4 A 458 B

Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers
Analytical Essays
on Music by Women
Composers
Concert Music, 1960–2000
Edited by Laurel Parsons and Brenda Ravenscroft
1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Analytical essays on music by women composers : concert music, 1960–2000 /
edited by Laurel Parsons and Brenda Ravenscroft.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–19–023686–1 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Mamlok, Ursula. Panta rhei. 2. Beecroft, Norma. Improvvisazioni concertanti, no. 1.
3. Tower, Joan, 1938– Silver ladders. 4. Gubaidulina, Sofia, 1931– Quartet, no. 2. violins (2),
viola, cello, 5. Chen, Yi, 1953– Symphonies, no. 2. 6. Saariaho, Kaija. Grammaire
des rêves. 7. Larsen, Libby. Chanting to paradise. 8. Lutyens, Elisabeth, 1906–1983.
Essence of our happinesses. I. Parsons, Laurel, editor. II. Ravenscroft, Brenda,
1961– editor.
MT90.A556 2016
780.92′52—dc23
2015027822
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed by Sheridan, USA
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
About the Companion Website ix
Chapter 1. Introduction 1
Laurel Parsons and Brenda Ravenscroft
PA RT I : O R D E R , F R E E D O M , A N D D E S I G N 15
Chapter 2. Ursula Mamlok, Panta Rhei, Third Movement (1981) 17

“Twelve-Tone in My Own Way”: An Analytical Study of
Ursula Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third Movement, with Some
Reflections on Twelve-Tone Music in America 18
Joseph N. Straus
Chapter 3. Norma Beecroft, Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1 (1961) 32

Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1 by Norma Beecroft: Serialism,
Improvisatory Discourse, and the Musical Avant-Garde 33
Christoph Neidhöfer
Chapter 4. Joan Tower, Silver Ladders (1986) 67

“Octatonicism,” the Octatonic Scale, and Large-Scale Structure
in Joan Tower’s Silver Ladders 68
Jonathan W. Bernard
PA RT I I : G E S T U R E , I D E N T I T Y, A N D C U LT U R E 99
Chapter 5. Sofia Gubaidulina, String Quartet No. 2 (1987) 101

“Difference Inhabits Repetition”: Sofia Gubaidulina’s String
Quartet No. 2 102
Judy Lochhead
Chapter 6. Chen Yi, Symphony No. 2 (1993) 127

The Transformative Power of Musical Gestures: Cultural
Translation in Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2 128
Nancy Yunhwa Rao
PA RT I I I : M U S I C , W O R D S , A N D V O I C E S 153
Chapter 7. Kaija Saariaho, “The claw of the magnolia … ,” From

the Grammar of Dreams (1988) 155
Superposition in Kaija Saariaho’s “The claw of the magnolia …” 156
John Roeder
Chapter 8. Libby Larsen, Chanting to Paradise (1997) 176

Music as a Mirror: Libby Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise 177
Brenda Ravenscroft
Chapter 9. Elisabeth Lutyens, Essence of Our Happinesses (1968) 196

“This Imaginary Halfe-Nothing”: Temporality in Elisabeth
Lutyens’s Essence of Our Happinesses 197
Laurel Parsons
Glossary 221
Bibliography 225
Index 237
vi Contents
Acknowledgments
A project of this size and scope, designed to stimulate change in a some-

what traditional environment, requires not only intellectual curiosity, but
passion and advocacy to bring it to fruition. We acknowledge, with appre-
ciation, all those who shared our vision and believed in this endeavor,
and who encouraged us over the years, especially our trusted and gener-
ous advisor Joe Straus and our intrepid editor at Oxford University Press,
Suzanne Ryan. Thank you to those who assisted in the research and pro-
duction of the book, including all of our editorial assistants at OUP—
Jessen O’Brien, Lisbeth Redfield, Daniel Gibney, and Andrew Maillet—and
our research assistants—Timothy Wyman-McCarthy, Calista Michel, and
Justin Boechler. We are grateful for the financial support provided through
research funding from the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science at
Queen’s University in Kingston.
One of the guiding principles of our project has been to include works
for which readers can acquire both a score and a recording. When efforts to
make the archival BBC broadcast recording of Elisabeth Lutyens’s Essence
of Our Happinesses available to our readers were unsuccessful, Dr. Jonathan
Girard, director of the University of British Columbia Symphony Orchestra,
responded with enthusiasm and generosity to our request for help. We are
grateful to him and to the orchestra for recording the “Chronikos” section
of the second movement, making it possible for readers to hear this excerpt
through the companion website. In addition, Claire Irwin of the University
of York Music Press helped secure the necessary scores, parts, and permis-
sions with her usual efficiency and good humor.
Co-editing and co- authoring requires a special partnership, and we
deeply appreciate in each other the complex blend of inspiration, depend-
ability, tenacity, and simple hard work that has carried us through this first
phase of our multivolume project, while allowing us to remain friends.
The shared moments of unwavering support—and sometimes unbridled
hilarity—have sustained us in trying times.
The original concept of this book dates from 2007; we are indebted to
our long-suffering authors for their patience, and acknowledge the suffer-
ing of our long-patient families. Glenn Parsons was a rock, stepping up in
countless ways to keep the North Vancouver editorial headquarters from
falling into chaos when he would probably have preferred to be out kayak-
ing. We dedicate this volume to the six children (now young adults) who
have shared their growing-up years with “The Book”: Andrew, Sarah, Sean,
Rebecca, Berg, and Mitzi.
viii Acknowledgments
About the Companion Website
www.oup.com/us/musicbywomencomposers
Username: Music5
Password: Book1745
Oxford has created a password-protected website to accompany Analytical

Essays on Music by Women Composers. On this companion website, readers
will find all musical examples and illustrations, including color versions of
Figures 5.1, 5.3, and 5.5, Example 7.2, and an audio recording for Chapter
9. For those who wish to examine larger versions of the volume’s visual
materials, Oxford University Press has made it possible for readers to zoom
in on all examples and illustrations. The reader is encouraged to consult
this resource in conjunction the chapters. Examples available online are
indicated in the text with Oxford’s symbol: .
Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers
1
Introduction
Laurel Parsons and Brenda Ravenscroft
I have no doubt that women think and feel differently than men, but it is not very
important whether I am a woman or a man. What matters is that I am myself and
develop my own ideas strictly toward the truth.
—Sofia Gubaidulina
This book celebrates, through musical analysis, the work of eight out-
standing composers active in the late twentieth and early twenty- first
centuries: Elisabeth Lutyens (1906–1983), Ursula Mamlok (b. 1923), Sofia
Gubaidulina (b. 1931), Norma Beecroft (b. 1934), Joan Tower (b. 1938), Libby
Larsen (b. 1950), Kaija Saariaho (b. 1952), and Chen Yi (b. 1953). Their
compositions—in genres ranging from solo song to symphony, opera, film,
and electroacoustic music—represent some of the most important musical
trends of the twentieth century. Many of them have won the highest awards
available to contemporary composers and have been honored by prestigious
fellowships and commissions. Collectively, their lives and careers extend
from Edwardian England to twenty-first-century North America, and their
individual creative voices have thus been forged in environments shaped
by the major political and cultural events of this period, including Nazi
Germany, postwar Soviet Russia, and China’s Cultural Revolution. As we
write in 2014, six of the eight composers—some now in their 80s and
90s—continue to pursue lively, successful, and productive careers.
Each chapter in this volume presents a detailed analytical exploration of
a single representative composition in the genres of song, chamber, and
large-
scale orchestral or choral music. (Electroacoustic, computer, and
other contemporary musical genres will be represented in a later volume.)
The compelling nature of the music, both aurally and intellectually, has
been the primary motivation in the analysts’ selection of these particular
compositions, as well as each work’s ability to demonstrate fundamental
1
aspects of its composer’s characteristic musical language. Without
exception, these are the first published analytical studies of the works in
question—hopefully, the first of many.
The analytical approaches taken by the authors are as individual as the
compositions they have chosen to analyze, ranging from Joseph N. Straus’s
meticulous diagrams of hexatonic pitch-class structures in Mamlok’s Panta
Rhei to Nancy Rao’s critical exegesis of Chinese operatic gestures in Chen Yi’s
Symphony No. 2, and from Judy Lochhead’s examination of Gubaidulina’s
Second String Quartet through the perspective of Gilles Deleuze’s critical
theories of différence to John Roeder’s illumination of Saariaho’s song “The
claw of the magnolia …” through a blend of rhythmic, pitch, and poetic
analysis. What they have in common, however, is the technical nature of the
approach, and the depth and detail of the analytical insights into the music.
As professional musicians making their living in the late twentieth and
early twenty-first centuries, the composers featured in this collection—all
women—have helped shape a remarkable period in the history of music in
the classical Western tradition. While women have composed throughout
that thousand-year history, it is only in the past century, propelled (as in
many fields) by the early fight for women’s suffrage and, later, the civil
rights movements of the 1960s, that they have flourished and gained public
recognition as professional composers. Access to higher musical education
has allowed women not only to attain the same level of advanced training
in composition as their male peers, but also to begin forming the kind of
social and institutional networks that have always been crucial in securing
performances and establishing a professional reputation. In recent years,
what James Briscoe has optimistically called the “new, powerful wave of
composition by women” has brought with it an unprecedented opportunity
for listeners to hear and explore a rich array of fresh, contemporary musical
voices, born out of the experiences and ideas of female composers.1
Why, then, is it necessary or even justifiable today to link these essays
together as exemplars of music by “women composers,” with that term’s
old-fashioned and potentially marginalizing adjective? In many present-
day societies, particularly in the developed world, activism and legislation
have led to high levels of equity in professional fields, and women have
achieved proportional representation in many areas, rendering terms such
as “the woman doctor” antiquated if not obsolete. Surely when Gubaidulina
asserts that “it is not very important whether I am a woman or a man,” she
is stating a contemporary truth, an acknowledgment that in the twenty-first
century there should be no need to distinguish music based on the sex of
the composer.2 Her declaration expresses a desire—one expressed by many
female composers over the last century—to have those who listen and con-
sider her music receive it as an integral part of the world of contemporary
2 Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers

music, rather than as a marginal subset of compositions whose intrinsic
interest lies merely in the composer’s gender. In this Gubaidulina has been
particularly successful, her music having achieved wider international
acclaim and scholarly attention within the still overwhelmingly male
domain of contemporary classical composition than almost any other liv-
ing female composer except Saariaho.
Gubaidulina and Saariaho are, however, exceptions. The “powerful wave
of composition by women” has not yet led to a similar wave of exploration
into this repertoire, whether in the form of performance, listening, or schol-
arship, and the musical voices of many female composers remain as yet
relatively unheard and unknown. Critical discussions of gender and classi-
cal composition by Marcia Citron and Jill Halstead in the 1990s point out
that decades after the women’s movements of the 1960s began to recognize
and promote the professional achievements of women in many traditionally
male-dominated fields, perceptual and systemic barriers still prevented the
music of female composers from being integrated into the canon, their music
remaining largely underperformed and unstudied.3 Similarly, after describ-
ing in her preface to the 1995 Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers
“a sea-change with regards to public acknowledgment,” Rhian Samuel notes
that despite the increasing number of recordings, performances, and publi-
cations of music by women in score anthologies, these successes had not yet
led to women composers becoming “established” in the same way as their
male counterparts, particularly in terms of the absence of their compositions
from the musical canon and from scholarly musical discourse.4
The volume of research into music by women has certainly grown since
1995, and in recent decades musicologists and a few music theorists have
made outstanding contributions to our knowledge of the lives and careers
of female composers and to our understanding of their music within a cul-
tural context; feminist music scholars have also suggested alternative ana-
lytical approaches to music by female and male composers alike.5 However,
most pertinent to this collection, mainstream music theory—traditionally
the locus of the most detailed and rigorous analysis of individual musical
compositions—has not kept pace, as we explain below.
Our research into the 20-year period from 1994 to 2013 shows that since
1994, only 23, or 1.51 percent, of the 1,524 articles published by eight peer-
reviewed music theory and analysis journals over 376 issues have been
devoted to music by a female composer.6 At the time of writing, Music
Theory Online leads these statistics with the highest percentage of articles
on music by women at 2.91 percent (or 7 of 240 articles over 93 issues); the
respective rates for Music Theory Spectrum and the Journal of Music Theory
for this period are 1.25 percent (2 of 60 articles) and 0.58 percent (1 article
out of 172).7
Introduction 3
While we have not sought similar data for books and monographs
that have published analytical research into music by women compos-
ers, they are relatively rare, often blending biographical and analytical
perspectives. An increasing number are available, however, including
significant books by Straus on the music of Ruth Crawford Seeger and
by Ellie M. Hisama on music by Crawford, Marion Bauer, and Miriam
Gideon.8
Research presentations on music by women composers in scholarly fora
such as the Society for Music Theory (SMT) annual meetings also remain
infrequent. Since 1994, of 1,372 SMT conference presentations, only 34,
or 2.47 percent, were on compositions by women. This ratio is skewed
upward, however, by the fact that 18 of the 34 papers were presented in
special sessions sponsored by the Society’s Committee on the Status of
Women in 2001, 2002, and 2010, making these annual conferences the
only ones in the Society’s history to include more than three presentations
on music by female composers; the rate for the other 17 conferences over
this period is 1.41 percent.9 This low representation of women composers in
theoretical and analytical presentations is paralleled in the European schol-
arly environment, where 1.98 percent (11 of 555) of the papers in 14 recent
conferences focused on music by women.10
To appropriately interpret data representing scholarship into music by
women composers, we need to take into account factors such as the ratio
of female-to-male composers in a given period. Is the dearth of analytical
writing about music by female composers because this music has been dis-
proportionately ignored, or because it reflects a similarly low rate of partici-
pation by women in classical Western composition owing to a lack of access
to higher education and the social restrictions placed on women’s creativity
until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? Our research into
this question has found that ascertaining this ratio is no easy task. Even in
the field of contemporary music definitive data is unavailable, but, based
on consultations with several national and international composers’ orga-
nizations, it would seem that approximately 20 percent of contemporary
composers are female—unquestionably a remarkable increase, but still a
minority.11 There are many other factors that complicate the interpretation
of the data we have presented above, including the degree to which analyti-
cal research has also overlooked much worthy repertoire by male compos-
ers owing to enduring interest in music by composers such as Mozart,
Beethoven, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky. What even the raw data highlight,
however, is the disparity between the continuing near-absence of music by
women from scholarly music-t heoretical discussion and the unprecedented
rise in professional activity and compositional achievement of women over
the past century.

Accordingly, the purpose, not only of the current collection of essays but
of the entire multivolume project that it initiates, is threefold. First and
foremost, we wish to ignite readers’ curiosity about a body of exciting and
powerful contemporary concert music of which they may not yet be aware.
Second, if we can inspire new research into serious and deserving—but as
yet unexamined—music by women, a foundation of knowledge about the
music can be established, enabling it not only to become an integral subject
of music-theoretical colloquy, but also to influence the direction that col-
loquy will take, with regard to analytical methodology as well as musical
value and canonicity. Finally, since the inclusion of music by women is
still relatively rare in concerts, we hope that this collection will stimulate
in performers and conductors an eagerness to program and perform this
repertoire, based on its excellence and musical interest rather than its com-
posers’ gender.
Toward these ends, this inaugural volume brings together eight analyti-
cal studies of individual works or movements, each by a composer who has
made a significant national or international contribution to contemporary
classical music. Omissions are inevitable, owing in part to the proliferation
of female professional composers over the last half century and in part to
the current state of analytical research into music by women composers; in
some cases we were not able to find any scholars engaged in the analytical
study of a given composer’s music.12
The resulting essays thus reflect the nascent state of music-analytical
research into the music of women composers. But if this collection of
in-depth analyses of single works cannot possibly be comprehensive, we
are confident that it is representative: in its inclusion of such internation-
ally respected creative artists as Saariaho, Gubaidulina, and Tower; in the
range of nations and interacting cultures represented by its composers (the
United States, Canada, Britain, Germany, Finland, Russia, and China); and
in its exploration of music in a variety of genres from symphony to song
cycle, through a spectrum of sophisticated analytical approaches.
Some readers may ask if by choosing the particular compositions explored
in this project, we are attempting to establish a new or revitalized musical
canon. The answer to this is “no,” for two reasons. First, there would need
to be a much deeper and more extensive tradition of scholarly analysis and
performance before collective decisions could be made about which works,
if any, could be considered canonical. Moreover, in recent decades the vig-
orous contestation of the very idea of canonicity challenges the basis of
the question itself. We argue that a much more important question to ask
is whether these compositions offer substantial aesthetic, intellectual, and
musical rewards to analysts, listeners, and performers who pay them close
attention, and to that we answer an unqualified “yes.”
Introduction 5
The chapters in this volume are grouped thematically by analytical
approach into three sections, each of which is preceded by a short intro-
duction placing the analytical methods used in the essays that follow into
the context of late twentieth-and early twenty-fi rst-century music theory.
The essays in the first group, by Joseph Straus, Christoph Neidhöfer,
and Jonathan Bernard, focus on pitch organization in serial or octatonic
works by Mamlok, Beecroft, and Tower respectively. The second group
of essays, by Judy Lochhead and Nancy Rao, takes a different approach,
invoking gestural and cross-c ultural theory to gain insight into the music
of Gubaidulina and Chen Yi. Finally, the essays in the third group, by
John Roeder, Brenda Ravenscroft, and Laurel Parsons, analyze in detail
the ways in which Saariaho, Larsen, and Lutyens have responded musi-
cally—even in a wordless orchestral movement—to texts they have cho-
sen to set.
Within these sections, each essay is preceded by a brief biographi-
cal sketch of the composer, providing the reader with a glimpse into the
composer’s career and cultural-historical context. Each sketch highlights
her greatest professional successes, the influential forces and figures that
helped to shape her compositional language, and the ways in which she, in
turn, has influenced younger composers or otherwise had an impact on the
development of contemporary classical music.
In addition to the print version of the book, the companion website
offers important resources such as all examples and figures available in
a format that allows readers to zoom in for closer examination, includ-
ing several in their original color versions. The website also features a
recording by the University of British Columbia Symphony Orchestra of
an excerpt from Elisabeth Lutyens’s Essence of Our Happinesses, the only
full recording of which is unavailable to listeners except by appointment
at British Library’s National Sound Archive in London.13 Recordings of
the remaining compositions explored in this volume are commercially
available either on compact disc or through Internet music sources such
as iTunes.
While the analyses are complete with appropriate musical examples, we
recommend that the reader wishing to use a particular analysis as a spring-
board for further research or teaching have the accompanying full score
close at hand. Full scores for all works can be accessed either through uni-
versity library holdings or directly from publishers.
In both scholarly and popular discourse surrounding female creators
in all the arts, the question often arises of whether the artistic creations
of women exhibit common characteristics that bind them together as a
group, making them in some way distinct from those of male creators.14
In the realm of musical composition, arguments about these potential

distinctions have had a long and, from a twenty-first-century perspective,
sometimes uncomfortable history, especially when focused on perceived
distinctions in quality (or “greatness”) as much as trait.15 As Halstead and
Citron have shown, critical tropes abound in historic descriptions of music
by female composers, from the use of adjectives such as “delicate” and
“graceful” to assumptions that women are “naturally” better at writing in
small forms like song and chamber music than they are at composing in
large-scale forms such as symphony and opera.16 The compositions repre-
sented in this volume—and those to follow—demonstrate the inaccuracy
of such stereotypes. However, readers may be curious to know what kind of
threads weaving among the lives and music of these eight composers—if
any—are revealed in this collection of essays. The biographies that intro-
duce each composer note their diversity in terms of national or cultural
background, as well as the aesthetic influences, attitudes, and techniques
that have helped shape their compositional styles. But we also observe cer-
tain recurrent themes.
Most notable, perhaps, is a common rejection by these composers of
absolute formalism (integral serialism, for example) in favor of cultivat-
ing a more flexible and intuitive individual voice. Ellie Hisama, writing
about modernism and gender, argues that women composers’ relative iso-
lation from mainstream contemporary music circles in the first half of the
twentieth century may have had the unintended benefit of liberating them
to develop independent compositional voices and technical tools.17 This
is not to suggest that these composers did not engage the most advanced
compositional techniques of their time, but rather that, as the analyses in
this volume show, their approaches to formalized systems are fluid—for
example, in the way that Lutyens, Beecroft, and Mamlok mix serialism and
free atonality to achieve their expressive goals.
The rejection of strict formalism is not only about creating a unique com-
positional voice; it is also rooted in the keen desire expressed by many of the
composers in this volume to reach out and connect with listeners through
their music. Saariaho, for example, rejects structural complexity in favor
of “communicating” through “audible musical forms,” Gubaidulina con-
ceives of her music in terms of re-ligio (re-connecting), and Larsen argues
that “it is the composer’s task … to communicate something about being
alive through music.”18 Beecroft expresses this need for human connection
in the clearest of terms:
I want whatever I’m writing to communicate with somebody, and it

has to have been inspired by some human factor, human emotion or
reaction to something, otherwise it just doesn’t come out. . . . I’m not
one of those composers who does not want an audience. I would like
Introduction 7
an audience for what I write. I would like to know there’s a listener
out there.19
But are these apparent commonalities attributable to the sex of these

composers, or do they merely reflect attitudes and values shared by
many late twentieth-and early twenty-fi rst-century composers, regard-
less of gender? Certainly we can find the same compositional approaches
and beliefs in the works of many male composers of the past 50 years.
Moreover, attributing shared characteristics to a group of composers
on the basis of whether they are female or male perpetuates the binary
categorization that in the early twenty-fi rst century is gradually giving
way to more the flexible, finely nuanced concept of gender identity as a
spectrum.
Yet the question of whether there is a discernibly female compositional
voice persists in contemporary scholarship, particularly in the work of fem-
inist musicologists such as Sally Macarthur. In her 2002 book Feminist
Aesthetics in Music, Macarthur confronts the dilemma for music analysts
wishing “to demonstrate that women’s music is worthy of close analy-
sis and of being included in the canon of masterworks,” citing Nicholas
Cook’s question, “do you attempt to position women’s music within the
mainstream, thereby risking its being swamped by a predominantly male
tradition, or do you promote it as a separate tradition of its own, as wom-
en’s music, thereby risking marginalization within a male-dominated cul-
ture?”20 Macarthur opts for the latter, seeking common characteristics in
compositions by women that are, in her view, distinct from those in “men’s
music.”21
While welcoming the challenges that feminist scholarship poses to ana-
lytical methodologies developed in the still male-dominated discipline of
music theory, we have taken the opposite approach in this book and the
volumes that follow. We believe that to exclude music by women composers
from these methodologies would be to artificially separate them from the
epistemological context in which these composers received their formative
training—surely as relevant to an understanding of any composer’s work
as consideration of its sociocultural context. Furthermore, in the quest for
insight into the inevitable, difficult, and likely unanswerable question of
whether there is a compositional voice that is discernibly female, analy-
sis has a vital, even urgent role to play. Although close analytical study of
a musical composition can never in itself reveal more than part of what
makes the music meaningful, delightful, or profound, it can nevertheless
supply something that has hitherto been somewhat lacking in the dis-
course surrounding music by women composers: evidence from the works
themselves. Whether or not there is such a thing as a female compositional

voice, or whether one finds the question completely irrelevant, until we
know more about the music women have created, generalized claims that
men and women compose differently will necessarily be based on provi-
sional hypotheses and personal observation—perspectives that may be
valuable but are insufficient for purposes of comparison. In this, we agree
with Rhian Samuel’s argument, published in 1997 but just as relevant
nearly 20 years later.
What if a woman composer should speak differently from a man?

Should she not then be evaluated differently? The fact of sociological
conditioning certainly encourages us to consider the likelihood of a
“gendered voice” for both men and women. And given the physicality
and sensuousness of music itself, is it beyond the realms of possibil-
ity that even biology might have some influence on musical utterance
too? Some critics emphatically deny its existence; but given that a com-
parative study of the male and female repertories is the only condition,
by definition, that would reveal the existence of such a voice (and its
male counterpart), and that no large-scale, detailed study of women’s
music to rival that already afforded men’s has yet taken place, surely no
soundly based judgment on this issue can at present be offered.22
It is in this spirit that we offer our collection of analytical studies as a con-

tribution to the development of a body of evidence extensive and robust
enough to respond to old questions and generate new ones. We invite
our readers to join in this endeavor of discovery. For the scholarly com-
munity, these thoughtful analytical essays provide eight distinct entry
points into a treasure trove of repertoire awaiting the attention of music
theory and musicology researchers. For post-secondary instructors, the
analyses may suggest potential new repertoire for inclusion in post-tonal
theory and history courses, both graduate and upper-level undergraduate,
and provide starting points for serious discussion of these compositions
in courses on women and music. Finally, the detailed insight that dis-
tinguishes these essays makes this a useful sourcebook for the perform-
ing world; we hope that conductors, music directors, and performers will
be inspired to explore and program the music of these composers and
will find its analytical information a useful aid to making performance
decisions.
The musical and professional achievements of the composers featured
in this volume provide clear evidence of an unstoppable wave of women’s
participation as musical creators. And, while much work remains to be
done, we look forward with excitement to the energy and renewal that their
inclusion will inevitably bring to the future of contemporary music.
Introduction 9
Notes
1 James R. Briscoe, ed., Contemporary Anthology of Music by Women (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1997), xi. Women’s participation in the world of music perfor-
mance has also expanded. Women are regularly seen on the concert stage as soloists and,
occasionally, on the podium as conductors. Female membership in orchestras is increas-
ing, albeit gradually, and even the Vienna Philharmonic, with its notoriously misogynist
policies, finally hired its first permanent female member in 1997 (William Osborne, “Art
Is Just an Excuse: Gender Bias in International Orchestras,” Journal of the International
Alliance for Women in Music 2, no. 1 [October 1996]: 6–14).
2 Cited by Michael Kurtz in Sofia Gubaidulina: A Biography, ed. Malcolm Hamrick
Brown, trans. Christoph K. Lohmann (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007), vi.
3 Marcia J. Citron, Gender and the Musical Canon (1993; Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 2000); and Jill Halstead, The Woman Composer: Creativity and the Gendered Politics of
Musical Composition (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997). In her 2007 reflection on the 15 years that
had passed since the publication of Gender and the Musical Canon, Citron lauds the progress
made in the “repertorial and disciplinary canons” of musicology, and in the dissemination
of music by women composers. However, she cautions “we need to be careful lest historical
women become erased again” (214) and emphasizes that “women’s music—scores, record-
ings, books—must continue as an important priority” (215) (“Women and the Western Art
Canon: Where Are We Now?” Notes 64, no. 2 [Summer 2007]: 209–15).
4 Rhian Samuel, “Women’s Music: A Twentieth-Century Perspective,” in The Norton/
Grove Dictionary of Women Composers, ed. Julie Anne Sadie and Rhian Samuel (New York
and London: W. W. Norton, 1995), xiii.
5 Such scholarship focuses primarily on issues of gender and social context rather
than technical analysis of the music, reflecting feminist music theory’s rejection of tra-
ditional analysis, with its valorization of an impossible objectivity and its lack of interest
in the impact of composers’ gender, social, and cultural identities on the music they
create. These views are presented in two notable issues of Perspectives of New Music
(PNM) from the early 1990s, where a “Feminist Theory Forum” was followed in the sub-
sequent volume by four papers grouped under the heading “Toward a Feminist Music
Theory.” Pertinent articles include Fred Everett Maus, “Masculine Discourse in Music
Theory,” PNM 31, no. 2 (Summer 1993): 264–93; Suzanne Cusick, “Feminist Theory,
Music Theory, and the Mind/Body Problem,” PNM 32, no. 1 (Winter 1994): 8–27; Marion
Guck, “A Woman’s (Theoretical) Work,” PNM 32, no. 1 (Winter 1994): 28–43; Marianne
Kielian-Gilbert, “Of Poetics and Poiesis, Pleasure and Politics—Music Theory and Modes
of the Feminine,” PNM 32, no. 1 (Winter 1994): 44–67; and Susan McClary, “Paradigm
Dissonances: Music Theory, Cultural Studies, Feminist Criticism,” PNM 32, no. 1
(Winter 1994): 68–85. Founded a few years after these groundbreaking issues, the schol-
arly journal Women and Music publishes articles that explore “the relationships among
gender, music and culture” (http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Women-and-
Music,673171.aspx) but to date has published no detailed analyses of music by female
composers. The Journal of the International Alliance for Women in Music includes a broad
spectrum of items about the professional achievements and activities of female compos-
ers, but, again, no detailed analyses. Karin Pendle and Melinda Boyd’s annotated bibliog-
raphy, Women in Music: A Research and Information Guide, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge,
2010), assembles more than 25 years of feminist scholarship on music.
6 Journals reviewed for these statistics include the Dutch Journal of Music Theory, the
Indiana Theory Review, the Journal of Music Theory, Music Analysis, Music Theory Online,
Music Theory Spectrum, Perspectives on New Music, and Theory and Practice. For the

purposes of this study, a “journal article” was defined as a substantial work (usually over
15 pages) devoted primarily to the theoretical analysis of music. Book, conference, and
performance reviews were excluded, as were prefaces, afterwards, short forum contribu-
tions, compositions, “in memoriam” pieces, and letters. To be counted as analytical work
on a female composer, the music of the composer had to be the focal point of the article.
7 While the cited numbers for journal publications cover 1994–2013, in the case of
Music Theory Spectrum (MTS) and the Journal of Music Theory (JMT), two of the oldest
music theory journals, these numbers remain unchanged when one views their entire
publishing histories. Launched in 1979, MTS has published two articles on music
by women: Jocelyn R. Neal’s examination of music by the Dixie Chicks in “Narrative
Paradigms, Musical Signifiers, and Form as Function in Country Music,” MTS 29,
no. 1 (Spring 2007): 41–72; and Marianne Kielian-Gilbert’s exploration of the music of
Gabriela Ortiz in “Musical Bordering, Connecting Histories, Becoming Performative,”
MTS 33, no. 2 (Fall 2011): 200–207. The single article published by JMT since its found-
ing in 1957 is Jennifer Bain, “Hildegard, Hermannus, and Late Chant Style,” JMT 52, no.
1 (2008): 123–49.
8 Joseph N. Straus, The Music of Ruth Crawford Seeger (Cambridge and New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1995), and Ellie M. Hisama, Gendering Musical Modernism:
The Music of Ruth Crawford, Marion Bauer, and Miriam Gideon (Cambridge and New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2001). Harald Krebs and Sharon Krebs, Josephine Lang: Her
Life and Songs (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), and Burt Jerome Levy and
Laurdella Foulkes-Levy, Journeys through the Life and Music of Nancy van de Vate (Lanham,
MD: Scarecrow Press, 2005), combine biographical and analytical approaches in their
studies. Also worthy of note are two multiauthor essay collections: Deborah Stein, ed.,
Engaging Music: Essays in Music Analysis (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), which
includes analytical chapters on music by Lang, Barbara Kolb, and Sarah Maclachlan;
and Tim Howell, ed., Kaija Saariaho: Visions, Narratives, Dialogues (Farnham, UK, and
Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011). Michael Slayton, Women of Influence in Contemporary
Music: Nine American Composers (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2011), includes analyti-
cal observations, as does the ecomusicologist Denise von Glahn’s Music and the Skillful
Listener: American Women Compose the Natural World (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 2013).
9 Of these 17 SMT meetings, eight did not include any papers on compositions by
women; aside from one conference with three papers, the rest included one or (less
often) two.
10 There is very little archived conference information available. By consulting the
host organizations’ websites, we reviewed 14 conferences including ten Music Analysis
TAGS (graduate) conferences that took place in the United Kingdom between 2005 and
2014 (159 presentations) and four European analysis conferences, three from 2011 and
one from 2013 (396 papers).
11 In 2006 the British Music Information Centre (later absorbed into the organiza-
tion Sound and Music) estimated that 17–20 percent of contemporary composers in the
United Kingdom were women (cited by Jennifer Fowler in “The Proms 2006: Where
are the Women?” Women in Music (May 2006), http://www.womeninmusic.org.uk/
PROMS06.htm). More current numbers are challenging to find. According to Kealy
Cozens, Creative Project Leader for Sound and Music, out of 660 applicants for their
composer programs, 183 (27.7 percent) were female. Cozens notes that applicants
to these programs represent mostly emerging rather than established composers
(e-mail message to the editors’ research assistant Tim Wyman-McCarthy, June 6,
2014). Data from the Canadian Music Centre, obtained through an e-mail message
Introduction 11
from Steve McNabb, Information Architect/Senior Developer, on May 21, 2014, indi-
cate that 149 of 695, or 17.6 percent, of Canadian composers are female. The percentage
of women composers listed in the American Composers Alliance database (accessed
May 17, 2014, http://www.composers.com/content/aca-archive-collections) is lower, at
12 percent (62 of 515 composers), the lower percentage likely reflecting the fact that
this includes both living and deceased composers. Given the size of the American
population, it is clear that their methodology for compiling the database means that
these numbers are too low to reflect the current gender distribution among American
composers.
12 The early development of this collection included a widely publicized call for pro-
posals, the responses to which, although more numerous than we had expected, revealed
unfortunate gaps. One of the goals of this collection is to stimulate research that will
result in these gaps being filled.
13 The recording on the companion website of the second movement’s orchestral
“Chronikos,” discussed by Parsons in c hapter 9, has been made available thanks to Dr.
Jonathan Girard, director, and the University of British Columbia Symphony Orchestra.
The National Sound Archive’s recording is a reel-to-reel tape of the BBC Orchestra’s pre-
miere of Essence of Our Happinesses under the direction of Norman del Mar.
14 The French poststructuralist literary critic and writer Hélène Cixous’s ground-
breaking notion of l’écriture feminine holds that women’s bodies and experiences must be
inscribed in women’s writing through (in part) the cyclical, nonlinear use of language,
in direct opposition to the so-called phallogocentric norms of the male tradition. See
Cixous, “Le rire de la Méduse” (1975), in Le rire de la Méduse et autres ironies (Paris: Galilée,
2010), translated into English as “The Laugh of the Medusa,” Signs: Journal of Women
in Culture and Society 1, no. 4 (Summer, 1976): 875–93. See also Christine Battersby,
Gender and Genius: Towards a Feminist Aesthetics (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1989); Hilde Hein and Caroline Korsmeyer, eds., Aesthetics in Feminist Perspective
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993); and Gisela Ecker, ed., Feminist Aesthetics,
trans. Harriet Anderson (Boston: Beacon Press, 1986), among others.
15 Telling examples of the “quality” debate since the late nineteenth century can be
found in Havelock Ellis, Man and Woman: A Study of Secondary and Tertiary Sexual
Characteristics (1894; London: Heinemann, 1934), and in a series of articles published
over the past century bearing remarkably similar titles. In chronological order, these are
George Trumbull Ladd, “Why Women Cannot Compose,” Yale Review 6 (July 1917): 789–
806; Carl E. Seashore, “Why No Great Women Composers?” in In Search of Beauty in
Music: A Scientific Approach to Musical Esthetics (New York: Ronald Press, 1947): 363–67;
Grace Rubin-Rabson, “Why Haven’t Women Become Great Composers?” High Fidelity/
Musical America 23 (February 1973): 47–50; and Eugene Gates, “Why Have There Been
No Great Women Composers? Psychological Theories, Past and Present,” Journal of
Aesthetic Education 28, no. 2 (1994): 27–34.
16 See Citron, chapter 4 (especially 130–32), and Halstead, chapter 6 (171–214).
Halstead opens her chapter by citing the English psychologist Glenn Wilson, writing in
1989: “Many women have written successful songs … but they have seldom put together
musical works on a grander scale such as operas, symphonies or even musical comedies.
It is difficult to escape the conclusion that some factor such as intrinsic motivation or
‘scale of thinking’ is another contributor to artistic genius” (171).
17 “Because it released these composers from the strictures of a common musical
style by giving them the technical means to forge new musical procedures and narratives,
modernism did not prove harmful to them, but rather stimulated their work in inventive
and liberating ways.” Hisama, Gendering Musical Modernism, 11.

18 See Pirkko Moisala, Kaija Saariaho (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009),
9; Kurtz, Sofia Gubaidulina: A Biography, 119; and Libby Larsen, Libby Larsen’s website,
accessed January 5, 2013, http://libbylarsen.com/index.php?contentID=216.
19 Norma Beecroft, interview by Eitan Cornfield, Canadian Composers Portraits: Norma
Beecroft, Centrediscs CD-CMCCD 9303, 2003, compact disc. A transcript of this interview
is available at http://www.musiccentre.ca/sites/www.musiccentre.ca/files/resources/
pdfmedia/beecroft-portrait-en.pdf.
If, as composers, these women have placed a high value on connecting and com-
municating with listeners through their music, a remarkable number have also initi-
ated projects designed to revitalize the connections between contemporary composers,
their audiences, and their communities. Larsen, for example, founded what is now the
American Composers Forum to support and advocate on behalf of composers, and
Lutyens instituted the Composers Concourse in London. Lutyens and others, including
Beecroft, Tower, and Saariaho, also established or produced new music ensembles, con-
cert series, and radio and television documentaries.
20 See Sally Macarthur, Feminist Aesthetics in Music (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press,
2002), 88.
21 In her conclusion, Macarthur suggests that, in terms of structure, music by women
differs from that of men with regard to its positioning of climaxes, relative lengths of
sections, and gestural construction (178), although elsewhere in the book she uses terms
such as “warmth,” “tenderness,” and “softening [of dissonance]” to describe music
that she hears as distinctively “feminine” (see, for example, her discussion of Elisabeth
Lutyens’s serialism, 96–102).
22 Samuel, “Women’s Music: A Twentieth-Century Perspective,” xiv.
Introduction 13
Part I
Order, Freedom, and Design
The unprecedented experimentation with new ways of ordering pitch

marks the twentieth century as a uniquely creative period for musical
composition. The most inf luential of these new compositional approaches
was serialism, which evolved from Schoenberg’s establishment of the
twelve-tone system in the years following the First World War into the
all-e ncompassing integral serialism of Boulez and Babbitt following the
Second. Alternative pitch-class collections, often involving the symmetri-
cal distributions of intervals, also offered new possibilities to composers.
Both Stravinsky (inf luenced by his Russian predecessors Mussorgsky and
Rimsky-K orsakov) and Bartók created new sound worlds by drawing on
one such collection—the octatonic scale—in many of their compositions.
Composers continued to explore the possibilities of both serialism and
octatonicism in the second half of the century, and the analytical essays
that open this volume illustrate how Ursula Mamlok, Norma Beecroft,
and Joan Tower have creatively adapted these principles in three works,
each in its own way exemplifying the tension between order and freedom
in postwar contemporary composition.
To begin, Joseph N. Straus examines the third movement of the German-
American composer Ursula Mamlok’s enigmatic 1981 twelve-tone piano trio,
Panta Rhei (Time in Flux). Elucidating Mamlok’s distinct form of serial-
ism, he traces the interplay of trichordal, triadic, and hexatonic collections
throughout the movement and demonstrates how she extends the serial prin-
ciple to rhythm. As Straus observes, the result is not simply an ingeniously
structured composition, but a beautiful and expressive one. His essay ends
with a reflection on the place of Mamlok’s music in the context of postwar
American serialism and his seven “myths” of serial composition, arguing that
Panta Rhei is “typical of the best twelve-tone music of the postwar period in
America.”
15
In chapter 3, Christoph Neidhöfer introduces readers to the Canadian
composer Norma Beecroft’s 1961 twelve-tone flute concerto Improvvisazioni
Concertanti No. 1, written in Italy during a period in which she studied in
Rome and attended the summer schools of Darmstadt and Dartington. While
little known, this short but intense work perfectly encapsulates the dichotomy
in the contemporary music of its time between the total compositional con-
trol offered by approaches such as integral serialism, and the renunciation of
that control exemplified by the revolutionary chance music of John Cage. As
Neidhöfer points out in his essay, despite her use of the word Improvvisazioni
in the work’s title, Beecroft does not in fact allow the performer much free-
dom. Rather, she creates the illusion of extemporization through her flexible
segmentation of the row coupled with precise notation of complex but aurally
unpredictable rhythms. Following a careful explication of Beecroft’s sketches
as well as her final score, Neidhöfer explains how this paradoxical composi-
tion fits into the broader aesthetic dialogue of the time, represented particu-
larly in the writings of Umberto Eco.
Finally, in chapter 4, Jonathan W. Bernard examines Joan Tower’s com-
plex but creative use of octatonic collections in her highly successful orchestral
composition Silver Ladders (1986), identifying a constellation of composi-
tional strategies that he finds unprecedented in the works of earlier twentieth-
century composers. Not limiting herself to a single transposition or rotation at
a time, Tower combines simultaneous octatonic collections in multiple but dis-
tinct instrumental layers, and uses different techniques to gradually transform
one octatonic collection into another or to transition from an octatonic to a
non-octatonic collection. On the basis of meticulous analytical observation,
Bernard develops a useful typology outlining the specific compositional mech-
anisms Tower uses to achieve these transformations and considers how their
deployment may contribute to an understanding of the work’s formal design.
He closes his exploration of Tower’s music by relating his analytical findings
to her own statements describing her working methods, and her thoughts on
contemporary composition. Given the originality of the compositional strate-
gies he finds in Silver Ladders, Bernard’s essay represents an important con-
tribution to the study not only of Tower’s music, but also of octatonicism in
postwar American music.
16 Part I: Order, Freedom, and Design

2
Ursula Mamlok, Panta Rhei,
Third Movement (1981)
Ursula Mamlok was born in Berlin in 1923.i Barely one step ahead of the
European conflagration, she emigrated with her family to Ecuador in 1939.
One year later, at the age of 17, she moved on her own to New York to study
composition with George Szell (much better known as a conductor than as
a composer) at the Mannes School of Music.
In New York Mamlok was introduced to modernist, atonal music, an
experience she initially did not enjoy.ii During the 1940s, however, her
appreciation of this repertoire grew, particularly after 1944, when she
attended Black Mountain College in North Carolina; there she heard regu-
lar performances of the Schoenberg string quartets by the Polish Quartet.
She also had the opportunity learn from Ernst Krenek, Eduard Steuermann,
and Roger Sessions, whose influence led her away from tonality and toward
the adoption of serialism.
Mamlok completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in her 30s at
the Manhattan School of Music. Composition lessons with Stefan Wolpe,
Milton Babbitt, Charles Wuorinen, and George Perle exposed her to more
systematic approaches to serialism, while subsequent studies with Ralph
Shapey taught her to “take away the squareness” and develop a more imagi-
native rhythmic language.iii
After teaching for over 40 years at the Manhattan School of Music and
other universities, in 2006 she returned to her native Berlin, where she
i. Biographical information about the composer is drawn from Barbara A. Petersen, “Mamlok,
Ursula,” in Grove Music Online, ed. Deane L. Root, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com, and the
composer’s website, www.ursulamamlok.com, both accessed September 10, 2014.
ii. Ursula Mamlok, interview with Roxane Prevost, “Conversations with Ursula Mamlok,” Ex
Tempore 11, no. 2 (Spring–Summer 2003): 125.
iii. Ibid., 129.
17
now lives and works. She has written more than 60 works for piano and
various instrumental ensembles, large and small, and recordings of her
music are currently available on nearly 20 CDs, four of them devoted exclu-
sively to her compositions. Among the honors she has received are fellow-
ships and commissions from the Guggenheim, Fromm, and Koussevitzky
Foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the American
Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
Although Mamlok is known today as a serial composer, her approach is
as intuitive as it is systematic:
I will wait until I find something that gives me a system for that particu-
lar piece. . . . And what’s interesting was for me to see that I can [mix
serial and free atonal movements] because you don’t want to become
a slave of the system.iv
“Twelve-Tone in My Own Way”: An Analytical Study

of Ursula Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third Movement,
with Some Reflections on Twelve-Tone Music in America
Joseph N. Straus
Mamlok’s piano trio, Panta Rhei, dates from 1981 and has been widely per-
formed, recorded, and discussed.1 The work is in five movements, the third
of which is a lyrical, meditative slow movement, marked molto tranquillo.
Example 2.1 provides the score for mm. 1–15, roughly the first half of the
work, with some analytical annotations .
Throughout this excerpt, and throughout the whole movement, there
are three independent lines. In mm. 1–7, the violin plays Ostinato 1 (sus-
tained F ♭s, punctuated with a snap pizzicato); the piano right hand plays
Ostinato 2 (short, repeated Ds, with the performance instruction to stop
the string inside the piano with a finger of the left hand); and the cello,
high in its register, plays a slow-moving melody, marked espressivo. In m. 8,
these three lines change instrumentation: Ostinato 1 moves from violin to
piano, Ostinato 2 moves from piano to cello, and the melody moves from
cello to violin. Then, in m. 15, the lines change instrumentation again. The
movement as a whole consists of four distinct formal sections, articulated
by these shifts in instrumentation and texture (see Figure 2.1 ).
iv. Ibid., 131.

Example 2.1
Ursula Mamlok, Panta Rhei, third movement, mm. 1–15, with hexatonic collections, triads, and
members of sc(014)
(Continued)
The three different lines move systematically through the three instru-
ments (and vice versa), with the fourth section restoring the arrangement of
the first.2 In instrumentation and texture, then, we have a four-stage process,
involving the systematic departure from and return to the original state. In
the domain of pitch, shaped by a twelve-tone plan to be discussed shortly, the
second half of the piece is the rough retrograde of the first: the P and I forms
of the first half are repeated in retrograde and in reverse order in the second.
Ursula Mamlok, Panta Rhei (1981) 19

Example 2.1
(Continued)
Figure 2.1
Formal chart
Looking in more detail at the pitch organization of the first two sections
(see again Example 2.1), we note a profusion of consonant triads (members
of sc(037)) and members of sc(014). These lie mostly within the melody,
although some involve the combination of two melody notes with one note
from one of the two ostinatos. In some passages, the music features tri-
ads gradually morphing into other triads (with occasional hints of 014),
while in others the music features 014s gradually morphing into other 014s
(with occasional hints of major or minor triads). And all of this activity

unfolds within the bounds of two of the hexatonic collections (members
of sc(014589)). This sense of gradual shape shifting is mostly a result of
the leisurely progress of the melody, which constantly reaches back to
recall previously stated notes even as it slowly moves forward to bring in
new ones.
The first triad we hear is F♯ major, formed by the first two notes of the
melody (B ♭ and D ♭, equivalent to A ♯ and C ♯) together with the F♯ in Ostinato
1. As the melody proceeds, the repeated B ♭ and D ♭ are followed by F, creating
a new triad, B ♭ minor, that shares two notes with the preceding one. The
melodic B ♭ and F can then be heard to combine with the D in Ostinato 2 to
create a third triad, B ♭ major, which shares two notes with the preceding B ♭
minor. The melody moves next to A. The resulting D minor triad shares
two notes with the preceding B ♭ major triad. Amid this progression of tri-
ads, in which each shares two notes with the previous one, we can hear
hints of 014, for example in the combination of the first two melodic notes,
B ♭ and D ♭, with the D in Ostinato 2. Other than the E in the melody, all of
the notes in mm. 1–4 are referable to one of the four hexatonic collections,
labeled HEX1,2 in Example 2.1.
In m. 5 the hexatonic reference shifts to the complementary collection,
HEX3,4, and the harmonic focus simultaneously shifts from triads to 014s.
As with the triads in the preceding passage, the 014s bleed into each other,
each one retaining two notes in common with the preceding one. And
amid the progression of 014s we get distinct hints of triads, most notably in
the recurring G ♯ major triad in the melody (C and E ♭, equivalent to B ♯ and
D ♯ , together with G ♯).
In m. 8 the hexatonic reference stays the same (still HEX3,4), but the har-
monic focus shifts back to triads. The movement as a whole can be under-
stood in a similar way, as involving progressions of triads or 014s, either
of which might unfold within either of two complementary hexatonic col-
lections. Figure 2.2 provides a more systematic account of both the har-
monic progressions and the hexatonic sound world in which they unfold.
Figure 2.2 offers a particular rendering of what Richard Cohn has des-
ignated the Northern and Southern hexatonic systems.3 Both systems
(as well as the Eastern and Western systems, not shown here) arrange a
progression of six major and minor triads around the circumference of a
circle. Reading clockwise from C major in the 12 o’clock position of the
Northern system, we have C major, C minor, A ♭ major, G ♯ minor, E major, E
minor, and back to C major. As Cohn and others have observed, each move
around the circle involves holding two notes in common and moving the
third note to produce another major or minor triad.4 These six triads taken
together involve only six pitch classes, namely those belonging to HEX3,4.
The Southern system works the same way: six triads are arranged around

Figure 2.2
Triads and 014s plotted on Cohn’s Northern and Southern hexatonic systems
the outer circle, the triads are linked by two common tones, and together
they project the notes of HEX1,2, the complement of HEX3,4.
For both the Northern and Southern systems, I depart from Cohn by
inserting a new circle inside the outer, triadic circle. This inner circle con-
nects forms of 014 in the same way that the outer circle connects triads.
Each move around the inner circle holds two notes in common and moves
the third one, taking us to another form of 014. We still have a chain of
harmonies, with two common tones retained, moving around a circle and
projecting a hexatonic collection. The dotted lines connecting the 014s in
the inner circles with the triads in the outer circles indicate the multiplica-
tive operation M5, by which dissonant 014 trichords can be transformed
into consonant 037 triads and vice versa.5

On these two double circles, Figure 2.2 traces the progression of Mamlok’s
harmonies. The piece starts with PHRASE 1A (mm. 1–4) at the lower left of
Figure 2.2: starting with an F♯ major triad, the music moves counterclock-
wise around the circle, through B ♭ minor and B ♭ major to D minor. D minor
is the hexatonic pole of F♯ major—that is, these two triads, at opposite sides of
the circle, are complements with respect to the underlying hexatonic collec-
tion.6 At this point, the music jumps to the inner circle of the Northern col-
lection, to the 034 in the 12 o’clock position (indicated as PHRASE 1B, mm.
5–7). The music moves counterclockwise to the opposing form of 014: 034
and 78e, opposite each other on this inner circle, are hexatonic poles, just
as F♯ major and D minor are. At this point (PHRASE 2A, mm. 8–10), 78e
morphs into G♯ minor (with two notes, G♯ and B, in common), and the music
moves clockwise around the outer Northern circle to C major. PHRASE 2A
remains within HEX3,4, but the progression consists of triads instead of 014s.
Having arrived at C major, the music jumps to the Southern circle, the inner
circle, and Phrase 2B traces a progression of 014s within HEX1,2. In moving
from phrase to phrase, the harmonic focus (triads vs. 014s) and the hexatonic
reference (HEX1,2 vs. HEX3,4) may either change or remain the same.
As suggested earlier, all of these harmonic and collectional relation-
ships unfold within a twelve-tone framework. Figure 2.2 acknowledges
that by identifying PHRASES 1A and 1B with a P ordering of an underlying
twelve-tone series and identifying PHRASES 2A and 2B with an I order-
ing. Order positions within the series are indicated by numbers in italics.7
Figure 2.3 shows the twelve-tone series for the movement and for the
whole work. This movement uses only the P and I forms shown plus their
retrogrades. The hexatonic collection is the hexachord for the series, and
these two series forms are hexachordally combinatorial: the first hexachord
of P comes back as the second hexachord of I, and vice versa.
As Figure 2.3a shows, both hexachords are ordered as RI-chains: for
each bracketed trichord, the last two notes of one become the first two
notes of the next, and the two trichords are related by the inversion that
exchanges those two notes.8 The RI-chain of triads in the first hexachord
of P is entirely systematic. The RI-chain of 014s in the second hexachord
of P, however, has a glitch. The RI-chain shown in Figure 2.3a depends on
reversing the written order of the G ♯ and B. In their actual written order,
the chain is interrupted and a G ♯ major triad—D ♯ –C (B ♯)–G ♯ —pops up
in the middle. This connects nicely to the G ♯ minor triad that begins the
I form of the series, which then proceeds with its own RI-chains of triads
and 014s. Mamlok’s musical realization, of course, is not as neat and sys-
tematic as Figures 2.2 and 2.3 might suggest, but these basic materials and
their precompositional arrangement obviously exert a good deal of influ-
ence on the sound and progression of the music.

