Journal of Music Theory current issue

Editor's Note

Quinn, I. — 2006-01-01

Introduction to the Issue

Harrison, D. — 2006-01-01

FOREWORD

DK, — 2006-01-01

Journal of Music Theory under Allen Forte's Editorship

Berry, D. C. — 2006-01-01

This article addresses the role played by Allen Forte in establishing the Journal of Music Theory as a journal of record for the American discipline of music theory, as it emerged and evolved in the 1960s. The journal was founded at Yale University in 1957 by editor David Kraehenbuehl. When he left his position at both the university and the journal in 1960, the editorship passed to Allen Forte, who functioned in that capacity for the next seven years, making him not only the longest-serving editor in the journal's history, but also one at an especially crucial period, when conceptions of the field were beginning to crystallize and circulate in the forms recognizable today. This article explores, in turn, the path Forte took to the journal (and Yale); aspects of editorship, design, and production during his time; the personal imprint he made on the journal, in terms of his editorial agenda; and his departure from the editorship and the legacy he left behind. Quotations from the author's interviews with Forte are included.

Journal of Music Theory over the Years: Content Analysis of the Articles and Related Aspects

Goldenberg, Y. — 2006-01-01

Bibliometric tools and especially content analysis of all 393 articles published in Journal of Music Theory (up to issue 48/1) help to investigate the development of the content of this journal. The articles were classified according to their type, the theoretical aspect, the period of repertoire discussed, and major composers or theorists they were devoted to. Among the major findings, one can trace in a precise manner the centripetal process toward focus on Schenkerian and set theories (and the more recent opposite process), the almost total separation of discussions of tonal and posttonal music, the more recent inclusion of neo-Riemannian theory, the para-academic nature of some earlier areas of interest, the correlation between an established method and the repertoire discussed, the general solid focus on hard-core theory with very few glimpses to interdisciplinary studies, and the slow and partial change that involves metatheoretical approaches. Other aspects include the growth of the journal, its importance, and its editors and contributors.

Of Time and Eternity: Reflections on "Das alte Jahr vergangen ist"

Renwick, W. — 2006-01-01

This essay discusses tonal ambiguity in the chorale melody "Das alte Jahr" and suggests a poetic interpretation of Bach's chorale. Expressive elements such as the passus duriusculus, the sospiro, and pervasive chromaticism are woven into a radical tonal plan that reflects a multifaceted perspective on time suggested by the change of year. In particular, the chromatic fourth becomes a tonality-defining element that contrasts the essentially diatonic melody. I suggest that the tonal and motivic balances in the piece reflect the duality of regret for the past and hope for the future, as well as a cyclic harmonic plan that reflects the yearly cycle and the notion of spiritual transformation.

Inventing a Melody with Harmony: Tonal Potential and Bach's "Das alte Jahr vergangen ist"

Kielian-Gilbert, M. — 2006-01-01

Intensely chromatic and tonally open, Bach's chorale prelude "Das alte Jahr vergangen ist," BWV 614, suggests different contexts of reception "as-music-analysis." I imagine a reception of the prelude as liturgical-musical contemplation and religious experience. I construe Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel's setting of Bach's "Das alte Jahr" in the concluding "Nachspiel" of her piano song cycle, Das Jahr, as suggesting interactions of public and private sonic worlds. I follow potential tonal-harmonic alternatives (after Schoenberg and Berg on the chorale) and implications of staging a motivic parsing through timbre and articulation (after Webern). These differently related interpretive and perceptual contexts shape experience and invoke orientations by which the music-structural aspects of a work can be construed and experienced. Bringing two or more contexts together stimulates new levels and types of connection, just as a melodic pattern continually recalibrates and interacts with potential harmonic and contrapuntal orientations. Changing or shifting emphases in one orientation respond to the demands or constraints of another; in particular, I track the tonal potential of interactions of prolongational, associative, or stretto-like musical figurations in the prelude. These "differences" in orientation become creative and expressive of newly available content, multiplying interactions of composition and text, reception and analysis.

Key Structure in "Das alte Jahr vergangen ist"

Temperley, D. — 2006-01-01

My discussion of Bach's chorale prelude "Das alte Jahr vergangen ist" centers on its key structure: the hierarchical arrangement of keys in the piece and the relationships between them. In the course of this discussion, I make a number of observations about the nature of key structure and the factors that govern our perception of it. I begin by considering one of Bach's four-part harmonizations of the chorale and then turn to the chorale prelude itself.

Generalized Musical Intervals and Transformations; Musical Form and Transformation: Four Analytic Essays; Studies in Music with Text

Rings, S. — 2006-01-01

The Oxford History of Western Music

Harrison, D. — 2006-01-01

David Kraehenbuehl Prize

2006-01-01