The Analysis of compositional Techniques by Twentieth Century Composers

Momilani Ramstrum

INTRODUCTION

Background and Need for Study

In the field of music, many composers analyze music because of the many inherent benefits. Analysis affords one a way to understanding how a piece of music works. "The value of an analysis consists in what it does for the analyst." [1] "What makes an analysis good or

bad . . . is not the conclusions as such but the way in which musical details are cited in defense of these conclusions, and the extent to which these conclusions clarify or illuminate the details." [2] In recent times, composers have looked at their own works using a variety of approaches to shed light on their style, technique, motivation and form. Until now, these varied approaches have not been compared, but have stood alone, as words from a primary source about their art. In this paper, these approaches will be compiled and then compared to see if there is any consensus amongst composers in this matter.

Purpose

The purpose for this paper is to research and compare the published materials of ten composers analyzing their own works in depth. Additionally, this author will look at analysis as a method for extending awareness of compositional techniques.

Limitations

This bibliographic research was limited to looking at ten published, in depth, analyses of twentieth century composers analyzing their own music. The time period being covered will be the last seventy years. The composers were selected from a cross-section of styles and media; orchestral, choral and a capella music were examined.

The composers that were selected and the works that were analyzed are displayed in Table 1.

Table 1

Composers and their Works

Composer

Title

D. Bathory-Kitsz (b. 1945)

Untitled Work ( 1989-92)

Pierre Boulez (b. 1925)

Third Piano Sonata (1957)

John Cage (1912-1992)

Music of Changes (1951)

Lucas Foss (b. 1922)

The Prairie(1942), A Parable of Death(1952), Psalms(1956)

Jean Françaix (b. 1912)

L'Apocalypse selon Saint Jean (1939)

Howard Hanson (1896-1981)

A Lament for Beowolf (1925)

Ernst Krenek (1900-91)

Lamentatio Jeremiae Prophetae (1941-2)

Vincent Persichetti (1915-87)

Hymnes and Responses (1955)

Bernard Rogers (b.1893)

The Passion (1940)

Leo Sowerby (1895-1968)

The Throne of God (1956-7)

Methodology

A review of literature was undertaken by this author to investigate the self-analytical techniques used by twentieth century composers on their own works. Composers were selected from the composers who have written an in-depth analysis on their own music. To select the composers to be studied, this author read the analyses of several dozen twentieth century composers. From this group, articles were selected by the following criteria; the composers represented at least four countries, spanned the last seventy years, the articles were at least seven pages in length, and were on a variety of media (orchestral, choral and chamber music).

A summary of each composer's approach to their analyses will be presented. Any similarities and differences in approach will be noted as well as any relationships to style, background and medium. The criteria to compare the different analyses were derived directly from the bibliographic research. The analyses will also be compared using tables and bar graphs.

Definition of Terms

There are many terms that are used to describe analysis and the structural aspects of music. The definitions were compiled from A Guide to Musical Analysis by Nicholas Cook and this author's own experience.

Music Analysis: Techniques developed in the last two hundred years to look at the technical aspects of an individual work. [3] Lately, music analysis has begun to include socio-

cultural aspects of the work and the composer as well. [4]

Formal Analysis: "Any kind of analysis that involves coding music into symbols and deducing the musical structure from the pattern that these symbols make." [5] "The formal analyst conceives structure statically, in terms of logical patterns." [6]

Analysis of Form: Observing how a piece fits into an existing prototype or a structural construct of the composer.

Analysis of Content: The observation of harmony, intervals, musical line and rhythm by acts of omission [7] (the leaving out of unessential details) or acts of relation [8] (the relating of disjoint parts of the composition to form a unified point of view).

Reductive Analysis: Analyzing music by stripping away superfluous details to reveal unobvious relationships.

Schenkerian Analysis: A method of analysis developed by Heinrich Schenker that reduces music to its essentials. This is the "triad and its linear unfolding [or prolongation] through arpegiation, and through passing and auxiliary notes." [9] Structural harmonic progressions are the result of a series of linear relationships. Thus, Schenkerian analysis combines musical line with harmonic progression. A question being answered is, "how are the progressions directed towards a goal?" [10]

Phenomenological Reductive Analysis: Going a step further in the reduction from Schenkerian analysis by using more universal assumptions (not limited to tonal music) as to how the music is experienced. [11]

Psychological Approaches to Music Analysis: Explaining the "emotions to which music gives rise by analyzing just what it is that a [competent] listener expects to happen at any point in a piece of music and compare it to what does in fact happen." [12] This type of analysis was typified by Leonard Meyer, combining pitch events with rhythmic continuity. He identified five rhythmic groupings and labeled them with names from Greek prosody. [13]

Competent Listener: One who is familiar with a particular style of music and so can understand the language. [14]

Process Music: " Music created by overlaying short motives of different lengths. The "process" is as important as the resultant variations." [15]

Twelve tone composition(Serial Technique): A system of composition originated by Arnold Schoenberg as a synthesis of two ideas. "The first is the continuous use of patterns which contain all of the twelve pitches; the second is the organization of pitch materials according to a consistent order principle." [16] Later composers applied this concepts towards aspects of music other than pitch (e.g. dynamics, timbre, and rhythm).

