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NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

Patterns of Hybridity:
An Analytical Framework for Pluralist Music

A DISSERTATION

SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL


IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

for the degree

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Field of Music Theory and Cognition

By

Bruno Moschini Alcalde

EVANSTON, ILLINOIS

December 2017




ProQuest Number: 10681187




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ABSTRACT

Patterns of Hybridity: An Analytical Framework for Pluralist Music

Bruno Moschini Alcalde

This dissertation develops a framework to approach musical hybridity by considering

style and genre interactions as an analytical layer of combinations of identities. It engages with

the structural, contextual, and perceptual aspects of music by mixing perspectives from music

studies with postcolonial studies, situated cognition, and genre studies. Hybridity is treated as a

common communication tool and, as such, goes beyond the expected repertories of polystylism

and musical collage from the 1960s and 1970s. In this way, this study approaches diverse works

ranging from seventeenth- to twenty-first-century Western music, embracing concert and popular

traditions within the same framework. In this dissertation, I engage first with perspectives on

hybridity from the field of postcolonial studies, and trace a brief summary of their different

general stances before moving to iterations of hybridity in a wide musical repertory. Next, I

investigate the literature on the notions of style and genre, and define them as the main

articulations of musical hybridity, mediating between individual, textual, and contextual

perspectives in a dynamic and fluid way. The proposed analytical framework treats moments of

hybridity in music—chimeric environments—as formed by four distinct mixture strategies:

clash, coexistence, distortion, and trajectory. These mixture strategies are perceptible processes,

given the familiarity with a shared knowledge within a musical community; they can be

interpreted—even if with different characteristics, purposes, and realizations—in J. S. Bach,


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Alfred Schnittke, Thomas Adès, David Bowie, and Daft Punk, for instance. Mixture strategies

are, then, lenses for interpretation of hybridity in music, which I discuss in detail, with definition

and exemplification of their characteristics, changing values, and reception, affording

comparisons between different ways of combining musical identities in pluralist music.


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This dissertation marks the completion of a decade-long endeavor that goes well beyond

its pages and academia. It started in 2008, when I decided to migrate to the United States and

spend even more time with music and books. Throughout this journey, many people crossed my

path and contributed in different ways. In Brazil, Any Raquel Carvalho was a great mentor, and

was crucial in fostering my interest in music scholarship. Any Raquel, along with other

professors at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul—Cristina Capparelli Gerling,

Antonio Carlos Borges Cunha, Celso Loureiro Chaves, and Fernando Mattos—prepared me for

the many challenges to come; more than that, they made me proud of being part of UFRGS and

proved the importance of quality public education in Brazil.

At Indiana University, I found a community of great people that facilitated my transition

to a new country. Robert Hatten, Marianne Kielian-Gilbert, Gretchen Horlacher, Kyle Adams,

and Roman Ivanovitch made me feel at home, and helped develop my ideas and academic

identity. At Northwestern University, I am grateful to my committee members. Vasili Byros, my

advisor, was a great guide, supporting my ideas from the first days of my doctoral studies.

Vasili’s highly engaged reading and criticism of my work shaped these following pages, and

were invaluable in the completion of this document. It was always a pleasure to share ideas with

Richard Ashley, whose encouragement throughout these five years was crucial to this project.

Mark Butler provided wise guidance and opportunities for scholarly development. Yayoi Uno

Everett donated her time and attention to my ideas, and I appreciate the coffee, conversations,

and support. Classes with Ryan Dohoney and Robert Gjerdingen were also part of this process,

and I thank them for their teachings.


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But this project was also fostered by my many wonderful peers. At Indiana University,

Nathan Beary Blustein, Chelsey Hamm, Matthew Boyle, Simon Prosser, Lucy Liu, and Paul

Child were not only highly qualified colleagues, but also great friends. At Northwestern, Cora

Palfy, Janet Bourne, Melissa Murphy, Karen Chan, Kristina Knowles, Ciarán Doyle, Sarah

Gates, Anjni Amin, Miriam Piilonen, Stephen Hudson, and Luis Fernando Amaya made my time

in Evanston considerably richer from personal, intellectual, and artistic standpoints. Rosa

Abrahams and Olga Sanchez-Kisielewska went through this dissertation together with me,

engaging with support, criticism, and companionship. Thanks for being great friends, great

minds, and all-around excellent humans, making me feel part of a community, and dealing with

my constant sarcasm and bad jokes.

I am indebted to Dulphe Pinheiro Machado, a great friend, brother-in-arms, whose

criticism and support always pushed me forward. Regina Bones Barcelos and Guilherme

Carneiro Monteiro Nitschke were friends from an early age, we discovered a lot together, and we

walked together much of our lives—I hope that we keep striding our paths jointly. I am also

grateful to Gabriel Schmitt and Marcela Andrade, Chico Mattoso and Isabelle Moreira Lima,

Renata Graw and Ansgar Graw, with whom I shared my discoveries of Chicago. Thanks, all of

you, for always being there for me.

Thanks to my late grandparents, Maria José de Bittencourt Alcalde and Hildebrando

Garcia Alcalde, who always showed excitement with my developments, and pride in even my

meager achievements. Thanks to one of the strongest and wisest persons I know—my

grandmother Maria Clari Moschini—who understands and believes in me. Thanks for showing

that the clashes, coexistences, distortions, and trajectories of identities between Europe and

South America can, after all, create happiness and serenity, which I share with the Moschini and
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Alcalde families. Thanks to my brother, André Moschini Alcalde, who shared a bedroom for

most of his early years with me and my insomnia, who calmly shared space with my guitars, my

metronome, and my books. Thanks to Ondina de Souza Carneiro, for always taking care of me.

To my families by choice—Eguia and Guimarães—thanks for embracing me.

[Obrigado aos meus avós, Maria José de Bittencourt Alcalde e Hildebrando Garcia Alcalde, que sempre
celebraram e se orgulharam do meu desenvolvimento e meus sucessos mais simples. Minha avó—Maria
Clari Moschini—é uma das pessoas mais fortes e sábias que eu conheço, e sempre me entendeu e
acreditou em mim. Obrigado por mostrar que colisões, coexistências, distorções e trajetórias de
identidades europeias e sul-americanas, podem, afinal de contas, criar alegria e serenidade—das quais eu
aproveito junto com as famílias Moschini e Alcalde. Obrigado ao meu irmão, André Moschini Alcalde,
por dividir o quarto durante anos comigo e minha insônia, por dividir espaço com minhas guitarras,
metrônomo, e livros. Obrigado à Ondina de Souza Carneiro, por sempre cuidar de mim. Às famílias por
escolha—Eguia e Guimarães—obrigado por me receber tão bem.]

I am deeply indebted to my parents, Liane Moschini Alcalde and José Carlos de

Bittencourt Alcalde, who taught me early on to be curious and pursue whatever paths I wanted to

take, who do not read English, but paid for my lessons since I was a nine-year-old Brazilian kid,

trying to understand foreign guitar magazines. They supported me and my many idiosyncrasies,

and if I can make them proud, I am happy. I owe them everything, and this dissertation, with all

its imperfections, but also with its sincerity, is dedicated to them.

[Meus pais, Liane Moschini Alcalde e José Carlos de Bittencourt Alcalde, me ensinaram desde cedo a ser
curioso e a seguir meus caminhos, quaisquer fossem eles. Eles não falam inglês mas pagaram pelas
minhas aulas desde os nove anos, quando eu tentava entender as revistas estrangeiras de guitarra. Eles
sempre me apoiaram, e se eu puder fazê-los orgulhosos—em qualquer idioma ou país—eu sou feliz. Eu
lhes devo tudo, e essa tese, com todas suas imperfeições, mas também com sua sinceridade, é dedicada a
eles.]

Finally, none of this would have happened if I did not have the sweetest person I know by

my side: my wife, Lis Eguia Guimarães, who gives me reason to believe in life and smile every

day. You are in each page of this work, and it is yours as much as it is mine. There are no words,

in any language, that could properly represent my gratitude, love, and admiration for you. Thank

you.
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Table of Contents


INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................. 14
CHAPTER ONE : HYBRIDITY ................................................................................................................. 21
1.1 WHAT IS HYBRIDITY? ................................................................................................................ 22
THE CONCEPT OF HYBRIDITY ........................................................................................................................................................ 22
SOCIAL SCIENCES AND POSTCOLONIALISM: THINKING HYBRIDITY IN THE LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY ................................... 25
BACKLASH TO HYBRIDITY THEORIES ............................................................................................................................................. 28
1.2 HYBRIDITY IN MUSIC ................................................................................................................. 29
HYBRIDITY IN THE RENAISSANCE: SACRED AND SECULAR, VOCAL AND INSTRUMENTAL COMBINATIONS ............................... 32
BAROQUE, MIXED TASTE, NATIONS, AND GENRES ...................................................................................................................... 34
CLASSICAL STYLE, STABILITY, AND TOPOI ..................................................................................................................................... 38
THE ROMANTIC, EXOTICISM, AND NEW NATIONALISM .............................................................................................................. 39
EARLY MODERNITIES, RUSSIAN ORIENTALISM, STRAVINSKY, AND IVES ..................................................................................... 45
THE POST-1950s ........................................................................................................................................................................... 48
1.3 HYBRIDITY AND MIXTURE TERMINOLOGY IN MUSIC ......................................................................... 56
1.4 INTERPRETING HYBRIDITIES ......................................................................................................... 60
1.5 THE BOUNDARIES VS. HYBRID CONUNDRUM .................................................................................. 68
CHAPTER TWO : STYLE AND GENRE .................................................................................................... 71
2.1 THE MULTIPLE FACETS OF STYLE: NORMS, ORIGINALITY, AESTHETIC HISTORICISM, ORGANISM, AND
DISCOURSE ................................................................................................................................... 72
THE REJECTION OF STYLE ............................................................................................................................................................. 81
2.2 GENRE: FROM RIGID TYPOLOGIES TO DYNAMIC COMMUNITIES ......................................................... 82
THE DECLINE AND RECONCEPTUALIZATION OF GENRE .............................................................................................................. 84
GENRE IN POPULAR MUSIC STUDIES ........................................................................................................................................... 88
2.3 STYLE VS GENRE ....................................................................................................................... 93
2.4 PROTOTYPE THEORY, TYPICALITY, GRADIENCE: A COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE ON STYLES AND GENRES ........ 100
2.5 MAPS, TREES, AND NETWORKS: GENRE AND STREAMING IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY .................... 103
2.6 OPERATIONALIZING STYLE AND GENRE ........................................................................................ 110
IDEALIZED STABLE STYLE OR GENRE .......................................................................................................................................... 110
STYLE AND GENRE FIELDS, SUPERGENRES, MACROGENRES, CLUSTERS, AND GAPS ................................................................ 111
STYLE AND GENRE MARKERS (OR FLAGS); SYNECDOCHE .......................................................................................................... 112
STYLE AND GENRE SYSTEM ........................................................................................................................................................ 114

CHAPTER THREE : AN ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK FOR MUSICAL HYBRIDITY ...................................... 115


