“Musical Form: Mapping the Territories”: A Conference Report

[1] The Seventh International Conference on Music Theory, entitled "Musical Form: Mapping the Territories," was jointly organized by the Estonian Academy of Music and Theater and the Estonian Arnold Schoenberg Society. It took place 8-11 January 2014 in the cities of Tallinn and Parnu.[2] The conference comprised thirty-eight regular papers,(1) three keynote addresses (by William Caplin and Nathan John Martin, James Hepokoski, and Steven Vande Moortele), and a roundtable in which Caplin, Martin, and Hepokoski were joined by Poundie Burstein and Peter H. Smith. Although this roster (and the conference's theme) might suggest a focus on "common-practice" repertoire, nearly half the papers pertained to music after 1900. The pre-1900 sessions were overwhelmingly dominated by scholars based in North America (72%, including keynotes), whereas the inverse was true of sessions on post-1900 music (75% by non-North Americans). The complete conference program and abstracts are available in the Appendix. I will discuss each part of the conference in turn, including some unifying themes common to both.I. MUSIC BEFORE 1900[3] The interpretation of what Sonata Theory regards as a continuous exposition constituted a central theme-or, perhaps better, a framing function-for the tonal portion of the conference, which opened with two keynotes, one by Caplin and Martin and the other by Hepokoski, and culminated in the roundtable discussion. Since Caplin's (1998, 2009) and Hepokoski-Darcy's (2006, 2009) theories have dominated studies of sonata form for over a decade, their relative positions are already well-enough known. Whereas Sonata Theory makes a fundamental distinction between expositions containing a medial caesura and those that do not (i.e. between two-part and continuous expositions, the latter understood to lack an S-zone), Caplin interprets a subordinate-theme function in all expositions, even those with a blurred boundary between (what he regards as) the transition and the subordinate theme.[4] Reviewing the announced program before the conference, some may have wondered whether devoting more than three hours to this well-trod territory would indulge partisans of each method to recapitulate their established positions or whether it would advance the collective state of knowledge.(2) But over the course of the proceedings, it became apparent that issues of continuous expositions and subordinate themes rewarded the renewed attention, since they touch directly on many of the most pressing questions about sonata-form practice, including (1) whether every exposition has a subordinate-theme function; (2) which cadences may signal the end of a passage designated "transition"; and (3) which musical parameters are truly form-defining (i.e., the relative role of harmonic syntax and surface rhetoric).(3)[5] The focus on continuous expositions placed a special spotlight on Haydn (discussed by Caplin, Martin, Hepokoski, amongst others),(4) along with C. P. E. Bach (in papers by Wayne Petty and Tal Soker), and a variety of other composers active in the 1760s and 1770s (in Burstein's contribution). Earlier binary forms of J. S. Bach, characterized by a Fortspinnung technique related to continuous sonata expositions, were also addressed by Rowland Moseley and the author of this report. The finale of Haydn's String Quartet in B Minor, op. 33 no. 1 was a key example in Caplin-Martin's opening keynote, which focused on expositions whose transitions lack a functional end or (in their terms) whose subordinate themes lack a clear beginning.(5) The central section of the finale's exposition, measures 13-51, expresses a fusion of transition and subordinate-theme functions, in that the clear, tonic-key presentation of a compound basic idea is followed by a continuation phrase comprising a loose string of model-sequence statements that ultimately modulates to and achieves a PAC in the mediant. …