Tonality or Atonality in Bartók’s Sonata for Violin and Piano no. 2? From Folk Modalities to a Twelve-tone Language

External political circumstances as well as Bartók’s personal activities in the early 1920s were decisive in contributing to the expansion of the basic principles of his musical language. Bartók’s Second Sonata for Violin and Piano (1922) may be considered a focal point in his evolution toward ultramodernism. Concomitant with this tendency, both Sonatas for Violin and Piano of this period have become paradigmatic of the controversial notion set forth by certain scholars regarding the existence of an atonal Bartók idiom. Within the ultramodernist style of the Second Sonata, the essence of Eastern-European folk music is still very much in evidence. The intention of this article is to show how Bartók’s move toward synthesis of varied folk and art-music elements in this work produces a sense of an organic connection between atonality and tonality. The close connection between these two principles was suggested by Bartók in an essay of 1920. I intend to show how both contradictory principles are conjoined within a highly complex polymodal idiom based on the tendency toward equalization of the twelve tones. Within the stanzaic structure of the Romanian “long song,” stylistic elements of recitation, improvisation, and declamation are essential in the gradual unfolding between these two contrasting concepts of pitch organization. Despite tonal ambiguity on both local and large-scale levels, the sense of polymodal tonality is ultimately established as primary.

Pierre Boulez, Latin America, and the European Avant-Garde After 1950

Recognized as a critic, composer, teacher, conductor and impresario, Pierre Boulez left a huge footprint that defined the trajectory of European concert music during the second half of the twentieth century. With the composition of Le Marteau sans maître (1953–1955) and several subsequent works from the mid-1950s and early 1960s, he established himself as one of the most important composers in his artistic circle. His compositional approach changed radically during the course of this time period. Although many of his pitch organization techniques were only unraveled several decades later, innovations with respect to other parameters of the musical language had a clear and immediate impact. Keeping this in mind, with this intentionally provocative title, I would like to discuss how Latin America played a decisive role in the career of this enormous figure of twentieth-century music. After presenting a brief summary of his professional trajectory, I will discuss the three tours he made of Latin America at the beginning of the 1950s, which, considered within the frame of his interest in ethnomusicology, were crucial to his career. They gave him the space and inspiration for crucial innovations in his development as a composer. By reference to Boulez’s writings, and based on a critical reading of the works that reflect the influence of Latin American music, I will discuss how some of the most important changes in his musical language, like his emphasis on elements of contrast and resonance, were inspired by his experiences on this tour, as much, or more, than by more recognized influences, like Japanese and African music. This has some considerable implications, given that Boulez’s new musical language had tremendous impact on the development of the European avant-garde in the second half of the twentieth century. Haciendo referencia a los escritos del compositor y tomando como base una lectura crítica de las obras que reflejan la influencia que recibió de la música latinoamericana, discutiré cómo algunos de los cambios más importantes en su lenguaje musical fueron inspirados por las experiencias de Boulez en sus giras en esta región, tanto o más que por influencias más reconocidas, como la música japonesa y la música africana. Esto tiene implicaciones importantes, dado a que el nuevo lenguaje musical de Boulez tuvo un impacto considerable en el desarrollo de la vanguardia europea después de la segunda guerra mundial.

