Le 29 juin 2017
de 11h30 à 12h00
Le Patio (université de Strasbourg)
22 rue René Descartes, 67000 Strasbourg
salle 3203
Séance - Leaving – and Regaining – the Shores of Tonality
Pré-acte / Acte
Auteur : José Oliveira Martins
For about a century, polytonality has been an illusive and contested term that fuelled an intense music-theoretical debate, re-emerging in recent years. The contested status of its historical, analytical and perceptual significance led to the reception of a paradoxical concept, ascribed to both the consolidation and destruction of tonality, the expression of conservatism and the avant-garde, the act of mere imagination and actual perceivable phenomena.
The paper approaches polytonality by revisiting the theorizing activity by Koechlin, Milhaud, Casella, Bartók, and others, in the early 20th c., subsequently dismissed or appropriated by the post-Schenkerian and set-theoretical approaches developed in the second part of the century. Aspects of the debate are examined along two sets of theoretical tensions: (1) constructionist vs. interpretative claims about the term’s ontological implications, and (2) exclusive vs. inclusive views about the nature of the layered materials. The paper argues that early notions of polytonality draw from inclusive views, exploring various compositional arrangements and listening strategies, whereas detractors of polytonality—the dominant position throughout the century—often devalued and dismissed constructionist and inclusive aspects, and adopted mostly exclusive and interpretative views given the potential of polytonality to challenge notions of tonal unity and the work’s coherence.
The paper proposes the analytical apparatus of scalar dissonance (measuring the mismatch or friction between scalar layers), which is briefly exemplified in “contrapuntal polytonality” of Milhaud, Bartók, and Casella, and expanded to some harmonic practice of Lutoslawski, arguing that polytonal principles cast a much wider net on compositional practice than traditionally granted.