Indeterminate or Aleatoric Music: "The intentional utilization of some degree of chance in composition and/or performance." [17]

Summary

Musical analysis, like composition, can be approached in many ways. To the composer, self-analysis can be an aid to composition. In investigating these analyses, this author hopes to discover overlaps and differences in approach, insights into what makes an analysis most functional, and an understanding of the different compositional processes and techniques.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Presentation of Musical Analyses

Pierre Boulez, as composer, author and conductor, has had a large impact on the European avante garde. [18] "Convinced of the historical necessity of atonality, he adopted a rigorous conception of music as a consciously ordered structure of internal relationships." [19] In an article entitled "Sonate, que me veux-tu?", Pierre Boulez discusses the formal structure of his Third Piano Sonata.. Boulez begins by examining the literary models of Joyce and Mallarme which may have "played a more important part than purely musical considerations"in the writing of this work. [20] Boulez comments that in Joyce's two great novels (he doesn't indicate which novels, but, it is assumed that he is referring to Finnegans Wake and Ulysses), "the novel reflects on itself and is aware that it is a novel . . . In the same way music is not exclusively concerned with expression but must also be aware of itself and become the object of its own reflection . . . This is one of the first essentials of the language of poetry and has been since Mallarme . . . Words can be used in this way because they possess a power of reference, a 'meaning.'. . . With music the problem is different . . . The only play possible is an interplay between styles and form." [21]

Boulez quotes Mallarme who observes that "a book neither begins nor ends, at the very most it pretends to do so." (He does not footnote this quotation, but, earlier in the article Boulez refers to some quotations by Mallarme that came from a book of notes published posthumously)

Boulez then discusses his Third Piano Sonata. It is composed of five parts that he calls formants. They are named Antiphonie, Trope, Constellation (and its pair Constellation-Miroir), Strophe, and Sequence. Throughout, "some directions are obligatory, others are optional, but all music must be played." [22] "Sequence is the furthest removed from predetermined form, while Antiphonie will approach it most closely." [23] The middle movement, Constellation, "uses normal music notation but is set up so that alternate continuations may be chosen at the end of musical segments . . . These segments are connected by a number of prescribed alternative paths. Boulez has described his musical labyrinth a "a map to an unknown city." [24]

Dennis Bathory-Kitsz is a composer, and writer who has published a large number of articles on the Internet. An Internet search on Bathory-Kitsz results in 752 return website links. Goddard College (a progressive liberal arts college in Vermont [25] )lists him as a new music composer with five-hundred compositions (thirty-two commissions), one-hundred forty-five premiers in North America and Europe, four-hundred articles and seven books. It can be understood from this information, that although Bathory-Kitsz does not have an international reputation, he is an active composer and writer. In the article, Construal of Musical Process of Architecture, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz's presents his retrospective self-analysis of a large orchestral work. The piece is untitled and comprised of four movements entitled "Yçure,""Softening Cries,""Lily and Lights,"and "Dripworks."

Bathory-Kitsz states that his method for "creating and composing [his] music" [26] "adopts and adapts process techniques-- phase shifting, isorhythms, pulse-minimalism, etc. --without submitting to their tyranny." [27]

Yçure was premiered in 1990 and subsequently revised. This piece is an "isorhythmic motet in the form of a concertante fanfare for two chamber ensembles." Bathory-Kitsz continues by describing how an isorhythmic motet functions (melody and rhythm are progressively and continually displaced so they go out of synchronization and eventually go back in [28] ). Yçure is comprised of five melodies with unique rhythms in the upper voices with the lower voices playing an underlying pulse. Bathory-Kitsz goes on to describe sonic and structural relationships as the movement progresses.