Borrowed and Original Techniques in the Trio by Leonid Hrabovsky

Relevance of the study. During several years that preceded the creation of the Trio (1964), Leonid Hrabovsky wrote many other works in various genres and forms, ranging from suites and a sonata for solo instruments, a song cycle, and a cappella choruses, to large-scale compositions for orchestra and for mixed choir with orchestra, and even two one-act operas (piano scores). The composer’s stylistic priorities had been rapidly and strikingly evolving from “social realism with a human face” as evident in the Four Ukrainian Songs, towards a much more radical “sharp” expressionism and constructivism. This evolution caused the necessary changes in the techniques utilized by the composer. Hrabovsky was deeply impressed by the article Genealogia nowej muzyki (Genealogy of the new music) of the Polish musicologist Tadeusz Zieliński that was published in the magazine Ruch muzyczny, n. 20–21, 1963. Zieliński stated that, after historical periods of monody, polyphony and functional harmony, a new sonoric and timbral era had come. These ideas inspired Hrabovsky to move towards the radical avant-garde. The object of this research is the Trio by Leonid Hrabovsky. The purpose of the study is to reveal the inherent features that differentiate the piece from other avant-garde works of the early 1960s. Methods of research include technical analysis of the musical form and its dependence upon the pitch organization of the work, as well as comparative analysis. The results and conclusions. Being composed during several days in the spring of 1964, Trio became the first piece of Hrabovsky’s written in a definitely avant-garde style. It was premiered in 1966 and since then has become one of the composer’s most frequently performed works. The reason for such a success lies in the original concept of the piece that essentially differs from the other avant-garde works of that time. When discussing Trio, Hrabovsky always stresses the influence of the Polish avant-garde music attracting him during that period. Indeed, he borrowed a lot of devices from Miniatures for violin and piano by Krzysztof Penderecki, a score Hrabovsky knew and studied at that time. However, a comparative analysis of the two works reveals serious differences between them. While Penderecki operated with purely timbral (sonoric) objects and did not pay special attention to the pitch organization, Hrabovsky composed almost a classical three movement suite with the first movement in a ternary form and the last movement in the binary form. The classical principles of the pitch organization and the distribution of the pitch structures in Trio are similar to those in tonal music. These principles have been unusually applied to the sound material that has nothing in common with tonality. A combination of the traditional and new approaches to the form provided Hrabovsky’s Trio with unique qualities which made it not only an interesting artifact of the avant-garde period but one of the most valuable and artistically perfect works in the Ukrainian chamber music.

"beaucoup plus modal que tonal"

Focusing on three of Dutilleux's mid to late orchestral works - "Timbres, espace, movement ou La Nuit etoile" (1978), "The Shadows of Time" (1997) and "Sur le meme accord" (2002) - this article gives insight into Henri Dutilleux's scale-defined pitch organization techniques and the role of colour in the works of the French composer. The paper questions the ambiguous relationship between tonality and modality, and asserts the previously only peripherally attested importance of modes for Dutilleux's works. An analysis of pitch organization demonstrates how Dutilleux's aesthetic and literature-inspired concepts of "progressive growing" function musically by foregrounding pivot chords or notes, and how their return reflects the idea of involuntary memory ("memo ire involuntaire") derived from Marcel Proust's "A la recherche du temps perdu".

Probe Tone Paradigm Reveals Less Differentiated Tonal Hierarchy in Rock Music

Krumhansl and Kessler’s (1982) pioneering experiments on tonal hierarchies in Western music have long been considered the gold standard for researchers interested in the mental representation of musical pitch structure. The current experiment used the probe tone technique to investigate the tonal hierarchy in classical and rock music. As predicted, the observed profiles for these two styles were structurally similar, reflecting a shared underlying Western tonal structure. Most interestingly, however, the rock profile was significantly less differentiated than the classical profile, reflecting theoretical work that describes pitch organization in rock music as more permissive and less hierarchical than in classical music. This line of research contradicts the idea that music from the common-practice era is representative of all Western musics, and challenges music cognition researchers to explore style-appropriate stimuli and models of pitch structure for their experiments.

Various Tonal Systems and Phenomena in the 19th and 20th Centuries

This study – without claiming completeness – takes into account systems and phenomena in which the organising of pitches is different from that of functional tonality. A central topic is how the principle of symmetry prevails, along with possible interpretations of the notion of tonality. The starting point of the most important manifestations of symmetry is the equal division of the octave, from which the issues of the distance scales are inseparable. The study presents the interactions of diatonic scale and pitch-organization based on the principles of symmetry, which casts a new light on the phenomenon of polytonality. The study relies on important research published abroad during the last few decades – mainly in relation to Stravinsky’s music – but which may be lesser known in Hungary. Keywords: “Ungar” scale, symmetry, polytonality

Probe Tone Paradigm Reveals Less Differentiated Tonal Hierarchy in Rock Music

Krumhansl & Kessler’s (1982) pioneering experiments on tonal hierarchies in Western music have long been considered the gold standard for researchers interested in the mental representation of musical pitch structure. The current experiment used the probe tone technique to investigate the tonal hierarchy in classical and rock music. As predicted, the observed profiles for these two styles were structurally similar, reflecting a shared underlying Western tonal structure. Most interestingly, however, the rock profile was significantly less differentiated than the classical profile, reflecting theoretical work that describes pitch organization in rock music as more permissive and less hierarchical than in classical music. These results contradict the assumption that music from the common-practice era is representative of all Western musics, and challenges music cognition researchers to be more thoughtful when choosing stimuli and models of pitch structure for their experiments.

