By: Melissa Hoag, Oakland University
Abstract of Video:
Of the seven preludes in Lutyens’s op. 126, (Starlight) is the shortest, at eleven (unmetered) measures in length. Repeated rolled chords in the upper register of the piano that evoke distant twinkling stars comprise most of the movement, with exceptions in mm.4–5 and 9.
(Starlight) contains two phrases. Phrase 1(mm.1–5): I7 and I4 are a near-combinatorial pair, where all but one PC is held in common between I7’s first hexachord and I4’s second hexachord, and vice versa; this relationship results in a great deal of invariance between the rows. The cadence (m.4) is marked by a thinner texture: an unrolled tetrachord in measure 4, followed by a ppp repeated M7 dyad. Invariance between I4 and RI5 [B–C–Db–Gb] connects Phrases 1 and 2. Phrase 2(mm.6–11): The first hexachords of RI5 and R8 replicate PC content (RI5 and P8 are a combinatorial pair).
At 27–29 of 45 half-note durations, the golden section occurs during the highest and longest of the rolled chords (m.7). This chord is also the last fortissimo harmony, and the last rolled chord until the final harmony. The chords following the first chord of m.7 bear the singular marking echo.
Bibliography:
Forkert, Annika. 2023. Elisabeth Lutyens and Edward Clark: The Orchestration of Progress in British
Twentieth-Century Music.
Lutyens, Elisabeth. 1972. A Goldfish Bowl.
About the Author:
Melissa Hoag is Professor of Music Theory and Chair of the Department of Music 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.