For each of the four movements, Bathory-Kitsz describes in detail the processes (and deviations from the processes) that he used to compose each. Movement Four, he states, is the most dense, complex and longest [29]

Bathory-Kitsz states that a primary problem with the work is that the piece is one hundred minutes in length, and is played without breaks (creating a large demand on the players and audiences) [30] . Bathory-Kitsz questions his methods and his results as he asks "whether the lack of exactitude or rigorousness in the process execution, their lack of mathematical sophistication, and [his] willingness to break [his] own process rules, all conspire to weaken the process architecture on which the work is predicated, that [the piece] lopes along dilettantishly for 1500 measures?" [31] He concludes however "that we, as a world culture, have begun to cede control of our humanity to computer controlled process." [32] For Dennis Bathory-Kitsz, "perfect art will remain imperfect process." [33]

Robert Stephans Hines has compiled a book entitled The Composers Point of View. It is comprised of eighteen solicited essays from composers "in which each composer discusses a large choral work . . . along with the principles that guided the composition." [34]

The first article of the book is by Lucas Foss entitled The Prairie, A Parable of Death, and Psalms. Lucas Foss is a composer, conductor and pianist whose "music revolves around controlled improvisation based on historical concepts of live performance-creation combined with intentionally used 'non-musical' sounds for drama and expression." [35] Foss is a composer whose works Aaron Copland has called, "among the most original and stimulating compositions in American music." [36] In his article, Foss discusses his life as a vocal composer and his criteria for choosing and working with text. Foss states, "it [the text] must be right for me and right for me at that time in my life. It has to be something I can live with, day in, day out." [37] Foss also relates that he likes to "play with a text, combining, omitting dividing into sections, exchanging the order of paragraphs or verses." [38] He concludes his essay with an account of three choral works, where he briefly reviews the text, content, form, orchestration, and history of each work. [39]

In the same book, Howard Hanson (1896-1981) discusses his musical setting of one episode of an Anglo-Saxon epic Beowolf, entitled A Lament for Beowolf. Hanson was a composer, conductor and music educator who won "a Pulitzer Prize in 1944 for his Symphony No. 4 (The Requiem)." [40] Hanson outlines how he must relate to the text that he chooses. He states that "The composer should not attempt to set words that do not sing back to him. . . The composer, to be successful, must come to believe subconsciously that he has written the words himself-that they are as much a part of him as the music itself." [41] . Hanson writes that this work has an orchestral introduction followed by three choral sections. He continues by describing the melodic, harmonic and rhythmic inter-relationships in these sections. [42]

Jean Françaix's is a composer whose work has been described as accessible and neo-classical. [43] A composer of great facility and consistent wit, Jean Françaix, a pupil of Nadia

Boulanger, has written music of charm and elegance, inventive and attractive in idiom,

with instrumental works that show the characteristic French handling of woodwind

instruments. [44] Françaix, in Hines's book, considers his oratorio L'Apocalypse selon Saint Jean. It is "in three parts for four solo voices, choirs and two orchestras." [45] Françaix studied the Book of Revelations for a year before he wrote a note of this work. He writes extensively about the meaning of the text (in the abstract as well as for himself) and how he translated this symbolically into his structuring of the music. [46] For the remainder of the article, Françaix lists the incidents that occur in the three parts of the work. He comments very little on the actual musical content. He states that he "tried especially hard to make use of music's evocatory power in order to render the more plainly certain subtleties of dogma. . . [he] set a tonal system for the Orchestra of Heaven in opposition to an atonal system for the Orchestra of Hell." [47] He adds that these were "but technical devices," [48] and that he believes "in inspiration, preceded by perspiration. . . that it is impossible to arrange things in advance." [49]

Ernst Krenek is an "internationally honored musician" [50] who adopted the" twelve-tone system in 1930 and has since continued to write twelve-tone or serial music." [51] "His music is intellectual and complex with an approach directed toward individualizing each work in both concept and sound." [52] In Hines's book, Krenek reviews his Lamentatio Jeremiae Prophetae, an a capella composition consisting of "many relatively short sections, set for two to eight voices." [53] In writing this work, Krenek "had in mind to express as purely as possible certain ideas and ideals of composition . . . without compromise and concession to so called practical demands." [54] Years before beginning this work, Krenek had studied medieval music and the relationships of twelve-tone music to Gregorian chant. [55] "The setup of [his] twelve-tone rows was suggested by the system of the Greek modal scales." [56] Krenek uses a system of rotation of six note groups that produce six set diatonic groups. [57] "In the Lamentatio, [Krenek] tried to re-create with modern means the metric and rhythmic concepts of the late fifteenth century. There was no pre-established alternation of "strong" and "weak" beats. Accents . . . were created by the melodic lines as they went along, high and long tones automatically became points of emphasis . . . distributed freely and irregularly throughout the polyphonic fabric. Hence barlines . . . had to be omitted. Rhythmic organization[was] equally free and irregular" [58]

