"A Binary-state GIS Models a Contour Motive that Helps Chords Talk Long-distance in Schoenberg's Op.11, No.2"

author: Joshua B. Mailman

Music Theory Society of New York State, Rochester, 2004 and Society of Music Theory, Seattle, 2004

ABSTRACT: This paper explores the use of melodic contour analysis to relate non-adjacent chords in Schoenberg's Op.11, no.2. The melodic contour's motivic transformations are modeled with a new application of Lewin's binary state GIS. This motivic analysis helps to isolate chords to be associated via their pcset structure. Though this analytical model uses pcset theory to associate chords, it uses melodic contour, rather than pcset analysis, as a primary criterion for segmentation. Furthermore, the model asserts a type of hierarchy that is unusual for pcset analysis--and does so without invoking notions of atonal prolongation. This approach to Op.11, no.2 constitutes an example of a more general Representational Hierarchy Associational Model (RHAM), that is also proposed and defined. Another instance of RHAM is then applied to Schoenberg's Op.19, no.3.