The musical space: A sketch for a broader musicological-semiotical discussion

Abstract

The subject of this paper is an examination of the analytical competences of musical semiotics and prolongation analysis applied to the organisation of the musical space in the music of the 20th century. By means of presenting one of the possible ways of organizing the musical space - the organisation of pitches and registers - one can derive the synthesis of Eero Tarasti's semiotics of the musical space and certain segments of prolongation analysis. Starting from the assumption that the organisation of the musical space is the key determinant of the music of the 20th century (Masnikosa, 2010: 242), I will argue that the musical space has its 'stronghold' in the works of European high modernism. By confronting Tarasti's model of the musical space with some segments of prolongation analysis (more precisely, with the theory of harmony by Olli Vâisâlâ and tonal pitch spaces by Fred Lerdahl, with the addition of the theory of musical forces by Steve Larson), I will try to show how the organisation of the musical space can be implied in the analysis of Iannis Xenakis's (1922-2001) work Metastaseis (1953/4).