Krenek lists the length (seventy-five minutes), the dodecaphonic idiom, and the absence of barlines as factors that cause the Lamentatio to be exceedingly difficult to perform. [59] He adds that he "did not expect to hear it soon, if at all . . . and put it away as the result of an effort that [he] had to undertake to satisfy an inner urge, regardless of its usability." [60] The article continues with Krenek describing the history of performance of first excerpt and finally, a number of times, the work in its entirety. He states that in the intervening decades between composition and performance, many of the technical difficulties of intonation have become part of the standard repertoire for modern music and that "generally, difficulties of intonation have lost much of the fearfulness they used to hold for choir singers not so long ago." [61]

Vincent Persichetti was an "American composer noted for his succinct polyphonic style (based on interwoven melodic lines), forceful rhythms, and generally diatonic melodies (moving stepwise; not atonal or highly chromatic)." [62] In his many years as church organist, paying for his music education, he got to know "the hymns, the anthems, the responses and most of the music. . . used in churches in this country." [63] In Hines's book, Persichetti writes about Hymns and Responses, a collection of songs written for use in the church service throughout the year. Persichetti initially discusses the performance history of the work. He continues with a listing of each of the twenty-eight Hymns and Responses, their tonal center, text, characteristic harmonic progression or harmonic characteristics, general characteristics, sequence, form, and close. [64] He briefly discusses how the Hymns and Responses are mystically interrelated and how the work affected later endeavors. [65]

Bernard Rogers is a composer and teacher who studied to be an architect before commencing with his studies in music. [66] In Rogers's article in the Hines book, Rogers initially discusses his previous teachers and how he was inspired to write the work entitled The Passion. The Passion is a continuous dramatic narrative in six episodes. [67] "Until the last scene, few of the conventional forms are used. Near the end, however, a fugue on two subjects is heard and two tonalities are strongly asserted." [68]

"To erect a structure at once simple . . . and organic, [Rogers] used the familiar device of thematic transformation. For example, the choral work in scene two . . . reappeared in the final episode . . . the vigorous march music which opens the work [is used] for the closing mood of celebration." [69] "The cyclic principle" is used throughout. [70] "In the nature of a mural, breadth is everything; detail arising treelike from a few powerful root forms." [71] Rogers used a few simple motives for "association, recall and portraiture . . . One interval, the descending minor third pervades the music as a whole." [72] Rogers details the episodes concerning the musical and dramatic occurrences. He concludes the article with a brief mention of the problems associated with performance. He states that "the technical and psychological problems offered by this work are indeed severe. But not insuperable. Mainly the difficulties are metrical (frequent alterations of time signature), rhythmic and modulatory." [73]

Leo Sowerby is a composer and music educator and organist who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1945 for his choral work Canticle of the Sun. He has been called the "the outstanding composer of music for the Anglican church." [74] "Leo Sowerby holds an unrivaled position among American organists and composers for the organ, writing a quantity of works for the instrument, many of which remain an essential part of present repertoire." [75] In Hines's book, The Composer's Point of View, Sowerby has reviewed a piece for mixed chorus and orchestra entitled The Throne of God.

Sowerby begins with a detailed recounting of the commissioning, [76] sketching, [77] naming, [78] text selection, [79] scoring, orchestration, [80] and premier of the work. [81] Sowerby calls the work "a poem for voices and orchestra" because the structure, like the symphonic poem, is not divided into sections and is played without pauses or breaks. "This helps to maintain a feeling of unity throughout the work. This is assisted by the frequent reappearance of certain sections or themes or motives." [82] "Before actually beginning to write any of the music, [Sowerby] prepared a number of pages of sketches of thematic material to be employed in the course of the work." [83] Sowerby continues for six pages to detail the drama and music(themes, instrumentation, intervallic relationships, meter, and rhythmic motives) of the thirty-five minute work. He concludes his essay by stating that "such a resumé of the work . . . can mean little unless the reader has a copy of the vocal score in front of him. Even then, a bare recital of what takes place cannot bring the music to life, unless one hears the music." [84]

John Cage gave a lecture (that was later transcribed) to Rutgers University in 1958 in which he discussed how his compositional technique regarding structure and method had changed. In this lecture, he reviewed his aleatoric composition Music of Changes (based on the Chinese Book of Changes) as well as six other works. [85] Later, in an autobiographical article, Cage stated the following;

