From half-sentence to compound sentence: Caplin’s Theory of Formal Functions in the context of the Czech theory of musical forms

Reviewed by: Formal Functions in Perspective: Essays on Musical Form from Haydn to Adorno ed. by Steven Vande Moortele, Julie Pedneault-Deslauriers, Nathan John Martin Steven D. Mathews Formal Functions in Perspective: Essays on Musical Form from Haydn to Adorno. Edited by Steven Vande Moortele, Julie Pedneault-Deslauriers, and Nathan John Martin. (Eastman Studies in Music, vol. 127.) Rochester, NY: Rochester University Press, 2015. [vi, 456 p. ISBN 9781580465182. $120.] Music examples, illustrations, index. Almost two decades have passed since the publication of William E. Caplin’s seminal treatise, Classical Form, in which he proposes a theory of formal functions. Caplin defines a formal function as “the specific role played by a particular musical passage in the formal organization of a work” (Caplin, Classical Form: A Theory of Formal Functions for the Instrumental Music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven [New York: Oxford University Press, 1998], 254). However, as disclosed by Janet Schmalfeldt in the special afterword of Formal Functions in Perspective: Essays on Musical Form from Haydn to Adorno (hereafter, FFP), Caplin had been involved in spirited discussions about formal functions with Schmalfeldt, his colleague at McGill University, since the late 1970s, when he translated a treatise on musical form by Arnold Schoenberg’s student, Erwin Ratz (p. 435). The positive impact of Caplin’s subsequent work—including the articles that led to the publication of Classical Form, the treatise itself, and its pedagogically-oriented update (Caplin, Analyzing Classical Form: An Approach for the Classroom [New York: Oxford University Press, 2013])—persists in music theory classrooms and conferences across North America and Europe by his numerous students, colleagues, and peers, which gives great cause for Steven Vande Moortele, Julie Pedneault-Deslauriers, and Nathan John Martin to edit a festschrift of thirteen essays in Caplin’s honor. In their introduction to FFP, the editors begin with a simple fact: “Few writers have contributed as much to the revival of Formenlehre in current English-language music theory as William E. Caplin” (p. 1). Yet, they also recognize the intentional constraints of Caplin’s “idiom-specific” theory of formal functions (i.e., the instrumental music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven ca. 1780–1810): “The theory’s very richness—its fine-grained delimitation of the classical style—entails a corresponding loss of generality” (p. 4). Consequently, scholars have started to examine the works of other composers outside of the late-eighteenth-century Viennese masters and test the theory’s versatility. One goal of FFP is to offer essays that “open up new analytical and theoretical vistas while continuing to engage with the basic themes and commitments of Caplin’s work” (ibid.). Grouped into six parts (i.e., five groups of two and one group of three), the thirteen essays in FFP do not follow each other in a tight chronology of works or theorists (as may be implied by the subtitle, which captures the subjects of the first and final chapters, respectively). Instead, I find it equally useful to group these essays by their general analytical considerations and musical objects to comprehend the potential of [End Page 536] expanding Caplin’s ideas into other repertoires. Seven essays analyze a set of works by one composer to discover something new about the composer’s style: four essays focus on instrumental music and three essays analyze opera and song forms. Two other essays stand out for their primary focus on shared genres between multiple composers (e.g., one considers a cornucopia of nineteenth-century piano concertos by Field, Dussek, Hummel, Moscheles, Chopin, Cramer, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Liszt). Three more essays relate via their intense analysis of only a single piece or movement. However, Vande Moortele’s essay in chapter 13, “The Philosopher as Theorist: Adorno’s materiale Formenlehre,” stands apart from the other twelve as it transmits a history of Theodor Adorno’s part/whole approach to the analysis of musical form in Mahler, Schoenberg, and Beethoven and offers similarities between Adorno’s theory and the works of both Caplin and Schmalfeldt. Despite this alternative grouping, the individual essays remain unique in their methodologies and specific goals, which I will focus on in the following sequential review before proceeding to a few general comments. The composers...

Source localization of the effects of Persian classical music forms on the brain waves by QEEG

The antiperiod, which James Webster’s 1991 book, Haydn’s Farewell Symphony and the Idea of Classical Style: Through-Compositionand Cyclic Integration in His Instrumental Music, describes as ‘a period whose consequent cadences off the tonic and hence is more“open” than the antecedent’, has received short shrift in the literature. This study seeks to remedy the antiperiod’s relative neglect,proposing that this form-functional type, common ca. 1750 in a variety of designs at many different formal levels, influenced thematic-tonal procedures through to at least 1800. The study identifies two basic models: the parallel antiperiod, wherein the two phrases begin alike, and the contrasting antiperiod, where the second phrase develops from opening material or begins with new motivic content. The antiperiod, unlike the standard periodic model, is dynamic and open-ended, much like the sentences and sentence-like hybrids identified in Caplin’s 1998 book, Classical Form: A Theory of Formal Functions for the Instrumental Music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Its harmonic plan, moreover, can expand to encompass larger formal regions (main theme or transition as a presentation phrase, for which the subordinate theme acts as continuation).

