have Looked,’ or ‘The
Damned Lemming’ and Subjunctive Narrative in Pynchon, Faulkner, O’Brien, and
Morrison.” Narrative 10 (2002): 244–61.

Grabócz, Márta. “Narrativity and Electroacoustic Music.” In Musical Signification: Essays in the
Semiotic Theory and Analysis of Music, edited by Eero Tarasti, 535–40. Berlin: Mouton
de Gruyter, 1993.

———. “The ‘Preludio’ of the Four Orchestral Pieces Op. 12 by Béla Bartók: An Intertextual
Analytical Approach.” In Music Semiotics: A Network of Significations in Honour and
Memory of Raymond Monelle, edited by Esti Sheinberg, 115–128. Burlington, VT:
Ashgate Publishing Company, 2012.

———. “ ‘Topos et Dramaturgie’: Analyse des Signifies et de la Stratégie dans Deux

Mouvements Symphoniques de Béla Bartók.” Degrés 30 (2002): j1–j18.

Hasty, Christopher F. Meter as Rhythm. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

———. “On the Problem of Succession and Continuity in Twentieth-Century Music.” Music
Theory Spectrum 8 (1986): 58–74.

———. “Phrase Formation in Post-Tonal Music.” Journal of Music Theory 28, no. 2 (1984):
167–90.

———. “Rhythm in Post-Tonal Music: Preliminary Questions of Duration and Motion.” Journal
of Music Theory 25, no. 2 (1981): 183–216.

———. “Segmentation and Process in Post-Tonal Music.” Music Theory Spectrum 3, no. 1
(1981): 54–73.

Hatten, Robert. Interpreting Musical Gestures, Topics, and Tropes: Mozart, Beethoven,
Schubert. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.

119
———. Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, and Interpretation.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994.

Hepokoski, James, and Warren Darcy. Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and
Deformations in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2006.

Horlacher, Gretchen. Building Blocks: Repetition and Continuity in the Music of Stravinsky.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Hutcheon, Linda. 1994. Irony’s Edge: The Theory and Politics of Irony. New York: Routledge.

Klein, Michael L. “Chopin’s Fourth Ballade as Musical Narrative.” Music Theory Spectrum 26,
no. 1 (2004): 23–56.

———. “Debussy’s L’Isle Joyeuse as Territorial Assemblage.” 19th-Century Music 31, no. 1
(2007): 28–52.

———. Intertextuality in Western Art Music. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005.

———. “Ironic Narrative, Ironic Reading.” Journal of Music Theory 53, no. 1 (2009): 95–136.

Klein, Michael L. and Nicholas Reyland, eds. Music and Narrative since 1900. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 2013.

Kramer, Jonathan D. “Beyond Unity: Toward an Understanding of Musical Postmodernism.”

In Concert Music, Rock and Jazz Since 1945, edited by Elizabeth West Marvin and
Richard Hermann, 11–33. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 1995.

———. “The Concept of Disunity and Musical Analysis.” Music Analysis 23, no. 2–3 (2004):
361–72.

———. “Moment Form in Twentieth Century Music.” Musical Quarterly 64, no. 2 (1978): 177–
94.

———. “The Nature and Origins of Musical Postmodernism.” In Postmodern

Music/Postmodern Thought, edited by Judy Lochhead and Joseph Auner, 13–26. New
York: Routledge, 2002.

———. The Time of Music: New Meanings, New Temporalities, New Listening Strategies. New
York: Schirmer, 1988.

Leydon, Rebecca. “Debussy’s Late Style and the Devices of the Early Silent Cinema.” Music
Theory Spectrum 23 (2001): 217–41.

Liszka, James Jakób. The Semiotic of Myth: A Critical Study of the Symbol. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1989.

120
Losada, Catherine. “Between Modernism and Postmodernism: Strands of Continuity in Collage
Compositions by Rochberg, Berio, and Zimmermann.” Music Theory Spectrum 31, no. 1
(2009): 57–100.

———. “The Process of Modulation in Musical Collage.“ Music Analysis 27, no. 2–3 (2008):
295–336.

McQuillan, Martin, ed. The Narrative Reader. London: Routledge, 2000.

Miller, J. Hillis. “Narrative.” In Critical Terms for Literary Study, edited by Frank Lentricchia
and Thomas McLaughlin, 66–79. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.

Monelle, Raymond. The Sense of Music: Semiotic Essays. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2000.

O’Donnell, Shaugn J. “Transformational Voice Leading in Atonal Music.” Ph.D. dissertation,

Graduate Center of the City University of New York, 1997.

Prince, Gerald. A Dictionary of Narratology. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2003.

———. “The Disnarrated in Narrative Theory and Criticism.” Style 22, no. 1 (1988): 1–8.

Reyland, Nicholas. “Livre or Symphony? Lutosławski’s Livre pour Orchestre and the Enigma of
Musical Narrativity.” Music Analysis 27 (2008): 253–94.

———. “Lutosławski, ‘Akcja,’ and the Poetics of Musical Plot.” Music & Letters 88 (2007):
604–31.

