Polytonality

Abstract: Contents: Preface Milhaud, Les Six and musical politics in Paris Milhaud's writings on tradition and identity Works for music theatre 1: collaboration with Paul Claudel Works for music theatre 2: the chamber operas Vocal music: texts and voices Polytonality, counterpoint and instrumentation Milhaud and the past Conclusions: Milhaud's musical achievements to 1939 Bibliography Index.

Abstract: The first part of this study, published in a previous issue of this journal, discussed the Polytonalite Harmonique system, proposed by Darius Milhaud in 1923, from the perspective of the Molino & Nattiez’s tripartitional categories of the “immanent” and “poietical” levels. In continuation, this second part examines the system of “harmonic polytonality”, and some early controversies surrounding polytonality, from the perspective of the “esthesic level”. It is also suggested that the more general, and actually fundamental principle behind the system of “harmonic polytonality” – i.e., the compositional choice, among all possible “dissonant” vertical aggregate chords, of those which are decomposable into traditional “consonant” chords ( accords classes ) – applies well beyond the early twentieth-century repertoire, including later composers, such as Messiaen, Ligeti, Schnittke, Glass, Widmer, and Krieger.

Abstract: Charles Ives' The Fourth of July is charged with the basic elements that once earned his music such critical epithets as "craziest lot of sounds,"'1 "funny-sounding collection of sounds," and "horrible sounds."2 Polymeter, polytonality, the dense simultaneous layering of seemingly independent and contrasting elements, and quotations from traditional songs and march tunes all play critical roles in the presentation and evolution of musical ideas in this composition. In particular, The Fourth of July includes two musical "explosions" (representing fireworks displays) comprising extremely dense strata of non-synchronous materials; and fragments of at least fifteen different tunes appear in various keys throughout the work. On the surface, then, this composition may seem to comprise a wealth of disjunct and discordant ideas. However, careful analysis of Ives' compositional techniques, and equally deliberate pondering of his philosophical and aesthetic ideas, suggest that (a) the work's many diverse elements have been integrated within a carefully organized structural framework, and that (b) Ives' quotations and multiple layerings -his most characteristic and frequently used techniques-have deeplyrooted philosophical implications for the composer. Technically, a web of musical interrelationships underlies the surface multiformity; philosophically, the work is much more than the re-creation of a holiday celebration in Danbury, Connecticut. Because the philosophical underpinnings of Ives' music constitute such a vital aspect of all of his work, a discussion of any of his compositions must begin with an assessment of these ideological roots. Ives was a fervent proponent of Transcendentalism and a passionate admirer of the two most articulate and well-known Transcendentalists, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. In his Essays Before a Sonata, Ives discusses the writings and philosophies of these two thinkers (as well as those of Hawthorne and the Alcotts in more summary fashion), and, both directly and by implication, he details his own Transcendental beliefs and the intimate connection that these have to his music. Throughout the Essays, Ives alludes repeatedly to the two fundamental tenets of Transcendental philosophy: a belief in the innate goodness of

Abstract: Throughout his career, Charles Ives wrote dozens of small pieces in which he experimented with new or unusual musical procedures: polytonality, whole tones and quarter tones, atonal canons, non-tertian chords, palindromes, twelve-note melodies, and so on. Ives seems to have conceived of these pieces as private compositional studies. Very few of them were performed in public until long after they were written. Many are for organ or piano, his own instruments; many others written before 1902 are for choir, and may have been tried out by the choirs in the churches where he served as organist; several later ones are scored for small instrumental ensembles and may have been played through in private reading sessions. John Rinehart has shown that these pieces often served as workshops in which Ives first experimented with methods that he later used in larger, more ambitious compositions.2