In the late forties I found out by experiment (I went into the anechoic chamber at Harvard University) that silence is not acoustic. It is a change of mind, a turning around. I devoted my music to it. My work became an exploration of non-intention. To carry it out faithfully I have developed a complicated composing means using I Ching chance operations, making my responsibility that of asking questions instead of making choices. [86]

"The influence of Cage . . . has been very great in all the arts in the Americas, in Europe, and even in Asia. This influence has ranged from the simple use of random noise techniques and chance procedures to various projects for a neo-realist theater of gesture and objects . . . Pop art, happenings, multi-media, minimalism, concept art and contemporary music theater all owe something, or trace their origins, to Cage." [87]

In discussing Music of Changes, Cage states that "the note-to-note procedure, the method, is the function of chance operations. And the structure, though planned precisely . . . and thoroughly . . . was only a series of numbers . . . which became, on one hand, the number of units within each section, and, on the other, number of measures of four-four within each unit. At structural divisions . . . chance operations determined stability or change of tempo." [88] Cage continues by stating that the structure that he had set up was also used to determine density, "that is, of how many of the potentially present eight lines, each composed of sounds and silences, were actually to be present within a given small structural part." [89] In the Music of Changes, twenty four charts (eight for sounds and silences, eight for amplitude and eight for duration) were used to determine which of these factors would be potentially active. [90] Later in the article, Cage continues by stating that "these charts were subjected to rational control: of the sixty-four elements in a square chart eight times eight (made in this way in order to interpret as sounds the coin oracle of the Chinese Book of Changes) thirty-two were sounds, thirty-two were silences . . . All twelve tones were present. Once this dodecaphonic requirement was satisfied, noises and repetitions of tones were used with freedom." [91]

Cage concludes the article with four stories. The first story is about a lecture given by Dr. Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki who has come all the way from Japan to explain "that which is not to be explained." [92] The second story tells about when Cage was "studying with Arnold Schoenberg [and] someone asked him to explain his twelve-tone technique. His reply was immediate: "That is none of your business." [93] The third story was about three men trying to hypothesize the reason a man was standing alone on a hill. After making their own guesses why he stood there, the three men finally went up the hill to ask the man why he stood there all alone. His reply was, "I just stand." [94] The last story was also concerning Cage's studies with Schoenberg. One day, Schoenberg used an eraser to write some counterpoint. While he was doing it he said, "This end of the pencil is just as important as the other end." [95]

Comparison of Analyses

To compare the musical analyses, general data about each composer, piece and compositional stylewill first be examined as displayed in Table 2. With the exception of Cage with Boulez,and Rogers with Sowerby there is little overlap in compositional medium, instrumentation or process. The two pairs of analyses are the most similar in approach to each other.

In Table 3 and Table 4, the presence of the following criteria will be noted: formal analysis, analysis of form, reductive analysis, analysis of content, presentation of unifying elements, dramatic analysis, presentation of the composer's motivation, inspiration or process in doing the work, psychological analysis and presentation of pre-compositional elements. Analysis of content will be further subdivided into the following additional categories: analysis of rhythm, analysis of melodic line, analysis of intervalic content, analysis of harmony, presentation of orchestration and instrumentation, and analysis of timbre or tone color. For the above criteria, this author will assign each composer a number between zero and five. Zero signifies that the author did not include a particular criteria at all, and five implies that a large proportion of the article was dedicated to describing that criteria. When assigning a number for pre-compositional elements, it should be noted that in the cases where there were none mentioned, it should not be assumed that none existed. As in all of the above, a composer with a limited amount of space, will choose to talk of a limited number of elements. This does not mean that he did not consider other elements, it only means that he did not choose to discuss it in his article.

In Figures 1 and 2 the table results are graphed using an area graph. The area graphs can be interpreted as the criteria that had the most response, got the greatest area.

Table 2

Comparing Composers and their Works

Composer

TitleDate AnalyzedDescription/

Instrumentation

Compositional Process/

Materials

D. Bathory-Kitsz

(b. 1945)

Untitled Work

( 1989-92)

1992

Orchestral, largeProcess composition; phase shifting, isorhythms, pulse-minimalism

Pierre Boulez

(b. 1925)

Third Piano Sonata

(1957)

1960 PianoAleatoric

John Cage

(1912-1992)

Music of Changes

(1951)

1958 PianoAleatoric

Lucas Foss

(b. 1922)

The Prairie(1942), A Parable of Death(1952)

Psalms(1956)

1963

Chorus, soloists, narrator and orchestra

A capella choir

Musical form suggested by text structure and meaning

Jean Françaix

(b. 1912)

L'Apocalypse selon Saint Jean

(1939)

