Topic theory

This thesis focuses on a particular stylistic period of Frederic Chopin. The 1840s show an important evolution of Chopin’s musical language and correspond to an aesthetic turning point, characterized by a difficult historical and biographical context. All along our research, we will try to build a transversal definition of Chopin’s last style by highlighting the recurrent characteristics of this period. In this purpose, a corpus of twenty-two works will be analyzed through several levels (traditional and formal, semiotic, narrative and thymic), to grasp all the issues of the last period of the polish composer.

Cette thèse s’intéresse à une période stylistique particulière du compositeur Frédéric Chopin. Les années 1840 manifestent une évolution importante dans son langage musical et correspondent à un tournant esthétique marqué par un contexte historique et biographique difficile. Tout au long de ce travail, nous allons tenter d’ériger une définition transversale du « dernier style » de Chopin, en recherchant les éléments caractéristiques récurrents de cette période. Dans ce but, un corpus de vingt-deux oeuvres musicales sera analysé selon plusieurs niveaux (traditionnel et formel, sémiotique, narratif et thymique) afin de saisir tous les enjeux de la dernière période du compositeur polonais.

This thesis explores ways of hearing formal organization at various levels in the album Parallax II: Future Sequence by the progressive metal band Between the Buried and Me. The album’s 72 minutes of densely packed, highly varied musical material offer an opportunity for a rich discussion of the ways in which progressive metal can invite hearing musical form across long spans of time, lead to the development of new theoretical concepts, and provide contexts for rethinking and expanding existing theories of musical organization. I take up these opportunities by way of three analytical strategies.
First, I examine motivic returns across various lengths of time, from those within single riff sections to those that span the entire album. I point out two ways in which motivic returns are often organized: as rotational constructions with static and variable components, and as Expanding Returns, in which material is expanded in some way each time it returns later in the song or album. I argue that these two ubiquitous constructions can be the basis for both local and long-term expectation and syntax.
Second, I explore the band’s extensive use of genre borrowing with reference to topic theory. I argue that unlike topics in classical era music, genre borrowing in much progressive metal can be heard as having syntactical and structural effects. In order to show how this works in detail in Parallax II, I introduce the concept of the Referential Musical Attribute Cluster and discuss the ways in which the track “Bloom,” the album’s most striking generic outlier, can be heard to have deep structural roots throughout the rest of the album.
Third, I analyze the song “Lay Your Ghosts to Rest” as a sonata form that dramatizes tensions between classical, rock, and metal harmonic and formal norms, which provides another way of hearing song-length form. I ultimately claim that these three types of norms not only coexist but are mutually co-constitutive, in that arguments based in rock harmony and metal formal organization lead to a more convincing sonata form reading, and the concept of sonata form gives metal and rock norms a distinct existence by setting them up as “others.”
Throughout my analyses, I hope to make the larger argument that progressive metal invites engagement with long-term form in many ways, some of which must be modeled with metal-specific analytical techniques (Section 1) and others of which can be modeled with adaptations of theoretical frameworks originally developed to discuss common practice music (Sections 2 and 3). I arrive at the conclusion in each section that a deeper structure and syntax can be attributed to the organization of certain types of musical features in Parallax II, in ways that are distinct from structures and syntaxes of common practice music but serve the same purpose of sustaining goal-directed, “linear time” listening (Kramer 1988: 20). In other words, I aim to show how features of this music tell listeners what to expect, and how what they are hearing is linked to what has come before. As such, I seek to not only explore and model intuitions about formal organization that have been part of my experience as an avid progressive metal listener (Lehrdahl and Jackendoff 1983: 1), but also to expand the applicability of existing formal theories (topics and sonata form) and metaphors (depth of structure) by adapting them to a new repertoire.

A fair amount of literature has been published on the use of musical topics in the works of eighteenth-century composers, with the writings of Leonard Ratner and Wendy Allanbrook among the most influential. Allanbrook, Ratner, and their disciples have shown how studying representations of topics in opera might allow for the recognition of those same musical characteristics when they appear in instrumental music. Although for these scholars the use of topics was an eighteenth-century practice, it is also useful to consider their use in nineteenth-century repertoire. Ratner's method can be used to create a guideline for the general musical topoi that Johannes Brahms uses in his late piano works through the examination of his other piano pieces, chamber music works, and songs. The comparison of Brahms' written tempo markings and the examination of textural elements such as rhythmic patterns, figurations, and key areas help support the identification of certain topical characteristics. Brahms' songs in particular offer instructive information on common textural topoi, where the text helps underline the given mood of a passage. The compilation of a list of musical topoi used by Brahms, one that reflects both the given period's and the composer's personal musical choices, furthers the understanding of Brahms' musical language and allows for more well-informed interpretations of his works.

Topics and harmonic schemata powerfully interact in the late-eighteenth-century communicative channel. This article illustrates both a categorial and pragmatic interfacing of the two domains in Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, where a particular schema-topic amalgam, the le–sol–fi–sol (Byros 2012, 2009), enables the communication of a powerful philosophical message involving the spiritual consequences of suffering, self-sacrifice, and death. The le–sol–fi–sol, as an instance of harmonic grammar, is also an ombra topic with mortal, funereal, and sacrificial connotations. As a hybrid symbolic structure, it is the basis for establishing a number of correlations of oppositions in the structural and expressive domains of the Symphony, which communicate a “tragic-to-transcendent” expressive genre and the cultural unit of “abnegation” (Hatten 1994).