(a)
(b)
Figure 2.3a and 2.3b
Pitch-class series and duration series
In this movement, and in much of her music, Mamlok is also inter-
ested in bringing the durations under some kind of serial control, and she
has a number of different strategies for doing this. Figure 2.3b shows the
duration series for this movement: 24 durations, measured in sixteenth
notes, that mostly range in length from one to six sixteenth notes. After
the P form of the duration series, we hear the same thing in retrograde
(labeled R). In the duration series labeled I, each value in the P duration
series is replaced by its complement mod 6: 5 becomes 1, 4 becomes 2, 3
stays as 3, and 6 stays as 6. Inversion in this case thus means complementa-
tion mod 6. There are a few glitches in the scheme, indicated by parentheses
and asterisks on the chart (parentheses indicate omission of expected dura-
tions, and asterisks indicate durations that are slightly off). But for the most
part, the durations are systematically serialized. They are also coordinated
with the pitch series, as indicated at the right of Figure 2.3b: duration series
P is projected by pitch series P; duration series R by pitch series I; duration
series I by pitch series RI; and duration series RI by pitch series R.
While the basic arrangement is clear enough, its musical motivation is
more obscure. It is not obvious why the composer uses values between 1
and 6 (and thus relies on complementation mod 6 for her definition of
inversion), how this 24-note duration series is internally organized, or how
it relates to the pitch-class series. In other works, including the fourth
movement of this piece, Mamlok uses a 12-note duration series that corre-
sponds exactly with the 12-note pitch-class series, but in this movement she
uses a 24-note duration series understood in terms of mod 6. It may be that
she was not attempting an integration of pitch-class and duration series
but instead was creating the duration series in an entirely free and possibly
random way, perhaps by literally rolling the dice to produce random values
from 1 to 6. That notion, purely conjectural, leads me to experience the free
and unpredictable rhythms of the melody as a deliberately and perhaps
literally aleatoric aspect of this piece.
Example 2.2 presents the complete score of the movement. A 12-count
of the pitch-class series is indicated by numbers corresponding to the order
positions within the two series forms shown at the top of the example. The
circled notes in the series (in order positions 1 and 5) are assigned to the
two ostinato lines. The duration series, which unfolds within the melody
(not within the two ostinato lines), is indicated by numbers in parentheses.
The two ostinato lines have distinctive rhythmic patterns of their own.
Ostinato 1, which starts with repeated F♯ s in the violin, projects a pattern
of alternating values: from the initial attack to the pizzicato in the first
measure is a duration of 10½ sixteenth notes. Seven sixteenth notes of rest
follow. Then we hear another F♯ for 10½ sixteenth notes, and another rest
of 7 sixteenth notes. Although this ostinato line moves from instrument to

Example 2.2
Complete score annotated with reference to the pitch-class and duration series
instrument, the durational pattern continues throughout: 10½ on, punctu-

ated by a pizzicato, then 7 off.
Ostinato 2, which begins with repeated Ds in the piano, involves attacks
separated by 11 sixteenth notes, and this pattern continues, with occasional

Example 2.2
(Continued)
(Continued)
slight glitches, throughout the movement. The periodicities of the two osti-
nato lines do not coincide with each other, and neither coincides in any simple
way with the beats of the notated $ 3 meter. The result is a sense of kaleido-
scopic rhythmic interplay, with the aleatory but serialized durations of the
melodic line interwoven with the regular patterns of the two ostinatos.
This is a beautiful musical work, deeply thought out, richly imagined,
and highly expressive. In each of those respects, it is typical not only of
Mamlok’s music, but also of the best twelve-tone music of the postwar

Example 2.2
(Continued)
period in America. This repertoire has been sadly mischaracterized in both

the scholarly and popular literature. A more accurate and balanced descrip-
tion of it provides a useful context for understanding Mamlok’s composi-
tional achievement.9
Mamlok’s career and music vividly refute many of the myths that have
accreted to twelve-tone music. The Myth of Serial Orthodoxy maintains
that there is one normative, standard way to compose serial music—an
orthodox mainstream—and composers must choose either to follow the
orthodoxy or to deviate from it. The Myth of Serial Purity maintains that

serial compositions follow certain generic rules in relation to which non-
conforming tones are understood as freedoms or liberties. In twelve-tone
music, however—t hat is, in the actual twelve-tone music written by a very
large number of composers over a long period of time—t here is no ortho-
doxy, just a series of local practices. And there are no general rules; rather,
composers make up their own rules, grounded in innovative compositional
designs of their own creation. So it would be wrong to measure Mamlok
against Schoenberg, or Webern, or Babbitt, or any other composer you
might care to name. They all differ from each other, and she differs from
them. What they have in common is a commitment to a systematic explo-
ration of the twelve-tone aggregate, but not much more than that. Rather
than a coercive set of rules, the twelve-tone idea has been a point of depar-
ture for a variety of compositional initiatives.
Many of the features of the third movement of Panta Rhei—its insistent
repetition of notes and groups of notes, its frequent reference to major and
minor triads, its ostinati, its playful attitude toward serial ordering, and its
frequent systemic glitches—might give the impression of deviation from
some normative standard, of liberties taken from some established, ortho-
dox procedure. In fact, however, proceeding in this individual, idiosyncratic
way—creating new compositional designs and realizing them in distinctive
ways—is what twelve-tone composers have always done. Mamlok’s practice
places her in a varied and eclectic mainstream of twelve-tone composition.
Among the alleged rules of twelve-tone composition we often find ideas
about non-repetition of tones and avoidance of tonal references. The Myth
of Non-Repetition maintains that serial music is designed to prevent any of
the twelve tones from receiving any particular musical emphasis by requir-
ing that no tone may be repeated until the remaining 11 have been sounded.
The Myth of Antitonality maintains that twelve-tone music is designed
to avoid referring to the triads and key centers associated with common-
practice tonal music. As we have seen, however, Mamlok’s music is full of
repetitions of all kinds and deliberately cultivates tonal and triadic refer-
ences. Indeed, it would be more accurate to turn these myths entirely on
their heads and assert that the twelve-tone approach, as practiced by post-
war American composers like Mamlok, is designed precisely to produce
certain kinds of repetitions and to produce tonal effects.
The Myths of Serial Tyranny and Serial Demise are falsehoods about
the history of this compositional approach. The Myth of Serial Tyranny
maintains that serial composition dominated the American musical
scene during the 1950s and 1960s. I’ve written about that myth at some
length, and I won’t belabor it here, except to say that to imagine Mamlok
as a party to some sort of monstrous conspiracy to hold American music
hostage is laughably false.10 The Myth of Serial Demise holds that at

some point (there is wild disagreement in the literature about the actual
date) either the mythical serial tyranny ended or composers simply
stopped composing twelve-tone music altogether. In fact, the twelve-tone
enterprise is alive and well into the 1980s, 1990s, and up to the pres-
ent. Certainly that is true of Mamlok herself—she became a twelve-tone
composer in 1961 and has remained true to that approach, in one way or
another, ever since.
A particularly nasty myth is the Myth of Inexpressiveness, which holds
that twelve-tone music is inexpressive, uncommunicative, and ultimately
meaningless. Insofar as it has expressive gestures, these are inappropri-
ately borrowed from earlier music. It lacks human feeling and operates, at
best, within an extremely narrow expressive range, usually having to do
with pain and anguish, horror and alienation. That myth is refuted by a
wide range of twelve-tone pieces, very much including the evocative and
emotive third movement of Panta Rhei.
Mamlok approach to twelve-tone composition has evolved over time, but
her basic commitment to it has not wavered:
From the 1960s onward, I’ve refined my style and have been doing
that ever since. I think the moment you stop learning, that’s the
end. As years go by, you change and your inf luences and goals are
different. Now my music is less complex than it was in the ’50s
and ’60s. I’m very comfortable writing 12-tone music but you will
hear composers say, “That’s passé.” That’s the same as saying the
C Major scale is passé—you can’t go by that, you have to have your
own language.11
Mamlok’s own twelve-tone language has often involved taking unusual

musical paths through the familiar 12 × 12 matrix of row forms. In some
works, for example, the musical lines trace a spiral path through the
matrix, a succession of diminishing concentric squares culminating in
the notes that lie at the center of the matrix (see, for example, Stray Birds
[1963], Haiku Settings for Soprano and Flute [1967], the Sextet [1977], Der
Andreas Garten [1987], and Girasol [1990]). In many other works, includ-
ing the fourth movement of Panta Rhei, she creates new sorts of charts,
combining series forms in interesting, original ways. Mamlok has said that
all of her music since 1961 has been “twelve-tone in my own way.”12 As the
third movement of Panta Rhei clearly demonstrates, Mamlok’s way involves
music of subtle craft and great expressive force, part of a musical idiom
and an individual career that continue to grow and evolve into the second
decade of this new century.

Notes
1. “Panta rhei” is a term from Heraclitus meaning “time in flux” or “everything flows.”
There are two published recordings of the work: American Masters—Ursula Mamlok, vari-
ous artists, CRI 891, 2002, compact disc; and Contemporary American Piano Trios, Vol. 2,
with the Francesco Trio, Music and Arts 933, 2000, compact disc. Published discussions
of the work include Roxane Prevost, “A Woman Composer among Men: A Theoretical
Study of Ursula Mamlok’s Serial Works” (PhD diss., State University of New York at
Buffalo, 2003); Roxane Prevost, “Metrical Ambiguities in Ursula Mamlok’s Panta Rhei,
IV,” Canadian University Music Review 23, nos. 1–2 (2004): 147–67; and Joseph Straus,
Twelve-Tone Music in America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
2. The twelve-tone origin of these lines, identified in the chart as P, I, R(I), and R(P),
will be discussed later in this chapter (see Figure 2.3a).
3. Richard Cohn, “Maximally Smooth Cycles, Hexatonic Systems, and the Analysis of
Late-Romantic Triadic Progressions,” Music Analysis 15, no. 1 (1996): 9–40.
4. Cohn and other neo-Riemannian theorists have been particularly interested in the
minimal distance (a semitone) through which the moving note moves, considering this
an instance of parsimonious voice leading. In the analytical discussion that follows, I will
ignore this aspect in order to accommodate progressions of 014 as well as 037.
5. Pitch-class multiplication by five, mod 12 (M5), has the effect of mapping the chro-
matic scale onto the circle of fourths, and vice versa. Intervallically, its effect on a pitch-
class set involves preserving the instances of ics 2, 3, 4, and 6, while exchanging the
instances of ic1 and ic5. Tn(M5) maps members of sc(014) onto members of sc(037) and
vice versa, retaining the minor and major thirds common to both sc, while replacing the
perfect fifth of the triad with the semitone of the 014. In Figure 2.2 the dotted lines in the
Northern system connect sets related by M5 followed by T4; in the Southern system the
dotted lines connect sets related by M5 followed by T8.
6. On the structural and affective qualities of the hexatonic pole relationship, see
Richard Cohn, “Uncanny Resemblances: Tonal Signification in the Freudian Age,”
Journal of the American Musicological Society 57, no. 2 (2004): 285–324.
7. This movement uses only P6 and I3 (a combinatorial pair) and their retrogrades (R6
and RI3). The series forms are labeled without subscript in the discussion that follows.
8. RI-chains are a recurrent point of interest in the theoretical and analytical work of
David Lewin. See Generalized Musical Intervals and Transformations (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 1987).
9. Straus, Twelve-Tone Music in America, offers close readings of more than 30 twelve-
tone works and a refutation of the many myths that have gathered around it. The follow-
ing discussion condenses material found there.
10. Straus, “The Myth of Serial ‘Tyranny’ in the 1950s and 1960s,” Musical Quarterly
83, no. 3 (1999): 301–43.
11. Liner notes to CRI recording (2002).
12. Ursula Mamlok, interview with the author, May 11, 2010.

3
Norma Beecroft,
Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1 (1961)
Norma Beecroft’s influence on Canadian contemporary music from the

1950s to the 1980s was immense, not only as a composer, but also through
her promotion of other Canadian composers and their music.i Born in
Oshawa, Ontario, in 1934, Beecroft was trained in music from an early age
by her father, a pianist and inventor. She left home at 16 to pursue a career
in music, studying piano at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto and,
later, composition with John Weinzweig, Canada’s first twelve-tone com-
poser. During this period Beecroft also began working for the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC’s) fledgling television network, initiating
a long and illustrious parallel career as a contemporary music producer
and host.
In 1958 she received a scholarship to study with Aaron Copland and Lukas
Foss at the Berkshire Music Center, Tanglewood, where she was inspired to
further her compositional career in Europe. From 1959 to 1961 she studied
composition with Goffredo Petrassi at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in
Rome and flute with Severino Gazzelloni. Beecroft also attended the sum-
mer schools of music at Dartington and Darmstadt, where her exposure to
new ideas and sounds inspired radical changes in her compositional lan-
guage. In particular, as Neidhöfer relates in his essay on her Improvvisazioni
Concertanti No. 1, she was profoundly influenced by Bruno Maderna’s
i. Biographical information about the composer is drawn from The Canadian Encyclopedia, s.v.
“Norma Beecroft,” by Kenneth Winters and Betty Nygaard King, last modified December 15,
2013, http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/norma-beecroft-emc, and from Norma
Beecroft, interview by Eitan Cornfield, Canadian Composers Portraits: Norma Beecroft, Centrediscs
CD-CMCCD 9303, 2003, compact disc. A transcription of this interview is available at http://www.
musiccentre.ca/sites/,www.musiccentre.ca/files/resources/pdfmedia/beecroft-portrait-en.pdf.
32
lectures on twelve-tone technique. But Darmstadt also introduced her to
the aleatory music of John Cage, and there she heard an early performance
of Stockhausen’s Kontakte for four-channel tape and live instruments, an
experience that led her to devote the remainder of her compositional career
primarily to electroacoustic music.
Following her return to Canada, Beecroft worked with Myron Schaeffer at
the University of Toronto and Mario Davidovsky at the Columbia-Princeton
Electronic Music Center. As she developed her own electroacoustic musical
voice throughout the 1960s, she also continued her broadcasting career,
first with the CBC and later as a freelancer. Her contributions to contempo-
rary Canadian musical life are remarkable: she produced many documen-
taries and a 13-album set of records featuring twentieth-century Canadian
composers and computer music, hosted a weekly radio series called Music
of Today, and cofounded and managed the Toronto New Music Concert
series for nearly 20 years. In the 1980s, Beecroft taught electronic music
and composition at York University in Toronto. She has been the recipi-
ent of many honors for her contributions to Canadian music, including the
Canada Council’s Lynch-Staunton Award for composition (twice), the Major
Armstrong Award for her 1975 documentary The Computer in Music, and an
honorary doctorate from York University. Today Beecroft is retired and lives
north of Toronto.
Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1 by Norma

Beecroft: Serialism, Improvisatory Discourse,
and the Musical Avant-Garde
Christoph Neidhöfer
Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1 for solo flute and orchestra (1961), together
with Tre Pezzi Brevi for flute and harp (1960–61), marks the beginning of
the Canadian composer Norma Beecroft’s international career.1 Both works
were written during her three years in Europe, where she studied composi-
tion with Goffredo Petrassi, attended the summer courses and festivals in
Darmstadt and Dartington (1960–61), and took flute lessons with Severino
Gazzelloni, the virtuoso who inspired and performed much of the new
music written for flute in the context of Darmstadt and other contemporary
music venues.
Norma Beecroft, Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1 (1961) 33

When Beecroft entered the European scene, avant-garde music was at
a crossroads. Following the rapid and breathtaking expansion of serial
technique in the first half of the 1950s, and stimulated by the music
of the New York School that was prominently featured at Darmstadt
and elsewhere, many composers had begun to incorporate elements of
chance and indeterminacy into their music by the end of the decade.2
Around this time, in 1959, Umberto Eco responded to recent composi-
tional developments with an article, eventually included in the collection
of essays entitled The Open Work, in which he presented a theoretical
framework for the understanding of art and literary works that involve
elements of chance and indeterminacy somewhere in their making,
performance, or reception, usually leading to multiple and ambiguous
meanings.3 Composers frequently turned to elements of improvisation
by requiring performers either to literally improvise or to determine the
order of sections in a piece during the performance itself. Sometimes
composers would create an atmosphere of improvisatory discourse by
way of written-out improvisations. This fresh interest in improvisation
among the avant-garde led to a revival of the concerto genre, which—
although enjoying continuing popularity among neoclassical compos-
ers—had been neglected by the pioneers of integral serialism during
the first half of the 1950s.4
Norma Beecroft’s eight-minute concerto Improvvisazioni Concertanti No.
1 exemplifies the revival in the intellectual climate portrayed by Eco’s essay.
While Beecroft would eventually embrace aleatory techniques, the score of
Improvvisazioni does not make use of them quite yet, nor does it require
direct improvisation. The solo and orchestra parts are entirely written out,
and the performative choices granted to the soloist stay completely within
the range of a fully notated concerto score. Overall, however, the work cre-
ates the impression of a spontaneous, improvisatory discourse involving solo
and orchestra. The work’s “simulated improvisations”—to borrow the term
coined by André Hodeir for his written-out improvisations—are carefully
worked out within a serial fabric that binds the solo and orchestra parts.5
I propose that Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni alludes to improvisation in
three ways: (1) the solo flute part sounds as if it is presenting a sequence of
extemporizations on a basic (serial) material, quasi-spontaneously trans-
formed; (2) the soloist and the members of the orchestra give the impres-
sion of frequently taking license (abruptly changing speed, bringing about
sudden and unexpected turns in the discourse); and (3) the form of the
work does not follow a standard outline—such as the sonata, adagio, ritor-
nello, or rondo form common in concerto movements since the Baroque—
but unfolds in the manner of an “improvisation of form.”6 In the following

analysis I will survey the musical characters and the interaction between
soloist and orchestra in Improvvisazioni and then examine Beecroft’s com-
positional techniques, based in part on information gleaned from her
sketches. I will show how, on the one hand, Beecroft treats serial material
in the solo part in a manner that could in fact have been extemporized by
a skillful improviser, and how, on the other, many of the textures involving
soloist and orchestra are of a serial complexity that simply could not have
been improvised without some preestablished, mutually agreed-upon strat-
egy. In conclusion, I will demonstrate how the work’s serial structure and
discourse between soloist and orchestra—in the way they trade gestures,
assert their respective identities, and so on—inspire a multitude of herme-
neutic perspectives.
“Simulated improvisation” in Improvvisazioni

Concertanti No. 1
The five key passages reproduced in Examples 3.1–3.5, annotated with my

serial analysis to be discussed below, show the range of strategies Beecroft
uses to create the impression of improvisation in this work. I will first
explore the features of each passage that contribute to the improvisatory
character (or, as in Example 3.3, a lack thereof) before turning in more
detail to the serial design.
Example 3.1 shows the opening two pages of the full score.7 Over a
low, soft rumbling harp tremolo and tam-tam roll, the solo flute enters in
the second measure with partly tentative, partly assertive gestures against
a backdrop of static, frosty string harmonics in mm. 3–5. The somewhat
uncanny atmosphere is intensified by the soft thunder in the bass drum of
mm. 4–5 and the brief, incisive gesture in the celli (beating the strings col
legno) and harp at the end of m. 5, while the flute crescendos on B5 into a
brief eruption in m. 6. As the solo line comes to a rest two measures later,
the percussion continues with distant thunder. We may wonder: are soloist
and orchestra a single entity here—that is, do they represent one “voice”—
or are they instead pitted against each other in a polyvocal texture?
While the phrase that immediately follows (not shown here) is equally
ambiguous in this respect, the continuation shown in Example 3.2a
draws a sharper distinction between orchestra and soloist, featuring larger
sound masses versus solo virtuoso flourishes toward the end of the passage,
which continues beyond the example. Still, it may not be clear whether the
agitated flute response in m. 24 is one of opposition to or extension of the

Example 3.1
Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1, mm. 1–10 (© 1973 by Norma Beecroft)
simultaneous forceful brass swells. (Example 3.2b shows the serial com-
bination used, reordered and with some pcs filtered out, in the brass and
strings of mm. 19–21; I will return to this in Examples 3.13 and 3.14.)
Contrasting with the improvisatory discourse between soloist and orches-
tra in the first two examples, the section shown in Example 3.3 , which
follows these earlier passages, features a more steady and coordinated
flow of materials. The high strings enter with chains of note-against-note
dyads in opening and closing wedge counterpoint in quasi-canonic imita-
tion (mm. 37–42) over continuing, disquieting rustling in the percussion,
followed by a distant echo of an opening and closing wedge in the muted
trumpets of mm. 43–44. The solo flute remains silent here, but when it
reenters soon afterward (not shown), it again alternates between impulsively
agitated and more lyrical improvisatory gestures, building up to an aggres-
sive response from the orchestra in m. 65, as shown in Example 3.4 .
Example 3.1
(Continued)
(Continued)
The leaps and runs in the flute of mm. 63–64 use only six different pitch
classes, as annotated in the example, presented in various orderings as if
the soloist were freely improvising on a hexachord against the backdrop of
sustained tremolos in the lower strings holding the complementary hexa-
chord. (My labeling of the hexachords will become clear later on.) The two
hexachords then clash head-on in the sound masses of m. 65.
Sound masses burst onto the scene a few more times in the ensuing
measures, leading into the section shown in Example 3.5 . This passage
generates a strong continuous harmonic pull via a progression of sustained
and pulsating chords built from fourths and fifths that progress via semi-
tones (mm. 74–77) and an added fourth (m. 78)—as summarized below the
example—culminating in the brass and percussion eruption of mm. 80–82.
Examples 3.1–3.5 give a clear idea of the improvisatory character of the flute
part, which, while fully written out, seems to unfold from spur-of-the-moment

Example 3.1
(Continued)
inspiration.8 Beecroft’s textures create this impression by means of a num-

ber of key features: (1) the solo part rarely shares rhythmic patterns with the
orchestra—it usually goes its own way in this respect; (2) the soloist gives the
impression of reacting quickly to sudden stimuli from the orchestra (e.g., in
mm. 24–25 of Example 3.2); (3) where the orchestra might appear to be chas-
ing or threatening the soloist (as in the same passage), the latter responds with

Example 3.2a
Mm. 16–25 (© 1973 by Norma Beecroft)
(Continued)
gestures of a clearly distinct identity; and (4) in a few places the soloist seems
to be improvising while the orchestra is in a holding pattern (Example 3.4).
Let us now examine these passages and the rest of the concerto in more
detail in order to explore how the dramaturgy of the work interconnects
with the serial construction.
Example 3.2a
(Continued)
Example 3.2a
(Continued)
Example 3.2b
Combination of P6+I6, arranged as shown in Beecroft’s sketch
Series, invariants, and interval tension profiles
The improvisatory character of Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1 stems

in part from reiterations of pitch material that sound like extemporized
transformations of a motive or pitch-class set. Particular pitch-class cells
recurring within short time spans following intervening material may
create the impression of stream-of-consciousness discourse, wavering in
and out of recurring materials. Example 3.6 compiles all forms of the
twelve-tone series that Beecroft uses in the work, most of which occur in
Examples 3.1–3.5. The format of Example 3.6 follows that of a 12 × 12 matrix,
whereby prime forms of the series appear horizontally, to be read from left
to right (with the corresponding retrogrades to be read from right to left),
and inversions appear vertically, to be read from top to bottom (retrograde
inversions from bottom up). For the purpose of illustration, I have filled in
only the row forms that are actually employed in Beecroft’s score. Notably,
they share a good number of shorter segments with each other, thanks to
special properties of the particular twelve-tone series. For instance, the dis-
crete dyads that I have marked with solid and broken brackets in P6 at the
top recur frequently in other row forms, as indicated.
Table 3.1 and Examples 3.7–3.13 take a closer look at these invariant
pitch-class materials. Table 3.1 explains four types of invariant and discusses
specific examples of each from the score: (1) the near-identical pitch-class
ordering in the hexachords of the prime form and its inversion at the upper
fifth (Examples 3.7– 3.8); (2) preservations of pitch- class cells under the
twelve-tone operations P6, RI3, I3, R6 (Examples 3.9–3.11); (3) the retention
of the same dyads, in permuted order, formed between two series (Example
3.12); and (4) the near-identical pitch-class content of the hexachords between
the series and its inversion starting on the same pitch class (Example 3.13).
Beecroft carefully analyzed the succession of intervals that results
from the latter serial combination (used in the strings of Example 3.3), as
shown in the excerpt from her sketches reproduced in Example 3.14 .
With the two arrows above the second staff she draws attention to the
wedge formed by the succession of dyads (with repeating dyads now
omitted), in terms of their size as interval classes, beginning with the

Example 3.3
(Continued)
Example 3.3
(Continued)
Example 3.4
(Continued)
unison F♯ followed by major second (ic2) and tritone (ic6), continuing with
a decrease in interval-class size from a major third (ic4) and major ninth
(ic2) to a unison on C, with another shorter wedge immediately following
(minor sixth, major third, major second). Below this, Beecroft notes the
“increase of tension” in the interval succession. She indicates this with a
hairpin, the opening of which presumably symbolizes the approximate
overall increase of both dissonance (tension) and interval size up to the fifth
dyad (the major ninth B3–C ♯5), the insertion of the consonant and smaller
fourth dyad notwithstanding.9
Beecroft’s attention to the tension of intervals was likely influenced by
composer and conductor Bruno Maderna, whom she heard lecturing in
Dartington in 1960, the year before the composition of Improvvisazioni.
The Norma Beecroft Fonds of the University of Calgary Library, Special
Collections, hold the notes that Beecroft took during Maderna’s lecture,
partially reproduced in Example 3.15 . The excerpt at (b) shows how
Maderna classified intervals, which loosely follows the categorization
proposed by Paul Hindemith.10 As Beecroft demonstrates in her notes,
Maderna assigned number values to the intervals, except the tritone, clas-
sifying them from most consonant (+3 for the perfect consonances) to least
consonant (–2 for minor second and major seventh).11 Beecroft noted the
cognitive rationale behind this ordering at the bottom: “Intervals are typed
in this order for psychological reasons (of tension + consonance).”
As we know from Maderna’s sketches for his own music, he had himself
made use of this interval classification while teaching it to his students,
including Luigi Nono.12 Like Maderna, Nono constructed, permuted, and
analyzed twelve-tone series with respect to “tension profiles,” meticulously
keeping track of the distribution of interval qualities within a series.13

Example 3.4
(Continued)
Although Beecroft does not specifically plot out interval tension profiles in
her sketches for Improvvisazioni, her notes from Maderna’s lecture and the
reference in the sketch of Example 3.14 (“increase of tension”) suggest that
she must have been thinking in terms of such profiles as she reordered
the dyads from P6+I6 in the high strings of Example 3.3.14 Example 3.16
lists the succession of dyads from the second violins of Example 3.3 and
visualizes the palindromic tension profile, using the number values from
Example 3.15b.15 As the graph at the bottom of Example 3.16 illustrates, the

Example 3.5
(Continued)
progression fluctuates between dyads of higher and lower degrees of dis-
sonance. For present purposes I have placed the otherwise nonclassifiable
tritone at the juncture between dissonant and consonant intervals (between
values –1 and +1), even though Beecroft (following Maderna) would probably
not have assigned a number value to the tritone (Example 3.15b).16
By way of an overview, Table 3.2 describes the form of Improvvisazioni, as
delineated by changes in texture and in the ways soloist and orchestra inter-
act, and summarizes the serial organization of the work. I have highlighted
all serial labels in the table to illustrate how the work is built primarily from
P6, isolated statements of its hexachords A and B (often internally reor-
dered), I6, and the combinations of P6+I1 and P6+I6. The prevalence of these
materials is what focuses the work around a handful of pitch-class constel-
lations: I1 shares the same (unordered) hexachords A and B with P6 and R6

Example 3.5
(Continued)
(Example 3.7). The discrete hexachords of I6 share five pitch classes with
hexachords A or B from P6 respectively (Example 3.13). As a result, the first
half of Example 3.13 expands hexachord A by one pitch class (E) to a chro-
matic heptachord, while the second half extends hexachord B by one pitch
class (A ♭) to an inversionally symmetrical (0234568) heptachord. In other
Example 3.5
(Continued)
words, these heptachords—t hrough their close affinity with hexachords A

and B—further contribute to the unity of the pitch structure. In practice,
Beecroft often slides subtly from hexachord to heptachord and vice versa,
as in the excerpt shown in Example 3.17 .17 A few further transpositions
of the series notwithstanding (I3, RI3, P8, Pt, P0, I7 ), whose hexachords share

Example 3.6
Row forms used in the work
Table 3.1 Invariants in Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1

1. Invariants between The ordered second hexachord B of the series is almost
hexachords (Exx. 3.7–8): a transposed inversion of the first hexachord A (Ex. 3.7a).
As a result, these ordered hexachords and those in the
inversion of the series starting at the upper fifth (Ex. 3.7b)
are almost identical: as per Ex. 3.8, the second hexachord
of I1 is a slightly reordered version of hexachord A from P6,
and the first hexachord of I1 is a slightly reordered version of
hexachord B from P6 (the middle dyads of these hexachords
are retrograded).
2. Invariants in a chain Series P6, RI3, I3, and R6 share the four invariants a {G♯, A,
of series (Exx. 3.9–11): C, C♯}, b {F, G}, c {D, E}, and d {B♭, B} (Ex. 3.9). Of these,
a (partly fragmented) and b are most prominently featured
in the opening solo line, in different registers (Ex. 3.10).
Beecroft overrides serial principles in m. 14 in order to add
one more (incomplete) statement of a and b. Compare
m. 14 in Ex. 3.11 (which shows the original series from
Beecroft’s sketch) with m. 14 in Ex. 3.10 (final version,
altered to feature another partial statement of invariant a
while preserving the melodic contour). The four invariants
are internally ordered the same in P6 and RI3, and ditto in
retrograde ordering in I3 and R6.
(continued)
Table 3.1 (Continued)
3. Near-preservation of From category 1 above it follows that the note-against-note

the order of dyads formed combination of P6 and I1 yields almost the same order of
between two series vertical dyads in both halves (the third and fourth dyads
(Ex. 3.12): occur in reverse order; Ex. 3.12a). This combination is used
in mm. 43–44 (muted trumpets and trombones at the end
of Ex. 3.3, continuation not shown). The same six dyads
arise, in a different order, in the combination of P0+I7
(Ex. 3.12b). Given the high degree of invariance here and the
fact that Beecroft further reorders these dyads, P6+I1 and
P0+I7 can be heard interchangeably (e.g., in mm. 43–57 and
at the end of the work, mm. 103–8).
4. Near-identical The first hexachords of P6 and I6 share five pitch classes,

hexachordal content in the thus adding up to a heptachord, and ditto for the second
series and its inversion hexachords. Pruning immediate repetition of dyads yields
starting on the same pitch the nine unisons/dyads numbered (compare with Exx. 3.2b
class (Ex. 3.13): and 3.14).
Example 3.7
P6 and I1
Example 3.8
Similarity between the discrete hexachords of P6 and I1
Example 3.9
Chain of P6, RI3, I3, and R6 and salient invariants
Example 3.10
Opening of solo flute part, mm. 1–16 (© 1973 by Norma Beecroft)
Example 3.11
Mm. 13–16 as they appear in Beecroft’s sketch, with serial analysis added
Example 3.12
(a) Note-against-note combination of P6+I1; (b) tritone transposition (P0+I7)
Example 3.13
Note-against-note combination of P6+I6
Example 3.14
Excerpt from a sketch for Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1 showing intervallic tension profile.
Reproduced by permission of Norma Beecroft.
Example 3.15
Excerpts from the notes Beecroft took during Bruno Maderna’s lecture. Reproduced by permis-
sion of Norma Beecroft.
(a)
(b)
Example 3.16
Fluctuating tension profile in the second violins of mm. 37–41
Table 3.2 Form and serial organization in Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1
(strong eruptions)
↓
mm. 19 mm. 37–44

Sections: mm. 1–18 (with pickup)–36 mm. 45–57
Musical characteristics: Flute solo against Three eruptions in the orchestra, each of Soft, shining, high string lines moving Extended solo flute passage
background which quiets down (mm.19–23, 24–28, in contrapuntal wedges, punctuated ranging from quiet to lively,
of soft, 29–36). Flute participates in the second by high vibraphone and glockenspiel accompanied by horn
sustained string and third of these. entries and distant, rumbling (initially), strings, and harp.
harmonics percussion (mm. 37–43). After a brief
and rumbling percussion crescendo the wedge
percussion. is imitated by muted trumpets and
trombones (mm.43–44).
Serial organization: Interlocking chain Mm. 19–23: combine dyads 1–4 from Mm. 37–42: dyads from P6+I6 wedge Mm. 45–51: flute slowly
of P6–RI3–I3–R6 P6+I6 with fragment of first four pitch reordered. Vibraphone and traverses P6, frequently
classes from P6, fragment of first glockenspiel play fragments from P6. repeating pitch-class
three pitch classes from Pt, and an Mm. 43–44: dyads 1–4 from P6+I1 wedge segments on the way. Horn,
incomplete statement of P6. (they continue into the following strings, and harp add dyads
Mm. 24–28: two interlocking statements passage). from P6+I1 (these dyads
of P6 with some pitch classes omitted intersect with the flute line).
(mm. 24–26), followed by improvisatory Mm. 52–57: flute and strings/
passage in the flute based on hexachord harp share dyads from P6+I6
A and then dyads 1–4 from P6+I6 (mm. (mm. 52–53), P6+I1 (mm.
27–28). Brass of mm. 27–28 repeat and 54–55), and again P6+I6 (m.
sustain pitch classes from before. 56 with pickup). Strings and
Mm. 29–36: several statements of the first harp share dyads from P6+I1
hexachords of P6 (hexachord A), P8, and in m. 57 (with pickup), ending
I6interlocked (mm.29–30), incomplete on a fermata. The flute line of
statement of P6(m. 31), mm. 52–57 maintains much
dyads from P6+I6 (in original order with of P6.
entry of F and B delayed, mm.32–36).
(strong eruptions) (final eruption, at end of section)
↓ ↓
mm. 58–64 mm. 65–85 mm. 86–102 mm. 103–8
After a fermata, the solo flute Brief, very violent tutti outburst (mm. 65–66), followed by two Quiet percussion texture with much Final cadenza of the solo flute,
takes the lead in a gradual, further outbursts (mm. 67–73) and a nervous buildup to resonance from the pitched flaring up and then quieting
improvisatory buildup to the another eruption that then quickly calms down (mm. 74–85). instruments (glockenspiel, vibraphone, down (mm. 103–4).
outburst of orchestral sound The solo flute participates in all of this. harp, timpani). Flute enters in m. 91 Woodblock attacks,
masses in m. 65. with mostly high and medium-range accelerating into tremolo and
sustained pitches and flourishes, while overlapping with the end of
the double basses (divisi) gradually this cadenza, lead into the
form a carpet of sustained harmonics. concluding measures of the
Over this double-bass chord with work (mm. 105–8). These
added bass drum roll and a few combine quietly resonating
vibraphone attacks, the flute performs percussion (triangle, tam-
a written-out cadenza (mm. 96–100) tam, cymbals, harp) with
that leads into a final eruption in the soft pointillist echoes in the
percussion (mm. 100–101), followed muted brass, over which
by an echo of sustained brass harmony the soloist performs high
(m. 102 with pickup). harmonics, concluding
with an upward leap to an
accented and fading B♭6.
Flute unfolds P6 and fragments The sound masses in mm. 65–66 superimpose hexachords Mm. 86–91 extract and reorder the discrete Flute cadenza starts out with
thereof, sometimes reordered. A and B. The following two outbursts both start with trichords from P6. Flute enters with hexachord B (continuing
Fragment of P8 (fifth toeighth hexachord B in the brass followed by hexachord A in the solo I6(mm. 91–94) and projects dyads 1 from previous hexachord A in
note) at end of m. 61. Starting flute and some of the other instruments (mm. 67–73). The and 2 from P6+I1 (mm. 94–95). Double- the brass), then uses dyads
in m. 59, the lower strings following buildup initially focuses on hexachord B (mm. 74ff). bass harmony is built from (reordered) from P6+I1 and fragments
outline hexachord A (P6) over which the flute and other instruments present P6 and hexachord B (mm. 92–100). from P6 and I6 (mm. 103–4).
which gradually enters in mm. selected dyads from P6+I6 (mm. 77–85). Flute cadenza in mm. 96–100 permutes Concluding four measures
59–62 and whose pitches hexachord A. Hexachord A is echoed in are built from the dyads
are sustained as tremoli and the brass of mm. 101–2. of P6+I1 or P0+I7 (both
harmonics into mm. 63–64. combinations form the same
Over this sustained harmony in dyads).
mm. 63–64, the flute permutes
hexachord B.
Example 3.17
Improvisatory elaboration of hexachord A and first heptachord of P6+I6, mm. 27–28 (© 1973
by Norma Beecroft)
fewer than five pitch classes with hexachords A or B, the overall focus on
the latter and on constellations closely resembling them (Table 3.2) centers
the work mainly on one twelve-tone “area.”18
Some thoughts on musical plot
It is tempting to hear the musical discourse of a solo concerto in terms of

a plot, and I would now like to contemplate this idea for Improvvisazioni
Concertanti No. 1. Given the numerous perspectives from which listen-
ers and analysts may approach a work such as this, I will not attempt one
single interpretative reading of Improvvisazioni here, but rather will review
the parameters that could inform a number of interpretations. In a con-
certo, an assigned plot would likely focus on the opposition of, and inter-
action between, soloist and orchestra (the individual vs. the masses), and
while I will consider this angle, I would like to broaden the notion of plot to
embrace possibilities that are not limited to metaphors of human behavior
(I give an example of this in point 5 below). The main hermeneutic diffi-
culty not only arises from the fact that music by itself is nonreferential, but
also derives from the problem that any attempt to assign signification to
music will invariably lead to contradictions. Yet, as I will demonstrate, for
Beecroft’s concerto, being alert to potential interpretative contradictions is
precisely what enriches our understanding of the music.
The opening of Improvvisazioni (Example 3.1), as pointed out earlier, is a
good example for the interpretative challenge: if we think of plot in terms
of characters, do orchestra and soloist form one “voice” at the beginning,
or is the soloist pitted against the orchestra, or are there perhaps more
than two parties involved (e.g., rumbling percussion and harp vs. solo
flute vs. string shimmers)? The flute line is sufficiently different from
the rest to be perceived as a separate entity, and yet we could just as well
hear the (generally softer) orchestra as a dimension of the persona of the

flute. In such a reading, a single character (flute plus orchestra) could
be understood as struggling with an inner conflict rather than as being
involved in an external one between individual and masses. Or perhaps
the entire texture should not be interpreted as being about conflict at all,
since, to me, even in places where sudden outbursts occur, they sound
fairly nonconfrontational (for example, in the orchestra at the end of m.
5, or in the flute in m. 6). And so, in the end, perhaps the opening of the
work is not about human character altogether, but about movement of a
more abstract kind.
The work’s title, the concertante genre it references, Beecroft’s sketches,
and her few published commentaries on this composition do not give many
clues to dramatic intent, and they give no indication at all of possible pro-
grammatic content.19 This does not mean, of course, that there is none. In
fact, some of the biographical information mentioned earlier could stimu-
late a programmatic interpretation, as I suggest in point 6 below. But my
question is a broader one, namely, what the work could mean to differ-
ent listeners independent of, and perhaps despite, the composer’s specific
intent. Answers to this question will depend heavily on factors such as the
background, experience, interest, and mood of the listener, the particular
insights of the analyst, the musical decisions of the performers, and so
forth. Below I present a few thoughts on what could inform interpretative
readings of Improvvisazioni.
1. Character and identity of the solo flute part

One notable difference in the treatment of the solo instrument compared
to that of the orchestra, for the most part, is the jaggedness of the flute
lines. The flute generally moves in larger leaps, spanning a wide tessitura
over often several octaves. By contrast, the instruments of the orchestra
generally move with fewer skips and within smaller ranges (save for pas-
sages with incisive gestures, such as in mm. 19–23 of Example 3.2 or m.
65 of Example 3.4). The profile of the flute thus clearly distinguishes the
soloist (individual) from the rest (masses). This distinction is particularly
strong in places where the orchestra remains static while the flute rules
the foreground (the opening in Example 3.1, the cadenza in Example 3.4,
and even the buildup of Example 3.5). While this differentiation readily
supports a reading of the concerto as nurturing an opposition of solo and
orchestra, the leaps in the flute could also be understood less in terms of
(confrontational) contrast than in terms of instrumental balance: leaps
provide the flute with acoustical strength that it may not otherwise have.
Against the trombone choir in m. 24 of Example 3.2, for instance, the

flute would be far less audible were it to play all of its pitches in a narrow
range, say, between A4 and D5. The same would be true for Example
3.5. In these and similar places, one could thus understand the flute as
moving on a par with, not in contrast to, the orchestra. I will come back
to this in points 4 and 5.
2. Character and identity of individual

orchestr al instruments
Aside from textures that bind orchestral instruments into a more or less
homogenous blend (e.g., the high strings in Examples 3.1 and 3.3, the brass
in Example 3.2, and the entire orchestra in m. 65 of Example 3.4), individual
instruments of the orchestra occasionally take on solo roles as well. Although
this happens infrequently, such solos in the orchestra nevertheless suggest
the presence of further “individuals,” perhaps in the manner of “third parties”
(e.g., the solo trumpet in dialogue with the solo flute in mm. 34–35 and the
dialogue with the vibraphone in mm. 97–99 over a sustained string chord,
not shown here). The presence of multiple solo instruments is of course a cen-
tral element in the concertante genre. Beecroft wrote two more Improvvisazioni
Concertanti, No. 2 in 1971 and No. 3 in 1973. In No. 2, “leading players of the
orchestra are often treated as soloists, performing in chamber ensembles
such as a string quartet or woodwind quintet.”20 No. 3 also features solos.
3. Who are the protagonists, and how do

they inter act? (External conflict)
In a number of passages, two of which appear in Examples 3.4 and 3.5, the
solo flute and orchestra could be heard as being embroiled in a conflict in
which the flute eventually gets drowned out by the sound masses of the
orchestra. These passages are located in the second half of the work (see Table
3.2, between the second and third arrows). The last of them (leading up to
mm. 100–101, not shown) precedes the final cadenza, in the course of which
the soloist bursts out a few more times before calming down and striking a
conciliatory tone into the quiet final four measures of the work, shared with
soft percussion and brass. A possible reading of this process is summarized
in Table 3.2: soloist and orchestra peacefully stand side by side at the open-
ing of the work (mm. 1–18). The orchestra provokes the flute with three short
eruptions (mm. 19–36), the second and third of which generate immediate
and agitated responses from the soloist. After a mostly quiet orchestra passage

(mm. 37–44), flute, strings, and harp engage in a friendly dialogue that ends
on a fermata (mm. 45–57). Suddenly agitated, now about halfway through
the piece, the flute initiates a nervous and accelerating buildup, triggering fp
accents in the strings (held pitches, mostly tremolo) and prompting a most
forceful response from the orchestra with the tutti clashes in mm. 65–66.
This is followed by three more outbursts (in mm. 67ff. and 70ff., and leading
into mm. 81–82) in which flute and orchestra seem to be struggling side by
side, eventually collapsing in mm. 82–85. A quiet, peaceful section ensues
(mm. 86–96), leading into the cadenza of mm. 97–100; this culminates in
an intense crescendo, provoking one last violent response from the orchestra
(mm. 100–101), and is followed by the final cadenza and conclusion of the
work as described earlier. In sum, an interpretative reading such as this high-
lights the conflict between two main protagonists—with perhaps the addition
of a few more agents along the way—and its eventual resolution.
4. A single protagonist? (Inner conflict)

Although listeners are likely to think of the soloist and the orchestra as two
different characters, especially when they see a performance, Improvvisazioni
could also be heard as embodying a single persona, as I suggested for the
opening of the work earlier. Such a reading could relocate the external con-
flict described under point 3 inside a single identity (merging flute and
orchestra) in a type of monodrama that shows the inner emotional states
and struggles of a single being, perhaps along the lines of Schoenberg’s
Erwartung. Such inner struggles may imply the presence of a (perhaps hos-
tile) outside world—itself, however, not represented in the music itself.
5. No conflict
Another hearing, whether conceiving of flute and orchestra as one or sev-
eral bodies, might reject the idea of conflict in Improvvisazioni altogether. In
such a hearing, the orchestral sound masses that burst onto the scene would
not feel confrontational, nor would the many “agitated” flute gestures. To
some listeners—I am among them—Beecroft’s gestures come across not as
aggressive but as beautifully and nonconfrontationally vibrant, in a discourse
that vividly explores instrumental timbres, contrasts (but not conflicts) in
harmony and register, and so forth. The overall “plot” that I hear is one of
gradual intensification, in terms of sequence of ideas as well as of richness
in combination. The beginning conveys a sense of open space (through wide
registral gaps and a slow pace; Example 3.1) that is then filled in and thinned

out again, with the flute eventually reaching a degree of density that could
hardly be surpassed (Example 3.4). This is followed until m. 85 by a breath-
less sequence of events (including those shown inExample 3.5) combining
many of the kinds of gestures and colors heard earlier. The remainder of
the movement (from m. 86 on) reenacts this overall discourse, compressed
into a shorter timespan, progressing from open space and slow motion to
rapid intensification, culminating in m. 100 and the following final cadenza,
before completely calming down in the final measures.21
6. Biographical dimension
Further interpretative angles could consider the biographical dimensions
of Improvvisazioni. The work features Beecroft’s own instrument, the flute,
in the solo part. With this in mind, we could hear the solo instrument as
representing the composer conversing, dialoguing, struggling, or however
we hear it, with the orchestra. Or we could experience the orchestra as an
extension of the soloist, as suggested before, and thus as a dimension of
the composer herself in the “plot,” whatever it may be. At the time Beecroft
composed the work, she was studying with Severino Gazzelloni, whose
unparalleled virtuosity had inspired many composers in Darmstadt and
elsewhere to write solo pieces or works featuring solo flute for him.22 As she
mentions in the 1982 interview, Improvvisazioni “was written essentially for
Gazzelloni because I was so fascinated with the incredible things that he
could do on the flute.”23 We could thus hear the solo instrument represent-
ing Gazzelloni and weigh possible interpretations accordingly, perhaps in
conjunction with points 3, 4, and 5 above.And there is a third figure that
belongs in the biography of the work and that could inform a reading of it:
Beecroft’s composition teacher in Rome, Goffredo Petrassi, to whom the
work is dedicated.
7. Serial construction
Details of serial construction could provide further clues for interpreta-
tive readings of the work. We may, for instance, wonder about the serial
relationships between protagonists. Do they pit different serial materials
against each other or are their parts integrated on the serial-structural (as
opposed to the gestural) level? This question, as the analysis has shown,
has a clear answer: soloist and orchestra are for the most part intricately
intertwined in terms of serial structure. For example, serially speaking,
the opening of the work develops from one, not several, “lines.” It is almost

always a single row that unfolds at any given time; soloist and orchestra
select their pitches from the same row but only rarely state it individually
in a complete form.24 And this is by and large true for most of the work,
including where Beecroft pairs two rows. As naïve as such a reading may
be, the serial structure of the work might thus metaphorically suggest a
nonconfrontational relationship between solo and orchestra. Or else, we
might argue, what may sound confrontational on the surface (in terms of
musical gesture) is mediated on the serial level.
Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1 in the context

of the Darmstadt avant-garde and Eco’s The Open Work
As noted at the beginning of this essay, Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1,

together with Tre Pezzi Brevi, written the previous year, stands at the begin-
ning of a group of Beecroft’s works that intersects with the latest developments
in the European musical avant-garde. These works combine her sensibility
for instrumental color—inspired particularly by Debussy, whose music has
had an enduring impact on Beecroft ever since she first encountered it as a
child—with some of the new serial and formal principles championed by the
Darmstadt School. In Tre Pezzi Brevi, Beecroft worked out her own version
of the type of serial permutation technique invented by Maderna, although
she did not make use of it in Improvvisazioni.25 She also applied a variant of
Maderna’s technique in her next work, Contrasts, for six performers, which
was premiered in Palermo in 1962 and conducted by Maderna at Darmstadt
in 1963. The nonteleological “moment form” of the latter work was strongly
influenced by the music of Stockhausen, whose Kontakte for piano, percus-
sion, and tape had left such a deep impression on Beecroft when she first
heard the work in Darmstadt in 1961. Neither Improvvisazioni nor Tre Pezzi
Brevi and Contrasts make use of aleatory composition, an approach then
appearing more and more frequently in the works of certain other Darmstadt
composers, but Beecroft would eventually incorporate such strategies in her
own music (Rasas from 1968 and Improvvisazioni Concertanti Nos. 2 and 3
feature aleatory techniques, for instance).26
In 1959, the year Beecroft arrived in Italy, the journal on contemporary
music founded and edited by Luciano Berio, Incontri musicali, published a
number of essays that focused on the concept of the “open work.” The issue
included the seminal essay on the open work, or “work in movement,” by
Umberto Eco. In his article, Eco, inspired by the latest developments in
contemporary music of the time, explains the extent to which works of art
and literature are open and shows how these possibilities had been radically

expanded by the inclusion of aleatory technique in recent compositions by
Berio, Boulez, Stockhausen, and Pousseur.27 Eco observes that works of
art certainly can be, and have been, open without the use of aleatory tech-
niques as well, and he enumerates a number of features that contribute to
a work’s openness even where its text is fully written out.
In a nutshell, according to Eco openness arises from ambiguities some-
where in the making or understanding of a work. These occur, for instance,
when a work breaks with a particular convention, such as was the case with
the new musical forms developed by contemporary composers who did away
with traditional forms. In Darmstadt this interest in new approaches to
form was nurtured by extended discussions and analyses of Debussy’s and
other composers’ compositions. Debussy’s music and that of Webern were
seen as the harbingers of a new way of thinking about form. To mention
just two authors, Stockhausen, in a talk in 1954, recognized precursors of
his “statistische Form” in Debussy’s Jeux, and Boulez spoke of “une forme
en perpétuel renouvellement” in the same work.28 What Boulez meant was
that in Debussy the musical material undergoes constant development and
transformation, and that a work’s form resulted from the particular path
of that transformation, rather than from the material’s being subordinated
to a well-known form type. This represented a preference shared by many
composers at the time—form as process as opposed to form following a
fixed model—and Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni fully subscribes to this proce-
dure of creating new forms. As we have seen, her work avoids symmetrical
phrase structures, new gestures grow fluidly from earlier ones, pitch mate-
rials constantly expand upon earlier (serial) material, and so forth, without
recourse to recurring “themes” and recapitulations.29
As Eco explains, openness results from “an act of improvised creation”
when the form of a piece is chosen during performance.30 Obviously, any-
thing that sounds as if it were the result of improvisation—whether lit-
erally improvised or performed from a written-out score—w ill give the
impression of an open work, because it creates the feeling that the “impro-
visation” could in fact have led down a different path, requiring a differ-
ent continuation than the one actually heard. And here again, Beecroft’s
Improvvisazioni, with its fully written- out “improvisations,” takes full
advantage of such suggestive possibilities. Through flexible and intricate
use of serial techniques, distancing from traditional forms, constantly
metamorphosing timbres, incorporation of a wide variety of instrumen-
tal techniques (particularly in the solo part), and lively improvisatory dis-
course, the work situates itself firmly in the avant-garde of its time. By
synthesizing in this way the latest developments in the guise of a concerto
for her own instrument, Beecroft delivered a most personal response to
current trends in contemporary music.

Notes
1. I would like to thank Friedemann Sallis, Department of Music, University of

Calgary, for drawing my attention to the sketches held in the Norma Beecroft Fonds of
the University of Calgary Library, Special Collections. It was Professor Sallis who first
observed in Beecroft’s sketches that she used techniques similar to those I had been
studying in the music of Bruno Maderna. I would like to thank Archives & Special
Collections, Libraries and Cultural Resources, University of Calgary, and especially librar-
ian Apollonia Steele, for granting me access to Beecroft’s sketches and for their support
during my stay at the archives and beyond. I am also grateful to the Archivio Luigi Nono
in Venice and the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel for the opportunity to study the manu-
scripts of Luigi Nono and Bruno Maderna. Archival research for this project was sup-
ported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Finally, I wish to extend a warm thank you to the composer, Dr. Norma Beecroft, for her
permission to reproduce the score excerpts, as well as facsimiles and information from
her sketches, in this essay.
The score of Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1 was originally published by Leeds Music
(Canada) and is now distributed by the Canadian Music Centre. A commercial recording
is available on Canadian Composers Portraits: Norma Beecroft, with Nicholas Fiore (flute)
and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra,conducted by Victor Feldbrill, Centrediscs CD-
CMCCD 9303, 2003, compact disc. This is a remastering of the original LP recording
released in 1972 (Audat 477–4001). I wish to thank Robert Aitken for confirming the
name of the soloist, not listed on either record jacket.
2. Chance and indeterminacy constitute distinct aleatory compositional fea-
tures: chance involves the use of chance operations somewhere in the compositional
process, such as when a composer throws the dice to choose a musical object or attribute
from a list of options, with that choice then being fully notated in the score. Compositions
involving indeterminacy leave certain elements open, such as when a performer is
required to improvise on a given material or when the type of sound production is only
vaguely (or not at all) defined in the score.
3. Umberto Eco, “The Poetics of the Open Work,” in The Open Work, trans. Anna
Cancogni, introd. David Robey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 1–23.
The article was originally published under the title “L’opera in movimento e la coscienza
dell’epoca,”Incontri Musicali 3 (1959): 32–54.
4. Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen did not publish any “concerti” in the
1950s, for instance. Between 1951 and 1958 Luigi Nono composed only two works fea-
turing soloist and ensemble (Epitaffio per Federico García Lorca N. 2 [1952] and Varianti
[1957]), Bruno Maderna one (Flute Concerto [1954]), and Luciano Berio two (Serenata
I[1957] and Tempi concertati [1958–59]) before the onset of a new stream of concerti in
Maderna’s œuvre and a long series of works featuring solo instruments and ensemble
in Berio’s music.
5. André Hodeir, “Die simulierte Improvisation: Ihre Entstehung—Ihr Einfluß im Bereich
des Jazz,” in Jazz Op. 3: Die heimliche Liebe des Jazz zur europäischen Moderne, ed. Ingrid Karl
(Vienna: Löcker Verlag, 1986), 97. See also Wolfram Knauer, “‘Simulated Improvisation’
in Duke Ellington’s ‘Black, Brown and Beige,’”Black Perspective in Music 18, no. 1–2 (1990):
20–38.
6. I am borrowing the terms “license” (“license granted by improvisation”) and
“improvisation of form” from Joseph Kerman, Concerto Conversations (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1999), 72 and 79.

