Numéro 15, 1995

FR :

Cette étude présente en premier lieu certains des éléments qui caractérisent les nouveaux espaces de réflexion en musicologie et en théorie de la musique. Puis, après avoir situé l’évolution récente de la théorie schenkérienne dans le panorama intellectuel, l’auteure expose une problématique qui vise à mettre en évidence la nécessité d’une interprétation éclairée de la réception et de l’appropriation des idées du théoricien autrichien Heinrich Schenker par les théoriciens-analystes anglo-américains. L’auteure suggère que la diversité et la complexité des paramètres en jeu dans la construction du discours schenkérien contemporain démontrent à l’évidence que seule une stratégie interprétative puissante pourra rendre compte de la richesse d’un phénomène aussi dense. Elle conclut en proposant que, face à la complexité de ce phénomène, il semble que seul le recours à des modèles de réflexion développés dans le domaine des sciences sociales et de l’anthropologie culturelle, et repris par les ethnomusicologues, permettra de formuler une révision critique du discours schenkérien.

EN :

In this article, four cases of ethnomusicological research on South Asian music are presented to substantiate the social essentiality (Wesentlichkeit) of music, and therefore the complementary role of a socially-grounded approach to studying complex musical traditions. Historiographically, it is argued that this social orientation progresses logically from, and is in keeping with, the growing cosmopolitan reality of musical scholarship and of music itself. Ethnomusicology draws resourcefully from its rich, inter-disciplinary heritage of musicology, music theory, anthropology, and area studies to yield tools of musical description and analysis that are culturally appropriate, culture-specific and yet cross-cultural, this paving a foundation for a truly comparative—and "Adlerian"— musicology.

EN :

The identification of particular vocal techniques in singing, which combine to form distinctive vocal idioms, is important for an understanding of both "classical" and "vernacular" musical styles. The modern critical literature on song is based largely on the limited concept of a "word-tone relationship," with musico-poetic synthesis as its ideal. Performance practices are as important to song criticism as is the study of written scores. The elements of voice quality and vocal articulation, with specific reference to the physiology and acoustics of the human voice, provide the analytical tools for defining vocal idioms and their role in the value and success of a song. The description of such idioms requires a rapprochement between vocal history, pedagogy, and science. Using the bel canto paradigm as a reference point, this article discusses a variety of vocal idioms. Gluck's aria, "Che farò senza Euridice" is used to illustrate how an understanding of vocal idioms can alter our judgment of a piece which has sometimes been condemned for its poor word-tone relationship.

EN :

The Specialnik manuscript (HradKM II.A.7), from early sixteenth-century Bohemia, includes two well-known works with unique supplementary voices. One work, the final Agnus of Brumel's Missa Ut re mi fa sol la, includes an added bassus which deepens the composite range and animates the original without seriously disrupting it. An analysis of this movement shows why it was popular as an independent instrumental piece: it is clearly structured as statement and heightened reprise. The second work, Bedingham's "Fortune/Gentil madonna" contains a similar kind of bassus (as a substitute for the original contratenor) and also a triplum which exhibits characteristics of an idiomatic instrumental style. The Spec arrangement prompts a re-examination of the other sources and a demonstration that Bedingham's song originally called for a change from triple to duple mensuration in its B section.

EN :

Even though parody and borrowing have long been recognized as legitimate features of Bach's compositional practices, the criteria by which the composer selected appropriate material to parody remains problematic. Christoph Wolff and Güther Stiller, for example, suggest that musical elements, such as the quality of the original or its potential for further embellishment, represent possible criteria. On the other hand, textual elements such as analogous subjects, "affects," and metrical patterns between old and new texts also many have factored into Bach's criteria. In an effort to redress the imposition of these twentieth-century solutions to what is in effect an eighteenth-century phenomenon, this study undertakes a cultural/contextual examination of the Crucifixus movement from the Mass in B minor and its model, the opening chorus of Cantata 12. Indeed, a logical analysis of both texts reveals that an equivalence of topoi, or topics, represents an important criterion in the selection of an appropriate model from which to borrow. Moreover, a musical-rhetorical analysis confirms that Bach's borrowings from the opening chorus of Cantata 12 are actually musical-rhetorical figures. His application of the parody procedure thus represents the re-use of specific musical-rhetorical gestures which are suitable for the embellishment of a particular topos.

EN :

L’abandon, il y a maintenant environ 25 ans, des techniques sérielles d’organisation du matériau musical a rendu très difficile, pour les jeunes compositeurs, le choix du type de langage à employer. Cette absence de lingua franca a poussé les musiciens à explorer quantité de façons nouvelles d’organiser leur musique. Plusieurs d’entre elles n’ont pas eu la vie longue, d’autres se sont avérées plus prometteuses. Nous nous penchons ici sur une solution intéressante au problème du contrôle harmonique proposée par un compositeur québécois, Denys Bouliane, et sur son utilisation dans une œuvre importante pour orchestre, Le cactus rieur et la demoiselle qui souffrait d’une soif insatiable.