Se ha escrito mucho sobre la película cubana La bella del Alhambra (ICAIC, 1989). Con ella, Enrique Pineda Barnet visibiliza la vida de una vedette de ese teatro habanero nombrada Amalia Sorg, personaje principal de la novela-testimonio Canción de Rachel (Letras Cubanas, 1963) del ensayista y etnólogo Miguel Barnet. Sin embargo, en cuanto a la banda sonora de una cinta que varios califican como «musical», no existe ningún análisis de lo que suena en ella y que ha ayudado a construir su mito como producto fílmico.
En apenas 1:49:45 se interpretan unos 30 temas incluyendo Canción de Rachel, una de las pocas piezas compuestas expresamente para la película. Por otra parte, en planos de escuchas marginales, los personajes entonan trozos de conocidas piezas de la época, los pregoneros anuncian sus productos con canciones; la protagonista tararea fragmentos de rondas infantiles, y casi al final, incluso, se escucha el Himno Nacional, a manera de paisaje sonoro de la Cuba de inicios del siglo XX.
Una república con vicios y marcados estratos sociales es la que está sintetizada en el filme. En el contexto que reproduce, el gusto por géneros foráneos como el foxtrot, el two-step, el ragtime, parece haber sido compartido por todos a la par del danzón, el bolero y el son, dando una sensación —la que transmite la película— de que todos los espacios están interconectados. El presente estudio pretende demostrar documentalmente cómo la música diegética que los personajes interpretan, así como la extradiegética que caracteriza el sonido de espacios y cinscuntancias en la cinta, pudo haber sonado en la escena del Alhambra o en la red de teatros aledaños, en las fiestas nocturnas habaneras y ambientes de recreo que aparecen en el guión. Como colofón, se analiza con herramientas retóricas la Canción de Rachel, síntesis sonora de los afectos de la protagonista.

This essay explores the relationship between the " sacred hymn topic " (McKee 2007) and the voice-leading pattern known as the Romanesca schema (Gjerdingen 2007). Specifically, I argue that in the late-eighteenth century composers attributed to this schema the spiritual meanings associated with the hymn topic—an idea suggested, but not fully developed, by Eric McKee. The role of the Romanesca as one of the signifiers of the sacred hymn will serve as a case study for the investigation of the interactions between schemata and topics. The first section introduces these concepts and presents some theoretical background. The core of the essay will then consist of a corpus study that investigates the expressive use of the basslines associated with the Romanesca between 1775–1799. I present evidence of the co-occurrence between schema and topic and discuss its linguistic and semiotic underpinnings. A series of analytical vignettes follows, providing further support to my claims and illustrating how studying the expressive properties of schemata can inform music analysis and contribute to recuperate historical modes of listening. Musical Topics and Galant Schemata McKee's sacred hymn topic Stereotypical plots, scenes, and character types populate eighteenth-century opera. These conventions determine not only dramaturgy but also composition, under the tacit principle that similar dramatic situations invite similar musical solutions. McKee has observed that eighteenth-century composers showed great consistency when writing music for religious scenes in opera (2007, 23-25). These episodes typically involve the adoration of deities from Classical or pagan mythologies and take the form of Eighteenth-century composers created a very specific musical idiom to depict religious scenes on the operatic stage. This stable coupling between signifier (musical attributes such as slow tempo, soft dynamics, chorale texture, and a I-V-vi opening) and signified (expressive attributes such as spirituality or transcendence) constitutes what McKee calls the " sacred hymn topic " (2007). The inclusion of a chord progression in the definition of a topic is unusual, but the sacred hymn contains precise harmonic and melodic features that coincide with the first stages of Gjerdingen's Romanesca schema (2007). By analyzing a corpus representative of the music heard in late eighteenth-century Vienna, this article reveals that the Romanesca, which originally lacked a semantic dimension, acquired sacred meanings over time. Musical examples from Haydn, Mozart, and their contemporaries provide further evidence of the spiritual connotations of the schema and illustrate its interactions with other elements of the musical structure.

We take music’s expressive power for granted. Yet, this aspect poses many puzzling problems for musicological research. One of them is how to approach the effect of music historically since satisfactory sources about music’s emotional qualities are rare and one needs to be cautious in transferring results of recent music psychology or cognitive musicology back to the 19th century. Therefore, the present article proposes a kind of historical music psychology. Developing a method partly inspired by systematic musicology, yet clearly historical, this study offers a possible solution to that problem. It does so by way of a case study on two specific and closely related kinds of loud music passages that have been labeled the ‘Glorifying Hymnic’ and the ‘Majestic Chorale’ respectively. It provides a definition of these types of music passages and—combining qualitative and quantitative approaches—it investigates the contemporary perception of these passages using evidence from contemporary witnesses. The sample focuses on orchestral music such as symphonies, concertos, symphonic poems, and overtures including works from Beethoven, Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Bristow, Brahms, Saint-Saëns, Tchaikovsky, Cliffe, and many other composers. In a final step, the article explores the dissemination of the ‘Glorifying Hymnic’ in 19th-century music and draws attention to contemporary historical events in an attempt to link the expression type of the ‘Glorifying Hymnic’ to historical events and phenomena such as nationalism, religion, and imperialism.