3.1 PURPOSE, BACKGROUND, AND CONCEPTS ................................................................................... 115
ANALYTICAL WRITINGS ON STYLE AND GENRE MIXTURES ........................................................................................................ 117
CHIMERIC ENVIRONMENTS AND MIXTURE STRATEGIES ........................................................................................................... 127
3.2 CLASH .................................................................................................................................. 131
INTERPRETING CLASH ................................................................................................................................................................. 152
3.3 COEXISTENCE ......................................................................................................................... 157
CAMOUFLAGED COEXISTENCE ................................................................................................................................................... 186
INTERPRETING COEXISTENCE ..................................................................................................................................................... 189
3.4 DISTORTION .......................................................................................................................... 191
INTERPRETING DISTORTION ....................................................................................................................................................... 215
3.5 TRAJECTORY .......................................................................................................................... 219
INTERPRETING TRAJECTORY ....................................................................................................................................................... 230
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3.6 COMBINATION OF MIXTURE STRATEGIES: NESTING, VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL COMBINATIONS ............ 233
NESTING ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 234
VERTICAL COMBINATION ........................................................................................................................................................... 235
HORIZONTAL COMBINATION ..................................................................................................................................................... 238
3.7 STRATEGIES AS FORMAL DEVICES AND HYBRIDITY PLAN GRAPHS ...................................................... 242
CLASH DIVIDERS .......................................................................................................................................................................... 243
HYBRIDITY PLAN GRAPHS ........................................................................................................................................................... 244
3.8 FINAL THOUGHTS ................................................................................................................... 246
CHAPTER FOUR : ANALYSES .............................................................................................................. 248
4.1 ALFRED SCHNITTKE, CONCERTO GROSSO NO. 1, II ............................................................ 249
4.2 PETER MAXWELL DAVIES, EIGHT SONGS FOR A MAD KING, NO. 5 AND NO. 7 ................... 265
THE PHANTOM QUEEN (HE’S AY A-KISSING ME) ....................................................................................................................... 266
COUNTRY DANCE (SCOTCH BONNETT) ...................................................................................................................................... 273
4.3 BATTLES AND NATIONS: SOME ANALYTICAL INSIGHTS ON BAROQUE HYBRIDITY ............. 281
TWO BATTLES: CLASH AND COEXISTENCE ................................................................................................................................. 282
TWO NATIONS AND TWO KINDS OF COEXISTENCE ................................................................................................................... 286
4.4 ALFRED SCHNITTKE, STRING QUARTET NO. 3, I .................................................................. 293
4.5 GEORGE ROCHBERG, PARTITA-VARIATIONS, 3. BURLESCA ............................................... 303
4.6 OPPOSITION, INTEGRATION, AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN: DIFFERENT WAYS OF
BRIDGING IMAGINARY GAPS IN RECORDED POPULAR MUSIC ................................................ 307
DAVID BOWIE’S “CHANGES” AND DAFT PUNK’S “DIGITAL LOVE”: OPPOSITION AND INTEGRATION IN THE STUDIO ............. 308
MAGGIE ROGERS’ “ALASKA”: A TRAJECTORY TOWARDS THE DANCE FLOOR ........................................................................... 314
4.7 THOMAS ADÈS, MAZURKAS, OP. 27, FIRST MAZURKA ....................................................... 319
4.8 GEORGE ROCHBERG, MUSIC FOR THE MAGIC THEATER, ACT I .......................................... 330
CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................... 348
INTERSECTIONS ........................................................................................................................................................................... 352
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List of Examples

Example 1.2.1. Flecha, La Bomba (“ensalada”), mm. 116-140....................................................................................34


Example 1.2.2. Fux, Concentus Music-Instrumentalis (1701), mm. 1-11 ....................................................................36
Example 1.2.3. Telemann’s Loure of the Well-Mannered Houyhnhnms and Wild Dance of the Untamed Yahoo, from
Gulliver Suite (1728).....................................................................................................................................................37
Example 1.2.4. Schubert, Quintet in C Major, Op. 163, iv, first theme in style hongrois ...........................................42
Example 1.2.5. Schubert, Quintet in C Major, op. 163, iv, second theme in Biedermeier style, starting at m. 45 ......42
Example 1.2.6. Chopin, Ballade no. 4 in F Minor, op. 52 (1843), mm. 32-49 .............................................................44
Example 1.2.7. Stravinsky, beginning from Soldier's March .......................................................................................46
Example 1.2.8. Stravinsky, Tango-Valse-Rag, beginning ............................................................................................47
Example 2.1.1. Different paradigms of style—linear and cumulative development ....................................................81
Example 2.3.1. Tripartite schema of style and genre as mediators...............................................................................98
Example 2.3.2. Style and genres and their overlapping and separate semantic fields ..................................................99
Example 2.5.2. Echo Nest visual organization of artists included in the category of “Classic Rock” .......................107
Example 3.1.1. The four mixture strategies and their symbols ..................................................................................131
Example 3.2.1. Rochberg, String Quartet no. 3, I, mm. 81- 95 ..................................................................................133
Example 3.2.2. Pärt, Sarabande, from Collage Über B-A-C-H, II .............................................................................134
Example 3.2.3. Biber’s Battalia a 10, II, „Die liederliche Gesellschaft von Allerlei Humor“ ..................................136
Example 3.2.4. Mozart's Don Giovanni, last scene of first act ...................................................................................138
Example 3.2.5. Measures 1-11 from Beethoven's Third Symphony, I (reduced version). Figure from Byros (2014,
387, with additional annotations of the clash symbols) ..............................................................................................140
Example 3.2.6. Measures 429-42 from Beethoven's Third Symphony, IV. Score reduction from Byros (2014, 406,
with my annotation of the clash symbol) ....................................................................................................................142
Example 3.2.7. Chopin, Ballade no. 4 in F Minor, op. 52, mm. 1-14 ........................................................................144
Example 3.2.8. Chopin, Ballade no. 4 in F Minor, Op. 52, mm. 32-49......................................................................145
Example 3.2.9. Debussy, La Serenade Interrompue, mm. 59-78 ...............................................................................147
Example 3.2.10. Charles Ives, The Unanswered Question, mm. 18-29 .....................................................................149
Example 3.2.12. Spectrum of clash harshness ............................................................................................................157
Example 3.3.1. Scott Joplin’s Pleasant Moments .......................................................................................................159
Example 3.3.2. Kagel’s “Ragtime-Waltz” from Rrrrrrr..., mm. 1-9 ..........................................................................160
Example 3.3.3. Diagram of coexistence strategy ........................................................................................................162
Example 3.3.4. Thomas Adès, overture to Powder Her Face, mm. 6-10...................................................................164
Example 3.3.5. Telemann, Gulliver’s Suite, “Loure of the Well-Mannered Houyhnhnms and the Wild Dance of the
Untamed Yahoo” ........................................................................................................................................................166
Example 3.3.6. Fux, Concentus Musico-Instrumentalis, “Aria Italiana-Aire Françoise” ..........................................168
Example 3.3.7. J. S. Bach, Sonata for viola da gamba and harpsichord in G minor, I (BWV 1029) .........................171
Example 3.3.8. Mozart, Piano Sonata No. 12 in F major, K. 332, I, mm. 1-18 .........................................................175
Example 3.3.9. Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C major, K. 415, mm. 1-6.....................................................................176
Example 3.3.10. Schumann, Carnival, op. 9, XI, “Chiarina,” mm. 1-12 ...................................................................177
Example 3.3.11. Debussy, Estampes, II, mm. 23-37 ..................................................................................................178
Example 3.3.12. Timeline of the timbres in Alabama Shakes’ “Sound and Color” ...................................................181
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Example 3.3.13. Stylistic and generic associations of timbre and instrumentation in Alabama Shakes’ “Sound and
Color” ..........................................................................................................................................................................182
Example 3.3.14. “Distance” of styles and genres interpreted in “Sound and Color” .................................................182
Example 3.3.15. Camouflaged coexistence in Sciarrino’s Anamorfosi for piano solo ..............................................188
Example 3.4.1. Sofia Gubaidulina, Musical Toys, VII. “A Bear Playing the Double Bass and the Black Woman” .193
Example 3.4.2. Rochberg, Carnival Music, “Fanfares and March” ...........................................................................194
Example 3.4.3. Diagram of the distortion strategy .....................................................................................................196
Example 3.4.4. Thomas Adès, Piano Quintet, I, mm. 1-6 ..........................................................................................198
Example 3.4.5. Holbein’s The Ambassadors (1533) ..................................................................................................200
Example 3.4.6. Comparison of the first 16 measures of the original (Real Book) and Coltrane’s versions of “My
Favorite Things” .........................................................................................................................................................203
Example 3.4.7. Mahler, Symphony no. 1, III, mm. 1-16 ............................................................................................205
Example 3.4.8. Mussorgsky, waltz from Rayok, mm. 89-104 ....................................................................................207
Example 3.4.9. Shostakovich, Preludes for Piano, op. 34, Prelude 24, mm. 1-17.....................................................209
Example 3.4.10. Schumann’s (2015, 76) comparison of rehearsal mark 8 in Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale with a
normalized model........................................................................................................................................................210
Example 3.4.11. Transcription of bass and vocals from David Bowie’s “It’s No Game,” Part 2. Circles indicate
screamed notes in Part 1 .............................................................................................................................................214
Example 3.4.12. George Crumb, Makrokosmos, volume 3, V, “Music of the Starry Night” ....................................215
Example 3.5.1. Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 1, II ................................................................................................220
Example 3.5.2. Possible matrix of oppositions from Schnittke’s Toccata .................................................................222
Example 3.5.3. Diagram of trajectory strategy ...........................................................................................................224
Example 3.5.4. Rochberg, Caprice no. 33, Moderato-con amore, mm. 11-23 ...........................................................226
Example 3.5.5. Schnittke, Concerto Grosso no. 3, III, r.m. 11+4 ..............................................................................227
Example 3.5.6. Maxwell Davies, Eight Songs for a Mad King, no. 7, “Country Dance,” mm. 38-40.......................228
Example 3.5.7. Graph depicting the trajectory in Daft Punk’s “Digital Love” ..........................................................230
Example 3.5.8. Elements in the embodied schema of SOURCE-PATH-GOAL, as shown in Brower (2000) ..........232
Example 3.6.1. Diagram of nested strategies (e.g., coexistence with nested distortion) ............................................235
Example 3.6.2. Adès, First Mazurka, coexistence with nested distortion ..................................................................235
Example 3.6.3. Diagram of vertical combination of strategies (e.g., simultaneous clash and distortion) ..................236
Example 3.6.4. Schnittke, Concerto Grosso no. 1, II, r.m. 17+4, showing vertical combination of strategies
(simultaneous clash and coexistence) .........................................................................................................................237
Example 3.6.5. Diagram of horizontal combination of strategies (e.g., clash followed by distortion) ......................239
Example 3.6.6. Rochberg, Music for the Magic Theater, Act I, r.m. 19, example of horizontal combination of
strategies (e.g., clash followed by distortion) .............................................................................................................240
Example 3.6.7. Schnittke, Concerto Grosso no. 1, II, r.m. 14, showing a clash divider ............................................241
Example 3.7.1. Formal hierarchy: chimeric sectionsàchimeric environmentsàmixture strategies ........................243
Example 3.7.2. Visual representation stable and hybrid environments ......................................................................245
Example 3.7.3. Hybridity plan graph of Pärt's Sarabande from Collage über B-A-C-H. ...........................................245
Example 3.7.4. Hybridity plan graph of Schnittke's Concerto Grosso no. 3, III ........................................................246
Example 4.1.1. Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 1, II, r.m. 6-8, second trajectory ...................................................252
Example 4.1.2. Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 1, II, r.m. 12-13, third trajectory ...................................................253
Example 4.1.3. Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 1, II, r.m. 14, distorted tango ........................................................255
Example 4.1.4: Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 1, II, r.m. 14+4, clash overlapping with distorted tango ..............256
Example 4.1.5. Schnittke, Concerto Grosso no. 1, II, r.m. 17, coexistence, distortion and clash ..............................258
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Example 4.1.6. Diagram of the climactic hybrid environment of Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 1, II, r.m. 17 ....259
Example 4.1.7. Schnittke, Concerto Grosso no. 1, II, r.m. 18, overlap clash .............................................................260
Example 4.1.8. Hybridity plan graph of Schnittke's Concerto Grosso no. 1, II .........................................................261
Example 4.2.1. Maxwell Davies, “The Phantom Queen,” beginning, clash with nested distortion of Alberti bass ..267
Example 4.2.2. Maxwell Davies, “The Phantom Queen,” mm. 3-4, clash with nested distortion of arietta ..............268
Example 4.2.3. Maxwell Davies, “The Phantom Queen,” m.6, distorted do-re-mi schema nested within an overlap
clash ............................................................................................................................................................................269
Example 4.2.4. Maxwell Davies, “The Phantom Queen,” mm. 14-25, trajectory ......................................................270
Example 4.2.5. Maxwell Davies, “The Phantom Queen,” mm. 26-31, clash with nested distortion .........................271
Example 4.2.6. Hybridity plan graph of Maxwell Davies's Eight Songs for a Mad King, V. “The Phantom Queen”
.....................................................................................................................................................................................272
Example 4.2.7. Maxwell Davies, “Country Dance,” beginning, distortion of Handel's “Comfort ye’ my people” ..274
Example 4.2.8. Maxwell Davies, “Country Dance,” mm. 29-35, trajectory ..............................................................275
Example 4.2.9. Maxwell Davies, “Country Dance,” mm. 36-40, distortion nested within clash and small trajectory
.....................................................................................................................................................................................276
Example 4.2.10. Maxwell Davies, “Country Dance,” mm. 40-44..............................................................................277
Example 4.2.11. Hybridity plan graph of Maxwell Davies’s “Country Dance,” from Eight Songs for a Mad King 278
Example 4.3.1. Dandrieu’s “Deuxième Fanfare – Minuet,” from Les Characteres de la Guerre .............................285
Example 4.3.2. Beginning measures from the first section of Couperin's “Essai en Forme d'Ouverture,” ninth
movement from L'Apothèose de Lully ........................................................................................................................289
Example 4.3.3. Beginning measures from the second section of Couperin's “Essai en Forme d'Ouverture” ............289
Example 4.3.4. Hybridity diagram of Couperin’s “Essai en Forme d'Ouverture” .....................................................290
Example 4.3.5. The two airs that form the tenth movement from Couperin’s L’Apothèose de Lully .......................291
Example 4.4.1. Schnittke, String Quartet no. 3, I, initial quotations ..........................................................................294
Example 4.4.2. Schnittke, String Quartet no. 3, I, r.m. 1 (m. 9), distortion and Schnittke motive.............................295
Example 4.4.3. Schnittke, String Quartet no. 3, I, r.m. 2 (m. 17), trajectories and distortion ....................................296
Example 4.4.4. Schnittke, String Quartet no. 3, I, r.m. 3 (m. 27), beginning of first canon creating distortion ........297
Example 4.4.5. Schnittke, String Quartet no. 3, I, r.m. 4 (m. 36), beginning of second canon creating distortion ....298
Example 4.4.6. Schnittke, String Quartet no. 3, I, r.m 5 (m. 48), distortion of Beethoven motive through another
canon ...........................................................................................................................................................................299
Example 4.4.7. Schnittke, String Quartet no. 3, I, r.m 6 (m. 65) ................................................................................300
Example 4.4.8. Schnittke, String Quartet no. 3, I, r.m. 8 (m. 73), distorted Lasso .....................................................301
Example 4.4.9. Hybridity plan graph of Schnittke’s String Quartet no. 3, I ..............................................................303
Example 4.5.1. Rochberg, Section A of “Burlesca” from Partita-Variations ............................................................304
Example 4.5.2. Rochberg, Section B of “Burlesca” from Partita-Variations ............................................................306
Example 4.5.3. Hybridity plan graph of Rochberg’s “Burlesca,” from Partita-Variations .......................................307
Example 4.6.1. Generic gaps and fields interpreted in Bowie’s “Changes” ...............................................................310
Example 4.6.2. Hybridity plan graph of Bowie’s “Changes” .....................................................................................311
Example 4.6.3. Hybridity plan graph of Daft Punk’s “Digital Love” ........................................................................313
Example 4.6.4. Opposition matrix and “Alaska”’s two trajectories ...........................................................................316
Example 4.6.5. Hybridity plan graph of Maggie Rogers’ “Alaska” ...........................................................................317
Example 4.7.1. Adès, “First Mazurka” from Mazurkas, op. 27, mm. 1-16 ................................................................320
Example 4.7.2. Adès, “First Mazurka” from Mazurkas, op. 27, mm. 17-32 ..............................................................323
Example 4.7.3. Adès, “First Mazurka” from Mazurkas, op. 27, mm. 33-52 ..............................................................324
13
Example 4.7.4. Reduced analysis of the sequences from mm. 33-48 in “First Mazurka” .........................................325
Example 4.7.5. Adès, “First Mazurka” from Mazurkas, op. 27, mm. 53-end ............................................................326
Example 4.7.6. Hybridity plan graph of Adès’s “First Mazurka” ..............................................................................328
Example 4.8.1. Hybridity plan graph of Rochberg’s Music for the Magic Theater, Act I .........................................332
Example 4.8.2. Chimeric Environment 1 (and CE 1a) from Rochberg’s Music for the Magic Theater, Act I .........339
Example 4.8.3. Chimeric Environment 2 from Rochberg’s Music for the Magic Theater, Act I ..............................340
Example 4.8.4. Chimeric Environment 3 from Rochberg’s Music for the Magic Theater, Act I ..............................341
Example 4.8.5. Chimeric Environment 4 from Rochberg’s Music for the Magic Theater, Act I .............................342
Example 4.8.6. Chimeric Environment 5 from Rochberg’s Music for the Magic Theater, Act I ..............................343
Example 4.8.7. Chimeric Environments 6 and 7 from Rochberg’s Music for the Magic Theater, Act I ...................344
Example 4.8.8. Chimeric Environments 8 and 9 from Rochberg’s Music for the Magic Theater, Act I ...................345
Example 4.8.9. Chimeric Environment 10 from Rochberg’s Music for the Magic Theater, Act I ............................346

