Rhythm as form: Rhythmic hierarchy in later twentieth-century piano music.
Item
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Title
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Rhythm as form: Rhythmic hierarchy in later twentieth-century piano music.
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Identifier
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AAI3306976
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identifier
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3306976
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Creator
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Vojcic, Aleksandra.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Phillip Rupprecht
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Date
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2008
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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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This study focuses on structurally salient rhythmic structures in piano works by composers active in the later twentieth century, and develops a conceptual framework adequate to the problems the repertoire poses. It develops a hierarchical concept of rhythm, starting at the level of pulse and culminating in large-scale formal divisions. Rhythmic hierarchy is defined in terms of three perceptible strata: the foreground, the middleground, and the background.;Since the focus of this study is on rhythmic form, the discussion of the rhythmic foreground is largely incorporated into the conceptual framework developed for the middleground and the background. However, as part of this interaction between hierarchical levels, taleas, beat trains, and arithmetical patterns of inter-onset intervals between beats and beat-groups appear as examples of organized rhythmic impulses that can be transferred from the foreground to the middleground.;The rhythmic middleground is largely examined via recurring composite metric patterns I term meta-measures. Meta-measures organize tactus beats and beat groups into coherent middleground periodicites, and I demonstrate the types of structural boundaries identified specifically for composite metric patterns. The formal significance of meta-measure patterns is summarized via an original analytical representation called the time signature map.;Additionally, this study identifies different modes of interaction between meta-measures and other significant rhythmic processes such as polyphony and tempo modulation, and my tempo maps summarize these interactions as well. The concept of flexible cycles, which is often limited to rhythmic figures, is also extended to meta-measure patterns.;The rhythmic (and formal) background is identified with rhythmic scaffolding. Rhythmic scaffolding comprises a series of structural markers that represent structurally salient rhythmic events in one or more pulse streams. In this study, rhythmic scaffolding is summarized by original graphic representations such as a pulse stream graph or a tempo map.
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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.
