PhD University of Chicago MM University of Massachusetts BA Amherst College composer (BMI) • recordings on Naxos, Albany and Navona labels Address: Chicago, Illinois, United States
»... weit schärfer und gründlicher nachgedacht ... « : Zur Musiktheorie Johann Philipp Kirnbergers. Ed. Immanuel Ott and Birger Petersen. Schriften der Hochschule für Musik Mainz, Band 1., 2023
This is an English-language contribution to an otherwise German-language publication whose title ... more This is an English-language contribution to an otherwise German-language publication whose title translates "'...thought through far more precisely and thoroughly...:' Toward a music theory of Johann Philipp Kirnberger." Presented are new solutions and anaylsis of Kirnberger's most important puzzle canons: The title-page canon from Die Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik, "Wir irren allsamt, nur jeder irret anderst" which jokingly contrasts the philosophical incompatibility of equal temperament and just intonation in the form of a musical paradox; The "Gedanken Quodlibet" which is the culmination and focal point of his 1782 publication "Gedanken über die verschiedenen Lehrarten in der Komposition;" and the set of thirteen canons published in Marpurg's "Abhandlung von der Fuge" in 1753 but whose elucidation was nonetheless passed over by Marpurg. These canons are presented in the context of Kirnberger's understanding music vis a vis J.S. Bach's practice of music.
Music Theory and its Methods: Structures, Challenges, Directions, edited by Denis Collins, 2013
In the lengthy title to his Inventions and Sinfonias, J. S. Bach implies that they serve not only... more In the lengthy title to his Inventions and Sinfonias, J. S. Bach implies that they serve not only as technical repertoire but as a didactic tool in the realm of composition and counterpoint. Each of the three-voice sinfonias contains some anomalous feature of harmony or counterpoint worthy of a curious and attentive student’s remark. Such anomalies as a harmonic diminished octave or a succession of parallel intervals connect the orderly universe introduced by Bach’s thorough bass teaching and the complex universe of harmony actually found in his compositions. These are approached with a viewpoint contemporary to the compositions themselves.
Proceedings of the First Symposium on Laptop Ensembles and Orchestras, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Apr 2012
Solutions to the problem of disrupted visual communication in laptop ensembles are explored. Ess... more Solutions to the problem of disrupted visual communication in laptop ensembles are explored. Essential channels of visual interpersonal communication are found both between performers and audience and among the performers themselves. Because the use of a laptop computer is inherently visually oriented, it easily leads to visual fixation, possibly at the expense of audience or ensemble engagement. After examining impediments to visual communication, strategies are presented relating to laptop ensemble or orchestra (LEO) instrument design with respect to the different types of information that the performer may need to receive or access or monitor: user input feedback, non-immediate or timed computational results, and networked information. Although the primary focus of this examination is geared toward the designer of software “instruments” for the LEO, other strategies are acknowledged that may assist in restoring visual freedom.
Bach: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute, Volume 41, No.1, 2010
The canon “per Augmentationem in contrario Motu” from the Musical Offering is a musical puzzle by... more The canon “per Augmentationem in contrario Motu” from the Musical Offering is a musical puzzle by Johann Sebastian Bach for which no solution by the composer survives. Editor Alfred Dörffel’s own 17-bar solution in the complete works of Bach has been criticized by experts in Bach’s style since its publication in 1885, yet it is still widely published, performed and recorded. Analysis of this extended solution and a modern variant of it focuses on the stylistic treatment of dissonance. This analysis shows how the more widely accepted 9-bar solution by Christoph Oley conforms perfectly to compositional practice of the first half of the eighteenth century, while over a dozen violations of that practice occur in the additional 8 bars comprising Dörffel’s extension. But what aside from the syncopated canonic time interval of imitation causes the compelling illusion that the solution’s extension was intentionally composed and not an arbitrary jumble? The contrapuntal line written against that theme is necessarily harmonically imprinted by the theme’s phrase symmetry. When augmented, this melody’s halves correspond now to the 8-bar halves of the extended solution. Consonance results in the extension but without proper voice leading. Additional arguments further challenge Dörffel’s solution’s authenticity.