List of Tables:

Table 1.1. Axes of Signification of Hybridity ..............................................................................................................65


Table 1.2. Tropes of Hybridity .....................................................................................................................................66
Table 4.8.1. Table of Hybridity in Rochberg’s Music for the Magic Theater, I.........................................................333
















14
Introduction

A lion, Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses, a South Korean flag, and a violin. A trumpet, an

African American woman with an afro, balloons, a calendar, and a harmonica. A lamp, a star-

shaped guitar, a bed, and a dove. These are only some of the more than forty icons that appear on

my screen when I open Spotify’s “genres & moods” tab. If I click the lion, it takes me to many

reggae playlists, including Reggae Classics, Reggae en Español, Just Smile, and Reggae

Infusions—the latter of which is described as “[r]elax and slip into this eclectic mix of reggae

infused tracks;” it has 153,659 followers. I can click back and try the Ray-Ban aviator, which

stands for R&B. If I follow the violin icon, captioned Classical, I am again met with many

playlists: Pop Songs based on Classical Music, Medieval 50: Spotify picks, Contemporary

Chinese Classical, All about that Brass, and Classical X: 50 best tracks from genre-bending

musicians that incorporate classical tradition into their own music languages. Classical X,

which has 28,862 followers, includes composers such as Brian Eno, Morton Feldman, a piece by

Kate Bush performed by Anne Sofie von Otter and a string quartet, John Cage, Terry Riley,

Bernard Hermann’s main theme for the movie Taxi Driver, Arvo Pärt, and Enio Morricone. And

this eclectic playlist is a mere two clicks away from another titled K-Hip-hop beats, which can be

accessed by clicking on the aforementioned South Korean flag icon.

A listener can navigate swiftly through these musical genres, and engage with a wide

variety of sounds within a dynamic system of associations—yes, with Ray-Ban sunglasses and

lions, but also with social, economic, and ideological values that shape the listening experience

as a whole. The icons and labels serve to suggest, establish, or reinforce hierarchies and qualities
15
of music as much as their actual sonorities. As such, these representations are not fixed, but in

constant interaction with each other, as well as the sounds and experiences they aim to mediate,

as hinted in some of the playlist descriptions above. The simultaneous access to many disparate

musical identity categories creates a fluid mix of references. All these visually separated music

containers, side by side in the same virtual space, dissolve when they trigger a complex network

of associations, creating friction between their idealized rigidness and their contextual volatility.

Hybridity may refer to any combination of identity markers we recognize in a composition. It

becomes a recurrent—and, oftentimes, celebrated—part of the musical experience, which, in

many cases, is foregrounded by actual mixtures in the musical texts.

***

Hybridity’s related notions of difference, otherness, belonging, and the status of being

mixed are also recurrent issues in today’s social and political discourse, but not in the same

creative and positive way as above. The stigmatization of the other, of those who do not conform

to a dominant perspective, is increasingly conspicuous. In other words, hybridity, which was

historically used as a way of separating and controlling minorities, can have a veil of cultural

innovation and integration, as seen above, but only along with many layers of prejudice,

privilege, and manipulation. In Brazil, for instance, more than 20,000 people signed a petition

for a law that qualifies a specific Brazilian genre—Funk Carioca—as “a public health crime,

against children, adolescents, and families,” the petitioner claiming it a “fake culture.”1 Funk

Carioca mixes Miami Bass sounds, Brazilian syncopated rhythms, and rapping (with social

commentaries and very pronounced sexual messages), and has been successfully exported to

1
My translation from Portuguese of the official law suggestion. See original (accessed July 3, 2017) at
http://legis.senado.leg.br/sdleg-getter/documento?dm=5299757&disposition=inline
16
North America and Europe in the last decade, with the involvement of mainstream artists such as

Diplo.2 Thus, the musical genre, sounds, and community of Funk Carioca were stigmatized by

the conservative ideals and values of the Brazilian petitioners, and the entire musical experience

became criminalized as a result. This is neither a new nor localized case; time and again,

prevailing groups impose and emphasize boundaries, filtering difference, the other, the mixed,

and dictate what does and does not constitute “good music” or “real culture.” Genres and styles,

then, are not mere categories, but dynamic mediators, which articulate hybridity and go well

beyond musical structure, or icons of lions and Ray-Ban sunglasses.

***

The second movement from Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso, no. 1 (1977) starts with

a Baroque-like violin duet: the lines are clearly tonal, they imitate each other at the unison, and

the counterpoint is, for the most part, idiomatic of eighteenth-century music. The duo is joined

by other instruments of a string ensemble; they also imitate the line, but do so at the minor

second, gradually changing it from a Baroque reference into a massive cluster, related with

specific mid-twentieth-century concert music idioms. So, in the first twenty seconds of the

movement, a listener is presented with a path between two sonorities at least 250 years apart.

Later in the piece, other disparate stylistic references appear, such as the brilliant style, Alberti

bass, and hints of tango. Schnittke writes thoughtfully about his “polystylistic method,” citing

diversity, manipulation, taboo, individual reflection, dreams of a unified style, and freedom from

prejudice as motivations for this specific type of hybrid work:

For several years I experienced an inward urge to write music for the cinema and
theater. At first I enjoyed doing this, then it became a burden, and then it dawned

2
As James McNally (2016, 435) discusses, this brings different problems of appropriation, and a “glamorization of
the favela in US and European culture, as well as a more general fetishization of impoverished subaltern
communities of color.”
17
on me: my lifelong task would be to bridge the gap between serious music and
music for entertainment, even if I broke my neck in the process. I have this dream
of a unified style where fragments of serious music and fragments of music for
entertainment would not just be scattered about in a frivolous way, but would be
the elements of a diverse musical reality: elements that are real in the way they
are expressed, but that can be used to manipulate—be they jazz, pop, rock, or
serial music (since even avant-garde music has become a commodity). An artist
has only one possible way of avoiding manipulation—he must use his own
individual efforts to rise above materials that are taboo, materials used for
external manipulation. In this way[,] he will gain the right to give an individual
reflection of the musical situation that is free of sectarian prejudice, as, for
example, in the case of Mahler and Charles Ives. So[,] into the framework of a
neoclassical Concerto Grosso[,] I introduced some fragments not consonant with
its general style. (Schnittke, 2002, 45)

***

How can the mixture of identities presented in the Classical X playlist, in the Brazilian

petition about Funk Carioca, and in Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso be articulated (and interpreted)

so differently and, at the same time, be so effortlessly accessible?3 Perhaps because, even though

hybridity is recurrent—maybe even ubiquitous—it is not a unitary concept; there are many types

of hybridities, each determined by different communities, their sounds, environments, and

purposes.

Musical hybridity is no exception to this diversity, and has the potential to productively

access many other dimensions of music communication. And yet, no specific framework

currently exists to analyze and interpret hybridity in music. I develop such an analytic framework

in this dissertation, while exploring the textual, contextual, and communal realms of musical

hybridity. I proceed not in a linear, chronological manner, but rather by considering different

repertories, events, and perspectives synchronically, thus reflecting the dynamic scenario of style

and genre interaction. I suggest an approach to different instances of musical mixture with a

3
As of July 2017, there are more than ten albums containing Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 1 on Spotify, as well
as many playlists and albums of the Brazilian style.
18
framework that is flexible enough to operationalize, but not formalize, hybridity. For its

foregrounded thematization of style and genre mixtures, the polystylism of 1960s becomes an

invaluable case study, to be sure. But many other repertories will be used to diversify views on

musical hybridity. In the end, this is not a dissertation about a specific repertory, but about a

process that is shared by many musical expressions and their surrounding communities.