This dissertation investigates the role of the turn figure as a musical allusion to the turn figures of Wagner’s music dramas, focusing on the finale of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony and Wagner’s Parsifal. In doing so, it acts as a key contribution to the field by unearthing the turn figure as a new and previously unconsidered Wagnerian allusion in Mahler’s works. Additionally, it offers a fundamental rethinking of the turn not as a musical ornament but as a highly expressive and motivic device in the music of the nineteenth century. By examining the turn through the lens of topic theory, this thesis provides an analytical framework for evaluating the expressive nature of the figure and argues that the remit of topic theory should be expanded to include it. Consequently, it provides a re-evaluation of the topical lexicon and the terminology that is used for identifying and categorising new and emerging musical topics.
The first chapter provides an introduction to the turn figure, reviewing its emergence and development as a musical ornament and its transition to obtaining a unique motivic status in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Chapter two provides a case study examination of the five ‘turn motifs’ of Wagner’s Parsifal, exploring the purpose of the figure in each motif and considering the extra-musical associations the figure develops throughout the drama. The third chapter identifies and examines the wealth of Wagnerian-style turn figures that appear across Mahler’s oeuvre and simultaneously uses Mahler’s works to demonstrate the turn’s topical status. The final chapter pulls together the many threads of this thesis and shows the value of analytically investigating a work from the perspective of the turn figure, providing a detailed study of the role of the turn in the finale of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony.

Resumo em português:
Com a mudança no cenário musicológico internacional no final do século XX, o desenvolvimento da teoria das tópicas musicais encontrou terreno fértil nas análises sobre expressividade e significação do discurso musical. Apesar de seu principal objeto de estudo se pautar nas obras de compositores dos séculos XVIII e XIX, as tópicas musicais têm sido utilizadas como ferramentas de análise em obras de diversos períodos da música brasileira. Entretanto, pouco se tem pesquisado sobre a sua influência nas obras luso-brasileiras do período colonial. Nesta mesma senda, sabe-se que a obra religiosa de Marcos Portugal, importante compositor da Casa Real Portuguesa durante o reinado do príncipe regente D. João VI, também carece de atenção no âmbito das investigações musicológicas. Assim, diante destas duas carências, este trabalho pretende, como objetivo geral, observar as recorrências tópicas na Missa de Réquiem em Mi bemol maior de Marcos Portugal. O contexto fúnebre em que as Missas de Réquiem são compostas possibilita a ocorrência de jogos semânticos e simbólicos entre a música, a religião e a morte. Dessa forma, observamos como as tópicas de marcha fúnebre, ombra e tempesta são apresentadas no Réquiem de Marcos Portugal e como contribuem para a construção da expressividade e sentimentos comuns diante da morte: o temor pela condenação eterna e a esperança de salvação.

Título em inglês:
Music, Religion and Death: topical recurrences in Marcos Portugal Requiem Mass in E flat major.

Resumo em inglês:
The transition of the international musicology context in the late twentieth-century has made it possible for the development of Topic Theory to find a breeding ground for the analysis about musical discourse expressivity and signification. While its main object of research is based on works from eighteenth and nineteenth-century composers, musical topics have been used as analysis tools in musical works from several Brazilian music periods. Nevertheless, very little has been researched about its influences in Luso-Brazilian colonial musical works. Similarly, it is known that the religious works of Marcos Portugal, a relevant composer of the Royal House during the reign of the Regent Prince D. João VI, also requires further attention as far as musicological investigations are concerned. Thus, given these two shortcomings, the aim of this study is to look for topical recurrences in Marcos Portugal Requiem Mass in E flat major. The funeral context in which Requiem Masses are composed makes the occurrence of semantic and symbolic games between music, religion and death, possible. In this way, we have noticed how funeral march, ombra and tempesta topics are employed in Marcos Portugal Requiem and how these topics contribute to the construction of expressivity and common feelings before death: awe of the eternal damnation and hope of salvation.

Historically informed analysis reveals a very different conception of hero in the Eroica than the one sustained in the popular imagination and perpetuated by the majority of its reception history: a militaristic or Napoleonic Heldenleben. By combining analytic perspectives from schema theory and topic theory with key passages from Beethoven’s epistolary life and Tagebuch, this chapter illustrates that the Eroica’s narrative is akin to religious drama, conveying the same theme of abnegation found in the contemporary oratorio Christus am Ölberge and the Heiligenstadt Testament, the Eroica’s ‘literary prototype’. Unlike some middle-period works which communicate a ‘tragic-to-triumphant’ expressive genre, the Eroica is cast in the ‘tragic-to-transcendent’ type, which became characteristic of Beethoven’s late style. A central component of this spiritual genre is the strategic positioning of structural and semantic oppositions in an unresolved state of suspension. The Eroica manifests this most overtly through a governing opposition between death (‘ombra’) and pastoral (‘Ländler, contredanse’) music, and the association of this stylistic opposition with the tonalities of G minor and E flat major, respectively. Rather than a programmatic narrative about a hero who overcomes, the Eroica is a conceptually ‘late’ work that meditates on suffering as a spiritual necessity and its implications for transcendence.

Linguistic theories disagree on whether reference should be analyzed as an intensional or an extensional phenomenon. In fact, since any description of a situation must have an observer as well as something observed (at least in principle; whether the described situation actually exists is of little consequence), reference is bound to have intensional as well as extensional traits. Some linguistic phenomena simply show up only in a strictly intensional, others in an extensional analysis. Furthermore, the choice of analysis should follow from the linguist’s purpose: Communication should be analyzed mainly in intensional terms, while a subject analysis of a written text may have the most to gain from an extensional analysis. Specificity, existence, identifiability, genericity, habituality, location and tense are identified as being clear instances of categories that are best analyzed using an intensional analysis, while aspect and number are the most clearly extensional phenomena.