1963

Oratorio for solo voices, choirs and two orchestrasTonal system for one orchestra opposing an atonal system for the other

Howard Hanson

(1896-1981)

A Lament for Beowolf (1925)

1963

Chorus and orchestraEight-tone scale, harmonic, melodic and rhythmic repetition

Ernst Krenek

(1900-91)

Lamentatio Jeremiae Prophetae

(1941-2)

1963A capella for two to eight voices Tone-row rotation

Vincent Persichetti

(1915-87)

Hymnes and Responses

(1955)

1963 Twenty-eight a cappella or accompanied hymns for the church serviceHarmonic and modal, modulation with frequent word painting

Bernard Rogers

(b.1893)

The Passion (1940)

1963

Continuous dramatic narrative for chorus, soloists, and orchestraThematic transformation

Leo Sowerby

(1895-1968)

The Throne of God

(1956-7)

1963

"A poem for voices and orchestra" [96] Thematic repetition and transformation

In analyzing these results the following observations can be noted. Boulez and Krenek are the only composers in the group to do formal analysis (translation of the music into symbols for interpretation). Boulez is also the only one that did no analysis of content. All composers extensively discussed their motivation, inspiration or process.

The analyses of Boulez and Cage were abstract with giving no sense of sound. It is possible, to Cage, it does not matter. Cage's article would have been clearer with a formal analysis. It would also have helped to see some of the charts that he mentioned. Boulez's analysis was least clear due to his lack of content analysis. His abstract conceptual symbols were ambiguous and difficult to follow without a clear frame of reference. Bathory-Kitsz wrote little of the sound and more about his process so we have little idea what is occurring aurally from his analysis. Foss wrote only briefly about structure, with too little about the music to be of use. Françaix preferred to write only about the drama.

The rest of the composers, to varying degrees, wrote in enough detail, with examples, for us to gain a fairly clear understanding of their music. These writers wrote in the language of traditional music theory making it easy to follow for the trained musician.

CONCLUSION AND SUMMARY

Summary

The purpose of this paper was to compare self analysis of twentieth century composers. In the review of literature, the analysis of ten composers was presented. In comparing these analysis, it can be seen that one-hundred percent of the group presented material about their motivation and process while only fifty percent presented material precompositional elements. In Tables 5 and 6, a summary of these comparisons can be seen.

Conclusions and Future Study

If we evaluate these analysis, we see that information about the compositional process and motivation of the composer is interesting in a study about compositional technique. But, to learn more about a piece of music we must have the musical events sufficiently detailed as to become understandable. It is also helpful to include unifying features which eighty percent of the composers included. It was these insights, along with analysis of content, that most assisted in a better understanding of the works.

Of all the analyses, Rogers and Sowerby's analyses were the best. They were the most comprehensive, connecting the music with the drama and text, covered content, psychology and form, in enough detail to be understandable.

It can be observed, in reading through the ten analyses, that the personality and musical orientation of each composer comes across as strongly in the analyses as it does in their music. Boulez's music is dense, often inaccessible and intellectual. His analyses are of a similar character. Cage is playful, enigmatic and obscure both in his writing and composing.This writer concludes that , in analysis, we should not evaluate a composer's style or approach. These are reflections of the unique personality of the individual. But, we can catalogue the methods and evaluate whether these methods assisted us in illuminating the details of the composition.

Although music analysis can never recreate the sound of the music, it can enhance its understanding .But, some analyses seem to give us a clearer picture of musical events than others. Musical events are readily fathomed when Leo Sowerby writes that "Following the fermata and the resolution into the open fifth a new section, marked 'Fast,' is inaugurated by a trombone with a chromatic motive which is immediately imitated in diminution by the other brass." [97] The situation is not as clear when Pierre Boulez in referring to the third formant in

his aleatoric Third Piano Sonata, states that "Blocs are structures based on perpetually shifting blocks of sound, and these may be struck vertically or may disintegrate horizontally in very rapid succession, so that the listener's ear retains the identity of the block." [98]

In this paper, self-analysis by contemporary composers was surveyed. The various styles of music and writing made comparisons complicated. There was no simple way to compare the disparate strategies with which the composers approached their own music. This author chose to use an profiling approach, to avoid comparing details, but to focus on general procedures instead. Additionally, many composers prefer not to explain their work, preferring instead to let the music speak for itself. John Cage recounts how Schoenberg told a student it was none of his business how he (Schoenberg) composed. [99] John Cage, in his article, tells us that some things are not to be explained or are none of our business. Elliot Carter has said the following:

