Spaces of Abelian Differentials and Hitchin’s Spectral Covers

Using the embedding of the moduli space of generalized $GL(n)$ Hitchin’s spectral covers to the moduli space of meromorphic Abelian differentials we study the variational formulæ of the period matrix, the canonical bidifferential, the prime form and the Bergman tau function. This leads to residue formulæ which generalize the Donagi–Markman formula for variations of the period matrix. The computation of second derivatives of the period matrix reproduces the formula derived in [2] using the framework of topological recursion.

Harmonic Perception and Voice Leading Spaces of Set Classes Related by Unordered Interval Classes

We call PCORD the prime form the interval string of Forte’s set classes. Analysis based on PCORD relations can yield a structural similarity between two different set classes, besides some possible perceptual likeness, measured by trichordal content. However different, the PCORD relation is analog to Forte’s Z-relation, but more embracing. This study provides the table of all set classes related by PCORD to be used as an analytical and compositional tool. The paper points out a precursor analytical use of the PCORD relation by Richard Parks in Debussy’s music. To demonstrate the analytical application of PCORD-relations, we analyzed four excerpts: from Hans Otte’s Das Buch der Klänge (1982), Villa-Lobos’ Rudepoema (1920) and from Coelho de Souza’s Metropolis (1990) and Dialogues (1987). We also analyzed the harmonic content of set classes using trichords or PCORDs of cardinality 3 and the PCORD connections in the voice-leading space of set classes with cardinality 3 to 9. Finally, we proposed that PCORD theory can be used as a compositional tool to engender harmonic directionality in atonal progressions.

Theatre Photography as a Counterfactual Representation of Aesthetic Reality

Summary The article is an attempt at applying the concept of counterfactuality, typically employed with reference to narrative forms, to the analysis of visual culture, particularly to theatre photography. The material for case studies is provided by the works of Polish photographers who redefine the function of this form of photography. Typically, photography is seen by theatre historians as the prime form of theatre documentation, and therefore treated as subservient to the needs of theatre studies as an academic discipline. Contrary to that, the photographic projects analysed in the present paper (particularly those of Ryszard Kornecki and Magda Hueckel), although made in theatre during performances, have been produced and distributed as autonomous art forms which neither represent nor document theatre productions. In the analysis of these projects, I employ Margaret Olin’s concept of “performative index”, which describes the relationship between the image and the viewer as a dynamic creation of meaning. With reference to this theoretical framework, I argue that counterfactuality of theatre photography is a strategy of turning this medium into an autonomous form of art.

Problematizing Foucauldian Ethics

Foucault’s technologies of the self have been used by sociological scholars of sport for nearly two decades. Yet Markula’s seminal articulation of a feminist Foucauldian ethics in 2003 stands as a watershed publication, insofar as the majority of publications following this article have framed much of their analyses in relation to this work. In this article, then, I review sociological studies of sport and exercise that draw on Foucauldian ethics from Markula’s article onward, paying careful attention to how Foucault’s ethics and Markula’s Foucauldian feminism have been deployed. Although I interpret this body of work as productive and insightful, I offer a critical reading of the emphasis on explicit problematizations and, relatedly, develop a methodological critique of researchers’ reliance on interviews as a prime form of research method.

The Yale-Classical Archives Corpus

The Yale-Classical Archives Corpus (YCAC) contains harmonic and rhythmic information for a dataset of Western European Classical art music. This corpus is based on data from <a href="http://www.classicalarchives.com/">classicalarchives.com</a>, a repository of thousands of user-generated MIDI representations of pieces from several periods of Western European music history. The YCAC makes available metadata for each MIDI file, as well as a list of pitch simultaneities ("salami slices") in the MIDI file. Metadata include the piece's composer, the composer's country of origin, date of composition, genre (e.g., symphony, piano sonata, nocturne, etc.), instrumentation, meter, and key. The processing step groups the file's pitches into vertical slices each time a pitch is added or subtracted from the texture, recording the slice's offset (measured in the number of quarter notes separating the event from the file's beginning), highest pitch, lowest pitch, prime form, scale-degrees in relation to the global key (as determined by experts), and local key information (as determined by a windowed key-profile analysis). The corpus contains 13,769 MIDI files by 571 composers yielding over 14,051,144 vertical slices. This paper outlines several properties of this corpus, along with a representative study using this dataset.