Richardson, Brian. Unnatural Voices: Extreme Narration in Modern and Contemporary Fiction.
Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2006.

Robinson, Jenefer, and Robert Hatten. “Emotions in Music.” Music Theory Spectrum 34 (2012):
71–106.

Roeder, John. “Co-operating Continuities in the Music of Thomas Adès.” Music Analysis 25
(2006): 121–54.

———. “Interacting Pulse Streams in Schoenberg’s Atonal Polyphony.” Music Theory Spectrum
16, no. 2 (1994): 231–249.

Samarotto, Frank. 2007. “Determinism, Prediction, and Inevitability in Brahms’s Rhapsody in Eb

major, op. 119, no. 4.” Theory and Practice 32: 69–99.

Schnittke, Alfred. A Schnittke Reader. Edited by Alexander Ivashkin. Bloomington, Indiana

University Press, 2002.

Segall, Christopher. “Klingende Buchstaben: Principles of Alfred Schnittke’s Monogram

Technique.” Journal of Musicology 30, no. 2 (2013): 252–86.

121
Sheinberg, Esti. Irony, Satire, Parody and the Grotesque in the Music of Shostakovich.
Burlington: Ashgate, 2000.

Soldofsky, Alan. “Bifurcated Narratives in the Poetry of Robinson Jeffers, C. K. Williams, and
Denis Johnson.” Narrative 11 (2003): 312–31.

Sullivan, Tim. “Structural Layers in Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso No. 3.” Perspectives of
New Music 48, no. 2 (Summer 2010): 21–46.

Tarasti, Eero. A Theory of Musical Semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994.

Tremblay, Jean-Benoit. “Polystylism and Narrative Potential in the Music of Alfred Schnittke.”
Ph.D. dissertation, University of British Columbia, 2007.

Waugh, Patricia. Metafiction. London: Methuen, 1984.

122
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

CARA STROUD
Curriculum Vitae
____________________________________________________________________________
EDUCATION

2016 Ph.D. in Music Theory, Florida State University (ABD, Degree Ant. Summer 2016)
Dissertation: Juxtaposition, Allusion, and Quotation in Narrative Approaches in Music by
Libby Larsen, Alfred Schnittke, and John Corigliano; Advisors: Prof. Michael Buchler
and Prof. Joseph Kraus.
2012 M.M. in Music Theory, University of North Texas
Thesis: “A Metaphor for the Impossibility of Togetherness”: Expansion Processes in
Gubaidulina’s First String Quartet; Advisor: Prof. David Schwarz.
2009 B.M. (summa cum laude) in Music Theory, University of North Texas
Senior Thesis: The Twelve-Tone Technique in Samuel Barber’s Piano Sonata and
Nocturne; Advisor: Prof. Joán Groom; Cello studies with Eugene Osadchy.
____________________________________________________________________________

RESEARCH AND CREATIVE ACTIVITY

National Conference Presentations

2015 “Denarration, Disnarration, and Impossible Fantasy in Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso
No. 1.” Society for Music Theory Annual Meeting, St. Louis, MO (October 29).
2015 “The Postchorus in Millennial Dance-Pop.” Society for American Music Annual
Conference, Sacramento, CA (March 7).

123
Regional Conference Presentations
2016 “Insidious Irony and Thematic Disintegration in the ‘Tarantella’ from John Corigliano’s
Symphony No. 1.”
• FSU Music Theory Forum, Tallahassee, FL (January 30).
• Texas Society for Music Theory Annual Conference, Belton, TX (February 26–
27).
• Joint Meeting of Music Theory Southeast and South Central Society for Music
Theory, Kennesaw, GA (April 1–2).
2015 “Insidious Irony: Thematic Disintegration and Retrospective Incipience in the
‘Tarantella’ from John Corigliano’s Symphony No. 1.” GAMuT Conference, Denton, TX
(September 26).
2015 “Motivic Transformation and Impossible Fantasy in Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso I
(1977).” Texas Society for Music Theory Annual Conference, El Paso, TX (February 27).
2014 “The Postchorus in Millennial Dance-Pop.” GAMuT Conference, Denton, TX
(September 27).

Other Research Activity

2012 Research in the Gubaidulina archives at the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basel, Switzerland
(January).
____________________________________________________________________________
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
2016: Lecturer, Oklahoma State University
Post-Tonal Analysis
Music Theory II
Aural Skills II

2012–15: Instructor, Florida State University

Music Theory I–IV (includes form, popular music, and post-tonal music)
Fundamentals for Music Majors
Aural Skills I–IV
2014–15: Graduate Research Consultant, Florida State University
Coached sophomore music theory students in model composition (Baroque, Classical,
19th-century, 20th-century, and Blues styles) and in the use of notation software
2011–12: Graduate Teaching Fellow, University of North Texas
Aural Skills I

124
2010–11: Graduate Teaching Assistant, University of North Texas
Bi-weekly sections of Music Fundamentals
Assisted with assessment for weekly large lecture section

125