Shigeru Fujita

Setting the question of the narrativity aside, many musicologists have paid attention to the characteristic structures in Chopin’s ballades. Their general common strategy was to highlight the differences from the classical norm, referring to the mono-tonal theory of Schenker. But, if Chopin succeeded in elevating his ballades into a new independent genre, a way must be found to describe their structures in a manner that can be understood in their own terms.
For this purpose, it may be useful to employ the concepts of “Interlocking tonality” and “Directional tonality”, both concepts being brought to music analysis by G. George (1970), H. Krebs (1981) and W. Kinderman (1988). When the two concepts are operatively combined, all the ballades will be described as the different realizations of the so-called “Interlocking-Directional tonality”, which consists of the original architectonic principle set out by Chopin.
Liszt composed two ballades, but their quality is uneven. While the First Ballade can be understood as the modest assimilation of Chopin’s, the Second Ballade can be well described as the interlocking of two tonal directionalities, that is the realization of the potentiality of the architectonic principle which Chopin’s never achieved in his ballades.

Dutilleux's dodecaphonism has been underestimated, partly due to his declaration during the early postwar years that 'je ne pense pas devenir dodécaphoniste'. Some recent studies have, nonetheless, sparked a revival of interest in his dodecaphonism by clarifying that Dutilleux's thinking was more constructivist than generally believed. This presentation aims to evaluate the significance of the dodecaphonism in Dutilleux's music by tracing the evolution of his dodecaphonic writing from Métaboles to Tout un monde lointain. To do this, I reciprocally examine the sketch study I performed with support from the Paul Sacher Foundation and the analytical study in which I used post-tonal theory terminology. Using this method, I demonstrate two major findings. First, in Métaboles, Dutilleux reconciled his preferred diatonic harmonies with the dodecaphonic tone row used as ostinato in the Obsessionnel section; thus, in the course of the composition, he transformed an initial, more chromatic tone row into a staggered combination of ascending fourths. Second, in Tout un monde lointain, Dutilleux sought to deduce an expanded set of harmonies from the dodecaphonic tone row by installing a transpositional symmetry in it; therefore, the first nine notes of the tone row constitute the enneatonic collection, similar to Messiaen's third mode. This tone row permitted him to deduce characteristic modal harmonies with a structural coherence as the content of the first nine notes was unchanged in its fourth and eighth transpositions. Dutilleux thus introduced a new horizon in dodecaphonism through the concept of the tone row of limited transposition.

This presentation reveals Henri Dutilleux’s systematic thinking in the harmonic dimension, incorporating the neo-Riemannian device of the ‘Tonnetz’ into an analysis of Sur le même accord, composed by him in 2002 for violin and orchestra.
It is true that Dutilleux was independent of any modern music movements, notably of the serialism in the 1950s and 1960s. However, this independence was not synonymous with a detachment from contemporary interests. In hindsight, it is evident that Dutilleux was among the composers who have sought in the post-tonal era a new system of writing music both rigorously and freely. In its harmonic dimension, Sur le même accord can be considered as one of the tidemarks of the systematic thinking peculiar to Dutilleux.
As suggested by its title, the harmonic design of Sur le même accord depends entirely on the transformation of the pivot chord of the six notes. First, the presenter will examine the pivot chord on the ‘Tonnetz’ to identify it as a hexatonic collection composed of three fifths: E-flat/B-flat, G/D, and B/F-sharp. Second, the presenter will model, again on the ‘Tonnetz’, the three types of its transformational possibilities: ‘transposition’, by which the pivot chord can take only four positions; ‘inversion’, by which the pivot chord can change its collection from hexatonic to octatonic; and ‘multiplication’, by which the pivot-chord can enlarge its collection from hexatonic to enneatonic as well as from octatonic to dodecatonic. Finally, the presenter will demonstrate that the harmonic dimension of Sur le même accord can be understood as various realizations of different transformational possibilities of the pivot chord.
It is worth noting that, in this respect, the solo violin may be a symbol of this freedom. It flies freely on the harmonic background constructed in this systematic way.