7. The work is scored for a reduced orchestra of two horns, two trumpets, three trom-
bones, timpani, percussion (bass drum, snare drum, cymbals, tam-tam, triangle, wood
block, glockenspiel, and vibraphone), harp, and strings. Aside from the solo flute, no
other woodwinds are used. For ease of orientation, I show the solo flute part in larger
print in the examples from the full score. (The published edition, which reproduces
Beecroft’s handwritten score, shows all parts in the same size.) In my analysis, unor-
dered sets are shown in braces (curly brackets), prime forms and normal orders of sets in
parentheses. Pitch-class successions of series are shown with letter names on the scores;
omitted pitch classes are indicated in square brackets.
8. I borrow the expression “spur-of-the-moment inspiration” from Kerman, Concerto
Conversations, 80.
9. In this reading, the tritone would be considered less dissonant than the major ninth
(see also the discussion of Example 3.16 below). In the last three dyads of Example 3.14,
the larger intervals are less dissonant than the smaller one.
10. Maderna apparently deviated from Hindemith in that he paired the major third
with the major (rather than the minor) sixth, and the minor third with the minor
(rather than major) sixth. Compare Example 3.15b with Hindemith’s “series 2” in Paul
Hindemith, The Craft of Musical Composition, trans. Arthur Mendel (New York: Schott,
1970), 85. Maderna’s interval classification mixes the theories of Hindemith and Gioseffo
Zarlino, who in the third part of Le istitutioni harmoniche divides the imperfect conso-
nances into two groups, the major third and major sixth on the one hand, and the minor
third and minor sixth on the other. See Gioseffo Zarlino, Le istitutioni harmoniche (Venice,
1558), 155–56. I am indebted to Peter Schubert for pointing me to this passage.
11. The staff notation of the fourth and fifth groups (minor second/major seventh
and major second/minor seventh) should switch places, as Beecroft indicates by small
arrows. The number values that Maderna assigned to the intervals, and hence the group-
ing together of minor third and minor sixth, etc., are confirmed by his own prepara-
tory notes for the Dartington lecture (July 31, 1960) preserved in the Collection Bruno
Maderna of the Paul Sacher Foundation.
12. Veniero Rizzardi, “La ‘nuova scuola veneziana,’ 1948–1951,” in Le musiche degli anni
cinquanta (Archivio Luigi Nono, Studi II, 2003), ed. Gianmario Borio, Giovanni Morelli,
and Veniero Rizzardi (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2004), 6–9.
13. I borrow the term “tension profile” from Jeannie Ma. Guerrero, “The Presence of
Hindemith in Nono’s Sketches: A New Context for Nono’s Music,” Journal of Musicology
26, no. 4 (2010): 492.
14. Beecroft must already have been familiar with Hindemith’s theories from her
studies with John Weinzweig, who encouraged his students to read The Craft of Musical
Composition. See Robert Aitken, “How to Play Weinzweig,” in Weinzweig: Essays on His
Life and Music, ed. John Beckwith and Brian Cherney (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier
University Press, 2011), 355.
15. The first violins in Example 3.3 imitate this succession in a truncated version
that omits some dyads. The layers in the second and first violins form palindromes in
themselves.
16. Distinct note-against-note combinations with clear tension profiles such as in
Example 3.16 appear twice more in the work, in mm. 43–44 of Example 3.3 (muted brass)
and in mm. 34–35 (not shown).
17. The two distinct heptachords of P6+I6 (Example 3.13, first and second half respec-
tively) have maximally different pitch-class content, sharing the minimum number of
pitch classes any two heptachords will have in common (two), thus still maintaining a
sense of complementarity.

18. I am borrowing the term “area” from David Lewin, who in his analysis of Schoenberg’s
Fantasy Op. 47 called distinct transpositions of the (unordered) discrete hexachords of the
twelve-tone series “areas.” See David Lewin, “A Study of Hexachord Levels in Schoenberg’s
Violin Fantasy,” in Perspectives on Schoenberg and Stravinsky, ed. Benjamin Boretz and
Edward T. Cone (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968), 78–92.
19. Beecroft briefly speaks about the work in a 1982 interview with Karen Kieser
(“Interview with Norma Beecroft,” in Anthology of Canadian Music: Norma Beecroft
[Radio Canada International, 1982]) and a 2003 interview with Eitan Cornfield (Canadian
Composers Portraits: Norma Beecroft, Centrediscs CD-CMCCD 9303, 2003, compact disc).
The liner notes for the LP of the first recording of Improvvisazioni state: “The flute solo
demands much from the performer who plays almost without interruption and conveys
the spirit of the improvisation, against a background of sustained orchestral passages”
(see n. 1).
20. CD booklet notes (no author given) based on information provided by the com-
poser (Ovation, vol. 3, Canada Music [CBC Records PSCD 2028-5, 2003, compact disc]).
21. With respect to recent work in musical narrative, the potential plots that I have
drafted here suggest that Improvvisazioni does fulfill the conditions for a musical narra-
tive as set out by Byron Almén, who “understand[s] narrative as articulating the dynamics
and possible outcomes of conflict or interaction between elements, rendering meaning-
ful the temporal succession of events, and coordinating these events into an interpretive
whole.” A Theory of Musical Narrative (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 13.
Following the lead of Douglass Seaton in his review of this book, I prefer “plot” to “narra-
tive” in my readings of Beecroft’s concerto sketched out here. Seaton’s review appears in
Journal of Musicological Research 30 (2011): 72–76.
22. To mention just a few, Nono’s Epitaffio per Federico García Lorca N. 2 (1952) fea-
turing solo flute, Maderna’s Flute Concerto (1954), Berio’s Serenata I (1957), Sequenza I
(1958), and Tempi concertati (1958–59) were all written for and premiered by Gazzelloni.
23. Kieser, “Interview with Norma Beecroft.”
24. An early “exception” is RI3, fully stated by the solo flute in mm. 5–7. Also, P6 is
echoed here in the orchestra while the soloist has already moved on beyond this row.
25. For introductions to Maderna’s permutation techniques, see Markus Fein, Die
musikalische Poetik Bruno Madernas: Zum “seriellen” Komponieren zwischen 1951 und 1955
(Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2001); Gianmario Borio, “Tempo e ritmo nelle compo-
sizioni seriali, 1952–1956,” in Le musiche degli anni cinquanta (Archivio Luigi Nono, Studi
II, 2003), ed. Gianmario Borio, Giovanni Morelli, and Veniero Rizzardi (Florence: Leo S.
Olschki, 2004), 61–115; Rizzardi, “La ‘nuova scuola veneziana,’ 1948–1951”; and Christoph
Neidhöfer, “Bruno Maderna’s Serial Arrays,”Music Theory Online 13, no. 1 (2007), http://
www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.07.13.1/mto.07.13.1.neidhofer.html.
26. “Norma Beecroft,” The CanadianEncyclopedia; Cornfield, Norma Beecroft.
27. Eco, “L’opera in movimento e la coscienza dell’epoca,”Incontri musicali 3 (1959):
32–54. Eco’s notion of indeterminacy in music is quite narrow at this point; he does not
discuss Cage and the much broader implications of this concept in his music. This issue
of Incontri musicali also featured Italian translations of Boulez’s article “Alea” and
an article by Heinz-Klaus Metzger on Cage, as well as the first publication of Cage’s
“Lecture on Nothing” (in English), in addition to articles by Nicolas Ruwet, Henri
Pousseur, André Souris, Berio, Niccolò Castiglioni, and Alfredo Lietti on serialism,
form, timbre in Debussy, text and music, and aleatory phenomena in electronic music.
28. Stockhausen, “Von Webern zu Debussy: Bemerkungen zur statistischen Form,”
in Texte zur elektronischen und instrumentalen Musik, ed. Dieter Schnebel (Cologne:
DuMont, 1963), 75–85. Pierre Boulez, “Debussy: Jeux (poème de danse),” Gravesaner

Blätter 2–3 (1956): 4–5. For an in-depth discussion of the reception of Debussy’s music
in Darmstadt, see Gianmario Borio, “La réception de l’œuvre de Debussy par les
compositeurs sériels: discours analytique et construction collective d’une image du
passé,” in L’analyse musicale: une pratique et son histoire, ed. Rémy Campos and Nicolas
Donin (Geneva: Droz, HEM—Conservatoire supérieur de Musique de Genève, 2009),
197–222.
29. In a later essay titled “Series and Structure,” originally published in 1968, Eco,
following Boulez, considers serial technique to lead to inherently open structures: “Serial
thought aims at the production of a structure that is at once open and polyvalent. …”
Eco, “Series and Structure,” in The Open Work, 217–35, at 218.
30. Eco, “The Poetics of the Open Work,” 1.

4
Joan Tower, Silver Ladders (1986)
Joan Tower is one of the most successful and highly regarded American
composers of our time. Born in New Rochelle, New York in 1938, her fam-
ily moved to La Paz, Bolivia, when she was nine. There her immersion in
the vibrant music and dance rhythms of Bolivia profoundly influenced the
rhythmic language of her later music.i After returning to the United States
in 1954, Tower enrolled at Bennington College in Vermont, initially studying
physics and later taking music courses with the composer Henry Brant,
who inspired in her a revelatory interest in composition.ii
After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in music in 1961, Tower moved
to New York, where the twelve-tone composers Milton Babbitt, Charles
Wuorinen, and Mario Davidovsky became important mentors for her. She
enrolled in the master’s composition program at Columbia University and
studied with Otto Luening, Benjamin Boretz, Chou Wen-chung, and Ralph
Shapey. In 1969 Tower founded the Da Capo Chamber Players, a contempo-
rary music chamber group with herself as pianist, whose contributions to
new music were recognized in 1973 by the esteemed Walter W. Naumburg
Chamber Music Award; she remained with the group for 15 years.
Tower began teaching at Bard College in 1972. By the mid-1970s she
was becoming disenchanted with what she perceived as the limitations of
serialism and its lack of connection with most contemporary audiences.
Beginning with Breakfast Rhythms II in 1975, Tower began to devise her own
pitch systems “in which every pitch had a unique identity and a ranked
order of importance in relation to all other pitches”—a principle that led
i. Biographical information about the composer is drawn from Ellen K. Grolman, Joan
Tower: The Comprehensive Bio-Bibliography (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2007).
ii. She later asserted that physics “fascinated me from the point of view of studying action and
reaction phenomena in nature—something I have explored in music all my life.” Joan Tower, as
cited in Grolman, Joan Tower, 15.
67
her back toward tonality.iii She also became dissatisfied with the arcane
“rhythmic acrobatics” of much contemporary music, returning instead to
the compelling rhythmic vitality of Latin dance music:
Achieving an identity in music depends on risks. If you don’t take

any risks, your particular compositional talents never shine through.
Creating high-energy music is one of my special talents; I like to see
just how high I can push a work’s energy level without making it cha-
otic or incoherent.iv
In 1978 Tower completed her doctorate in composition and returned to

Bard College, where she is currently Asher Edelman Professor of Music.
She was composer-in-residence for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra from
1985 to 1987, during which time she composed the powerful Silver Ladders,
a work that earned her the 1988 Kennedy Center Friedheim Prize and the
Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition two years later—the first time
this prestigious prize was awarded to a woman. She has also received fel-
lowships and grants from the Koussevitsky, Fromm, and other major foun-
dations. In 2007, her orchestral piece Made in America (2004) won the
Grammy for Best Classical Contemporary Composition.v
“Octatonicism,” the Octatonic Scale, and Large-Scale

Structure in Joan Tower’s Silver Ladders
Jonathan W. Bernard
It would be hard to imagine a less ambiguous announcement, musically

speaking, of the significance of the octatonic scale to a work than the open-
ing of Joan Tower’s Silver Ladders (1986), the piece that, together with her
earlier Sequoia (1981), secured her reputation as an orchestral composer of
great brilliance, and that won her the Grawemeyer Award in 1990. The ris-
ing progression <C, D, E ♭, F, G ♭, A ♭, A, B, (C)>, its first three notes played
iii. Ibid., 27. For an analytical discussion of Breakfast Rhythms II, see Judy Lochhead, “Joan
Tower’s Wings and Breakfast Rhythms I and II: Some Thoughts on Form and Repetition,”
Perspectives of New Music 30, no. 1 (Winter 1992): 132–56. This landmark article was the first
full-length, English-language analytical study of music by a female composer to appear in a
peer-reviewed music theory journal.
iv. Tower, as cited in Grolman, Joan Tower, 28.
v. The album on which it was recorded won two additional Grammys, for Best Classical Album
and Best Orchestral Performance.

Example 4.1
Joan Tower, Silver Ladders, opening octatonic scale, mm. 12–24 (brass and low woodwinds only)
(Continued)
by the percussion alone in the first 11 measures, gets properly under way
in m. 12 with most of the rest of the orchestra entering full force, in a new
beginning on C. By m. 21 the entire scale, projected by way of staggered
entries, is complete up to B; the octave of the initial C arrives at the fermata
three measures later (see Example 4.1) .1
And as even the most cursory of hearings will bear out, the promise
embodied in this dramatic gesture is delivered on as Tower’s work opens
up before us: octatonic structures of various types seem to be everywhere.
Prominent among these structures are, specifically, scales, as readers of
the prefatory note to the score of Silver Ladders will already have been led
to expect: “The first section is based on upward-moving scales (the ladder)
formed largely of whole and half steps.”2 It is in the nature of such prefa-
tory notes to simplify, of course, and also to avoid technical language where
possible; however, the statement does at least suggest a plausible analytical
approach to the work. First, one may infer that the upward-moving scales
are not unrelievedly octatonic, even if the phrase “whole and half steps” is
taken to mean regularly alternating whole and half steps, since the scales
Joan Tower, Silver Ladders (1986) 69

Example 4.1
(Continued)
are only “formed largely” of such intervallic progressions. Nevertheless,

they are so formed to a sufficient extent to suggest that the octatonic form
of the scale comes to be heard throughout the work as the referential norm.
Second, one may further conjecture that the contents of such scales can

also be taken as collections, to be deployed, perhaps, in lines that are not
entirely or not at all scalar, or as harmony (chords)—in short, that the octa-
tonic collection, or sc(0134679T), serves as a kind of master set class for the
first section of Silver Ladders (ending around m. 365), if not for the rest of
the work as well.
Before getting down to actual analysis, however, where some hypotheses
about Tower’s use of the octatonic in Silver Ladders will be developed and
tested, a few preliminary matters need to be addressed. Octatonic struc-
ture, or “octatonicism,” has by now quite an extensive history in Western
art music and in the secondary theoretical and analytical literature that
has accumulated in response to that history. Whether it was the French,
the Russians, or someone else who came up with the octatonic scale some-
time during the latter half of the nineteenth century (or perhaps even ear-
lier than that), or whether, as seems more likely, the idea arose more or
less simultaneously in different geographical locations, its importance to
the composition and analysis of music written since the early twentieth
century is by now well established. Except in the most limited of situa-
tions, however, it must have been clear to composers from the time the
octatonic first came into use that it can hardly stand as the exclusive source
from which a composer’s pitch material would be drawn; in this respect
it resembles the whole-tone scale, the limitations of which spring from its
symmetrical properties. And like the whole-tone scale in, for instance, the
music of Debussy, the octatonic seems deployed to best advantage in com-
bination with other materials.
Ideas of this sort readily made their way into the modern analytical lit-
erature, as for instance in the article by Arthur Berger that opened a major
path to the study of Stravinsky’s music by exploring ways in which the
octatonic might interact, or at least be juxtaposed, with diatonic or tonally
based materials.3 Similarly, the octatonic has turned out to be of notable
significance in the music of composers as diverse as Bartók, Messiaen,
Scriabin, Shostakovich, Dallapiccola, and Takemitsu—usually, however, as
but one mode of pitch organization among at least several and sometimes
quite numerous possibilities.4
Although Tower’s music has not yet attracted sufficient attention from
analysts to permit comparably general statements about it,5 on the evi-
dence of her procedures involving scales of “whole and half steps” in Silver
Ladders it does appear that she has arrived at an octatonic strategy quite
markedly different from anything in the music of her twentieth-century
predecessors. Under this strategy—perhaps more accurately called a clus-
ter of strategies—the sound of the whole step/half step can remain insis-
tently present for long periods of time without seeming to require relief in
the form of diatonic or any other differently configured material.

In the excerpt from Silver Ladders beginning at m. 151 and ending at
m. 365, during which scalar motion is featured to the effective exclusion of
any other kind of texture, we find the octatonic employed in six basic ways.
Category 1. Single scales are the simplest form of presentation. Such

scales almost always begin with the whole step (organized, that is,
according to van den Toorn’s Model B, a 2-1-2-1 tetrachord)6, as in
Example 4.1 above.7
Category 2. Slightly more intricate are scales that are doubled at
the minor third or major sixth (or minor tenth, etc.), resulting in
composite formations in which all parts belong to the same octatonic
collection at the same time (Example 4.2) . Where the parts shift to
a new collection, they do so together, as in this example from T1 (mm.
177–78) to T0 (mm. 179–81).
Example 4.2
Strings, mm. 177–81: Category 2 (doubling at minor third/major sixth)
Category 3. Next in order of intricacy are scales that are doubled at

the major third (or minor sixth, or compounds of these intervals),
resulting in composite formations in which each line belongs to a
different octatonic collection. In Example 4.3, the viola and the cello’s
higher notes are members of T0; the bass and cello’s lower notes are
members of T1 .
Example 4.3
Strings, mm. 61–64: Category 3 (doubling at major third/minor sixth)

Category 4. Probably the most involved of all are offshoots of Categories 2
and 3 (referred to henceforth, respectively, as “2-variant”and “3-variant”),
in which the formations are doubled, resulting in composites of four lines,
now with two or even all three octatonic collections represented. One
possible 2-variant is shown in Example 4.4a . Here, the first and second
trumpets in parallel minor thirds project T0, while the horns and third
trumpet, also in parallel minor thirds, project T1. Notated as pitch intervals,
the composite of parallel intervals forms the stack 3-5-3, or two sets of
minor thirds separated by a perfect fourth, which could be thought of,
informally, as “parallel major-minor triads in first inversion.” Example 4.4b
illustrates a 3-variant in which the interval stack 6-4-4 is formed, with the
two scales separated by a tritone belonging to one collection (cello and
viola: T2), and the two others at successive major-third distances belonging
to the other two collections (second violin, T0; first violin, T1).
Example 4.4a
Brass, mm. 246–47: Category 4 (2-variant)
Example 4.4b
Strings, mm. 289–90: Category 4 (3-variant)
Category 5. Within a scalar segment (usually repeated several times)

of four or five notes, two pitch changes are introduced, producing the

basis for continuation of scalar motion in a different octatonic collection
(Example 4.5) . In this example, the segment <F♯, G♯, A, B, C> is
repeated for two measures (mm. 121–22, the tail end of an unbroken series
of repetitions of this segment that began in m. 185); then, in m. 123, B falls
to B♭ and G♯ falls to G♮, shifting the octatonic collection from T0 to T1.8
Example 4.5
Scalar parts only, mm. 221–26: Category 5
Category 6. The last type of octatonic usage enumerated here involves

shifts to or from the fully chromatic collection. These shifts are sometimes
accomplished gradually, in which case they resemble the repeating-
segment technique of Category 5 (Example 4.6) . In this example, the
transition is indeed gradual: the fully chromatic scalar segment (<G♯, A, A♯,
B, C>) persists through m. 315; at m. 316 a whole-tone gap opens up, as the
G♯ falls to G♮; at m. 320 the A falls to G♯; at m. 323 the G and the A♯ fall to F♯
and A♮ respectively, bringing the scalar segment into conformance with T0.9

Example 4.6
Full score, mm. 305–26: Category 6
(Continued)
To summarize: among these scalar usages, the first and second catego-

ries are confined to a single collection; the third and fourth combine two
or three collections in simultaneous projection; and the fifth and sixth pro-
vide ways of “mutating” a given octatonic collection, either into another
octatonic collection or into one that is non-octatonic.
The usages of Categories 1 and 2 are certainly straightforward enough;
the mechanism of mutation from one octatonic collection to another in
Category 5 equally so. The shift between octatonic and chromatic in
Category 6 dilutes the octatonic content, but not by very much: we have
already been led to expect that other scales will occasionally appear, and
the inference drawn above—t hat octatonic forms dominate as the norm—
remains intact. However, Categories 3 and 4 compel one to ask: just what
is the meaning of “octatonic” in this piece? The customary definition of an
octatonic structure requires the pitch classes that it contains (with relatively
rare exceptions) to belong to a single octatonic collection. Granted, in the
case of Tower’s parallel scales in major thirds, or in four-note chords, the
collections are projected as separate strands, played by different instrumen-
tal parts; but without any rhythmic, timbral, or other means of differentiat-
ing them within their composite texture, the chances of the listener being
able to hear them as truly separate entities would seem dim. Nor is there
any apparent reason, in the excerpts illustrated in Examples 4.3 and 4.4
(typical of such usages), to assign priority to any one octatonic strand,
which might enable the listener to hear the others as some form of color-
ation. Quite to the contrary, the strands all appear to be weighted equally,
whether or not they belong to the same octatonic collection. The only real
differences among the parallel-scale treatments inhere in the necessarily
heavier orchestration of the 2-and 3-variants under Category 4.

Example 4.6
(Continued)
Before considering these issues any further, it would be well to examine

the details of the excerpt itself. Example 4.7 provides a condensed view of
the first part, mm. 151–239, keyed with boldface numbers to the categories
above .10 The occasional all-chromatic passages that do not involve muta-
tion to or from the octatonic (that is, are not classifiable under Category 6
above) are simply labeled “chrom.”11
One fruitful way to begin listening through this excerpt is to concen-
trate on the fluctuations between passages during which just one octatonic

Example 4.7
Pitch reduction, mm. 155–239
(Continued)
Example 4.7
(Continued)
Example 4.7
(Continued)
collection is heard and passages during which two or all three collections
are deployed simultaneously. For a while, this approach is helpful. As sum-
marized below in Table 4.1, after an initial, almost entirely chromatic rise
in parallel major thirds (mm. 151–62), the major thirds are doubled in the
manner of a 3-variant (Category 4) in mm. 163–64, as parallel major seventh
chords (all three octatonic collections); then T0 takes over entirely for mm.
165–67, doubled in minor thirds (Category 2). In m. 168, the doubled minor
thirds continue, but the <C ♯, B, A ♯> figure, carried over from mm. 163–64,
is now extended to A ♮ , introducing a chromatic tinge. In m. 169, the minor
thirds are now doubled in the manner of a 2-variant (Category 4), bringing
all three octatonic collections into the texture and connecting clearly with the
previous mm. 163–64 even though the chordal structures are different. (One
hears the connection also by way of the C ♯ –B –A ♯ of those earlier measures, as
well as more locally to the version of that figure extended to A ♮ in the immedi-
ately previous m. 168). At m. 170, T2 takes over completely in doubled minor
thirds (Category 2). At m. 179, E and G from the previous measure (top part)
shift to E ♭ and G ♭ respectively, and C ♯ and E in the lower part shift to C ♮ and
E ♭ (Category 5), returning the octatonic identity to T0.
From mm. 179 through 222, T0 remains in place, at first rising and falling
in doubled minor thirds in by now familiar fashion; then getting stuck on a
rising five-note figure (m. 185). At m. 190 the minor-third doublings disap-
pear, leaving just the rising <F♯, G♯, A, B, C> in three octaves, projected as an
ostinato. Under this rapid motion, longer notes in the lower parts (marked
with stems in Example 4.6), beginning with G ♭ in m. 195, project an eventu-
ally complete T0 scale. Just as this scale is reaching its final notes, a Category
5 shift occurs in the ostinato (in m. 223, G♯ and B mutate to G ♮ and B ♭ respec-
tively), changing the reigning collection to T1. T1’s duration is considerably
shorter than that of the preceding T0 passage: at m. 239, another Category 5
shift (F♯ and A to F♮ and A ♭) introduces T2—which, however, is heard unadul-
terated only as a five-note figure for one measure.
The action of mm. 151–239 is summarized in Table 4.1. Up to the end of this
section, the fluctuations between octatonic transpositions, and the categories
of usage into which they fall, are characterized by relatively long passages
Table 4.1 Summary, mm. 155–239: Categories of octatonic usage

mm. 151–62 163–64 165–67 168 169 170–78 179–222 223–38 239
Collection chrom T0, T1, T2 T0 chrom T0, T1, T2 T2 T0 T1 T2
mix
Category 4 (3-var) 2 4 (2-var) 2 5; 2, 1 5; 2 5; 1

during which a single scale/collection is heard exclusively, interspersed with
relatively short passages (one or two measures) in which two or three collec-
tions are simultaneously present. Perhaps more interesting is the difference
in “behavior”: while the multiple-collection parallel-chord patterns are con-
fined to more or less narrowly bounded pitch spaces, the single-collection
scalar patterns travel appreciable distances through these spaces and thus
more clearly fulfill a ladder function (in keeping with the title of the work).
In mm. 240–365, the pace of change accelerates appreciably. In contrast
to the section discussed above, simultaneous use of different octatonic col-
lections is more the rule than the exception. Where single collections occur
at all, their duration is brief, soon superseded by other single collections or
(much more frequently) composite usages that also tend to be fairly short in
duration. Adding to the complexity of these 125 measures are two extended
interjections of chromatic scales, as well as the fact that the excerpt comes
to rest in chromatic territory.
Particularly notable throughout this passage is the combination of
Category 4 (2-and 3-variants) with the Category 5 mutation technique to
connect short composite-collection segments. Example 4.8 presents a typi-
cal instance. Here (mm. 268–71), the first and second trumpets, at a dis-
tance of a minor third, together initially project T0, while the horns and
third trumpet, also at the distance of a minor third, initially project T 1.
Since these two pairs of instruments are separated by a perfect fourth and
remain so throughout these four measures, they are always in different
octatonic transpositions (Category 4, 2-variant). Note that the 3-5-3 vertical
configuration is the same as the one illustrated in Example 4.4a; in con-
trast, however, to that earlier excerpt, Example 4.8 is characterized by rapid
changes in the horizontal dimension as well (Category 5) . The T0/T1
pairing is maintained through m. 269; at the downbeat of m. 270 there is a
shift to T2/T0, which lasts for only half a measure, succeeded in the second
half by a shift to T1/T2; this in turn is followed by T2/T0 again at m. 271. At
each shift, at least two notes change in each instrumental part, with the
others remaining as common tones.
Example 4.8
Brass, mm. 268–71: Categories 4 (2-variant) and 5 combined

As a kind of counterweight, perhaps, to the rapid-fire, almost dizzying
pace of fluctuation, in this second section of the excerpt substantial use is
made of single octatonic collections in long tones unfolding in the lower
parts. This is a feature already remarked upon in its one occurrence earlier
in the excerpt, mm. 195–229 (see Example 4.7), to which I now recur to
make a few additional, brief comments. The actual structural significance
of such long tones remains somewhat enigmatic, although they do power-
fully convey the idea of the octatonic collection working on different levels
of motion and durational scale—an especially obvious feature of the long
tones of T0 beginning at m. 195 on G ♭, since the first five of these long tones
duplicate, in the same order, the notes of the rapidly articulated triple-octave
ostinato higher in the texture. The long scale ends on F♯ , exactly at the point
where the upper, rapid scalar motion, having mutated meanwhile from T0
to T1, simultaneously breaks free of the diminished-fifth span to which it
had been confined and reacquires a minor-third doubling as it resumes
its characteristic oscillating path. This synchrony seems to reinforce the
importance of G ♭/F♯ in particular as a common tone between collections T0
and T1, although it is difficult to enlarge upon that observation to draw any
general conclusions about pitch priority or centricity in this music.
Even earlier in the piece, in fact at the very opening, the octatonic scale
projected on two distinct durational levels seems to stand as an emblem of
the importance of the octatonic at all levels of musical meaning. Example
4.9 is a reduction of the opening 35 measures, part of which was already
examined in Example 4.1. Earlier we noted the opening <C, D, E ♭ > in the
percussion (mm. 1–11), a series of notes that takes on a kind of motivic sig-
nificance in this passage in two ways. First, it occurs again in mm. 21–24
in the trombones (see Example 4.1), even before the full octatonic scale
that began with the C in m. 12 has reached its octave (m. 24, fermata).
Next, the T0 collection begins again, but now on D, the textural and rhyth-
mic shift at the downbeat of m. 25 suggesting this point of articulation.
This time the octatonic scale, doubled in registers 1 and 2, climbs up
through two octaves; as this ascent proceeds, doublings successively added
in registers 3–7 (not shown in Example 4.9) eventually bring the highest
parts to E ♭ at the downbeat of m. 35, at which point new musical devel-
opments ensue . The large-scale outlining of <C (m. 12), D (m. 25), E ♭
(m. 35)> seems quite explicit.
Although one could not say that such “leveled” projection of the octatonic
is a constant condition of Silver Ladders, there can be no doubt that Tower
has made extensive use of it in the passage following the one treated in
detail in Example 4.7. The first such usage (see Example 4.10) emerges
quite clearly starting at m. 262, as a descending partial T 2 scale beginning
with B . The first three long tones in the lower parts duplicate the initial

pitches of the rapid groups of five notes in the upper parts; then their con-
tent diverges as the partial scale ends with G and F (mm. 268–70). This
last major second is filled chromatically (in the upper parts) by F♯ , the pur-
pose of which very shortly becomes clear: in m. 271, another descending
octatonic scale begins, in the T0 collection beginning on F♯ and continuing
with F, thus dovetailing with the conclusion of the previous scale. As the
stemmed notes in Example 4.10 show, this new scale continues in some-
what irregular durations down through D ♯ and D ♮ (mm. 271–72), then up
to C in the upper registers (m. 275, as shown by the broken arrow) until its
descent resumes. This descent can be traced by way of the uppermost first
notes of each slurred group starting in m. 281 (B, A, G ♯ , F♯ , E ♯), but also
doubled at the major third below (hence Category 3, joining T0 with T2).
Although not literally on a separate plane of long notes, this descending
scale can be traced a little farther by way of the uppermost last notes of
the slurred groups starting in m. 285—D ♯ , D, C ♭ (skipping C)—before it
peters out completely. In this final stage, the scale effectively merges with
the upper parts for which it had been serving as a rhythmic reduction since
m. 275, emphasizing the downbeats of the rapid-note figures.12
The last use of long-tone scales in this excerpt is also the most pro-
tracted, beginning in m. 305 in the T0 collection on G ♯ and descending a
full octave plus a minor sixth before subsiding into the chromatic motion
that serves as transition to the next part of the work (see Example 4.11) .
It begins, interestingly enough, in the midst of a chromatic passage as
well; as it descends, the accompanying rapid-note figures mutate from
fully chromatic (m. 305) to fully octatonic (m. 323), also in the T0 collection.
(This is the same passage that served to illustrate Category 5 above; see
Example 4.6). There follows a series of shifts in the rapid notes, from T1 to
T2 and back to T 1; then, just as the octave of the long-tone scale is about to
be completed at m. 334, the figures become chromatic again and stay that
way until the end of the excerpt. The long-tone scale does likewise, with
a C ♯ intervening between the D and C, then continuing in all-chromatic
motion from m. 354 on (not shown in the example).
In all but one of the long-tone scales, T0 is either the sole component or
the dominant one. This fact alone might suggest a kind of tonal interpreta-
tion, in which Silver Ladders is “centered” on that octatonic collection, with
T2 perhaps in a secondary role. Since these long-tone scales cut across often
numerous changes of collectional identity in the rapid-note strands that
always accompany these scales, it might seem reasonable to hypothesize a
hierarchical relationship, with the local rapid motion eventually subsumed
under the structures of longer range. But to infer from this relationship a
tonal orientation to the music might be forcing more out of the evidence
than is really warranted. The long-tone scales are not always present—and

Example 4.9
Pitch reduction, mm. 1–35: levels of octatonic projection
Example 4.10
Pitch reduction, mm. 262–88
Example 4.11
Condensed view, mm. 305–54
even if their periodic appearances were to be taken as reaffirmations of a
tonal basis that was otherwise in flux, one would find it difficult, owing to
the symmetrical structure of the octatonic collection, to choose any par-
ticular one of its component pitch classes as a tonal center without other
factors present to decide in favor of one interpretation or another. These
issues are complicated enough with just one octatonic collection to deal
with at a time; in the presence of octatonic combinations, such as the places
where T0 and T2 work in tandem, the range of available choices becomes
even more bewildering.
My sense, as a listener, is that such factors are not in fact present to any
significant degree—that is, that even the limited force of tonality usually
denoted by the term “pitch centricity” does not figure strongly in Silver
Ladders. Rather, what gives this piece its impetus, and its coherence, is the
consistency of the division of pitch space into alternating whole and half
steps, interestingly variegated by shifts between one octatonic collection
and another or between composites featuring one pairing and another, or
by all three collections at once. Such shifts occur at many different rates
of speed and are accomplished through textural variation that verges at
times on the positively kaleidoscopic. In other words, the listener is not
encouraged to track pitch-class membership in octatonic collections and to
make sense of the music in that fashion; rather, it is the indirect effect of
the shifts in collections, and their groupings, that yields a satisfying aural
result.
The import of this strategy on Tower’s part becomes a good deal clearer
in the last large section of the piece, where the motive force formerly
assigned to alternating whole and half steps is diverted to perfect and aug-
mented fourths. Again, quoting from Hyslop’s program note: “Although
[Tower] does not consider Schoenberg to be a primary influence, a beautiful
moment in his Chamber Symphony No. 1, Opus 9—a slow, stately motive
in rising fourths—stuck in her ears throughout the years. This motive has
appeared and reappeared in different guises in several of Tower’s works;
she decided to give it prominence in this piece.”13 The imprecision of the
musical reference to Schoenberg is striking: the famous rising motive
of (purely) perfect fourths in the Chamber Symphony would sound very
different if it combined perfect and augmented fourths. In fact, it ends
up making a great deal of difference that Tower’s rising progressions of
fourths consist of free alternations of intervals of five and six semitones—
essentially free, that is, although she tends not to write more than two
consecutive fourths of the same type.14 The combinations of perfect and
augmented fourths turn out to be crucial because “the scale passages from
the first section eventually mingle with the rising-fourths motive”15 —and
motives consisting of all perfect fourths would have severely limited the

extent of this mingling, since even two perfect fourths in a row cannot
belong to the same octatonic collection. To be sure, the possibilities are not
greatly enlarged by allowing augmented fourths into the mix: written in
semitone-span equivalents, the only available combinations are 5-6, 5-6 -6,
and their reorderings (6-6, of course, also “works,” and would continue to
do so in indefinite extension, but is essentially the trivial case here). What
these mixed chains of fourths help bring into being is an environment
in which shifts of octatonic collection occur either very rapidly or some-
what less so—that is, with some flexibility, although not a great deal—
since such shifts could hardly happen very slowly: in the presence of some
kind of octatonic harmonic vocabulary, no single octatonic collection could
remain in place for very long.
In fact, that last statement turns out to hold the key to what happens in
the final section of Silver Ladders: chains of perfect and augmented fourths
(descending as well as ascending, though more often the latter) typically
divide into two or three segments as they travel from low to high, or high to
low, with no two adjacent segments belonging to the same octatonic collec-
tion. This technique is analogous to the simultaneous projection of different
octatonic collections as scales in the earlier section of the work, but it produces
completely different surface features: the adjacent intervals seem to (and often
literally do) project a single line, but the line is compound by implication,
owing to disjunct melodic motion through different registers, rather than lit-
erally compound like the parallel scales in the first section. The excerpt repro-
duced in Example 4.12 (mm. 544–48) is representative of this technique.
Naturally, however, the boundaries to be drawn between collections are
not always perfectly clear, since any two octatonic collections have four
pitch classes in common. This basic fact of octatonic usage already served
to blur the respective identities of the parallel scales in the first section, and
it becomes even more pertinent in the stacked-fourths section, where col-
lections are often presented in far from complete form. In mm. 494–503,
shortly after the beginning of the final section, the adjacent segments could
be interpreted in at least two ways, with one pitch in each case doing double
duty as a member of two segments (see Example 4.13, where the two alter-
natives are laid out above and below the two-stave reduction). Nothing
Example 4.12
Thread of ascending and descending perfect/augmented fourths, mm. 544–48

Example 4.13
Extracted chain of ascending perfect/augmented fourths, mm. 494–503
in either the orchestration or the rhythmic domain would appear to suggest
that either of these partitionings should be favored over the other. Here,
as in the first section, a successful hearing of the music seems to depend
less on perceiving precise articulations of specific, distinct octatonic collec-
tions than on recognizing the intervallic consistency of (in this case) the
stacked-fourths structures and their propensity for spreading across differ-
ent octatonic regions.16
This kind of hearing, absent the octatonic context established in the ear-
lier sections of the work, would probably not have much plausibility. And
even with the anchoring effect of that context, its continued influence in
the final section would seem to depend on at least occasional recourse to
or reminiscence of octatonic structures. This does happen to some extent,
although never to the extent of wholly eclipsing the new stacked-fourths
basis. Example 4.14 displays one passage in which the T2 collection briefly
assumes a primary role once again, assisted by T0 (mm. 558–78). Some
of the harmonies here are hybrids, blending frameworks in fourths with
other intervals. Immediately thereafter, however, stacked fourths reas-
sert themselves with a vengeance, progressing as 5-5 in parallel chromatic
scales and thus blotting out the octatonic completely until m. 586. The
scalar motion comes across as a kind of vestige of the first section (and
one must remember that chromatic scales do occur there, if rarely), but
what one would imagine as an explicit synthesis of materials—a 5-5 or 5-6
structure, say, in parallel octatonic scales—never achieves the status of a
climactic or cadential gesture in Silver Ladders. The “mingling” promised
in the program note happens in more subtle and elliptical fashion.
Example 4.15 (mm. 586–627) provides a continuation to Example 4.14,
in which linear passages confined to single octatonic collections are punc-
tuated by chords in stacked fourths—some of which also belong to single
octatonic collections, although in more densely scored passages such as
mm. 620–21 the collections are separated registrally, as earlier. (An inter-
esting additional feature of this passage is the trumpet line, recognizably
octatonic though consisting of only three notes, <G ♭, A ♭, A>, but drawn
from the one collection not represented in the accompanying chords.)
By and large, as the piece draws to a close, the larger chordal structures
tend to be drawn from single octatonic collections, and the last sonor-
ity heard, {E, G, B, D} (mm. 749–54), falls within T2. The last octatonic
scales heard, beginning in m. 720 and ascending in a kind of rhythmic
acceleration familiar from the opening of the work, are entirely in octaves,
unadorned with fourths or, for that matter, any other harmonies. As these
scales reach their apogee at B (m. 730), a Category 5 shift takes place: T2
is superseded by T0 in the form of the repeating segment <A, B, C, D>,
which then acquires, for five very quick measures (mm. 730–34), a 5-5

Example 4.14
Example 4.15
harmonization. The synthesis achieved here, far from being emphasized,
seems almost deliberately underplayed.
Although the foregoing analysis of Silver Ladders can hardly be called
comprehensive, it is possible to draw a few conclusions without indulging
in excessive speculation. Regarding the conjecture set forth at the begin-
ning of this article, the octatonic does extend in its sphere of influence
to formations other than scales in two ways: first, in terms of the literal
contents of lines, chords, parts of chords, and so forth (since the three
collections are often combined, this octatonicism is more often than not
expressed in terms of characteristic subsets of the octatonic rather than all
eight pitch classes); and second, in the analogy to parallel scales of different
collections (first section) that can be drawn to the stacked-fourths usages
of the final section. Nevertheless, this conjecture does not pan out com-
pletely, for sc(0134679T) is not a “master set” in the sense that one might
expect. In the same sense, it may not be altogether appropriate to call Silver
Ladders an octatonic work. For one thing, as noted, the more or less conven-
tional meaning of the term—applying to works or distinguishable sections
or passages governed by a single collection—is only sporadically valid in
Tower’s piece; for another, in sections like the music from about m. 495 on,
where stacked-fourths structures take over, the influence of the octatonic is
felt unevenly, and mostly, as explained, by implication or analogy.
But is the label “octatonic” all that important, anyway? One might infer,
from Tower’s own comments about her working methods, that it is not. In
an interview conducted shortly after she finished composing Silver Ladders,
she calls herself “a left-sided composer” and proceeds to explain what
that means:
You see, I don’t do sketches in advance. I do start out with a basic idea,
but basically I’m not very “pre-compositional” in my thinking. I used to
be, but that was because I felt insecure and needed some sort of map
to get me through the infinity of choices that were available. Now I’m
more of an “organic” composer.
I start. Then I take a look at what I’ve done and reshape it until it’s
the way I think I want it to be. Then I go on. Then I take another look at
what I’ve done. I spend more and more time reshaping, more and more
time working on the music’s left side.17
Elsewhere, putting it perhaps more bluntly, she has said: “I never plan,
because I don’t trust it, I don’t trust the planning.” And: “There’s a logic
that you can do with pre-planning that is perfectly therapeutic, … because
it gives you the feeling that you know where you’re going; but the problem
is that it may not be very musical.”18

Of course, there’s no reason to think that the end result of such a process
would be any less coherent or organized than music written according to
a “map,” as Tower has referred to her earlier modus operandi.19 But it is
interesting to note that neither in Hyslop’s program note, cited earlier (in
which the composer is given credit as collaborator), nor in any interview
that I have come across in which Silver Ladders is discussed—nor, in fact,
in Tower’s words about any piece of hers at all—does the term “octatonic”
actually occur. What she does talk about are scales “formed largely” of alter-
nating whole and half steps—and while one might agree, in the interest
of consistent analytical terminology, to call such scales octatonic, the dif-
ference between such language and Tower’s own is significant. Because
these scales suggested the very title of the work (it is unlikely to have been
the other way around),20 in which an ascending stepwise (mostly) motion
is evoked, it does not seem absolutely necessary that these scales be invari-
ably constructed of alternating whole and half steps. As mentioned in the
analysis above, chromatic scales do sometimes substitute for octatonic, and
with essentially the same effect; furthermore, when scalar motion begins
to mingle with the stacked fourths in the final section, chromatic scales are
used at least as often as the whole-or half-step kind. Granted, the latter are
still the referential norm, as I’ve characterized it—but the very looseness of
definition does suggest that unrelenting exactitude of pitch relationships
may not be the most significant feature of the piece.
Tower has hinted as much about her music in general: “I have gotten
more and more away from actually thinking about pitch systems … pitch
relationships are not something I spend a lot of time working on.”21 It is
difficult to know how best to interpret this statement. True, the attitude
expressed here might serve to explain why, in a musical reference to the
ascending fourths of Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony, some of those
fourths could be augmented, as far as Tower is concerned, without it sub-
stantially affecting the shape or trajectory of the gesture. But one must also
keep in mind the context of the statement, which was an interview con-
ducted in 1993. At this point in the interview, Tower was attempting to clar-
ify the contrast in her compositional approach in (then) more recent years
with that of her earlier, serial (or at least serially inflected) style, in which
she was much more preoccupied with pitch relationships.22 Although it
might be guessed that this preoccupation entailed a focus on the particular
types of pitch relationships that are peculiar to serial practice, surely it is
possible to be concerned with pitch or pitch class in other ways as well,
without demoting it from primary status in one’s compositional method.
My own conclusion, if somewhat provisional, is that pitch still matters
a lot in Tower’s music, even if neither serial structure nor tonality (in the
sense of pitch centrism) is at stake. Without some consistency in the way

pitch is handled, the landscape of Silver Ladders would be vastly altered.
Perhaps the best way of putting it is that while Tower may not be much
interested in pitches or pitch classes per se, she remains vitally interested
in the intervals they form—an interest that may in itself explain why she
has used the octatonic collection in this distinctive and convincing way
to project structure on both the small and large scale in Silver Ladders.
(It should be borne in mind that the octatonic owes its very identity not
to a specific collection of pitches, but to its intervallic makeup.) Does this
interest in intervals also account, at least in part, for the special qualities of
Tower’s other compositions since the early 1980s? A verdict awaits further
analytical exploration.
Notes
1. All score excerpts appearing as illustrations in this essay are notated at concert pitch
in all instruments. However, the conventions of octave transposition (higher or lower) for
certain instruments (contrabass, contrabassoon, piccolo, glockenspiel, et al.) are observed
throughout.
2. Sandra Hyslop (“in collaboration with the composer”), “Program Note,” in Joan
Tower, Silver Ladders, score (New York: Associated Music Publishers, 1989), unpaginated
front matter. The only recording of Silver Ladders that has been released commercially
to date is Leonard Slatkin’s rendition with the St. Louis Symphony: Joan Tower, Silver
Ladders; Island Prelude; Music for Cello & Orchestra; Sequoia, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra,
conducted by Leonard Slatkin, Meet the Composer Orchestra Residency Series, Elektra
Nonesuch 79245-2, 1990, compact disc.
3. Arthur Berger, “Problems of Pitch Organization in Stravinsky,” Perspectives of New
Music 3, no. 1 (Fall–Winter 1963): 11–42. Berger’s approach was massively developed
and expanded in its explanatory power in the work of Pieter van den Toorn: “Some
Characteristics of Stravinsky’s Diatonic Music” [Parts I and II], Perspectives of New Music
14, no. 1 (Fall–Winter 1975): 104–38; 15, no. 2 (Spring–Summer 1977): 58–95; and van
den Toorn, The Music of Igor Stravinsky (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983).
Richard Taruskin has made abundant use of the octatonic in many of his analyses of
Stravinsky’s music; see, for example, “Chernomor to Kaschei: Harmonic Sorcery; Or,
Stravinsky’s ‘Angle,’” Journal of the American Musicological Society 38, no. 1 (1985): 72–142;
“Chez Pétrouchka: Harmony and Tonality chez Stravinsky,” 19th-Century Music 10, no. 3
(1987): 265–86; Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions: A Biography of the Works through
“Mavra,” 2 vols. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996); and
“Stravinsky and the Subhuman,” in Defining Russia Musically (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1997), 360–467, especially 434–48.
4. For the octatonic in Bartók’s music, see Elliott Antokoletz, The Music of Béla
Bartók: A Study of Tonality and Progression in Twentieth-Century Music (Berkeley and
Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984); Richard Cohn, “Bartók’s Octatonic
Strategies: A Motivic Approach,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 44, no.
2 (1991): 262–300. The octatonic in Messiaen’s music appears by his own designa-
tion as mode 2 among his modes of limited transposition; see Messiaen, Technique de
mon langage musical (Paris: Alphonse Leduc, 1944), and Traité de rythme, de couleur, et
d’ornithologie, 7 vols. (Paris: Leduc, 1994–2002), especially vol. 7. Studies of these modes

permeate the secondary literature on Messiaen, for example: Robert Sherlaw Johnson,
Messiaen, new ed. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989);
Paul Griffiths, Olivier Messiaen and the Music of Time (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1985); and Jonathan W. Bernard, “Messiaen’s Synaesthesia: The Correspondence
between Color and Sound Structure in His Music,” Music Perception 4, no. 1 (1986): 41–
68. For Scriabin, see George Perle, “Scriabin’s Self-Analyses,” Music Analysis 3, no. 2
(1984):101–22; Cheong Wai-Ling, “Scriabin’s Octatonic Sonata,” Journal of the Royal Music
Association 121, no. 2 (1996): 206–28; and Taruskin, “Scriabin and the Superhuman,” in
Defining Russia Musically, 308–59. The octatonic implications of Shostakovich’s musical
“signature” are explored in Stephen C. Brown, “Tracing the Origins of Shostakovich’s
Musical Motto,” Intégral 20 (2006): 69–103. For Dallapiccola and the octatonic, see
Brian Alegant and John Levey, “Octatonicism in Luigi Dallapiccola’s Twelve-Note Music,”
Music Analysis 25, nos. 1–2 (2006): 39–87. Takemitsu’s octatonic usages are investigated
in Timothy Koozin, “Octatonicism in Recent Solo Piano Works of Tōru Takemitsu,”
Perspectives of New Music 29, no. 1 (Winter 1991): 124–40; and Peter Burt, The Music of
Tōru Takemitsu (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); see also Hideaki Onishi,
“Tōru Takemitsu’s Japanese Gardens: An Application of Superset/Subset Networks to the
Analysis of Three Orchestral Compositions” (PhD diss., University of Washington, 2004).
5. One substantial analytical treatment can be found in Judy Lochhead, “Joan Tower’s
Wings and Breakfast Rhythms I and II: Some Thoughts on Form and Repetition,”
Perspectives of New Music 30, no. 1 (Winter 1992): 132–56. For a useful compilation of the
extant critical literature on Tower to about 2006, see Ellen K. Grolman, Joan Tower: The
Comprehensive Bio-Bibliography (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2007).
6. The designations “Model A” and “Model B,” refer, respectively, to the octatonic scale
read in ascending (in semitones: 1–2–1–2 …) and descending (2–1–2–1) directions, yield-
ing tetrachordal partitions sc(0134) and (0235), again respectively. Van den Toorn first
proposed them in “Some Characteristics of Stravinsky’s Diatonic Music” part I, 107 ff.
Once so generated, of course, these partitions may be used compositionally in either
ascending or descending order. In Example 4.1, Tower opts for Model B ascending: the
tetrachordal partitions are C–D–E♭–F, G♭–A♭–A–B. For more about the structure of the
resulting scale, see n. 7 below.
7. There are just three distinct octatonic collections, among which the particular one
in use in Example 4.1 will be referred to henceforth as T0, in recognition of the fact that
it is the first to be heard in Silver Ladders. Note that its identity as “the octatonic scale on
C” is different from the form of the octatonic that is usually designated as fundamental
in post-tonal theoretical terminology—that is, Tower’s fundamental scale begins with
the whole step, rather than the half step, and would have to be called “OCT0,2” instead of
“OCT0,1.” The other two octatonic collections, T1 and T2, begin on C♯ and D respectively.
8. Example 4.5 also provides a glimpse of Tower’s inventive orchestration technique,
which provides a constantly changing environment of register changes and combina-
tions. At times, this technique can serve as a counterweight to long series of repetitions,
such as the one alluded to here. Even where the pitches do not change for considerable
stretches, there is movement in other dimensions of the music.
9. This excerpt also illustrates the use of the octatonic scale in long tones, a feature to
be discussed further on in this essay.
10. Again, for labeling conventions, see n. 7. As the various examples of octatonic
usage below will show, the collections so labeled need not appear in Model B orientation
to retain their respective identities as T0, T1, etc. (Once taken out of a scalar context, the
distinction between Model A and Model B pretty much vanishes anyway.)

11. In the analytical examples, beginning with Example 4.7, the following conventions
have been adopted. Octatonic labels T0, T1, and T2 may refer to whole or partial presenta-
tions of the collections they respectively identify, and appear in boxes. The label “chrom,”
signifying the chromatic collection, is also boxed. Numbers above the grand staff are
measure numbers. It can be assumed that accidentals apply only to the notes that they
immediately precede; nevertheless, the natural sign is freely employed for the sake of
clarity.
12. The interested reader may wish to refer to the full score of mm. 282–88, not shown
here, to witness a further complication to the texture in this passage: the simultaneous
projection of a segment of another (T0/T2) scale in major-third doubling on the upbeats,
emphasizing the second beat in each measure of the rapid-note figures beginning with
the upbeat to m. 282 (horns, piano, vibraphone): <{F, D♭}, {E♭, C♭}, {D, B♭}, {C, A♭}>. This
is the same octatonic composite as the one we have been tracing since m. 271; but at the
point where it begins, the other scale, already in progress, is on {B, G}. The two octatonic-
composite segments in regular (half note) values thus form a kind of canon at the tritone;
between them, they present the complete contents of the T0 scale doubled by T2.
13. Hyslop, “Program Note,” Silver Ladders, score.
14. There are just a few exceptions to this rule, including rare instances of rising ges-
tures consisting entirely of perfect fourths.
15. Hyslop, “Program Note.”
16. One might note, in passing, that the mirror-symmetrical stack of intervals (6-5-5-
6-5-5-6) lends this sonority more than a passing resemblance to the accumulating chords
of Varèse, a composer also cited by Tower in various interviews as an important influence
on her work.
17. James Wierzbicki, “Interview with Joan Tower re: Silver Ladders,” St. Louis Post-
Dispatch, January 4, 1987.
18. Kathryn Mishell, interview with Tower (part 1), radio broadcast, March 28, 2006,
www.intothelightradio.org/special.html (web page discontinued).
19. In mid-1983, Tower said, “I got rid of the last map about six months ago.” Interview
by Jan Fournier, July 28, 1983), Oral History of American Music archives, School of Music,
Yale University. The remark appears on p. 10 of the transcript of this interview.
20. In a discussion of where the titles of her pieces come from, Tower has said: “. . .
most of my titles are like attachments to the piece … I work so hard on my titles. But the
titles usually come after the piece—usually. The piece provides inspiration for the title,
not the other way around.” Interview by Jenny Raymond, January 4, 1998, Oral History of
American Music archives, School of Music, Yale University, 5.
21. Tower, interview by Julie Niemeyer, April 30, 1993, Oral History of American
Music, School of Music, Yale University, 16.
22. In the interview with Niemeyer, Tower spoke of writing up “a hundred-page
description [of Breakfast Rhythms I and II, 1974] that accounts for every note in the piece.”
Ibid., 3.

