The Thirteenth Note: A Dissertation — Unbound Thesis

Unbound thesis. Three holes punched for a binder. There is little to no wear. Clean text.

Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Brandeis University, Department of Music. In partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree Doctor of Philosophy.

Abstract:

The primary intent of “The Thirteenth Note” is to investigate the function of the octave interval in twelve-tone music.

Close readings of passages from Schoenberg’s Piano Suite, op. 25, Third String Quartet, op. 30 and Babbitt’s Arie de Cap are used to explore how the perception of the octave affects the sense of harmonic grouping, rhythmic grouping, meter, and texture.

Octave transfer (the projection of the octave interval across a relatively large time span) is also discussed in relation to the Third Quartet.

The dissertation centers around two main points: first, the octave explicitly marks the boundary between relational networks. Inasmuch as the octave is articulative, it carries a metric component, a phenomenon which is called “octave accent”; the strength of the accent is directly related to the vividness of the octave interval in context. Second, it is demonstrated that octave transfer is a primary source of progressive relational contrast — harmonic motion — and, in this sense, is analogous to stepwise linear progression in tonal music. In the course of the thesis, a third point deals with the relationship between the role of dissonance in tonal music and the role of the octave (the most perfect consonance) in twelve-tone music.