THE EXPERIENCE OF ANALYZING OF THE PITCH ORGANISATION OF MANSI ZITHER TUNES

Mansi (Voguls) is one of the Ob-Ugric peoples of Western Siberia. Mansi have a lot of pho-noinstruments (including folk-music instruments): string (zither, lute, harp), shaman’s drum, hunter’s whistles, reindeer herder’s and household’s sounding items, children’s sound toys, etc. The most popu-lar of them is the zither named saŋkvəltap. This instrument is tuned over the diatonic pentachord: c-d-e-f-g or c-d-es-f-g, and there are other variants of tuning. When the traditional lifestyle still remained, the zither was played during rituals (such as a bear-feast, sacrifice ceremony, shamanic rite) and in other situations, accompanying dances and singing. Currently, the zither is played mainly by young musicians during the concerts. The purpose of the article is to describe the principles of the pitch organization of Mansi instru-mental music. The author had made recordings of playing of several old musicians, then the note tran-scription of that melodies has been made. The algorithm for the analysis is shown on the example of a single piece that is the personal melody of the deity in the image of a bear (“The Melody of the Clawed Old Man”). In the collection of analyzed tunes the following types of scales were found: 1) frequent: c-d-e-f-g, c-d-es-f-g, (c)-d-e-f-g, (c)-d-es-f-g; 2) rare: (c)-d-es-e-g, c-d-es-(f)-g, c-(d)-es-e-g. The tone functions can be such as a supporting tone, a semi-supporting tone, a non-supporting tone, an auxiliary tone. The tone functions are determined in each segment by the following signs: 1) accentuation; 2) location on the strong beat; 3) appearance on the boundaries of the composition units; 4) length of sounding; 5) multiple or frequent repetition. Semi-supporting tones are identified by the same criteria as the supporting ones, but they must have less ways of marking than the supporting tones. The auxiliary tones are rare, they don’t enter into the frame of melody and they are used only for variation. As a result of the analysis of the collection of tunes, the following patterns of the pitch-sound or-ganization of the instrumental music of Mansi are defined: 1) both of quarta and quinta modes are frequent; 2) the number of mode supporting tones is two or three, rarely – one or four, the semi-supporting tones are frequent; 3) the main supporting tones are at the highest and the lowest step of the scale. There is no strict correlation between the type of mode and the genre of the tune, but the following trend is noticeable. Melodies of deities and men’s dances in the modes of a quarta volume are performed more frequently. The epic or the song melodies and the melodies of women’s dances mainly sound in the modes of the quinta volume. On the basis of a comparison of several of the same name tunes (“Melody of the Old Man the Owl”), the following conclusion is drawn. The most important parameter of a pitch organization is the correlation of supporting tones and the sequence of appearance of typed intonational moves.

SHAPING A COMPOSITIONAL NETWORK WITH COMPUTER

The program has been entirely realized with Xavier Rodet's and Pierre Cointe's FORMES system which runs on IRCAM's VAX 11/780 computer. The version of CHANT includes the Formant Wave Functions synthesis technique as well as a bank of time-varying filters. I shaped in my mind some primary models for musical situations. Starting from these models, I intended to control various musical parameters, without forgetting their particular features. I have been interested since a long time in the idea of musical interpolation and processes. Within one sound, a simple interpolation can be made between two values, or between the circular matrix where each value, when repeated, has changed, and thus continually changes the total character of the pattern. My object is to produce a multilevel network of continually changing but controlled items. Another interesting aspect - the same rhythmic process, since these two instruments, because of their different natures, give emphasis to different aspects of a given model. For example an even ostinato of five notes changes into an ostinato of seven notes in such a way that two notes are simply divided into two. I wanted to adapt it next to the control of dynamics. One of my objectives concerning timbre is to produce a precise timbre change on each tone. This kind of pointillistic texture can then be combined with interpolations of greater line occuring within other timbre factors or other parameters. I created sounds where various timbre elements advance independently when two different times are used within the same sound. For me, the pitch organization is at present one of the most complicated themes in computer music composition, simply because the possibilities are endless and a very open, creative attitude is needed to explore them.