[1] William Caplin's textbook, Analyzing Classical Form: An Approach for the Classroom, provides a new forum for his theory of formal organization in Classical compositions-one that is accessible to both undergraduate and graduate classrooms alike. Building on the foundations of Caplin's Classical Form: A Theory of Formal Functions for the Instrumental Music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, this much anticipated volume, like its predecessor, explicitly focuses on the style established by the composers of the high Classical period (1998, 3); 2013, xv). Prior to these volumes, the ideas of Schoenberg (1967 and Ratz (1973)-Caplin's primary inspirations for his theory of formal functions-had appeared primarily within harmony textbooks.(1) This extraordinary new volume provides advanced undergraduates and graduates an opportunity to be exposed to his theories; it simultaneously taps into the intuitions of music theory students and provides a new vocabulary through which to communicate concepts of form and function.[2] The textbook is equipped with a masterfully designed companion website (found at http://www.music.mcgill.ca/acf) which organizes, by chapter, all of the musical and analytical examples (divided into two groups: examples for "study" and examples for "analysis," all of which omit the annotations provided in the main volume), supplementary work, and listening quizzes (accompanied by solutions). Each example corresponds with a singular audio file through which a user can conveniently find his/her place within the excerpt, on-demand. The compendium of musical examples is truly impressive, adequately representing the gamut of works in the high Classical period, ranging from Beethoven's Piano Sonata in BMajor, "Hammerklavier," op. 106 (341) to Mozart's Clarinet Trio in Emajor, K. 498 (501) and Haydn's "Razor" String Quartet op. 55, no. 2 (159).[3] The following review is divided into two parts. Section I provides a concise summary of the textbook's organization, goals, strengths, and weaknesses, along with a critical commentary on Chapters 1-6. The goals of Section II are two-fold: to draw comparisons to the 1998 volume and to comment upon the manner in which Caplin's ideas have been re-packaged for use in the classroom; additionally, due to the current volume's extensive exploration into sonata form, this section will provide a concise counterpoint to ideas enunciated in Hepokoski and Darcy's Elements of Sonata Theory (2006).I.[4] The book is divided into three primary sections. Following an introductory chapter, the first part, comprising seven chapters (2-8), includes the "principal theme types" in Classical form, building from sentences, periods, and hybrid structures to binary and ternary forms. The blockbuster Part II includes eight chapters (9-16, and 304 out of 698 pages of the main text), treating each of the main sections of the sonata: three sections within the exposition (main theme, transition, and subordinate theme), development, recapitulation, and coda. Finally, Part III (comprising chapters 17-20) considers other full-movement forms: "slow-movement," minuet-and-trio, rondo, and concerto, although this part is significantly shorter than the preceding two.[5] The top-down organization of each chapter is intuitive and pedagogically sound; each one initially provides the student with the distinguishing features of the new formal type,(2) after which the student then experiences the new topics with a short series of questions based on a motivating example (under the subheading of "Let's Practice"). Having laid the foundation, the remaining subsections of each chapter provide a more in-depth exploration ("More Details" and "Final Points") followed by a set of review questions and additional unannotated excerpts for further analysis. This progression of topics for each chapter is valuable, as it not only makes a clear distinction between the "norms" and "exceptions," but also allows a user to choose how far to explore a given chapter. …

Journal Article How Sonata Forms: A Bottom-up Approach to Musical FormYoel Greenberg Get access How Sonata Forms: A Bottom-up Approach to Musical Form. By Yoel Greenberg. Pp. 264. Oxford Studies in Music Theory. ( Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, 2022. ISBN 978-0-19-7552628-6, $74.) Richard Cohn Richard Cohn Yale University, New Haven, CT Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Music and Letters, Volume 104, Issue 2, May 2023, Pages 307–310, https://doi.org/10.1093/ml/gcad008 Published: 04 May 2023 Article history Editorial decision: 24 February 2023 Received: 24 February 2023 Accepted: 24 February 2023 Corrected and typeset: 04 May 2023 Published: 04 May 2023

