Le 28 juin 2017
de 16h00 à 16h30
Le Patio (université de Strasbourg)
22 rue René Descartes, 67000 Strasbourg
salle 3204
Séance - Lewin's Legacy: Spaces and Transformations
Pré-acte / Acte
Auteur : Kenneth Smith
Skryabin’s last sonata is segregated into areas of major third chord-relations (hexatonic progression) and minor-third relations (octatonic progression). The way that Skryabin traverses these spaces calls for a reassessment of his voice-leading procedures. Skryabin’s late music has been assessed in several different ways in recent times (Kallis, 2015; Callender, 1999; Baker, 1986). To my mind, however, none have fully grasped the way that the segregation of different spaces cohere within a broader framework. The aim is to demonstrate, using Skryabin’s Sonata No. 10, that a broadly-defined diatonic thread weaves together octatonic and hexatonic spaces, taking account of the charges and discharges of tense sonorities that push through the space in which they are defined. The analytical methods employed are broadly neo-Riemannian, but synthesise Lendvai’s (1971) axis system with a more specific Funktionstheorie. Based on a model in which function is assigned to a single collection of minor-third-related chords (say a Dominant axis might be represented by G, B@, C#, E chords), I show that a general rotation of function (T–S–D–T) cuts indiscriminately through the different harmonic spaces. The rotation of function described above, based on charges and discharges of leading-tones (Harrison 1994), show a fundamentally diatonic energy that exists despite a surface of octatonic or hexatonic progression. This has clear implications for the ways in which we hear ‘alternative’ tonal spaces, possibly even the ‘atonal’. Discussion could develop into potential for hearing or experiencing diatonicism within such ‘other’ spaces.
