Juxtaposition, Allusion, and Quotation in Narrative Approaches to Music Composed after 1975

• Other Authors: Stroud, Cara E. (authoraut)
• Format: Others
• Language: English; English
• Published: Florida State University
• Subjects: Music
• Online Access: http://purl.flvc.org/fsu/fd/FSU_2016SU_Stroud_fsu_0071E_13453

The search for unity, structure, or large-scale coherence in post-tonal music has preoccupied music theorists for many decades. In this dissertation, I present a different approach that focuses on striking moments of juxtaposition in recent music through the lens of musical narrative. Carefully supported narrative interpretations can give us a way to unite analytical observations and interpret large-scale relationships between disparate musical events, and I explore one way that this can work in John Corigliano's Symphony No. 1 (1989), Alfred Schnittke's Concerto Grosso No. 1 (1977), and in Libby Larsen's downwind of roses in Maine (2009). In Corigliano's Symphony, I first explore the individual vignettes created by each of the first three movements, then consider the overall narrative trajectory of the symphony as a whole in my final discussion of the third movement and of the fourth movement. While the two inner movements fit into the paradigm associated with the ironic narrative archetype, the first and last movement do not fit this paradigm. In Schnittke's Concerto Grosso, I posit a narrative account of the piece that links the transformations of an expressive “sigh” motive with the narrative challenges of projecting a utopian past. I apply the concepts of denarration and disnarration (coined by literary theorists Richardson and Prince and extended to postmodern music by Reyland) both to clarify the relationships between contradictory musical events and to contextualize these events in my narrative account. Richardson’s “denarration” describes events whose inherent contradictions destabilize a story. Prince’s “disnarration” describes a fantasy or daydream that is clearly not part of the story’s plot. I initially interpret transformation of the sigh-neutralization motive as a denarration: a new narrative (in which functional harmonic syntax presides over the alternatives provided by microcanons and tone clusters) conflicts with the previously established narrative (neutralization and disruption of Baroque-style gestures). When an intensified version of the reversed motive appears in mm. 182–83 of the fifth movement, we might expect this gesture to likewise lead back to a functional cadence and the expressive world of nineteenth-century tonal harmony, but we instead hear the prepared piano playing over dense orchestral tone clusters. Ultimately, tonal closure is denied, and we come to realize that the possibility of musical expression through functional harmonic syntax was instead a disnarration. Larsen's downwind of roses in Maine serves as an example of a non-narrative that encourages us to listen “in the moment.” Just as music can encourage a narrative interpretation in a variety of different ways, I first survey the possible ways that have been suggested for the trajectory of a “non-narrative,” then I use Larsen’s and Von Glahn’s descriptions of the work as points of departure for my analysis, in which a variety of conflicting trajectories defy interpretation as a traditional narrative. === A Dissertation submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. === Summer Semester 2016. === June 28, 2016. === Alfred Schnittke, John Corigliano, Libby Larsen, musical narrative, post-tonal music === Includes bibliographical references. === Michael Buchler, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Joseph Kraus, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Denise Von Glahn, University Representative; Evan Jones, Committee Member.