Transformed Triadic Networks: Hearing Harmonic Closure in Prokofiev, Copland, and Poulenc.

Abstract

This dissertation presents a methodology for hearing closing progressions in neo-tonal music; that is, music from the first part of the twentieth century that expands the tonal system in ways that are currently not well accounted for by received theories of tonal analysis. Neo-tonal composers display a diversity of types of progressions that indicate arrival on the tonic. In Chapter 1, I argue that these progressions are tonal despite their deviance from common practice, because tonality is not a closed system of interdependent elements, but a cluster of related concepts that can undergo transformation. I define closing progressions in terms of privileged root relations and idiomatic voice-leading patterns, and outline transformations of these features that frequently appear in neo-tonal works. The transformations include changing the privileged root relation from a fifth to a semitone, whole tone, or major third; and reversing the privileged root motion (creating a plagal as opposed to authentic system).

The next three chapters examine how these transformations create closing progressions in music by three neo-tonal composers. Chapter 2 shows that semitone-related triads create closure in select works by Sergei Prokofiev. Chapter 3 defines an “orientational axis” for the music of Aaron Copland, which is created through a duality between two different types of closing progression: one involves root motion by ascending whole tone, the other root motion by fifth. Chapter 4 argues that Poulenc’s late music often exploits the ambiguity of major-third related minor triads, which are able to provide closure or create transpositional sequences.

Chapter 5 shows that previous theories of twentieth-century tonality adumbrate aspects of the transformational system used in this dissertation. It argues that many neo-tonal pieces thematize alternate closing progressions and are best served by an analytical method that models them directly.