Just as single tones are grouped together rhythmically to form a measure, successions of measures are grouped rhythmically, in the construction of musical form. The rhythm of most classical forms is in twos, fours, eights, etc.; a group of eight measures ending with a half-cadence, or part question, answered by a similar eight measures ending on a full cadence, or definite conclusion, is a familiar method of building; and often a second section will contain a new theme in contrast to the theme in the first section, and the first section will be repeated in some form to close. Since some of the links formed by metrical harmonies are long, it would be interesting to consider such a link as a definite new form into which suitable musical material could be poured. Such a form would make for perfection of outline, and it would give a clarity and purpose to the composition as a whole, which are often lacking in works using experimental material. It would be found that the type of metrical combinations near the centre of the great link would be a contrast to those at the beginning, so that the principle of a contrasting middle section would be suggested; and that the smaller links in the latter half of the great link would be an exact reverse of the first part, so that there would be a recapitulation of the first theme, in reverse, at the close. Other ways of varying metre might be also applied to musical form. It would be interesting to investigate possibilities of irregular sections. Numerous classical composers have written occasional irregular sections, usually with such skill that the average listener is unaware that unusual rhythm has been employed. Much contemporary composition contains irregular sections, or an odd number of measures in a section, but it is not customary to sustain a certain scheme of form throughout a composition.

This study examined the characteristics of Kunimatsu’s guitar arrangements in Astor Piazzolla’s Oblivion by comparing aspects of musical form, melody, and harmony. As with other arrangements’ performances, the primary motif of Astor Piazzola’sOblivion melodic theme in Kunimatsu guitar arrangement has always been played differently from the original version. This performance phenomenon could responsibly risk blurring the identification of structural boundaries within its musical form. The purpose of this study is to prove the basic construction of Oblivion melody, including its form structure and rhythmic characteristics, by comparing Kunimatsu’s arrangements against the composer’s original score. This study uses musicological research methods. The approaches applied in studying this work are analytical, theoretical, and comparative. This study compares the two data to reveal the musical forms and the differences in the primary motive rhythmic characteristics. The results of this study are findings of the Oblivion musical forms in both publications and the differences in primary motives rhythmic patterns in both sources. The difference in musical form is impressive, possibly caused by the insertion of auxiliary members. As a result, Kunamitsu arrangement includes using the two-part song form, originally a three-part song form. With the revelation of the original melodic structure that is clear from the results of this study, the musicians who will present the Oblivion will at least have the essential reference in their interpretation. This research contributes to expanding studies in classical guitar performance and musical forms and new approaches in textual musicological analysis that are still infrequent.

This paper undertakes a close reading of European classical music forms used as a framing device in the Irish language novel Desiderius a Dó (1995) by Pádraig Ó Cíobháin. Considered one of the seminal novels of modern Irish, Ó Cíobháin’s work contains what the scholar Irina Rajewsky describes as “intramedial references to visual arts, music, cinema, literature and architecture”. Classical music occupies a central place in the novel, and is essential for an understanding of its plot, characterization, narrative and its thematic concern with ideas of binaries and performance. The paper examines absolute music forms characteristic of the classical period in the novel, explores how Ó Cíobháin uses liturgical music and chant, and concludes that the overall effect of the writer’s approach is a reimagination of the Irish language novel within a European frame that is remarkable for the depth and scope it gives the characters and the narrative.

One of the more surprising developments in recent American music theory has been the revival of interest in traditional, as opposed to Schenkerian, approaches to musical form. Spearheading this renewal are William Caplin’s 1998 treatise Classical Form , and James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy’s more recent Elements of Sonata Theory (2006). Both treatises, however, ignore the eighteenth-century operatic repertory entirely. And while valuable studies of eighteenth-century aria-forms exist (notably by James Webster and Mary Hunter), such studies generally predate the advent of the new American Formenlehre . There is, as a result, a gap between the most recent developments in the theory of Classical form and our current understanding of formal processes in late-eighteenth-century opera.This paper sketches one possible way across that gap. Even a casual survey of Haydn’s Eszterháza operas suggests that formal processes play out in ways related to, but nonetheless distinct from, their articulation in Haydn’s instrumental music (in response, no doubt, to the particular exigencies of writing texted music for the operatic stage). Thanks to its characteristic attention to the smallest possible form-functional units — the presentational, continuational and cadential phrases that subsist at the intra-thematic level — Caplin’s approach to Classical form proves particularly adaptable to this new context. The paper illustrates the analytic usefulness of Caplin’s approach for analyzing vocal music through a consideration of representative examples from Armida and Il mondo della luna .