El artículo se propone estudiar la relación entre la música y las figuras de la mujer representadas en la película Safo, historia de una pasión dirigida por Carlos Hugo Christensen. El director inaugura un cambio en la cinematografía de la época al introducir a principios de la década del ’40 temáticas audaces como el erotismo, las pasiones turbulentas, el suicidio, las traiciones o el divorcio.
El encargado de la música es George Andreani, un compositor nacido en Varsovia en 1901 que se forma musicalmente en Berlín, Viena y Praga, y que antes de llegar a la Argentina huyendo del nazismo, ya había compuesto numerosas bandas musicales y recibido premios en Checoslovaquia y Francia. A partir del film El inglés de los güesos (1940), Christensen y Andreani forman un tándem estrecho entre director y compositor, como queda evidenciado en los más de veinte títulos en los que trabajan juntos
La cohesión compositiva de la música está basada fundamentalmente en el uso del leitmotiv de impronta wagneriana que se presenta asociado a los personajes de Selva, la femme fatal, Irene la adolescente ingenua y Teresa, la tía santa. En forma paralela a construcción musical de los personajes, la banda musical se adhiere al arco dramático subrayando los climas y emociones. Andreani maneja la orquestación con pericia mediante un uso rico y contrastante de la paleta tímbrica, explotando los recursos de los lenguajes romántico y post-romántico.
El personaje de Selva (la femme fatal) interpretado por Mecha Ortiz está asociado leitmotívicamente a un vals lento y pastoso, trabajado con ritmos apuntillados y con la melodía a cargo de las cuerdas interpretado con portamentos connotando la sensualidad y densidad de esta mujer experimentada. Es el motivo más desarrollado a lo largo del film y el que sufre las mayores transformaciones. Su progresiva ruptura y fragmentación construida mediante contrastes de registro, orquestación y ritmos genera la variedad de climas conforme la trama se tensiona.
Como contraposición, el motivo musical de Irene (la ingenua) interpretado por Mirtha Legrand es elegante y brillante, asociado al tópico musical del minuet. La banda sonora presenta un tercer motivo, asociado a la Teresa (la tía del protagonista) construido en base al tópico de “la mañana”, de carácter pastoral y bucólico no sólo representa al personaje sino también al espacio rural idílico y católico.
Uno de los hallazgos del trabajo es la relación entre los estereotipos de mujer que aparecen en las películas y su trascendencia más allá de la pantalla en la vida de las actrices, cuestión que se verifica en la representación de las estrellas del cine en las revistas de la época de manera análoga a las figuras que representan en los filmes, tanto en las fotografías como los textos y entrevistas.
El artículo toma como enfoque teórico a la teoría de género, en particular, a las aplicaciones de esta perspectiva para estudiar el cine y la música, como el trabajo pionero de Laura Mulvey para el cine clásico (Mulvey, 2001), el libro germinal de Susan McClary que aborda la música desde una musicología feminista (McClary, 2002) y los enfoques más recientes de Pilar Ramos López (Ramos López, 2003) y Laura Viñuela (Viñuela Suárez, 2003). Para el abordaje del análisis musical consideramos a la Teoría Tópica, (Ratner, 1980) que permite desentrañar la construcción del sentido musical a través de los tópicos como unidades discursivas que cobran sentido en un contexto sociocultural.
Metodológicamente, realizamos un cruce entre las herramientas del análisis musical con el análisis fílmico atravesado con el marco teórico propuesto y complementado con fuentes documentales como entrevistas y artículos de prensa de la época.

Comment le timbre pianistique est-il susceptible d’entrer en jeu dans la signification musicale lisztienne ? Dans la réflexion proposée, la démarche fondée sur la dimension timbrique de la forme, et dans laquelle l’interprétation sémantique s’appuie sur une analyse préalable des structures musicales, amène à considérer le rôle du timbre dans l’élaboration du sens musical. La dimension timbrique des topiques lisztiens est examinée au niveau inférieur de la forme par le biais des pièces « Funérailles » et « Orage ». Par l’imitation et la stylisation de sonorités extra-musicales tels le glas et le tonnerre, les signifiants s’y dotent d’une dimension timbrique permettant de préciser et de concrétiser les signifiés. Dans la pièce « Andante lagrimoso », l’expression de l’élévation se trouve matérialisée, au niveau supérieur de la forme, par l’évolution de la brillance spectrale, confirmant ainsi la spécificité pianistique des topiques lisztiens examinés.

How may pianistic timbre contribute to Lisztian musical signification ? In the proposed reflection, the approach based on timbral dimension of form, and in which semantic interpretation relies on preliminary analysis of musical structures, leads to consider the role of timbre in the elaboration of musical meaning. Timbral dimension of Lisztian topics is examined at low level of form through both pieces « Funérailles » and « Orage ». Through imitation and stylization of extra-musical sonorities such as death knell and thunder, signifiers are provided with a timbral dimension allowing to precise and concretize signifieds. In the piece « Andante lagrimoso », the expression of elevation is materialised, at high level of form, by the evolution of spectral brightness, thus confirming the pianistic specificity of Lisztian examined topics.