PART II
Gesture, Identity, and Culture
Discussions of how particular composers have worked toward their own sig-
nature compositional styles often invoke the phrase “searching for a voice.”
“Voice,” in this context, usually means a characteristic and original constella-
tion of technical procedures in a variety of musical parameters such as rhythm,
pitch, timbre, and so on, often held together by the composer’s personal phi-
losophies of musical composition. The authors of the three previous essays, for
example, illustrate how Mamlok, Beecroft, and Tower have adapted serial or
octatonic principles of pitch organization to create distinct sonic worlds in
three of their compositions.
Inevitably, however, the notion of voice also connotes an expression of per-
sonal identity. The idea that the meanings of an aesthetic creation are to be
found in its creator’s identity has been vigorously contested since the mid-
twentieth century, most famously with Roland Barthes’s proclamation of the
“death of the author” in his eponymous essay of 1967.1 But the poststructur-
alist challenge to authorial identity paradoxically coincided with the rise of
feminist and cultural theories arguing that author’s identities were inevitably
inscribed in their artistic creations, even if those identities were multiple, over-
lapping, and mutable.2 In the next two essays, Judy Lochhead and Nancy
Rao examine interweavings of authorial identity and compositional tech-
nique in works by Sofia Gubaidulina and Chen Yi, revealing the significant
role of musical gesture in the creation of form and meaning.
In chapter 5, Lochhead explores Gubaidulina’s 1987 Second String
Quartet and questions of female authorial identity through the lenses of
Deleuzian and feminist theory. Her detailed analysis of the quartet illu-
minates Gubaidulina’s shaping of small-and large-scale musical gestures
through compositional nuances of timbre, articulation, pitch, register, and
dynamics. Most important, Lochhead examines the composer’s use of repeti-
tion and contrast, concluding that the quartet “musically thinks difference.”
99
Chapter 6, an analysis by Nancy Rao of Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2, pres-
ents a different perspective on identity, gesture, and musical composition. Rao
first explains how the symphony, written in 1993 to commemorate the death
of Chen Yi’s father, is replete with allusions to rhythmic percussion gestures
from Chinese opera called luogo dianzi, typically used to signify particu-
lar character traits or dramatic situations. In her analysis, Rao traces Chen
Yi’s use, development, and combination of these musical signifiers through-
out the work, illustrating how their interaction contributes to an overarching
symphonic narrative of spiritual transformation, from grief and despair at
the opening of the symphony to peace and transcendence at its close. More
broadly, Rao argues that Chen Yi’s transfer of these signifiers from Chinese
opera to Western symphony exemplifies her identity as a transnational com-
poser. Rao further contends that in the global multiculturalism of the early
twenty-first century, awareness of the cultural sources of musical gestures is
essential for both analyst and listener.
Notes
1. The literary critics W. K. Wimsatt and M. C. Beardsley first challenged the
idea that the author’s identity was relevant to the meaning of a work in their land-
mark article “The Intentional Fallacy,” Sewanee Review 54, no. 3 (July–September
1946): 468–88. Barthes’s “The Death of the Author” was first published in Aspen: The
Journal in a Box 5–6 (1967), but later more conventionally in Image—Music—Text,
ed. and trans. Stephen Heath (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1977), 142–48.
2. See chapter 1 (introduction), n. 15.
100 Part II: Gesture, Identity, and Culture

5
Sofia Gubaidulina, String Quartet No. 2 (1987)
Born in 1931 in Stalinist Tatarstan to a Russian Orthodox mother and a

Muslim Tatar father, Sofia Gubaidulina grew up and established her career
in the repressive environment of Soviet Russia.i During her childhood in
the 1930s her family suffered religious persecution, and in the late 1940s,
as the Cold War began between the USSR and the West, the governing
Communist Party’s stifling of artistic expression reached its climax, with
Soviet composers whose music deviated from the ideals of Social Realism
risking harsh punishments.
It was against this backdrop that Gubaidulina began studying piano and
composition at the Kazán Conservatory, graduating in 1954. Any suspect
tendencies in her music seem to have gone unnoticed until she applied
for graduate studies at the Moscow Conservatory, whose composition pro-
fessors deemed her music an unacceptable departure from the required
style. She enrolled nevertheless, but would not have been granted her
degree without the intervention of Dmitri Shostakovich, chair of the State
Examination Committee, who defended her music and encouraged her to
“continue on [her] own, incorrect way.”ii
Gubaidulina’s professional career began in earnest during the 1960s, fol-
lowing studies with Nikolay Peyko and Victor Shebalin. In 1975 Gubaidulina
formed an improvisation ensemble with the composers Viatcheslav
Artyomov and Victor Suslin that experimented musically with Eastern
i. Biographical information about the composer is drawn from Michael Kurtz, Sofia
Gubaidulina: A Biography, trans. Christoph K. Lohmann, ed. Malcolm Hamrick Brown
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007); and Valentina Kholopova, “Gubaydulina, Sofiya
Asgatovna,” in Grove Music Online, ed. Deane L. Root, article updated January 31, 2002, http://
www.oxfordmusiconline.com.
ii. Sofia Gubaidulina, recorded interview with Elizabeth Wilson, cited in Wilson, Shostakovich:
A Life Remembered (London: Faber & Faber, 1994), 306. Italics in the original.
101
European folk instruments along with those of their own invention, such as
the “friction rods,” made of rubber balls attached to metal rods, featured in
her String Quartet No. 4.
Gubaidulina’s music came to the attention of the West with Gidon Kremer’s
performances of Offertorium, the violin concerto she had dedicated to him
and completed in 1980. Since then her powerful, expressively nuanced, and
often intensely spiritual music has attracted the attention and admiration of
performers, audiences, critics, and scholars. Her compositions range from
solo vocal and chamber to large-scale choral and symphonic works, many of
which have been commissioned and recorded by the world’s major artists and
ensembles, including the Kronos and Arditti Quartets, Anne-Sophie Mutter
and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic and
Boston Symphony Orchestras. Gubaidulina holds honorary doctorates from
Yale University and the University of Chicago and has received many inter-
national awards, including the Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement
at the 2013 Venice Biennale music festival. After the collapse of the USSR in
1991, Gubaidulina moved to Germany, where she resides today.
For Gubaidulina, “there is no more serious reason for composing music
than spiritual renewal,” an ideal more important to her than musical inno-
vation for its own sake: “The public strives for active spiritual work …
Listening to a musical composition … helps people restore themselves,
even though critics might give a negative evaluation because ‘there was
nothing new in this music.’”iii
“Difference Inhabits Repetition”: Sofia Gubaidulina’s

String Quartet No. 2
Judy Lochhead
Difference requires artful negotiation for the woman who has chosen to
take on the authorial role of music composer. The composer who is female
must carefully control how her difference from male colleagues, in par-
ticular, is figured. She must hew out a place not only in which her compo-
sitional voice is heard as unique and hence different, but also in which her
compositions are heard as “just” music—not marked as an exemplar of an
identity group. Difference not only affirms originality but also serves as a
iii. Kurtz, Sofia Gubaidulina, 26, 29.

means of exclusion. Composers who are female necessarily confront this
dilemma in their daily professional lives.
Concepts of difference and the related concept of identity have been of
central philosophical concern since the early years of the twentieth century.
In structural linguistics, meaning was understood to arise from relational
differences between linguistic elements; and for various poststructuralist
thinkers after World War II, meaning is multiply differential and always in a
state of “deferral,” in Derrida’s formulation.1 And in feminist thought of the
late twentieth century, concepts of sexual difference proved crucial to articu-
lating both a conceptual and a political agenda and for providing insight
into real-life dilemmas for the aspirations of women. Of particular note
here is the philosophical work of Judith Butler, Rosi Braidotti, and Elizabeth
Grosz, who have focused on positive and productive notions of difference,
especially with respect to gender and sex.2 In the title of my essay I invoke
the work of Gilles Deleuze, who in his 1968 work Difference and Repetition
advances a critique of identity in the Western philosophical tradition, argu-
ing that difference and repetition are presupposed by identity.3
Deleuze’s philosophy of difference and his critique of the logos of Western
thought—and in particular the critique of a logos dependent on binary
oppositions such as mind/body, rational/irrational, and male/female as
producing meaning—prove valuable for feminist thought about music.
But some parts of his philosophical work, especially that written with Félix
Guattari, pose conceptual and ethical problems, most significantly when
considering the real-life struggles of women. In their work A Thousand
Plateaus (1980), Deleuze and Guattari articulate a concept of “becoming-
woman,” which, like other “becomings” (“becoming-intense, becoming-
child, becoming-animal”), is an experimental mode of being that discloses
the hierarchies of power.4 This concept of “becoming-woman” received
early critiques from Alice Jardine and Luce Irigaray.5 As the philosopher
Elizabeth Grosz has noted, these strong critiques encompass a wide variety
of issues, which she summarizes into the following points: the concept does
not acknowledge its “investments in masculine perspectives;” it is a “male
appropriation and recuperation of the positions and struggles of women,”
which risks depoliticizing the reality of those struggles; it “prevents women
from exploring and interrogating their own specific, and nongeneralizable
forms of becoming”; it makes the real struggles of women invisible; it dis-
courages men from seeking their procedures for “dissolution and reorgani-
zation”; and it romanticizes the “Other” from a male perspective.6
Despite these issues, Grosz, like some other feminist philosophers, argues
that because “becoming-woman involves a series of processes and move-
ments outside of or beyond the fixity of subjectivity and the structure of sta-
ble unities, [it offers] an escape from the systems of binary polarization that
Sofia Gubaidulina, String Quartet No. 2 (1987) 103

privilege men at the expense of women.”7 The operative concept for such an
escape is “difference,” which, along with the related concept of “repetition,” is
the focus of Difference and Repetition. Deleuze presents a notion of difference
in itself—or “pure difference.” This is a nonrelational notion of difference
that is not dependent on the “four shackles of representation: identity in the
concept, opposition in predication, analogy in judgment, and resemblance
in perception.”8 Difference in itself is not difference in opposition to or in
relation to (through analogy or resemblance) some other identity. Rather, dif-
ference is logically prior to identity and defies the binaries of representation,
such as those resulting in the marked category of the “Other.”
While Deleuze’s concept of pure difference implies temporal passage—
since such differing is manifest through time—the concept of repetition
clarifies the nature of this temporality. A repetition motivated by difference
occurs over time and constitutes a “creative transformation of things.”9
Repetition, then, not only shows the essential uniqueness of events—as
Deleuze’s evocative phrase “difference inhabits repetition” implies—but
also is a generative and creative force.
Such an intertwining of difference and repetition must have been some-
where in Sofia Gubaidulina’s musical thinking when she composed her
Second String Quartet in 1987.10 Her program note, much of which is
quoted below, suggests that difference and repetition were indeed forma-
tive principles (the italics are mine):
This was the first time in my life I set myself the task of realizing a
certain musical problem of great importance to me personally, not in a
large scale form but in a small scale one.
In the course of many years my attention has been persistently drawn
to an idea I call “Musical Symbolism.” This means that what appears as a
symbol (i.e. a knitting together of things of different significance) is not
some sound or other, nor yet a conglomeration of sounds, but the separate
constituent elements of a musical instrument or the properties of those ele-
ments. Specifically in this particular context, the discourse springs from the
difference between the means of extracting the normal sound from stringed
instruments and the means by which harmonics can be made to sound.
It is possible to consider the passage across this difference as a purely
mundane acoustical phenomenon and to make no particular issue out
of it. But it is just as possible to experience this phenomenon as a vital
and essential transition from one state to another.
And this is a highly specific aesthetic experience, the experience of
a symbol. It is just such an experience which distinguishes between
everyday time and true essential time, which distinguishes between
existence and essence.

And this modulation, this transition between the two, happens not through
“depiction” nor through “expression” but through transformation or
transfiguration by means of an instrumental symbol. For this transition
actually happens on the very instrument. In its acoustic self.11
In short, Gubaidulina set for herself the compositional problem of creating

a musical discourse of the “small scale,” of the “transformation or trans-
figuration” of “separate constituent elements” which creates a “vital and
essential transition from one state to another.”
Gubaidulina’s prose suggests an intertwining of sonic difference made
manifest through temporal passage, and as such it resonates strongly with
Deleuze’s weaving together of difference and repetition. A detailed analysis
of the quartet allows for a more deeply nuanced sense of how Gubaidulina
musically thinks difference in this sense; but before delving into a material
engagement with the sounds of the quartet, I must clarify what I mean by
the idea that Gubaidulina “musically thinks,” and to do that I turn again
to Deleuze.
In his solo book on the artist Francis Bacon, Francis Bacon: The Logic of
Sensation, and together with Guattari in What Is Philosophy?, Deleuze rec-
ognizes three ways of “thinking the world”: philosophy, art, and science.12
Distinguishing the three from one another and claiming their equal status,
Deleuze and Guattari characterize philosophy as the creation of concepts,
art as the composition of monuments through sensations, and science as
the determination of functions.13 The thinking of the artist in this formu-
lation consists of the material creation of a “monument”—or a work of
art—t hat produces sensations. Thus, art thinks the world through its very
materiality—t hrough paint, sound, shape, and so on.
Further, Deleuze links the sensations of art to the underlying affec-
tive forces of the world, claiming that “music must render non-sonorous
forces sonorous, and painting must render invisible forces visible.”14 My
claim about Gubaidulina’s Second String Quartet follows from this general
point: the sounding music of the quartet renders sonorous the nonsono-
rous forces of difference through repetition. In other words, the quartet
sonically thinks difference as musical sensation.
That Gubaidulina confronted difference is obvious for a composer whose
gender defied the historical norm in the Western classical tradition. But
difference figured in other dimensions of her life as well during the time
of the quartet’s composition. As a modern composer, she would have been
expected to develop a unique compositional voice that would have distin-
guished her from others. And within the context of the musical avant-
garde in the latter half of the twentieth century, originality was an essential
defining feature for the successful composer. Further, in her personal life,

Gubaidulina often drew attention to her multicultural heritage—she had
a Tatar father and a Russian mother—and to herself as a bridge between
East and West.15
In the following analytical discussion of the quartet, my goal is to express
how the work sonicizes difference, and in particular how its various forms
of repetition engage differing. In expressing the work’s thinking of dif-
ference, I am not arguing that it represents Gubaidulina’s difference as a
composer who is female, or as a composer of the avant-garde, or as a conse-
quence of the uniqueness of her compositional voice. Rather, I argue that
the quartet musically thinks difference through “transformations” of sonic
“elements,” which create a “vital and essential transition from one state to
another.” Repetition is crucial to enacting this sense of transitioning, since
its proliferation effectively dissolves the identity of the thing repeated and
allows difference to become sonically present as such.
The quartet has two main parts, each of which carries out a unique process,
and a concluding part. The overall temporal design of the quartet may be visu-
ally mapped in a wide variety of ways. Figure 5.1 is a depiction made by Ji Yeon
Lee, who was my student in a graduate class in which we studied the work .
The figure is a scan of a watercolor painting done on parchment paper; the
full-color version can be seen on the companion website for this volume. The
Figure 5.1
Depiction of the overall design of Sofia Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2. Reproduced by
permission of Ji Yeon Lee.

Figure 5.2
Overall temporal design
swirling blue mass on the left depicts Part 1, the snaky green-yellow-orange
figure over the right depicts Part 2, and the dark blue–red rectangular figure
at the bottom right depicts the concluding passage. The map elegantly evokes
not only the timbral shadings and distinctions in the three parts of the quar-
tet, but also the gestural movements that inhabit them. My own, more tradi-
tionally analytical map, given as Figure 5.2, shows the three parts and labels
the types of functions that the music of each part enacts . I name each of
the three parts according to their function: Part 1, Reaching Out and Tethering;
Part 2, Reaching Up and Renewing; and Part 3, Affirmation. The processes of
each part entail significant amounts of simple musical repetition that reveals
difference. In the following, I explain in more detail the functions of the parts,
particularly as they are manifest in musical sounds, and demonstrate how the
musical details of the quartet effectively think the forces of sonic differing.
Part 1: Reaching Out and Tethering
The Reaching Out and Tethering function of Part 1 arises from the
“reaching-out” gestures, which move above and below a generalized pitch
hub—a hub defined by G4—and the consequent tethering back to that hub
(to G4 or a close pitch, with some exceptions). This effect is created by
three types of events: (1) “Continuous-G” events—the continuous articu-
lation of G4 played with one of two timbral types: harmonic non vibrato
or ordinario vibrato; (2) “Inflections-of-G” events—inflections of G4 played
with five timbral types (ordinario vibrato, harmonic sul ponticello, ordinario
non vibrato, tremolo ordinario, and tremolo sul ponticello); and (3) “Reaching-
Out” tremolo gestures in the first violin and cello that move predominantly
by half-or whole-step linear movements above and below G4.16
The function of Reaching Out and Tethering depends on the Continuous-
G and Inflections-of-G types, which establish a kind of hub from which
the Reaching-Out gestures pull away and to which they tether back. The

movement begins with the Continuous-G and Inflections-of-G, as shown
in the score excerpt of mm. 1–6 in Example 5.1 . The Reaching-Out ges-
tures start at rehearsal number 5 and continue through the end of Part 1, an
excerpt (rehearsal numbers 5–9) of which is reproduced in Example 5.2 .
The following discussion of Part 1 considers first its processes of differing
and then its function of Reaching Out and Tethering.
Each of the three types of events occurs in forms that maximize difference,
either through their combination with the other types or through succes-
sive groupings. Figure 5.3, a graphic depiction of events from the beginning
through rehearsal number 3, demonstrates some features of processes of dif-
fering in the opening of the quartet .17 The top layer of the figure shows
the Continuous-G events, the next lower layer the Inflections of G, and the
bottom layer the dynamics of the whole. The figure combines traditional
notational signs along with icons that represent some sonic feature or quality
of the musical elements that make up the types. In some instances, shades
of black and shapes are used to suggest some sounding quality. For example,
the black and gray ovals depict a short string event, the shadings indicating
different timbral inflections. Dynamics are indicated with a scale from ppp
through ff, using the typical performance indications for dynamics.
Example 5.1
Rehearsal numbers 1–2, mm. 1–6

Example 5.2
Reaching-Out gestures in first violin and cello, rehearsal numbers 5–9, mm. 15–21
The articulation of differing as a process arises from the distinctions occur-

ring in two ways: (1) differing of succession—nearly constant timbral distinc-
tions between events that emphasize succession, and (2) blurry patterning—a
coincident patterning with blurry boundaries that articulates differing
across longer temporal spans. Both types of differing may be observed visu-
ally in Figure 5.3. The differing of successive elements during the passage
arises largely because of the interaction between the Continuous-G and

Figure 5.3
Modes of differing in the Continuous-G and Inflections-of-G events
Inflections-of-G layers. The frequent changes of timbre do not simply inflect
the constant presence of G4; they also virtually dissolve the identity of that
pitch, drawing attention to the timbral differing of succession. A similar pro-
cess operates in the dynamics of the passage. The frequent changes and the
louder dynamics of the Inflections-of-G with respect to the Continuous-G
layer draw attention to processes of dynamic differing. A scorelike visual read-
ing of Figure 5.3 can give some sense of the aural impression of the passage.
The coincident process of blurry patterning brings out processes of dif-
fering over larger spans of time. The patterning creates groupings that have
blurry boundaries because of the nature of their constituents, qualitative
distinctions between timbres and dynamics, and durational distinctions
between groupings. The distinctions of both timbral quality and duration in
the nonpulsed rhythmic context of the opening define not sharply delineated
but rather indistinct boundaries. Some of the possible groupings of the pas-
sage are indicated in Figure 5.3 with circles and connecting dotted lines.
I refer to such groupings by the number of elements they comprise; for
instance, a group with two elements is a duplet and is indicated in Figure 5.3
by <2>. In the Continuous-G layer, for example, the succession of the two
timbral qualities, harmonic non vibrato and ordinario vibrato, creates a duplet
that occurs twice during the passage. While the sense of duplet arises from
a two-part pattern, the distinctions between each duplet allow the processes
of differing to emerge within a longer temporal span.18 As Figure 5.3 indi-
cates, such groupings occur frequently during the opening, establishing trip-
lets and quintuplets. Another mode of differing occurs through changes of
groupings patterns, as for instance in the transformation of the quintuplet
of mm. 2 and 4 into that of m. 10 (indicated by the broken line and the label
<5> Transformation). This timbral transformation, schematized in the lower
right-hand box of Figure 5.3, involves a change of timbre for two elements—
from ordinario vibrato to ordinario non vibrato—by way of a transitioning trip-
let that fragments the first quintuplet and leads to the reconstituted second.
Similar processes of differing occur by means of dynamic changes dur-
ing the passage. As shown in the Dynamics layer of Figure 5.3, and specifi-
cally in the Inflections-of-G strand, differing dynamics create groupings
with blurry boundaries. As shown in an additional pair of layers beneath
the Inflections- of-
G strand labeled Dynamic Groupings and Differences,
these groupings can be organized hierarchically. The (a) layer of dynamic
groupings shows how the sequence of “loud–louder” ( f–ff ) occurs primarily
in groupings of triplets or quintuplets, instances of such groupings occur-
ring in mm. 1, 2, 4, 9, and 10. The quartet of m. 6 differs, however, having
a sequence of “louder–loud–louder.” The inclusion of softer dynamics (ppp
through mp) serves to create longer grouping spans. As indicated in the
(b) layer of the Dynamics, a sequence of “loud–loud–softer” (in which, in

this context, “loud” comprises f–ff and “softer” comprises mp–ppp) occurs
in the first two triplets. The last triplet transforms the “louder–softer”
sequences of the previous triplets into an end emphasis on ff.
While Figure 5.3 shows events through rehearsal number 3 only, it exem-
plifies the processes of Part 1 that continuously develop into new modes of
differing with respect to successive events and the longer spans created by
blurry patterning. The processes of differing, however, arise from the con-
stant presence—the constantly sounding repetition—of G4, whose iden-
tity as this specific pitch becomes audibly transparent.
As may be observed in Example 5.2, the tremolo lines of the Reaching-
Out gestures, always entailing a pairing of the first violin and the cello, move
predominantly by half or whole step upward—with the occasional larger
interval that protrudes from the line. For instance, at rehearsal number 5
the violin initiates an upward-directed gesture that is mirrored by the cello
shortly thereafter, each gesture reaching up or down by an interval of seven
semitones, only to be tethered back to G♯4 at its end. And at rehearsal num-
ber 8, the cello again answers the violin but now repeats the violin’s upward
line, both “Reaching Out” slightly further by an interval of eight semitones.
Part 1 consists of 13 instances of these paired Reaching-Out gestures, the
occurrences schematized in Table 5.1. The columns indicate the number of
notes; the starting and ending pitch for both violin and cello; the relation of the
violin and cello gestures to each other (mirroring or matching of contour and
coordinated or offset beginnings), and the intervallic span and ending pitch of
each gesture. As Table 5.1 demonstrates, the succession of Reaching-Out ges-
tures enacts a process of differing through constant variation. Over the course
of the passage, the number of notes of successive gestures increases, although
not in a consistent way; the gestures are offset temporally until rehearsal
number 16, when they begin together; after the initial alternation between
mirrored and matching contours, the passage ends with mirroring of the last
seven gestures (starting from rehearsal number 14); and the distance of the
Reaching-Out constantly increases by one semitone from rehearsal numbers
11 through 18, after which the distance increases by five and three semitones.
The intervallic shaping of the Reaching-Out gestures also enacts pro-
cesses of differing, as Figure 5.4 indicates for the gestures of rehearsal
numbers 5 and 8 . At rehearsal number 5, the figure shows the mirror-
ing relation between the violin and cello, and the annotations on the pitch
intervals indicated underneath the staves show trichordal and pentachordal
repetition and retrograde inversions for each of the instrumental lines. At
rehearsal number 8, the figure shows the internal palindrome. The inter-
nal intervallic relations within and across the Reaching-Out gestures enact
differing through the recurrences and transformation of sub-units.
Throughout Part 1, the Reaching-Out gestures enact processes not only
of differing but also of intensification, owing to the increase in the number

Table 5.1 String Quartet No. 2, Reaching-Out gestures of first violin and cello
Rehearsal Number Starting pitch Ending Violin1 Reaching-Out
number of notes pitch and distance from G4
cello
relation
Vn1 Vc Vn1 Vc Semitones Pitch
5 13 G4 G4 G♯4 F♯4 Mirror, 7 D5

offset
8 10 G4 G4 G4 G4 Same, 8 E♭5
offset
10 19 G4 G4 G4 G4 Mirror, 8 E♭5
offset
11 10 G4 G4 G4 G4 Mirror, 8 E♭5
offset
12 14 G4 G4 G4 G4 Same, 9 E♭5
offset
13 15 G4 G4 G4 G4 Same, 10 F5
offset
14 21 G4 G4 F5 A3 Mirror, 11 F♯5
offset
15 13 G4 G3 G♯4 F♯4 Mirror, 12 G5

offset
16 16 G4 G4 G5 G3 Mirror, 13 G♯5
together
17 8 G4 G4 G♯5 G♭3 Mirror, 14 A5

together
18 13 G4 G4 B♭5 E3 Mirror, 15 B♭5

together
19 21 G4 G4 D♯7 B2 Mirror, 20 D♯6

together
20 29 G4 F\♯3 F7 A2 Mirror, 23 F♯6

together
of notes and the greater distance from the pitch hub in successive gestures.
The totality of the effect of these processes of differing and intensification
over Part 1 is suggested in Figure 5.5, which visually schematizes the over-
all function of Reaching Out and Tethering that manifests over Part 1 .
Time is depicted on the vertical axis with the beginning of the passage at
the bottom of the figure, and register on the horizontal axis, with the hub of
G4 as the middle column. The Inflections of G are shown as the horizontal
“stitches” across the column, and the Reaching-Out gestures emanate out

Figure 5.4
Intervallic differing in the Reaching-Out gestures
Figure 5.5
Part 1, Reaching Out and Tethering
from the G4 hub according to their intervallic distance from it. The lines at
the top of the G4 column are the meandering gestures by the second violin
and viola that conclude Part 1. The sense of tethering intensifies gradu-
ally over the course of the passage as the Reaching-Out gestures become

more insistent, frequent, and extensive. As the visualization in Figure 5.5
suggests, the continual processes of differing and intensification arise by
means of the repetitions of the passage, the constant presence of G4, and
the recurrences of the Reaching-Out gestures.
Part 2: Reaching Up and Renewing
Part 2 of Gubaidulina’s quartet has a function of Reaching Up and Renewing.

This function is enacted by a mosaic design, consisting of three types of
events whose recurrences articulate eight stages. These stages (discussed
below in more detail) are marked off by a Reaching-Up gesture, a chromatic
ascent that emerges from the mosaic, and a Renewing gesture that refreshes
the process and progress of ascent and that also plays a role in the mosaic.
The three types of events that comprise this mosaic design are defined as
follows, and their first several occurrences are annotated on the score excerpt
of rehearsal number 21 (mm. 44–50), reproduced below in Example 5.3 :
1. “Sonority”—a continuous harmonic event consisting of two or more

pitches. Sonorities involving pitch intervals (pi) of four or eight semi-
tones and one or eleven semitones occur frequently, establishing an
overall harmonic character for Part 2.
2. “Cry”—a falling or rising semitone melodic gesture of two elements
that has a “cry” character. Often the Cry emerges from a Sonority event.
3. “Multidimensional pitch-interval 7” (or “Multi-7”)—a figure of verti-
cal and successive pitch-interval 7s, sounding in four timbral types.
The mosaic design of Part 2’s initial stage (rehearsal numbers 21–25, mm.
45–67) is suggested by the layout in Figure 5.6 . All three types of events
are introduced initially (mm. 45–51), but then the progressive variation of each
type—entailing changes in pitch and register, timbre, texture, and duration, and
their continuous recombination—creates a mosaic-like sequence for Part 2.
The overall function of the part is characterized by two gestures that
emerge from the mosaic events. The Reaching-Up gesture is characterized
by chromatic ascent and occurs several times during Part 2. As shown by
the pitch names in boldface in Figure 5.6, the first Reaching-Up gesture
begins with the A4 in m. 58, occurring in both the Sonority and Cry events,
and rises chromatically to an F♯5 in m. 67. Since the notes of the Reaching-
Up gesture play a role in mosaic events, it effectively emerges from the
mosaic design, largely because of the force of the rising chromatic line.
The Renewing gesture (not shown in Figure 5.6) consists of a dyad of either
interval class 3 or 4, which because of either dynamic or textural emphasis has
the effect of renewing the overall ascent at various moments throughout Part 2.

Example 5.3
Three event types of the mosaic design
This gesture is an element of the Sonority events, but because of its musical
emphasis, it takes on an added role—that of reinitiating upward passage.
As noted above, the overall Reaching Up and Renewing function of Part 2
is enacted through eight stages. Each stage begins with a Renewing ges-
ture, and all but two also entail occurrences of the Reaching-Up gesture.
As Figure 5.7 indicates, the upward trajectory of this passage spans three
octaves, from A4 through A7, but the upward ascent is not smooth—it stalls in
Stages 2 and 4 and is steeper in some stages (“steeper” being a function of time
and size of interval) . The Renewing gestures, also indicated in Figure 5.7,
mark the beginning of each stage of the trajectory, renewing afresh the sense
of progress upward. For instance, as the score excerpts of Example 5.4 show,
the Renewing gesture of Stage 2 (m. 67) is set off by texture and dynamics,
and the gesture of Stage 5 (m. 86) is set off by texture, register, the vibrato in

Figure 5.6
Mosaic design, Part 2, Reaching Up and Renewing
Figure 5.7
Stages of Reaching Up and Renewing
Example 5.4
Renewing gestures, mm. 65–67 and 86–87
the viola and cello, and the dynamic swells in the violins. It is noteworthy that
the Renewing gestures initiate an upward chromatic ascent for each stage
with two exceptions: Stages 2 and 4. The Renewing gestures have the effect
of restarting the ascent, but in these two stages the ascent stalls.
The interactions of the mosaic events and Reaching-Up/Renewing ges-
tures enact the overall function of Reaching Up and Renewing. Tracing
these interactions in an abbreviated form, Figure 5.8 maps out their occur-
rences in order to suggest how the function emerges from the events and
gestures . As the figure suggests, each stage and each occurrence of the
events and gestures differs from the one preceding, such that an overall
process of differing characterizes the upward trajectory of the passage. In
other words, the repetitions of the chromatic ascent and of its renewal allow
the process of differing to become salient.

Figure 5.8
Interactions of mosaic events and Reaching-Up/Renewing gestures
Part 3: Affirmation
The Affirmation function of the concluding part (rehearsal number 36,

mm. 123–36) is enacted by the alternation of two related sonorities that
affirm processes of the previous parts. This function projects a sense not
of temporal becoming, but rather of stillness that dissipates the more
forward-directed motion of the preceding parts. As in Parts 1 and 2, how-
ever, differing emerges from repetition, in this case the repetition of two
sonorities with features that I describe as “Diffuse” and “Focused.” As may
be observed in the annotated score excerpt of Example 5.5 (mm. 123–26), the
Diffuse sonority consists of larger intervals and a wider range; the Focused
sonority, of smaller intervals and a smaller range. A schematization of
the occurrences of the Diffuse and Focused sonorities in Figure 5.9a
shows that the Diffuse sonority spans 65 semitones and that its harmonic
intervals are relatively large, especially in the lower register. The Focused
sonority, by contrast, spans only 18 semitones, its constituent intervals are
smaller, and its pc set is a subset of that of the Diffuse sonority.
Example 5.5
Alternating sonorities, mm. 123–26

The alternation of the Diffuse and Focused sonorities manifests difference
not through the inflections of G4 during Part 1, nor as in Part 2 through the
progressive changes of successive events and their recombination in mosaic
design. Rather, differing in Part 3 arises primarily from changes in the dura-
tion of the two sonorities (varying from 3 to 15 beats), with some distinction
in dynamics as well. As Figure 5.9b indicates, the Focused sonority always
has a forte dynamic, and the Diffuse sonority, a piano→forte dynamic, with
the exception of its last occurrence, which is played pianissimo.
A grouping of the sonorities into “Diffuse-Focused” pairs demonstrates a
blurry patterning that enacts a progressive differentiation. Figure 5.9b also
illustrates how the pairings show a reversal of the long–short pattern in the
third pair, an increase by one beat of the longer duration of each pair, and an
overall increase by one beat of the succession of pairs. The duration of the
final Diffuse sonority, as if in response to the reversal of the third pair, is sig-
nificantly longer at 15 beats. While the final occurrence of the Diffuse sonority
has a greater durational and dynamic difference with respect to the preced-
ing sonorities, the distinctions between events in the Affirmation passage are
finely drawn. The subtleties of the distinctions both allow the differences of
the repetitions to become manifest and the final, more distinct statement of
the Diffuse sonority to provide an ending to the passage and to the quartet.
The Affirmation function of Part 3 arises from features of the Diffuse and
Focused sonorities that affirm earlier events of the piece through allusion or
repetition. The two sonorities comprise pitch classes and registers that have
played significant roles in the preceding two parts. In particular, G♯ is promi-
nent as the highest pitch of both the Diffuse and Focused sonorities. In place
of G, which played such a crucial role in Part 1, G♯ now reaches up from that
tethering pitch into a directed pitch-class space, and its manifestation as G♯7
affirms the Reaching Up process of Part 2, which, before the wafting up in the
first violin, rested momentarily on G7. The doubling of D in different octaves
in both sonorities also affirms the important role of that pitch class in Part 2,
and particularly its role in the D–F♯ sonority that occurs so prominently at
the beginning of Part 2 in both the Renewing gestures and Multi-7 events.
Finally, in the most obvious sense, the Diffuse sonority affirms the Reaching
Up and Renewing process of Part 2 with its high register and the airy breadth
of its spacing. In perhaps a less obvious sense, the alternation of the Diffuse
and Focused sonorities in this concluding passage affirms the Reaching Out
and Tethering of Part 1: the Focused sonority tethers the registral reach of the
Diffuse sonority. That the quartet culminates with the registral reach and
breadth of the Diffuse sonority suggests not that one process has triumphed
over another, but rather that the alternation of sonorities—which in itself
affirms multiple and different processes—ends with the one that allows space
for the other. In other words, the quartet ends with the sonority that mani-
fests, in its totality, both difference and repetition.
Figure 5.9a
Alternation of Diffuse and Focused sonorities, mm. 123–36
Figure 5.9b
Durational differing
Concluding Remarks
As a composer who is female, Sofia Gubaidulina has had to encounter and

negotiate difference in ways unique to her identity as a woman and her par-
ticular life circumstances. The Second String Quartet seems focused espe-
cially on difference as a lived reality, but not simply as a difference that leads
to the binaries of exclusionary thought. Rather, through musical repetitions
and changes in both short-and long-term temporal relations, Gubaidulina
musically thinks difference itself. Through the constantly varying events that
combine and recombine in new ways, complex threads of association prolif-
erate throughout the quartet. The processes that run through these threads
of association give shape to the repetitions and to the differences they reveal.
While the Affirmation passage functionally ends the piece, it does so by open-
ing up a sonic place for the Reaching Up and Renewing and the Reaching Out
and Tethering processes to reverberate. If, as Gubaidulina suggests in her
“Composer Note,” we hear in the quartet the “vital and essential transition”
from one sounding event to another, then we may begin to have a palpable
sense of the difference—the “pure difference”—that the music thinks.
Notes
1. The classic authors in structuralist linguistics include Ferdinand de Saussure,

whose ideas were extended by Claude Lévi-Strauss into structural anthropology. For rep-
resentative works see Saussure, Course in General Linguistics (LaSalle, IL: Open Court,
1986), and Lévi-Strauss, The Raw and the Cooked (New York: Harper & Row, 1969).
For a representative poststructuralist work, see Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978).
2. See Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter (London: Routledge, 1993), and Gender Trouble
(New York: Routledge, 1990); Rosi Braidotti, Patterns of Dissonance: A Study of Women
in Contemporary Philosophy (New York: Routledge, 1991); Elizabeth Grosz, “A Thousand
Tiny Sexes: Feminism and Rhizomatics,” in Gilles Deleuze and the Theater of Philosophy,
ed. Constantin Boundas and Dorothea Olkowski (New York: Routledge, 1994), 187–210;
Grosz, Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1994); and Grosz, Space, Time, and Perversion: Essays on the Politics of Bodies
(New York: Routledge, 1995).

3. Deleuze’s work, the French title of which is Différence et répétition (Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1968), is available in English as Difference and Repetition, trans.
Paul Patton (London: Athlone Press, 1994).
4. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and
Schizophrenia, trans. Brian Massumi (1980; Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1987).
5. Alice Jardine, Gynesis: Configurations of Woman and Modernity (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1985), and Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which Is Not One, trans. Catherine
Porter (1977; Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985).
6. Grosz, “A Thousand Tiny Sexes,” 187–90.
7. Ibid., 207. Other feminist philosophers sympathetic to the Deleuzian project, while
not necessarily to all of his concepts, are Braidotti (see “Toward a New Nomadism: Feminist
Deleuzean Tracks; or, Metaphysics and Metabolism,” in Gilles Deleuze and the Theater of
Philosophy, 159–85); Moira Gatens (“Through a Spinozist Lens: Ethology, Difference, Power,”
in Deleuze: A Critical Reader, ed. Paul Patton (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 162–87; Dorothea
Olkowski, Gilles Deleuze and the Ruin of Representation (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University
of California Press, 1999); see also the essays in Ian Buchanan and Claire Colebrook, eds.,
Deleuze and Feminist Theory (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000).
8. Daniel Smith and John Protevi, “Gilles Deleuze,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Fall 2008), ed. Edward N. Zalta <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/
entries/deleuze/>; Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 29.
9. Smith and Protevi, “Gilles Deleuze.”
10. There are two available scores: one printed—Sofia Gubaidulina, String Quartet No.
2 (Hamburg: H. Sikorski, 2002)—and the other a facsimile reproduction of the manu-
script (Hamburg: H. Sikorski, 1991). When working on this analysis, I relied primarily on
two recorded performances by the Kronos and the Danish Quartets; I did not have access
to recordings by the Arditti and Rubin Quartets. The Danish Quartet performance was
the one that most closely affirmed my own analytical observations. Kurtag, Lutoslawski,
Gubaidulina, Arditti String Quartet, Montaigne Auvidis MO 782147, 1994, compact disc;
String Quartets, Danish String Quartet, Classic Produktion Osnabrück 999064 2, compact
disc; Short Stories, Kronos Quartet, Electra Nonesuch 9 79310-2, 1993, compact disc; and
20th Century String Quartets, Rubin String Quartet, Arte Nova 770690, 2006, compact disc.
11. Sofia Gubaidulina, “Composer Note,” String Quartet No. 2, Schirmer Music Sales
Classical, accessed September 21, 2014, http://www.musicsalesclassical.com/composer/
work/24110.
12. Gilles Deleuze, Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation, trans. Daniel W. Smith (1981;
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003); Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari,
What Is Philosophy?, trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Graham Burchell (1991; New York:
Columbia University Press, 1994).
13. Deleuze and Guattari, What Is Philosophy?, 117–200.
14. Deleuze, Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation, 48.
15. Michael Kurtz, Sofia Gubaidulina: A Biography, ed. Malcolm Hamrick Brown, trans.
Christoph K. Lohmann (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007), details the vari-
ous dimensions of Gubaidulina’s multicultural heritage and its role in shaping her artis-
tic vision.
16. I indicate the function of parts in italics, as for instance in the Reaching Out and
Tethering function of Part 1, and indicate specific gestures in quotations, as for instance
in the Reaching-Out gesture.
17. Figures 5.3 and 5.5 were originally conceived with color. In the original version of
Figure 5.3 I used color to indicate timbral differences, and Figure 5.5 continued the color

depictions utilized in Figure 5.3. For the purposes of publication, these figures have been
recast using shades of black. The original color versions of Figures 5.3 and 5.5 may be
seen on the companion website for this volume.
18. The careful reader and listener will note that in Figure 5.3 I have made some specific
interpretations of timbral quality or dynamics that are ambiguous in the score. My interpre-
tations are like the ones that musicians would make in performing the work. For instance,
in the cello part of m. 10, the first G4 is marked ord. and downbow at f. I have interpreted
this as non vibrato, since earlier instances of a related figure clearly show ord. vibrato.

6
Chen Yi, Symphony No. 2 (1993)
Born in 1953 in Guangzhou, Chen Yi studied violin and piano in the con-
servatory system from the age of three and was exposed by her parents
to Western classical music.i Her family life changed dramatically with the
onset of China’s Cultural Revolution in 1966, and when she was 15 they were
separated from one another and sent to forced-labor assignments in differ-
ent parts of the country. Chen Yi was sent to the countryside in southern
China, where she helped to build military fortifications and grow rice.
For all the difficulties she endured during this time, Chen Yi found value
in her musical experiences. When she was 17 the local authorities appointed
her concertmaster of an orchestra comprising both Western and traditional
Chinese instruments that performed revolutionary Chinese operas, and
she credits the countryside experience with allowing her to encounter and
understand her Chinese cultural roots:
I also found my own language when I realized that my mother tongue

really is the same as what the farmers speak . . . [and] when I translated
it into music, it’s not the same as what I was practicing everyday! For
this reason, I believe that I really need to . . . find a way to express
myself in a way of real fusion of Eastern and Western musics in my
music. The result should be a natural hybrid, and not an artificial or
superficial combination.ii
i. Biographical information about the composer is drawn from Grove Music Online, s.v. “Chen
Yi,” by Joanna C. Lee, article updated August 27, 2003, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com,
and “Chen Yi,” Theodore Presser Company, updated March 22, 2013, http://www.presser.com/
Composers/info.cfm?Name=ChenYi.
ii. Cited in John de Clef Piñero, “An Interview with Chen Yi,” accessed October 5, 2012, http://
www.newmusicon.org/v9n4/v94chen_yi.htm (web page discontinued).
127
In 1979 Chen Yi began composition studies at the Central Conservatory
of Music in Beijing, where the curriculum included both Western and tra-
ditional Chinese music, as well as field trips into rural China to collect
songs from local villagers, further sowing the seeds for the cross-cultural
fusion that would later characterize her music. In 1986 she became the first
woman to complete a master’s degree in composition in China, an event
that was celebrated by a concert of her orchestral works performed by the
Central Philharmonic Orchestra in Beijing.
After graduating, Chen Yi moved to New York to complete her doctorate
of musical arts at Columbia University, where she studied with Chou Wen-
chung and Mario Davidovsky. Her music—its distinctive style engaging a
wide range of musical traditions from fugue to serialism to American ver-
nacular, as well as everything from traditional Chinese ensembles to choirs,
orchestras, and symphonic bands—has attracted commissions by such
eminent performers as Yehudi Menuhin, Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, and Evelyn
Glennie. She has been recognized with numerous prizes, including the
Charles Ives Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters,
the Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the
ASCAP Concert Music Award, and a Guggenheim fellowship. She is also the
subject of two documentaries, the 1989 series Sound and Silence (ISCM/
Adamov Films) and a 2002 film entitled Chen Yi in America (A Cantonese in
New York) (Guangdong TV).
Currently teaching at the University of Missouri–Kansas City Conservatory
of Music and Dance, Chen Yi has also taught at the Peabody Conservatory
and from 2006 to 2015 served as Distinguished Visiting Professor at the
Beijing Central Conservatory of Music and Tianjin Conservatory of Music
in China.
The Transformative Power of Musical Gestures: Cultural

Translation in Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2
Nancy Yunhwa Rao
An important thread running through the musical narrative of Chen Yi’s

Symphony No. 2 (1993) is the memory of her late father.1 Chen Yi, who by
then had moved to the United States, wrote this dramatic work in com-
memoration of his recent passing in China. It articulates a narrative of
spiritual transformation through contrasting sections that depict deep sor-
row, profound reflection, and, finally, revelation.

At the close of the symphony, against a shimmering background that
gradually fades into silence, the composer introduces a crucial four-
measure expression of homage— played on percussion— referring to
a particular musical gesture in Chinese opera associated with dignified
characters, chongtou (to be discussed later). Quite unlike in a typical sym-
phonic ending, a percussionist plays a quiet string of syncopated rhythms
on a small gong in a clear, bright, metallic timbre. Compared to earlier
parts of the symphony, where the heaviness is unrelenting and melancholy
lingers, Chen Yi’s touch here at the end is light and unadorned, signal-
ing an almost cheerful outlook. But to listeners familiar with the conven-
tions of Chinese opera, the simple musical gesture also signifies the image
of a man with the qualities of simple elegance, genuine aspiration, and
unfeigned optimism.
Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2 is rich in such musical gestures, whose dis-
tinctive characteristics are derived from several Chinese music traditions.
Many of these gestures are connected to traditional percussive patterns in
Chinese opera called luogu dianzi, patterns that are closely associated with
particular meaning and bodily movement. As a result, they help to cre-
ate a listening experience ripe with potential for emotional and physical
engagement. Although that potential may not be fully realized for listeners
unaware of these gestures’ meanings within their original cultural context,
I argue that a close consideration of their significance in Chinese music
is crucial, both because of the way these gestures can elicit an embodied
listening and because these musical gestures—culturally coded in inter-
esting ways—lead to particular aesthetic implications. This essay therefore
seeks to delineate the rich and complex meanings embedded in the musi-
cal gestures of the symphony, by examining their dynamic and musical
shapes and—most important—t heir expressive effects in terms of physical
engagement and cultural associations.
In the following discussion of musical gestures in Chen Yi’s symphony,
I will draw not only from an understanding of their cultural context,
but also from recent literature on musical embodiment. Since the 1990s
scholars have brought analytical scrutiny to the embodied aspect of music
experiences, examining the multifarious forms of physical engagement
in relation to musical sound, musical gestures, and their expressive con-
tent. Suzanne Cusick and Andrew Mead, for example, have explored the
close connection between the body and the acts of performance, compos-
ing, and listening.2 Others, such as Naomi Cumming, Daphne Leong,
and David Korevaar, have demonstrated the value of linking performers’
physical engagement with music to our understanding of musical voice
and the analysis of musical gestures.3 The embodiment aspect of musi-
cal gestures—how discrete units exemplify what Robert Hatten calls the
Chen Yi, Symphony No. 2 (1993) 129

“energetic shaping of sound through time” and can elicit the physical
engagement of listeners—is the focus of study for several scholars, includ-
ing Hatten, David Lidov, and Arnie Cox.4 Their insightful work provides
the analytical tools that form the basis of my approach in this essay.
One difference, however, sets this study apart from the earlier work. While
the above-mentioned studies focus primarily on music of the European
and American traditions, my study reaches into Chinese culture, demon-
strating how an understanding of this transnational context is crucial to an
analysis of the cross-cultural gestural connotations. Accordingly, my essay
is divided into several parts. First, I discuss the transnational cultural con-
text of Chen Yi’s musical gestures, and examine the Chinese operatic tradi-
tion of luogu dianzi through the lens of recent theories of musical gesture.
Second, I offer an interpretation of two particularly significant musical ges-
tures in the symphony, by defining their musical characteristics and dem-
onstrating their associations with luogu dianzi. Third, I analyze how Chen
Yi’s interweaving of these gestures guides the symphony’s larger musical
narrative and its dynamic process of spiritual transformation. Fourth,
I examine the structure and significance of the symbolic musical gesture
that brings the symphony to a close. In conclusion, I consider the work
from the perspective of shi, a concept in Chinese aesthetics.
The transnational cultural context of Chen Yi’s

musical gestures
Since musical gestures are inevitably culturally coded, and since Chen Yi’s
Symphony No. 2 draws on gestures and genres that traverse cultural and
national borders, questions arise about how to situate the composer herself
in the transnational context. There is no simple answer: the borderlines
in such late twentieth- century cross-cultural significations are formu-
lated in flexible and sometimes unexpected ways. For Chen Yi, immersed
since early childhood in Western classical music and having gone through
rigorous conservatory training and, later, doctoral studies in the United
States, knowledge of the European music tradition is firmly established.
At the same time, she is deeply rooted in Chinese traditional and con-
temporary music, cultivated through her experiences as a child growing
up with Cantonese opera and music around her, as a teenager receiving
“re-education” by being sent to live and labor in the countryside, as the
concertmaster playing in a revolutionary Chinese opera orchestra, and
as a conservatory student studying subjects of Chinese traditional music

and conducting fieldwork. Furthermore, these aspects of her musical
background are intimately mingled with a type of music cultural fusion
made prominent during the Cultural Revolution, namely the revolution-
ary or “model” opera—a genre that integrated traditional Chinese operatic
and other vocal traditions with elements of European orchestral music to
achieve a certain dramatic and aesthetic result.5 Chen Yi’s sophisticated
compositional palette brings together elements of these diverse musical
heritages, experiences, and education and reflects not only an ongoing
engagement with Chinese folk traditions, but also her exposure to the con-
temporary vernacular music of the United States.
As a cosmopolitan figure of the early twenty-first century, Chen Yi has
experienced various cultural relocations and developed a plurality of vision,
giving rise to her “simultaneous awareness of multiple dimensions” of sonic
possibilities and cultural contexts.6 Her statement that “music composition
reflects the precipitation of a composer’s cultural and psychological con-
struct” deliberately celebrates a diversity of cultural belonging.7 Yet, despite
her thorough knowledge of and training in European classical music, as a
person of Chinese heritage she occupies a minority ethnic position in her
country of residence, the United States. In this context her work is “natu-
rally” viewed as an articulation of that ethnic perspective, codified as “mar-
ginal” but often greeted with multicultural enthusiasm. At the same time,
in the context of China, where she aligns with the majority, Chen Yi con-
tinues to occupy a position deeply invested in national culture, as well as in
extending and reaffirming that tradition by creating new work.8
Therefore, in multicultural America, Chen Yi’s work inevitably involves
what might be called the translation of the “national” into the ethnic, and
the recognition she has received in America does little to change this eth-
nic subject position. Her transnational position means communicating
both across cultural borders and from interstitial spaces. In many ways
musical gestures play an important role in the complex signification asso-
ciated with the pivotal translation of national into ethnic articulation. For
example, sometimes a musical gesture from Chinese culture could be
taken as an ethnic marker, linking to a certain notion about the culture and
structuring the ways in which her works are received, heard, and discussed
in the United States. (The same gesture might not, however, be considered
“marked” as ethnic when performed in China.) None of these complexi-
ties and paradoxes, however, interferes with the ease with which Chen Yi
moves between cultures, as reflected both in her professional success in
the two countries and in the unique sound world she creates.
The symphony represents a crucial work of self-reflection and spiritual
renewal, moving from expressions of grief, pain, agitation, and agony
to eventually close with an expression of optimism. An analysis of this

work from the perspective of musical gesture—in terms of both physical
and cultural embodiment—allows a deeper understanding of the expres-
sive way in which Chen Yi uses gesture to shape the musical processes
that symbolize this spiritual transformation.9 As we will see, she employs
musical gestures associated with a genre in one culture (Chinese opera)
to derive a musical narrative that evokes emotive responses in a genre of
another culture (the traditional Western symphony).
Luogu dianzi as mimetic musical gestures

As I have discussed in an earlier publication, percussion music constitutes
a vital part of the system of signification in Chinese opera.10 Over one
hundred preexisting rhythmic patterns—collectively called luogu dianzi—
performed by a percussion ensemble of drum, clapper, small Chinese
cymbal (naobo), small gong (xiaoluo), and large gong (daluo)—are used as
musical signs to establish an ambience, punctuate a speech or dramatic
movement, or denote an opera character’s persona, class, or state of mind.
Theatrically, the rhythmic patterns also form a body of musical topics and
conventions that can be used to distinguish between nobles and common-
ers, and to reflect the mood and inner states of characters.11 Functioning
as sonic signifiers that provide clues about dramatic situations, the luogu
dianzi rhythmic patterns are widely understood across Chinese communi-
ties, forming a basic musical language shared not only among singers and
musicians, but also audiences. Going one step further, I would argue that
many luogu dianzi have an inherently mimetic quality and therefore can be
understood within the framework of gestural music theory.
As noted earlier, Hatten defines “gesture” in part as a “communicative … ,
expressive, energetic shaping through time.”12 But the fundamental rea-
son gestures can be communicative and expressive is that they “can emu-
late those precise energetic shapes that hold expressive meaning for us”
(108). These two elements of Hatten’s definitions—temporal shaping and
the notion of emulation—are particularly suggestive for the current study.
The former focuses on the importance of the temporal dimension and the
rhythmic aspect of musical gestures, qualities of equal significance in the
rhythmic patterns of luogo dianzi. The latter, on the other hand, focuses
on a mechanism by which these gestures can acquire expressive signifi-
cance, that is, by emulating or mimicking those familiar patterns of physi-
cal energy we have come to associate—whether from personal experience
or by cultural convention—w ith common emotions or actions. Both train
the analytical sight on the dynamic process itself—in other words, on the
unfolding and the affect of musical gestures.