»... weit schärfer und gründlicher nachgedacht ... « : Zur Musiktheorie Johann Philipp Kirnbergers. Ed. Immanuel Ott and Birger Petersen. Schriften der Hochschule für Musik Mainz, Band 1., 2023
This is an English-language contribution to an otherwise German-language publication whose title ... more This is an English-language contribution to an otherwise German-language publication whose title translates "'...thought through far more precisely and thoroughly...:' Toward a music theory of Johann Philipp Kirnberger." Presented are new solutions and anaylsis of Kirnberger's most important puzzle canons: The title-page canon from Die Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik, "Wir irren allsamt, nur jeder irret anderst" which jokingly contrasts the philosophical incompatibility of equal temperament and just intonation in the form of a musical paradox; The "Gedanken Quodlibet" which is the culmination and focal point of his 1782 publication "Gedanken über die verschiedenen Lehrarten in der Komposition;" and the set of thirteen canons published in Marpurg's "Abhandlung von der Fuge" in 1753 but whose elucidation was nonetheless passed over by Marpurg. These canons are presented in the context of Kirnberger's understanding music vis a vis J.S. Bach's practice of music.
Music Theory and its Methods: Structures, Challenges, Directions, edited by Denis Collins, 2013
In the lengthy title to his Inventions and Sinfonias, J. S. Bach implies that they serve not only... more In the lengthy title to his Inventions and Sinfonias, J. S. Bach implies that they serve not only as technical repertoire but as a didactic tool in the realm of composition and counterpoint. Each of the three-voice sinfonias contains some anomalous feature of harmony or counterpoint worthy of a curious and attentive student’s remark. Such anomalies as a harmonic diminished octave or a succession of parallel intervals connect the orderly universe introduced by Bach’s thorough bass teaching and the complex universe of harmony actually found in his compositions. These are approached with a viewpoint contemporary to the compositions themselves.
Proceedings of the First Symposium on Laptop Ensembles and Orchestras, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Apr 2012
Solutions to the problem of disrupted visual communication in laptop ensembles are explored. Ess... more Solutions to the problem of disrupted visual communication in laptop ensembles are explored. Essential channels of visual interpersonal communication are found both between performers and audience and among the performers themselves. Because the use of a laptop computer is inherently visually oriented, it easily leads to visual fixation, possibly at the expense of audience or ensemble engagement. After examining impediments to visual communication, strategies are presented relating to laptop ensemble or orchestra (LEO) instrument design with respect to the different types of information that the performer may need to receive or access or monitor: user input feedback, non-immediate or timed computational results, and networked information. Although the primary focus of this examination is geared toward the designer of software “instruments” for the LEO, other strategies are acknowledged that may assist in restoring visual freedom.
Bach: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute, Volume 41, No.1, 2010
The canon “per Augmentationem in contrario Motu” from the Musical Offering is a musical puzzle by... more The canon “per Augmentationem in contrario Motu” from the Musical Offering is a musical puzzle by Johann Sebastian Bach for which no solution by the composer survives. Editor Alfred Dörffel’s own 17-bar solution in the complete works of Bach has been criticized by experts in Bach’s style since its publication in 1885, yet it is still widely published, performed and recorded. Analysis of this extended solution and a modern variant of it focuses on the stylistic treatment of dissonance. This analysis shows how the more widely accepted 9-bar solution by Christoph Oley conforms perfectly to compositional practice of the first half of the eighteenth century, while over a dozen violations of that practice occur in the additional 8 bars comprising Dörffel’s extension. But what aside from the syncopated canonic time interval of imitation causes the compelling illusion that the solution’s extension was intentionally composed and not an arbitrary jumble? The contrapuntal line written against that theme is necessarily harmonically imprinted by the theme’s phrase symmetry. When augmented, this melody’s halves correspond now to the 8-bar halves of the extended solution. Consonance results in the extension but without proper voice leading. Additional arguments further challenge Dörffel’s solution’s authenticity.
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