The focus of this article on the so-called festive quality of Beethoven’s music rests on two mutually related areas of interest, namely, the increasing role loudness played in nineteenth-century music and an understanding of the emotional effect music had on listeners of that era. An examination of the expressive quality and meaning of the finale of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony—a prototype of festiveness—encompasses three lines of inquiry: an investigation of the tradition from which such qualities stem; the consideration of texts accompanied by the same type of music (for instance Egmont, Choral Fantasy); and a determination of the specific dramatic manifestation of this expressive quality in Beethoven’s music. Finally, a socio-psychological hypothesis concerning the significance of this mode of expression is proposed.

[Translation of “Festlichkeit. Expressive Qualität und historische Semantik bei Beethoven,” in Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 70 (2013), pp. 161–190; the page numbers oft he German version are to be found in square brackets.]

Los tópicos del tango en la obra de Juan José Castro
El compositor argentino Juan José Castro (1895-1968) construyó su estética apelando a tres lenguajes musicales: el tango, la música española de sus ancestros y el lenguaje internacional de su época que le resultó afín, especialmente el neoclasicismo. En este trabajo abordaré las obras en las que Castro emplea el tango como fuente de construcción de su universo musical. Aplicaré para su análisis la teoría tópica. En primer lugar detectando cuáles son los tópicos utilizados. Luego reconstruyendo el sentido cultural de dichos tópicos para determinar de qué forma adquieren significado tanto para el compositor como para el oyente. Si bien Castro rechazaba el nacionalismo musical superficial y exotista, manifestó en varias ocasiones su voluntad de desarrollar un lenguaje musical argentino. Son cinco las obras en las que Castro construye tópicos que remiten al universo del tango. En la Sinfonía Argentina (1934), los Corales Criollos N° 1 (1947) y los Corales N° 3 (1953), emplea esos tópicos como parte de la geografía musical argentina; en Tangos para piano (1941) como una invocación más directa y complejamente descriptiva del género; y en la ópera Proserpina y el Extranjero (1951), como la exteriorización más clara de su voluntad de construir un lenguaje musical argentino. Estos tópicos representan una manera particular de considerar el tango, propia de la vivencia personal de Castro y de las características del género y sus múltiples vínculos sociales y culturales. Abordaré la visión contemporánea del tango por parte de notorios  artistas plásticos (Emilio Petorutti, Antonio Berni), escritores (Jorge Luis Borges, Raúl González Tuñón) y ensayistas. El análisis de estos rasgos del discurso musical de Castro me permitirá arribar a una comprensión más cercana de la presencia de tópicos del tango en su obra, como herramienta de construcción de su identidad musical, y de la importancia de este corpus en la música académica argentina.
Tango topics in the work of Juan José Castro
The Argentine composer Juan José Castro (1895-1968) built his aesthetic by using three musical languages: Tango, Spanish Music and the international musical language of his time that he felt closer to him, especially neoclassicism. In this paper I will discuss the works in which Castro uses the tango as a source for building his musical universe. I will apply the topical theory in order to analyze this corpus. First, by detecting which are the topics that Castro applies to his discourse. Afterwards, by rebuilding the cultural resonance of those topics to determine how they acquire meaning for both composer and listener. While Castro rejected the superficial examples of musical nationalism (exoticism and mere citations of vernacular music), he repeatedly expressed its willingness to develop an Argentine musical language. There are five works in which Castro constructed musical topics that refer to the world of tango. In Sinfonía Argentina (1934 ), Corales criollos No. 1 ( 1947) and Corales Criollos No. 3 (1953 ), Castro employs tango topics as part of Argentina's musical geography ; in Tangos for piano (1941 ) as a more direct and descriptive invocation of the gender, even in a complex intertwined of topics; finally, in the opera Proserpina y el Extranjero ( 1951), as the more clear expression of the will to build an Argentine musical language. These topics represent a particular way of seeing the tango, that comes from the own personal experience of Castro, and also from specific characteristics of the genre and its many social and cultural ties. I will address also to the contemporary vision of tango by notorious artists (painters Emilio Petorutti , Antonio Berni ) , writers (Jorge Luis Borges , Raúl González Tuñón ) and essayists . The analysis of these traits through the theory of topics will allow me to reach a closer understanding of the presence of the tango in the work of Juan Jose Castro, and the importance of this corpus in argentine academic music.

In this article I examine Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Prelude to Bachianas Brasileiras no. 2 from the perspective of topic theory. I begin by raising some theoretical issues about topic theory and rhetoricity, intertextuality and music narrativity. After a brief historical contextualisation of the work, I present analytical comments on the Prelude’s sections. In the conclusion, I present a cultural interpretation of the analysis, complementing the analysis’ results with the theory of narrativity to offer an interpretation of this piece.

Dans ce travail, nous nous proposons d’expliciter et d’analyser plus en avant les grands thèmes ou topoï qui sous-tendent et organise l’univers sémantique du champ lexical de la politesse.

Un topos, dans un premier temps, est un cadre, un modèle ou encore une vue qui thématise (interprète) un objet donné. Plus techniquement parlant, le topos est la configuration sémantique qui caractérise le sens d’un objet quelconque pour un actant donné. En thématisant un objet ou un domaine, le topos affirme donc quelque chose à propos de cet objet de référence en le qualifiant ou en le taxant d’un ensemble de caractéristiques qui possèdent une valeur – i.e. une pertinence – pour un actant donné (un actant est un rôle qui peut se manifester de façon très diverses sous forme d’un acteur social, d’un acteur imaginaire, etc.).

