The Music of James Tenney: Volume 2

A Handbook to the Pieces

Robert Wannamaker

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780252043680
• eBook ISBN: 9780252052576
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music Biographies

A work-by-work guide to the composer's groundbreaking music

Robert Wannamaker's monumental two-volume study explores the influential music and ideas of American composer, theorist, writer, performer, and educator James Tenney. Delving into the whole of Tenney's far-ranging oeuvre, Wannamaker offers close, aurally grounded analyses of works linked to the artist's revolutionary theories of musical form, timbre, and harmonic perception.

Written as a reference work, Volume 2, A Handbook to the Pieces, presents detailed entries on Tenney's significant post-1959 experimental works (excepting pieces covered in volume 1). Wannamaker includes technical information, an analysis of intentions and goals, graphs and musical examples, historical and biographical context, and thoughts from Tenney and others on specific works. Throughout, he discusses the striking compositional ideas found in Tenney's music and, where appropriate, traces an idea's appearance from one piece to the next to reveal the evolution of the composer's art and thought.

A landmark in experimental music scholarship, The Music of James Tenney is a first-of-its-kind consideration of the experimental music titan and his work.

CHAPTER 1

1952–59 (Early Works)

For the most part, I do not examine Tenney’s early works in detail. Interim (1952) is discussed in volume 1, section 2.1, Seeds (1956/1961) in volume 1, section 2.4, and Monody (1959) below. The following pieces appeared on one or more of Tenney’s own lists of works compiled after 1963. Some were completed in Denver before autumn 1954, others in New York City (1954–56), and some during his undergraduate studies at Bennington College (1956–58). While he often explicitly labeled them “student works,” he sometimes listed Seeds, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, and Monody as “major works,” and he revised Sonata for Ten Wind Instruments, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, and Just a Bagatelle for publication at later points in his career.

Stylistically, Monody (1959) belongs to (and marks the culmination of) Tenney’s early style and is therefore included in this chapter, although it was completed during his master’s program at the University of Illinois.

Interim (1952)

PIANO

22 mins.

soundtrack for the film Interim by Stan Brakhage

See volume 1, section 2.1.

4 Inventions for Piano (1953/1954)

PIANO

4 mins.

Two Christmas Songs (1954)

text by Stan Brakhage

SOLO VOICE

3 mins.

Poem (1955)

FLUTE

2 mins.

String Quartet in One Movement (1955)

STRING QUARTET

3 mins., 30 secs.

Variations in A (1955)

“on a theme by my father”

PIANO

3 mins.

Seeds (1956/1961)

FLUTE, CLARINET, BASSOON, HORN, VIOLIN, CELLO

7 mins. approx.

See volume 1, section 2.4.

Improvisation (1956)

for George Finckel

CELLO

5 mins.

Trio (1957)

FLUTE, OBOE, CLARINET

4 mins.

Essay (1957)

CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

6 mins.

Sonata for Ten Wind Instruments (1958; rev. 1983)

for Carl Ruggles

PICCOLO, FLUTE, OBOE, CLARINET, ALTO SAXOPHONE, BASSOON, TRUMPET, HORN, TROMBONE, TUBA

5 mins.

See volume 1, section 2.3.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird (1958; rev. 1971)

text by Wallace Stevens

BASS VOICE, OBOE, ALTO FLUTE, VIOLA, CELLO, CONTRABASS

6 mins.

Just a Bagatelle (1959; rev. 1999)

also known as For Viola

VIOLA

3 mins.

1.1 Monody (1959)

CLARINET

3 mins., 10 secs. approx.

Completed near the end of Tenney’s first year in the master’s program at the University of Illinois, Monody still evinces many of the compositional techniques used in Seeds (1956/1961). The style of its melodic development, for instance, includes the deployment of discrete motive forms. The opening measures are shown in figure 1.1, where the principal motive of Monody is labeled Q and indicated using a gray filled rectangle. It is shown alongside its rhythmic profile and another rhythmic motive that appears in various forms. In close voicing, Q corresponds to a diminished triad with an added major second above the root.¹ As well as this motive itself, certain of its constituent features have thematic significance; these include the opening tritone, the repetition of its final pitch, and—especially—the ascending major second between the first and last pitches.

In contrast with Seeds (1956/1961), however, motive forms in Monody often serve as nuclei for more extended processes of accretion and recombination, yielding passages of evolving near reiterations. These passages seem to expand upon procedures used by Varèse in, for instance, parts of Octandre (1923) or Density 21,5 (1936/1946), in which a few pitches insistently recirculate with alterations in rhythm, order, and accentuation. An illustration is provided by the following detailed examination of the third subsection of Monody, whose commencement is labeled A₃ in figure 1.2.

