Friday, December 16, 2016

Administrative post: updated links to some files

Early next year, Dropbox is changing the public folder to a shared folder. Therefore, I have moved all files that were formerly on Dropbox to Google Drive. Here is an alphabetical list with the new links:

Chopin, Prelude in E Major, op. 28n9: link.

Guide to my blog Hearing Schubert D779n13: link updated 2022-02-03.

Neumeyer, handout for 2010 Society of Music Theory presentation: link.

Neumeyer research vita: link.

Schubert dance table: link.

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Revised Playford essay published

I have published a heavily revised version of my essay/documentation John Playford Dancing Master: Rising Lines (link to original). The new version is, appropriately, titled John Playford Dancing Master: Rising Lines, Revised and Updated. It can be found on the Texas Scholar Works platform here: link to revision.

Here is the abstract:
This updates and substantially revises two publications of mine on the Texas Scholar Works platform: John Playford Dancing Master: Rising Lines (2010; 2015) and the corresponding section in Rising Lines in Tonal Frameworks of Traditional Tonal Music (2015). The main goal was to provide higher quality graphics, but I have also written a new introduction as well as new analysis and commentary for almost all of the dances.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Minor key essay

On my Ascending Cadence Gestures blog I have just finished a minor key series. I have gathered the posts into an essay that has been published on the Texas Scholar Works platform: Ascending Lines in the Minor Key.

The essay contains all posts from the series, along with a newly written "concluding comment."

Here is the abstract:
The minor key poses obstacles to rising cadence gestures, and the number of compositions with convincing linear ascents is small. This essay assumes a mostly traditional Schenkerian point of view and studies that limited repertoire of pieces, which includes 17th and early 18th century music relying on the Dorian octave, and compositions by a variety of composers from Johann Walther and Thomas Morley, through François Couperin and Beethoven, to Brahms, Hugo Wolf, and Carl Kiefert.

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

New essay published

I have published a new essay titled Rising Gestures, Text Expression, and the Background as Theme on Texas Scholar Works: link. Here is the abstract:
Walter Everett's categories for tonal design features in nineteenth-century songs fit the framework of the Classic/Romantic dichotomy: eighteenth-century practice is the benchmark for progressive but conflicted alternatives. These categories are analogous to themes in literary interpretation; so understood, they suggest a broader range of options for the content of the background than the three Schenkerian Urlinien regarded as essentialized universals. The analysis of a Brahms song, "Über die See," Op. 69/7, provides a case study in one type, the rising line, and also the entry point for a critique of Everett's reliance on a self- contradictory attitude toward the Schenkerian historical narrative.

Friday, July 22, 2016

Historical survey essay

I have posted a new essay to Texas Scholar Works: Ascending Cadence Gestures: A Historical Survey from the 16th to the Early 19th Century. Here is the link: essay link. And here is the abstract:
Cadences are formulaic gestures of closure and temporal articulation in music. Although in the minority, rising melodic figures have a long history in cadences in European music of all genres. This essay documents and analyzes characteristic instances of rising cadential lines from the late 16th century through the 1830s.
Almost all of the material for this essay came from posts over the past several months to my blog Ascending Cadence Gestures.

Saturday, July 9, 2016

The Heartz and D779n13

I have added a post about the Heartz schema to my Ascending Cadence Gestures blog. The last of three examples is D779n13. Link.

Friday, July 8, 2016

Guide to the blog

I have put together a guide to the 200+ entries in this blog: link.

Here is the abstract:
My blog on Google’s blogspot platform has 209 posts as of 03 July 2016. Tags (Google’s “Labels”) are even greater in number. This document offers a “research guide” to the blog, including live links. Four sections discuss topical emphases, ranging from a catalogue of musical analyses to dance culture in Vienna during Schubert’s lifetime. Seven appendices provide lists of the blog posts with links, tags, a list of analyses by category, and a bibliography.
And here is the table of contents:

Introduction

Topics 1: Analyses of Schubert, Valses sentimentales, n13, Waltz in A Major
Topics 2: Schubert, Playing for Dance, Dance in Vienna 1815-1830
Topics 3: Formal Design and Functions in Music for Social Dance
Topics 4: Responses to Criticism of the Ascending Urlinie

Appendix 1: Complete list of blog posts, with links
Appendix 2: Complete list of tags (“Labels”)
Appendix 3: Tally of the analyses of D779n13
Appendix 4: Bibliography (that is, an alphabetical list of all literature citations)
Appendix 5: Blog Ascending Cadence Gestures in Tonal Music, complete list of posts, with links
Appendix 6: Blog Dance and Dance Music, 1650-1850, complete list of posts, with links
Appendix 7: Blogs Ascending Cadence Gestures in Tonal Music and Dance and Dance Music, 1650-1850, complete list of tags (“Labels”)

Sunday, July 3, 2016

administrative post

I have gone through all posts on this blog—from the beginning (the first is dated 7 October 2009)—checked all links, and where necessary updated them. Some links to external websites were broken (not surprising after six or seven years), and I should make it clear that, although I tried, I may not have caught all of them. Most of the updates, however, were from old pages on now defunct servers to my essays published on the Texas Scholar Works platform. My author page there.

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Essay on menuet designs, including Schubert D41 and D89

I have published Form Functions in Menuets by Beethoven and Others, 1770-1813:
A Contribution to the History of Design for Dance Musics on the Texas Scholar Works platform: link.

Here is the abstract:
This article adds further documentation for the claim that dance musics in Europe at the end of the eighteenth century were not dominated by the classical symmetrical period but were in fact written in a variety of thematic types and frequently emphasized contrast between ideas (that is, two-bar units). In order to fine-tune descriptions, the terminology for the second phrase in a theme is expanded beyond consequent and continuation (after William Caplin) to include two new categories: contrast and complement.
In addition to two sets of menuets by Beethoven—WoO7 and WoO10—I look at the late menuets of Mozart (K. 461, K. 463, K. 568, K. 585, K. 599, K. 601, K. 604), early menuets by Schubert (D. 41, D. 89), menuets by Friedrich Schwindl (1778), Settree (an English publisher; 1770s?), and Hummel (1807).