Ce travail fait partie d’un travail de recherche plus ambitieux que nous nous proposons de publier en 2017 et qui non seulement vise une analyse plus systématique des topoï sous-tendant le champ lexical de la politesse mais aussi des structures narratives (au sens d’A.J. Greimas (1966 ; 1979)) qui utilisent et exploitent ces topoï. Les structures narratives de la politesse sont extrêmement riches et variées et ne peuvent pas être discutées ici d’une manière satisfaisante. En tout cas, leur connaissance est essentielle pour bien comprendre non seulement les récits et autres discours thématisant la politesse mais aussi les actions et interactions quotidiennes – institutionnalisées ou « spontanées - qui ont trait à la politesse.

Enfin, pour expliciter et décrire les principaux topoï qui structurent l’univers sémantique de la politesse, nous nous appuierons essentiellement sur les données que nous offre l’exceptionnel TLFi (Trésor de la Langue Française Informatisé) du CNRTL (Centre National des Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales) .

Resumen En este trabajo me referiré a un conjunto de obras académicas tempranas de Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992), datadas entre 1943 y 1951 y encuadradas en el neoclasicismo, en las que se observan elementos del folclore musical argentino. El hecho de que Alberto Ginastera-con quien Piazzolla estudió entre 1940 y 1945-es aún hoy considerado en parte como un compositor nacionalista me ha llevado a indagar una eventual adscripción de Piazzolla al nacionalismo musical en algún momento de sus comienzos como compositor. Para estudiarlo voy a determinar cuál es el vínculo que estas obras pueden evidenciar con el nacionalismo. Para el análisis recurro a la teoría tópica, y en especial a su aplicación por parte de Melanie Plesch, quien la emplea para identificar el universo de tópicos que usan los compositores nacionalistas para establecer la "argentinidad" en sus composiciones. La importancia de establecer esa filiación es que nos permite luego proponer que estas obras fueron el antecedente que necesitaba Piazzolla para realizar el siguiente paso: la incorporación de material tanguístico, en vez de criollo, en sus obras académicas. Palabras claves: composiciones académicas de Piazzolla, nacionalismo musical, folclore musical argentino.

El lugar que ocupa el compositor Conrado del Campo (1878-1953) en el discurso historiográfico que la musicología española ha generado en los úl-timos años resulta un tanto contradictorio. Si bien no hay duda en conside-rarlo como uno de los grandes compositores del panorama musical madrileño del primer tercio del siglo XX, su obra ha permanecido injusta-mente olvidada-tanto por estudiosos como por intérpretes-, salvo contados ejemplos en relación a su creación camerística y, en menor medida, a su The Operatic Identity of Conrado del Campo in Víctor Espinós' Retablos Los pocos estudios realizados hasta la fecha sobre la figura de Conrado del Campo han coincidido en señalar su gran temperamento lírico, cualidad que se refleja en su catálogo en más de 25 títulos, entre óperas, zarzuelas y otros géneros de música teatral. En este tra-bajo proponemos una aproximación a la lírica del maestro a partir de una sección muy concreta de su producción, la música escrita para los retablos de Víctor Espinós entre 1927 y 1930: Antaño o un corpus viejo en Madrid (1927), El cielo y Madrid se casan (1928), El reta-blo de fray Luis (1928) y El retablo de los remedios (1930). Usando la teoría de tópicos, nos acercaremos a estas obras para mostrar alguna de las prácticas compositivas que Del Campo ensayó durante ese momento de su vida para plasmar su concepción de la identidad lírica española en un género tan particular como el retablo musical. Palabras clave: Conrado del Campo, Víctor Espinós, tardo-romanticismo, tópico musical , cadencia andaluza, identidad lírica española.

The few studies that have been published to date about Conrado del Campo have highlighted his great temperament for theatre music, a quality that is reflected in his large catalogue with more than 25 works, including operas, zarzuelas and other genres for the stage. This study examines the composer's theatre music, considering the works he composed for Victor Espinós' retablos between 1927 and 1930: Antaño o un corpus viejo en Madrid (1927), El cielo y Madrid se casan (1928), El retablo de fray Luis (1928) y El retablo de los remedios (1930). Using topic theory, these works will be analysed to show some of the compositional practices Del Campo trialled at this point of his life in order to reflect his conception of the Spanish operatic identity within a genre as peculiar as the musical retablo.

This article examines a hypothetical compositional and pedagogical use of the Langloz manuscript, a collection of German partimenti, during the time of J. S. Bach. The partimento is reconceptualized as a bridge to free composition, by aligning it with what Bach and his Thuringian and Hamburgian neighbors (including Werckmeister, Walther, Niedt, and Mattheson) called inventiones: materials for free composition that are subject to substantial development, involving processes of elaboration, variation, extension, and expansion. My argument is borne out by a historically informed practical demonstration: my own composition of a Prelude in D minor, which broadly derives from the partimento-prelude numbered 48 in the manuscript. The transformation of a simple thoroughbass into a fully worked-out composition pivots on two species of invention and their development, one structural, the other stylistic: 1) a genre-specific structuring principle that is coded into the partimento; for the prelude genre, this concerns long-range scale-harmonizations spanning 1–4 octaves; the principle recurs in several preludes of The Langloz Manuscript and of The Well-Tempered Clavier; and 2) the subject (thema) of a composition, which results from novel combinations of musical topics (Manieren), and the constructive imitation of other composers’ uses of styles and genres (locus exemplorum).

Applying topic theory to the study of rhetorics of identity in Latin-American art music, the author examines the topos of the huella, a dance and song that came to signify the “distance and loneliness” of the Argentinean Pampas. The article traces the “genealogy” of this topos in the 19th and 20th centuries connecting it to a broader cultural trope in literature and the visual arts, and to the ideology of cultural nationalism in Argentina.