Although musical gestures can be discussed in terms of discrete quali-
ties such as rhythm, tone quality, articulation, dynamics, and pacing, these
qualities come together to create a single expressive unit—in Hatten’s words,
“emergent gestalts that convey affective motion, emotion, and agency by
fusing otherwise separate elements into continuities of shape and force.”13
According to Cumming, such a “complex of contextual features … add[s]‌up
to the dynamic ‘feeling’ of agency at different levels.” She further notes that
“the ‘interpretant’ of a figure as gestural would have to be bodily, whether
that bodily reference were made self-conscious or not.”14
Focusing on embodied cognition, Arnie Cox places emphasis on the rela-
tion between emulation and gestural signification and proposes what he
calls his “mimetic hypothesis.” An important component of this hypoth-
esis is the listener’s “mimetic participation.” He notes that “part of how we
understand music involves imagining making the heard sounds for our-
selves, and this imagined participation involves covertly and overtly imitat-
ing the sounds heard and imitating the physical actions that produce those
sounds.”15 Cox suggests that we might comprehend the musical gesture “via
an amodal, visceral imitation of the exertion dynamic evident in the sound
(a pattern of exertions that would produce the same or similar sounds).”16 By
“visceral,” Cox means that the mimetic may not just involve our limbs, head,
or lips, but also “something in the gut that somehow matches the energy
pattern of the music.”17 Such visceral imitations concern the imaginary yet
physical dimension of listening that can affect the listener deeply. Part of
musical pleasure is the physicality of subconscious mimicry associated with
the musical gesture. In addition, Cox points out, our mimetic participation
involves imitating not only the imagined physical actions that produce those
sounds, but also the physical actions that those sounds signify.
To illustrate how these concepts apply to luogo dianzi, let us examine ji-ji-
feng, an important luogu dianzi that is nearly ubiquitous in Chinese opera.
Example 6.1 is a rendition of a typical ji-ji-feng rhythmic pattern played by
percussion ensemble . The first two measures shown in the example
constitute the generic opening rhythm for many luogu dianzi. The “middle
bar,” indicated by repeat signs, is repeated ad libitum depending on the dra-
matic situation. Its distinctive profile of gradual acceleration and crescendo
articulated by continuous strokes distinguishes the ji-ji-feng and imbues it
with a sense of intensity. The last two measures constitute an ending also
commonly found in many luogu dianzi.
Ji-ji-feng is used to signify hasty, rushed physical activities and the inten-
sity typically associated with a fighting or military scene, a quick march, or
a chase. It typically starts at a moderate speed and gradually builds up to a
climactic moment by an increase in volume and tempo, and by using rapid
drum strokes to create an accumulation of microactivity. The increasing

Example 6.1
Chinese opera percussion pattern ji-ji-feng
intensity of ji-ji-feng depicts physical exertion and denotes a psychological

dimension of tension and anxiety. An embodied listening could evoke its
topical reference to fighting by activating not only a listener’s internal emu-
lation of the sound production (physically demanding fast strokes), but also
the imagined physical dimension of fighting (physical exertion) and the
psychological state associated with such an intense activity. These are inter-
active and inseparable parts of ji-ji-feng.
This discussion of ji-ji-feng illustrates how luogu dianzi, as musical ges-
tures, can shape the experience of temporality in crucial ways, acting
both as musical signs characterized by what Kofi Agawu terms “mimetic
qualities” and as musical topics that connote specific feelings or affects.18
Because luogu dianzi as musical gestures enact physical expressions of
the affects that can stimulate the mimetic participation of listeners, the
notion of embodiment will play a central role in my interpretation of Chen
Yi’s Symphony No. 2. The analysis will identify musical gestures that are
closely associated with the conventions of Chinese opera. Although these
may not be readily recognizable to an audience unfamiliar with this genre
and its repertoire of topics, the purpose of such an analysis goes beyond
mere identification of stylistic or topic affiliations: it enables a close read-
ing of the inner dynamic and expressive narrative of this symphony.
Considering the symphony’s musical gestures in the context of the sound
world of Chinese opera and through its interpretive lenses will inevitably
enhance listeners’ understanding not only of their meaning, but of the
composer’s musical language.
Two musical gestures and their origins in Chinese opera
Two musical gestures provide most of the expressive content in Symphony

No. 2: the gesture of agony and the gesture of epiphany. While “epiphany”
is a term taken from Chen Yi’s own description of the symphony, I use the

term “agony” to indicate a sense of agitation, struggle, gloom, and heaviness
associated with the deep-seated grief the composer felt after her father’s
death.19 The appearances of these gestures in the work range widely: from
obvious, immediate surface to subtle, distanced background, and in forms
of either raw energy or specific cultural reference. In some cases the musi-
cal phrasing of the gestures also mimics the temporal articulation and
physical or choreographic movement characteristic of the Chinese opera
stage. Yet regardless of forms or referential association, these gestures
shape the temporal process and emotive content of the symphony. After
introducing each gesture in its musical context and describing its musical
characteristics and connection to luogu dianzi, I will discuss the ways by
which the gestural interactions are set in motion.
The gesture of agony

The symphony begins with a series of dark, low rumbling sounds at the
lower extreme of the orchestral register, creating a sense of gloom or anx-
ious motion. This effect arises from a succession of gestures: first a tremolo
on the double bass and then a roll on the timpani, both shaped by gradual
crescendos and decrescendos. Characterized by their low register, rapid
attacks, gradual dynamic changes, and sometimes accelerations, these ges-
tures effectively convey the burning torment of bereavement—and for this
reason I refer to them as gestures of agony. Essential to the intensity of the
gesture of agony is its physicality, the continuous quick strokes, crescendo,
and acceleration that require from the performer a gradually increasing
exertion of energy.
Certain key characteristics of the gesture of agony are heard in the ensuing
passages, including the shaping of a gradual crescendo at the low end of the
contrabass (mm. 21 and 26) and tuba (m. 31), and the fast repetition of strokes,
emulated by various woodwind instruments by means of long tremoli (mm.
27, 30, 35, 39, and 40). A sense of agitated motion remains at the core of this
opening section, sustained by the prevailing gestures of agony.
To listeners who are familiar with luogu dianzi, the dynamic shape
formed by the agony gesture’s tremolo/roll connects closely to ji-ji-feng, with
its characteristic process of gradual buildup through the smooth crescendo
and the quick-stroke acceleration (the main challenge for the performer).
Given this association, the gesture of agony’s increased intensity conveys
both physical exertion and psychological tension. The physicality of this
musical gesture extends beyond the imagining of the muscular tension of
rolling mallets on the timpani, since, as a musical topic, ji-ji-feng signals
the intense and fiery atmosphere associated with battling and fighting. Yet

Example 6.2
Opening gesture of agony in Chen Yi, Symphony No. 2
it is the psychological intensity of ji-ji-feng that the gesture of agony most

vividly evokes throughout the symphony.
Against the continuum of the agony gestures, starting in m. 12 the dou-
ble bass articulates a twelve-tone row, <B, F, D ♭, D, F♯ , A ♭, A, E ♭, E, B ♭, G, C>,
which is picked up canonically in the next measure by the tuba (beginning
on C ♯ , the third pitch class of the row). From here until m. 35, double bass
and tuba repeat this row in canon, together providing a contrapuntal but
otherwise grounding sonority in the lowest register; meanwhile, the higher
strings also play the row, first in tremoli and then glissandi. These twelve-
tone statements eventually become ostinato figures whose staggered rep-
etitions add to the momentum created by the agony gesture.
Another important melodic idea, variations of which are played by sev-
eral different instruments throughout the symphony, is introduced in m. 13
by the double bass, tuba, and contrabassoon. This melodic idea oscillates
between two notes a perfect fifth apart, with added upper or lower semitone

Example 6.3
Tritone-inflected melodies
neighbor notes often creating a tritone-inflected melody. (As a result, set

classes 016 and 0167 occur frequently in this passage.) Example 6.3 shows
two such melodies that occur later in the oboes: the first oscillates between
C and G, decorated by B and D ♭, and the second oscillates between F♯ and
B, decorated by E ♯ and C. Tellingly, Chen Yi once noted that she regards
“dissonance intervals of adjacent pitches” as the sound of tragedy.20 In the
context of Symphony No. 2, these tritonal melodic fragments thus add to
the sense of agony and deep sorrow.
The gesture of epiphany

The orchestra, with its continuing succession of agony gestures, has been
simmering in a dark abyss of low-register melodic fragments and harmo-
nies. Then suddenly, as shown in Example 6.4 , at the end of m. 42 a
new, higher musical gesture breaks out as a rush of quick notes on wood-
block, flute, harp, and vibraphone leads to two accented fortissimo attacks
on the downbeats of mm. 43 and 44, and a third in the oboe leading into
m. 45. Against the sharp attacks in the woodblock, the pause in activity in
the flute and other instruments creates suspense, enhancing the gesture’s
acute sense of energy. In Chen Yi’s own words, “The atmosphere of the
heavy background is interrupted by the sharp percussion sound, which

Example 6.4
Gesture of epiphany, mm. 41–45
symbolizes the sparkle of the sudden epiphanies.”21 Accordingly, I refer to

this figure as the gesture of epiphany.
Characterized by the penetrating timbre of the woodblock, this startling
gesture is quickly repeated by various combinations of instruments, inject-
ing new energy into the symphony with every statement; at the same time,
each repetition seemingly threatens to bring the music to an abrupt stop.
For example, in mm. 58–60 the epiphany gesture’s appearances within
the whole woodwind section, or the whole orchestra, mimic the previous
woodblock gestures, as shown in Example 6.5 . When epiphany gestures
occur in quick succession, as they do in these measures, the staggering of
their accented final strokes creates a dramatic effect.
Like the gesture of agony, the gesture of epiphany also has clear asso-
ciations with luogu dianzi. In Chinese opera, dramatic moments of sud-
den revelation, surprise, shock, or epiphany are typically marked with
signifying percussive patterns that are stylistically similar to the passages
shown in Examples 6.4 and 6.5. These styles of luogu dianzi often combine
the more general sibian yiluo, used to emphasize an especially dramatic
moment, with the more explosive leng chui, associated particularly with
astonishment, shock, anger, and alarm. In the sibian yiluo pattern drum
rolls, implying internal turmoil or mental activity, and a brief segment
of quickly repeated notes lead to an accented attack, followed by a sudden
pause that creates a sense of disquiet. In the leng chui, a few loud, abrupt

Example 6.5
Gestures of epiphany, mm. 58–60
drum strokes, punctuated by silence, similarly lead to a final accented

attack. Examples 6.6a and 6.6b reproduce versions of the sibian yiluo and
leng chui rhythmic patterns, respectively . To my hearing, the psychologi-
cal dimension of these two percussion patterns is visceral and direct, much
like the physical reaction to an arresting moment, with the body held in
suspense.
These two musical gestures, sibian yiluo and leng chui, play an essential
role in Chinese opera, where their punctuating effects do not simply add
to the music’s characteristic sound, but supply a sonic skeleton without
which the drama would be shapeless. In her symphony Chen Yi evokes
these musical gestures in similar ways to create the distinctive effect of

Example 6.6a
Chinese opera percussion pattern si-bian-yi-luo
Example 6.6b
Chinese opera percussion pattern leng chui
punctuation and angularity. In a kind of sonic sculpture, she transfers the

percussive punctuations to a variety of pitched instruments, often using a
swift upward sweeping motion to emulate the resonance of the accented
sharp percussive sound. Despite the epiphany gesture’s varied guises, the
effect remains similar—vividly startling. I propose that the dynamic exer-
tion implied by this gesture can be experienced by listeners on a physical
level through the kind of “visceral imitation” suggested by Cox.
The epiphany gesture draws on pitch materials used frequently by Chen Yi
during this period in such works as the Piano Concerto (1992) and her octet
Sparkle for woodwinds, strings, piano and percussion (1992). Specifically,
in addition to the aforementioned tritone-inflected melody and twelve-tone
row, a five-note melody that the composer herself has identified as the “Chen
Yi theme” (hereafter “CY theme”) is also prominent. Example 6.7 repro-
duces the theme in Chen Yi’s Concerto. In the symphony (as indicated on
22
Example 6.7
CY theme in Chen Yi, Piano Concerto

Example 6.4), this melody is incorporated into the opening of the epiphany
gesture and later appears in numerous similar contexts. Its appearance in
the symphony is particularly pertinent because the composer notes that the
CY theme “has recurred in her mind since her father fell ill.”23
Dramatic interplay and transformation
The two primary musical gestures of agony and epiphany in Chen Yi’s sym-
phony first appear successively and in contrasting occurrences but eventu-
ally merge to effect an expressive transformation. If the opening darkness,
expressed by agony gestures, alludes to grief and torment, and the epiphany
gesture the sudden “sparkle” of a new vision, then the merging of the two rep-
resents a transformational process from the former through the latter to a new
sense of revelation. In the following discussion I describe how Chen Yi’s music
enacts this process throughout the three major sections of the symphony.
The first section (mm. 1–61) opens with repeated agony gestures, expressed
in dark and heavy timbres, and moves through a gradual expansion of reg-
ister, activity level, and volume before the bright, startling strokes of the
epiphany gesture intervene. These gestures provide a continuum against
which other musical materials are set, such as the melancholy tritone-
inflected melodies and the staggered ostinatos formed by twelve-tone row
fragments noted earlier. At times several elements are stacked up to create
a thickly textured sound mass, as for example in mm. 31–34 (not shown).
While recurrences of the agony gesture may sustain a listener’s visceral imi-
tation of relentless physical exertion at a constant level, successive entries
of the epiphany gesture work to surprise, echo, or interrupt. The CY theme
gradually becomes more central to this epiphany gesture, eventually creat-
ing the final ascending motion of the gesture in mm. 57–59. Gradually,
though, the differences between the agony and epiphany gestures subside,
and, as their musical features merge, they become one large combined ges-
ture leading to the climax of the symphony in the third section. This merg-
ing and augmentation is achieved in part through the common references
in both agony and epiphany gestures to the ji-ji-feng figure. As we have seen,
the agony gesture prolongs ji-ji-feng’s rapid strokes and opening crescendo;
the first segment of each epiphany gesture incorporates ji-ji-feng’s charac-
teristic beginning (quick strokes, with crescendo and accelerando, but this
time leading to a sharp downbeat).
The second section (mm. 61–165) alternates between arching melodies
and passages of tonal and timbral stasis. Again, the tritone-inflected melo-
dies have a prominent presence. The section begins with solo flute (recall-
ing the timbre and pitch inflections of the Chinese xiao [vertical bamboo

flute]), followed by solo cello (recalling the timbre and low, sorrowful sing-
ing tone of the erhu [Chinese fiddle]), and then solo clarinet (using its full
range of timbre and register). A succession of long, languid melodic lines
with wide registral spans creates a pensive passage of melancholy and
memory, as if reaching into an ethereal world. The agony and epiphany
gestures play a secondary role in the opening of this section, with agony
gestures receding into the distant background as accompaniment and
occasional epiphany gestures punctuating the otherwise tranquil passage.
However, as the section progresses the epiphany gestures interrupt with
growing frequency, in tremolo lower strings or quick strokes in the percus-
sion. These gestures, together with increasingly frequent entries of smaller
musical fragments, generate more energetic musical motion, finally lead-
ing to a series of stuttering tutti melodies. The melodies’ ascending motion
and frequent halting elevate the intensity, and the energy simmering in the
pause after each epiphany gesture accrues as the motion becomes busier.
In mm. 155–65 Chen Yi creates a thick, six-layer texture by stacking twelve-
tone-row segments in the woodwinds while distributing the total chro-
matic collection among the violin and viola sections in sustained notes.
Then, against this sound mass, the bleak sound of the woodblock enters,
evoking the epiphany gesture. But when this gesture’s characteristic fast
strokes continue instead of leading to a pause, they recall instead the gradu-
ally accumulating rhythmic patterns of the agony gesture.
In the third section (mm. 166–231) Chen Yi finally combines the agony
and epiphany gestures in an expressive climax that follows a graduate
buildup of rhythmic intensity (shown in the reduction in Example 6.8).
After the lead-in by explosive woodblock strokes, a distinctive rhythmic
figure first appears in mm. 166–67, characterized by two sextuplets com-
pleted by a rushing thirty-second-note ending. It enters abruptly and almost
abrasively, played on a pair of large naobo (cymbals). Its metallic, percussive
sound, heightened volume, and increased speed articulate the percussion
pattern ji-ji-feng, suggesting the return of the agony gesture. But after three
beats the rhythm’s forceful drive suddenly halts, the pause as abrupt as the
entry. This pattern of rhythmic starting and halting repeats continuously,
with the distinctive rhythmic figure returning 16 times and the intensity
increasing with each return after the pause. The persistent repetitions of
these quasi-agony gestures are spaced closer together each time, giving rise
to a large-scale, ji-ji-feng-like accelerando and a ferocious dramatic buildup.
The accelerando in mm. 166–97 is created by Chen Yi’s merging of
the luogu dianzi with another musical tradition known as shifan luogo,
used in instrumental ensembles for ritual occasions and characterized
by its numerological manipulation of rhythmic processes in the percus-
sion. Shifan luogu comprises certain rigorous patterns of periodicity that

place emphasis on the numbers one, three, five, and seven.24 In this pas-
sage, shown in Example 6.8, the three-beat, sextuplet rhythmic unit’s
recurrences are separated by rests that initially increase from five to
seven eighths, but then gradually shorten to five, three, and finally one.
Table 6.1 lists the succession of beat durations of notes and rests, as well
as the periodicity implied by each unit of combined duration of notes and
rests in mm. 166–97. These gradually shortened rests effectively increase
the haste and anxious character of the agony gesture.25
The musical process of shifan luogu is thus maneuvered to shape the
temporal continuum in an exceptionally energetic way. After this process,
the percussion ensemble no longer draws attention to itself or stands apart
from the other music elements, as it would in Chinese opera; rather, it
blends into the overall orchestral timbre, discernible only when the wood-
block occasionally punctuates pauses with its quick strokes. And in this
unified timbre the musical process builds the momentum that leads to the
culminating gesture, as illustrated in Example 6.8.
The effect of the dramatic buildup throughout these measures is inten-
sified by the contrast between the vigorous fast strokes in the percussion
and the continuing, often tritone-inflected melodic fragments in brass and
strings. That is, every time the agony gesture—or the ji-ji-feng rhythm—
returns, it interrupts the flow of these melodic ideas.26 In the shaping of the
large-scale motion, the metallic, unadorned naobo sounds add to the inten-
sity. Chen Yi uses this harsh timbre, together with incessant repetitions,
to create a passage so powerful that listeners may experience it viscerally.
As the fragmented agony gestures create a forceful momentum toward the
climactic moment, their sharp sounds and hurried rhythms recreate the
psychological intensity of ji-ji-feng.
Finally, the musical process culminates when ji-ji-feng evolves from frag-
ments into steady sextuplets, creating a continuous statement of the agony
gesture.27 The accrued energy peaks with a piercing sfz tutti chord that is
followed by a sudden drop into deep silence. And with this tutti chord the
succession of hurried rhythmic fragments completes its transformation
into an augmented epiphany gesture. The repeated interruption of forward
motion in this passage is as haunting and frustrating psychologically and
physically as it is musically; when the rhythmic motion eventually flows
steadily without interruption, it also alleviates—in significant ways—the
inner frustration of its listeners.
In my view, the mimetic participation that this large-scale gesture (mm.
166–200) evokes is key to a deep engagement with the experience of this
transformative process. That is, mimetic responses to musical gesture play
an important part in how the musical process effects this spiritual transfor-
mation, not only by expressing the transformation, but also by creating it for

Table 6.1 Patterns of periodicity influenced by shifan luogu
Beginning 166 168 170 173 175 178 180 182 184 186 188 189 191 192 193 194
measure
Number of beats* 3(5) 3(5) 3(7) 3(7) 3(7) 3(7) 3(5) 3(5) 3(5) 3(3) 3(3) 3(3) 3(1) 3(1) 3(1) 3
notes (rest)
Duration in quarter 8 8 10 10 10 10 8 8 8 6 6 6 4 4 4 n/a

notes
* A beat unit equals a quarter note.

Example 6.8
Buildup of rhythmic intensity
the listeners. Cox argues that, through mimetic participation—the physical,

though subconscious, imitation of musical gestures—“we also understand
these as the intentional, expressive gestures that we have made and have seen
made in other domains of our experience.”28 Accordingly, I argue that Chen
Yi’s symphony encourages a sense of spiritual transformation through the
listener’s internal mimetic participation in the musical process, the music
engaging its listeners in an emulation of the energetic shapes that transform
from agony into ultimate epiphany in an experience of spiritual transcendence.
The gradual musical evolution throughout the symphony, from the open-
ing darkness of agony through sparkling epiphany to revelation and peace
of mind, is richly woven from smaller-scale musical gestures related to

Chinese opera’s luogu dianzi (employing their expressive content and imag-
inative movement, as well as their rhythmic characteristics and timbre)
and careful proportions derived from the tradition of shifan luogu (employ-
ing its succession of rhythmic repetitions, as well as abstract numerological
manipulation). The musical gestures evoke the gesture of agony in terms
of both psychological and imagined-yet-physical mimicry. In the case of
the agony gesture, many layers of this mimicry may be at play: enacting
the psychological associations of ji-ji-feng, imitating the imagined physical
movement associated with ji-ji-feng, and emulating the exertion of playing
tremoli or a timpani roll. Together these layers produce a musical process
of visceral connection and psychological intensity.
Closure and a third musical gesture
The final passage of the climax (mm. 207–31) is marked by characteris-

tics of the epiphany gesture in a greatly augmented manner. The steady
forward motion discussed in the previous section comes to a full stop in
m. 203 and is followed by the strings emulating the quick strokes of epiph-
any gesture’s rhythmic pattern. Then in tutti, the instruments combine to
create the upward swing of a grand leng chui (starting in m. 207), and at
the high point the clarinets slide upward in a glissando from their lowest
to highest register over two measures. This is the ultimate moment of the
large-scale gesture of epiphany. With it, the metamorphosis of the agony
gesture into the epiphany gesture is complete, and the opening dark abyss
has now been fully transformed musically and spiritually.
If the symphony’s first three sections form a musical process in which
cross-cultural references are suggested through the gestural articulations
and transformations, then in the last section cultural references are drawn
into sharper focus through the use of another type of gesture. Following
the loudest tutti section, the orchestral texture lightens. Quick sparkles
of quiet percussion patterns—a milder version of the epiphany gesture—
punctuate the silence in the postclimactic section, similar to the way luogu
dianzi are used in Chinese opera in moments of quiet suspense. The suc-
cession of epiphany gestures, though sparse and seemingly spontaneous,
is tightly controlled, with four nine-beat epiphany gestures being followed
by two seven-beat epiphany gestures. Then Chen Yi switches to a different
texture, creating a dreamy atmosphere with sparse notes in disparate reg-
isters and continuous bar-long glissandi in harmonics on the violins. The
glissandi glide back and forth between the extremes of a tritone melodic

interval (C–F♯ or F–B), creating a sonic fabric of overtones. Soon even this
motion subsides in the violins, and against their sustained tones the tri-
tone glissando passes to the solo timpani, gliding quietly between its outer
pitches.
Then, in the serenity of stillness, a final musical gesture of simple ele-
gance marking the close of the symphony is stated on the small gong—a
high-pitched Chinese opera instrument with a unique ringing timbre.
After two quick strokes on the woodblock, the gong presents a rhythm
recalling chongtou—a pattern frequently employed in Chinese opera when
characters enter or exit the stage in various dramatic contexts. Although
chongtou can occur at different tempi, the slow version of chongtou typi-
cally evokes a stately character heading off on a grave mission, suggest-
ing not only the air of the poised character, but also the graceful pace.
Example 6.9a reproduces a typical chongtou rhythmic pattern used in
Chinese opera.
The first three measures of the pattern are introductory. The following
two measures constitute the main body, which can be repeated ad libitum
according to the length of the stage movement. In this traditional example,
at the tempo of quarter note = 76 or slower, the small gong is joined by
the naobo to create a syncopated succession of metallic ringing attacks on
the off beats. In Chen Yi’s version (shown in Example 6.9b), she uses the
woodblock to mark the brief opening, while the succession of syncopations
is marked by the bright ringing resonance of the small gong alone.
This chongtou rhythmic gesture has a simple timbre, but it dramati-
cally changes the symphony’s sonic world, introducing elements of grace
and poise. As noted above, for those who are familiar with the sound and
symbolism of this luogu dianzi in Chinese opera, its rhythmic pattern and
timbre inevitably conjure up the image of a dignified statesmanlike figure
gravely exiting the stage and stepping into the future. For others not familiar
Example 6.9a
Chinese opera percussion pattern chongtou

Example 6.9b
Chongtou in Symphony No. 2
with Chinese theater, but sensitive to the physical “feel” of the gesture, the
rhythmic gesture suggests an unrushed yet steady pace. Comprehending
the latter would perhaps be sufficient, as in Chen Yi’s words, the ending
“carries a mysterious dream toward the future.”29 This music’s solemn ref-
erence to chongtou crystallizes not only the composer’s ultimate homage to
her late father, to whom the symphony is dedicated, but also the integrity,
compassion, and unbounded optimism that he represented.
Conclusion
In her preface to the published score, Chen Yi explains: “Symphony No. 2

contains the experiences of waking up to reality, introspection and long-
ing.”30 Indeed, this work communicates in a profound way the process
from introspection through epiphany to transformation. A reviewer for the
San Francisco Chronicle has described the symphony as “a memorably pow-
erful statement whose emotional and even philosophical impact emerges
from carefully crafted musical materials.”31
In my analysis, I have shown how musical gestures structure this dra-
matic musical process, one whose communicative and expressive ener-
gies are central to this deeply affecting symphony. The composer’s use of
rhythmic patterns, melodic fragments, contrasting timbres, luogu dianzi,
and the numerological manipulations of shifan luogu all contribute to that
energetic shaping that holds expressive meaning. Through her skillful use
of these gestures, Chen Yi conveys an engagement with the mystic spirit—
the darkness—as well as an intense process of transcendence.
Many of the techniques Chen Yi employs in this work have by now become
part of her personal musical language, including the use of the CY theme,
twelve-tone rows, and tritone-inflected melodies. And characteristics deeply
influenced by Chinese opera—percussive timbre, steady acceleration, poised
pacing, and nuance of tonal inflection—are part of her compositional rhetoric.
Finally, I suggest that this dynamic, gestural shaping can also be viewed
from the perspective of a Chinese aesthetic, shi, which is most often used
in descriptions of calligraphy and painting (as well as military strategies).

The French sinologist François Jullien has written extensively about shi,
which he calls “the propensity of things.” As he notes, “Shi gives depth to a
representation and exceeds its concrete limitation by revealing a dimension
of perpetual, soaring flight. Shi is not only the internal energy from which
that form has proceeded, it is also the effect of the tension this energy pro-
duces.”32 In the musical domain, the notion of shi vividly depicts a certain
disposition whose potential and dynamism in musical space are carried
out through time, and whose tension animates various elements to cre-
ate a musical gesture in its various manifestations. We can consider the
dynamic process at the core of Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2 as a kind of shi,
from which an internal energy emanates and is carried through to its full
expression. Considering the symphony through its shi also makes us more
keenly attuned to the breath that lives through this dynamic process.
As a composer who works actively and intentionally across cultural
boundaries, Chen Yi not only brings musical expressions from one culture
to bear on the other, but also creates new musical expressions reflecting
the cultural terrains of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. She draws
heavily on gestures deeply ingrained in Chinese opera to compose for stan-
dard Western instruments and ensembles such as orchestras, string quar-
tets, and bands; yet she is never limited by the tradition of either medium.
As this analysis has shown, the ways in which these gestures shape sound
and time result in a work that is expressive of deep spiritual forces.
One critic’s response to the premiere of Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2
attests to her effective use of musical gestures in this work. Even though
their cultural references were not accessible to him, Joseph Kosman wrote
in his review:
[The symphony’s] rhetorical force and dark beauty are undeniable. The
dramatic shape is a large, cresting wave, building up from glowering
primordial dissonances in the percussion and lower strings and gath-
ering mass and momentum as it goes. The piece’s crushing climax is
persuasively prepared by the dense accumulation of material that has
come before.33
Kosman’s depiction of the symphony affirms the comprehensibility of

Chen Yi’s cross-cultural translation. Nevertheless, within the new environ-
ment of global multiculturalism in the twenty-first century, I would argue
that musical gestures need to be deliberately considered in terms of their
cultural associations, if only because this environment is no longer mono-
lingual, so to speak, and works of art cannot be fully appreciated without
reaching beyond a single, narrowly defined cultural tradition. The musi-
cal compositions of our time, and their expressions, are deeply affected by

transnational and multilingual processes. In this sense, Chen Yi’s use of
musical gestures and topics from Chinese opera to effect a sense of spiri-
tual transformation reflects not only her crossing of borderlines between
cultures and nations, but also the bringing together of these simultaneous
dimensions in her plurality of vision.
Notes
1. Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2 was her first composition as the three-year resident
composer of the Women’s Philharmonic in San Francisco; the orchestra also produced
a recording. See Chen Yi, Symphony No. 2 (Bryn Mawr: Theodore Presser, 1993); and
Chen Yi, Symphony No. 2, on The Music of Chen Yi, Women’s Philharmonic, conducted
by JoAnn Falletta, New Albion Records NA 090, 1997, compact disc. More than twenty
graduate theses or dissertations have been written about Chen Yi’s music. Representative
works include Wendy Hoi-Yan Wong, “Recurrence as Identity in Chen Yi’s Music” (MPh
thesis, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007); Wendy Wan- Ki Lee, “Unpacking
Aspects of Musical Influence in Three Piano Works by Chinese Composers” (PhD diss.,
University of Michigan, 2006); Xiaole Li, “Chen Yi’s Piano Music: Chinese Aesthetics
and Western Models” (PhD diss., University of Hawai’i, 2003); and Xin Guo, “Chinese
Musical Language Interpreted by Western Idioms: Fusion Process in the Instrumental
works by Chen Yi” (PhD diss., Florida State University, 2002). Though none of these
studies treats issues of musical gesture directly, Xin Guo discusses at length the shape of
Symphony No. 2 in terms of registral choices, timbre, and texture.
2. Suzanne Cusick, “Feminist Theory, Music Theory, and the Mind/ Body
Problem,” Perspectives of New Music 32, no. 1 (1994): 8– 27; Andrew Mead, “Bodily
Hearing: Physiological Metaphors and Musical Understanding,” Journal of Music Theory
43, no. 1 (1999): 1–19.
3. Naomi Cumming, The Sonic Self: Musical Subjectivity and Signification (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 2000), in particular pp. 190–94. In their study, Daphne Leong
and David Korevaar focus on the “feel” of musical gestures in the performance situation.
See “The Performer’s Voice: Performance and Analysis in Ravel’s Concerto pour la main
gauche,” Music Theory Online 11, no. 3 (2005), http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.05.11.3/
mto.05.11.3.leong_korevaar.html.
4. David Lidov, “Mind and Body in Music,” Semiotica 66, no. 1 (1987): 69–97; Lidov,
“Emotive Gesture in Music and its Contraries,” in Music and Gesture, ed. Anthony
Gritten and Elaine King (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 24–44; Robert Hatten, Interpreting
Musical Gestures and Tropes (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004); and Arnie
Cox, “Hearing, Feeling, Grasping Gestures,” in Gritten and King, eds., Music and
Gesture, 45–60.
5. Nancy Yunhwa Rao, “Sonic Imaginary after the Cultural Revolution,” in Listening
to China’s Cultural Revolution: Music, Politics, and Cultural Continuities, ed. Paul Clark,
Laikwan Pang, and Tsan-huang Tsai (London: Palgrave, 2015), 213–38.
6. Here I use Edward Said’s concept and terms to describe Chen Yi’s position; Said,
Reflections on Exile and Other Essays (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000),
186. I have also addressed the issues of cultural boundaries more fully in a separate essay,
“Cultural Boundary and Intercultural Memories: Recent Works of Tan Dun, Chen Yi,
and Bright Sheng,” in Contemporary Music in East Asia, ed. Hee Sook Oh (Seoul: Seoul
National University Press, 2014), 211–40.

7. Chen Yi, “What Do You Expect to Hear When Someone Says ‘American Music?’”
New Music Box, article published August 1, 1999, http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/
What-do-you-expect-to-hear-when-someone-says-American-music-Chen-Yi-Composer/2.
8. A prime example of her prominent national position in China is the Chang-Jiang
Scholar Chair Professorship, to which the China Education Ministry appointed Chen Yi
for the 2006–9 term.
9. An analytical approach to musical gesture is particularly germane to many recent
works of cultural fusion. See Yayoi Uno Everett, “Gesture and Calligraphy in the Late
Works by Chou Wen-chung,” Contemporary Music Review 26, no. 2 (2007): 569–84; and
Timothy Koozin, “Traversing Distances: Pitch Organization, Gesture and Imagery in the
Late Works of Tōru Takemitsu,” Contemporary Music Review 21, no. 4 (2002): 17–34.
10. Nancy Yunhwa Rao, “The Tradition of Luogu Dianzi (Percussion Classics) and Its
Signification in Contemporary Music,” Contemporary Music Review 5, no. 6 (October–
December 2007): 511–27.
11. The theory of musical topics has received much scholarly attention. I use the term
in much the sense developed in Leonard Ratner, Classic Music: Expression, Form, and Style
(New York: Schirmer, 1980); Wye J. Allanbrook, Rhythmic Gesture in Mozart: “Le Nozze
di Figaro” and “Don Giovanni” (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989); Kofi Agawu,
Playing with Signs: A Semiotic Interpretation of Classic Music (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1991); Raymond Monelle, The Musical Topic: Hunt, Military, and Pastoral
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006); and, most recently, The Oxford Handbook
of Topic Theory, ed. Danuta Mirka (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014).
12. Hatten, Interpreting Musical Gestures and Tropes, 109.
13. Ibid., 95.
14. Cumming, The Sonic Self, 190–91. The concept of the interpretant was introduced by
Charles Sanders Peirce as the third element of his tripartite model of the sign (object, sign,
interpretant). As cited by Albert Atkin, Peirce writes: “I define a sign as anything which
is so determined by something else, called its Object, and so determines an effect upon a
person, which effect I call its interpretant, that the later is thereby mediately determined by
the former.” See Atkin, “Peirce’s Theory of Signs,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Summer 2013 ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2013/entries/peirce-semiotics.
15. Cox, “Hearing, Feeling, Grasping Gestures,” 46.
16. Ibid., 50. By “amodal,” Cox means across different media of sound production.
A musical gesture representing a sigh can have the same effect whether it is played on
piano, violin, or oboe.
17. Ibid., 51.
18. Kofi Agawu, Music as Discourse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 44–45.
19. In my interpretation, the grief is not limited to that associated with the death of
her father, but is also a reflection of the weight and pain of that generation—what he and
China suffered during the Cultural Revolution, a period of true darkness that sent their
family through separations and excruciating hardship.
20. Wong, “Recurrence as Identity,” 37. In addition, the tritones that emerge from
these melodies also resemble a kind of “crying tone” called kuyin, characteristic of many
Chinese folk melodies, opera, and instrumental genres. There is little English literature
on kuyin, but a brief discussion can be found in Stephen Jones, “Gender and Music in
Local Communities,” in Gender in Chinese Music, ed. Rachel Harris, Rowan Pease, and
Shzr Ee Tan (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2013), 35.
21. Chen Yi, “Preface,” Symphony No. 2.
22. Chen Yi, “Piano Concerto” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 1992), 42.

23. Wong, “Recurrence as Identity in Chen Yi’s Music,” 41.
24. Shifan luogu is a type of string, wind, and percussion genre performed mainly in
parts of Jiangsu province. It is unique for the complex ways in which the musicians count
the various strokes on the drums, gongs, and cymbals, as well as combinations thereof.
The phrase lengths are constrained by a method of counting one, three, five, or seven
strokes. Sequences of numbers are used to produce phrases, which are then subjected
to permutations such as inversion, retrograde, etc., and the result is further complicated
by variables in dynamics, timbre, and instrumentation. See Boyu Zhang, Mathematical
Rhythmic Structure of Chinese Percussion Music: An Analytical Study of Shifan Luogu
Collections (Turku: Turun Yliopisto, 1997). This results in a duple-meter periodicity—
eight-, ten-, six-, or four-beat units—each marked by a recurrence of the rhythmic pat-
terns, while an asymmetry characterizes the subdivision within each unit.
25. Chen Yi uses the term “telescope” to describe the recurrence of a rhythmic pattern
that increases or decreases proportionally. As Guo notes, “[Chen Yi] has discussed the idea
of the rhythmic ‘telescope’ directly derived from shifan luogu, in which a rhythmic kernel
appears repeatedly with progressive expansion or contraction, thereby becoming a struc-
tural element that comprises a formal section.” Guo, “Chinese Musical Language,” 127.
26. The gesture used by Chen Yi in Symphony No. 2 has only a partial resemblance
to the typical ji-ji-feng, which may raise questions about analyzing and labeling it as such.
However, similar rhythmic gestures occur in the third movement of her Percussion
Concerto (1998), which is titled “Ji Ji Feng” (“speedy wind”). Although the diversity of
instrumentation in the symphony brings different characters to the rhythmic topics, in
both works the rhythmic pattern is performed by the same instrument (the naobo) at a
similar tempo, with similar six-note groupings; these parallels between the two works
suggest that the identification of ji-ji-feng in Symphony No. 2 is appropriate.
27. In Chinese opera, a luogu dianzi like ji-ji-feng would never be employed in this
fashion; the fragmentation, dramatic or not, is uncharacteristic. Chen’s treatment of it
here illustrates her creativity in adapting conventional Chinese opera gestures for her
own compositional purposes.
28. Cox, “Hearing, Feeling, Grasping Gestures,” 53.
29. Chen Yi, “Preface,” Symphony No. 2.
30. Ibid.
31. Joshua Kosman, “Premieres of Different Stripes Engaging New Works by Oakland,
Women’s Orchestras,” San Francisco Chronicle, January 31, 1994.
32. François Jullien, The Propensity of Things: A History of Efficacy in China, trans. Janet
Lloyd (New York: Zone Books, 1995), 78.
33. The rest of the sentence reads, “Along the way, Chen Yi intersperses lighter
strands—a series of plangent or optimistic solos from the woodwinds (which often bend
tones breathily in imitation of Chinese instruments), and an array of tinkly orchestral
colors—and these strands return at the end to form a beautiful, genuinely uplifting
coda.” Kosman, “Premieres of Different Stripes.”

PART III
Music, Words, and Voices
In the final three essays, voices proliferate, both literally and figuratively, and
identity takes on new meaning as words and music are combined. In vocal
works for unaccompanied soprano and mezzo-soprano duet; soprano and
piano; and tenor, chorus, and orchestra, the respective compositional voices of
Kaija Saariaho, Libby Larsen, and Elisabeth Lutyens intertwine with those of
poets and singers, both female and male. In music with text, whose voices do
we hear, and whose identities are conveyed?
The concept of polyvocality animates John Roeder’s examination of
Saariaho’s 1988 cycle of vocal duets From the Grammar of Dreams, based
on writings of Sylvia Plath. Saariaho views the cycle as a multivoiced rep-
resentation of a single identity, describing the soprano and mezzo-soprano
parts as “two voices … which are as if the same person.”1 In his essay Roeder
carefully traces the interweaving of these voices in the third song, illuminat-
ing Saariaho’s artful superpositions of multiple meters and tonalities through
detailed analysis of the motivic, tonal, registral, and metric relationships
between soprano and mezzo. Finally, he considers the possible implications
of the song’s polyvocality in light of feminist theories of “double-voicedness,”
and of the composer’s own “cultivation of a distinctively feminine identity” in
her music.
Libby Larsen’s understanding that her vocal settings reflect her own beliefs,
as well as her interpretation of the poet’s text, provides the starting point for
Brenda Ravenscroft’s essay in chapter 8 on Larsen’s 1997 song cycle Chanting
to Paradise, for soprano and piano. Her examination of “Bind Me” and
“In This Short Life” shows how Larsen’s adaptation and reconstruction of
Emily Dickinson’s poems in her musical settings further blur the distinctions
between the identities of the poet and the poem and those of the composer
and the composition. Analyzing Larsen’s symbolic use of constrained pitch-
class, intervallic, rhythmic, and gestural materials in her intimate settings,
153
Ravenscroft argues that not only do the songs mirror the verbal nuances and
possible meanings of Dickinson’s poetry, but also the relations between the
composer and poet, resonating with feminist concerns of power and escape,
and with the role of the woman composer in contemporary society.
In the final chapter, Laurel Parsons considers Elisabeth Lutyens’s Essence
of Our Happinesses (1968), for tenor, chorus, and orchestra. In contrast with
the voices of female poets and singers in Saariaho and Larsen’s compositions,
Lutyens sets male-authored texts for a male soloist (sometimes supported
by a mixed chorus). But her own voice is still unmistakable, particularly in
her choice of text for the second movement: a meditation by John Donne on
the nature of time and human happiness that echoed her own regrets as a
woman in her sixties looking back on her life. During the first section of the
movement, tenor and chorus sing Donne’s text. But, as Parsons shows, in the
short instrumental dance that follows the orchestra itself voices the temporal
imagery of Donne’s meditation through Lutyens’s irregular juxtapositions of
fleeting melodic motives and gestures against a relentlessly ticking ostinato.
Note
1. Kaija Saariaho, “Kaija Saariaho on her From the Grammar of Dreams,” article pub-
lished February 29, 2012, http://www.carnegiehall.org/BlogPost.aspx?id=4294984862.
154 Part III: Music, Words, and Voices

7
Kaija Saariaho, “The claw of the magnolia … ,”
From the Grammar of Dreams (1988)
The Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho is unquestionably one of the finest

composers of her generation, and one of the few female composers whose
music has not only been performed and recorded to wide acclaim, but has
also attracted scholarly analytical attention.i Born in 1952, Saariaho was
educated in Helsinki at the Rudolf Steiner School, where the curriculum
included a strong focus on arts and music.ii She studied violin and piano
and, later, guitar, and began writing her own compositions at the age of
ten. Upon graduation from school, she first enrolled in the Institute for
Industrial Arts and Crafts to study graphic design. A few years later, in 1976,
Saariaho entered the Sibelius Academy, where she studied composition
with the modernist Finnish composer Paavo Heininen and began experi-
menting with tape music.
After graduating in 1980, Saariaho attended the Darmstadt summer
school, where she was attracted to the spectral music of the French com-
posers Gérard Grisey and Tristan Murail. She also met Brian Ferneyhough
there, and went on to study with him and Klaus Huber in Freiburg even
though she felt unsatisfied by the opacity of the so-called New Complexity’s
“complex techniques and inaudible structures.”iii It was not until she
i. See for example Vesa Kankaanpää, “Displaced Time: Transcontextual References to Time in
Kaija Saariaho’s Stilleben,” Organised Sound 1, no. 2 (August 1996): 87–92; Damien Pousset,
Joshua Fineberg, and Ronan Hyacinthe, “The Works of Kaija Saariaho, Philippe Hurel and
Marc-André Dalbavie—Stile Concertato, Stile Concitato, Stile Rappresentativo,” Contemporary
Music Review 19, no. 3 (2000): 67–110; and Tim Howell with Jon Hargreaves and Michael Rofe,
eds., Kaija Saariaho: Visions, Narratives, Dialogues (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2011).
ii. Biographical information on the composer is drawn from Pirkko Moisala, Kaija Saariaho
(Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2009).
iii. Ibid., 9.
155
attended a course at IRCAM in Paris that she felt she had found the ideal
environment for the development of her musical ideas, and in 1982 Paris
became her permanent home. Saariaho spent several years at IRCAM
experimenting with technology and timbre and producing such works as
her tape piece Vers le blanc (1982), as well as several compositions combin-
ing acoustic instruments with live electronics.
In the 1990s Saariaho’s music moved into a new phase, characterized by
greater expressivity and rhythmic activity. Her violin concerto, Graal théâtre
(1995), was composed for Gidon Kremer, and 1996 saw the composition
of two works for the soprano Dawn Upshaw, Château de l’âme and Lonh,
for soprano and electronics. Many other collaborations and commissions
have followed, for orchestras such as the New York, Los Angeles, and Berlin
Philharmonics, the Orchestre de Paris, the Boston Symphony and the
Cleveland Orchestra. Her first opera, L’amour de loin (2000), was staged by
Peter Sellars at the Salzburg Festival and won her the Grawemeyer Award
for Music Composition in 2003.iv Her music has also been recognized by
the Prix Ars Electronica, the Nordic Council Music Prize, the Léonie Sonning
Music Prize, and, in 2013, the Polar Music Prize.
Superposition in Kaija Saariaho’s

“The claw of the magnolia …”
John Roeder
Kaija Saariaho’s From the Grammar of Dreams, composed in 1988, is a cycle

of five unaccompanied duets for soprano and mezzo-soprano that sets
“Paralytic,” a late poem of Sylvia Plath.1 The text gives vivid voice to the
reveries of a male polio victim, immobile and speechless in an iron lung,
who remains aloofly sensible of the women (nurses, wife, and daughters)
attending to him.
The composer apportions the ten brief stanzas to her songs in a dramatic
and provocative way that highlights the concluding lines. In Songs I and II,
the soprano sings the first four and next five stanzas, respectively, while the
mezzo simultaneously sings excerpts from The Bell Jar that treat similar
themes of dreams, numbness, and death. Song IV polyphonically combines
two other excerpts from the novel that portray the beating of a woman’s
iv. Two additional operas, Adriana Mater and Emilie, were premiered in 2006 and 2010
respectively.

heart as a motoric “brag” that overrides her self-destructive impulses. But
only temporarily: the last song begins as a vocalise on the phoneme [a]‌that,
just as it opens up to revisit stanza nine’s words “I smile”—the only first-
person declaration of affect in the poem—abruptly cuts off, according to
the composer’s direction “as if in the middle of a phrase.” All four of these
songs include exaggerated vocal techniques such as accented whispering,
Sprechstimme, glissandi, and melismatic acciaccaturas.
In Song III, the central song of the cycle and the focus of this essay, the
composer sets the crucial concluding lines, in which the narrator meta-
phorically articulates a double-edged epiphany: “The claw /Of the magno-
lia, /Drunk on its own scents, /Asks nothing of life.” The power of this
text derives from its superposition of starkly contrasting images: petals/
talons, perfume/inebriation, enlightenment/self-infatuation, vitality/t he
void. The narrator’s condition offers him apparent spiritual freedom, but
at the price of physical imprisonment; the alluring fragrance of autonomy
mingles with the toxic odor of death. The strongly feminine connotation
of the magnolia exposes Plath’s ventriloquism, transmuting the paralyzed
male, his senses stifled in “cellophane,” into Woman in her bell jar.
Compared to the elaborate surrounding songs, Saariaho’s music for
these lines is simple. The singers share a single text, and they sing plainly,
with no pyrotechnics. The tempo, expressive, and dynamic marks of the
score direct them to project a sustained and subdued affect that may be
taken to denote the paralytic’s “buddha”-like mindfulness (described in the
preceding lines). These qualities, along with its position at the center of the
set, give a strong and appropriate focus to this striking stanza.
The directness of the compositional language in Song III invites espe-
cially close listening. By drawing upon a variety of mutually supportive
analytical techniques, this essay will show how artfully the composer
coordinates various aspects of its music, not only to suit the form and syntax
of the text, but also to create concurrent, contrasting processes that symbol-
ize its metaphorical superpositions. This essay will first discover those pro-
cesses through a detailed consideration of the first measures, then follow
their actions throughout the rest of the song, showing that, although the
voices rarely attack together or double each other, they may be heard to col-
laborate to articulate the lines of the text, and to create a fairly traditional
flux of tension and relaxation, through coordinated changes of pitch, inter-
vals, and rhythmic behavior.
The setting of the first line, beginning with “the claw,” immediately
manifests this collaboration. Sustaining the phoneme [a]‌, the voices dwell
for twenty seconds on just four pitches, {F4, F♯4, A ♯4, B4}, a collection that
features two semitones, two perfect fourths, a major third, and a tritone,
but no interval classes 2 or 3. Melodically they emphasize the semitones,
Kaija Saariaho, “The claw of the magnolia …” (1988) 157

switching almost simultaneously from one to the other. This reinforces the
familiarly progressive quality of these small intervals while also imbuing
the larger intervals with a more harmonic identity, since they appear mostly
as simultaneities. This unvarying pitch content, ordered palindromically
by the soprano (from her second attack until the end of this texture in
m. 4), conveys a sense of timelessness and self-enclosure expressive of the
paralytic’s state of mind.
Nevertheless, interactions between the parts and exchanges of register
subtly shape the unvarying pitch content and timbre. The voices connect
verbally from the very start, when the soprano sings the definite article
“the” and the mezzo directly provides the corresponding noun, “claw.”
This cooperation becomes intervallic as the soprano imitates the ascending
semitone of the mezzo and grows in a rapid exposition of all four possible
ways to combine the two lower pitches in the mezzo with the two higher
pitches in the soprano.2 These four harmonic intervals are labeled between
the staves at the beginning of Example 7.1a, a skeletal sketch of the passage.
The last of them, a tritone, sounds like an ending because it is followed
by the first simultaneous attack, in m. 2, that initiates the first registral
exchange of the voices.
This segmenting function for the tritone is affirmed as the voices’
rhythms interact to form phrases through a varying meter. By this I mean
not the notated beat, which is hardly articulated past m. 1, but “projective”
meter: the process, theorized by Christopher Hasty, of immediate dura-
tional reproduction.3 The symbols surrounding Example 7.1b express this
dynamic measuring activity. Vertical strokes ( | ) denote the “dominant
beginnings” of the durations, indicated by solid curved arrows, that, as
they become definite, generate expectations that they will be reproduced by
subsequent events. The two levels of the analysis show such “projections”
forming for both shorter and longer durations. Not every event is equally
important in this process; those marked by diagonal slashes contribute to
the accumulation of durations already begun.
The analysis shows that the mezzo first assumes the role of timekeeper,
realizing a “projective potential” Q, and also realizing its projection Q′ (the
metrical sensation that Q will be replicated) by its move to F4, which cre-
ates the first instance of a tritone between the voices.4 Such simultaneous
tritones, indicated by the boxed 6s in Example 7.1a, will prove to have a
consistent metrical function. The soprano supports the action, providing
an anticipatory anacrusis ( /) to the mezzo’s third attack and establishing
the projective potential of duration R, to which the mezzo’s second duration
has contributed as a continuation ( \ ). In other words, upon the comple-
tion of R, the listener expects events a half note and a whole note later.
However, an attack—a strong one, in both voices simultaneously—comes

Example 7.1
Kaija Saariaho, “The claw of the magnolia … ,” aspects of mm. 1–4: (a) simultaneity intervals,
imitation and melodic structure, and register exchange; (b) four phrases (boxed) articulated
by metrical process, recurring pitches, and distinctive simultaneity intervals; (c) how pitches
function as scale degrees with respect to two tonics, B and B♭ (A♯)
earlier than expected, dispelling the emerging sense of meter (symbolized

by the interruption of the broken arc following arrow R).
With this new “dominant beginning” ( | ) on the shared attack, the pro-
cess of setting up and disrupting meter repeats. The mezzo’s change from
her initiating A ♯4 to a tritone-creating B4, supported by a soprano anacru-
sis, establishes a fresh duration S and its projection S′, but that projection
terminates through a metrical “hiatus” ( || ) after no event arrives in time
to realize S′. Thus projective meter again arises at, but then is disrupted
immediately after, the onset of a tritone simultaneity. A longer phrase is
initiated in m. 3 by a new, striking simultaneity interval, a semitone (indi-
cated on Example 7.1a by a circled 1), when the mezzo leaps down to F♯4
over the soprano’s F4. However, as in the first phrase, its projections are
cut off after a tritone simultaneity. The reattack of F♯4, whose duration is
continued by a half-step-forming F, creates a fourth dominant beginning.

