Durational pacing in Handel's instrumental works: The nature of temporality in the music of the high Baroque.
Item
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Title
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Durational pacing in Handel's instrumental works: The nature of temporality in the music of the high Baroque.
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Identifier
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AAI3159267
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identifier
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3159267
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Creator
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Willner, Channan.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Carl Schachter
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Date
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2005
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Music
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Abstract
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For all the advances in musicology and music theory during the past century, we still know very little about Baroque phrase rhythm and temporality---what determines the length of phrases and periods, how phrases and periods relate, or how the music flows at a steady beat without becoming monotonous. These and many related questions cut across the border between theory and history, and they invite interdisciplinary exploration, one that includes narrative theory. To find some answers we must first relate the tonal and the durational components of the music to each other and to the narrative discourse of the composition. With this task in mind, I tackle the joint phenomena of pacing and pace expansion, treating them as the critical common denominators that run through all the elements of the music. It is they who forge a network of tonal, durational, and narrative links between the elements.;From the hierarchy of paces I single out the basic pace---the underlying, even movement of the outer voices---as the durational component that articulates both the contrapuntal and the narrative structures of the piece. The basic pace is the durational earmark of Bach's, Handel's, and Scarlatti's high instrumental style. While I limit my investigation to Handel's keyboard and orchestral works, I demonstrate how my approach may be modified to tackle the more informal rhythms that animate the middle style of Vivaldi, Telemann, and Couperin.;To penetrate the narrative discourse of each piece, I link the developmental and progressive expansion of the basic pace (which ranges from plain sequential expansions to double, triple, quadruple, or even larger sequential expansions) to the realization of plot archetypes that are common in the compositions of the high style. I then trace the prevalence of both expansion and archetype to tensions between assorted borrowings: Handel, like other composers, often selects borrowings that are purposely incompatible with each other.;In order to carry out this analytical inquiry, which occupies chapters 1, 4, and 5, I include a theoretical survey of Handel's duple and triple meters in chapters 2 and 3. I use the survey to show how norms of pacing, grouping, and displacement form the stage on which the plot archetypes, the narrative discourse, and the expansion of the basic pace are played out in concert with each other.;Going beyond the enlargement of pace, I conclude that it is the phenomenon of expansion in its many garbs---motivic enlargement, grouping modulation, incremental periodicity, to name but a few---that helps tie all these seemingly disparate elements of the music's temporality together. By transforming an explicit or implicit model into a spacious developmental entity, each expansion enables the composition to argue, propel, and resolve its narrative argument despite the unrelenting momentum of the surface.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
