Event

Doctoral Colloquium (Music): Jason Yust, Boston University

Friday, September 20, 2019 16:30
Elizabeth Wirth Music Building A832, 527 rue Sherbrooke Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3A 1E3, CA
Price: 
Free

The Doctoral Colloquium is open to all.

Students for whom attendance is required must sign the attendance sheet at the colloquium.

Rhythm and Form as Temporal Structure, and Beethoven’s Formal Innovations

 

One of the most important aspects of music is how it can shape and organize time through the use of rhythm, harmony, and form. Theorizing temporal structure gives insight into musical style and aesthetics. This talk specifically addresses Beethoven’s innovative use of open expositions in sonata form and large-scale tonal-formal disjunction. An open exposition is one lacking coordinated tonal-hypermetrical closure, illustrated by the Op. 47 Violin Sonata and Op. 59/2 String Quartet. Tonal-formal disjunction refers to non-coinciding tonal and formal structures. Beethoven emulated Haydn’s use of disjunctive codas, as illustrated by Haydn’s Symphony no. 101, the “Clock,” and Beethoven’s “Grand Sonata,” Op. 7, and pioneered disjunctive techniques of off-tonic recapitulation and non-standard subordinate keys. This is demonstrated by analyses of the Scherzo of the Op. 9/3 String Trio and the outer movements of Op. 29 String Quintet, a work whose realization of Beethoven’s 1801 declaration to blaze a “new path” has been underappreciated.

 

Jason Yust is an Associate Professor of Music Theory at Boston University. He is author of Organized Time: Rhythm, Tonality, and Form (Oxford University Press, 2018) and many book chapters and articles. His work addresses a range of topics in music theory, analysis, and mathematics and music, including harmonic spaces, Schenkerian theory, music cognition, rhythmic theory, and form in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century music. He is a co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Mathematics and Music, and has served in administrative capacities for numerous music theory journals and societies.

 

 

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