TY - JOUR

T1 - Exploring complementation in Bartók’s Third Quartet.

AU - Mawer, Deborah

N1 - 8,000 words

PY - 2007/12

Y1 - 2007/12

N2 - Despite, on the one hand, a healthy if circumscribed tradition of Bartók music studies and, on the other, a continuing analytical concern with notions of complementation and contrast, I argue that these two domains have not been brought together to full effect, and that doing so can significantly enhance a reading of Bartók’s Third Quartet of 1927. In this setting, complementation applies not only to sets and pitches, but also to modes and, more broadly interpreted, to parameters such as texture, rhythm and form. Complementation across several parameters, or at different levels of significance, may operate as a multi-faceted complex which serves to heighten, or on occasion diffuse, tensions in the music.

AB - Despite, on the one hand, a healthy if circumscribed tradition of Bartók music studies and, on the other, a continuing analytical concern with notions of complementation and contrast, I argue that these two domains have not been brought together to full effect, and that doing so can significantly enhance a reading of Bartók’s Third Quartet of 1927. In this setting, complementation applies not only to sets and pitches, but also to modes and, more broadly interpreted, to parameters such as texture, rhythm and form. Complementation across several parameters, or at different levels of significance, may operate as a multi-faceted complex which serves to heighten, or on occasion diffuse, tensions in the music.

KW - complementation

KW - post-tonal theory

KW - set theory

KW - Bartók

KW - quartet

M3 - Journal article

VL - 13

JO - Music Theory Online

JF - Music Theory Online

IS - 4

ER -