Introduction. The article examines the origins of Taiwanese piano art, its evolution, the influence of national and numerous non-national musical traditions. Until today, no special study devoted to the general panorama of these important processes has been created. The general picture of the formation and development of Taiwanese musical culture in the context of the political, economic and social situation is considered. The purpose of the article is to highlight the origins of Taiwanese piano art, which influenced its evolution, the process of introducing national and numerous non-national elements at the main stages of its formation and development. With the help of analytical, historical, comparative, interdisciplinary methods of research, a number of tasks are solved: the role of Western Christian missionaries in the development of musical education and piano art on the island is determined, the reasons why the Western classical music was accepted by the local society, the questions about the founders of the system of Western of classical music education, the programs and forms of learning in the first music schools in Taiwan, the names of the first Taiwanese composers-pianists are clarified; а periodization of the development of piano art in Taiwan is proposed. Results. The most important historical stages of the formation and development of Taiwanese piano art can be considered: – the period of its creation from the end of the 16th century to 1894; – the period of Japanese colonial rule from 1895 to 1945; – the period of development of national self-awareness, 1946–1986; – the period of reunification with mainland China from 1987. The proposed periodization makes it possible to reveal the entire historical and cultural context of the existence of piano art in Taiwan, to project its genetic settings for further stages of its development. Its basis was national folklore, but since the middle of the 16th century, the island was visited by Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and Canadian colonists, and the first contacts of Western music with the indigenous population of Taiwan were made thanks to the activities of Western missionaries and were subordinated mainly to religious purposes. The stage of Japanese colonial rule was important for the development of piano art on the island. Due to the influence of Japan, Taiwanese musicians had further opportunities to join the system of Western classical music education, as the Japanese government was helping Taiwanese youth to obtain it. After 1920, Western classical music becomes popular in Taiwan; the formation of composer creativity in the field of piano music also takes place – the activities of such Taiwanese composers and pianists as Chiang Wen-Yeh, Chen Sizhi, Kuo Chih-Yuan, Kao Tzu-Mei and others. In the years 1946–1986, we observe the further development of performing and teaching activities at the island, a bright burst of creativity by such composers as Chang-Hui Hsu, Hsiao Tyzen, Shui-Long Ma and others. After 1987, active musical contacts between China and Taiwan contribute to the further progress of the island’s piano art. The piano works of Taiwanese composers Shih-Hui Chen, Fan-Ling Su, Chien-Yu Huang and others are widely popularized. In recent decades, the performing activities of Taiwanese pianists, represented in the international space by the names of Chien-Yu Huang, Yi Chih Lu, Chiu Tze Lin and many others, have become very active. Today, the piano art of Taiwan is the most important part of not only Chinese, but also world music culture. Conclusions. The study of the origins of the piano art of Taiwan, the periods of its development, ways of refracting different musical traditions will help to understand both the historical-theoretical and aesthetic-pedagogical and artistic significance of this phenomenon in musical art. The most important events in the social and cultural life of Taiwan, since the end of the 16th century, indirectly affected the development of national piano art, which underwent qualitative changes connected with the emergence of new musical forms and means of expression, the methods of using the national and Western compositional techniques. The prospect of further study of the topic consists in a more detailed study of the modern stage of developing piano art in Taiwan and clarifying the influence of its extensive genetic roots on the compositional and performing creativity of representatives of Taiwanese musical culture.

A Novel Dataset and Deep Learning Benchmark for Classical Music Form Recognition and Analysis

The article aims to disclose the various contexts of irony manifestation in S. Prokofiev's work using his Sonata for Violin and Piano (in F minor, Op. 80, first movement) as an example. The research methods employed include analysis, comparison, synthesis, and surveying. As a result of studying this topic, the key mechanisms of transmitting ironic symbols and the degree of their perception in the academic educational environment were revealed: complex tonal plan and 12-tone tonality of the 20th century (82%); polytonality, synthesizing contrastive texture layers in terms of stable tones; heterogeneity and variability of meter, tempo (90%); transformation of classical musical form (68%). The conclusion of the study is the interpretation of musical irony as a complex artistic phenomenon, within which a collision of tradition and innovation occurs, as well as the establishment of the leading principles of Prokofiev's neoclassicism, contributing to decoding the intersections between music, irony, and social context that characterize his works. Its practical significance lies in the demand for research materials in the concert-performing environment, musical pedagogy, whose efforts are aimed at expressively demonstrating various aspects of irony in the works of composers from different schools, stylistic directions, and periods.

