13-Limit Extended Just Intonation in Ben Johnston's String Quartet #7 and Toby Twining's "Chrysalid Requiem", "Gradual /Tract"
Johnson, Timothy Ernest
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/85798
Description
Title
13-Limit Extended Just Intonation in Ben Johnston's String Quartet #7 and Toby Twining's "Chrysalid Requiem", "Gradual /Tract"
Author(s)
Johnson, Timothy Ernest
Issue Date
2008
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Taube, Heinrich
Department of Study
Music
Discipline
Music
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
D.M.A.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Date of Ingest
2015-09-25T22:54:03Z
Keyword(s)
Music
Language
eng
Abstract
This dissertation explains the nature of 13-limit extended just intonation, expounds Ben Johnston's pioneering work in this area, and presents an analysis of his String Quartet #7 as well as the Gradual/Tract from Toby Twining's Chrysalid Requiem, both of which utilize this unique tuning and compositional resource. The discussion centers upon what is arguably among the most complex pieces of music ever written, the last movement of Johnston's String Quartet #7, entitled Variations. A special compositional challenge that Johnston posed to himself, Variations uses the intervals of a hyperchromatic scale to build a musical structure composed of well over a thousand discrete pitches. Johnston's microtonal techniques, from the smallest bits of melody and harmony to the largest aspects of design, were never so well on display as in this movement. Coupled with the microtonal innovations of the other two movements, the analysis of Johnston's Quartet #7 will elucidate his compositional approach, as well as identifying and explaining the new musical resources available to composers in extended just intonation. Johnston's former student, Toby Twining, has been included to demonstrate exciting developments in the current world of extended just intonation, as composers begin to take Johnston's discoveries further. Twining's Chrysalid Requiem uses many techniques pioneered by Johnston, including his notation system, but also contributes groundbreaking new ideas and approaches to intonation, harmony and notation, in the context of a large scale work of modern sacred polyphony that has received widespread acclaim.
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