"If I myself ever found a way of teaching what I do in my music, I'm not sure I wouldn't stop writing that way. I feel strongly enough about this so that I've been hesitant even to describe how I write my pieces, and it's only been recently, often many years after they were written, that I've begun to do this." [100]

Most composers don't look at formal analytical models when analyzing their own music. None of the composers reviewed mentioned Schenkerian analysis in any context. In an interview, Elliot Carter discussed Leonard Meyer's theory of psychological reductive analysis (in which the competent listener, who understands the musical language, has expectations that can be met or challenged). Carter states that "as a serious composer, one has to write for a kind of intelligent and knowledgeable listener one seldom comes across in any number . . . The composer himself, if he is to achieve his desired communication, must in every case be his own first ideal listener." [101]

There is also no standard way of teaching, learning, or writing about contemporary music. Carter states that "another problem of pedagogical methods based on recent techniques is that these techniques seem so much involved with the specific pieces in which they turn up." [102]

This study is necessarily only a preliminary one. To investigate in great detail even ten composers, is beyond the scope of this paper. Also, to have a statistical significance, if would

be necessary to have a much larger sample. This paper has attempted to provide a methodology for comparing analyses. The criteria for comparing the analyses could also be the basis of a survey study of contemporary composers. The composers could be asked to rate the relative importance and incidence of these criteria ( analysis of form, reductive analysis, analysis of content etc.) in their writing about their own music. Additionally, many of the variables could be further narrowed and investigated. In this study, the analyses selected to be included were not limited by audience, compositional style, function of article, medium, or type of composition. It would be interesting to investigate, for example, if composers consistently use similar criteria in other articles about their own works (if they have published other articles). Do composers with similar stylistic elements (e.g. serialists or neoclassicists) write about their own music employing similar criteria.

This author gained two valuable insights from this study. The first was an understanding of the different compositional techniques of the various composers. The second was a first hand knowledge of what makes an analysis good. It is interesting to understand motivation but is illuminating to examine unifying factors and analysis of content.

A piece of music functions on many levels. The purpose of analysis is to make us more aware, as we listen to the music, of these various levels. Perhaps, we hear the music differently than the composer intended. What we get from the music is uniquely our own. But, studying the analyses of composers allows us a different, inside-perspective on their music. Analysis can never reconstruct the sound, or replace the act of listening, but it can enhance our enjoyment of a work by expanding our awareness.

Table 3

Percent Comparison of Musical Analyses

Formal Analysis

Analysis of FormReduc-tive AnalysisPsycho-logical AnalysisAnalysis of ContentUnifying FeaturesDramatic AnalysisMotivation/ Inspiration/ ProcessPrecom-positional Elements

20%

80%40%60%90%80%70/100% 100% 50%

Table 4

Analysis of Content

Rhythm

Melodic Line/ Pitch ContentInterval ContentHarmonic/ Rhythm, Material, ProgressionOrchestration/Instrumen-tationTimbre/ Tone ColorTonality/ Scale MaterialThematic/ Motivic Material

70%

70%60%60%60/75%30%60%30%

Notes

[Note 1] Nicholas Cook, A Guide to Musical Analysis (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1987), 233.

[Note 2] Ibid., 229.

[Note 3] Ibid, 7.

[Note 4]

Kofi Agawu, "Analyzing music under the new musicological regime." Music Theory Online 2.4 (Santa Barbara: The Society for Music Theory, 1996), accessed September 22, 1997. Available from http://www.boethius.music.ucsb.edu/mto/issues/mto.96.2.4/mto.96.2.4.agawu. html; Internet.

[Note 5] Ibid., 116.

[Note 6] Ibid., 122.

[Note 7] Ibid., 16.

[Note 8] Ibid.

[Note 9] Ibid., 28.

[Note 10] Ibid., 29.

[Note 11] Ibid., 67.

[Note 12] Ibid., 70.

[Note 13] Ibid., 76.

[Note 14] Ibid., 70.

[Note 15] David Cope, New Directions in Music, sixth edition (Madison: Brown and Benchmark Publishers, 1993), 373.

[Note 16] Eric Salzman, Twentieth Century Music. (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall Inc., 1971), 110.

[Note 17] Robert P. Morgan, Twentieth Century Music. (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1991), 359.

[Note 18] Cope, 375.

[Note 19] Robert P. Morgan, Twentieth Century Music (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1991), 341.

[Note 20] Pierre Boulez, Jean-Jacque Nattiez, ed. Orientations, Collected Writings, Pierre Boulez, Translated by Martin Cooper (London: Faber and Faber, 1986), 143.