This work builds on that of a number of scholars who have previously tackled these

matters. Hybridity in music has been addressed by a few authors under the guises of exoticism

(Bellman 1998; Locke 2009, 2015), transculturalism (Loya 2011), orientalism/pentatonicism

(Day-O’Connell 2007), and nationalism (Bohlman 2004), all distinct examples of hybrids.

Focusing on the diverse twentieth century, other authors have narrowed their investigations to a

specific composer (Burkholder 1995) or a type of hybrid (Losada 2004, 2008, 2009, on collage

works; Berry 2006, on specific political articulations of hybridity in George Rochberg, Herbie

Hancock, and Bob Dylan). More general perspectives on matters of musical hybridity—again,

under the different guises of orientalism, nationalism, folk and world music—have been

provided in the volume edited by Born and Hesmondhalgh (2000). Watkins (1994) investigates

the concept/technique of collage as a unifying trace from Stravinsky to the late twentieth century.

Taylor (2007, 2015) focuses strictly on the relation of the capitalist project and exoticism.

Finally, the surge of interest in the subfield of topic theory (Mirka 2014, as a recent example) has

helped bring discussions of style and genre back into the discourse of music theory. All these

important works articulate, in some way, the notion of hybridity and boundary permeability;

however, few of them focus on the relationship between the specific ways the distinct musical

materials are combined in music, and the interpretative tropes with which hybridity is usually
19
4
addressed. The main contribution of the analytical framework developed here, then, is to bridge

that gap, by “operationalizing” hybridity, its different articulations and interpretations.

In order to explore these many issues, the present study will be guided by five general

questions:

(1) What is musical hybridity, and how is it articulated?


(2) Can one hear hybridity?
(3) Are musical hybridity and the interaction of styles and genres amenable to analysis?
(4) Why analyze hybridity?
(5) What are the available tools in music studies with which to analyze hybridity?

These questions will be addressed throughout four chapters. Chapters 1 and 2 establish the

conceptual and historical background for the analytical framework by delving into different

perspectives about hybridity and styles and genres, respectively. Chapter 3 introduces, defines,

and demonstrates the framework, while Chapter 4 applies it to entire movements or pieces.

Chapter 1 is a brief survey of the history of hybridity and its application in several

Western musical expressions from the seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries. It illustrates the

prevalence of hybridity in many repertoires, even though the term is usually attached to its

clearly foregrounded iterations in 1960s and 1970s polystylism. The chapter also discusses many

interpretations of hybridity from the perspective of postcolonial studies, engaging with the

sociocultural, economic, and political conditions that afford the hybrid.

The identifying features that participate in an instance of hybridity can be triggered by

different parameters, though the vast majority are attached to concepts of musical style and

genre. In Chapter 2, I explore these complex notions, which may involve social or cultural

identity, difference, community, politics, as well as the structural and sonic characteristics of a

musical text.

4
Hatten (2004, 2014) are important exceptions.
20
Chapter 3 presents the main goal of this dissertation: the development of a flexible

framework for analyzing musical hybrids. The framework emerges from four critical realizations

that stem from the two previous chapters: (1) that music hybridity is not confined to

“polystylism;” (2) that hybridity can be analyzed not only by determining what sources are used

in combination, but how they are combined; (3) that these different ways of combining materials

can be approached by four mixture strategies—clash, coexistence, distortion, and trajectory; and

(4), that these mixture strategies are perceptible to listeners who possess the styles and genres in

question as shared knowledge.

Chapter 4 applies this framework in eight different analyses. Six of these concern

polystylism, again, one of the repertories in which hybridity is most clearly foregrounded;

sections 4.3 and 4.6 expand the repertory: the former focuses on Baroque hybridities, and the

latter analyzes recorded popular music from 1971, 2001, and 2016. These two groups serve not

only to demonstrate the wider application of the framework, but also to point to paths for future

research, engaging with hybridity in diverse repertories.

This project is fostered by my own experience of navigating the many realms of music

through performance, composition, record production, and scholarship. It is customary for

academic dissertations to be narrow in focus; however, the subject of this study does not allow

for such restriction, since it is in its very essence plural, open, and dynamic. It is my hope, then,

that the diversity presented in the following pages stimulates the discussion about the many

facets of hybridity by embracing, rather than inhibiting, the interaction of multiple types of

analysis, repertories, and musical experience.


21
CHAPTER ONE: Hybridity

In general, hybridity references the process or result of combining two or more races,

languages, identities, objects, or any other clearly bounded concept, be it virtually, conceptually,

or physically. But it is also a contentious term that has been used in a variety of contexts––from

biology to culture––to support a wide range of political and ideological projects. As such, it can

be understood as a marker of the impure and unworthy, of asymmetrical power relationships, or

of vigor and strength; it can be a virtual, at times physical, space for subversion or dialog that

suits political forces that wish to establish inequalities. Both positive and negative values are

assigned to the hybrid category, depending on the conditions and motivations of the mixture, and

the perspectives of the interpreter.

But despite their contradictions, hybridities can be operationalized through investigating

and deconstructing geographic, economic, cultural, physical, sonic, or imaginary boundaries, as

well as tracking the associated biases and values of their contexts.5 The conceptual building

blocks of hybridity are boundaries (segmentation and grouping), identities (labels and values),

and difference (consolidation of identity and hierarchy of values). When an object, place, person,

or process combines two or more identities, it disrupts the contextually constructed boundaries

and––by making them permeable––questions their assigned hierarchy.

Music articulates many of these ideas of hybridity, and relies heavily on the framing

capacities of styles and genres to define its boundaries, identities, and difference. These

categories organize engagements with music at all levels—cognitive, sociocultural, economic,

5
By operationalizing, I mean to develop and establish a conceptual framework for analyzing hybridity.
22
political, structural, technical, and aesthetic—and are the main, albeit not the only, agents of its

hybridity. The present study develops an interpretive framework for hybridity in music that

integrates both the cultural and technical/structural aspects of its sonic expressions. But in order

to develop the framework, it is essential to carefully review the established ideas on hybridity not

only in music but also in general, which is the purpose of the present chapter. First, I will briefly

trace and situate hybridity’s use in different political and cultural projects, some of its different

meanings, conditions, and motivations. Then I address the concept specifically in music, tracking

examples of musical hybrids from the Renaissance through the twenty-first century, and

discussing the specific sets of boundaries it crosses.

1.1 What is Hybridity?

THE CONCEPT OF HYBRIDITY

The Latin word hibrida was initially used in pastoralism (Nederveen Pieterse 2001, 100)

to indicate a mix of a domestic sow and a wild boar, but quickly expanded to agriculture and

horticulture, referring to mixtures of any two different animals or plants. With the rise of

genetics in the nineteenth century, the term became a tool for racial discourse. Young (1995)

explains the context in which hybridity became a subject matter of racial theories in the

nineteenth century, when alterity and difference were used to enforce dominance, engaging with

the colonial system’s politics of nation, race, ethnicity, and language:

The characteristic cultural movement produced by capitalist development in the


nineteenth century was one of simultaneous processes of unification and
differentiation. The globalization of the imperial capitalist powers, of a single
integrated economic and colonial system, the imposition of a unitary time on the
world, was achieved at the price of the dislocation of its peoples and cultures.
This latter characteristic became visible to Europeans in two ways: in the
disruption of domestic culture, and in the increasing anxiety about racial
23
difference and the racial amalgamation that was apparent as an effect of
colonialism and enforced migration. Both these consequences for class and race
were regarded as negative, and a good deal of energy was expended on
formulating ways in which to counter those elements that were clearly
undermining the cultural stability of a more traditional, apparently organic, now
irretrievably lost, society. (Young 1995, 4)

Within this context, the concept of hybridity was used to counteract the perceived

“neutralization” of the culture and ethnicity of European dominant classes by proposing that

humanity was composed of different species. The fact that genetic hybrids may have limited

fertility—the mule, for instance, a mixture of a horse and an ass, cannot usually procreate—

served as enough evidence for some polygenists to address mixtures of white Europeans with

other peoples as something to be avoided. In other words, this outlook was employed as a

generalized pseudo-scientific argument to protect the status, identities, and ideologies of the

dominant classes. Contrasting perspectives from genetics showing the utility of hybridity were

overlooked or discarded by most racial discourses. For instance, the same infertile mule

exemplifies hybrid vigor: it can endure harder work considerably better than either the pure horse

or ass. Nevertheless, with the rise of racial theories and polygenism to justify supremacy of a

few, “hybrid” was turned into a pejorative term in the nineteenth century’s essentialist world; it

became linked to contemporary racist notions of half-breed or mongrel, denoting “impure”

individuals or groups resulting from the mixture of races.

The term soon started to be used metaphorically to denote mixtures in the cultural realm.

Notions of ethnicity, class, and nation are intertwined with “culture,” another contentious term

attached to the colonial system. Culture, once again a terminological and conceptual borrowing

from agriculture, is used here not as an embracing term—the different environments within

which humans create—but, in the singular, to represent the “Western civilization’s” values and
24
development. These exclusive notions were essential in attempting to create and protect a clearly

bounded identity. Thus, the same fears of impure ethnicity in the racial discourse were promptly

transposed to the cultural one. Hybridity, in both its biological/genetic and cultural versions,

became strongly attached to racial and identity politics, and acquired a negative value in all these

realms—the hybrid was “impure.”

In order for something to be impure, there must exist the disputable concept of

“pureness.” Stross (1999) mentions that:

[i]n biological terms “purity” results from breed “isolation” (or “inbreeding”),
leading to biological homozygosity (or genetic homogeneity). In cultural terms,
“purity” results from “refinement” or “conventionalization” of a tradition—
processes sometimes assisted by authoritarianism, by small community size, and
by a selection for speed in adapting to new environments—and implies
minimizing variability within the cultural tradition, a condition associated with
cultural homogeneity. (Stross 1999, 258)

In this way, purity, especially within the cultural realm, is always idealized and never

actualized. This emphasizes the importance of contexts and ideologies in investigating these

matters. The observer (the one engaging, labeling, valuing, listening, and judging) obtains these

idealized pure categories either from statistical frequency or, more important in some cases,

explicitly learns rigid labels that influence how they organize and value the stimuli. When social

sciences scholars in the late twentieth century began to engage and problematize concepts related

to hybridity, they highlighted asymmetrical contexts and ideologies that surround it. Hybridity

then became a loaded notion for scholarly debate in the field of postcolonialism.
25
SOCIAL SCIENCES AND POSTCOLONIALISM: THINKING HYBRIDITY IN THE LATE

TWENTIETH CENTURY6

According to Nederveen Pieterse (2001, 100), hybridity entered the realm of social

sciences through studies in anthropology of religion in the 1970s, more specifically syncretism,

followed by works on creole languages.7 Research on hybridity soon moved beyond religion and

language, and eventually was grouped under the moniker of postcolonial studies. The earlier

stages of postcolonialism are marked by Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978), who applied French

poststructuralism in studying “the East” (Born and Hesmondhalgh 2000, 4); Mikhail Bakhtin

(1981) is also considered a precursor in the use of hybridity, bringing the notions of mixture to

the verbal discourse level of the novel.

What we are calling a hybrid construction is an utterance that belongs, by its


grammatical (syntactic) and compositional markers, to a single speaker, but that
actually contains mixed within it two utterances, two speech manners, two styles,
two “languages,” two semantic and axiological belief systems. We repeat, there is
no formal—compositional and syntactic—boundary between these utterances,
styles, languages, belief systems; the division of voices and languages takes place
within the limits of a single syntactic whole, often within the limits of a simple
sentence. It frequently happens that even one and the same word will belong
simultaneously to two languages, two belief systems that intersect in a hybrid
construction—and, consequently, the word has two contradictory meanings, two
accents. (Bakhtin 1981, 304-05)

Bakhtin developed theoretical concepts that strongly influenced postcolonial studies

addressing hybridity, such as dialogism, heteroglossia, double-voicedness, and polyphony—all

connected with certain types of hybridity at the discourse level. Bhabha (1994) uses Bakhtin’s

notions of hybridity in discourse, and transforms it “into an active moment of challenge and

6
Still connected to the field of postcolonialist studies, Georgina Born and David Hesmondhalgh (2000) edited a
volume of texts dealing with issues related to postcolonialism in musical expressions and interpretations. I will
engage with this text in the next section, which deals more directly with music.
7
Roger Bastide defines syncretism as “uniting pieces of the mythical history of two different traditions in one that
continued to be ordered by a single system” (1970, 101; quoted in Nederveen Pieterse 2009, 100).
26
resistance against dominant cultural power” (Young 1995, 21). Bhabha’s politically charged

interpretation of the hybrid, understanding it as a “third space of representation” (Bhabha 1994,

316) where power can be negotiated, reinforced the focus on matters of race, class, language,

nation, and, to a lesser extent, aesthetics. His term helped define postcolonial studies as a field

for exploring, recovering, and problematizing hybrids and their asymmetrical power relations

resulting from colonial imperialism. According to Prabhu (2007), the field developed in two

main contrasting narratives in this regard: one of victimhood (diasporic takes on hybridity,

slavery), and another of heroism (creolization takes on hybridity, in which it is understood as

subversive agency). These two main narratives of cultural hybridity discourse, which appeared in

many works, become important catalysts for much of the disagreement in interpretations of

hybridity in postcolonial studies.

