Responses to Readings for August 28th, 2006 (MuCT 519, Fall 2006)

In the article entitled “Into the Foothills: New Directions in Nineteenth-Century Analysis” from Vol. 11/1 of Music Theory Spectrum, author Christopher Lewis highlights conceptions of diatonic tonality of the 19th-century as follows:

- William Benjamin suggests that any two diatonic collections may interlock, not limited to just parallel major and minor modes. In a sense, because diatonic collections can follow similar processes and progressions they can be linked together. Beyond this, Benjamin suggests that “chromatic detail may have more than local significance.”
- William Mitchell proposes that chromaticism is not based upon a scale of seven diatonic and five non-diatonic notes, but rather a scale of twelve tones that can partially or fully supplant a diatonic scale.
- Gregory Proctor’s studies focus on the issue of distinguishing two common practices in the 19th-century, those of the “classical diatonic tonality” and “nineteenth-century chromatic tonality.” The former implies a more Schenkerian approach to chromaticism, where it is used in tonicization and modal mixture. The latter embraces Mitchell’s idea of the twelve-tone scale, as well as the idea of the layering of “tonal space,” where there is a background tonality and foreground tonality that move in parallel motion and have a chromatic result.
- Patrick McCreless advocates the idea of diatonic linear motion that, unlike “classical diatonic tonality,” contributes to the overall structure of a piece but does not define it. As Lewis states in the article*, the “fundamental shape of the piece may be created by principles that are harmonic rather than linear, and chromatic rather than diatonic.” Therefore, McCreless suggests that music of this timeframe should be studied not as specifically harmonic/linear or diatonic/chromatic, but should instead be looked at for the relationship and interaction between diatonic and chromatic elements.

Lewis discusses various alternatives to diatonic/monotonal background structures as follows:

- Harold Krebs is listed as identifying three possible deviant backgrounds in 19th-century music. The first is one involved a work containing two discrete, complete fundamental structures, one in the opening key and one in the final key. Second is a work with an incomplete opening structure, followed by a complete one in the final key. The third is a piece with two complete but overlapping structures.
- Robert Bailey developed a theory of the “double-tonic complex,” where the essential feature of a work is the pairing together of two tonalities a minor third apart, giving each tonic its own chromatic mode. The two tonalities are linked so that they can serve as local representatives of the tonic, and my actually co-exist, with one of them in a primary position and the other subordinate.
- Deborah Stein focuses on the idea of “extended-tonal” techniques, suggesting conventional dominant-tonic polarity is undermined by replacing the dominant at the foreground and middle ground and expanding the plagal domain of a tonal area.
- Allen Forte describes the usage of defining motives and analyzing their design and usage throughout a work. He suggests that motivic penetration of the middleground may be “a structural aspect of widespread significance in all music of the later nineteenth-century.” Using set theory, Forte has noted that specific pitch classes and dyads serve as structural determinants, initiating or terminating crucial motions of providing structural cross-references. In this sense it is motivic development that controls tonal/chromatic sounds events in a work.

Associative Tonality: where specific melodies or motives can be associated with a particular pitch level, and/or a particular tonality can be associated with particular characters or underlying dramatic themes.

Directional Tonality: a “tonal plot,” where the principal operation involves the motion from one key to another, rather than the prolongation of a single tonality.

Expressive Tonality: the repetition or recall of a passage, transposed up to underscore intensification, or shifted down to indicate relaxation, both of which directly correlate to the action or desire for expressiveness in a composition.

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Bailey, Richard. "The Structure of 'The Ring' and its Evolution." 19th-Century Music vol. 1/1 (1977), pp. 48-61.
Lewis, Christopher. "Into the Foothills: New Directions in Nineteenth-Century Analysis." Music Theory Spectrum vol. 11/1 (1989), pp. 15-23.
McCreless, Patrick. "Ernst Kurth and the Analysis of the Chromatic Music of the Late Nineteenth Century." Music Theory Spectrum vol. 5 (1983), pp. 56-75.