The rhythm then regularizes to a series of triplet quarter notes that act as
an anacrusis to a new dominant beginning at the shared attack in m. 5, and
so the tritone that initiates this anacrusis signals the ending of the fourth
phrase. By conceiving of the meter of the opening section of the song in
this way, then, one can hear four metrically distinctive phrases, marked by
exchanges of register, that associate particular pitches and harmonic inter-
vals with metrically activating or closing functions.
As the larger intervals in the fixed- pitch collection are exhaustively
exposed, they create shifting priorities among the notes. Example 7.1c shows
how the events can be interpreted (sometimes enharmonically) as scale
degrees in two different keys during mm. 1–4 on the basis of common intu-
itions about the rootedness of intervals and the position of semitones in dia-
tonic scales.5 Stems indicate the most stable events, which always appear as
members of tonally definite simultaneities, while less stable events appear
unstemmed and slurred, as melodic prefixes or suffixes, to them. The ini-
tial perfect fourth simultaneity {F, A ♯} prioritizes A ♯ as an enharmonic B ♭ .6
Then both notes ascend to a perfect fourth {F♯ , B} that prioritizes B. (Open
and solid stemmed note heads distinguish notes that are stable in B and
B ♭, respectively.) As these fourths recur in mm. 3 and 4, the tonal focus
shifts back to A ♯/B ♭ and then “modulates” again to B. The repeated asser-
tion of two alternative tonal contexts suggests a special interpretation for the
stable dyad {F♯ , A ♯} in m. 2, which is emphasized as the only one that both
voices attack simultaneously: it might be heard to allude to both tonalities
at once, superposing the tonic of B ♭ with the dominant of B. However, such
intuitions raise an interpretative problem: they do not attribute repose to
a tritone, which makes it hard to hear closure at the {B, F}s that terminate
every phrase. As I will show later, the piece solves this problem later on by
reprising the special {F♯ , A ♯} in a way that provides both convincing closure
and an ingenious musical expression of the paralytic’s mentality.
Across mm. 1–4, other processes cooperate with the coalescing metrical
and tonal organization documented in Example 7.1 to contribute to the gen-
eral musical affect. Attacks come more rapidly. Registral exchanges appear
almost regularly. In m. 2 a process begins of running through all four pos-
sible combinations of the high mezzo A ♯4 and B4 with the low soprano
F and F♯ , but the last combination (mezzo B4 over soprano F♯4) is with-
held until just before the many changes in m. 5. A larger-scale relationship
also develops, as shown in Example 7.1a: the mezzo imitates the soprano’s
opening succession of four pitches, after which the soprano imitates the
mezzo’s last three pitches. We seem to be caught in an enclosed chamber
with intensifying, circular echoes.
The paradoxically animated stasis of this opening passage sensitizes
the listener to processes that will shape the rest of the song: changes and

exchanges of register, fluctuations of imitative intensity and rhythmic den-
sity, the definition and succession of distinctive pitch collections, and vary-
ing meter and tonality. The following discussion shows how each of these
produces and articulates a distinctive musical continuity, and how they
coordinate to create sections (starting at mm. 1, 5, 10, 12, and 15) that match
the divisions of the text and bring out its associations of conflicting images.
I draw upon a variety of analytical approaches to discuss these aspects; in
the interests of concision, however, I will relegate expositions of methodol-
ogy to the endnotes.
Example 7.2a renders the pitch sequence of each voice as a continu-
ous line—dotted for the soprano, dashed for the mezzo—coordinated with
the measure numbers and text shown along the top. In the contour of the
soprano a traditional arch shape spanning the entire piece is evident, rising
to a first peak around mm. 6–8, falling off, gaining a climax in m. 14, then
falling back to the original register. The highest pitch, emphasized by a
leap, sets the only verb of the text, “asks.” Its musical tension highlights the
possibility that the paralytic might engage with “life” outside his reverie,
but the rapid drop-off in register that follows it emphasizes the irony of the
“nothing” he demands.
Although the mezzo line includes some striking low points, its contour
otherwise traces the same shape, at about the same pace, as the sopra-
no’s, even though the voices almost never sing the same pitch. Thus each
often encroaches upon the other’s range, with special intensity when they
hold high pitches only a semitone apart. Example 7.2a indicates two such
moments; both times the semitone is {F, F♯}—t he same dyad that initiated
phrases in the first section, but an octave higher, and it seems to spur the
soprano on to melodic high points.
The graphical superposition of the two lines also reveals the recurrence
of three distinctive coordinated behaviors that associate the words they
set and articulate formal divisions of the song. Consider, for instance, the
voices’ exchanges of register in mm. 1–4; these are evident in Example 7.2a
as line crossings, creating a series of four registral arrangements corre-
sponding to the four phrases discussed above. These exchanges disappear
at m. 5 but resume at m. 10, marking both moments as the beginnings
of sections and associating the contrasting words “claw” and “magnolia.”
They cease again at m. 12, marking the beginning of the third line of the
poem. They then proceed to another distinctive shared activity: each voice
alternates between notes separated by a leap. This begins with the word
“drunk” in m. 12 and recurs in mm. 15–16, setting “asks nothing of life.” Both
instances precede a third sort of distinctive collaboration, the immediate
succession of trills in each voice on the same semitone, respectively {A, B ♭}
(mm. 12–13) and {F, G ♭} (mm. 17–18). The latter sounds closural partly

Example 7.2
(a) Registral processes of mezzo-soprano (dashed line) and soprano (dotted line); (b) Imitation between the voices; (c) Attack density
because a similar juxtaposition (on {D, E ♭}) appeared in m. 9, just before the
alternating-register behavior recommenced. The alternating trills in m. 13
likewise prove to conclude another process that will be discussed below.
All three types of registral interactions contribute to larger-scale imita-
tive processes. These may be observed in Example 7.2b, which, extend-
ing Example 7.1a, indicates distinctive melodic gestures that are stated by
one voice and immediately repeated by the other. This imitation varies in
exactness and intensity, sometimes involving longer, slower-paced patterns,
at other times tightening up with shorter and more frequently changing
motives, and sometimes completely absent (as denoted by shaded areas in
the example). The variation imposes a large-scale segmentation on the text
and the melodic lines. The leisurely imitation in mm. 1–3 accelerates in
m. 4, then suddenly disappears at the onset of the poem’s second line. From
then until m. 14 it gradually intensifies again, the motives continually short-
ening, but then abruptly disappears during the words “on its own scents,” as
the lines push toward their climaxes. It resumes to mark the beginning of
the last line, focusing intensely on dyads for the rest of the song.
Imitation also participates, along with the rhythms of the individual
voices, in another formative textural process: the variation of attack den-
sity. To represent this variation across the entire piece, Example 7.2c plots
the number of distinct moments that are attacked within the span of a
whole note (five seconds) after every quarter-note beat, suggesting how the
density prospectively changes at that beat.7 The slope of the curve indi-
cates a growing intensity at first, smoothing over the changes of material
and imitation at m. 5. A sudden drop-off accompanies the other substantial
changes at m. 10.8 Density then reaches another distinct peak at the line
beginning in m. 12, only to fall off again while imitation disappears and
the voices move to their climaxes at the beginning of the last line. As the
imitation recurs for the last time on “nothing of life,” the density also peaks
before relaxing to provide closure.
The coordination evident among the three visualizations of Example 7.2
indicates the composer’s careful attention to the various easily apprehended
aspects of texture: register, voice relations, and rhythm. More technical
aspects of the piece, discussed below, are integrated equally well.
For instance, the initial focus on a single four-note collection and its
intervals suggests a productive way to hear the remainder of the song.
Example 7.3a identifies tetrachords that are clear melodic segments in
a single voice, are recurring pairs of dyads from both voices, or are other-
wise registrally and temporally contiguous. Each is labeled by the set class
to which to which it belongs. Although this is an abstract way to consider
them, it seems appropriate because some sets recur with exactly the same
pcs (as indicated by broken lines in the example) but in different registers,

Example 7.3
Pitch-class-set recurrences
(a)
(b)
and because there are some clear instances of sets related by transposition
or inversion.9 Indeed, the timing and ordering of related sets support hear-
ing m. 10 as an important articulation in the flow of the music, just as do
the changes in registral behavior, imitation, and density at that moment
(recall Example 7.2). This is the moment that initiates the repetition of sets
introduced earlier. Also, the intense activity preceding m. 10 interlocks two
types of tetrachords, 0236 and 0135, whose other instances are organized
similarly, as shown by Example 7.3b. For both series of tetrachords, two
sets related by T3 are linked by I9 to two other instances of the same set
class, themselves linked by I9. Before they entangle, only 0236 is present
(in m. 5); after m. 10, only 0135.
Some recurrences associate words of the poem. For example, the 0147
type {F♯ , B, C, E ♭} sets both “drunk” and the soprano’s “asks nothing.” Also,
the final four notes, {F, F♯ , A ♯ , B}, setting “nothing of life,” reprise the tet-
rachord that set “the claw” at the start of the song, linking those allusions
to death. There are no other instances of this 0156 set class, and these two
have exactly the same pitches except for A ♯ , which appears an octave lower
at the end. The significance of this change will be discussed below.
The music is not as harmonically diverse as the numerous labels seem to
assert; to the contrary, they unify the song by maintaining a fairly constant
collection of intervals. Only six of the 29 tetrachord classes (counting the
two all-interval sets as different) contain the four ics of the opening set, 1,
4, 5, and 6. All six appear prominently. All the other tetrachords shown in
Example 7.2 also include ics 1, 4, and either 5 or 6. This consistency also mani-
fests more concretely in the similar dyadic organization of different passages;
for instance, mm. 7–8, 10–12, and 15–18 all feature the dyads {D, E ♭}, {G, A},
and {F♯, B}, even though those are combined into various tetrachords. Some
dyadic repetitions are associated with formal articulations: for instance, the
ordered dyad <E ♭, C> marks section beginnings at mm. 5, 12, and 15.
These overarching interval and pitch continuities are articulated by con-
trasts between simultaneous or successive tetrachords, which also clarify
texture or suggest harmonic progression. For example, a series of such con-
trasts at m. 5 breaks the voices’ initial entwinement within {F, F♯, A ♯, B}: first,
the singers shift to new notes (notably <E ♭, C>); then they present two ics (2
and 3) that were lacking in the opening tetrachord; and finally, they diverge
completely from each other in pc content and register. Changes to previously
unheard types of tetrachords also mark all other important registral, imita-
tive, and textural articulations (which correspond to syntactic articulations in
the poem): 0157 at m. 10, 0147 at m. 12, and 0237 at m. 15. Lastly, the sudden
change during the final text phrase “nothing of life” (mm. 15–16) from one
dyad pair, {{E ♭, C}, {D, G}}, to a completely different one, {{B, F♯}, {F, A ♯}},
dramatically highlights the return of the opening tetrachord.

Comparing Example 7.3 to Example 7.2, one can see how pitch groupings
coordinate with texture to provide unity, continuity, shape, and sectionality
that match the articulations of the text and associate its words. However,
while such a multifaceted account does some justice to Saariaho’s art, it
does not adequately address the most interesting musical feature of the
setting: its polyvocality. In the other songs of this opus, the concurrency
of different texts requires such a texture, but in Song III both voices sing
the same words, sometimes to different music, at other times echoing each
other’s intervals. This musical and textural imitation has a dual temporal-
ity, on the one hand highlighting two independent concurrent processes
that compete for attention, on the other also imbuing the following voice
with the special continuity of repetition. Are there musical processes that
support this disunited unification, and if so, do they relate to the poem and
its themes? In order to address these questions it is necessary to go beyond
a description of content to examine the senses of musical time and space
created by the shifting metrical and tonal relationships between the voices.
As they variously imitate, synchronize, and diverge, truly dual points of ref-
erence emerge—t wo equally present tonalities and the coexistence of mul-
tiple meters—t hat artfully portray the stanza’s symbolic superpositions.
The principal sections of the music after m. 4 pass the voices through a
variety of metrical interactions, each involving a concurrency of two inde-
pendent streams of activity. Across mm. 5–9 (Example 7.4a), they reverse
metrical roles. First they attack together twice, a half note apart (very
unusually for this song), and the soprano provides an anacrusis to the sec-
ond attack, thus collaborating to establish projection Q–Q′. Thereafter the
mezzo’s regular attacks realize that projection, and even articulate a longer
projection R–R′, creating a sense of tactus and measure. But the soprano
untethers her rhythm from the mezzo’s meter, placing regular attacks
off the beat, and suggesting a five-quarter-note projection (S–S′) rather
than a whole note. The G5 she attains triggers more novel behavior: the
mezzo begins a series of three oscillations within dyads, singing irregu-
larly stressed accelerating durations in such a way as to thwart entrainment
at any tempo. Into this temporarily unmeasured continuity, the soprano
gradually assumes the timekeeping role, indeed establishing a metric field
very similar to the mezzo’s at the beginning of this section. Also changing
roles, the mezzo, like the soprano at first, now provides anacrustic sup-
port. Thereafter, however, despite the presence of the longer projection, the
sense of tactus dissolves in the accelerations toward the sustained trills.
A striking change marks the beginning of the following passage, mm.
10–12, as the voices engage differently to create two definite and distinct
concurrent meters.10 To clarify this collaboration, Example 7.4b places each
event on one of two staves, representing different streams of pulse, with

Example 7.4
(a) Projective meter in mm. 5–9; (b) Concurrent pulse streams in mm. 10–12; (c) Metric coor-
dination of voices, mm. 15–end
the stem direction indicating the voice that sings it; attacks with stems
across both staves contribute to both streams. During mm. 10–11, a pulse
stream on the top staff arises from the recurring eighth notes, while the
regularly repeated peak on E ♭5, indicated by brackets over the staff, cre-
ates a sense of meter. Meanwhile, six attacks alternate between F♯/G ♭ 4 and
B4. They are not exactly regular—the second attack is a trifle early, and
the sixth attack quite delayed, like a ritardando—but can nevertheless be
perceived essentially as the five-sixteenth pulse shown in gray below the
staff. Its strong beats (on the F♯ s, recalling mm. 1–4) have the same tempo
as the other’s E ♭ strong beats but do not coincide with them. At m. 12 the
pulse streams change, each dividing the same time span differently. The
changing stem directions on each staff make it clear how, across the entire

passage, the two voices switch between the two metrical streams, much as
they exchanged registers in mm. 1–4 .
Immediately following this rigorous construction, the closural trill alter-
nations reappear, and the song suddenly and strikingly abandons meter
for a while. During the text “on its own scents” the durations vary widely
and unpredictably—a common way to signify inebriation. Some of this
uncoordinated irregularity may be heard to persist into the last line of the
song, mm. 15–18. But meter does return, now in a complex but eventually
clear coordination of rhythmic behaviors that are laid out in Example 7.4c.
Separately, each voice has a varying, loosely projective meter, indicated by
the symbols above and below the rhythms, which is further complicated
by the aforementioned imitative relations between them. However, their
combination is much more regular, providing attacks nearly every quarter
note, as shown by the lines in the middle of the figure.
One compelling way to reconcile the sensations of separate meters with
this combined quarter-note pulse stream is to focus on the reiterations of
the crucial word “nothing.” Nearly all its instances are set to a distinctive
short-long “snap” rhythm, consistent with English prosody and emphasiz-
ing the onset of the first syllable despite its shorter duration. The quarter-
note beat itself arises from the mezzo’s two attacks on her first “nothing,”
recalling her initial role as timekeeper, and although she misses the next
attack (at the moment when the voices shift to the final tetrachord), she
reaffirms the beat with two following attacks. The soprano’s first two
“nothing”s appear off this beat, even competing with it. However, at the
moment marked with a dagger (†)—the only simultaneous attack of the
passage—t he soprano places her third “nothing” on the beat, and she sup-
ports it thereafter. Indeed, at this shared attack one can sense a projection
Q–Q′, initiated by the mezzo’s first “nothing,” that will eventually be real-
ized by the soprano’s final onset. Thus, for the first time in the song, the two
voices work together to articulate a plain tactus—yet it appears only from
the superposition of their separately complicated meters. Superficially one
might hear the metrical cooperation as symbolizing the narrator’s attitude
of resolve, apparent in the last line of the poem. This regaining of future-
directed temporality becomes ironic, however, when the following projec-
tion R–R′, suggested by the clear whole note in the soprano, is realized
exactly at the moment, marked by an asterisk (*), when both voices cut off
their final word, “life.”
The varying priority of pitch also gives rise to multiple concurrent pro-
cesses, which Example 7.5 represents using a special notation. Note size
and the presence or absence of a stem indicate the degree to which the
corresponding event stands out within its local context, owing mostly to
its accents of duration and contour.11 The first four measures summarize

Example 7.5
Interacting tonalities across the entire song
Example 7.1c, the hearing in which B and B ♭, supported by their respec-
tive dominants, alternate in priority, and in which small melodic intervals
are interpreted as manifesting neighbor-note relations. With this priming,
one is more sensitive to the reappearance of these same notes as well as
others that reinforce their priority. Accordingly, it is easy to hear that the
soprano’s most important high pitch events, indicated by upward-stemmed
open note heads, are all members of a B major triad (reading E ♭ enharmoni-
cally as D ♯). Indeed, as shown by beams above the staff, the succession of
the soprano’s most prominent notes arpeggiates that triad up twice and
then down.
During the passages framed with brackets, the mezzo also emphasizes
notes of B major, as shown by downward-stemmed open note heads. However,
during other passages, marked with asterisks, she asserts B ♭ major, indicated
with stemmed solid note heads, even arpeggiating that triad up and down
concurrently with the soprano’s B major arpeggiations.12 Indeed, the song’s
entire pitch field (shown by the black letter names labeling the vertical axis
of the pitch-time graph of Example 7.2a) might be conceptualized abstractly
as the combination of two harmonic series based on fundamentals B ♭ and B,
a semitone apart. That is consistent with “spectral composition” procedures
that Saariaho studied at IRCAM and applied in other works,13 but in this spe-
cific context it can also be heard to have a particular significance that becomes
apparent at the conclusion of the song.
Other, less salient events are represented by Example 7.5 as bearing tra-
ditional melodic relations (neighbors, passing tones, and arpeggiations) to
the more important notes, again as suggested by mm. 1–4 . Among them,
Cs and Gs are singled out, with eighth-note flags, as notes that seem to act
consistently as longer-range upper neighbors to the tonics and dominants
of the two salient triads.14
By following this representation of the changing, overlapping tonalities,
and by correlating them with the polyvalent metric and imitative activity,
as discussed below, one can appreciate deeper aspects of Saariaho’s setting.
After m. 4, the mezzo next prioritizes B ♭ in m. 6, when she leaps down an
enharmonic perfect fifth from F4 to A ♯3, evoking a common tonic-defining
bass-voice gesture. (The latter is the lowest pitch in the song and is isolated,
with the next lowest a major third away.) This is also exactly the moment
when, according to the analyses presented above, the two voices diverge
metrically and registrally, and cease their imitation. Subsequently, during
the metrically and melodically uncertain G5 in the soprano, the mezzo pro-
vides a few notes in support of B major. This might be heard to prepare
for the soprano’s resumption of imitation, which transforms the mezzo’s
motive into a version that emphasizes B and F♯ . But just before the soprano
regains metric and tonal definition with her F♯5, the mezzo undercuts her

by reemphasizing notes of B ♭ major, noticeably the high F5 that creates a
semitone harmonic dyad with the soprano. Similarly, the semitone {D, E ♭}
trills that the voices alternate in m. 9 superpose the major mediants of the
two triads. The blending of a neighbor-note C with them gives this moment
a special quality of tonal ambiguity that nicely matches the dissolution of
the tactus.
Resolving these uncertainties, the many changes of m. 10 reassert a uni-
fication of the voices in which they share a single tonality and collaborate
to create concurrent pulse streams (Example 7.4b). This vividly depicts the
“magnolia” as self-sufficient, controlled, and multifaceted. But all sense of
coordination vanishes, appropriately enough, when the voices begin to sing
the next line of the text, “drunk on its own scents.” As meter dissolves
under a repeatedly stressed F♯5, a B ♭ major triad arpeggiates up from F4
to F5, again creating a semitone clash. (It involves the B ♭-sounding 0135
tetrachord, {A, B ♭, C, D}, shown in Example 7.3b, which is a transforma-
tion of the B minor–sounding 0135, {F♯ , G, A, B}, of mm. 10–11.) A moment
of B major clarity briefly stabilizes the soprano’s climax on B5. But then
B ♭ major arpeggiations reappear and persist together with B major. The
two tonalities seem clearest and most distinct at the song’s conclusion: the
return, in the mezzo, of the falling fifth to A ♯3 strongly affirms the latter
as tonic; it opposes the contour of the equally definite ascending F♯4–B4
dominant–tonic successions in the soprano; and neither voice sings the
other’s tonic. The sense of separate meters, analyzed in Example 7.4c, con-
tributes to the tonal independence, even as the tactus they cocreate sug-
gests stability.
Analogously, the concluding trills make the final tonal superposition
seem terminally irresolvable. Both voices alternate the same two pitches,
F and F♯ , but in the soprano they sound like a chromatic lower-neighbor
embellishment of the dominant of B, while in the mezzo they appear as
a chromatic upper-neighbor embellishment of the dominant of B ♭ . Thus,
this final superposition of F♯ and F stands as a synecdoche of the prevailing
dual tonality. The song concludes with the same tritone simultaneity, {F4,
B4}, that concluded the phrases of mm. 1–4, but now it is clear that this
dyad combines the tonic of one key with the dominant of the other—just as
the {F♯ , A ♯} of m. 2 did, but with the associations reversed. The listener has
been primed to expect the mezzo’s last F4 to fall again to A ♯3 tonic, but this
goal, like the affirmation of the whole-note projection R–R′ (Example 7.4c),
fails to be realized, leaving the listener musically, like the paralytic literally,
in a state of suspended animation.15
Thus, while meter and tonality support the linear, form-g iving pro-
cesses of texture and pc-set succession, they also manifest in super-
posed, concurrent continuities that simultaneously interact and vie for

attention, creating more global, systematic effects analogous to those
arising from the voices’ imitative declaiming of the text. Indeed, the
superposed processes stand as metaphors for the combined temporali-
ties expressed so starkly in the poem’s conflicted introduction and close.
Time for the paralytic is manifested both in the events passing in an
outside world he cannot affect (“it happens”) and in the looming possi-
bility of extinction (“will it go on?—,” its em dash directed into the blank
margin). The magnolia with which he identifies experiences a serene
detachment from the time of “life,” but the very features upon which
it narcissistically transfixes, the clawlike shape and intoxicating odor,
prefigure its own inevitable demise. The tonal and metrical dualities,
without mapping simply onto the paralytic’s, nevertheless also make
alternative temporalities simultaneously available. When two concur-
rent but differing meters are manifested, a given moment can be heard
as onbeat and pulse-continuative with respect to one meter, but as off-
beat and pulse-resistive with respect to the other. When two different
tonalities can be heard, they can be heard to impart different temporally
charged functions to a given note—as when B ♭ can be heard both as a
stable tonic and as a leading tone expected to resolve—a nd thus promote
different expectations about the music’s future. Although one may not
literally hear both tonalities or both meters at the same time, they are
nevertheless available as different and sometimes mutually exclusive
frameworks for perceiving the events of the piece, options that may be
exercised differently with every new listening.
These poetic and musical dualities might be understood as examples
of what feminist theory calls a “double-voicedness” that keeps “two alter-
native oscillating texts simultaneously in view,” a “dominant” discourse
(reflecting, say, conventional gender roles) and a “muted” discourse subver-
sive to it.16 Indeed, it is tempting to interpret From the Grammar of Dreams
biographically by speculating on what its texts might mean to a composer
who abandoned her native Finland early in her career complaining that
“in every domain there was always one wise old guy with a bald head, the
male authority whose aesthetics or politics ruled. … I felt squeezed to
be something that I’m not,”17 and who has subsequently cultivated a dis-
tinctively feminine identity in her choice of texts and focus on women’s
voices.18 In the absence of any more specific commentary about this work
from Saariaho herself, however, one can only guess the extent to which
she sympathizes with the gifted but thwarted poet, or with the paralytic’s
antipathetic sensations of freedom and imprisonment. Whether or not
one hears such power struggles, the analysis presented here shows how
the superposed processes compellingly represent the narrator’s wavering
between life and death.

Notes
1. An overview of the entire work, placing it in the context of Saariaho’s other vocal
compositions, is given by Éva Pintér in “Was die Träume erzählen: Textdeutungen in den
Vokalwerken von Kaija Saariaho,” in Woher? Wohin? Die Komponistin Kaija Saariaho, ed.
Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich (Mainz: Schott Music, 2007), 75–83. She characterizes Song III
as the slow movement in a five-movement arch form but does not analyze any specific
musical details. She also mentions two other, later versions: one for soprano and electron-
ics (2002), and a “stage version,” presumably intended for the concert tour, called by the
same name and featuring this work, that the composer organized in the late 1990s. From
the Grammar of Dreams differs completely from Saariaho’s similarly titled Grammaire des
rêves, also from 1988–89 for two female soloists, but on texts by Paul Eluard, and with
instrumental accompaniment.
2. At least, this is what the score specifies. However, in a definitive recording of this
song (featuring singers who are identical twins!) the soprano shifts to B after only a quar-
ter note on A♯. Kaija Saariaho, “From the Grammar of Dreams, III,” on From the Grammar
of Dreams, with Anu Komsi and Piia Komsi (vocalists), Ondine OSE 958-2, 2000, com-
pact disc; also available on iTunes. This does not seem to be a mistake, since the rest of
the performance conforms more exactly to the score, but I have not determined whether
the composer authorized the change, perhaps in the course of constructing later versions
of the work mentioned in n. 1. In any case, it matters little to my analysis, except that it
delays the entrance of the last of the four possible simultaneity intervals, the major third,
until the first simultaneous attack in m. 2.
3. This processive conception of meter is theorized in Christopher Hasty, Meter as
Rhythm (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), the later chapters of
which analyze music in post-tonal idioms close to Saariaho’s. The quoted terms in my
discussion have specific technical meanings explained in that book.
4. The meter of the different rhythm performed on the recording cited in n. 2 can be
heard as similar to the meter I describe in the notated version.
5. A well-known exposition of intuitions about the roots of intervals is Paul Hindemith,
The Craft of Musical Composition: Theoretical Part— Book 1, trans. Arthur Mendel
(New York: Associated Music, 1942), 68–89. The idea of using “rare intervals” to orient
one’s hearing is discussed in Richmond Browne, “Tonal Implications of the Diatonic
Set,” In Theory Only 5, nos. 6–7 (1981): 3–12.
6. Consistent with the first melodic motion in the soprano, the score nearly always
shows A♯, not B♭, implying a leading-tone function, but I see this notation as increasingly
ironic, since F continues pairing with A♯ to make it sound like a tonic.
7. Quantifying attack density requires deciding some methodological questions that
implicitly engage rather tricky issues of temporality: over how long a span of time does one
gather impressions of the activity of new onsets, and does one attribute those impressions
to the beginning, middle, or end of the span? In this context I justify my choice of ref-
erential time span not only on notational grounds (that is, the meter signature is 4$ )
but also by the regular appearance on the downbeat of a change of texture, or of an
event marked by substantial phenomenal accent, especially during mm. 5–6 and 8–13.
Although one’s sensation of changes in attack density must necessarily be retrospective,
I nevertheless attribute it to the moment that initiated the changes, that is, prospectively
from that moment. In other words, I hear the density of the time span as a quality that
inheres in the beginning of the span, adapting ideas found in two essays by Christopher
Hasty, “Rhythm in Post-Tonal Music: Preliminary Questions of Duration and Motion,”
Journal of Music Theory 25, no. 2 (Fall 1981): 183–216, and “On the Problem of Succession

and Continuity in Twentieth-Century Music,” Music Theory Spectrum 8 (1986): 58–74.
Attributions to the middle or end of the span could be represented by shifting the curve
of Example 7.2c two or four beats to the right; but neither alternation would substantially
affect my reading of how density articulates and directs time.
8. Considering the nature of vocal performance, I hear the semitone trills in m. 9 and
m. 13 as sustained tones with vibrato, making them rhythmically cadential events, rather
than intensifying, rapid alternations of discrete pitches. To represent them otherwise as
dense, as if they were performed on a piano, would require altering Example 7.2c to show
high density all the way through m. 9, and through m. 13; but it would still result in a
change of slope, indicating sectional divisions around m. 10 and m. 14.
9. This way of hearing treats perfect fourths as equivalent to perfect fifths, which sup-
ports the hearings of tonal focus proposed by Example 7.1c.
10. For a summary of a method for analyzing concurrent pulse streams, see John
Roeder, “Rhythmic Process and Form in Bartók’s ‘Syncopation,’” College Music Symposium
44 (2004): 43–57.
11. Fred Lerdahl first proposed hierarchizing pitch by perceptual salience in “Atonal
Prolongational Structure,” Contemporary Music Review 4 (1989): 65–87. His exposition
addresses concerns raised by Joseph N. Straus in “The Problem of Prolongation in Post-
Tonal Music,” Journal of Music Theory 31, no. 1 (Spring 1987): 1–21. He expands the method
in the last two chapters of Tonal Pitch Space (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001),
enumerating on p. 320 salience conditions for choosing an event to represent a time span
and analyzing several atonal works. My hierarchical analysis notationally distinguishes
between more and less salient events, but it is not consistent with Lerdahl’s notational
system, because I focus principally on the salient recurrence of certain possibly conflict-
ing pc collections, not on an essentially monophonic process of tension and relaxation.
I imagine that a tensional analysis could be made of this song, but that would entail
simplifying the texture and rhythms, as well as obscuring the superpositions of tonality
and meter that I claim are essential to relating music and text. Spencer N. Lambright, in
“L’Amour de loin and the Vocal Works of Kaija Saariaho” (DMA diss., Cornell University,
2008), presents similarly reductive diagrams to indicate “hierarchical pitch schemes in
her vocal lines” (110); he calls them “Schenkerian,” but most of them, like mine, do not
involve an a priori background contrapuntal framework.
12. There are numerous precedents for hearing simultaneous competing tonics. My
approach here is influenced most directly by the work of William Benjamin, for example
“Abstract Polyphonies: The Music of Schoenberg’s Nietzschean Moment,” in Political and
Religious Ideas in the Works of Arnold Schoenberg, ed. Charlotte Cross and Russell Berman
(New York: General Music, 2000), 1–39, and “Tonal Dualism in Bruckner’s Eighth
Symphony,” in The Second Practice of Nineteenth-Century Tonality, ed. William Kinderman
and Harald Krebs (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), 237–58. Benjamin’s
readings, however, usually interpret pitches as factors of chords that participate in func-
tional harmonic progressions, whereas the reduction here simply identifies membership
in a tonic triad.
13. For a general overview of Saariaho’s compositional procedures, see Moisala, Kaija
Saariaho, 61–64. The composer herself outlines some of her early techniques in Kaija
Saariaho, “Timbre and Harmony: Interpolations of Timbral Structures,” Contemporary
Music Review 2, no. 1 (1987): 93–133. Superpositions of rooted sonorities are common in
her works. One early example is Lichtbogen (1985–86). After the nine instruments open
in unison on F♯4 (the source of the harmony for the work was a Fourier analysis of a cello
playing this pitch with increasing noise), the texture evolves into overlapping arpeggia-
tions that combine various pairs of triads, often a semitone apart, for example: F♯ and

G in m. 43, A and B♭ in mm. 48–50, and A♭ and A in m. 54. In a later work, Ariel’s Hail
(2000), a motive heard several times in the first measures combines the pitch classes of
the F♯ major and G major triads. Further examples, including analyses and an extended
discussion of harmonic procedures, may be found in Lambright, “L’Amour de loin.”
14. For example, this reading shows the prominent G5 in mm. 6–7 as subsidiary to the
F♯5s that precede and follow it. I hear it this way because the F♯ carries residual strength
from its prominence in mm. 1–4, and because G does not belong to any of the recurring,
tritone-containing tetrachord classes of the work. It therefore seems to function as neigh-
bor to or passing from F♯ later in the song (mm. 10–11 and m. 14).
15. Just as the first four measures can be taken, as pursued here, to establish the
musical material and processes that are important in the remainder of the song, it is
interesting to consider how they also foreshadow the large-scale organization of tonal
and metrical dualities. They present four imitative phrases, each with a distinctive
meter, and with varying tonality; the final phrase comes to some tonal and metric clar-
ity as the voices focus on {F♯, B} and alternately attack to create a (triplet quarter-note)
beat. Starting at m. 5, we then hear four large imitative sections, each with distinctive
superpositions of meter and of tonality; the final section comes to metric and bitonal
clarity as the voices focus on the synecdochal F/F♯, and alternately attack to create a
(quarter-note) beat.
16. Elaine Showalter, “Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness,” Critical Inquiry 8, no. 2
(1981): 179–205.
17. Nick Kimberley, “Kaija Saariaho: The Sound of Dreams (and a Few Nightmares),”
Independent (London), November 18, 2001. Saariaho’s construction of her position
in male-dominated European art-music culture is considered in two essays by Pirkko
Moisala, “Gender Negotiation of the Composer Kaija Saariaho in Finland: The Woman
Composer as Nomadic Subject,” in Music and Gender, ed. Beverley Diamond and Pirkko
Moisala (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000), 166–88; and “Decentering the Term
‘Woman Composer,’” in Frau Musica (nova): Komponieren heute/Composing Today, ed.
Martina Homma (Cologne: Studio-Verlag Sinzig, 2000), 83–94.
18. For example, Saariaho’s three operas to date focus on women: L’amour de loin
(2000), which foregrounds a countess’s perspective on the idealized love of the trouba-
dour who seeks her; Adriana Mater (2006), about a mother who seeks to mitigate the
harsh consequences of a wartime atrocity; and La passion de Simone (2010), a monologue
dramatizing the writings and life of Simone Weil.

8
Libby Larsen, Chanting to Paradise (1997)
Libby Larsen (b. 1950) is arguably one of the most prolific American com-
posers of today, having written over five hundred compositions ranging
from song cycles to an impressive 15 operas.i As a child growing up in
Minneapolis, where she still lives, Larsen studied piano and voice, gaining a
range of vocal perspectives through her participation in school choirs and,
later, as the singer in a rock band. She attended a Catholic school, where
she sang Gregorian chant and learned about music as a symbolic language
in the tradition of the medieval quadrivium.
Being taught sequentially how to represent . . . abstractions with

numbers, letters, notes, and color has completely influenced the way
I think about music. A composer makes an order of sound through
time and space. Any sound (this is not because I am a daughter of
Cage—although I am) is potentially musical, depending on the culture
and the interpretation of the sound in a context.ii
Another early influence was Rimsky-Korsakov, whose use of tone color in

Scheherazade enchanted her and later informed her approach to musical
gesture and orchestration.
In the 1970s she completed her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate in
composition at the University of Minnesota, where she studied with Paul
Fetler and Dominick Argento. During this time she cofounded, along with
Stephen Paulus, the Minnesota Composers Forum, now known as the
American Composers Forum.
i. Biographical information about the composer is drawn from Tina Milhorn Stallard, “Libby
Larsen,” in Women of Influence: Nine Contemporary American Composers, ed. Michael K. Slayton
(Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2010), 191–250, and Larsen’s official biography, available from
her website at http://libbylarsen.com, accessed August 12, 2014.
ii. Stallard, “Libby Larsen,” 203–4.
176
Early in her career Larsen decided she wanted to work independently
as a freelance composer, and one of her first professional successes was
her appointment as composer-in-residence with the Minnesota Orchestra
(1983–87), the first such position offered to a woman by any major American
orchestra. She has collaborated with orchestras and soloists from around
the world, and has held residencies with the California Institute of the Arts,
the Philadelphia School of the Arts, the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of
Music, the Arnold Schoenberg Institute, and the Charlotte and Colorado
Symphony Orchestras. Her works have been recorded on more than 50 CDs.
Among Larsen’s major prizes and honors are the Eugene McDermott
Award in the Arts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a
Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Academy of Arts and
Letters, and the Harissios Papamarkou Chair in Education at the Library of
Congress, the latter in recognition of her dedication to the cause of school
music education.
Larsen sees herself as a distinctly American composer, in the tradition of
Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland. She believes her music should be
relevant to the society she lives in and draws on America’s cultural heritage
for musical ideas, turning to its literature and poetry for her many vocal
settings. Her lifelong fascination with the interrelationships between music
and language is reflected in her “text-driven” approach to vocal composi-
tion, the music of which she derives from close study of the rhythms and
meanings of the libretto’s text on almost a word-by-word basis.iii
Music as a Mirror: Libby Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise
Brenda Ravenscroft
In a letter to Rosemary Killam, who was preparing a feminist analysis of

Larsen’s Songs from Letters, the composer writes: “One thinks that one can
hide sometimes, in music, but I see that instead of a mask, the music is a
mirror.”1 Larsen’s statement comments on the way in which Killam’s analy-
sis made her aware that her musical settings in Songs from Letters, whose
texts draw on Calamity Jane’s letters to her daughter, convey her own beliefs
and attitudes about the role of women in society. Thus Larsen’s realization
is that the music is a reflection of the composer herself, not just a distanced
interpretation of a text, making it both a personal and a political statement.
iii. Philip Kennicott, “Text Message,” Opera News 73, no. 2 (2008), 34–35.
Libby Larsen, Chanting to Paradise (1997) 177

This merging of identities in vocal music is captured in Edward T. Cone’s
concept of a single musical persona, the “poet-composer,” comprising “a
unitary vocal-instrumental protagonist that is coextensive with the persona
of the actual composer.”2 Other writers and analysts have focused their
attention on the symbiotic relationship between words and music. David
Lewin explains this interrelation as one in which “music and text … enact
each other” (emphasis in original),3 while Lawrence Kramer describes a
process of “fusion” (as distinct from the musical imitation of a text) in
which the poem loses its stature as an independent text and the music’s
identity is enriched.4 Larsen’s approach to vocal composition embraces a
similar synthesis of music and text. Poetic form inspires musical form
(which, in turn, reshapes poetic structure), and, while her songs include
occasional examples of literal word painting in which the music graphically
depicts a poetic image, their strength lies at a deeper level, where poetic
and musical symbolism fuse with and mirror each other.
Larsen has written extensively for the voice. Her repertoire includes close
to a hundred pieces for chorus and over forty works for solo voice and vocal
duet, in addition to her many operas. Most of her solo songs set poems by
female writers, reflecting her interest in “the raw struggle towards honesty”
that she reads in first-person texts by women.5 In contrast to the distancing
she experiences with texts by male writers, Larsen finds the language used
by women to be “subjective and very personal,” creating a vulnerability
whereby the poet “risks exposing herself directly to the reader.”6
The sonic characteristics of language are also important to Larsen, who
is attracted to particular texts by “the content of the consonants and the
vowels.”7 Using syllables and phonemes as building blocks for her rhyth-
mic language, she allows natural speech inflections to guide melodic lines.
Ultimately, for Larsen, the text is the primary source for the music: “I gener-
ally let the rhythm of the words, the varying length of phrases and the word
emphasis dictate specific rhythm, phrase structure and melodic material.”8
In her 1997 song cycle Chanting to Paradise for high voice and piano,
Larsen sets four poems by the American poet Emily Dickinson (1830–
1886). The poems exemplify Dickinson’s technical and expressive prac-
tices, showing her sensitive use of phonetic and syllabic patterns as well as
her interest in intensely personal perspectives.9 Explaining her approach
toward setting a Dickinson poem, Larsen describes how her compositional
process is “to ferret out the game she set for herself in working on the
poem, and then illuminate that game through the musical setting.”10
In my essay I analyze the technical means by which Larsen achieves
this expressive goal by examining two representative songs from
Chanting to Paradise. Although miniature in scale, reflecting the laconic
nature of the poems, these songs demonstrate the exquisite care with

which Larsen selects every note to “illuminate” her reading of the texts.
In the conclusion of my essay I examine the concept of mirroring more
broadly by exploring parallels between the composer and poet, both as
artists and as women.
Transcending the bonds
In her program notes for Chanting to Paradise, Larsen describes the central
theme of “Bind me—I still can sing” as a spiritual conundrum in which
“the spirit, bound by life’s challenges, is made stronger, more hopeful, and
more infinitely true, through steadfast being.”11
Bind me—I still can sing—

Banish—my mandolin
Strikes true within—
Slay—and my soul shall rise

Chanting to Paradise—
Still thine—12
The poem explores the struggle between oppression and transcendence

through a series of strong images suggesting acts of repression—“bind,”
“banish,” “slay”—each of which is countered by a statement showing that
the speaker is beyond the crushing power of these acts. The violence implied
in the restrictive actions contrasts with the serenity and grace of the tran-
scendent responses, affirming that the speaker cannot be silenced either
literally or metaphorically. Her spiritual strength is embedded in music—in
singing, in the sound of a mandolin, and in the chanting that transports her
soul to Paradise.13 The last line, “Still thine,” introduces a note of ambiguity.
In Larsen’s interpretation it alludes to “steadfast being,” asserting the speak-
er’s inner strength and ownership over her spiritual freedom. However, one
can also read this line as closing the circle of oppression–transcendence–
oppression, leaving the speaker ultimately unable to escape the cycle.
Structurally, the poem is cast in two three-line stanzas with a parallel met-
rical scheme in the first two lines of each stanza—iambic trimeter, with the
opening foot reversed. The final line of each stanza is shorter in length, with
a heavier emphasis than elsewhere in the poem realized through the spond-
ees. For example, by stressing both words in the final phrase of the poem,
“still thine,” Dickinson focuses attention on the ambiguous last line, which
presents the essence of what Larsen calls the “spiritual conundrum.”

Larsen’s adaptation of the poem is true to the original in the first stanza,
but she expands the second stanza through repetition of words and phrases,
as shown below.
Dickinson Larsen
Slay—and my Soul shall rise Slay slay slay—and my Soul shall rise
my Soul shall rise
Chanting to Paradise— Chanting to Paradise—
Still thine— Still thine. Still thine. Still thine.
At the opening of the second stanza, “slay” is articulated three times,

emphasizing the arrival of the lowest point in a series of progressively more
brutal attempts at repression; this is offset by Larsen’s repetition of the
phrase “my Soul shall rise,” which reinforces that the speaker’s inner life
cannot be extinguished by destructive forces. These added words expand
the length of the stanza’s first line considerably, and Larsen balances this
formally in the last line by stating “still thine” three times.
While Dickinson’s poem avoids the stability of full rhyme, it features
extensive partial rhyme, which she uses to create sonic coherence within
each stanza.14 In the first stanza, all three end-line words—“sing,” “mando-
lin,” and “within”—rhyme in a general way because of their assonant use
of the short i vowel as well as the repetition of the nasal consonants ng and
n. Similarly, the three lines in the second stanza, ending “rise,” “Paradise,”
and “thine,” connect to each other through their use of the long i vowel. By
replacing the sibilant s with another nasal consonant in “thine,” Dickinson
also creates a longer-range link back to the previous stanza.
Larsen’s interest in language, words, and sounds leads her to a reading
of the poem that focuses on the assonance created by Dickinson’s repeated
use of the vowel i, which is featured not only in the end-line partial rhyme
scheme, but also in other key words such as “bind” and “banish,” as well as
“I,” “still,” “my,” and “strikes.”15 In her program notes Larsen writes, “If one
follows … the journey of i, one follows the journey of the soul of the first
person voice of the poem” (emphasis in original).16 The composer naturally
chooses to follow this path: her musical setting of the i words mirrors the
changing contexts of the vowel and reflects the speaker’s spiritual struggle
against oppression. Larsen establishes this reading right at the start of the
song in the first vocal phrase, shown in Example 8.1.
Pointing out that the i of “bind” is “bound by the b and n,” she explains how
she confines the words musically by setting them in short durations (eighth
notes) with the smallest possible interval, a minor second: “This first gesture,
setting the words bind me, is surrounded by musical rests, binding the music
to itself rather than to the suggestion of growth by association to a musical

Example 8.1
Opening vocal phrase of “Bind me” from Libby Larsen, Chanting to Paradise
line. In essence, very little pitch or rhythm is able to escape.”17 In contrast, the
vowel i, like the speaker’s spirit, is freed from its limitations in the second part
of the phrase, where an emphatic “I” initiates a lyrical phrase that ends with a
melismatic flourish in rubato sixteenth notes on the word “sing.”
This setting of “bind me” introduces two important pitch elements—t he
descending semitone (especially <D5, C ♯5>) and the interval class to which
it belongs, ic1. Over the duration of the short song, Larsen focuses melodic
attention on the descending semitone motive to connect each word describ-
ing an act of oppression, as shown in Example 8.2.
Example 8.2
Semitone motive and pitch connections
“Banish” is also set to a tightly controlled falling semitone, <A4, A ♭ 4>

(and is surrounded by rests, similar to the setting of “bind me”). Contour
and register expand for the setting of “slay,” but Larsen maintains the pitch
links to both “bind me” and “banish.” In an embellishment of the <A4,
A ♭ 4> motive, a rising octave on A ♭ 4 for the first articulation of “slay” is fol-
lowed by an ascending octave from A4 for the second, the overall descend-
ing motion of the motive now inverted.18 The third repetition of “slay”
restores the descending semitone motive to its original level, <D5, C ♯5>.
Perhaps more surprisingly, Larsen uses the same motive to establish a con-
nection to the last words of the song, “still thine.” After setting the transcen-
dent phrase “my soul shall rise /Chanting to Paradise” to a rising melodic line,
she reintroduces descending motion, setting the first statement of “still thine”
to a falling third and the last second two to descending semitones, <C5, B4>
followed by <D5, C ♯5>. Larsen feels it is “absolutely paramount to end the song
this way, going against the freeing of the musical line, in order to place both the
singer and the audience squarely in the center of Dickinson’s spiritual conun-
drum.” Using the <D5, C ♯5> motive as both the first and last vocal gestures of
the song not only provides musical closure, but also symbolizes the circular
and codependent nature of oppression and transcendence in the poem.

Although the preceding discussion has highlighted the prominence of
the melodic semitone in the voice, ic1 has a pervasive presence in the piano
part as well, both melodically and harmonically. Focusing especially on the
pitch interval 11 (pi11), Larsen features major seventh dyads in the opening
piano prelude and the concluding postlude, while in the bleak setting of
the word “banish,” reproduced in Example 8.3, the piano integrates and
extends this intervallic idea. Following the pi11s in m. 6, the <A ♭ 4, A3>
motion in the left hand reverses the voice’s <A4, A ♭ 4> pitch motive while
also introducing the idea of octave displacement, explored subsequently in
the vocal setting of “slay” (discussed earlier).
This passage also introduces a fast repeated-note figure in the piano
that Larsen uses to evoke the sound of a mandolin throughout the song,
aurally highlighting the musical symbolism in the poem. Performed
with the indication “ghost mandolin,” the mandolin figuration has an
ethereal presence, appearing later with the expressive indication lon-
tano.19 The repeated thirty- second-note mandolin gestures contrast
strongly with the other musical materials in the song, which proceed in
longer durations and with little direct repetition. This concept of musical
opposition, mirroring the dichotomy between repression and freedom
articulated in the poem, is embraced by the music in other ways as well.
For example, the piano introduction, reproduced in Example 8.4a, not
only initiates the focus on ic1 with the major seventh dyad {E ♭ 4, D5} men-
tioned earlier, but also introduces ic2 in the form of a whole-tone cluster
spanning the tritone {F4–B4}. The two contrasting intervallic elements
are then brought together a few bars later in a vocal flourish on the word
“sing” (Example 8.4b).
Example 8.3
Pitch interval 11 in the setting of “banish”

Example 8.4a
Intervallic materials, m. 1
Example 8.4b
Intervallic materials in the setting of “sing”
After outlining the piano’s <D5, E ♭ 4> dyad, an ascending whole-tone run
in the voice is followed by a four-note stepwise descending figure consist-
ing of two semitones enclosing a whole step, <-1, -2, -1>. This combination
figure, which I will refer to as “motive x,” is imitated in the piano’s left
hand in m. 5—t hree octaves lower and rhythmically intensified to a triplet
sixteenth figure—and plays a significant role later in the song.
Of particular interest is a passage in the emotionally charged center of
the song, the setting of the words “slay, slay, slay” (Example 8.5) , where
Larsen assembles the different pitch elements that unify the song and
draws explicit connections to earlier materials.
The passage opens with a statement of motive x in the piano’s right hand,
which is mirrored in the left hand by a rhythmically identical, melodically
inverted form of the motive. The sustained {A ♭ 4, G ♭ 4} dyad on which the
motives converge prepares the entry of the voice on A ♭ 4 while emphasiz-
ing the whole-tone intervallic element. Comparison of this passage with
the opening measure, shown in Example 8.4a, reveals several significant
connections. The wide leap in the piano’s left hand from F1 to B2 recalls,

Example 8.5
Pitch elements in the setting of “slay, slay, slay”
in pitch-class terms, the span of the opening whole-tone cluster {F4–B4} in

the right hand of m. 1. Immediately following the leap, the right hand artic-
ulates a series of chromatically descending major seventh dyads that comes
to a rest on {E ♭3, D4}, the same notes as m. 1’s left-hand dyad {E ♭ 4, D5},
here displaced down an octave.
In m. 11 the voice, having arrived on the sustained A5, uses another state-
ment of motive x, transposed and altered rhythmically, as a bridge to the
final resting note of the phrase, F5. Finally, the entry of the third “slay” is
prepared by mandolin figuration in the piano’s right hand, accompanied by
two wide leaps in the left: <A ♭ 1, A ♭3>, echoing the first vocal “slay,” followed
by <B2, B ♭3>. The ascending pi11 is reminiscent of the opening pitches of
m. 6 (see Example 8.3).
The cohesiveness and deliberate economy of Larsen’s musical materials and
compositional devices allow her to create powerful and expressive musical
tools with which to mirror the text. At the heart of this mirroring is the idea
of opposition, realized in the poem through the recurrent themes of oppres-
sion and liberation, and established musically through Larsen’s careful choice
of fundamental musical elements with contrasting characteristics. Interval
classes 1 and 2 are introduced as discrete features (before being combined later
into motive x), syllabic passages contrast with melismatic and rubato settings,
and the fast repeated notes of the mandolin figuration stand in sharp aural
relief to the established texture. Distinct musical behaviors are not, however,
associated with specific instruments; rather, voice and piano work together to
enact the words by drawing on a common language.
Larsen weaves these relatively simple, complementary materials together
in subtle ways to reflect a closed, cyclical world, recasting pitch and pitch-
class elements such as the {A/A ♭} and {E ♭/D} dyads in different contexts
throughout “Bind me.” There is, ultimately, no resolution to the narrative
of opposition; instead, through her combination of contrasting elements
in the last measures of the song, Larsen’s setting highlights the tension

between repression and transcendence to mirror a reading of the poem
that suggests the cycle cannot be escaped. The song ends with a lingering
whole-tone mandolin figuration in the right-hand piano, accompanied in
the left hand by the complementary ic1s discussed earlier, while the “bind-
ing” descending <D5, C ♯5> semitone setting of “still thine” is sustained
until it fades, symbolically, into silence.
Seeking power in patterns
“In this short Life,” the poem chosen by Larsen for the second song of the
cycle, is characterized by brevity and formal balance. Consisting of a single
two-line sentence, the poem ends with a full rhyme (“hour,” “power”), cre-
ating closure. The stability of the poem’s formal structure is reinforced by
its metrical symmetry, each line articulating five iambic feet.
In this short Life that only lasts an hour

How much—how little—is within our power.20
Dickinson creates momentum in the poem by delaying the critical verb

“is,” forcing the reader to wait until the end in order to realize its meaning.
The conciseness of the structure and the conclusiveness of the rhyming
last line imbue the poem with a tone of conviction, giving authority to the
speaker’s voice, but the words create a lingering sense of uncertainty.21 The
brevity of “Life,” which only “lasts an hour,” suggests an existential disquiet,
and resolution between the oppositional quantities of “much” and “little”
is never actually reached. If one understands “how little” to be embedded
within the phrase “how much … is within our power,” Dickinson could
be suggesting that the balance of power lies within our control. On the
other hand, by coming second, “how little” could be interpreted as cancel-
ing “how much,” implying we have little influence. Ultimately Dickinson
leaves the question of how much power we have in our lives, particularly
when its short duration is beyond our control, unanswered.
Instead of reproducing the poem’s formal stability in her setting, Larsen
focuses on this unresolved opposition embedded in the poem’s meaning.
To emphasize the contrast between the key phrases “how much” and “how
little,” she separates them, devoting a full stanza to each before combining
them in a third stanza, as shown below. Repetition of the key phrases at the
end of each of the first two stanzas further stresses their importance, while
the opposition between them is highlighted in stanza 3 by their juxtaposi-
tion and repetition: “How much—how little /How much—how little.”

Dickinson Larsen
In this short Life that only lasts an In this short Life that only lasts an
hour hour
How much—how little— How much, how much,
how much
In this short Life that only lasts an

hour
How little, how little, how little
In this short Life that only lasts an

hour
How much—how little—
How much—how little—
is within our power is within our power.
By drawing out individual phrases in this way Larsen significantly changes

the poem’s structure, converting Dickinson’s succinct and balanced verse
into an asymmetrical three-stanza poem, in which repetition provides
sonic unity and serves to emphasize the uncertainties suggested in the
original poem. The opposition between “much” and “little” becomes the
key focus of the song, and the poem’s temporal flow is disrupted by the
extensive repetition. Syntactic tension accumulates over a much longer
duration, the open-ended stanzas finally finding closure—and meaning—
in the last line of the third stanza, “is within our power.”
Emphasizing her tripartite reorganization of the text, Larsen’s setting
includes short piano interludes between each stanza, in addition to a
piano introduction and postlude. The opening piano prelude, reproduced
in Example 8.6, establishes the pitch and rhythmic patterns on which the
song is based.
Example 8.6
Primary pitch and rhythmic patterns in “In this short Life”

The listener’s attention is drawn immediately to the repetitive pitch
groupings: three eighth notes in the left hand set against four sixteenth
notes in the right hand.22 The surface rhythm is enriched further when
the voice enters in m. 3 with duplet quarter notes, expanding the hemiola
rhythm into a measure-long polyrhythmic unit, shown in Example 8.7.
These opening rhythms allow Larsen to set the tone for the song: the
restless running sixteenth-note motion creates a sense of unease, of search-
ing rather than arrival, and the metrically dissonant multi-layered rhyth-
mic patterns embody the opposition suggested in the dichotomy between
“much” and “little.”
The pitch/rhythm material of m. 1—which I will refer to as the fundamen-
tal unit—acts as the song’s primary building block, undergoing a series of
exact transpositions which generate the formal shape of the entire piece
(discussed later). The first shift occurs in m. 5 when, after four statements
at the original level, the fundamental unit is transposed down a semitone
in the second part of stanza 1 for another four iterations (see Example 8.8).
The second stanza of the song parallels the first musically, reflecting the
parallel construction of the first two stanzas of Larsen’s text. Both piano
and voice present the material of the first stanza transposed up a second,
with only minor variations occurring in the vocal part on the words “how
little” (see Example 8.10 below).
Example 8.7
Polyrhythm between voice and piano
Example 8.8
Fundamental unit, m. 1 and m. 5

Table 8.1 Tonal plan for “In this short Life”
Mm. 1 3 9 11 16 20
Piano Stanza 1 Piano Stanza 2 Piano Stanza 3
prelude “how much” interlude “how little” interlude “how much—how little”
No. of 2 2 4 2 3 2 0.5 1 2 4 1 2.5 0.5 1.5
statements of
fundamental
unit
Piano C/B♭ C/B♭ B/A D/C D/C C/B♭ A/G A/G E/free E/D C♯/B B/A A/G E/free
(RH/LH)
Voice A♭4 B♭4 C5
B♭1 pedal
The relative stability of the first two stanzas comes to an abrupt end in
the piano interlude leading to the third stanza, which introduces dramatic
changes to set up the culminating stanza of the song (see Example 8.9).
The fundamental unit is replaced in m. 17 by contrary motion runs that
rapidly extend the register from the center of the piano’s range up to A5 in
the right hand and a low B ♭ 1 pedal in the left. The total piano range, which
has been maintained at only 16 semitones (a major tenth) within each state-
ment of the fundamental unit, expands to 47 semitones, a span of nearly
four octaves. The significance of this moment is intensified by a crescendo
to f, the loudest dynamic level so far in the song, and, once the right hand
resumes its basic pattern in m. 18, by the addition of an inner-voice melody
in the left hand that imitates the pitch and rhythm of the opening vocal
melody, shown in Example 8.6.
Example 8.9
Piano interlude, mm. 17–19
After the mesmerizing repetitive patterns of the first two verses, these
changes in register, dynamics, and texture serve to alert the listener to the
imminent arrival of the climactic third stanza, in which the forces of oppo-
sition are brought together in an uneasy union.
The third stanza begins much like the first two, with the piano and
voice patterns transposed up another second (albeit with the right hand
displaced up an octave and the B ♭ 1 pedal lingering for the first four state-
ments); but now Larsen destabilizes the piano patterns, frequently trans-
posing and sometimes truncating or fragmenting the fundamental unit
as the singer vacillates between “much” and “little.” The volatility of the
third stanza is apparent from the diagram in Table 8.1, which provides an
overall “tonal” plan for the song showing the different pitch-c lass levels
at which the fundamental unit occurs (identified by the pitch classes
of the first notes in each hand) and the number of statements.23 (The
opening vocal pitch of each stanza is included to indicate how the voice
parallels the piano patterns.) To avoid unnecessary clutter, I have not
indicated register for the piano; with the exception of the right-hand “E”
pattern at the start of the third stanza, which is displaced into the C5
register, all fundamental units are located in the central piano register
between C3 and C5.