[Note 21] Ibid., 144.

[Note 22] Ibid., 151.

[Note 23] Ibid., 153.

[Note 24] Morgan, 373.

[Note 25] Goddard College, (Vermont: Goddard College, 1997), accessed November 10, 1997. Available from http://www.goddard.edu; Internet.

[Note 26] Dennis Bathory-Kitsz, Construal of Musical Process of Architecture. (Amsterdam: MaltedMedia, 1992), accessed September 22, 1997. Available from http://www.maltedmedia.com/books/papers/s7-headb.html; Internet, 2.

[Note 27] Ibid., 2.

[Note 28] Ibid., 3.

[Note 29] Ibid., 5.

[Note 30] Ibid., 6.

[Note 31] Ibid., 6.

[Note 32] Ibid., 7.

[Note 33] Ibid., 7.

[Note 34] Hines, vii.

[Note 35] David Cope, New Directions in Music, sixth edition. (Madison: Brown and Benchmark Publishers, 1993), 376.

[Note 36] Susan Thompson, "Lucas Foss, Diversity and Plurality." (Soundout, 1996), Accessed December 7, 1997, Available from http://www.soundout.com/composers/foss.html; Internet

[Note 37] Hines, 4.

[Note 38] Ibid., 4.

[Note 39] Ibid., 6.

[Note 40] Ibid., 14.

[Note 41] Ibid., 18.

[Note 42] Ibid., 19.

[Note 43] Salzman, 66.

[Note 44] Keith Anderson, Composers Biographies and Their Works. (Hong Kong: HNH International LTD., 1996), from http://www.hnh.com/qc_f3.htm#Fref; Internet.

[Note 45] Ibid., 178.

[Note 46] Ibid., 181.

[Note 47] Ibid., 184.

[Note 48] Ibid., 184.

[Note 49] Ibid., 185.

[Note 50] Ernst Krenek, Horizons Circled. (Berkley: University of California Press, 1974), 2.

[Note 51] Robert P. Morgan, Twentieth Century Music. (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1991), 262.

[Note 52] Cope, 377.

[Note 53] Hines, 28

[Note 54] Hines, 24.

[Note 55] Ibid., 26.

[Note 56] Ibid.

[Note 57] Ibid.

[Note 58] Ibid., 28.

[Note 59] Ibid., 29.

[Note 60] Ibid.

[Note 61] Ibid., 32.

[Note 62] "Vincent Persichetti," Britannica Online, (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1997) Accessed December 6, 1997. Available from http://www.eb.com/cgi-bin/g?keywords=Persichetti+AND+composer&DBase=Articles&hits=40; Internet

[Note 63] Ibid., 41.

[Note 64] Ibid., 44.

[Note 65] Ibid., 54.

[Note 66] Ibid., 56.

[Note 67] Ibid., 59.

[Note 68] Ibid., 59.

[Note 69] Ibid., 60.

[Note 70] Ibid., 60.

[Note 71]

Ibid.

[Note 72] Ibid.

[Note 73] Ibid., 64.

[Note 74] Ibid., 77.

[Note 75] Anderson, http://www.hnh.com/qc_f3.htm#Fref.

[Note 76] Ibid., 65.

[Note 77] Ibid., 66.

[Note 78] Ibid.

[Note 79] Ibid.

[Note 80] Ibid., 68.

[Note 81] Ibid., 67.

[Note 82] Ibid., 68.

[Note 83] Ibid., 69.

[Note 84] Ibid., 75.

[Note 85] John Cage, "Composition as Process." Silence. (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press. 1961), 18.

[Note 86] John Cage, "An Autobiographical Statement" (New Albion Records, 1990) Accessed December 7, 1997. Available from http://newalbion.com/artists/cagej/autobiog.html; Internet.

[Note 87] Salzman, 164.

[Note 88] Cage, "Composition as Process." Silence, 20.

[Note 89] Ibid., 21.

[Note 90] Ibid.

[Note 91] Ibid., 26.

[Note 92] Ibid., 32.

[Note 93] John Cage, Silence. (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press. 1961), 33.

[Note 94]

Ibid., 34.

[Note 95] Ibid., 34.

[Note 96] Robert Stephans Hines, ed. The Composers Point of View. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 1963), 68.

[Note 97] Hines, 72.

[Note 98] Boulez, Orientations, 151.

[Note 99] Ibid., 33.

[Note 100] Allen Edwards, Flawed Words and Stubborn Sounds, A Conversation with Elliot Carter. (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1991), 115.

[Note 101] Ibid., 89.

[Note 102] Ibid., 116.


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