Conference Agenda

Texture, a so-called “secondary” parameter, is often regarded as less essential than the “primary” parameters of harmony, melody, and rhythm. In certain genres, however, texture is of primary importance. Think of the many examples of contemporary classical music that use texture as a structural element. Yet texture can articulate form in earlier repertoires too, even repertoires that are strongly driven by harmony and melody. This presentation explores the interaction of harmonic-melodic form and textural form in Lili Boulanger’s songs, which are full of textural changes that are at odds with the formal units articulated by harmony and melody. I focus on one of her favorite textural strategies: the suspension of a texture mid-phrase, often as a cadence approaches (Example 1 shows that 11 of her 18 songs use the technique). Drawing upon studies of texture by Jonathan De Souza (2019) and Joanna Frymoyer (2012), I analyze Boulanger’s use of textural suspension in a representative song, “Reflets.” The song has four sections, each ending with a moment of closure (Example 2). But overlapping with this harmonic-melodic form is a textural form (Example 3), marked by expanding moments of suspension (Example 3). The first suspension is a mere measure of rest in the piano (Example 4). A more dramatic suspension appears in the next section (Example 5): the music lingers on a D dominant ninth chord before shifting to C octaves that transition to a passage structured around stepwise left-hand octaves. This new texture is disrupted by the longest suspension yet (Example 6), when a B-flat minor chord triggers an arpeggio, a measure of rest, and sustained whole-note chords that nearly bring the music to a halt—all within a single poetic thought (Example 7). This process of increasing suspension mirrors the poem’s imagery: flowing water, a metaphor for the speaker’s dreams, gradually ceases its motion. Treating texture as a driving force in “Reflets” doesn’t just help us understand the textural mechanics of the song; it also invites us to expand our conception of “form,” recognizing that a single piece is not in a single form but in many forms at once.

This paper explores characteristics of chant influence in French art song from 1880-1920, revealing how a declamatory text setting with emphasis on tonic and dominant pitches imbues the music with a meditative quality reminiscent of chant. Specifically, these tonic-dominant outlines occur as opening and closing gambits in French art song around the fin de siècle, especially at cadences that close stanzas or entire songs. Moreover, the poetic text at these junctures depicts either 1) pastoral themes of nature or beauty or 2) melancholy themes of despair or unfilled desire. Progressing chronologically through vocal works of Duparc, Fauré, Nadia and Lili Boulanger, and Debussy, this paper illustrates how these moments of reflection and meditation, marked by melodic and tonal simplicity, stand out from their chromatic context. Origins of these chant-like utterances may have stemmed from the chant revival in France during the latter half of the nineteenth century that was yoked to the organ world in which many French composers worked (Benjamin Van Wye 1970); it may also have been a symptom of neoclassicism where composers reached back to the age of antiquity for inspiration (Rumph 2020). I employ concepts of markedness (Hatten 1994), the hymn topic (Sánchez-Kisielewska 2018), and the pastoral (Monelle 2006, Greer 2024) to show how chant-like devices inundate French song in the fin de siècle, recalibrating our understanding of this repertoire.

An empirical study of Guillaume de Machaut’s (1300-1377) monophonic lais, the genre in which he was most prolific and, still today, least studied. This immense repertoire of (largely) monophonic chansons goes underserved while Machaut’s more manageable formes fixes and polyphony in general enjoy sustained analytical attention. Yet any account of Machaut’s secular style sacrifices most of it if not centrally concerned with the lais, the longest among them setting 423 lines of poetry to 1,248 measures of music. Compared to the longest virelai, Machaut’s other (largely) monophonic genre, at 28 measures, each lai is a song cycle unto itself. It is time to restore this prestige genre to the forefront, where Machaut positioned them in his collected works. Their size alone balances his polyphony and invites us to a more comprehensive understanding of Machaut’s tonal language.

My statistical survey returns to groundwork methodologies that do not take a priori tonal coherence for granted, and offers an update, expansion, and correction of prior work. Having summarized the broadest foundations of pitch organization, this paper examines Lai 2 for aspects of melodic and lyric setting. Evidence suggests an improvisatory approach to expanding simple note-to-note successions into florid waves of melody in these vast songs.