Donald Martinos Fantasies And Impromptus

Author : Laurann Littleton
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 346 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (147 download)

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Download or read book An Analysis of Martino's Fantasies and Impromptus for Solo Piano (1981) written by Laurann Littleton and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Under the influence of Ernst Bacon at Syracuse University, Donald Martino, an undergraduate clarinetist, first turned to composing music in 1949. As a result, on leaving Syracuse in 1952, Martino went on to Princeton to study composition with Roger Sessions and twelve-tone innovator Milton Babbitt. Nevertheless, Babbitt did not first interest Martino in twelve-tone music; rather, Luigi Dallapiccola's music inspired Martino to investigate the twelve-tone system when Martino went to Italy to study with Dallapiccola in 1954. Twelve-tone music "sparked" Martino's ear. To him, its use seemed to evolve naturally as a means of controlling the chromaticism which hod come to dominate his music under the influence of Bartók. One of the hallmarks of Martino's music is indeed the use of twelve-tone techniques. In addition to continuing Babbitt's practice of using musical dimensions such as register, timbre, and dynamics to project a row, Martino has continued and extended a technique actually begun by Schoenberg: using the pitch-class content of segments of the row in a "harmonic" capacity, adding a vertical dimension to the row. According to Schoenberg, the "association of tones into harmonies ... is regulated" by the order of pitch-classes in the row. Like other twelve-tone composers (such as Berg and Dallapiccola), Martino often uses the row in a purely referential capacity, generating sections of music which have no clear statement of either the row itself or its unordered segments. However, the intriguing craft with which Martino uses the row as a reference sets him apart from previous composers. Indeed, one of the goals of analyzing Martino's music is to determine the ways in which he Under the influence of Ernst Bacon at Syracuse University, Donald Martino, an undergraduate clarinetist, first turned to composing music in 1949. As a result, on leaving Syracuse in 1952, Martino went on to Princeton to study composition with Roger Sessions and twelve-tone innovator Milton Babbitt. Nevertheless, Babbitt did not first interest Martino in twelve-tone music; rather, Luigi Dallapiccola's music inspired Martino to investigate the twelve-tone system when Martino went to Italy to study with Dallapiccola in 1954. Twelve-tone music "sparked" Martino's ear. To him, its use seemed to evolve naturally as a means of controlling the chromaticism which hod come to dominate his music under the influence of Bartók. One of the hallmarks of Martino's music is indeed the use of twelve-tone techniques. In addition to continuing Babbitt's practice of using musical dimensions such as register, timbre, and dynamics to project a row, Martino has continued and extended a technique actually begun by Schoenberg: using the pitch-class content of segments of the row in a "harmonic" capacity, adding a vertical dimension to the row. According to Schoenberg, the "association of tones into harmonies ... is regulated" by the order of pitch-classes in the row. Like other twelve-tone composers (such as Berg and Dallapiccola), Martino often uses the row in a purely referential capacity, generating sections of music which have no clear statement of either the row itself or its unordered segments. However, the intriguing craft with which Martino uses the row as a reference sets him apart from previous composers. Indeed, one of the goals of analyzing Martino's music is to determine the ways in which he uses the potentials of the row in non-row passages.