Offers readers new ways of conceptualizing music and new insights into music created in Russia. Since its original publication in 1983, Russian Theoretical Thought in Music has become the standard English-language source of information about music theory as it developed in Russia. Because of the distance of culture and language, music theory developed there largely independent of the traditions of Western Europe. Over the decades of Soviet rule, those traditions flourished and were refined even further into a fascinating world of ideas. Exploring this world offers the reader new ways of conceptualizing music and new insights into music created in Russia. This compelling volume includes Ellon Carpenter's overview of the development of music theory in Russia, followed by a look into the ideas of six particularly important theorists. Nicolas Schidlovsky examines the theoretical underpinnings of Russian Orthodox chant; Gordon McQuere probes the remarkable ideas of Boleslav Yavorsky and the seminal contribution of Boris Asafiev; and Roy Guenther explores the analytical system of Varvara Dernova. Contributors: Ellon D. Carpenter, Allen Forte, Roy G. Guenther, Gordon D. McQuere, and Nicolas Schidlovsky. Gordon McQuere is Professor of Music and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Washburn University.

The book begins with a thorough coverage of a number of elementary matters. This may be regarded either as a review or as a reorientation in preparation for the systematic presentation that follows.

Beginning in Part Two ideas that are more specifically Schenkerian are developed and applied to the analysis of short compositions. Since the book is also intended to cover all of the basic standard form it has seemed logical to use this feature in organizing the material. Thus, Part Two ends with longer forms and Part Three covers the main large forms (sonata, rondo, and so on). The various types of Schenkerian prolongations are introduced gradually and discussed and illustrated thoroughly in the text.

Each chapter ends with a set of exercises keyed to the topics that have been presented, and the student is given precise instructions for completing the exercises as well as occasional hints about pitfalls and special problems that they contain.

"For some years now, a group of American composers and theorists including Babbitt, Teitelbaum, Martino, and Lewin, have been elaborating mathematically based procedures for the analysis of pitch structures in atonal music. In this book, Allen Forte expands the results of their work into a comprehensive theoretical survey illustrated with examples from a wide range of composers."-Times Higher Education Supplement "An attempt to 'provide a general theoretical framework' for the description and analysis of musical pitch-structures that resist interpretation in terms of conventional tonal or 12-note serial systems.... Not the least achievement of this book may be to establish the limits for a positive meaning for atonality.... Forte always moves forward with elegant clarity, explaining even quite conventional terms and illustrating his points with directness and care."-The Musical Times

The Austrian composer Anton Webern (1883-1945) is one of the major figures of musical modernism. His mature works comprise two styles: the so-called free atonal music composed between 1907 and 1924, and the twelve-tone serial music that began in 1924 and extended through the remainder of his creative life. In this book an eminent music theorist presents the first systematic and in-depth study of the early atonal works, from the George Lieder, opus 3, through the Latin Canons, opus 16. Drawing on music-analytical procedures that he and other scholars have developed in recent years, Allen Forte argues that a single compositional system underlies all of Webern's atonal music. Forte examines such elements as pitch, register, timbre, rhythm, form, and text setting, showing how Webern displaced the functional connections of traditional tonality to create a totally new sonic universe. Although the main thrust of the study is music-analytical in nature, Forte also considers historical context and significant biographical aspects of the individual works, as well as word-music relations in the music with text.

When The Rite of Spring was first performed in Paris in 1913, it was greeted with a riot. After the shouting died down, it became possible to discern that Igor Stravinsky had created a monument of modern music, and the work has been universally regarded as such for half a century. Although it is widely studied in classes in music theory, no effort has yet been made to comprehend the extraordinary way in which its pitch materials are organized. This book will correct that omission. Allan Forte set forth his analytical approach fully in The Structure of Atonal Music (1973). Here he applies it in detail to a large-scale work that is familiar to every student of music. In his introduction Forte reviews certain technical aspects of his method in order to prepare readers for the close analysis that follows. He particularly considers general features of pitch and interval structures and the ways in which those structures may be interrelated to form coherent musical spans. Together the introduction and the analysis, with its more than 100 musical examples, both illuminate the structure of the music and demonstrate the way in which Forte's method may be applied in the analysis of complex music.