Different takes on these matters are explored in works by Garcia Canclíni (1990), who

investigates hybridity in Latin America, Gilroy (1993), in his study of the diaspora of the “Black

Atlantic,” and Young (1995), who provides a detailed account of the concept of difference

throughout history, with some critique of hybridity based on its historical uses in imperialist

discourse.

While a thorough investigation of these studies is outside the scope of this dissertation,

their perspectives are unified by an intention to foreground inequalities developed by the colonial

system; it should suffice to highlight their general focus on “the geopolitical directionality”

(Kraidy 2005, 68), present in many hybrid encounters. Thus, power relations are constantly at

play, and should not be overly simplified; they must inform, and be informed, by specific

circumstances surrounding any hybridity, given that “discourses of cultural mixture have

historically served ideologies of integration and control—not pluralism and empowerment” (vii).
27
More recent contributions to the field of postcolonial studies include attempts to theorize

hybridity on a case-by-case basis, addressing each by its unique conditions and motivations

instead of relying on a rigid interpretive perspective. For instance, both Nederveen Pieterse

(2001, 2009) and Kraidy (2005) dynamically connect hybridity to processes of globalization, the

latter suggesting a framework called “critical transnationalism,” which contextualizes each case

by assigning agency to both sides of a hybrid encounter. In a more critical vein, and moving

beyond the usual tropes that may carry tacit asymmetries forward, Puri (2004) and Prabhu (2007)

localize the investigation of their theories. Puri investigates the postcolonial Caribbean, and

offers criticism related to “[t]he tendency to abstract hybridity into an epistemological principle”

(Puri 2004, 20), which is wrongfully achieved when used as an umbrella explanation for

disconnected cases, homogenizing their subtleties. Puri also condemns the implicit privilege of

focusing on metropolitan centers in several of these hybridity accounts, especially that of Bhabha

(1994). Notwithstanding the (at times exaggerated) criticism, Puri attempts to elaborate a more

nuanced approach, considering the option between hybridity and essentialism a misleading

simplification; she claims that “[t]he real question has never been ‘hybridity or not?’ but rather

‘which hybridity?’” (Puri 2004, 41).

Prabhu focuses on the discourse of Indian Ocean mixtures, exploring the terminology and

subtle meanings of these engagements. For Prabhu,

the most productive theories of hybridity are those that effectively balance the
task of inscribing a functional-instrumental version of the relation between culture
and society with that of enabling the more utopian/collective image of society.
(Prabhu 2007, 2)
28
Prabhu’s premises for a theory of hybridity are especially important for the project pursued in the

following chapters of this dissertation, which analyze structural aspects of musical hybrids, and

their socio-political and historical ramifications.

BACKLASH TO HYBRIDITY THEORIES

The ubiquity of the concept of hybridity in postcolonial studies is not without criticism

(see, for example, Friedman 1999). As a potentially diffuse and contradictory concept, hybridity

can mean many things when used metaphorically in the cultural realm. It can also obscure

nuances of specific cases, as mentioned above in Puri’s (2004) perspective. Kraidy (2005) briefly

reviews various critiques of the term, and mentions two main paradoxes: the first is that hybridity

is proposed as, at the same time, “subversive and pervasive, exceptional and ordinary, marginal

yet mainstream”; second, hybridity also shows “foggy conceptual boundaries and extreme

semantic openness [that] invite arbitrary and at times exclusionary usage” (2005, 65-66). And, he

adds:

This hostility against hybridity is founded on (1) allegations of theoretical


uselessness; (2) suspicion toward the high priests of hybridity—expatriate,
Western-based intellectuals; and (3) perhaps most importantly, the charge that
hybridity rhetoric embraces the logic of transnational capitalism and is therefore
“neocolonial.” (66)

These criticisms are not unfounded, and must be foregrounded in this kind of research.

Nederveen Pieterse (2001, 101) identifies the main topics of what he calls the “antihybridity

backlash.” He dispatches the claims of antihybridity in short order, and his list of answers calls

for similar reflection in relation to music.

“Hybridity is meaningful only as a critique of essentialism. There is plenty of


essentialism around.
Were colonial times really so essentialist? Enough for hybrids to be despised.
29
Hybridity is a dependent notion. So are boundaries.
Asserting that all cultures and languages are mixed is trivial. Claims of purity have long
been dominant.
Hybridity matters to the extent that it is a self-identification. Hybrid self-identification is
hindered by classification boundaries.
Hybridity talk is a function of the decline of western hegemony. It also destabilizes other
hegemonies.
Hybridity talk is carried by a new cultural class of cosmopolitans. Would this qualify an
old cultural class of boundary police?
“The lumpenproletariat real border-crossers live in constant fear of the border.”
Crossborder knowledge is survival knowledge.
“Hybridity is not parity.” Boundaries don’t usually help either.”
(Nederveen Pieterse 2001, 101)

Nederveen Pieterse’s retorts to the condemnations of hybridity reinforce the idea that

hybridity deserves careful attention rather than dismissal. Symptomatic of these issues of

antihybridity is the fact that, despite the pervasive existence of hybrids in several periods of

Western music, there is no clear set of tools to approach them.

1.2 Hybridity in Music


Several music scholars, influenced by postcolonial studies, engage with the

aforementioned geopolitical directionality in arts, and touch, at least tangentially, upon musical

hybridity. These scholars have analyzed works that deal directly with notions of exoticism and

orientalism, East/West (Taylor 2007; Locke 2009, 2015), African American diasporic music

(Brackett 2005), and the musical “other” from a Western perspective (Born and Hesmondhalgh

2000; Taylor 2007). Few of these works offer comparison-based approaches to musical hybridity

per se, thus omitting a thorough discussion of its variety of expressions and nuances, as well as

the different possible interpretations contingent on context.

Two examples of a more general perspective include the introduction to Born and

Hesmondhalgh’s (2000) edited volume, which thoroughly addresses notions of difference and
30
hybridity, while each of its chapter contributions deals with specific cases of musical “others,”

and Taylor (2007), who approaches music’s alterity in Western culture through the lenses of

colonialism, imperialism, and globalization. These examples illustrate how simply addressing

difference and alterity in music, and the political forces behind it, will not necessarily directly

engage with the specific issues of hybridity; what we have are two insightful and important

works focusing on the dominant West’s perspectives on other musics, and the asymmetries that

offer conditions and motivations for mixture of identities in musical compositions. Even though

these unbalanced cultural encounters are common spaces for hybridity, the writers mostly treat it

as a contingent aspect. However, many other situations of mixture—perhaps with less

foregrounded geopolitical significations—occur in music. A direct focus zooms in on musical

hybridity so as to show how its closer analysis can be beneficial.

Mixture and hybridity are not only connected with issues in postcolonial studies, nor are

they a feature specific to twentieth-century music—even if a large part of the repertory explored

in this study comes from that period. Many musical contexts exhibit mixture and the interaction

of allegedly stable identity concepts, which can be triggered through allusions or quotations of

contrasting pieces, composers, music-making environments, timbres, and instruments. In musical

communication, however, the main markers of identity affording conceptual and structural

mixture are styles and genres. Style and genres articulate socially and musically constructed

boundaries that are used in any discourse about music: journal or newspaper articles, concert

programs, interfaces of music streaming services, and ordinary conversation. These musical

boundaries can carry all the baggage of racial, national, and class inequalities addressed by

postcolonialist theories at different degrees; hence, styles and genres and their cultural

associations have a particularly important role in musical hybrids. Labels as general as classical
31
and popular, Western and non-Western, tonal and non-tonal, world music, or as narrow as

mathcore and folktronica serve to map a considerable part of many musical engagements, both at

a structural or technical level, and a sociopolitical one. These categories are also simultaneously

compositional and listening tools, and, directly or indirectly, imbued with subtle (or less subtle)

layers of politics and identity.

As examples of works dealing with these concepts, Dreyfus (1996) and Zohn (2008)

discuss the notion of mixed genre in Baroque music, the first in J. S. Bach and the latter in Georg

Philipp Telemann. Boone (2011) deals with mashups in popular music, and discusses mixture of

genres in that specific environment as meaningful statements. David Brackett (2005) considers

cases of diasporic popular music genres, and, in a more recent book (Brackett 2016), discusses

the constant interaction of categories in the development of popular music genres, and cases of

crossover—when a bounded genre is homogenized in order to reach a mainstream audience.

Thus, given the breadth and multifaceted focus of this body of works, rather than detail a

comprehensive literature review, I instead provide examples of different types of hybridity from

Western music, which show how pervasive the phenomenon really is. Highlighting the

importance of context, Nederveen Pieterse writes that

[h]ybridity is entirely contextual, relational. What is strikingly hybrid in one


setting may not even be noticeable in another. The significance of hybridity
extends only so far as the reach of the boundaries that it transgresses. If hybridity
subverts a provincialism, outside the province it has no meaning. (Pieterse 2009,
116.)

What was seen as hybrid in the 1800s can certainly become a trivial intersubjective

category later. Thus––as pointed out in the previous section––it is vital that every approach to

hybridity take into consideration its conditions and motivations, as well as its technical

similarities by way of a definition. Musical hybridity, as defined here, is expressed when works
32
present more than one identity category in the same musical environment, via structural or

contextual markers. Again, these identity categories in music are usually attached to styles and

genres, but can be more general or narrow identifiers, depending the situation. The following

chronological overview of a few mixture situations in music, which by no means intends to be

thorough, aims, first, to shift the focus from the twentieth century and, second, to illustrate its

many levels and types, which can begin to highlight the different roles that context and

signification play in hybridity. In subsequent chapters, this diversity will lead to my development

of flexible interpretive tools, in revisiting many of these pieces.

HYBRIDITY IN THE RENAISSANCE: SACRED AND SECULAR, VOCAL AND

INSTRUMENTAL COMBINATIONS

The categories of sacred and secular served as general categories of Renaissance music,

defining and being defined both by structural and contextual features. Any composition that

crossed those boundaries could create a sense of mixed identity. An example of such categories

is the contrafacta (plural for contrafactum) in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,8 which kept

the same music but substituted the text of a sacred song for a secular one, or vice-versa.9 While

the agent of hybridity here is the text, it is a crucial component of this music, and one that would

directly affect the classification of the repertory. Similarly, there is some level of hybridity in

cantus firmus masses, such as Josquin des Prez’s Missa de l’Homme armè (published ca. 1492-

95), which uses a secular melody as its tenor in a sacred musical environment; paraphrase masses

8
Robert Falck and Martin Picker, “Contrafactum,” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online (Oxford University
Press), http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.turing.library.northwestern.edu/subscriber/article/grove/music/06361
(accessed December 8, 2016).
9
Contrafacta existed well before the 15th century, as can be noted in Butterfield’s (2002) work on 11th-century
French poet and composer Gautier de Coinci (1177-1236).
33
(with variation on a borrowed cantus firmus) and imitation masses (in which several voices of

other compositions are imitated) are also examples of Renaissance hybridity. Intabulations—

arrangements of a vocal piece for a keyboard or string instrument—cross a different set of

boundaries of early music, those between instrumental and vocal music. The common theme in

all of these cases is the migration of a recognizable musical category from one domain into

another with contrasting associations.

