Le 29 juin 2017
de 15h00 à 15h30
Le Patio (université de Strasbourg)
22 rue René Descartes, 67000 Strasbourg
salle 3201
Séance précomposée - Modulation as Perceived by the Listener
Pré-acte / Acte
Auteur : Ivan Moshchuk
Modulation longs for security – as listeners, musicologists, and performers we long for the security of the TSDT functional cycle. At its core, modulation can be simplified to a single event in three chords. However, there also exists the law of reverse effort, which calls to mind the ancient and much-overlooked saying « whosoever would save his soul shall lose it. » This paper is an exploration of this law in relation to the psychological aspect of modulation, attempting to bridge the divide between the insecurity of disrupted TSDT cycles and the listener’s quest for spiritual and intellectual certainty.
This paper examines two compositions completed during the key year of 1917 – Nikolai Medtner’s Forgotten Melodies Op. 38, and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Études-Tableaux Op. 39. Both opuses present challenges from a technical standpoint, however, the true difficulty lies in understanding their ability to disrupt the functional cycle TSDT and the subsequent effects this implies on the listener.
In 1917, humanity reached an incredibly high degree of insecurity and uncertainty. By examining the insecurity of complex modulatory processes in the music of 1917 through the work of Medtner and Rachmaninoff, we conceptualize a perspective of not only this turning point in world history, but also the notion that this insecurity is the result of trying to be secure. This music paves an example of a harmonic world where the normal order is completely reversed, and attempts to articulate the paradox of how out of this phenomenon arises a distinct sense of salvation and sanity.