The diagram clarifies the extreme economy of musical materials Larsen
employs in this song, with only two brief “free” passages presenting mate-
rial other than the fundamental unit. Through the use of recurring pitch
and rhythmic patterns, she mirrors the repeated words and phrases in the
text; just as individual words are reused in different contexts, so individual
pitch and rhythm patterns are presented in different tonal contexts and
repeated at different transpositional levels.
Within this relatively static framework, small changes can have great sig-
nificance, a property that Larsen exploits to highlight the opposition she
reads into the poem’s meaning, focusing the listener’s attention on contrast-
ing settings of the dichotomous phrases “how much” and “how little.”
As illustrated in Example 8.10, which presents the vocal settings of these
two phrases, Larsen creates contrast primarily through her manipulations
of interval, contour, and rhythm. Example 8.10a shows that in the first
stanza, although the initial two statements of “how much” are relatively
subdued (being set syllabically to small intervals), they are followed by an
expansive ascending arpeggio in m. 7. The melisma on the word “much”
and the sustained high A5, with its dynamic elaboration, emphasize the
richness implied by this word. In contrast, settings of “how little” in the
second stanza, shown in Example 8.10b, are marked by their sparseness.
While the second statement of “little” is set to a rising perfect fifth, the
other two statements set the three syllables of “how little” to a falling inter-
val followed by a repeated pitch. The repetition of an individual pitch, while
a seemingly small detail, gains greater meaning when one considers that
there are no other immediately repeated pitches in the vocal line at any
point in the song other than the setting of “little.”
The distinction between “much” and “little” becomes even more marked
in the third stanza when the two words are juxtaposed (Example 8.10c).
The florid melisma of m. 23 and the soaring octave leap in m. 25 associate
Example 8.10
Comparison of settings of “much” and “little”: (a) mm. 5–8; (b) mm. 13–16; (c) mm. 22–26
(a)
(b)
(c)

“much” with bountiful plenty and magnitude, in contrast to the constrained,
impoverished settings of “little,” first as repeated notes and then as a syl-
labic pair of descending seconds. The difference in relative duration of
“much” and “little” reinforces their dissimilarity.
While Larsen’s contrasting settings of “much” and “little” suggest rather
literal word painting, it is important to remember that the distinction
between them goes beyond mere surface depiction to the heart of her inter-
pretation of Dickinson’s poem. Having clearly established the opposition
between these two measurements of power in the first two stanzas, Larsen
increases the intensity of the debate in the third verse, the rapidly shifting
patterns of the fundamental unit magnifying the undertone of anxiety cre-
ated by the metrically dissonant, constantly running rhythms. The authori-
tative tone and sense of closure in Dickinson’s original poem are absent;
Larsen has transformed the poem structurally and in doing so has recast
its central message: the conflict between how much or how little of life
lies within our power can never be resolved. Although the song ends with
an unambiguously consonant chord—root-position B ♭ major, gently arpeg-
giated24 —it comes across as a sigh of exhaustion following the singer’s
intense deliberations, rather than as a chord of repose and resolution. For
Larsen, life, no matter how short, does not appear to have ready answers,
particularly when it comes to complex issues of power and control.
Reflections: Larsen and Dickinson
These analyses of “Bind me” and “In this short Life” elucidate the compo-
sitional tools Larsen employs to illuminate the details of sonic and verbal
patterns and to convey, on a symbolic level, her nuanced understanding
of the meaning of each poem. While music and text mirror each other
in multiple ways, it is intriguing to consider whether there is a similar
mirroring between the composer and the poet. Certainly Larsen’s posi-
tion as a female composer in a male-dominated profession resonates with
Dickinson’s status as a female poet in the patriarchal nineteenth-century
literary world. Although Larsen feels that her sex was not an issue when
she chose to become a composer, she has acknowledged that little has
changed to make the musical environment more welcoming for women.25
Suggesting that there are few role models to help young women “to envi-
sion their whole lives as composers,” she also recognizes that female con-
ductors “rarely move up the ladder” and that “the compositional canon is
overwhelmingly male.”26

As a successful, independent composer, Larsen herself presents a strong
female role model in the compositional world, and she, in turn, is drawn to
strong female characters in her music.27 In addition to the powerful liter-
ary figures of Virginia Woolf and Willa Cather, and the women who had
the misfortune to marry Henry VIII, many of whom made spirited gallows
speeches, she has based compositions on the art of painters Georgia O’Keeffe
(Black Birds, Red Hills, for viola, B ♭ clarinet, and piano, 1987, rev. 1996) and
Mary Cassatt (Mary Cassatt, for mezzo-soprano, trombone, and orchestra,
1994) and has composed a cantata on the life of Eleanor Roosevelt (Eleanor
Roosevelt, 1996). In Killam’s feminist analysis of Larsen’s Songs from Letters,
mentioned in the introduction, she discusses how Larsen uses music to sym-
bolically transform Calamity Jane’s identity from “a homeless outcast” into
“an identity of judging, wrathful deity, creating her own role and place in the
western mythology and pantheon now accepted by contemporary society.”28
Emily Dickinson, like Larsen, is a powerful female figure, although,
unlike Larsen, she cherished privacy rather than life in the public sphere.29
Contemporary scholars have reexamined her life and poetry, questioning
the commonly held view of her as a “recluse” and focusing on her strength
as an independent thinker and quiet pioneer who “lived a vigorous life of
the mind.”30 Dickinson was well aware of her lesser status as a woman in
a nineteenth-century world. As a young girl living in a family whose male
members were all actively involved in politics, she protested her exclusion
from these activities and later used a male friend and her brother as sound-
ing boards, actively seeking their responses to her experiments in poetic
form and tone and challenging their traditional ideas about women writ-
ers.31 Her poetry can therefore be read as an exploration of the tensions
between the feminine and masculine norms of her time. Recent feminist
interpretations of her work note, for example, how Dickinson “redefines
traditional images of feminine vulnerability and endows them with all the
strength of armor,”32 and several writers have asserted that her use of the
masculine pronoun in her poems is not a reference to a strong male figure
but symbolic of “aspects of her own personality” more traditionally attrib-
uted to men.33
The contemporary reader can, without much difficulty, detect what we
consider today to be distinctly feminist themes in Dickinson’s poetry. The
two poems discussed in this essay, for example, focus on issues of power,
control, confinement, and escape. That Larsen seems drawn to them as
inspiration for her musical settings seems natural, since these themes
exemplify “the raw struggle towards honesty” that Larsen identifies in the
female poetic voice. If we consider again her statement that “the music is a
mirror,” we can see that the mirror casts multiple reflections: not only does
the composer find herself mirrored in the music she writes, but, more than

a century later, the figure of the woman composer echoes the image of the
female poet. Most significantly, the close mirroring between text and music
causes them to merge into a single expressive entity—the song—in which
the distinction between object and reflection can no longer be discerned.
Notes
1. The letter is reproduced in Appendix A of Killam, “Women Working: An Alternative
to Gans,” Perspectives of New Music 31, no. 2 (Summer 1993): 230–51. Killam’s is currently
the only analytical article in print about Larsen’s music, a fact that seems incongruent
with the range of Larsen’s compositional output and her status as a widely performed
contemporary American composer. Her music has, however, received a fair amount
of attention over the past decade in the form of doctoral dissertations, many of which
illuminate aspects of her vocal works. Examples include Gregory Paul Zavracky, “Libby
Larsen’s ‘My Antonia’: The Song Cycle and the Tonal Landscape of the American Prairie”
(DMA diss., Boston University, 2014); Christi Marie McLain, “Libby Larsen’s ‘Margaret
Songs’: A Musical Portrait of Willa Cather’s Margaret Elliot” (DMA diss., Arizona
State University, 2013); Christy L. Wisuthseriwong, “Libby Larsen’s ‘De toda la etern-
idad’: Creating Infinity through the Words of Sor Juana Inéz de la Cruz” (DMA diss.,
University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2011); Juline Barol-Gilmore, “‘Beloved, Thou
Hast Brought Me Many Flowers’ and ‘Sifting through the Ruins’: An Analysis of Two
Chamber Song Cycles by Libby Larsen” (DMA diss., University of Nevada, Las Vegas,
2010); and Angela R. Day, “A Performer’s Guide to Libby Larsen’s Try Me, Good King: Last
Words of the Wives of Henry VIII” (DMA diss., Louisiana State University and Agricultural
and Mechanical College, 2008).
2. Edward T. Cone, “Poet’s Love or Composer’s Love?” in Music and Text: Critical
Inquiries, ed. Steven Paul Sacher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 182.
3. David Lewin, Studies in Music with Text (Oxford and New York: Oxford University
Press, 2006), xii.
4. Lawrence Kramer, Music and Poetry: The Nineteenth Century and After (Berkeley and
Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984), 126–29.
5. Larsen has used both poetry and prose writing by women for her vocal works. In
addition to Dickinson, she has set poems by Sor Juana Inéz de la Cruz and Elizabeth
Barrett Browning, while her settings of prose have drawn on writings by Brenda Ueland,
Willa Cather, and Virginia Woolf. The texts for Try Me, Good King: Last Words of the Wives
of Henry VIII (2000) are taken from the queens’ letters and gallows speeches.
6. Susan Chastain, “A Conversation with Libby Larsen: A Transcription of a Taped
Telephone Interview from April 17, 1995,” International Alliance for Women in Music
Journal 2, no. 3 (February 1996): 5.
7. Ibid.
8. Libby Larsen, “Double Joy,” American Organist 18 (March 1984): 50.
9. Jo Gill explains that Dickinson was “deeply exercised by huge abstract questions of
life and death, faith and despair, love and loss”; Women’s Poetry (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 2007), 100. The brooding presence of Dickinson’s existential struggles
in her poetry, combined with the metrical freedom of her verse, help to explain why
her poems hold such great appeal for twentieth-and twenty-first-century composers: the
compelling intensity of their subjects and their temporal and rhythmic fluidity resonate
with contemporary preoccupations. A small sample of composers who have set poems

by Dickinson includes Elliott Carter, Aaron Copland, George Perle, Gloria Coates, and
Judith Weir. In 2002 the American composer Augusta Read Thomas completed a song
cycle setting of five Dickinson poems, including “Bind me—I still can sing,” from which,
like Larsen, she draws the title of the work, Chanting to Paradise.
10. Larsen, “Program Notes,” Chanting to Paradise (Minneapolis, MN: Libby Larsen
Publishing, 1997), i. The song cycle is included on the recording Grand Larsen-y: Vocal
Music of Libby Larsen, Terry Rhodes (soprano) and Benton Hess (piano), Albany Records
TROY 634, 2004, compact disc.
11. Ibid., ii.
12. Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College
from THE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON: READING EDITION, edited by Ralph
W. Franklin, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
Copyright ©1998, 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright ©
1951, 1955 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © renewed 1979,
1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1914, 1918, 1919, 1924,
1929, 1930, 1932, 1935, 1937, 1942 by Martha Dickinson Bianchi. Copyright © 1952, 1957,
1958, 1963, 1965 by Mary L. Hampson.
13. Dickinson frequently uses musical imagery in her poetry. As a singer and pianist,
she was particularly sensitive to the ways in which sounds convey meaning. Judy Jo
Small, Positive as Sound: Emily Dickinson’s Rhyme (Athens: University of Georgia Press,
1990), points out that sound and music feature prominently in her poetry, as “content
and as acoustic texture,” and as “auditory images and aural figures referring to meta-
physical concepts” (30).
14. Dickinson experimented extensively with partial rhyme in her poetry. In Positive as
Sound, Small asserts that Dickinson understood that the “instability of partial rhyme can
indicate … the sublime transport of freedom,” an interpretation that seems particularly
relevant in “Bind me” (83–84).
15. I am grateful to the literary scholar Shelley King, a colleague at Queen’s University,
for sharing her insights into structural aspects of this poem. As she pointed out, there is
so much repetition in this poem that what begins to stand out is the unrepeated sounds.
For example, because “true” is not matched elsewhere, the word resonates while the ear
waits in vain for its repetition.
16. Larsen, “Program Notes,” i.
17. Ibid.
18. Larsen describes the rising octave on “slay” as “a musical gash,” confessing to “giv-
ing in to gross literalism” in her setting (“Program Notes,” ii).
19. While the ghostly “mandolin” music plays a symbolic role in the piano part, the
instrument itself comes to the fore in a more directly expressive way in Larsen’s vocal set-
ting of “my mandolin strikes true.” In a deliberate attempt to mirror mandolin technique,
each syllable is set to a different pitch with a short sixteenth-note duration, in imitation
of the sound produced when a mandolin melody is plucked with a plectrum (see Larsen,
“Program Notes,” ii).
20. Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College
from THE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON: READING EDITION, edited by Ralph
W. Franklin, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
Copyright ©1998, 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright ©
1951, 1955 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © renewed 1979,
1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1914, 1918, 1919, 1924,
1929, 1930, 1932, 1935, 1937, 1942 by Martha Dickinson Bianchi. Copyright © 1952, 1957,
1958, 1963, 1965 by Mary L. Hampson.

21. Dickinson’s practice of using full rhyme to create a stable tone and to suggest that
a poem has “reached a definitive judgment” is examined in Small, Positive as Sound, 177.
22. These pitch and rhythmic patterns appear to be a deliberate reference to the
beginning of Chopin’s Waltz, Op. 64 No. 1, (“Minute”), transposed down a fifth in the
right hand.
23. Larsen describes her tonal usage in terms of “pools of tonality,” created with-
out the support of traditional functional harmony, in Laurel Ann Thomas, “A Study of
Libby Larsen’s Me (Brenda Ueland), a Song Cycle for High Voice and Piano” (DMA diss.,
University of Texas at Austin, 1994), 9.
24. The final B♭ major chord resonates with the B♭1 pedal that occurs earlier in mm.
18–23 and is reestablished in m. 28 (see the diagram in Table 8.1). While the pedals fore-
shadow the final chord, it would be an overstatement to describe the role of B♭ as “central”
or to characterize the song as being “centric.”
25. Cynthia Green, “Interview with Composer Libby Larsen,” International League of
Women Composers Journal 5, no. 1 (June 1992): 25.
26. Although Larsen made these remarks in an interview fifteen years ago, there is
little evidence to suggest these perspectives have changed. Libby Larsen, interview by
Richard Kessler, “Libby Larsen: Communicating through Music,” New Music USA,
February 1, 1999, http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/libby-larsen-communicating-
through-music/.
27. These perspectives on the composer are presented in “Larsen, Libby,” in
The Norton/ Grove Dictionary of Women Composers, ed. Julie Anne Sadie and Rhian
Samuel (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995), 266–68, and “Libby Larsen,” in Women and
Music: A History, ed. Karin Pendle, 2nd ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
2001), 332–33.
28. Killam, “Women Working,” 240.
29. Dickinson’s fame as a poet was only established posthumously. A mere handful
of her poems, of which there are over seventeen hundred, were published during her
lifetime.
30. Gill, Women’s Poetry, 100. Other feminist studies of Dickinson include Adrienne
Rich, “Vesuvius at Home: The Power of Emily Dickinson”; Albert Gelpi, “Emily Dickinson
and the Deerslayer: The Dilemma of the Woman Poet in America”; and Terence Diggory,
“Armored Women, Naked Men: Dickinson, Whitman, and Their Successors,” in
Shakespeare’s Sisters: Feminist Essays on Women Poets, ed. Sandra M Gilbert and Susan
Gubar (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979), 99–121, 122–34, 135–50; Suzanne
Juhasz, ed., Feminist Critics Read Emily Dickinson (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1983); and Suzanne Juhasz and Cristanne Miller, “Performances of Gender in
Dickinson’s Poetry,” in The Cambridge Companion to Emily Dickinson, ed. Wendy Martin
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 107–28.
31. Gill, Women’s Poetry, 98–101.
32. Diggory, “Armored Women, Naked Men,” 139.
33. Gelpi, “Emily Dickinson and the Deerslayer,” 124. Rich makes similar observations
in “Vesuvius at Home.”

9
Elisabeth Lutyens,
Essence of Our Happinesses (1968)
Elisabeth Lutyens (1906–1983) has been credited with “virtually creat[ing]

the musical avant-garde in Britain.”i She was born in 1906 to Lady Emily
Lytton and the famed English architect Sir Edwin Lutyens.ii As a child, she
took lessons in violin and piano and made her first attempts at composi-
tion. In 1923 Lutyens became enthralled by the spirit of European musical
modernism during her studies at the École Normale in Paris. From 1926
to 1930 she studied viola and composition at the Royal College of Music,
and following graduation she cofounded the long- lived Macnaghten-
Lemare Concerts with the violinist Anne Macnaghten and the conductor
Iris Lemare. Toward the end of the 1930s Lutyens began composing with
tone rows, and in 1939 she started her Concerto for Nine Instruments,
Op. 8 No. 1, often cited as the first serial composition by a British com-
poser (although it is based on a 15-note row and not rigorously serial
beyond the first movement).
From 1944 to 1972 Lutyens supported her family by composing for film,
including wartime propaganda films, industrial shorts, travelogues, and
1960s horror movies such as The Skull (1965). She also composed inci-
dental music for theater and radio. However, success in the world of con-
cert music eluded her during most of the 1940s and ’50s, with the notable
i. Stephen Banfield, The Blackwell History of Music in Britain, vol. 6, The Twentieth Century, ed.
Stephen Banfield (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), 488.
ii. Biographical information is taken primarily from Meirion Harries and Susie Harries, A
Pilgrim Soul: The Life and Work of Elisabeth Lutyens (London: Michael Joseph, 1989).
196
exceptions of O Saisons, O Châteaux!, Op. 13, a lush setting for soprano
and strings of a poem by Arthur Rimbaud (1946), and her Motet (Excerpta
Tractati Logico-Philosophici), Op. 27 (1954), based on the philosophical writ-
ings of Ludwig Wittgenstein.
The well-received 1962 premiere of Quincunx for soprano, baritone, and
orchestra marked a breakthrough for Lutyens in terms of public recogni-
tion, and for the rest of the decade she enjoyed the greatest successes
of her career. She often lectured at the Dartington Summer School and,
through teaching or encouragement, influenced a new generation of com-
posers including Robert Saxton, Malcolm Williamson, and Allison Bauld, as
well as the so-called Manchester School of Alexander Goehr, Peter Maxwell
Davies, and Harrison Birtwistle.
Despite Lutyens’s reputation as a twelve-tone composer and the fact
that many row charts can be found in her papers, analysis of her scores
shows that even when she did begin from a row of standard length, she
was rarely as systematic in her treatment of the row as the term implies.
Rows served as sources for melodic motives as often as they were used
in their entirety, and she put more trust in her aural instincts than in
systems.
In 1969 Lutyens was named Commander of the British Empire by Queen
Elizabeth II, and ten years later she was given a lifetime achievement award
from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, which cited
her as “one of the small number of British composers who has worked
successfully in the advanced idioms of the twentieth century.”iii She died
in 1983.
“This Imaginary Halfe-Nothing”: Temporality in Elisabeth

Lutyens’s Essence of Our Happinesses
Laurel Parsons
If this Imaginary halfe-nothing, Tyme, be of the Essence of our Happinesses,

how can they be thought durable?
—John Donne
iii. Cited in ibid., 264–65.
Elisabeth Lutyens, Essence of Our Happinesses (1968) 197

In the 1930s Elisabeth Lutyens was one of the pioneers of the British
musical avant-garde, and by the late 1960s she was the eccentric (and
acerbic) grande dame of contemporary British composers, enjoying the
greatest successes of her career.1 But she was also a widow and grand-
mother in her sixties who had endured as much as she had provoked,
and perhaps as a result of this, the problem of time’s relentless passing—
and our attempts to reverse, escape, or transcend it—became a subject of
almost obsessive concern in her music. This concern is epitomized in her
extraordinary composition Essence of Our Happinesses, Op. 69 (1968), for
tenor, chorus, and orchestra, which has been described as “a truly great
work and one of the most unforcedly original contributions to the English
choral tradition ever attempted.”2 Its originality lies, in part, in a remark-
able juxtaposition of texts and wordless orchestral commentary that, over
the course of three movements, presents the composer’s distinctive tri-
partite characterization of temporal experience: mystical, chronological,
and manic.
These characters of temporal experience emerge from the diverse per-
spectives represented by the texts Lutyens chose to set: Abū Yazīd al-
Bistami’s mystical Sufi narrative “The Mi’raj of Abū Yasīd” (ninth century);
John Donne’s Devotion 14 from his Devotions upon Emergent Occasions
(1624); and Arthur Rimbaud’s “Enfin, ô bonheur,” from Une saison en enfer
(A Season in Hell, 1873). Each of the three movements is divided into two
parts, the first a performance of one of the three texts by solo tenor with
or without chorus, and the second an orchestral choros (conceived in its
ancient Greek dramatic sense as both dance and commentary) providing
a wordless gloss on the preceding text (see Table 9.1). Lutyens’s subtitles
for the choroi—“Mystikos,” “Chronikos,” and “Manicos,” respectively—
designate the nature of temporal experience suggested to her by each
text. At the same time, they provide a framework whereby listeners can
Table 9.1 Form of Elisabeth Lutyens’s Essence of Our Happinesses, Op. 69

Mvmt. I Mvmt. II Mvmt. III
Part 1 Title The Mi’raj of Abū Yazīd Their Criticall Dayes Enfin, ô bonheur
Author Abū Yazīd John Donne Arthur Rimbaud
Instrumentation Tenor, orchestra Tenor, chorus, Tenor, orchestra

orchestra
Part 2 Title Mystikos Chronikos Manicos
Instrumentation Orchestra Orchestra Orchestra

understand the overall structure of the work—t hat is, a central movement
concerned with the passage of chronological “clock” time framed by two
outer movements conveying the escape from chronological time experi-
enced by those in altered psychological states such as religious trance or
drug-induced mania.
“That Monosyllable, now”: the genesis

of Essence of Our Happinesses
In her unpublished program notes for Essence of Our Happinesses, Lutyens

recalls:
The insemination of this work was a question put to me by a young man

when . . . I was asked to give a talk to a group of music students: “Do you
understand being interested only in music written now?” That “now”
immediately evoked for me the line from Donne: “Before you sound
that word, present, or that Monosyllable, now, the present, and the Now
is past.”
Past, present and now, so inclusive of each other, all infer time and its
corollary, loss or suspension of a sense of time; pre-occupations of men
of all times and in all ways.3
As noted earlier, the passage to which Lutyens refers comes from Devotion
14 of his Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, written while he was recover-
ing from a near-fatal illness. Lutyens set almost the entire devotion as the
centerpiece of Essence of Our Happinesses, which accounts for its extended
length.
For the outer movements, Lutyens was inspired in her choice of texts
by R. C. Zaehner’s book Mysticism Sacred and Profane: An Inquiry into
Some Varieties of Praeternatural Experience (1957), an explicit refutation of
Aldous Huxley’s claim in The Doors of Perception that mescaline-induced
psychedelic states were equivalent in nature and value to the transcendent
experiences described by religious mystics.4 Zaehner compares accounts of
altered states of mind by mystics, poets, users of psychotropic drugs (him-
self included), and the mentally ill. Lutyens was struck by the similarities
he points out between Abū Yazīd and Rimbaud:
I was particularly interested in the parallel he drew between simi-

lar states of time-suspended ecstasy and sense of eternity produced
by such means as mysticism and mescalin: mysticism derived from

drunkenness; “drunkenness” from mysticism. (For, as mystic experi-
ence can lead to mania, so mania can lead to mystic experience and, in
both, time is present—by its absence: a paradox resolved.)5
While Zaehner himself never explicitly addresses the subject of time in his
book, Lutyens perceived a shared temporal dimension between the texts of
the two writers:
So beginning from that naïve, thoughtless question from the young

student, involving “that Monosyllable, now” and its implication of the
nature of time, and consideration—from time—of the parallel between
“sacred and profane” mysticism, I shaped this work, basing it on words
from three poets from different periods, race and tradition. Also, I
hope, belatedly answering and making my personal comment on the
original question.6
My analysis focuses on the middle movement, since Lutyens’s recollection

of Donne was the initial inspiration for Essence of Our Happinesses, and
because she herself described it as the “main central movement.” 7 In the
remainder of this chapter I explore how Lutyens made her “personal com-
ment on the original question” through her rhythmic, motivic, and struc-
tural shaping of time, primarily in the brief orchestral “Chronikos,” whose
distinct temporal design provides a useful starting point for future studies
of the remaining movements.
Movement II (tenor, chorus, and orchestra),

part 1: “Their Criticall Dayes”
Read in succession, John Donne’s Devotions upon Emergent Occasions pro-

vide a chronological account of the progress of his symptoms, treatment,
and eventual recovery from a life-threatening illness in 1623–24. Devotion
14, from which the text of this movement is taken, is written from the per-
spective of a gravely ill man, reminded constantly of the possible immi-
nence of death by the frequent ringing of funeral bells outside his window
(as he describes in Devotions 16 and 17).8 In her program notes, the title
of the work, and her musical response to Donne’s text, Lutyens highlights
three important aspects of the devotion.
The first of these, and Donne’s central thesis, is the fragility of our earthly
“happinesses,” given their dependence on perfect timing when time itself,
in Donne’s memorable phrase, can only be considered an “Imaginary

halfe-nothing.” This theme, articulated in the epigraph to this essay, is the
source of Lutyens’s title for the entire work, but also in the choral passage
that opens the second movement:
This much must be presented to his remembrance, that those false

happinesses, which he hath in this World, have their times, and their
seasons, and their criticall days, and they are Judged and Denominated
according to the times, when they befall us. What poor Elements are
our happinesses made of, if Tyme, Tyme which we can scarce consider
to be any thing, be an essential part of our happiness!
As we have seen in Lutyens’s account of the inception of Essence of Our

Happinesses (quoted at the beginning of this section), a second important
concept in Donne’s text is his presentation and immediate dismantling
of the linear, arrow-like concept of time—past→present→future—t hat has
long governed everyday Western perceptions of life, and the illusory nature
of “Now”:
If we consider Tyme to be but a Measure of Motion, and howsoever

it may seeme to have three stations, past, present, and future, yet the
first and last of these are not (one is not, now, and the other is not yet)
and that which you call present, is not now the same that it was, when
you began to call it so. Before you sound that word, present, or that
Monosyllable, now, the present, and the Now is past.
Finally, in her program notes Lutyens highlights a third phrase from

Donne’s text, describing the second movement as “a meditation on time,
with the basic precept ‘. . . Eternity is not an everlasting flux of Tyme, but
Tyme is a short parenthesis in a longe period.’”9 In other words, eternity is
not just time that keeps on going, but a vast field of existence outside of
time, inconceivable in scope and nature except insofar as (for the devout
seventeenth-century Christian) it is the realm of God.10
When Donne wrote Devotion 14, he was the dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral
and had been renowned as a dramatic and eloquent preacher since his
appointment in 1615 as Royal Chaplain to King James I. In keeping with
Donne’s role and the rootedness of the text in Christian thought, Lutyens
structures the first part of the movement in the form of a responsory, with
alternating passages sung by the tenor, accompanied by the orchestra, and
a cappella chorus. The allusion to liturgical music can also be heard in
the tenor’s oft-repeated opening passage, which, although derived from a
retrograde form (R4) of the twelve-tone row governing the work, creates the
impression of plainchant. Example 9.1 presents R4, with slurs showing its

Example 9.1
Distribution of R4, mm. 48–61
symmetrical arrangement of tetrachords, that is, two inversionally related

sc(0123) tetrachords framing an inner 0167.11 Horizontal brackets indicate
how Lutyens distributes its pitch classes between tenor and orchestra. The
tenor sings most of the row, in two segments marked a and b, while tubu-
lar bells reinforce its opening B3, and strings and woodwinds provide the
central pitch classes G and F♯ .
Example 9.2 reproduces the opening tenor passage itself, with a reduc-
tion of the orchestral accompaniment. After a modal-sounding elaboration
of B3 by its lower neighbor A3, Lutyens sets the crucial word “time” melis-
matically to R4’s first ordered hexachord, <B, G ♯ , A ♯ , A, C ♯ , C>, returning to
B3 at the end of the phrase again by way of A3. By placing the first two pcs
of R4’s second hexachord into mm. 52–54’s repeated chords in the orches-
tra, Lutyens allows the tenor’s second phrase to begin with R4’s final tet-
rachord <D, F, E ♭, E>, foregrounding the inversional relationship between
the row’s symmetrical outer tetrachords noted earlier. R4 is completed with
the E4 in the middle of m. 56, following which the tenor doubles back to
F4, the melodic apex of the passage, before plunging down a tritone to B3,
again setting the word “Tyme.” The phrase continues in mm. 58–60 with a
reprise of the melismatic, B3-centered “chant” of mm. 48–51, ending with
the word “motion” on B3. While this initiates a second statement of R4, its
second hexachord is completed quietly by the orchestra rather than in the
voice, allowing the tenor melody to project a clear, seemingly closed aba
structure that ends where it began. B3’s role as the “final” of the passage
is reinforced throughout by its tolling in the tubular bells six times, evok-
ing the centuries-old use of church bells as a signifier of time’s passing,
and, in Donne’s mind as he listened to the bells from his sickbed, human
mortality.
Example 9.2 also demonstrates Lutyens’s typically precise but fluid
rhythmic setting of the text. Subdivisions of the quarter-note beat are rarely
consistent from measure to measure, and the beats themselves are often
obscured by ties, syncopation, and shifting subdivisions of the measure (as

Example 9.2
Tenor and orchestra, mm. 48–61. Reproduced by permission of University of York Music Press.
for example in mm. 55–56, where the three quarter-note beats of each mea-
sure are subdivided into four and five equal units respectively). Although
no regular meter is established in this part of the movement, the tenor’s
frequent returns to the opening passage nevertheless create recurring
moments of temporal focus.
The passage shown in Example 9.2 returns periodically throughout the
movement, setting important text phrases (“Before you sound that word
present or that Monosyllable, now, the present, and the Now, is past,” “If we
consider Eternity into that, Tyme never entered. Eternity is not an everlast-
ing flux of tyme …”), and with B3 highlighting important words such as
“present,” “past,” “now,” “tyme,” and “eternity.” It also brings the vocal sec-
tion of the movement to a close, the last B3 melisma lending poignancy to

the final word, “ever,” before voice and orchestra fade a niente: “If happiness
be in the season, or in the Clymate, how much happier then are the Birdes
than Men … Birdes who can change, change the Clymate and accompanie
and enjoy the same season ever—ever—ever. …”
The choral passages of the second movement are likewise repetitive and
nonmetric, their pitch material drawn from a variety of row forms as shown
in Example 9.3. Lutyens’s irregular subdivisions and syncopations are
typical of her rhythmic language, and in this sense the tenor and chorus
passages are metrically similar. But the frequent rests within text phrases
and distribution of small word groups across different voices create a some-
what disjointed effect, in contrast to the relative continuity of the chant-like
solo tenor passages that draw attention to the solo voice (as Donne’s own
voice must have captured the attention of his congregations).
Example 9.3
Opening choral passage, mm. 1–18. Reproduced by permission of University of York Music Press.

Movement II, part 2: “Chronikos ”
After the long vocal section of the movement delivers a compelling setting
of Donne’s text, the brief orchestral choros in effect acquires a “voice” of its
own, offering a wordless commentary on the three ideas embedded in the
text that drew Lutyens’s attention: the dependence of human happiness on
time; the illusory forward motion of time’s “three stations, past, present,
and future” and its impossible “Now”; and the notion of time as a “short
parenthesis in a longe period.”
From the moment the choros begins, its most aurally salient character-
istic is the {A ♭3, B ♭3} eighth-note simultaneity in marimba and harp that
forms the “clock-like ostinato” to which Lutyens refers in her program
notes. Played without interruption at a constant dynamic level of piano
and a constant tempo of 108 eighth notes per minute, this insistent series
of pulses represents the only temporally predictable element in all three
movements of Essence of Our Happinesses. Against it, small instrumental
groups take turns in stating short motives or ideas, usually no more than
twice. A third layer, rhythmically linked to some degree with these motives,
is provided by the claves. Example 9.4 shows this three-layer structure for
the first six measures of the choros.
There are ten such motives, shown below in Example 9.5 in order of
appearance. While some of these motives display a distinctive melodic
profile (for example, motive d in mm. 11–13), others are little more than
Example 9.4
“Chronikos,” orchestral reduction, mm. 1–6

Example 9.5
Motives in “Chronikos”
(a) Mm. 1–3 (woodwinds, strings)
(b) Mm. 4–6 (bassoon, cello, double bass)
(c) Mm. 7–10 (English horn, clarinet)
(d) Mm. 11–13 (flutes)
(e) Mm. 14–17 (oboe, strings)
(f) Mm. 18–19 (flutes, clarinet, xylophone)

(g) Mm. 20–21 (bassoon, cello)
(h) Mm. 22–23 (English horn)
(i) Mm. 24–26 (woodwinds, horn)
(j) Mm. 27–33 (flute, violin, viola)
rhythmic gestures, such as the repeated sixteenth-note trichords of motives

a and b that open the choros.
In this analysis, I will distinguish between these motives and slightly
broader motivic clusters, which span not only the first iteration of the motive
but also its subsequent repetitions. The varying characteristics of these
motivic clusters are shown in Table 9.2, where each cluster is labeled by the
uppercase letter corresponding with the individual motive’s lowercase letter
(that is, Motivic Cluster A comprises all the repetitions of motive a, Motivic
Cluster B all the repetitions of motive b, and so on). One of the most intrigu-
ing aspects of the choros is revealed in the “IOI Pattern” column of Table 9.2,
which lists the varying inter-onset intervals (IOIs) between the successive
repetitions of motives within each motivic segment.12 These are shown as
ordered sets of IOIs, measured in eighth-note pulses. As the table reveals, the
total duration of a series of repetitions of a given motive is not the same as
the duration of its motivic cluster; motive a, for example, is only two eighth-
note pulses long, but the irregular IOI pattern <9, 7, 14, 7, 5> (from the ini-
tial onset of the marimba and harp dyads in m. 1 until motive b’s onset in
m. 4) results in a total duration of 42 pulses for Motivic Cluster A.

Table 9.2 Profiles of “Chronikos” motivic clusters
Motivic Mm. Instrument(s) Total no. Duration No. of IOI pattern Dynamic levels§
cluster of pulses of motive repetitions
A 1–3 (rep.) Woodwinds, strings 42 2 4 <9, 7, 14, 7, 5> p
B 4–6 (rep.) Bassoon, cello, double bass 28 2 4 <6, 8, 6, 8> p
C 7–10 English horn, clarinet 22 11 2 <11, 11> mp–pp
D 11–13 Flute 16 variable 2 <7, 9> mf
E 14–17 Oboe, strings 18 variable 2 <9, 9> mp–mf
F 18–19 Flute, clarinet, xylophone 14 variable 2 <7, 7> f, ff
G 20–21 Cello, bassoon 14 3 2 <7, 7> pp
H 22–23 English horn 12 3 4 <3, 3, 3, 3> pp

(2 per measure)
I 24–26 Woodwinds, horn 21 variable 3 <7, 7, 7> mf, f, ff
J 27–33 Flute, violin, viola 36 1 6 <7, 6, 5, 4, 3> fff, ff, f, mf, mp, p
Coda 34–35 (Marimba/harp cont’d) 16 N/A N/A N/A p

§ In the “Dynamic levels” column, dashes indicate changes within a single motive; commas indicate changes between successive repetitions of a motive.
An explanation of Example 9.6, a reduction of the choros’s opening
six measures, will clarify the significance of this column on the table. The
example represents the first three measures and their reprise as a single
stream of 42 eighth-note pulses, shown as stemless note heads, with the
broken vertical line in the center indicating where the reprise begins. The
numbers above the horizontal brackets show the IOIs between each itera-
tion of motive a.
Despite the stable ticking of the marimba and harp layer, Lutyens’s
uneven temporal distribution of motives and their repetitions throughout
the choros makes it difficult if not impossible for listeners to infer a regular
metric framework. As shown earlier in Example 9.4, the first measure con-
sists of marimba and harp dyads alone, beamed as a single, undifferenti-
ated series of nine eighth-note pulses. Without the aid of the score or any
phenomenal accent other than that produced by the onset of the dyads on
the downbeat of m. 1, how could a listener infer a meter from this series of
attacks with any certainty?13 Empirical research into the phenomenon of
subjective accenting—the cognitive imposition of a metric structure onto
an isochronous, unaccented series of pulses—suggests that when no phe-
nomenal accent exists to distinguish one pulse from the next, listeners (at
least those acculturated to Western music) tend to “hear” binary accent pat-
terns (strong-weak, strong-weak, etc.).14
These findings are directly applicable to the opening of “Chronikos.”
Motivic Cluster A begins with a series of nine identical marimba and
harp dyads, Lutyens’s performance instructions specifying “strict tempo
throughout” and “p sempre.” As shown in Example 9.6 by the topmost “S
w” layer beneath the staff, given a default binary interpretation of meter
where odd-numbered pulses are heard as “stronger” and even-numbered
ones as “weaker,” most listeners will expect the ninth pulse to be stronger
than the tenth. However, as indicated by the accent mark over the downbeat
of m. 2, the entrance of the woodwinds and strings with motive a accents
the tenth pulse of the choros, contradicting any binary preference to hear
even-numbered attacks as “weak.” (All accent markings on the example are
added for purposes of illustration, and do not appear in Lutyens’s original
score.) Already the music is beginning to challenge a listener’s ability to
make sense of the indifferent stream of pulses.
The accented onset of motive a on the tenth pulse creates a moment of dis-
orientation, as the “weak” must now be reinterpreted as “strong” in order for
the preferred binary pattern to continue. However, if the downbeat of m. 2
begins a new strong-weak pattern, a second moment of disorientation occurs
only eight pulses later on the downbeat of m. 3, as the onset of motive a’s sec-
ond iteration again accents an even-numbered weak pulse. This third binary
interpretation beginning with the onset of the 5*measure places the first attack

Example 9.6
Inter-onset intervals of Motivic Cluster A, mm. 1–3 (repeated)
of m. 1’s reprise on the sixth, weak pulse; but since there is no accent at this
point, there is nothing to interrupt the continuation of the strong-weak pattern
that began on the downbeat of m. 3. As a result, the onset of the third iteration
of motive a now falls on a strong pulse, agreeing with the binary projection and
thus not requiring metric reinterpretation. The fourth iteration of motive a in
the reprise of m. 3 again arrives on a weak pulse, resetting the binary pattern as
it did for the second iteration. The onset of Motivic Cluster B on the downbeat
of m. 4 accents the sixth, weak pulse of this new binary projection, and the
process of readjustment begins again.
Considering Motivic Cluster A through the lens of metric projection
theory, we see a similar pattern of unpredictability and disorientation.15
Listeners who perceive the nine-pulse IOI between the accented downbeats
of mm. 1 and 2 might project the arrival of a third accent nine pulses later,
but that third accent in fact occurs after only seven pulses and thus earlier
than expected. Any projection of a new accent (and another repetition of
motive a) seven pulses later would again be thwarted, since this time the
next accent occurs after fourteen pulses—much later than expected.16
Example 9.7 shows how the repetitions of motive b in mm. 4–6 (Motivic
Cluster B) also occur at unpredictable intervals. The pattern of IOIs here is <6,
8, 6, 8>, the continuation of which may be predictable on paper but is perhaps
less so by ear. In Motivic Cluster C the IOIs are identical, but any expectations
that motive c will be repeated four times (as were motives a and b) are again
disrupted with the arrival of motive d (not shown) after it has been heard only
twice. The remaining segments are similarly unpredictable.
The opening measures thus present a fundamental duality between
two principal elements, described below, the relationship between which
underscores the text’s conflicted response to the problem of time and
human mortality.
Element 1: The pulse stream

I use the term “pulse stream” in John Roeder’s sense to describe “a series of
successive, perceptibly equal time spans, marked off by accented timepoints,”
usually unfolding along with other independent pulse streams created by
phenomenal accents of various kinds and degrees of synchrony.17 In the con-
text of this analysis, I reserve the term for the stream of time spans marked off
by the choros’s implacable series of marimba and harp dyads, entirely predict-
able at the most local level and analogous to the ticking of a clock. But since
we can only hear this clock, we cannot see the geometric progress around a
dial of second or minute hands in their completion of their respective minutes
or hours, or the numerical progress of integers on a digital clock. As a result,

Example 9.7
Inter-onset intervals of Motivic Clusters B and C, mm. 7–10
while the absolutely regular repetition of each marimba and harp dyad makes
it possible to predict with complete confidence the arrival of the next, we can-
not group this stream of 239 dyads into higher-level periodicities. All we can
project is its continuation into the future.
Element 2: The event stream

Against the neutral, mechanical element of the marimba and harp stream,
Lutyens poses a second, less predictable layer that I call the “event stream,”
that is, the series of 10 distinct motives a through j. Considering the 35-
measure length of the choros, the number of motives in this brief movement
is extraordinarily high. Moreover, once each motive has been repeated the
requisite number of times, it never returns, denying the listener any oppor-
tunity to grasp an overall sense of formal design, as is possible in tradi-
tional musical forms such as sonata-allegro, rondo, or fugue. The constant
succession of new motives also makes it difficult if not impossible for a
listener to assign greater hierarchical status to one over another (other than
perhaps attributing greater perceptual salience to the motive one hears now
than to those it has pushed into the past).
Table 9.2, to which we now return, illustrates a number of important
characteristics and processes in the movement. First, following the initial
42-pulse Motivic Cluster A, the clusters become progressively shorter for
the first two-thirds of the movement until the 12-pulse cluster H ending in
m. 23, before lengthening again in the final two clusters I and J to 21 and
36 pulses respectively. In other words, new motives arrive at a more or less
leisurely pace at the beginning, speed up throughout most of the piece, and
then slow down just before the end.
This apparent slowing is counteracted by the rate of internal repetition
in the final segment, a reduction of which is shown in Example 9.8.
Simply by observing the changing time signatures throughout mm. 27–32,
we can see that the final two-note motive j is stated six times, but at shorter
and shorter IOIs (<7, 6, 5, 4, 3>). This generates a sense of urgency as the
repetitions consistently return sooner than we expect; metaphorically, it
also mimics in a small way the experience of time passing more quickly
as we age and become conscious of how little time we have left. And along
with this acceleration comes a fading of musical energy, with the rapidly
weakening dynamic levels from fff to p. Following the “departure” of the
other instruments at the end of m. 33, the inexorable series of marimba
and harp dyads comes back into aural focus—the clock that continues its
ticking even as the movement passes into nonexistence.

Example 9.8
“Chronikos,” mm. 27–end. Reproduced by permission of University of York Music Press.
The rel ationship between pulse

and event streams
As I have suggested, the relationship between these two elements—the neu-
tral, mechanistic ostinato and the event stream—instantiates familiar aspects
of the human experience of time. Painted with the broadest of strokes, this
relationship consists of the conflict between measurable, Newtonian time—
that which is reliable and predictable—and the natural messiness and unpre-
dictability of psychological time. Henri Bergson famously characterized this
conflict by opposing to the model of artificial, mathematical time his concept
of “pure duration” (la durée réelle), that is, time as directly and indivisibly
experienced in human consciousness. As he observes in his introduction to
The Creative Mind, “usually when we speak of time we think of the measure-
ment of duration, not of the duration itself. But this duration which science

eliminates, and which is so difficult to conceive and express, is what one
feels and lives.”18 Susanne Langer’s discussion of the incommensurability
of chronological and psychological time in Feeling and Form captures even
more vividly the temporal duality enacted in Lutyens’s choros:
If we could experience only single, successive organic strains, perhaps

subjective time would be one-dimensional like the time ticked off by
clocks. But life is always a dense fabric of concurrent tensions, and as
each of them is a measure of time, the measurements themselves do
not coincide. This causes our temporal experience to fall apart into
incommensurate elements which cannot be all perceived together as
clear forms. When one is taken as parameter, others become “irratio-
nal,” out of logical focus, ineffable.19
In “Chronikos,” the timing between motivic segments and between the

motivic repetitions within them seems “irrational,” but only because we
have “taken as parameter” the stable (and countable) marimba and harp
ostinato; if the ostinato were absent, would we still experience unpredict-
able onsets of motivic repetitions as “too early” or “too late”? Expectations
are raised and, at least with regard to whether a motive will be repeated,
sometimes fulfilled, but this fulfillment is often mistimed.
Further undermining any sense of motivic stability is the way in which
each motive’s identity has barely been established when it is displaced by a
new one and vanishes into the past. This brief passing into and out of exis-
tence of motives against the marimba and harp’s ostinato recalls these lines
of Donne’s text, the last of which inspired Lutyens to compose the work:
If we consider Tyme to be but a Measure of Motion, and howsoever

it may seeme to have three stations, past, present, and future, yet the
first and last of these are not (one is not, now, and the other is not yet)
and that which you call present, is not now the same that it was, when
you began to call it so. Before you sound that word, present, or that
Monosyllable, now, the present, and the Now is past.
Donne, by this time dean of St. Paul’s, would often have preached of the
Christian preference for the heavenly eternity that awaited the faithful after
death over this earthly life bound by time. His rejection of “Tyme” in favour of
“Eternity” is reflected in the relation of the choros to the first, sung half of the
second movement, with its metrically untethered delivery of the text floating
along in the seemingly unmeasured manner of plainchant. The two parts of
the movement thus exemplify Donne’s distinction between “Eternity” and
“Tyme,” a distinction that on a broader scale structures the work as a whole.

For the choros with its regular pulse represents only a small part of a much
larger work—it is indeed a “short parenthesis in a longe period.” The fram-
ing first and third movements, designed by Lutyens to musically convey the
“similar states of time-suspended ecstasy and sense of eternity” experienced
in mystical trance or mescaline-induced highs, establish and reinforce the
idea of timelessness as the central concept of the work.
If the previous quotations focus on the metaphysics of time, other pas-
sages of the devotion present a more immediate psychological perspective
as Donne considers how heavily dependent our experience of a given life
event is on its timing. One of these Lutyens also sets in the vocal section
of the movement, to the tenor’s chant-like music shown in Example 9.2.
Honors, Pleasures, Possessions, presented to us, out of time, in our

decrepit, and distasted, and unapprehensive Age, loose their Office, and
loose their Name. Youth is their Criticall Day . . . and when they come
in an unapprehensive Age, they come as a Cordial when the bell rings
out, as a Pardon, when the Head is off.
These words find an instrumental corollary in the disorienting effects

of motivic onsets that arrive “too early” or “too late” against the relent-
less passing of chronological time in the choros, reenacting the basis for
Donne’s argument that truer joys are to be found in the realm of eternity.
But in words and music the composer’s own voice can also be heard.
Lutyens often expressed her grief over her husband’s sudden, “too-early”
death from a heart attack in 1962 and her regret that professional success
did not come for her until afterwards, when she could no longer share it
with him. In terms eerily reminiscent of the choros, with its clicking timbre
of the claves against the marimba and harp dyads, she describes the expe-
rience of trying to sleep only a few hours after she had helplessly watched
him die in bed beside her: “But knitting-needles click-clacked, as morse
code, in the void of my mind all night long, saying over and over again, ‘It’s
all too late, too late, too late …’”20
Conclusion
Is time a line? A circle? A river into which we cannot step twice? I raise
these perennial questions because the problem of how to conceive of time
geometrically was one that Lutyens herself puzzled over and addressed in
her music. As early as 1954 her music theater piece Infidelio told a love
story beginning with a woman’s suicide and moving backward through
time to her first meeting with her lover. Her unpublished opera “The

Numbered,” completed in 1967—a year before the composition of Essence
of Our Happinesses—is set in a dystopic society whose citizens know from
birth when they will die, and move through life knowing exactly how far
along they are on their trajectory from birth to death.21
In 1968, just a few months before the completion of Essence of Our
Happinesses, she wrote both the music and lyrics for her musical “charade”
Time Off? Not a Ghost of a Chance! The first scene of Time Off? opens with
a scene entitled “Tempus” that includes the following dialogue between the
two main characters and the Chorus, in response to the question, “Mais où
sont les neiges d’antan?” (“Where are the snows of yesterday?”)
Harold. They are THEN. THEN was now—once. Then—then. That

yesterday looked to now—THEN—tomorrow—
Stooge. Tomorrow never comes.
Harold. Comes.
Chorus 2. Goes. [. . .]
Harold. Backwards—forwards.
Chorus 2. Now.
Chorus 1. Then. [. . .]
Harold. Can you hear in the round? See in the dark?
Chorus 1 and 2. Labyrinth, spiral, helix, coil.22
Elsewhere in this section Harold attempts to stop time altogether by sing-

ing faster and faster. When this does not work, he sings his phrase in
retrograde—pitch by pitch, phoneme by phoneme—while the chorus sings
it forward, on the theory that simultaneous backward and forward motions
will cancel each other out.
The “Chronikos” section of Essence of Our Happinesses evokes in purely
instrumental terms, then, questions Lutyens had already posed not only in
the first half of the movement, but in compositions that preceded it: whether
time is a straight line connecting past, present, and future; whether it can
move backward toward the past as well as forward into the future; and
whether it is not a straight line at all, but rather some intricate shape that
combines both linear and cyclical motion (“labyrinth, spiral, helix, coil”).
In the years that followed the completion of Essence of Our Happinesses,
Lutyens composed more time-focused works, such as The Tyme Doth
Flete (1968), The Tides of Time (1969), In the Direction of the Beginning
(1969), and Counting Your Steps (1971).23 As yet, however, there are nei-
ther published analyses nor recordings of any of these compositions. For
scholars and performers intrigued by music that engages the philosophi-
cal riddles surrounding the nature of time and its meaning in human
consciousness, Elisabeth Lutyens’s music provides a rich repository for
future study and performance.
Notes
1. Some excellent sources of information on Lutyens’s life and career are Meirion
Harries and Susie Harries, A Pilgrim Soul: The Life and Work of Elisabeth Lutyens
(London: Michael Joseph, 1989), and Rhiannon Mathias, Lutyens, Maconchy, Williams
and Twentieth-Century British Music: A Blest Trio of Sirens (Farnham, UK and Burlington,
VT: Ashgate, 2012). Lutyens also published a lively autobiography entitled A Goldfish Bowl
(London: Cassell, 1972) that provides her vivid if sometimes controversial perspectives
on the people and events of her life. For an overview of Lutyens’s compositional devel-
opment, see Sarah Tenant-Flowers, “A Study of Style and Techniques in the Music of
Elisabeth Lutyens” (PhD diss., Durham University, 1991). On the influence of early music
on Lutyens’s adoption of serialism, see Laurel Parsons, “Early Music and the Ambivalent
Origins of Elisabeth Lutyens’s Modernism,” in British Music and Modernism, 1895–1960,
ed. Matthew Riley (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010), 269–92.
2. British composer Robert Saxton, e-mail to the author, March 14, 2002. Essence of
Our Happinesses was premiered by tenor Richard Lewis with the BBC Symphony and
Chorus under the direction of Norman Del Mar on September 8, 1970. The performance
was broadcast by the BBC and a recording can be heard in Britain’s National Sound
Archive, but there are as yet no commercially available recordings. However, a recording
of “Chronikos” by the University of British Columbia Symphony Orchestra under the
direction of Dr. Jonathan Girard has been made exclusively for this volume and is avail-
able on the companion website.
3. Unpublished program notes for Essence of our Happinesses, University of York Music
Press, n.d. While Lutyens does not specify the subject of her talk, in handwritten speech
notes she writes of the innovations of early English composers such as John Dunstable and
Henry Purcell, and it is conceivable that the student’s question may have arisen in response
to such a presentation. Reference by kind permission of the estate of Elisabeth Lutyens.
4. See R. C. Zaehner, Mysticism Sacred and Profane: An Inquiry into Some Varieties
of Praeternatural Experience (1961; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957), and Aldous
Huxley, The Doors of Perception (New York: Harper, 1954).
5. Zaehner writes, “With Abū Yazīd in the ninth century we find Indian monism
invading the Muslim mystical world, and Abū Yazīd is, for this reason, as interesting
as Rimbaud in that he is torn between the classic Sufi technique of love and the Hindu
monistic dogma that the soul is identical with God” (Mysticism Sacred and Profane, 161). In
Zaehner’s view, Rimbaud’s conflict lay between his desires for a secular ecstasy through
the dérangement de tous les sens (as related in Rimbaud’s Une saison en enfer), and for loving
union with the Christian God of his Catholic upbringing.
6. Lutyens, unpublished program notes.
7. Ibid.
8. Devotion 16 begins with the epigraph “From the bells of the church adjoining, I am
daily remembered of my burial in the funerals of others,” while Devotion 17 is the source of
his famous phrase, “therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
9. Lutyens, unpublished program notes.
10. Lutyens herself was not a practicing Christian, having been raised by her mother
as a theosophist, a doctrine that she rejected along with all organized religion from her
early twenties.
11. Lutyens’s autograph series chart can be found in the British Library’s Lutyens Collection,
vol. 355, Add. MS. 64789, Rare Books and Music Reading Room, London St. Pancras.
12. The term “inter-onset interval” (IOI) refers to the time span between the onsets
(beginnings) of two sounds, or groups of sounds such as melodic motives.