The end of the preceding subsection is marked by a fermata and diminuendo and prepares the new subsection by introducing the pitches that will inaugurate it (which are enclosed in the figure by an unfilled box). The beginning of the new subsection is established by a clear return of the recently absent principal motive Q with its original rhythm. It enters transposed and with selective changes of octave that move the framing major second (now F₄ to G₄) to the treble of the motive. Ensuing instances of Q are indicated with gray filled boxes in the figure. Almost all preserve the ordering of the first, although some are partially obscured to the ear by interruptive rests or phrase breaks. The isolated C-sharp–G tritone in measure 11 retrogrades Monody’s opening interval without transposition, but now with the rhythm of figure 1.1(c) (in its iambic two-note form). The immediate repetition of G₄ likewise parallels the repeated A₄ of the outset. This same tritone initiates a new transposition of Q that appears in measure 13 but remains rhythmically offset from its surroundings by rests and phrasing. In the following measure, an A-sharp is prepended to it, yielding an untransposed retrograde of the opening’s first three pitches, this accumulating retrogression being indicated with brackets above the staff. Finally, at measure 15, the rest is shuffled to reveal Q uninterrupted, repeated with its characteristic phrasing, and marked “Singing.” The major second element from Q appears variously transposed and inverted as the approaching conclusion of the subsection is signaled by the appearance of new pitch classes (pcs) completing a twelve-pc aggregate. The rhythmic motive of figure 1.1(c) is pervasive throughout the passage, mostly in the iambic form of measure 11. It crosses measure 18 in diminution before its middle value shrinks to a grace note in the following subsection. The two versions each comprise pitches C-sharp₅–B-flat₄–A₃ so that, as before, continuity is ensured by introducing the pitches of the new subsection before it begins. Across the bar line commencing measure 19 the C-sharp–G tritone is heard for a last time. It provides a formal pivot as its direction reverses to commence the untransposed motive Q, which appears in forward direction and untransposed but with new octave assignments for its pitch classes.

FIGURE 1.1. (a) The opening measures of Monody, indicating the principal motive (Q) in gray. (b–c) Forms of two rhythmic motives appearing in Monody.

As shown in figure 1.3, formal divisions in Monody are closely correlated with aggregate completions, a practice recalling both Seeds and Webern’s early atonal music. In other words, formal segments typically include all twelve pitch classes of the chromatic scale, and exhaustion thereof tends to correlate with the conclusion of a segment, as also signaled by other musical changes. Moreover, as in the passage represented in figure 1.2, many formal segments begin by developing material based on a limited number of pitch classes so that the appearance of the remaining ones often furnishes an audible cue to the approaching conclusion of the segment.

Monody adheres to a ternary form, as illustrated in figure 1.3, although it is complicated by considerable development following the reprise. The contrasting B section mostly eschews motive Q in favor of its constituent intervals. Its ascending major second feature is prevalent at the bottom of the texture, and its opening tritone in the middle, while successions of other intervals (thirds and fourths) appear at the top. The beginning of the reprise of the A section is disguised, as motive Q appears transposed with uncharacteristic rhythm and phrasing, but it is clarified at measure 48 before subsection A₄ reappears verbatim. That a coda appears is more certain than the location of its arrival. I tend to hear it at measure 55, where the reworking of materials from the preceding subsection seems to abandon recapitulation for development. Another listener might locate it at the striking “liftoff” in measure 64, where motive Q disappears and the rising major second feature is sequenced in multiple registers, yielding striking lockstep ascents moving in quasi parallel across the full range of the instrument. The closing measures feature a stratospheric ascent in which Q makes a final sly appearance before downward leaps lead to an unexpectedly quiet close in the low register.

FIGURE 1.2. Section A₃ of Monody, indicating forms of motive Q in gray. “T_n” represents pc transposition by n semitones with respect to the original form of the motive, “R” indicates retrogression, and “O” represents a reordering of pitch classes via rotation.

FIGURE 1.3. The formal organization of Monody, indicating major sections, subsections, selected...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1. 1952–59 (Early Works)
• 2. 1959–61 (Tape Music)
• 3. 1961–64 (Computer Music)
• 4. 1964–68 (Performance and the Social)
• 5. 1969–73 (Process and Continuity)
• 6. 1972–79 (Canons and the Harmonic Series)
• 7. 1980–85 (Harmonic Spaces)
• 8. 1986–94 (Transition and Tradition)
• 9. 1994–2006 (Spectra and Diaphony)
• 10. Music in Popular Styles
• 11. Arrangements
• Notes
• References
• Index
• Back Cover