Conference Agenda

This paper posits a theory of general displacement in the music of Sergei Prokofiev. I investigate various techniques such as chromatic, rhythmic, diatonic, octave, motivic, and harmonic displacement by comparing a completed composition to a common practice prototype.

Firstly, I canvas existing attempts to codify ‘wrong notes’ in Prokofiev’s music, such as Richard Bass’s theory of chromatic displacement, and expand on them introducing a new lexicon of terminology related to displacement techniques of various types.

Secondly, I reveal the numerous displacement techniques Prokofiev employs through an analysis of excerpts from his ballets Romeo and Juliet (Op. 64) and Cinderella (Op. 87); his Fourth Symphony (first version Op. 47); and a sketch from his sixth thematic notebook (McAllister 2020). Revealing these techniques not only offers insights into Prokofiev’s compositional process and “hypothetical original version[s] of the music lurking beneath the surface” (Kramer 1998, 518) but opens the hermeneutic window such that an analyst may read themes of irony and especially uncanniness into the music.

Pomeroy (2004), BaileyShea (2007), and Nobile (2020) have expanded the concept of the “double-tonic complex” (DTC) since Bailey’s (1985) coining it. While Pomeroy and BaileyShea discuss two tonics related by chromaticism or mode mixture, I argue that the theory of DTCs possesses considerable power to explain the tendency of diatonic modal music to exhibit multiple tonal centers (Lam 2020). I expand upon Nobile’s formulation of the Aeolian–Ionian complex to a generalized concept of a modal DTC. In addition to the Aeolian–Ionian complex, I propose Ionian–Phrygian and Dorian–Lydian complexes and explore how dual tonal centers are interwoven within these relational structures.

Three pieces by Maurice Duruflé—the “Introit” from the Requiem, Op. 9; the Prélude sur le nom d’Alain, Op. 7; and the “Pie Jesu” from Op. 9—serve as a case study in which five musical conditions manifest modal DTCs. These conditions are as follows:

1) Plainchant priority: the final of the plainchant or plainchant-inspired melody defines one of the tonics.

2) Tonally ambiguous common-tone chord: a prominent seventh chord or first-inversion triad containing both tonic pitches can refer to both tonics.

3) Multiple harmonizations: different harmonizations of the same melody point to either tonic, inviting hearings of the melody in the context of both modes.

4) Multivalent points of imitation: a motive is transposed to reflect the same scale-degree succession in both modes, or alternatively, a motive is preserved in pitch yet harmonized in both modes such that the same motive is ultimately heard in the context of both modes.

5) Rhetorical-formal significance of beginnings and endings: even if one tonic or the other attains more salience at various middle points, the opening or closing tonic is understood to be particularly significant.

These conditions show how a modal DTC represents neither directionality nor tension but, rather, a mutually reinforcing expression of the music’s distinctive modal character. While these particular conditions might be unique to Duruflé’s works, future research can explore how the modal DTC emerges in other diatonic modal music by composers ranging from Vaughan Williams to Stravinsky.

Many of Olivier Messiaen’s early slow movements include a distinctive idiom that operates within his second mode of limited transposition. I identify the idiom, define it as a schema, and investigate its tonal functional properties.

To capture the unusual but consistent approach to tonality in these schematic passages, I propose a model that relates all sonorities to an underlying normative progression: an oscillation between two T₆-related (0358) chords that together comprise the full octatonic scale. One of the chords is established as tonic—as a major triad with an added sixth—and the other as antitonic. Chords with a mixture of functions are analyzed as variations on the model.

The underlying oscillating progression has some intriguing features that I relate to Messiaen’s well-known interest in conveying the eternal. In particular, I build on Diana Luchese’s (1998) idea that Messiaen’s music communicates eternity through musical paradoxes. Drawing on Candace Brower’s (2008) work, I argue that the progression conveys paradoxes in both the harmonic and voice-leading domains.

The music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875−1912) has gained ground in performances and public perception over recent years. How, in response, might music scholars continue to write Coleridge-Taylor more thoroughly into music history (following Cook 2017, Taylor Thomspon 1994)? One avenue is to investigate how Coleridge-Taylor himself understood the historical European canon and his relation to it. How did he engage the canon within his own style?

Composed in 1908 for a stage production of Faust, Coleridge-Taylor’s English setting of Goethe’s “Der König in Thule” answers the question in striking terms. Finding a “promissory note” (Cone 1982) in Schubert’s setting of the same text, Coleridge-Taylor cashes in that note at the climax of his own setting in a manner that rewards both musically literate and musically naive segments of the theatrical audience. I will contextualize and interpret this dramatic culmination via motivic analysis, phenomenological reading, and both functional and neo-Riemannian accounts of the harmony.

Gounod’s operatic setting of 1859 also echoes here. In matters of phrase rhythm, melodic contour, and explicit musical medievalisms, Gounod offered a second famous template for Coleridge-Taylor and analytical comparison illuminates his choices. I conclude by interpreting the climax of Coleridge-Taylor’s song as an aesthetic risk that becomes a moment of mutual affordance between composition and performance. “There Lived a King in Thule” attests to Coleridge-Taylor’s harmonic skill and his readiness to establish musical meaning and express a musical identity by making explicit connection to the continental-European canon.