Elliott Carter's Analysis of his Piano Sonata (1945-46)

In 1948, Elliott Carter penned an analysis of his Piano Sonata for Edgard Varèse. His analysis of the first movement, in particular, makes one ask why Carter did not subsume its recurrent two-tempo structure under “first group” of its sonata form. Given Carter’s sophistication, was he experiencing a moment of music historical “agnosia,” since two-tempo expositions inform familiar Beethoven works such as Piano Sonata, op.31, no.2 and String Quartet in Bb, op.130. This paper explores Carter’s “agnosia” by way of internal and external evidence. Internally, it revisits the thematic chart he attached to the 1948 analysis and goes on to posit the idea that the work’s quintal neo-tonality so saturates its thematic network themes as to distort the composer’s analysis of the form, historical precedents irrespective. Externally, the paper compares three works by Beethoven to Carter’s Sonata as regards its two-tempo structure, using concepts borrowed from Hepokoski and Darcy’s Elements of Sonata Theory (1999). Finally, the author revisits writings of Carter and his circle that may explain why his analysis downplayed historical precedents to the Piano Sonata.

Material Connections

The architect Bruce Goff (1904–82) is often associated with Frank Lloyd Wright and Organic Architecture, but his concept of organicism was equally influenced by his interest in modern music, and in particular the work of Claude Debussy. Goff maintained correspondence with musicians throughout his life—including with composers Edgard Varèse and Harry Partch—and in the 1920s and 1930s, he actively composed works for piano and player piano. In Tulsa and then Chicago, Goff developed connections to other writers, artists, and musicians (notably Richard San Jule and Ernest Brooks) who cultivated modernist sensibilities across the arts. Following close consideration of his papers at the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago, I examine Goff’s approaches to music and architecture as expressed not only through his correspondence, pedagogical writings, and architectural designs, but also through the analysis of some of his musical compositions. I also discuss a piece by Burrill Phillips that was inspired by the house Goff designed for John Garvey, violist of the Walden Quartet. By investigating the manifold contexts of these artworks as revealed by archival research, we can shed light on the divergent use of the term “organicism” as it is applied across the arts.

Electronic Music

With the end of World War II came the rebirth of European radio. Government stations in both France and Germany established experimental studios for research, from which arose a new kind of music, “electronic music.” The station in France, Office de Radiodiffusion Télevision Française (ORTF), was directed by the engineer/composer Pierre Schaeffer and his partner, Pierre Henry, who called their musical creations musique concrète. In Germany the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) studio produced music through the process of “synthesis.” This chapter will explain the difference between the two approaches used to create electronic music with examples from the percussion solo and ensemble repertoire. Early experiments using wire recorders, test records, and tape recorders by composers Halim El-Dabh, John Cage, and Edgard Varèse precede the major electronic works of Karlheinz Stockhausen, Mario Davidovsky, and the American composer Stephen Everett, whose use of computers in “real time” brings the reader into the next century.

An Emerging Literature for Percussion Ensemble

In the 1920s, a number of composers prophesied through their writings and their compositions how the music of the twentieth century would sound. Alexander Tcherepnin, Dimitri Shostakovich, George Antheil, and others contributed to the concept that percussion alone could be an instrumental force. This chapter examines in detail works by the French/American composer Edgard Varèse, so-called “father of percussion ensemble music,” including an analysis of his iconic composition for thirteen percussion players, Ionisation. Works by the composers Amadeo Roldán and José Ardévol draw on the Afro-Cuban rhythms of the Caribbean to create a new music, both classical and ethnic. Their compositions, along with those of the Mexican composer Carlos Chávez, served as paradigms for the music that followed.

The Spirit Inside Each Object

This chapter addresses the question of sound on film, that is, the optical imprint of sound in the recording mechanism within the realm of visual music studies. The conceptual critique of visual music vastly expanded in the 2010s as composers and sound artists have explored the predecessors of digital signal processing and audiovisual software, looking back to the earliest technologies that unveiled the nature of sound through the diachronic representation of soundwave structure on the optical soundtrack. This chapter begins by clarifying the historical and chronological details of one of the most cited interactions in the history of visual music studies between John Cage and German animator Oskar Fischinger in the 1930s and 1940s. Further examination of this connection reveals an important technological foundation to Cage’s call for the expansion of musical resources. New documentation on Cage’s early career in Los Angeles, including research Cage conducted for his father John Cage Sr.’s patents, explains his interest in these technologies. Concurrent with his studies with Arnold Schoenberg, Cage fostered an impressive knowledge of the technological foundations of television and radio entertainment industries centered in Los Angeles. Adopting the term “organized sound” from Edgard Varèse, Cage compared many of his organizational principles for percussion music to film-editing techniques.

Busoni, Ferruccio (1866--1924)

Ferruccio Busoni was an Italian composer, pianist, transcriber, editor, and writer on music who spent most of his career in Germany. A child prodigy who started composing at the age of seven and completed his formal music studies at fifteen, he became of one the most important pianists of his time, well known for his transcriptions of organ works by Bach, and a highly respected, if rather rarely played, composer. His writings on music, in some of which he longed for an extension of compositional means and resources, positioned him as a progressive thinker and a model for a young generation of composers, including Edgard Varèse and Kurt Weill.

Tenney, James (1934–2006)

American composer James Tenney produced a wide range of innovative works, including computer music, Fluxus-inspired text scores, and chance-based instrumental pieces founded on the overtone series. Tenney’s music is characterized by a fascination with sound and how listeners perceive it. In addition to his creative work, Tenney is the author of important theoretical writings on the psychology and phenomenology of musical experience. Like John Cage, Tenney intentionally avoids rhetorical gestures in his music, following his dictum that "[T]he focus should be on the sound itself and not on the ideas and emotions of the composer" (Tenney, 2005). Tenney was born in Silver City, New Mexico, but moved to New York in the 1950s to study piano with Eduard Steuermann and composition with Chou-Wen Chung. Later studies at Bennington College and the University of Illinois brought him into contact with Carl Ruggles, Lionel Nowak, Kenneth Gaburo, and Lejaren Hiller. In works from this period, such as Seeds (1956–61), composer Larry Polansky identifies the strong influence of Anton Webern and Edgard Varèse, two of Tenney’s early inspirations.