Doctoral Colloquium (Music): James Donaldson (PhD candidate in Music Theory) and Ian Lorenz (PhD candidate in Musicology)
The Doctoral Colloquium is open to all.
Signification and Form in the music of György Ligeti and Thomas Adès
James Donaldson (PhD candidate, music theory)
2 October 2020 at 16:30
https://mcgill.zoom.us/j/93441829030
My dissertation research focuses on the role of conventionalized signs, or topics, in later twentieth-century music. This presentation will provide a brief survey of the motivations, basic principles, and broader contexts for this work, focusing on analyses of excerpts of Ligeti’s Violin Concerto and Adès’ Piano Quintet. My approach adapts principles from theories of musical topics—thus far primarily applied to eighteenth-century music—alongside broader semiotics to develop a method of approaching this repertoire from a topic-centred perspective. That is, I shift from traditional focus on (for example) pitch, harmony, and rhythm to use topics as the initial entrance to an analysis. I develop a three-level hierarchy of topical specificity, which provides a framework on which to focus on a topic’s defining characteristics which I then apply temporally to show how topics may dynamically come in and out of view. From this, I suggest ways through which multiple topics might interact with one another and end by exploring some historical-aesthetic implications of my approach.
“A Marvellous Delight”: Compositional Planning and Stretto fuga in Nicolas Gombert’s Magnificat Tertii et octavi toni
Ian Lorenz (PhD candidate, musicology)
https://mcgill.zoom.us/j/93441829030
Recent scholarship about Gombert has not addressed the relationship between counterpoint and melodic entries. The application of Peter Schubert's presentation types (Schubert, 2007) provides new ways of describing Gombert's contrapuntal approach to composition. I analyse Gombert's Magnificat Tertii et octavi toni according to an expanded version of Schubert's theoretical framework that includes fuga and stretto fuga (Milsom, 2005). In Gombert's Magnificat, I show that his compositional plan for many of the verses has a recurrent structure based upon the same sequence of presentation types. In verses six, eight, and ten, Gombert uses the same soggetto in tandem with a particular stretto fuga pattern to create what I term stretto complexes. I similarly show that Gombert's use of this specific stretto fuga pattern can be found at the conclusion of his other five and six-voice sacred and secular music. Finally, I argue that this technique was a "musical commonplace" for the composer (Schubert, 2010), characteristic of his compositional style.
