Volume 3 (2017)

Parenthetic Aside in a 1789 Analysis of Mozart’s K. 284

L. Poundie Burstein with Quynh Nguyen (Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY)
Volume 3.1 (Feburary 2017)

 

In a 1789 treatise, the Darmstadt musician J.G. Portmann presents what amounts to a multi-level harmonic analysis of Mozart’s Sonata for Piano in D, K. 284, I. Portmann’s interpretation of the movement’s exposition is in line with concepts expressed by other eighteenth-century theorists, but suggestively differs from standard modern conceptions of the form, especially in its understanding of what nowadays is labeled as the secondary theme.

DOI: http://doi.org/10.30535/smtv.3.1

 


Schoenberg’s ‘Advice for Beginners in Composition with Twelve Tones’

J. Daniel Jenkins (University of South Carolina)
Volume 3.2 (June 2017)

 

In 1951, Schoenberg received a letter from composer Humphrey Searle asking Schoenberg to record a lecture for the BBC radio program “Music Magazine.” Schoenberg immediately proposed a subject, “Advice for Beginners in Composition with Twelve-Tones,” and requested to use television rather than radio because his musical examples “were perhaps less easily to realize by the ear than by the eye.” Although Schoenberg wrote a script, he died before he could record it. Only recently has this fascinating document been published, providing keen insights into Schoenberg’s compositional process, and posing interesting questions about the reception of twelve-tone composition after his death.

DOI: http://doi.org/10.30535/smtv.3.2

 


Music, Poetry, and Performance in a Song by Maria Schneider

Stephen Rodgers (University of Oregon)
Volume 3.3 (December 2017)

 

In this video I explore the way song composers respond not just to the meanings of words but also to their sounds. Using a song from Maria Schneider’s 2013 song cycle Winter Morning Walks as a case study, I consider how a particular performance of a song and a particular performance of a poem can heighten our awareness of the connections between music and the materiality of poetry.

DOI: http://doi.org/10.30535/smtv.3.3

 


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