The analytical literature posits a dichotomy between Copland’s “popular” and
“serious” music. Despite different motivic and hannonic structures on the surface,
however, these styles are consistent in their underlying use of tonality. Tonics in both
styles are defined by the same set of tonicizing techniques; and tonics in both styles serve
the same function — to define the changing scale-degree function of pcs that are emphasized
in various ways as common to the collections of successive tonics. The most important of
these changes in scale-degree function are summarized in pitch-class continuity graphs that
show the relation of the changes to thematic and harmonic form. Detailed analyses, which
cover two “popular” and two “serious” works by Copland, demonstrate the consistency
between the two styles. Besides demonstrating an underlying stylistic consistency these
graphs provide useful information about structure in Copland’s music because they confirm
striking features of Copland’s thematic and tonal designs.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/7009 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Creighton, Stephen David |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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