Quodlibet (Latin for “what you please”) are pieces which contain known melodies, or

cantus prius factus, either in sequence or simultaneously. The practice was pervasive enough to

grant a classification by Michael Praetorius:

. . . it was Praetorius in book 3 of Syntagma musicum (1618) who provided the


first systematic definition of the musical quodlibet as a mixture of diverse
elements quoted from sacred and secular compositions. He presented three
categories which he differentiated on the basis of text treatment. A combination of
his sometimes abstruse explanation with analysis of his music examples gives the
following types: every voice is a completely different cantus prius factus; every
voice is a different patchwork of quoted fragments; one voice is a patchwork of
quotations whose text is shared by the other voices.10

Many types of compositions related to quodlibet can be found with different names

depending on their nationality: ensalada in Spain, fricassé in France, misticanza or incatenatura

in Italy, and medley in England. All these terms indicate pieces formed by the combination of

known melodies or styles and bring in their titles a hint of mixed signification. For example,

Mateo Flecha’s (1481–1553) collection of ensaladas juxtaposes many different styles and

textures sequentially in pieces such as El Fuego, El Viejo, and La Bomba, all with humorous

10
Grove Music Online, s.v., “Quodlibet,” by Maria Rika Maniates et al. Oxford Music Online (Oxford University
Press), accessed December 12, 2016, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.turing.library.northwestern.edu/
subscriber/article/grove/music/22748
34
connotations, emphasized by the gastronomic metaphor (“ensalada” means “salad” in Spanish).

Ex. 1.2.1 shows such alternation of textures in La Bomba.

Example 1.2.1. Flecha, La Bomba (“ensalada”), mm. 116-140

BAROQUE, MIXED TASTE, NATIONS, AND GENRES

J. S. Bach famously used a quodlibet in the last variation of the Goldberg Variations

(1741), intricately combining within the same harmonization two German folksongs: “Ich bin so
35
lang nicht bei dir g’west” and “Kraut und Rüben.” Beyond the mixture of two distinct pre-

composed melodies, the mixture in the quodlibet can be recognized as crossing the boundary

between folk and “serious” music, since the variations were a keyboard study collection. Bach

and other Baroque composers also explored mixtures with notions of national styles—German,

Italian, French, and Polish—which became distinguishable categories during that period, with

explicit musical features and established expectations and associations, as maintained in Johann

Adolf Scheibe’s explanation:

The Italian sets great store by the agreeableness and sensual elaboration of the
melody (and consequently also to taste); the Frenchman loves a sprightly and
piercing free spirit; the German is particular about good and thorough
workmanship and harmony. Thus, whoever unites these three pieces with one
another must produce a perfectly beautiful work. (Scheibe, quoted in Dreyfus
1996, 132)

The combination and control of these national styles was common, and to an extent

expected, from German composers of the Baroque, a style that was referred to as “mixed taste.”

The importance of this mixture in the compositional process is addressed by Georg Muffat: “I

dare not employ only a single style or method, but rather the most skillful mixture of styles I can

manage through my experience in various countries” (Muffat, quoted in Zohn, 2008, 3). He

further points to a unifying perspective on these musical hybrids: “[a]s I mix the French manner

with the German and Italian, I do not begin a war, but perhaps rather a prelude to the unity, the

dear peace, desired by all the peoples” (ibid.). Johann Joseph Fux explored the mixed taste in his

Concentus Music-Instrumentalis (1701) by writing an Aria Italiana-Arie Françoise (Ex. 1.2.2).


36

Example 1.2.2. Fux, Concentus Music-Instrumentalis (1701), mm. 1-11

Laurence Dreyfus (1996) goes into some detail about Bach’s tendencies to compose “against the

grain,” by combining or altering not only national styles, but also specific genres and

compositional types such as concerto, aria, fugue, minuet, and sonata. These categories also

developed into stable references whose expectations could be played with creatively by a

composer.

More explicit cases of hybridity also appear in the Baroque, especially with

programmatic intentions, such as in the second movement of Heinrich Biber’s Batalia à 10

(1673). In Die liederliche Gesellschaft von allerley Humor, Biber depicts a battle with multiple

distinct lines, achieving a rare kind of harsh foregrounded hybridity for the period. The last

movement of Telemann’s Gulliver Suite (1728) for two violins, uses contrasting styles

simultaneously for programmatic purposes, depicting distinct people from the story. Its hybridity

is achieved by the superimposition of two dances: the loure of the “Well-Mannered


37
Houyhnhnms” and the wild dance of the “Untamed Yahoo.” The loure on the first violin is a

slow, cantabile melody, while the “wild dance” on the lower violin showcases fast scale runs and

arpeggios (Ex. 1.2.3). The simultaneity of these two very contrasting styles is achieved by the

alignment of their harmonic, voice-leading, and metric characteristics—an alignment that affords

coherence while still allowing for some independence of each material. Telemann’s piece still

sounds as a coherent amalgam, whereby the potential friction of the contrasting materials is

mitigated by the similar traits of the otherwise competing styles.

Example 1.2.3. Telemann’s Loure of the Well-Mannered Houyhnhnms and Wild Dance of the
Untamed Yahoo, from Gulliver Suite (1728)
38
CLASSICAL STYLE, STABILITY, AND TOPOI

As Lobanova (2000) maintains, the Classical period in music witnessed unparalleled

stability in terms of its style and genre system.11 This stable syntactical framework offered many

possibilities for importing bounded identity categories, which are commonly addressed in music

studies as musical topoi. These topical importations are not necessarily all examples of hybridity,

since their identities might be associated with similar concepts, thus lacking the necessary

contrast. But there are many opportunities for use of contrasting style importations. Many

instances of music mixture can be seen in the galant style use of dance topics, and how their

specific associations create friction within a particular environment. These cases abound in the

humorous scenarios of opera buffa. An especially adventurous example is the ending of the first

act of Mozart’s Don Giovanni (1787). Mozart simultaneously combines a Minuet, an Allemanda

(Teitsch), and a Contredanse. Each dance is played by a different group on stage, as three smaller

scenes/dances take place concurrently with 2/4, 3/8, and 3/4 meters. Julian Rushton’s (1981) apt

description of the scene points to the chaotic blend created by Mozart’s mixture not only in terms

of meter but also the associations of each dance within this context:

The Minuet is played by a small string orchestra with oboes and horns; the second
group, consisting of a violin and double bass, is heard tuning. Leporello is ordered
to busy himself with Masetto, and Giovanni approaches Zerlina. The Contredanse
is played by the second group and danced by Giovanni and Zerlina; a dance
neither aristocratic nor merely bucolic, but the middle ground on which these two
meet. The third group, constituted like the second, is heard tuning. Ottavio and
Elvira are occupied with supporting Anna. Leporello bullies Masetto into dancing,
and they begin the Teitsch (third group). At this point there are three simultaneous
dance-metres, the governing 3/4 (Minuet), 2/4 (Contredanse, three bars to two of
the Minuet), and 3/8 (Teitsch, three bars to one of the Minuet). Each person
dancing adheres to the metre of the dance when singing, so that Zerlina’s cry “O
numi, son tradita” fits with the Contredanse but not the Minuet, Masetto’s agitated

11
The notion of style and genre systems and their varying stability will be discussed in chapter 2. For now, suffice it
to say that they are the collection of options of idealized bounded and recognizable stylistic categories in any
context.
39
cries adopt the faster notes of the Teitsch, and the maskers sing resolutely with the
Minuet. The music is not loud, so that every word can be heard, and, in order to
fit the dances together, Mozart had to eschew any but the simplest harmony.
Nevertheless by this combination of metres (which is incidentally the only
passage in Don Giovanni for which a sketch survives) he works up an almost
unbearable tension. (1981, 16)

THE ROMANTIC, EXOTICISM, AND NEW NATIONALISM

Exoticism and Orientalism

Generally speaking, the gradual expansion of options and rules in the stable classical

system dissolved into more subjective and personal musical expressions in the nineteenth

century. There are several cases of hybrids that fostered personal innovation through combining

previously established genres of nineteenth-century music. Kallberg (1988) notes that these

mixed compositions are often indicated in the title: “Sonata quasi una fantasia, Polonaise-

Fantasy, Ode-Symphonie” (245). However, even when they are not directly hinted at by the

composer, this type of hybridity can be recognized by a situated listener. Advancements in

mobility and cultural exchange through the nineteenth century also influenced the types and

pervasiveness of musical hybrids in the form of otherness—what is outside and distant from the

West European world. This technological progress allowed musicians and audiences to “get to

know different peoples and cultures by travel . . . and for performers from other cultures to

perform in Western theatres and world’s fairs.”12 In this way, notions of exoticism and

orientalism developed into recurrent tropes in the nineteenth century, even though exoticism is

not particularly restricted to that period, as noted by Locke (2015).13 In certain cases, these

12
Grove Music Online, s.v. “Exoticism,” by Ralph P. Locke, Oxford Music Online (Oxford University Press),
accessed March 14, 2017, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.turing.library.northwestern.edu/subscriber/article/
grove/music/4564
13
The pastoral, for instance, is an early type of exoticism.
40
concepts of the exotic resemble an expansion of the musical topoi established in the previous

century, but they certainly have a history of their own, which highlights the changing ways that

the “other” was perceived and used in Western music.14 What is exotic or oriental is not only

different and marked, but carries a set of pre-established values guided by the geopolitical

directionality of the encounter: the West’s moral superiority, a dangerous and eroticized “they,”

which served as a proxy for expression of the repressed and morally conservative West (Born

and Hesmondhalgh 2000, 8).

A music-analytical perspective on these matters is provided by Dickensheets’s (2012) list

of topics of the nineteenth century, which expands those of the classical period by adding a

category of “exotic dialects and folklorism.” The labeling of these signifiers of the “other” as

musical topoi facilitates an analytical engagement (which is also afforded in slightly different

ways by Locke’s and Day-O’Connell’s takes on orientalism/exoticism).

Enthralled by all things exotic, Romantic composers employed a myriad of styles


intended to evoke cultures, whether foreign or marginalized, that were markedly
different from the European mainstream. These cultures included the
geographically remote, such as India and Asia, or those closer by, such as Spain
and Italy—and, of course, the Gypsies. Composers devoted little effort to actually
re-creating authentic musical gestures, as they preferred to evoke these cultures in
a manner their audiences would understand, using musical languages that were
essentially Western. (Dickensheets 2012, 128)

Some of the topics Dickensheets lists under this category are: Style Hongrois, “Oriental”

Style, Spanish Style, Chinoiserie, and Indianist Style. Their presupposed intersubjective

agreement at the time––despite the variety of ways of expressing them––affords associations that

might potentially be mixed with distinct references in cases of hybridity. Also, whatever is

considered exotic has to be so in relation to something else, imagined or present in the music. To

14
See Bellman 1998; Locke 2007, 2009 and 2015; Taylor 2007.
41
be “exotic in style” implies a mixture either with the expected context—which makes the exotic

material a reference to something, or somewhere, outside it—or in contrast with some other

material that is “native” to the original style or genre. The latter case is a clear hybrid of two

styles/topoi, while the former presents only a contextual hybridity, which involves the

expectations in relation to the composer or style. This topic-theoretical approach to exoticism

seems appropriate given Locke’s perspective that it “has been treated less as a broad mindset or

artistic approach and more as a lexicon of specific stylistic devices that the composer—and

presumably many of his or her listeners—associated, rightly or wrongly, with the distant country

or people in question” (Locke 2007, 480).

The opening theme of the fourth movement of Schubert’s Quintet in C Major, op. 163, D.

956 brings a clear reference to the exotic style hongrois (Ex. 1.2.4). Forty-five measures later it is

followed by a second theme reflecting what Dickensheets (2009, 101) calls Biedermeier style

(Ex. 1.2.5). The composer creates hybridity not only in the musical realm, through the

contrasting characteristics of each theme, but also contextually and structurally through the

associations and expectations of these features in relation to a Viennese composer in the

nineteenth century, as well as to the sonata form. In Dickensheets’ words,

[g]iven contemporary Gypsy stereotypes and the relative positions of the Austrian
middle and upper-middle classes, this contrast is more than musical. Schubert has
brought together two cultures—castes, races, lifestyles—within a form that
traditionally requires a final reconciliation. Knowing that, due to their musical
languages and attendant cultures, these two themes are irreconcilable, Schubert
nevertheless erodes the standard function of a sonata form’s recapitulation, and
thereby appears to comment on proper Viennese culture and the position of
certain outsiders relative to it. (Dickensheets 2009, 100)
42

Example 1.2.4. Schubert, Quintet in C Major, Op. 163, iv, first theme in style hongrois

Example 1.2.5. Schubert, Quintet in C Major, op. 163, iv, second theme in Biedermeier style,
starting at m. 45

Locke (2009) provides a detailed distinction between “overt” and “submerged”

exoticism.15 I consider Schubert’s example above as a case of the overt kind—the foreign

15
Locke (2009), also discusses “transcultural composition,” which addresses later cases in the twentieth century
where the boundaries and geopolitical directionality become blurred.
43
material is imported and framed as exotic, not being fully integrated into the composer’s style.