13. I follow Lerdahl and Jackendoff’s definition of “phenomenal accent” as “any event at the
musical surface that gives emphasis or stress to a moment in the musical flow.” Phenomenal
accents can be created by changes in timbre or dynamics, leaps, extended duration, and so on.
Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff, A Generative Theory of Tonal Music (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1983), 17.
14. See, for example, Thaddeus L. Bolton, “Rhythm,” American Journal of Psychology 6, no.
2 (1894): 145–238; Richard Parncutt, “A Perceptual Model of Pulse Salience and Metrical
Accent in Musical Rhythms,” Music Perception 11 (1994): 409–64; and Renaud Brochard,
Donna Abecasis, Doug Potter, Richard Ragot, and Carolyn Drake, “The ‘Ticktock’ of Our
Internal Clock: Direct Brain Evidence of Subjective Accents in Isochronous Sequences,”
Psychological Science 14, no. 4 (July 2003): 362–66. In the last study researchers found that
sequences of initially unaccented pulses where the odd-numbered ninth and eleventh
pulses were dynamically deemphasized elicited stronger neurological (ERP) responses
in listeners than deemphasis of the even-numbered eighth and tenth. That is, once
given a chance to project their own meter onto an unaccented series, listeners expected
odd-numbered time points to be stronger than even-numbered ones, suggesting a ten-
dency toward binary metric interpretations. I am indebted to Justin London for alerting
me to this article; his own book, Hearing in Time: Psychological Aspects of Musical Meter
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), was also influential in my thinking about this
movement.
15. Christopher Hasty develops the theory of metric projection in Meter as Rhythm
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). An important precursor to this work is the
dynamic attending theory developed in the empirical research of Edward W. Large,
Mari Riess Jones, and others since the mid-1970s, for example in Large and Jones, “The
Dynamics of Attending: How People Track Time-Varying Events,” Psychological Review
106, no. 1 (1999): 119–59.
16. Since fourteen is a multiple of seven, on paper the IOI pattern <7, 14, 7> would
seem commensurate, but given the long series of unaccented pulses in the middle my
intuition is that listeners would be unable to maintain a seven-pulse projection that long
without reinforcement.
17. John Roeder, “Interacting Pulse Streams in Schoenberg’s Atonal Polyphony,” Music
Theory Spectrum 16, no. 2 (Autumn 1994): 234.
18. Henri Bergson, The Creative Mind: An Introduction to Metaphysics (1946;
New York: Citadel Press, 2002), 13. Bergson first described this conflict in Time
and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness, trans. A. L. Podgson
(London: George Allen & Unwin, 1910).
19. Susanne Langer, Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art (New York: Scribner, 1953), 113.
20. Lutyens, A Goldfish Bowl, 277.
21. For more on this work, see Laurel Parsons, “Elisabeth Lutyens’s Music Drama The
Numbered: A Critical-Analytic Study” (PhD diss., University of British Columbia, 2003),
and Parsons, “Time Management with Twelve-Tone Lizzie: Dramatic Functions of Meter
in a Scene from Elisabeth Lutyens’s The Numbered,” Theory and Practice 30 (2005): 153–83.
22. Elisabeth Lutyens, Time Off? Not a Ghost of a Chance! A Charade in Four Scenes with
Three Interruptions, Op. 68 (London: Olivan Press, n.d.).
23. Scores of these compositions are available through the University of York Music
Press (UYMP). See http://www.uymp.co.uk/composers.php?composer_id=20.

Glossary
Boldfaced type indicates terms that are defined in this glossary.
{ }—indicate an unordered set, i.e. a set whose elements may occur in varying order or
simultaneously.
< >—indicate an ordered set, i.e. a set whose elements are listed in the order in which
they occur.
acciaccatura—an ornament in which a principal, accented note is preceded by another
very quick, unaccented note either a semitone or whole tone below or above it.
Generally indicated by a small slashed eighth note.
aggregate—the complete set of all 12 pitch classes.
aleatory—a form of composition in which the composer relinquishes control over one
or more elements, for example by using dice to decide the order of pitch classes, or
allowing performers to choose the order in which they play the sections of a piece.
anacrusis—a relatively unaccented note, or group of notes, that begins a phrase and
leads to the downbeat of the next measure. Also known as an “upbeat” or “pickup.”
attack—the onset (beginning) of a sound.
attack density—the rate at which attacks occur within a given time span.
complement—for any group of elements (usually pitch classes) that is part of a larger
set, the group of remaining elements needed to complete the set. For example, in
music where the total set of pitch classes is the entire chromatic collection, the com-
plement of the six-note whole-tone set {C, D, E, F♯, G♯, A♯} is the other six-note whole-
tone set {D♭, E♭, F, G, A, B}.
complementation mod 6—the principle of complementation described above, but
involving a total of 6 elements rather than 12.
duration series—an ordered set of note durations, usually recurring in various contexts
and transformations throughout a composition.
durational potential—the listener’s sensation that an event that is just beginning will
have a particular duration.
dyad—a group of two different notes, played sequentially or simultaneously.
foreground—a term generalized from Schenkerian analysis referring to the most
immediately perceptible layer of a musical composition.
gesture—the synthesis of a sequence of notes or other elements into a single, indivisible
temporal gestalt.
hemiola—a metric device, usually across two measures of triple meter, in which the
shifting of accents from <1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3> to <1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3> creates the impression
of a faster duple meter (<1, 2>, <3, 1>, <2, 3>) or a broader triple meter (<1, 3, 2>).
[Note: Boldfaced type indicates accents.]
heptachord—a group of seven different notes, played sequentially, simultaneously, or
in some combination of these.
hermeneutics—the theory and practice of interpreting a verbal or nonverbal text.
hexachord—a group of six different notes, played sequentially, simultaneously, or in
some combination of these.
hexachordal combinatoriality— the relationship between two simultaneous row
forms such that the first hexachords of each row are complementary to each other,
as are the second hexachords. In this way, twelve-tone aggregates are formed both
horizontally, by each individual row, and vertically, by the combinations of the comple-
mentary hexachords.
hexatonic system—a term referring to the hexachordal set class (014589), which has
been favored by many twentieth-century composers because of its high degree of
symmetry.
I-ordering—an inversion or mirror image of a given series such that the order and size
of intervals between pitch classes are maintained, but the contour is reversed. For
example, two possible inversions or I-orderings of the pitch class series <C, E♭, D> are
<C, A, B♭> and <D, B, C>.
integral serialism—a form of serial composition in which aspects such as rhythmic
durations, dynamics, and articulations, as well as pitch, are organized into ordered
rows of elements. See also serialism.
inter-onset interval—the time span between the onsets (attacks) of two sequential
sounds or groups of sounds.
interval—see pitch interval and pitch-class interval.
interval class (ic)—the shortest distance between two pitch classes, measured in semi-
tones. See also pitch-class interval.
invariance—the preservation of one or more pitch classes between an original set and
a particular transposition, inversion, or other transformation of that set. For example,
the transposition of the set {F, G, A, B} by two semitones is {G, A, B, C♯}, and the
invariance between the two sets is the smaller set (or invariant subset) {G, A, B}.
inversion—the process of “flipping” a pitch or pitch-class set such that the order of
intervals is maintained, but the direction in which the intervals were originally mea-
sured is inverted (reversed). For example, two possible inversions of the pitch set <C4,
E♭4, D4> are <C4, A3, B♭3> and <D4, B3, C4>.
matrix—in twelve-tone theory, a 12 × 12 representation of the transpositions and inver-
sions of a row, usually with transpositions read from left to right and inversions from
top to bottom.
melisma—several notes sung to a single syllable.
moment form— a structural (or antistructural) principle introduced by Karlheinz
Stockhausen in which the sections of a work are to be experienced as present, inde-
pendent units (moments) equal to each other in importance, and whose order is
inconsequential.
motive—a short, recognizable melodic or rhythmic figure that recurs throughout a com-
position, either in its original form or varied in some way.
neo-Riemannian—a branch of music theory based on the transformational principles
introduced by the nineteenth-century theorist Hugo Riemann, developed and math-
ematically systematized since the 1980s by David Lewin and others.
222 Glossary
normal order (or normal form)—the most compact ordering of a pitch-class set. For
example, the normal order of the pitch-class set {F, B, E} is <B, E, F>.
octatonic—an eight-note scale that divides the octave into alternating whole tones and
semitones, either <2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2> or <1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1>. Owing to the intervallic sym-
metry of the scale, there are only three distinct octatonic collections.
ordered set—a group of elements (e.g., pitches, rhythmic durations) listed in order of
their occurrence in the music. In this book, ordered sets are enclosed in angle brack-
ets, e.g., <C4, F♯4, G4>. See also unordered set.
ostinato—a repeating rhythmic or melodic figure.
P-ordering—the original (“prime”) ordering of elements in a series such as a tone row
or duration series.
permutation—a reordering of the elements in a set.
phoneme—the smallest sound element of a syllable.
pitch—a specific frequency, usually designated by its musical letter name, and a number
representing its register. This book adopts the Acoustical Society of America conven-
tion, where A0 is the lowest key on the piano, C1 the lowest C on the piano, and the
register numbers increase with every subsequent C (e.g., C4 = middle C).
pitch class (pc)—a group of all pitches related by octave and enharmonic transposition,
designated by a musical letter name. For example, pitch class B♭ includes all possible
B♭s and A♯s. In post-tonal music the 12 pitch classes of the equal-tempered chromatic
scale are often represented by integers from 0 to 11, where C = 0 and 11 = B. Pitch
classes 10 and 11 may also be represented by the letters “t” and “e,” respectively. Pitch
classes are often represented around a circular clock face, with 0 (usually C) replacing
the 12 at the top.
pitch interval (pi)—the distance between two pitches, designated either by its tradi-
tional interval name, such as “major second” or “whole step,” or by the number of
semitones between them. For example, the pitch interval from A4 to B4 is two semi-
tones, but the pi from A4 to B5 is 14 semitones.
pitch-class interval—the distance between two pitch classes, measured in semitone
steps around a circular, clock-face diagram. An ordered pitch-class interval represents
the distance from one pitch class to another, measured clockwise around the clock;
e.g., the ordered pc interval <C, G> is 7. An unordered pitch-class interval (or interval
class) represents the shortest distance between two pitch classes; e.g., the unordered
pc interval {C, G} is 5.
pitch-class multiplication (M-operation)—an operation, Mx, in which integers rep-
resenting the pitch classes in a set are multiplied by a given number (x) to create a
new set. Resulting integers larger than 11 are reduced by 12, or multiples of 12, so that
they can be mapped onto the 12 pitch classes of the chromatic collection. For example,
multiplying the pitch class B (11) by M5 yields 55 less 48 (4 × 12) = 7 (G). Applying M5 to
the entire chromatic scale transforms it into (or “maps it onto”) the circle of fourths,
and M7 transforms it into the circle of fifths.
pitch-class set—a group of pitch classes. In an ordered pc set, represented in this book
by angle brackets, the order in which the pitch classes are listed matters. In an unor-
dered pc set, represented by curly brackets, the order of elements is irrelevant.
prime form—the numerical representation of a pitch-class set’s normal (most compact)
form, where 0 represents a reference pc and the remaining numbers the distance
of the other pcs in semitones “up” from that reference (or “down,” in the case of an
inverted set). For example, the prime form of the pc set {C, C♯, F♯, G} is 0167. See also
set class.
projective potential—the sensation that a just-completed duration will be reproduced.
Glossary 223
retrograde—in reverse order, from the end to the beginning.
retrograde inversion—an inversion of a set of notes, presented backward from the
end to the beginning.
RI-chain—a series of overlapping ordered pitch class sets related by retrograde inver-
sion. For example, the set <C, D, F, G, B♭ comprises three overlapping 025 trichords,
each a retrograde inversion of the previous one.
serialism—a broad category of composition wherein the structure of a work is drawn
from a series (or row) of elements in a particular order. Arnold Schoenberg’s develop-
ment of twelve-tone composition in the 1920s marked the beginning of serialism in
the twentieth century, but following the Second World War composers expanded this
concept to encompass series of rhythmic durations, dynamics, and articulations (see
integral serialism).
set—a group of distinct elements, for example, pitch classes, intervals, or rhythmic
durations.
set class (sc)—a group of all pitch-class sets sharing the same prime form, i.e., that
are transpositions or inversions of each other. For example, set class 013 or sc(013)
includes pc sets {E, F, G}, {C♯, D, E}, {B♭, A, G}, etc.
sound mass—a sonority conceived and intended to be heard in terms of its timbral, tex-
tural, or dynamic characteristics rather than its individual pitches.
spectral composition—a genre of composition, particularly associated with French
music since the 1970s, in which the acoustic properties of sound constitute the source
material for music composition, often manipulated through a computer.
Sprechstimme— a vocal part in which the style of vocalization approximates the
notated pitches but is halfway between speech and song; famously used in Arnold
Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire (1912), among other works.
superposition— the simultaneous presentation of two or more contrasting sonic
continuities.
tactus—the principal “beat” of a piece of music; e.g., the quarter-note duration in a com-
position in 3$meter.
tessitura—the prevailing registral range of a vocal or instrumental part, in which most
of the tones lie. For example, a pitch range of C4–G4 would be a relatively low tes-
situra for a soprano, but a very high tessitura for a bass.
tetrachord—a group of four different notes, played sequentially, simultaneously, or in
texture—the interaction between layers of musical elements in a passage or a complete
work; for example, the degrees of independence between parts (monophony, polyph-
ony, homophony, polyphony, heterophony), or the relative density or sparseness of
instrumentation.
transposition—the process, Tx, of shifting all elements of a pitch or pitch-class set by
the same number (x) of semitones in the same direction; e.g., T1<C, D, E> = <C♯,
D♯, E♯>.
trichord—a group of three different notes, played sequentially, simultaneously, or in
tritone—an interval of three whole tones or six semitones.
unordered set—a group of elements (e.g., pitches, rhythmic durations) where the order
of listing does not necessarily reflect the order in which elements occur, or where
elements occur simultaneously. In this book, unordered sets are enclosed in curly
brackets, e.g., {C4, F♯4, G4}. See also ordered set.
wedge counterpoint— a two-voiced pattern wherein the voices move in contrary
motion, so that on the staff they appear to outline a wedge shape.
224 Glossary
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Recordings
Beecroft, Norma, Robert Aitken, and Kathryn Cernauskas. Ovation, vol. 3, Canada Music.
CBC Records PSCD 2028-5, 2003, compact disc.
Canadian Composers Portraits: Norma Beecroft. Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Victor Feldbrill.
With Nicholas Fiore. Centrediscs CD-CMCCD 9303, 2003, compact disc.
Score
Beecroft, Norma. Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1. Toronto: Canadian Music Centre, 1973.
Formerly published by Leeds Music, Canada.
Joan Tower, Silver Ladders (1986)

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no. 1 (Fall–Winter 1963): 11–42.
Bernard, Jonathan W. “Messiaen’s Synaesthesia: The Correspondence between Color and
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of New Music 29, no. 1 (Winter 1991): 124–40.
Lochhead, Judy. “Joan Tower’s Wings and Breakfast Rhythms I and II: Some Thoughts on
Form and Repetition.” Perspectives of New Music 30, no. 1 (Winter 1992): 132–56.
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Networks to the Analysis of Three Orchestral Compositions.” PhD diss., University of
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Taruskin, Richard. “Chernomor to Kaschei: Harmonic Sorcery; Or, Stravinsky’s ‘Angle.’”
Journal of the American Musicological Society 38, no. 1 (1985): 72–142.
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Music 10, no. 3 (1987): 265–86.
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Taruskin, Richard. Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions: A Biography of the Works through
“Mavra.” 2 vols. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996.
Tower, Joan. “Interview with Joan Tower re: Silver Ladders.” By James Wierzbicki. St. Louis
Post-Dispatch, January 4, 1987.
Tower, Joan. “An Hour with Tower: Interview with Joan Tower.” By Kathryn Mishell. Into the
Light Radio, radio broadcast, March 28, 2006. Accessed September 18, 2014. http://www.
intothelightradio.org/programs2006.html.
Tower, Joan. Interview by Jan Fournier. July 28, 1983. Oral History of American Music
archives. School of Music, Yale University.
Tower, Joan. Interview by Jenny Raymond. January 4, 1998. Oral History of American Music
archives. School of Music, Yale University, 5.
Tower, Joan. Interview by Julie Niemeyer. April 30, 1993. Oral History of American Music
archives. School of Music, Yale University, 16.
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1977): 58–95.
Recording
Tower, Joan. Silver Ladders; Island Prelude; Music for Cello & Orchestra; Sequoia. St. Louis
Symphony Orchestra. Leonard Slatkin. Elektra Nonesuch 79245-2, 1990, compact disc.
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Score
Tower, Joan. Silver Ladders. Program note by Sandra Hyslop. New York: Associated
Music, 1989.
PART II Gesture, Identity, and Culture

Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author.” In Image—Music—Text, 142–48. Edited and
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(July–September 1946): 468–88.
Sofia Gubaidulina, String Quartet No. 2 (1987)

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Metabolism.” In Gilles Deleuze and the Theater of Philosophy, 159–85. Edited by Constantin
Boundas and Dorothea Olkowski. New York: Routledge, 1994.
Buchanan, Ian, and Claire Colebrook, eds. Deleuze and Feminist Theory. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 2000.
Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter. London: Routledge, 1993.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge, 1990.
Deleuze, Gilles. Difference and Repetition. Translated by Paul Patton. London: Athlone
Press, 1994.
Deleuze, Gilles. Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation. Translated by Daniel W. Smith. 1981;
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.
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Translated by Brian Massumi. 1980; Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005.
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Graham Burchell. 1991; New York Columbia University Press, 1994.
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MA: Blackwell, 1996.
Grosz, Elizabeth. “A Thousand Tiny Sexes: Feminism and Rhizomatics.” In Gilles Deleuze
and the Theater of Philosophy, 187–210. Edited by Constantin Boundas and Dorothea
Olkowski. New York: Routledge, 1994.
Grosz, Elizabeth. Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana
Grosz, Elizabeth. Space, Time, and Perversion: Essays on the Politics of Bodies.
New York: Routledge, 1995.
Gubaidulina, Sofia. “Composer Note,” String Quartet No. 2. Schirmer Music Sales Classical.
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NY: Cornell University Press, 1985.
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Kholopova, Valentina. “Gubaydulina, Sofiya Asgatovna.” Grove Music Online. Oxford
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230 Bibliography
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Stanford University, 1997–. Article published May 23, 2008. http://plato.stanford.edu/
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Recordings
Gubaidulina, Sofia. Kurtag, Lutoslawski, Gubaidulina. Arditti String Quartet. Montaigne
Auvidis MO 782147, 1994, compact disc.
Gubaidulina, Sofia. String Quartets 1–3. Danish String Quartet, Classic Produktion
Osnabrück 999064 2, 1994, compact disc.
Gubaidulina, Sofia. Short Stories. Kronos Quartet. Electra Nonesuch 9 79310-2, 1993,
compact disc.
Gubaidulina, Sofia. 20th Century String Quartets. Rubin String Quartet. Arte Nova 770690,
2006, compact disc.
Scores
Gubaidulina, Sofia. String Quartet No. 2. Hamburg: H. Sikorski, 1991.
Gubaidulina, Sofia. String Quartet No. 2. Hamburg: H. Sikorski, 2002.
Chen Yi, Symphony No. 2 (1993)

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NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991.
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Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.
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Chen Yi. “What Do You Expect to Hear When Someone Says ‘American Music?’” New Music
Box. Article published August 1, 1999. http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/What-do-
you-expect-to-hear-when-someone-says-American-music-Chen-Yi-Composer/2.
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Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000.
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Perspectives of New Music 32, no. 1 (1994): 8–27.
Everett, Yayoi Uno. “Gesture and Calligraphy in the Late Works by Chou Wen-chung.”
Contemporary Music Review 26, no. 2 (2007): 569–84.
Guo, Xin. “Chinese Musical Language Interpreted by Western Idioms: Fusion Process in the
Instrumental works by Chen Yi.” PhD diss., Florida State University, 2002.
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Press, 2004.
Jones, Stephen. “Gender and Music in Local Communities.” In Gender in Chinese Music, 26–
40. Edited by Rachel Harris, Rowan Pease, and Shzr Ee Tan. Rochester, NY: University of
Rochester Press, 2013.
Bibliography 231
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Lee, Wendy Wan-Ki. “Unpacking Aspects of Musical Influence in Three Piano Works by
Chinese Composers.” PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2006.
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Ravel’s Concerto pour la main gauche.” Music Theory Online 11, no. 3 (2005). http://www.
mtosmt.org/issues/mto.05.11.3/mto.05.11.3.leong_korevaar.html.
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University of Hawai’i, 2003.
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Rao, Nancy Yunhwa. “The Tradition of Luogu Dianzi (Percussion Classics) and Its
Signification in Contemporary Music.” Contemporary Music Review 5, no. 6 (October–
December 2007): 511–27.
Rao, Nancy Yunhwa. “Sonic Imaginary after the Cultural Revolution.” In Listening to China’s
Cultural Revolution: Music, Politics, and Cultural Continuities, 213–38. Edited by Paul
Clark, Laikwan Pang, and Tsan-huang Tsai. London: Palgrave, 2015.
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Said, Edward. Reflections on Exile and Other Essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2000.
Wong, Wendy Hoi-Yan. “Recurrence as Identity in Chen Yi’s Music.” MPh thesis, Chinese
University of Hong Kong, 2007.
Young, Samson. “Cultural Boundary and Intercultural Memories: Recent Works of Tan Dun,
Chen Yi, Zhou Long, Chen Qigang and Bright Sheng.” In Contemporary Music in East
Asia, 211–40. Edited by Hee Sook Oh. Seoul: Seoul National University Press, 2014.
Zhang, Boyu. Mathematical Rhythmic Structure of Chinese Percussion Music: An Analytical
Study of Shifan Luogu Collections. Turku: Turun Yliopisto, 1997.
Recording
Chen Yi. The Music of Chen Yi. Women’s Philharmonic. JoAnn Falletta. New Albion Records
NA 090, 1997, compact disc.
Score
Chen Yi. Symphony No. 2. Bryn Mawr: Theodore Presser, 1993.
232 Bibliography
Kaija Saariaho, “The claw of the magnolia … ,” From the Grammar
of Dreams (1988)
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Krebs. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996.
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Vokalwerken von Kaija Saariaho.” In Woher? Wohin? Die Komponistin Kaija Saariaho,
75–83. Mainz: Schott Music, 2007.
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Independent (London), November 18, 2001.
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Cornell University, 2008.
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(nova): Komponieren heute/Composing Today, 83–94. Edited by Martina Homma.
Cologne: Studio-Verlag Sinzig, 2000.
Moisala, Pirkko. “Gender Negotiation of the Composer Kaija Saariaho in Finland: The
Woman Composer as Nomadic Subject.” In Music and Gender, 166–88. Edited by
Beverley Diamond and Pirkko Moisala. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000.
Moisala, Pirkko. Kaija Saariaho. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2009.
Pousset, Damien, Joshua Fineberg, and Ronan Hyacinthe. “The Works of Kaija Saariaho,
Philippe Hurel and Marc-André Dalbavie—Stile Concertato, Stile Concitato, Stile
Rappresentativo.” Contemporary Music Review 19, no. 3 (2000): 67–110.
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Symposium 44 (2004): 43–57.
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(1981): 179–205.
Straus, Joseph N. “The Problem of Prolongation in Post-Tonal Music.” Journal of Music
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Recording
Saariaho, Kaija. From the Grammar of Dreams. With Anu Komsi and Piia Komsi. Ondine
OSE 958-2, 2000, compact disc.
Score
Saariaho, Kaija. From the Grammar of Dreams. Helsinki: Edition Wilhelm Hansen, 1988.
Libby Larsen, Chanting to Paradise (1997)

Barol-Gilmore, Juline. “‘Beloved, Thou Hast Brought Me Many Flowers’ and ‘Sifting
Through the Ruins’: An Analysis of Two Chamber Song Cycles by Libby Larsen.” DMA
diss., University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2010.
Chastain, Susan. “A Conversation with Libby Larsen: A Transcription of a Taped Telephone
Interview from April 17, 1995.” International Alliance for Women in Music Journal 2, no. 3
(February 1996): 4–7.
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92. Edited by Steven Paul Sacher. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Day, Angela R. “A Performer’s Guide to Libby Larsen’s Try Me, Good King: Last Words of
the Wives of Henry VIII.” DMA diss., Louisiana State University and Agricultural and
Mechanical College, 2008.
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Poets. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979.
Gill, Jo. Women’s Poetry. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007.
Green, Cynthia. “Interview with Composer Libby Larsen.” International League of Women
Composers Journal 5, no. 1 (June 1992): 24–27.
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Press, 1983.
Juhasz, Suzanne, and Cristanne Miller. “Performances of Gender in Dickinson’s Poetry.”
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(Summer 1993): 230–51.
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Angeles: University of California Press, 1984.
Larsen, Libby. “Double Joy.” American Organist 18 (March 1984): 50–51.
Larsen, Libby. “Libby Larsen: Communicating through Music.” Interview by Richard Kessler.
New Music USA. Article published February 1, 1999, http://www.newmusicbox.org/
articles/libby-larsen-communicating-through-music/.
“Larsen, Libby.” In The Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers, 266–68. Edited by
Julie Anne Sadie and Rhian Samuel. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995.
The website of Libby Larsen. Accessed August 12, 2014. http://libbylarsen.com.
McLain, Christi Marie. “Libby Larsen’s ‘Margaret Songs’: A Musical Portrait of Willa Cather’s
Margaret Elliot.” DMA diss., Arizona State University, 2013.
Pendle, Karin, ed. “Libby Larsen.” In Women and Music: A History, 332–33. 2nd ed.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001.
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Press, 1990.
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Thomas, Laurel Ann. “A Study of Libby Larsen’s Me (Brenda Ueland), a Song Cycle for High
Voice and Piano.” DMA diss., University of Texas at Austin, 1994.
Wisuthseriwong, Christy L. “Libby Larsen’s ‘De toda la eternidad’: Creating Infinity through
the Words of Sor Juana Inéz de la Cruz.” DMA diss., University of North Carolina at
Greensboro, 2011.
Zavracky, Gregory Paul. “Libby Larsen’s ‘My Antonia’: The Song Cycle and the Tonal
Landscape of the American Prairie.” DMA diss., Boston University, 2014.
Recording
Larsen, Libby. Grand Larsen-y: Vocal Music of Libby Larsen. With Terry Rhodes and Benton
Hess. Albany Records TROY 634, 2004, compact disc.
Score
Larsen, Libby. Chanting to Paradise. Minneapolis, MN: Libby Larsen Publishing, 1997.
Elisabeth Lutyens, Essence of Our Happinesses (1968)

Banfield, Stephen. The Blackwell History of Music in Britain. Vol. 6, The Twentieth Century.
Oxford: Blackwell, 1995.
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Press, 2002.
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Brochard, Renaud, Donna Abecasis, Doug Potter, Richard Ragot, and Carolyn Drake.
“The ‘Ticktock’ of Our Internal Clock: Direct Brain Evidence of Subjective Accents in
Isochronous Sequences.” Psychological Science 14, no. 4 (July 2003): 362–66.
Harries, Meirion, and Susie Harries. A Pilgrim Soul: The Life and Work of Elisabeth Lutyens.
London: Michael Joseph, 1989.
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Press, 1983.
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Lutyens, Elisabeth. Time Off? Not a Ghost of a Chance! A Charade in Four Scenes with Three
Interruptions, Op. 68. London: Olivan Press, n.d.
Mathias, Rhiannon. Lutyens, Maconchy, Williams and Twentieth-Century British Music: A Blest
Trio of Sirens. Farnham, UK, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012.
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Rhythms.” Music Perception 11 (1994): 409–64.
Parsons, Laurel. “Elisabeth Lutyens’s Music Drama The Numbered: A Critical-Analytic
Study.” PhD diss., University of British Columbia, 2003.
Parsons, Laurel. “Time Management with Twelve-Tone Lizzie: Dramatic Functions of
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(2005): 153–83.
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Roeder, John. “Interacting Pulse Streams in Schoenberg’s Atonal Polyphony.” Music Theory
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Tenant-Flowers, Sarah. “A Study of Style and Techniques in the Music of Elisabeth Lutyens.”
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Score
Lutyens, Elisabeth. Essence of Our Happinesses, Op. 69. London: Olivan Press, 1968.
236 Bibliography
Index
accenting, subjective, 209 Beecroft, Norma, 7–8. See also

Agawu, Kofi, 134 Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1
agony, gesture of, in Chen Yi’s Symphony (Beecroft)
No. 2, 134–37, 141–46 biographical sketch of, 32–33
aleatory and aleatory technique, 34, Bell Jar, The (Plath), 156–57
61–62, 221 Benjamin, William, 174n12
Almén, Byron, 65n21 Bergson, Henri, 214–15
anacrusis, 158, 159, 160, 166, 221 “Bind me—I still can sing” (Larsen),
Antitonality, Myth of, 29 179–85
art, Deleuze and Guattari on, 105 al-Bistami, Abū Yasīd, 198, 199–200,
attack density 218n5
defined, 221 Boulez, Pierre, 62
quantifying, 173n7 Briscoe, James, 2
in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of
Dreams, 162ex., 163 Chamber Symphony No. 1, Opus 9
attack(s) (Schoenberg), 87, 94
in Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2, 135, 137, chance, 34, 63n2
138–39, 147 Chanting to Paradise (Larsen),
defined, 221 178–79
in Lutyens’s Essence of Our “Bind me—I still can sing,”
Happinesses, 209–10 179–85
in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third “In this short Life,” 185–91
Movement, 26–27 and mirroring between Larsen and
in Saariaho’s From the Grammar Dickinson, 191–93
of Dreams, 157, 158–60, 163, Chen Yi. See also Symphony No. 2
166–68, 175n15 (Chen Yi)
authorial identity, 99 biographical sketch of, 127–28
avant-garde, 34, 61, 62, 106, 198 and idea of rhythmic “telescope,”
152n25
Barthes, Roland, 99 “Ji Ji Feng” Percussion Concerto,
“becoming-woman,” 103–4 152n26
chongtou, 129, 147–48 duplet(s)
chromatic scales, in Tower’s in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2, 111
Silver Ladders, 81, 90, 94 in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 187
“Chronikos,” in Lutyens’s Essence of Our durations, in Saariaho’s From the Grammar
Happinesses, 205ex., 206ex., 208 of Dreams, 158. See also pure duration
ex., 209, 214ex., 215, 217 duration series
Citron, Marcia, 3, 7, 10n3 defined, 221
Cixous, Hélène, 12n14 in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third
“The claw of the magnolia …,” From Movement, 24fig., 25, 26–28ex.
the Grammar of Dreams dyad(s)
(Saariaho), 156–57 in Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, 36, 42, 45–46,
Pintér on, 173n1 50t, 51t, 54t, 55t
processes shaping, 160–72 defined, 221
vocal collaboration in, 157–61 in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2, 115
Cohn, Richard, 21 in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 182–84
complement, 21–22, 23, 25, 37, 184–85, 221 in Lutyens’s Essence of Our Happinesses,
concerto genre, revival of, 34 207, 209, 211, 213, 216
Cone, Edward T., 178 in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of
conflict, in Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, Dreams, 160, 161, 163, 165, 171
58–60 dynamic changes
Continuous-G events, in Gubaidulina’s and differing in Gubaidulina’s String
String Quartet No. 2, 107–11 Quartet No. 2, 111–12
Contrasts (Beecroft), 61 in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 189
Cook, Nicholas, 8
Cox, Arnie, 133, 145 Eco, Umberto, 34, 61–62, 65n27
Cry, in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2, embodied aspect of musical gestures, 129–30
115, 116ex. “Enfin, ô bonheur” (Rimbaud), 198
Cumming, Naomi, 133 epiphany, gesture of, in Chen Yi’s
Symphony No. 2, 134–35, 137–46
Darmstadt School, 61, 62 Essence of Our Happinesses (Lutyens), 198–99
Debussy, Claude, 62 choros in Movement II, 205–16
Deleuze, Gilles, 103–5 form of, 198t
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (Donne), genesis of, 199–200
198, 199, 200–201. See also Essence of and questions regarding time, 216–17
Our Happinesses (Lutyens) structure of Movement II, 201–4
Dickinson, Emily, 178, 191–93, 193–94nn9, themes in Movement II, 200–201
13, 14. See also Chanting to Paradise event stream, in Lutyens’s Essence of Our
(Larsen) Happinesses, 213–16
difference/differing
in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2, feminist themes, in Dickinson works, 192
109–15, 124 feminist theory, 8, 10n5, 99, 103–4, 153–54,
and relation in Gubaidulina’s String 172, 192
Quartet No. 2, 102–7 Focused sonority, in Gubaidulina’s String
Diffuse sonority, in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2, 121–22, 123fig.
Quartet No. 2, 121–22, 123fig. foreground, 57, 221
Donne, John, 197, 198, 199. See also form
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions in Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, 34, 42, 47,
(Donne); Essence of Our Happinesses 54–55t, 61–62
(Lutyens) in Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2, 149
double-voicedness, 153, 172 in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2, 119
238 Index
in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 178, 182, in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of
183, 192 Dreams, 158, 160, 165, 170–71
of Lutyens’s Essence of Our Happinesses, in Saariaho’s Lichtbogen, 174–75n13
198t, 201–3 in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 90
in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third Hasty, Christopher, 158
Movement, 22–23, 25 Hatten, Robert, 129–30, 132, 133
in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 70, 88, hemiola, 187, 222
90, 96n7 heptachords, 48–49, 64n17, 222
formalism, rejection of, 7 hermeneutics, 35, 56, 222
fourths hexachordal combinatoriality, 23, 222
mixed chains of, in Tower’s Silver Ladders, hexachords
87–88, 89ex. in Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, 37, 47–56
stacked, in Tower’s Silver Ladders, defined, 222
90, 93, 94 in Lutyens’s Essence of Our
From the Grammar of Dreams Happinesses, 202
(Saariaho), 156–57 hexatonic system, 21–23, 222
Pintér on, 173n1 Hisama, Ellie, 7
processes shaping, 160–72 Hyslop, Sandra, 87
vocal collaboration in, 157–61
fundamental unit, in Larsen’s Chanting to identity/identities
Paradise, 187–90 difference and relation and, 103–7
merging of, in vocal music, 178
Gazzelloni, Severino, 60 voice and, 99
gestures imitation, in Saariaho’s From the Grammar
of agony in Chen Yi’s Symphony No. of Dreams, 163, 166, 170
2, 134–37 improvisation
defined, 132, 221 alluded to in Beecroft’s
of epiphany in Chen Yi’s Symphony No. Improvvisazioni, 34
2, 134–35, 137–41 incorporation of elements of, 34
in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2, simulated, in Beecroft’s
107–8, 109ex., 112–19, 120fig., 122 Improvvisazioni, 35–39
transformation through interplay of, in Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1
Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2, (Beecroft), 33–35
141–46 aspects informing interpretive readings
Gill, Jo, 193–94n9 of, 57–61
Grosz, Elizabeth, 103–4 in context of Darmstadt avant-garde and
Guattari, Félix, 103, 105 Eco’s The Open Work, 61–62
Gubaidulina, Sofia, 1, 2–3, 7. See also String flute solo in, 65n19
Quartet No. 2 (Gubaidulina) form and serial organization in, 54–55t
biographical sketch of, 101–2 musical plot for, 56–57, 65n21
Guo, Xin, 152n25 series, invariants, and interval tension
profiles in, 42–56
Halstead, Jill, 3, 7 “simulated improvisation” in, 35–39
harmony/harmonies indeterminacy, 34, 63n2, 65n27
in Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, 35, 37, Inexpressiveness, Myth of, 30
54t, 55t Infidelio (Lutyens), 216
in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2, Inflections-of-G events, in Gubaidulina’s
107, 121 String Quartet No. 2, 107–8,
in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third 109–11, 113–14
Movement, 21, 22–23 integral serialism, 15, 16, 222
Index 239
intensification Langer, Susanne, 215
in Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, 59–60 language, in Larsen works, 178
in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. Larsen, Libby. See also
2, 112–15 Chanting to Paradise (Larsen)
inter-onset interval (IOI) pattern, biographical sketch of, 176–77
207–9, 211 language in works of, 178
interpretant, 133, 151n14 mirroring between Dickinson and, 191–93
interval class, 42–45, 115, 157, 181, and rejection of formalism, 7
184, 222 Lee, Ji Yeon, 106–7
intervals leng chui, 138–40, 146
in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 182, Lerdahl, Fred, 174n11
183ex., 184, 190 Lewin, David, 65n18, 178
Maderna and, 64n10 luogu dianzi, 129, 132–34, 135–36, 138–40,
of Motivic Clusters in Essence of Our 146, 148. See also ji-ji-feng
Happinesses, 210ex., 212ex. Lutyens, Elisabeth, biographical
in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of sketch of, 196–97. See also
Dreams, 158, 160, 165 Essence of Our Happinesses (Lutyens)
in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 73, 88,
95, 97n16 Macarthur, Sally, 8, 13n21
interval tension profiles, in Beecroft’s Maderna, Bruno, 45, 53ex., 61, 64n10
Improvvisazioni, 42–56 Mamlok, Ursula, biographical
“In this short Life” (Larsen), 185–91 sketch of, 17–18. See also
invariance, 222 Panta Rhei, Third Movement (Mamlok)
invariants, in Beecroft’s mandolin gestures, in Larsen’s Chanting to
Improvvisazioni, 42–56 Paradise, 182, 194n19
inversion matrix, 30, 42, 222
in Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, 42, 50t, 51t melisma, 157, 181, 184, 190, 202, 203, 222
defined, 222 melody
in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2, 112 in Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2,
in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 183 136–37, 140–41
in Lutyens’s Essence of Our in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third
Happinesses, 202 Movement, 18, 20–21, 25, 27
in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third meter
Movement, 23, 25 in Lutyens’s Essence of Our
in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 73 Happinesses, 209–10
IOI (inter-onset-interval) pattern, 207–9, 211 in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of
I-ordering, 23, 222 Dreams, 158–60, 166–68, 171, 172
mimetic hypothesis, 133
ji-ji-feng, 133–34, 135–36, 141, 142, 143, 146 mimetic participation, 133, 134, 143–45
“Ji Ji Feng” Percussion Concerto (Chen “Mi’raj of Abū Yasīd, The” (al-Bistami), 198
Yi), 152n26 mirror, music as, 177
Journal of Music Theory, 3, 11n7 mirroring
Journal of the International Alliance for between Larsen and Dickinson, 191–93
Women in Music, 10n5 in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 184, 190
Jullien, François, 149 moment form, 61, 222
mosaic design and events, in Gubaidulina’s
Killam, Rosemary, 177, 192 String Quartet No. 2, 115, 117ex., 119,
Kosman, Joseph, 149 120fig.
Kramer, Lawrence, 178 motives
kuyin, 151n20 defined, 222
240 Index
in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, defined, 223
181, 183–84 in Lutyens’s Essence of Our Happinesses,
in Lutyens’s Essence of Our Happinesses, 205, 214, 215
205–7, 209–11, 213, 215 in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third
motivic clusters, in Lutyens’s Essence of Movement, 18, 20–21, 25–27
Our Happinesses, 207, 208ex., 209–11, in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 80, 82
212ex., 213
musical embodiment, 129–30 Panta Rhei, Third Movement
musical plot, for Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, (Mamlok), 18–30
56–57, 65n21 “Paralytic” (Plath), 156
“Musical Symbolism,” 104 partial rhyme, in Dickinson works,
Music Theory Online, 3 180, 194n14
Music Theory Spectrum, 3, 11n7 participation, mimetic, 133, 134, 143–45
mysticism, 199–200 pattern(s)
Myth of Antitonality, 29 blurry, in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet
Myth of Inexpressiveness, 30 No. 2, 109, 111–12, 122
Myth of Non-Repetition, 29 chongtou, 129, 147–48
Myth of Serial Demise, 29–30 IOI Pattern, 207–9, 211, 213
Myth of Serial Orthodoxy, 28 ji-ji-feng, 133–34, 135–36, 141, 142, 143, 146
Myth of Serial Purity, 28–29 in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 185–91
Myth of Serial Tyranny, 29 leng chui, 138–40, 146
luogu dianzi, 129, 132–34, 135–36, 138–40,
Non-Repetition, Myth of, 29 146, 148
Northern hexatonic system, 21–23 of periodicity influenced by shifan luogu,
“now” 142–43, 144t
and genesis of Lutyens’s Essence of our rhythmic, in Beecroft’s
Happinesses, 199–200 Improvvisazioni, 38
illusory nature of, 201 rhythmic, in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, 25–27
“Numbered, The” (Lutyens), 216–17 sibian yiluo, 138–40
in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 81
octatonic/octatonicism Peirce, Charles Sanders, 151n14
categories of, in Tower’s Silver percussion. See also luogu dianzi;
Ladders, 80t shifan luogu
defined, 75, 223 in Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2, 132–34
employed in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 72–82 chongtou, 129, 147–48
“leveled” projection of octatonic in ji-ji-feng, 133–34, 135–36, 141, 142, 143, 146
Tower’s Silver Ladders, 82–83 leng chui, 138–40, 146
opening octatonic scale in Tower’s Silver luogu dianzi, 129, 132–34, 135–36, 138–40,
Ladders, 68–71 146, 148
sphere of influence in Tower’s Silver shifan luogu, 142–43, 144t, 146, 148, 152n24
Ladders, 93 sibian yiluo, 138–40
in Western art music, 71 permutation, 61, 152n24, 223
open work, 61–62 Perspectives of New Music (PNM), 10n5
opposition, in Larsen’s Chanting to Petrassi, Goffredo, 60
Paradise, 185–86 phenomenal accents, 211, 219n13
oppression, in Larsen’s Chanting to philosophy, Deleuze and Guattari on, 105
Paradise, 179–85 phoneme(s), 157, 178, 223
ordered set, 207, 223 Pintér, Éva, 173n1
ostinati pitch
in Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2, 141 defined, 223
Index 241
pitch (Cont) psychedelic states, 199–200
in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 181–82, pulse stream, in Lutyens’s Essence of Our
183–84, 186–90 Happinesses, 211–12, 214–16
reduction in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 77– pure duration, 214–15
79ex., 84–86ex.
in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of “Reaching Out” gestures in Gubaidulina’s
Dreams, 158, 161–63, 164ex., 168–70 String Quartet No. 2, 107, 108, 109ex.
in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 87, 94–95 repetition
pitch class in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2,
in Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, 37, 121, 124
42, 47–48 in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 180,
defined, 223 185–87, 194n15
in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2, 122 in Lutyens’s Essence of Our Happinesses,
in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 189 207, 209, 213, 215
in Lutyens’s Essence of Our in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third
Happinesses, 202 Movement, 29
in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of
Movement, 19–23, 24fig., 25, 26–28ex. Dreams, 165
in octatonic structure, 75 repression, in Larsen’s Chanting to
in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 87, 88, 94–95 Paradise, 179–85
pitch-class interval, 223 retrograde
pitch-class multiplication (M-operation), in Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, 42, 50t
31n5, 223 defined, 224
pitch-class set in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2, 112
in Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, 42 in Lutyens’s Essence of Our Happinesses,
defined, 223 201, 217
in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third
Dreams, 164ex. Movement, 19, 23, 25
pitch interval retrograde inversion, 42, 112, 224
defined, 223 rhyme
in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2, in Dickinson works, 194n14
112, 115 in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 180, 185
in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 182 rhythm
in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of in Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2, 132–34
Dreams, 157 chongtou, 129, 147–48
in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 73 ji-ji-feng, 133–34, 135–36, 141, 142, 143, 146
Plath, Sylvia, 156–57 in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 186–90
plot, musical, for Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, leng chui, 138–40, 146
56–57, 65n21 luogu dianzi, 129, 132–34, 135–36, 138–40,
polyvocality, of Saariaho’s From the 146, 148
Grammar of Dreams, 153, 166–72 in Lutyens’s Essence of Our
P-ordering, 23, 223 Happinesses, 202–3
power, in Larsen’s Chanting to in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third
Paradise, 185–91 Movement, 25–27
prime form, 42, 223 in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of
projective meter, in Saariaho’s From the Dreams, 163, 168
Grammar of Dreams, 158–59, 166–68 shifan luogu, 142–43, 144t, 146, 148, 152n24
projective potential, 158, 223–24 sibian yiluo, 138–40
protagonists, in Beecroft’s RI-chains, 23, 224
Improvvisazioni, 58 Rimbaud, Arthur, 198, 199–200, 218n5
242 Index
Roeder, John, 211 in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2, 115,
rooted sonorities, superpositions of, in 116ex., 121–22, 123ex.
Saariaho works, 174–75n12 superpositions of rooted, in Saariaho
row forms, 30, 42, 50ex., 204 works, 174–75n12
Saariaho, Kaija. See also sound mass
From the Grammar of Dreams (Saariaho) in Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, 35, 37,
biographical sketch of, 155–56 55t, 58, 59
and rejection of formalism, 7 in Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2, 141, 142
superpositions of rooted sonorities in defined, 224
works, 174–75n12 Southern hexatonic system, 21–23
Une saison en enfer [A Season in Hell] spectral composition, 170, 224
(Rimbaud), 198 Sprechstimme, 157, 224
Samuel, Rhian, 3, 9 String Quartet No. 2 (Gubaidulina)
Schoenberg, Arnold, 87, 94 Affirmation in, 121–22
science, Deleuze and Guattari on, 105 conclusions regarding, 124
Serial Demise, Myth of, 29–30 difference and relation and, 102–6
serialism, 7, 15, 17, 67, 224 Reaching Out and Tethering in, 107–15
serial construction, of Beecroft’s Reaching Up and Renewing in, 115–20
Improvvisazioni, 54–55t, 60–61 temporal design of, 106–7
Serial Orthodoxy, Myth of, 28 subjective accenting, 209
Serial Purity, Myth of, 28–29 superposition, 224. See also
Serial Tyranny, Myth of, 29 From the Grammar of Dreams (Saariaho)
set class Symphony No. 2 (Chen Yi), 128–30, 148–50
in Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2, 137 gestures of agony and epiphany in, 135–41
defined, 224 lightening of orchestral texture in, 146–48
in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third luogu dianzi as mimetic musical gestures
Movement, 19ex., 20–21, 31n5 in, 132–34
in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of transformation through interplay of
Dreams, 163, 165 gestures in, 141–46
in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 71, 93 transnational cultural context of musical
shi, 148–49 gestures in, 130–32
shifan luogu, 142–43, 144t, 146, 148, 152n24
sibian yiluo, 138–40 tactus, 166, 168, 171, 224
Silver Ladders (Tower) “telescope,” 152n25
boundaries between octatonic collections tessitura, 57, 224
in, 88–90 tetrachords
combinations of perfect and augmented defined, 224
fourths in, 87–88, 89ex. in Lutyens’s Essence of Our
conclusions regarding, 93–95 Happinesses, 202
“leveled” projection of octatonic in, 82–83 in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of
long-tone scales in, 83–87 Dreams, 163–65
octatonic employed in, 72–82 texture
opening octatonic scale in, 68–71 in Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, 35, 47, 58
simulated improvisation, in Beecroft’s in Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2, 142, 146
Improvvisazioni, 34, 35–39 defined, 224
Society for Music Theory (SMT), 4 in Gubaidulina’s String Quartet No. 2,
Songs from Letters (Larsen), 177, 192 115, 116
sonority/sonorities in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise,
in Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2, 136 184, 189
Index 243
in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third in Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2, 137, 140,
Movement, 18–19 141, 143, 146–47, 151n20
in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of defined, 224
Dreams, 158, 163, 165–66, 171, 174n13 in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 182
in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 72, 75, 80, in Lutyens’s Essence of Our
82, 97n12 Happinesses, 202
time in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of
Donne’s rejection of, 201, 215–16 Dreams, 157–60, 171
Lutyens and concern with, 198, in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 73
199–200, 216–17 twelve-tone composition
and pulse stream in Essence of Our Beecroft and, 32–33
Happinesses, 211–13 and Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, 16,
and relationship between event stream 42, 45, 56
and pulse stream, 214–15 and Chen Yi’s Symphony No. 2, 136, 140,
Time Off? Not a Ghost of a Chance! 141, 148
(Lutyens), 217 and Lutyens’s Essence of Our
tonality/tonalities Happinesses, 201
in Saariaho’s From the Grammar and Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third
of Dreams, 160, 161, 166, 169ex., Movement, 15, 23, 27–30
170–72, 175n15 serialism and, 15
Tower, Joan. See also Silver Ladders (Tower) Webern, Anton, 62
biographical sketch of, 67–68 wedge counterpoint, 36, 224
on pitch systems, 94 Wilson, Glenn, 12n16
process of, 93–94 women
on titles of works, 97n20 Citron on progress of, 10n3
transposition common characteristics among works
in Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, 49, 52ex. of, 6–8
defined, 224 compositional voice of, 8–9
in Larsen’s Chanting to Paradise, 187 interpreting data on, 4
in Tower’s Silver Ladders, 80–81 Larsen on opportunities and role models
Tre Pezzi Brevi (Beecroft), 33 for, 191
triad(s) participation of, in music
in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third performance, 10n1
Movement, 19ex., 20–23, 29 and ratio of female-to-male composers,
in Saariaho’s From the Grammar of 4, 11–12n11
Dreams, 170–71 recognized as professional
in Saariaho’s Lichtbogen, 174n13 composers, 2–3
trichord(s) research into music by, 3–4
defined, 224 Women and Music, 10n5
in Mamlok’s Panta Rhei, Third
Movement, 22, 23 Zaehner, R. C., 199–200, 218n5
tritone(s) Zarlino, Gioseffo, 64n10
in Beecroft’s Improvvisazioni, 45, 47, 52ex.
244 Index

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Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers

Edited by Laurel Parsons and Brenda Ravenscroft

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

Oxford University Press 2016

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Chapter 2. Ursula Mamlok, Panta Rhei, Third Movement (1981) 17

Chapter 3. Norma Beecroft, Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1 (1961) 32

Chapter 4. Joan Tower, Silver Ladders (1986) 67

Chapter 5. Sofia Gubaidulina, String Quartet No. 2 (1987) 101

Chapter 6. Chen Yi, Symphony No. 2 (1993) 127

Chapter 7. Kaija Saariaho, “The claw of the magnolia … ,” From

Chapter 8. Libby Larsen, Chanting to Paradise (1997) 176

Chapter 9. Elisabeth Lutyens, Essence of Our Happinesses (1968) 196

A project of this size and scope, designed to stimulate change in a some-

Oxford has created a password-​protected website to accompany Analytical

2 Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers

4 Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers

6 Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers

I want whatever I’m writing to communicate with somebody, and it

But are these apparent commonalities attributable to the sex of these

8 Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers

What if a woman composer should speak differently from a man?

It is in this spirit that we offer our collection of analytical studies as a con-

10 Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers

12 Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers

Order, Freedom, and Design

The unprecedented experimentation with new ways of ordering pitch

16 Part I: Order, Freedom, and Design

“Twelve-​Tone in My Own Way”: An Analytical Study

18 Part I: Order, Freedom, and Design

Ursula Mamlok, Panta Rhei (1981) 19

20 Part I: Order, Freedom, and Design

Ursula Mamlok, Panta Rhei (1981) 21

22 Part I: Order, Freedom, and Design

Ursula Mamlok, Panta Rhei (1981) 23

Ursula Mamlok, Panta Rhei (1981) 25

instrument, the durational pattern continues throughout: 10½ on, punctu-

26 Part I: Order, Freedom, and Design

Ursula Mamlok, Panta Rhei (1981) 27

period in America. This repertoire has been sadly mischaracterized in both

28 Part I: Order, Freedom, and Design

Ursula Mamlok, Panta Rhei (1981) 29

Mamlok’s own twelve-​tone language has often involved taking unusual

30 Part I: Order, Freedom, and Design

Ursula Mamlok, Panta Rhei (1981) 31

Norma Beecroft’s influence on Canadian contemporary music from the

Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1 by Norma

Norma Beecroft, Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1 (1961) 33

34 Part I: Order, Freedom, and Design

“Simulated improvisation” in Improvvisazioni

The five key passages reproduced in Examples 3.1–​3.5, annotated with my

Norma Beecroft, Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1 (1961) 35

Norma Beecroft, Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1 (1961) 37

inspiration.8 Beecroft’s textures create this impression by means of a num-

38 Part I: Order, Freedom, and Design

Series, invariants, and interval tension profiles

The improvisatory character of Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1 stems

42 Part I: Order, Freedom, and Design

Norma Beecroft, Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1 (1961) 45

46 Part I: Order, Freedom, and Design

Norma Beecroft, Improvvisazioni Concertanti No. 1 (1961) 47

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Oxford has created a password-protected website to accompany Analytical

“Twelve-Tone in My Own Way”: An Analytical Study

Mamlok’s own twelve-tone language has often involved taking unusual

The five key passages reproduced in Examples 3.1–3.5, annotated with my

words, these heptachords—t hrough their close affinity with hexachords A

3. Near-preservation of From category 1 above it follows that the note-against-note

4. Near-identical The first hexachords of P6 and I6 share five pitch classes,

mm. 19 mm. 37–44

mm. 58–64 mm. 65–85 mm. 86–102 mm. 103–8

1. Character and identity of the solo flute part

2. Character and identity of individual

3. Who are the protagonists, and how do

4. A single protagonist? (Inner conflict)

“Octatonicism,” the Octatonic Scale, and Large-Scale

Table 4.1 Summary, mm. 155–239: Categories of octatonic usage

Category 4 (3-var) 2 4 (2-var) 2 5; 2, 1 5; 2 5; 1