Object. The article analyzes the theoretical approaches of foreign researchers to the definition of musical talent. Empirical material devoted to the study of the determinants of the manifestation of musical talent in foreign music psychology and pedagogy is substantiated and concretized. Research methods (analytical, historical and comparative, retrospective, comparative analysis of scientific and pedagogical literature, educational materials) allowed to distinguish different approaches to understanding the significance of the development of musical abilities (M. Shawen, R. Mueller-Freinfels, M. Hassler, U. Mursell, B. Probst and others). Results. It is determined that at the beginning of the twentieth century in Western musical psychological and pedagogical works outlined two approaches to the essence of musicality: musicality as a holistic property of the individual; musicality as a category of personality ability. It is established that in the foreign scientific literature there are several approaches to the problem of identifying musical abilities. The first approach is that musical talent consists of a number of components that are assessed by tests separately. The second approach is to test the ability to perceive classical musical forms. It is established that the perfection of a musician is largely determined by the presence of innate inclinations to musical activity. It is proved that the development of musical talent has a direct relationship between the level of development of musical abilities and external socio-pedagogical factors. At the same time, natural data and specially organized classes complement each other, and professional music training helps a person to reach his full potential. Conclusions. In foreign music psychology and pedagogy, a large amount of empirical material has been accumulated, devoted to the study of the determinants of the manifestation of musical talent. However, the question of the structure of musical talent and its components remains open. At the theoretical level, the issues of the relationship between the concepts of «musical abilities», «musical talent», «musicality» remain unsolved.

Since the late eighteenth century and the flowering of Romanticism, western classical or ‘art’ music has adopted aesthetics which aim to express ‘the great and sublime in nature’ (Burke, Edmund. 1757. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful. New York: P. F. Collier and Son Company). However, though improvisation was a source of inspiration and motivation for creative expression, the rise of romantic aesthetics sacralised composers’ creative processes and their works, ultimately producing the more restricted concept of Werktreue, or fidelity to the score (Goehr, Lydia. 1994. The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music. Oxford: Clarendon Press.). In this article, I turn to the writing of Louis Althusser (1971. Lenin and Philosophy, and Other Essays. Translated by Ben Brewster. New York: Monthly Review Press) to illustrate how implicit values and beliefs within the cultural institutions of classical music form an ideology which dominates the individual in a way described as ‘hegemonic’. As a result, classically-trained musicians are excluded from improvisational practices, because: (i) they must act within a culture in which improvisation itself is misunderstood, misrepresented and suppressed, and (ii) the act of ‘interpellation’, in which ideology is interpreted by the individual, encourages musicians themselves to identify and seek fulfilment through non-creative, non-improvisatory practices. Lastly, I explore a way out from the determining tendency of ideology, explaining how the act of improvisation offers an alternative musical role which is genuinely creative and indeterminate; allowing the musician to become ideologically aware, and thus free to choose their own musical identity.

Research on the interactions between literature and other art forms, observed since the appearance of syncretic art, took off in the 18th century. These multifaceted and multidisciplinary connections between time-based arts are systematized in W. Wolf’s general concept of intermediality at the end of 20th century. Based on this concept, the paper will provide some aspects of the musicality of Lithuanian poetry. The study is based on works by V. Daujotytė, V. Česnulevičiūtė, O. Juozapaitienė, J. Girdzijauskas, V. Kubilius, Ž. Ramoškaitė, D. Razauskas, W. Wolf, and others; comparative methodology is applied. The following conclusions were drawn: Lithuanian secular poetry in the Lithuanian language took shape in the period of the 19th to 20th century. At the beginning, folklore and songs were of great importance, and in later periods they became one source of nourishment for lyric poetry. Another source of the musicality of poetry is the archetypal music models that took the leading position among influencing factors in the music of Western Europe. Maironis’ works are characterized by both folk stylistics, a special closeness to folk songs, and the logic of classical music forms. In the images of the poems, the subconsciously coded mythological world of the Balts emerges, giving Maironis’ works a dimension of sacredness, awakening a sense of the greatness of the ancestors, raising the nation’s self-esteem and inviting it to fight for the freedom of the Motherland. In the existential drama of Salomėja Nėris in the WWII years appear folklore elements: quotations from folk songs, folklore lexicon sounds, pantheistic worldview, and the image of an archaic Baltic totem. In Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas’ poetry, we find images of classical music, analogues of complex forms of music. The musical motifs are based on the divide between death (“Marche macabre”, “Mozart”) and divine enlightenment (“Bach. Mass in B minor”). This relationship is aesthetic, but at the same time profound. In Judita Vaičiūnaitė’s work, musical motifs are signs of Western culture. The poet creatively uses the techniques of musical works, as well as the old polyphonic structural elements. In some works on existential themes, elements of pantheistic worldliness and the poetic form of Christian religious genres interact, and deep insights into folklore genres of some other nations is impressive.