Locke’s submerged exoticism occurs when the originally exotic material is highly integrated into

a Western composer’s expression, losing the clearly exotic frame of the overt cases. This creative

integration for personal expression is a more common characteristic in the nineteenth century,

and highlights the subtleties of interpretation of musical exoticism (and hybridity).

Pentatonicism

One of the common structural features of exoticism or orientalism is the use of pentatonic

scales as signifiers of an outside culture. Day-O’Connell (2007), in his work on pentatonicism,

investigates different potential significations of the “gapped” scale in contrast to the Western

heptatonic one. He argues that pentatonicism—which culminates in the music of Dvorák,

Debussy, and Ravel—is associated with “antirationalist, anticultivated realms,” such as the

pastoral, “primitive,” and the spiritual, all of which are aspects that deal with “‘lost’ aspects of

human cultures, the perceived utopias” in a spectrum from earthly to transcendent (6). Because it

can be used as a very direct marker of otherness, many cases of hybridity involve pentatonic

material. An example is Frédéric Chopin’s interpolation of Gb and Fb pentatonic melodies in a

waltz from his fourth Ballade in F Minor, op. 52 (1843), mm. 38-45 (Ex. 1.2.6). The foreign

reference, when interpolated, creates a secondary layer that contrasts with the aristocratic waltz

surrounding it.16

16
This piece will be discussed in more detail in chapter 3.
44

Example 1.2.6. Chopin, Ballade no. 4 in F Minor, op. 52 (1843), mm. 32-49

Nationalism and Folklorism

The further and more diverse characterization of national styles in the nineteenth century

is also related to the depiction of “distant” cultures in European music. In this process of

reinforcing identities, many composers used folk music as a means of commanding

“authenticity” to the “real” music of one’s country, representing the peculiar roots of the

nationhood (Bohlman 2011, 10). Bohlman (2011) criticizes the incorporation of these folk-

nationalist influences into concert music (another example of nineteenth-century hybridity) as


45
trivializing music by “drawing attention to the nation-state . . . [and] away from music itself,”

relying on an “aesthetic leveling” that communicates tradition as kitsch (11). Nationalist musical

trends continue for some composers well into the twentieth century (for example, Béla Bartók

and Manuel de Falla), but Bohlman, in discussing European music, also points to a new

interpretation of later cases of nationalism, which “represent the nation as an amalgam of border

cultures, border identities, and regions” (2011, 237).

The old regionalism was used to justify the nation and the extension of its power
in Europe. This was the regionalism that the Austro-Hungarian Empire
represented. The new regionalism draws attention to Europeanness that forms at
the overlapping areas of borders. The hybridity and multiculturalism that form at
borders lend themselves to celebration in the New Europe, whereas in the Old
Europe it served as a symptom of disintegration at the fringes. (Bohlman 2011,
237)

EARLY MODERNITIES, RUSSIAN ORIENTALISM, STRAVINSKY, AND IVES

These mixture elements related to exoticism are employed in many repertories and with

different connotations in the twentieth century, but important examples in the first decades are

connected to the specific reading of the East by Russian composers—what Taruskin (1992)

called “Russian musical Orientalism.” Russian orientalism was widely spread at the turn of the

century by the Ballet Russes, championed by Diaghilev, and their “seduction of the audience by

sex-drenched Eastern fantasy” (Born and Hesmondhalgh 2000,10). Examples of this evocation

of the “allure of the East” can be found, for instance, in Igor Stravinsky’s Firebird (1910),

Petrushka (1911), and The Rite of Spring (1913).

Other than hybridities that dialog with Western European notions of the East, Stravinsky

also engaged with earlier musical traditions in developing his personal style. Schumann (2015)

writes about the composer’s distortion of established eighteenth-century topics, focusing on


46
alterations of dance topics such as sarabande and waltz, as well as the march topic. He highlights

Stravinky’s specific strategies for modification of idealized stable styles with contemporary

elements, which may carry expressive potential connected to parody and irony, but also afford

more nuanced interpretations of tradition assimilation and nostalgia. An ironic example is

Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat (1920), which uses many dance styles modified both

rhythmically and metrically, as well as in terms of pitch content. For instance, the first movement

contains a hybrid march (Ex. 1.2.7), while movement four brings a mixture of modified tango,

waltz, and rag (Ex. 1.2.8).

Example 1.2.7. Stravinsky, beginning from Soldier's March


47

Example 1.2.8. Stravinsky, Tango-Valse-Rag, beginning

Other notable examples of hybridity in the earlier twentieth century come from Charles

Ives, who in very idiosyncratic ways foreshadowed strategies of hybridity typical of the second

half of the century, by foregrounding the mixture of styles and genres.17 According to

Burkholder (1994, 1), more than a third of Ives’ output uses borrowed music, ranging from one

to twenty sources in the same piece. These are used in a variety of ways, among them modeling,

patchwork, collage, paraphrase, and allusion. Not all borrowings in Ives clearly invoke

contrasting identities, and thus do not constitute a musical hybrid in the sense discussed in this

text. But in many cases, these hybrid pieces trigger what Burkholder addresses as “aesthetic

dissonance”:

17
While notions of explicit hybridity may not be directly attached to Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern, one can see
specific types of mixtures in their use of traditional forms with contrasting “content.” Berg’s uses of tonal-like series
in his compositions are a hybrid of the new serialist technique and earlier vocabularies, which in that specific
context brought enough friction to be noticed as a sort of “other.” See Byros (2008) for an investigation of the
interaction of old/tonal and new/atonal in Berg’s Sonata for Piano, op. 1.
48
Listeners accustomed to European art music from Corelli to Webern may
experience Ives’s borrowings as a kind of aesthetic dissonance, violating the
expectation that compositions should be original, self-contained, and based on
newly invented ideas. Some borrowings are readily understood. . . . But other
borrowings may make little sense if we cannot perceive their purpose or relation
to the surrounding music. If the borrowings have no clear function, we may like
the music or not, but it will remain for us a jumble of apparently arbitrary
gestures. And as the quotations stick out inexplicably from the musical texture,
Ives’s music in turn will seem to stand apart from the European tradition as an
unintegrated mixture of heterogeneous elements. (Burkholder 1994, 2)

Hybridity in Ives also results from combinations of disparate style fields, commonly

having an opposition of tonal/non-tonal material, such as in The Unanswered Question (1908).

Here, consonant long notes in the strings are joined by bursts of non-tonal material in the flutes

and trumpet, a case that will be discussed in more detail in chapter 3.

THE POST-1950S

The group of mid-century composers that attempted to “reset” the Western European

concert music tradition—the modernist project in which “the past had gone forever,” according

to Bradshaw (1995, 139)—created a chasm between composers and audience.

It was at this point that the avant-garde most obviously ceased to take account of
the majority of its potential audience. Immersed in the heady excitement of their
new-found control over manipulation of sound, none of its composers seem to
have faced the fact that, in an effort to arrive at what Boulez called a totally “non-
hierarchical distribution,” they had unwittingly deprived themselves of context.
(Bradshaw 1995, 140, my emphasis)

The situation triggered diverse reactions from composers, the one most relevant for this study

being the polystylistic composers of the 1960s’ strong reengagement with the very past that had

been shut out. Influence from movements from visual art forms such as Dadaism played a role in

guiding some of these responses, helping to expand notions of coherence and teleology in music.
49
Whereas Bradshaw recognizes the hybrid tendencies of the 1960s onward as a reaction to

the integral serialism of the 1950s, she addresses the former with certain prejudice, in one

paragraph even attacking both hybridity and popular music with broad strokes:

It is difficult to avoid a suspicion that the decline of modernism as a certain


pathway to the future was indirectly responsible for the onset of a nostalgic form
of musical cannibalism—of a tendency to ingest bits of the past (or of the ethno-
elsewhere) before regurgitating them as (at worst) an unabsorbed mishmash of
stolen traditions even less honest (because more knowing) than the poverty-
stricken recyclings of the pop music industry. (Bradshaw 1995, 141)

In her criticism, while despising the polystylistic composer’s nostalgia for pre-1900s music,

Bradshaw is involved in nostalgia for the certainty and sense of control afforded by Boulez’s and

the first Darmstadt school’s project. This type of umbrella criticism of hybridity, including

analogies with cannibalism, the digestive system, and blatantly superficial evaluation of a corpus

(i.e., popular music as a homogeneous block), is indicative of a fear of losing control, of not

having the idealized clear rules that a restrictive style or genre might afford. It also recalls those

meanings that racial discourse in the nineteenth century assigned to hybridity, owing to fears of

impure ethnicity, as detailed in the previous section. Bradshaw’s attempted articulation of this

“call to essentialism” is important, and underlies the lack of investigation of hybridity in music

theory—after all, analysis is difficult when essentialist categories become permeable, and their

permeability normalized.

As mentioned by Nederveen Pieterse (2009, 120), and demonstrated by the many

examples in this section, hybridity is not new; but the recurrent thematization of hybridity is a

peculiar characteristic of the late twentieth century. It is novel to foreground hybridity processes

not solely for programmatic purposes—as was mostly the case in previous repertories—but to

unveil the mechanism of its combinations, making the rearrangement of established categories
50
18
itself the raw material and subject of discourse of a composition. If one looks at the increased

use of orientalist and exotic musical gestures in the nineteenth century partially as a result of

increased mobility and possibilities for cultural exchange, one could suggest the same for new

possibilities of communication and traveling, and music recording and reproducibility in the

post-1950s, which also fostered new musical imagination, encounters, and expressions.

Additionally, popular cultures acquire gradually more space, both economically and as agents of

sociopolitical discourse. An idealized binary between popular and concert musics is

foregrounded, and becomes increasingly more problematic and questionable as the latter decades

of the twentieth century arrive; within each of these music categories many other boundaries are

established, with ever-increasing genres, subgenres, and macrogenres disrupting any potential

stability of style and genre systems in general. This intensification of subdivisions and labeling

of musical worlds is also due to the increasing connection of musical genres with identity and

community, which fostered personal associations with different types of music. These changes

are certainly not restricted to music. They reflect an entire age that witnessed various reuses and

recombinations of periods, places, and cultures. Hybridity (or its avoidance) becomes not only a

technical procedure or an expressive tool, but a guiding aspect of many cultures, communities,

and lives.

The polystylistic works circa 1960s and 1970s show distinct ways in which this

thematization of hybridity can occur, showcasing perhaps the clearest and most objective

expressions of these processes in concert music. “Polystylism,” as an arguable category, is

formed by the composers, one can infer, who Bradshaw indirectly attacks in the quote above:

18
Again, Ives and Stravinsky can be considered important exceptions in relation to this.
51
among them Alfred Schnittke, Luciano Berio, Peter Maxwell Davies, George Rochberg, Bernd

Alois Zimmerman, and Mauricio Kagel. In this new pluralist scenario, Schnittke, while

discussing his Concerto Grosso, no. 1 (1977), can mention the inclusion of “genuine Corelli

made in USSR”19 (Schnittke 2002, 45), and Rochberg can write a variation of Pachelbel’s canon

in his String Quartet no. 6 (1978). According to Metzer (2003, 110), collage idioms (by which he

means polystylistic works that use quotations) are centered around the dynamics of “expansion

and connection”; quotation as a musical resource opened up “worlds of unequaled breadth and

richness,” making their “musical reality . . . no longer an isolated abstract realm but, as Berio put

it, ‘the totality of the sonic world’” (Metzer 2003, 110).

