Exploring Charles Seeger & Henry Cowell’s Compositional Theories, taking Cowell’s Quartet Romantic as an example

• Main Authors: Yu-Sheng Yang, 楊聿聖
• Other Authors: Chu-Wey Liu
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/j754ca

碩士 === 國立臺北藝術大學 === 音樂學研究所碩士班 === 96 === Charles Seeger, one of the leading musicologists in 20th century America, endeavored to compose music and to conceive his dissonant counterpoint from the 1910s through the mid-1930s. His two prominent students, Henry Cowell and Ruth Crawford, wrote many experimental compositions using dissonant counterpoint. What exactly are the details of dissonant counterpoint? Why did they intend to systematize their compositional methods and embody the system to compose? In the present thesis, two prominent theoretical books are summarized, the first one being Seeger’s Tradition and Experiment in the New Music, and the second Cowell’s New Musical Resources. This is then followed by an analysis of Cowell’s Quartet Romantic, which presents how theories work in his musical composition. The first chapter of this document discusses the scope of music theory and compositional theory motivated by Seeger’s musicological writings, and introduces the musical milieu in early 20th century America. Chapter Two outlines Seeger’s Tradition and Experiment in The New Music, which was finished with Ruth Crawford’s collaboration in the early 1930s but published posthumously in 1994. In addition to Seeger’s philosophical thinking, this book also provides a manual of dissonant counterpoint. But what is the concept of dissonance from Seeger’s perspective? What is the connection between Seeger’s dissonant writing and his contemporary atonal or non-tonal composition? In Chapter Three, I survey Cowell’s New Musical Resources, this book was prompted by Seeger, who urged him to “systematize his use of musical resources.” This book shares many concepts with Seeger, such as harmonic dualism and the reciprocity of pitch and rhythm etc., but Cowell’s theory is based on harmonic series. Chapter Four provides an analysis of Cowell’s Quartet Romantic, which was composed while Cowell was studying composition with Seeger. The method used in composing this work was unusual in the early 20th century; Cowell pre-composed a four-part harmonic theme, then translated the pitch content into numerals to construct the rhythmic framework of the first movement. However, Cowell only provided one-third of this harmonic theme and slightly ignored the deviation of the frequency ratios between just intonation and overtone series. Thus, we could not easily reconstruct the entire harmonic theme. I have tried to reconstruct the rest of the harmonic theme and, moreover, illustrated that the fugal subject of the second movement was modified from the melody of the harmonic theme by using Seeger''s theory. In the last chapter, I express my opinion about dissonance and further point out the traditional elements in the Quartet except those experimental ones mentioned in the previous chapter.