Formal Functions in Perspective: Essays on Musical Form from Haydn to Adorno

Among the more striking developments in contemporary North American music theory is the renewed centrality of issues of musical form (Formenlehre). Formal Functions in Perspective presents thirteen studies that engage with musical form in a variety of ways. The essays, written by established and emerging scholars from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the European continent, run the chronological gamut from Haydn and Clementito Leibowitz and Adorno; they discuss Lieder, arias, and choral music as well as symphonies, concerti, and chamber works; they treat Haydn’s humor and Saint-Saens’s politics, while discussions of particular pieces range from Mozart’s arias to Schoenberg’s Verklarte Nacht. Running through the essays and connecting them thematically is the central notion of formal function.

CONTRIBUTORS: Brian Black, L. Poundie Burstein, Andrew Deruchie, Julian Horton, Steven Huebner, Harald Krebs, Henry Klumpenhouwer, Nathan John Martin, Francois de Medicis, Christoph Neidhoefer, Julie Pedneault-Deslauriers, Giorgio Sanguinetti, Janet Schmalfeldt, Peter Schubert, Steven Vande Moortele

Steven Vande Moortele is assistant professor of music theory at the University of Toronto. Julie Pedneault-Deslauriers is assistant professor of music at the University of Ottawa. Nathan John Martin is assistant professor of music at the University of Michigan.