Search

Critiques of formalist modes of musical analysis resemble critiques of certain types of minimal music. One ironic, if not downright paradoxical aspect of this parallel is that the sharpest attacks on minimal music have come from writers sympathetic to formalism. A reconciliation of sorts has been reached by formalist admirers of minimalism, for whom the music is a staging ground for reflexive methodological critique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Horacio Vaggione's music is a true challenge for the musical analyst, both for its technical complexity and its artistic depth. This article aims to suggest some promising analytic approaches to his piano and tape piece Till —arguably a turning point in the composer's evolution—classifying characteristic material and creating typologies of them. After an initial consideration of the context of composition, the analysis proceeds in three parts. In the first part, the tape is investigated between the meso- (middle) and the microscopic temporal levels and a typology of the sound objects is established. In the second part, the piano's complementary temporal field is examined and a corresponding typology of the musical figures constructed. Finally, the modalities of interaction between the tape and the piano, their complementary temporal levels and their ‘common vectorisation’ are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]