As is well known, the lexicon used to describe what we now refer to as “the creative process” shifted its focus during Early Modernity from imitation (imitatio) to invention (inventio). The latter category, though still considered an essential component of rhetoric, evolved a separate and yet still related meaning in the domains of poetry and the visual arts. Invention thus came to refer not only to the collecting of rhetorical arguments, but also to the origination and development of semantic artistic programs, which was explained by referencing the psychological concept of imagination (phantasia). While this overall development has received scholarly attention, there remain many lacunae. Indeed, the majority of the literature on invention focuses on literary invention, whether rhetorical or poetic. The domains of visual and manual invention, notwithstanding their evident relevance, remain understudied.

This paper examines the 15th century book on architecture written by the Florentine sculptor Antonio Averlino, known as Filarete. Filarete wrote his Libro architettonico (as he calls it) in large part to teach his then-patron, Duke Franceso Sforza of Milan, how to be a good patron. In doing so, Filarete adduces a number of guidelines about how to find, evaluate, and cultivate architectural ideas. These guidelines resemble nothing so much as rhetorical/dialectical topics, which were traditionally recognized as the heart of the rhetorical canon of invention. This paper begins by offering a theoretical reading of the topics as an art that finds linkages between disparate concepts, locutions, and things. On that basis, the paper goes on to read Filarete’s Libro as an attempt to articulate what might be called an architectural topics, by which is meant a set of guidelines meant to govern architectural invention. In shedding additional light on the complex conflation of literary invention and artistic creativity in Early Modernity, this paper aims to improve our understanding of the relationship between rhetorical invention and artistic creativity.

Estudios bandísticos • Wind Band Studies 4 (2020), pp. 141-161.

The  composer  Pablo  Sorozábal  attained one  of  his  great  popular  hits  thanks  to  his Marcha  de  Deva  (Deva  March)  despite  its marginal position in his catalogue, as the first of just two pieces for wind orchestra. It was firstly composed in 1936 for the Basque militia fighting at Madrid’s front during the Spanish Civil War – a time when he was conductor of the city’s Wind Symphony. Yet, it wouldn’t become popular until it  was  released  in  a  different,  merely  festive context, in 1956. Finally, in 1966, the march was newly  arranged  and  recorded  so  as  to gain  a current rebellious tinge. Thus, such a process of musical recycling evinces the dynamic potential of  any  sound  text  to  be resignified  in  various socio-political  circumstances.  Taking  account of those changing conditions, an analysis of the score –and, especially, of the folk musical topics there  brought  into  play–  reveals  the  author’s controversial idiosyncrasy, as well as the cultural bearing of what, otherwise, could be neglected as a minor work.

Chorale as a genre originated in sixteenth-century Lutheran worship music, but chorales and chorale style did not really enter the vocabulary of secular concert music as a musical topic until the eighteenth century, as a semiotic code for ideas and feelings associated with chorales.  Chorales by definition are congregational, identifying and expressing the sentiments of a group, and their most common associations are of purity, archaism, and of course spirituality. 
When chorales are used topically, the range of their expressive perspectives broadens considerably, and varies widely depending on the context.  Chorale topic can express a religious or nationalistic “We,” a monumental and impersonal “It,” or an intimate and personal “I.”  Within the category of  “I” expressions, chorale topic can express the irony and despair of the “I” separated from the “We,” or on the other hand, the comfort, guidance, or transcendence of the separated “I” seeking and finding its community or communion.  Nineteenth-century composers—Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Schumann, among others—provide many examples of chorale topic with these types of personal expression.  Analyzing the contexts and meanings of “I” chorales is essential to understanding chorale topic as a whole, which increased in frequency of use as well as range of contexts and implied meanings from the eighteenth to the nineteenth centuries.

Perscrutar os meandros pelos quais um compositor transita para a construção de um discurso musical exige do analista uma visão que atine para as múltiplas dimensões da obra, levando em consideração, além dos elementos intrínsecos à mesma, elementos extrínsecos significativos para que da análise resultem interpretações que respeitem as especificidades do autor e de seu tempo. Tendo em vista este paradigma, a abordagem analítica que este estudo adota tem por objetivo lançar luz sobre os procedimentos compositivos na derradeira obra do padre-mestre João de Deus do Castro Lobo (1794-1832), os Seis Responsórios Fúnebres, compostos em data próxima ao seu falecimento, tomando por base três perspectivas analíticas que se assentam em premissas teóricas da época: tópicos musicais, schemata e elementos retórico-musicais. Intenta-se, com isto, vincular autor e obra a uma tradição de escrita que remete ao Estilo Galante. Para além da identificação de procedimentos, busca-se interpretar os dados como elementos fundantes de uma estratégia criativa e comunicativa mais ampla. Assim, ao conjugar o conteúdo musical com o texto litúrgico, pretende-se evidenciar o tratamento estilístico e as nuances expressivas no discurso musical estabelecido pelo compositor, demonstrando que as recorrências de procedimentos musicais podem estar imbuídas de significado afetivo e social.

Palavras-chave: João de Deus do Castro Lobo; Música Brasileira; Teoria e Análise Musical; Tópicos Musicais, Schemata e Retórica Musical; Responsórios Fúnebres.

