By: Joseph Straus , CUNY Graduate Center
Abstract of Video:
Ross Lee Finney’s Fantasy for Solo Violin (1958) is based on a derived series: each of its
segmental trichords represents sc(013), arranged as a semitone and a whole-tone moving in
the same direction. In the music, a texture of violin double stops projects a duet, in which the
series is paired with its inversion around D (and G#). Melodically, we hear a remarkable
intervallic unity. Harmonically, we hear a sense of inversional balance around a central tone.
This video incorporates recorded analytical comments by the composer.
segmental trichords represents sc(013), arranged as a semitone and a whole-tone moving in
the same direction. In the music, a texture of violin double stops projects a duet, in which the
series is paired with its inversion around D (and G#). Melodically, we hear a remarkable
intervallic unity. Harmonically, we hear a sense of inversional balance around a central tone.
This video incorporates recorded analytical comments by the composer.
About the Author:
Joseph Straus is Distinguished Professor of Music Theory at the CUNY Graduate Center. With a specialization in music since 1900, he has written numerous technical music-theoretical articles and scholarly monographs on a variety of topics in modernist music, including Remaking the Past: Musical Modernism and the Influence of the Tonal Tradition (Harvard University Press, 1990), The Music of Ruth Crawford Seeger (Cambridge University Press, 1995), Stravinsky's Late Music (Cambridge University Press, 2001), and Twelve-Tone Music in America (Cambridge University Press, 2009). He is also the author of Introduction to Post-Tonal Theory (4th ed., Norton, 2016).
Bibliography:
Joseph N. Straus, Twelve-Tone Music in America (Cambridge University Press, 2009).