By: Melissa Hoag, Oakland University
Abstract of Video:
The (Night winds) of Elisabeth Lutyens’s Prelude no.2 are unpredictable, at various turns turbulent and tranquil. Based on the same row as Prelude no.1, the work is thoroughly atonal. Through analysis of mm.37–57, I demonstrate Prelude no.2’s complex serial approach.
Novel methods of row completion occur; in m. 45, for example, notes 1–5 of RI9 pair with notes 1–5 of I9 (Ex.1, score). The missing Db/Bb from RI9/I9 appear as the top two pitches of I10 (continuation of m. 45, next system). I10, too, is incomplete; only the first six pitches appear. I10 remains incomplete until the last two measures of the prelude: RI10 in mms. 56–57. The noncontiguous completion of I10 with RI10 results in a near repetition of the chord in m. 45 as the prelude’s final resonance.
RI7/RI4 (mm.46– 51) are nearly combinatorial: Hexachord 1 in RI7 and Hexachord 2 in RI4 have all but one pitch in common. This nearly combinatorial relationship not only appears elsewhere in Prelude no.2, but also in Prelude no.3 (Starlight).
Bibliography:
Lutyens, Elisabeth. 1972. A Goldfish Bowl. Cassell.
_________________. 1978. Seven Preludes, op. 126. University of York Press.
Parsons, Laurel. “Music and Text in Elisabeth Lutyens's Wittgenstein Motet.” Canadian University
Music Review 20, no. 1 (1999): 71–100.
Straus, Joseph. 2009. Twelve-Tone Music in America. Cambridge.
About the Author:
Melissa Hoag is Professor of Music Theory at Oakland University in Michigan. She is editor of Expanding the Canon: Black Composers in the Music Theory Classroom (2022, Routledge). Other articles have appeared in the Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy (ed. VanHandel), Music Theory Online, Music Theory and Analysis, Dutch Journal of Music Theory, Gamut, Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy, and College Music Symposium. Hoag is currently co-editor of the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy, and also serves as Chief Reader for the College Board’s Advanced Placement Exam in Music Theory. She is also currently member-at-large for the Society for Music Theory’s Executive Board. She holds a Ph.D. in music theory from Indiana University.