Publication
Constructionist and interpretative claims on polytonality: reframing the theorizing activity on twentieth-century multi-layered harmony
| dc.contributor.author | Martins, José Oliveira | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-08-11T15:12:26Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2025-08-11T15:12:26Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2015-10-01 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Twentieth-century polytonality is one of the most “under-theorized” as well as contested labels for a compositional practice, attributed to significant passages or complete movements in the music of Bartók, Stravinsky, Milhaud, Ravel, Britten, among many others. Despite recent investigations into the global pitch structure of polytonal compositions, the reception of the contested label reflects the tension between the constructionist aspects of the style, in which composers deliberately combine distinct layers resonant with tonality, and perceptual and interpretative claims, in which listeners-as-analysts resist and argue for perceptual and logical limitations of a musical conception that suggests split and concurrent tonal systems or centers. The larger significance of such contention, however, reveals the serious challenge polytonality posed to a much-valued repertoire: to invite distinct conceptual entities into the composition, whose diverging systemic forces undermined the coherence and completeness of “masterworks.” In contrast, the paper approaches polytonality by revisiting some of the theorizing activity on the subject in the 1920s to 40s by composers such as Koechlin, Milhaud, Casella and Bartók, which has subsequently been either dismissed or appropriated by the post- Schenkerian and set-theoretical approaches developed in the second part of the century. It is argued that notions of polytonality in the 1920s draw from a number of compositional phenomena, which actively explored new compositional arrangements and listening strategies. The paper inventories early accounts of polytonal practice into five key components, examines examples discussed by the above authors, and argues that polytonality casts a much wider net on compositional practice than traditionally granted, which could then be applicable to works of composers such as Lutoslawski and Ligeti. | eng |
| dc.identifier.other | 300ec7d6-4d03-4259-97e0-79f072c73942 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/54408 | |
| dc.language.iso | eng | |
| dc.peerreviewed | no | |
| dc.rights.uri | N/A | |
| dc.title | Constructionist and interpretative claims on polytonality: reframing the theorizing activity on twentieth-century multi-layered harmony | eng |
| dc.type | conference object | |
| dspace.entity.type | Publication | |
| oaire.citation.endPage | 107 | |
| oaire.citation.startPage | 106 | |
| oaire.version | http://purl.org/coar/version/c_970fb48d4fbd8a85 |
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