To investigate the meanders through which a composer moves in the construction of a musical discourse requires from the analyst a vision that touches on the multiple dimensions of the work, taking into account, besides the intrinsic elements of the work, significant extrinsic elements so that the analysis results in interpretations that respect the specificities of the author and his time. In view of this paradigm, the analytical approach adopted in this study aims to shed light on the compositional procedures in the last work of the priest-master João de Deus do Castro Lobo (1794-1832), the Six Funeral Responsories, composed at a date close to his death, based on three analytical perspectives that are based on theoretical premises of the time: musical topics, schemata and rhetorical-musical elements. With this, we try to link author and work to a tradition of writing that refers to the Galant Style. Besides the identification of procedures, the aim is to interpret the data as founding elements of a broader creative and communicative strategy. Thus, by combining the musical content with the liturgical text, the aim is to highlight the stylistic treatment and expressive nuances in the musical discourse established by the composer, demonstrating that the recurrence of musical procedures can be imbued with affective and social meaning.

Keywords: João de Deus do Castro Lobo; Brazilian Music; Music Theory and Analysis; Musical Topics, Schemata and Musical Rhetoric; Funeral Responsories.

This study presents a brief analytical description of the production process, recording and sound result of jazzy theme entitled Baião D'Aveiro. This musical composition by my own its part of my jazz album (Dom Angelo - Porto, 2015, Figure 1 and 2) that will be analyzed in theoretical foundations as one of the portions of my doctoral thesis. My research seeks to understand and elucidate the musical, social and historical characteristics of the genre known as Brazilian Jazz. As the main analysis tool, I am seeking to illustrate the process of musical rhetoric, using the "Topical Theory" applied to
Brazilian music, work begun by Piedade (1997, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2011 and 2013). The word "transnationalism" is used in this poster as a way to metaphorize the internationalization of Brazilian music and its ownership by jazz musicians from Portugal, with attention to the music genre which refers to a regional and deep Brazil, Baião. The process of artistic understanding and easiness performance of the Portuguese musicians related to this musical genre, reveals the main diagnosis of this academic publication.

... Es ley de esta febril vida moderna no mirar atrás ... The idea of the gaucho interrupting his playing to engage in a fight can also be found in iconographic sources and is exemplified by Figure 3, an illustration by Juan Peláez published in the cover of the magazine El Hogar in 1920 ...

We take music’s expressive power for granted. Yet, this aspect poses many puzzling problems for musicological research. One of them is how to approach the effect of music historically since satisfactory sources about music’s emotional qualities are rare and one needs to be cautious in transferring results of recent music psychology or cognitive musicology back to the 19th century. Therefore, the present article proposes a kind of historical music psychology. Developing a method partly inspired by systematic musicology, yet clearly historical, this study offers a possible solution to that problem. It does so by way of a case study on two specific and closely related kinds of loud music passages that have been labeled the ‘Glorifying Hymnic’ and the ‘Majestic Chorale’ respectively. It provides a definition of these types of music passages and—combining qualitative and quantitative approaches—it investigates the contemporary perception of these passages using evidence from contemporary...

The article, which functions as an introduction of the dossier of the same name, argues that both mainstream (European) and vernacular topics play equally important roles in the construction of meaning in Latin American art music. It also suggests the existence of Latin American "topics of Europe", i.e., musical configurations that--to Latin Americans--may signify "Europe". Offers a brief critique of the use of "musical nationalism" as a historiographical category when applied to the Latin American case. It suggests that studying the use, function and
semantic status of European musical topics and the strategies of their adoption, adaptation and re-signification in Latin American art music is as relevant to our understanding of this music as the use of vernacular topics and the establishment of local topical universes.

El presente trabajo aborda al desconocido compositor de origen catalán Juan Paris (ca. 1759-1845) a través de una parte de su producción musical religiosa desarrollada en condición de maestro de capilla en la Catedral de Santiago de Cuba de 1805 a 1845. Producto de la falta de datos previos a la llegada de este compositor a la Isla, la investigación carece del habitual relato biográfico. En su lugar, se propone el conocimiento de esta figura por medio del análisis contextualizado de sus villancicos de Navidad, fechados entre 1805 y 1824.
El estudio musical —bajo la perspectica de la teoría de los tópicos musicales y la retórica musical—se centra en un corpus de veintinueve villancicos conservados completos, mediante los cuales es posible establecer el proceso compositivo de Paris y su aportación al género, en un periodo en que la práctica de creación e interpretación de villancicos comenzaba a estar en declive. A lo largo de tres periodos analizados se observan las diferentes orientaciones formales y estilísticas de sus obras. Así se ve cómo el compositor otorga mayor importancia al esquema estructural híbrido en el que se mantienen elementos del estilo tradicional del villancico (Estribillo y/o Coplas) junto a rasgos de estilo italianizante (Recitativo y Aria, especialmente el Aria da capo). Este esquema se desarrolla a lo largo de los dos primeros períodos analizados (1805-1814), mientras que en el último (1815-1824) ocurre una considerable reducción de esta estructura en favor de resultantes que responden a un interés teatral.
A través de la documentación colateral se reconstruye igualmente las condiciones del contexto histórico y político de estos años en las ciudades de La Habana y Santiago de Cuba. Se recomponen los avatares políticos y sociales de un período como la Guerra de Independencia española, cuyas implicaciones culturales en el proceso histórico estaban pendientes de ser analizadas en Cuba. Asimismo, se establecen con respaldo documental las características de la actividad teatral en La Habana y Santiago de Cuba contemporáneas a la creación de villancicos de Paris para la Catedral, entendiendo que son aspectos que condicionaron su producción e interpretación musical.