Identifier

etd-11082011-115900

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Music

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

While James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy regard rotational form as “an overriding structural principle, an Urprinzip that in the instrumental genres may control the progress of movements organized according to more familiar Formenlehre categories such as sonata form or rondo”, in the dissertation that follows I propose a framework for rotational analysis that is sufficient as a self-standing analytical structure. This step back from the more familiar Formenlehre is necessary in Bartók’s post-tonal repertoire to avoid confusion with the generic expectations that often accompany labels such as principal theme, subordinate theme, exposition, development, recapitulation, etc. Also, as rotational form is characterized by Hepokoski and Darcy as a rhetorical rather than tonal principle, it allows analysts to focus less on harmonic implication and more on the dense family of thematic/motivic relationships that lay at the core of Bartók’s repertoire. I will apply rotational form to the first movements of Bartók’s String Quartet No. 4, Piano Sonata, and Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion in order to illuminate new analytical interpretations otherwise obscured. The question here, although highly provocative, is not whether sonata form does or even can exist in this post-tonal repertoire, but rather what do we have to glean from a perspective that is not dependent on it? Relaxing the generic expectations of sonata rhetoric affords us a more complete and accurate perspective of foreground/background formal structure as well as narrative trajectory.

Date

2011

Document Availability at the Time of Submission

Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide.

Committee Chair

Perry, Jeffrey

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_dissertations.338

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