But this burgeoning and acceptance of foregrounded hybridity is certainly not restricted

to concert music polystylism; other repertories of the post-1950s also show these processes. In

popular musics, the development of technologies for capturing, processing, and reproducing

sounds, along with the increasing reliance on the recording studio as a creative tool, facilitated

the combination of distinct stylistic or generic material, of fluidity of boundaries, and the

reevaluation of the strict essentialist perspective on music. Dickie Goodman’s “The Flying

Saucer” (1956) is an early, if crude, example of the programmatic uses of slicing and mixing of

distinct compositions, voiceovers, and sound effects in the same recorded track. The Beatles’ “A

Day in the Life,” the last track from Sgt. Peppers and the Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967),

explores hybridity as it relates to popular/concert and tonal/non-tonal binaries, widening the

19
“So into the framework of a neoclassical Concerto Grosso I introduced some fragments not consonant with its
general style, which had earlier been fragments of cinema music: a lively children’s chorale (at the beginning of the
first movement and at the climax of the fifth, and also as a refrain in the other movements), a nostalgically atonal
serenade—a trio (in the second movement) guaranteed as genuine Corelli, “made in the USSR,” and my
grandmother’s favorite tango (in the fifth movement), which her great-grandmother used to play on a harpsichord. . .
. But all these themes are perfectly consonant with each other (a falling sixth, the sighs of seconds), and I take them
all completely seriously” (Schnittke 2002, 45-46).
52
potential of a song to refer to a diverse network of styles and genres, among other musical

signifiers. On this track, a symphonic orchestra of forty musicians performing a glissando cluster

(1:54–2:15) was recorded on a separate tape, then played simultaneously with the rock band

recording; the glissando was overdubbed four more times, creating a 200-musician orchestra.20

The studio tools allowed the Beatles to make reference to modernist concert music as a distinct

interpolated genre interrupts the tonal popular song; this reference is triggered through the

specific choice of instrumentation and material—a 20-second cluster glissando from the lowest

note on each instrument. While this “200-musician orchestra” alongside a rock band could have

been achieved outside the recording studio, its reach and reproducibility in live performance

would be considerably smaller. The fact that a “200-musician” cluster glissando appears as an

interpolation in a Beatles song––number one in virtually all music charts of the time, and the

album selling 2,360,423 copies by the end of its release year––provides a glimpse into how

pervasive hybridity can be.21

In popular recorded music, hybridity appears at different levels—whether foregrounded

or not— but it becomes especially prominent in repertories that make use of sampling. The

Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” (1979), commonly acknowledged as one of the first hip-

hop songs to reach a wider audience, quotes and loops actual excerpts of Chic’s “Good Times”

(also from 1979), which serves as the accompaniment for the rapping verses. Studio-mediated

hybridity develops into a common tool and part of the vocabulary of genres like hip-hop or

mashup, the latter of which is entirely built upon mixtures. Specific timbres and effects carrying

20
https://www.beatlesbible.com/1967/02/10/recording-a-day-in-the-life-4/. See also, Lewisohn’s The Complete
Beatles Recording Sessions (2005).
21
David Kronemyer, “How Many Records Did the Beatles Actually Sell?” in Deconstructing Pop Culture, accessed
January 10, 2017, http://deconstructingpopculture.com/2009/04/how-many-records-did-the-beatles-actually-sell/
53
strong associations with particular styles or genres can also be exploited to produce hybrid

structures.

Sonic signatures of certain music producers—i.e., their preferred recurrent sound—can

also be used as agents of musical hybridity. An example of such a signature sonority is Phil

Spector’s “wall of sound,” a production process that involves many doubled instruments playing

the same lines in the same room; the result is sent through a reverb or echo chamber, which adds

a very specific quality to the sound, as if the performance space was extremely wide. Among

many other recordings, the “wall of sound” can be found in the Ronette’s “Be My Baby” (1963).

In later decades, this peculiar sonority became a signifier of 1960s recordings, and was used as a

way of referring to that period, mixing new musical expressions with older sounds. In its subtler

versions, hybridity becomes the norm rather than the exception in popular music; the

increasingly expanding network of styles, genres, and sub-genres makes the constant potential

reference to any of these a key aspect of many works.

A different kind of hybridity, the crossover in popular music, ties mixtures of genres,

identities, and communities to matters of market and authenticity.22 Brackett (2016) notes a new

interest in the relationship between musical and social and racial categories, triggered by the

emergence of rock ‘n’ roll in the 1950s, which “encouraged media writers to think of the

crossing of music-categorical boundaries as the transgression of social categories” in a unique

way (281). Initially the crossover was used to indicate the migration of genres, such as rhythm

and blues, and country, to mainstream pop, and later expanded to discourse about “soul, Latin,

22
By identity, a concept that is going to be used several times throughout this document, I mean the social
recognizability that is afforded by a set of structural and contextual features of a musical work, artist, style, or genre.
This identity—a musical identity—can only be consolidated, discussed, criticized, or changed if there is some
degree of intersubjective agreement upon it.
54
classical, and MOR (middle-of-the-road)” (282). It is significant that these labels and their status

as crossover music are coordinated with radio stations and the market, thus a strong economic

motivation underlies their marketing within this category.

Artist managers or producers often pressed the artist to do a crossover in order to increase

his or her popularity (Brackett 2016, 282). The artist in turn would neutralize some musical

elements to make the crossover more “palatable” to a different public, compromising its role as

an identity marker of a group in exchange for a mainstream audience. Brackett mentions an

“uneasiness over crossover” both in the economic realm, by decreasing the potential of

competing markets (tied to radio stations with distinct characteristics), because of its

“homogenizing effect on radio stations” (282), and due to authenticity issues, when musicians

and the public consider the genre a type of “selling out.” Crossovers highlight the managers,

media, and audience as fundamental agents in shaping music communication, as well as music’s

potential to serve as an important identity flag for specific groups. Furthermore, these cases offer

a perspective on hybridity that is rather well documented and cuts across musical structure,

culture, ideology, race, market, media, and audience. The crossover in many of these cases is not

predominantly musical; it is a crossover of the market categories and their associated audiences,

an intentional and strategized kind of hybridity that is also overtly racialized, articulated by

striking generalizations. This is clear in the article “The Dilemma of the Soul Producer” (1969)

published in Billboard magazine.

The soul record as a particular kind of music geared to appeal to only the black
segment of the population is becoming outmoded. Many black record company
executives and producers believe that soon a substantial percentage of the r&b
product released will be designed to appeal to the white as well as the black
audience. “R&b producers may be making r&b records with the pop charts in
mind,” says Gordo Bossin, national LP sales manager of Bell Records. . . . In
agreement is Al Riley, national sales and promotion manager of Minit Records.
55
“We cut a certain number of our artists so that they can be geared to both
markets,” says Riley. “For instance, Bobby Womack is both an r&b and pop
artist. . . . We record him so that he can go into both markets. I guess you could
call it r&b pop.” . . . Here, then, exists the dilemma of the soul executive and soul
producer: to push pop oriented product in both pop and r&b markets
simultaneously or to produce only r&b records and then let them go pop.
(Robinson 1969, S-24)

As the scope of the investigation of hybrid works is widened, one is faced with the

challenge to distinguish the hybridity in a country crossover to mainstream pop, Girl Talk’s

mashups, or uses of sampling in hip hop music. It is considerably more challenging to articulate

the latter hybridities in relation to Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso, the last scene in Act 1 from

Mozart’s Don Giovanni, or Telemann’s mix of widely contrasting dances in Gulliver Suite. Their

differences, as concerns production and composition––or what Jean-Jacques Nattiez called the

“poietic level”––can be addressed along the following lines: (1) contextual conditions, (2)

contextual motivations, and (3) how the mixtures are achieved structurally in the music. From

the listener’s perspective, or Nattiez’s “esthesic level,” the variables are: (1) recognizability, (2)

familiarity/background/experience, (3) focus, and (4) intention of engagement. Contextual

conditions and motivations can be roughly inferred by the period and personal history, but afford

only a partial view of a musical hybrid if not related to the details of how the distinct materials

are combined. From the listener’s side, the variables are widely dynamic, changing from person

to person, place to place; to an extent, one can rely on some generalized intersubjective

agreements, but even these communicational pacts will fluctuate. The purpose of this study is to

develop a model for the operationalization of hybridity, organizing the many aspects discussed

above. Thus, its framework must be flexible enough to embrace all the dynamic variables of

mixtures, and be adjusted accordingly; otherwise one runs the risk of disconnecting hybrid

musics from their audience and context.


56
In dealing specifically with hybridities of East/West, Born and Hesmondhalgh call

attention to how decontextualization further projects asymmetrical power relations, fostering a

solipsistic perspective on hybrids, which focuses on “accuracy and authenticity of the

appropriated material . . . as primarily an open-minded and empathetic gesture of interest in and

fascination with marginalized musics” (2000, 8). The authors remind us that this perspective can

be dangerous, as it treats “non-Western cultures purely as a resource for the reinvigoration of

Western Culture” (ibid.). Bohlman argues that “[b]ecause music has multiple functions, it

hybridizes [geographical, performative, and ontological] spaces in many different ways” (2011,

213). Thus, as many postcolonial studies scholars also insisted (among them Kraidy 2005;

Prabhu 2007), every case of hybridity needs to be situated within a context, addressing the

motivations and conditions that help form it.

1.3 Hybridity and Mixture Terminology in Music


In the previous section, I briefly assessed, chronologically, musical hybrids from diverse

periods and repertories. Another possibility for engaging with hybridity is to gather the vast

terminology used to refer to mixtures in music at all levels, of all types and perspectives. I will

focus on grouping these terms into classes, provided either by their etymology, goal,

environment, or the value attached to the term, also indicating which terms are restricted to one

specific period or repertory. These terms can originate from or refer to: (1) general

material/conceptual interaction processes, (2) referential processes, (3) compositional procedures

and techniques, (4) value-attributing words, (5) spatial/visual organizations of different material,

and (6) piece/song-level concepts. Not every example connected with these terms will
57
necessarily be a musical hybrid, since the contrast in sources is part of defines hybridity; these

terms should be understood as potential indicators for musical hybridity because of the

incorporation of distinct material suggested, at least conceptually, in their labels.

The wide network of terms related with musical hybridity reinforces the need for their

operationalization. Many of these labels can reflect a similar strategy of hybridity or musical

technique or process, and some are used to articulate the same trope of hybridity in different

periods and repertories. Nevertheless, they illuminate the different perspectives on musical

hybridities, and help frame the contextual aspects surrounding the production and reception of a

specific musical hybrid, informing the interpretation by suggesting attached values and

ideologies.

1) General Interaction Concepts:

General interaction terminology deals with relationships between texts or styles,

intertextuality being the most general of them and embracing every other concept.

Intertextuality
Blend
Mixture
Importation
Topoi

2) Referential Concepts:

These concepts are grouped because of a directionality and hierarchy involved in the

mixtures—they point to something else with different emphases. They are listed on a spectrum

from the subtlest to the most direct reference.

Influence
Borrowing
58
Emulation
Allusion
Paraphrase
Appropriation
Quotation

3) Compositional Procedures and Techniques:

Many hybrid strategies became operationalized under a type of composition, a genre, or a

technique. These can at times be imprecise depictions of the processes, and most are attached to

a specific historical period or repertory.

Arranging
Intabulation
Parody (Renaissance)
Variations
Modeling
Programmatic
Contrafact (Jazz)
Cantus Firmus
Contrafactum (Renaissance)
Cumulative Setting (Burkholder on Ives, 1994)
Sampling
Quodlibet, Ensalada, Incatenatura, Medley, Fricassé, Misticanza (Renaissance, mostly)
Fusion (post-1950s)
Remix (post-1950s)
Mashup (post-1980s, mostly)
Polystylism (post-1960s)

4) Value-attributing Concepts:

Some of the terms in this category refer to a specific type of musical composition (e.g.,

ensalada, fricassé), which use certain techniques to achieve a hybrid status. But all labels

describe the perceived intention in the manipulation and choice of materials, and attribute value

in the light of a community’s perspective of mixtures.

Parody
Pastiche
59
Imitation
Simulation
Ensalada, Fricassé (Renaissance)
Exoticism
Orientalism
Nationalism
Syncretization

5) Spatial/Physical/Visual Organization Concepts:

These terms focus on the way disparate materials are manipulated, and while some of

them acquired a specific set of values (collage/bricolage, patchwork, mashup), they all tend to

treat musical materials as if they were physical objects in space.

Interpolation
Juxtaposition
Superimposition
Patchwork
Collage
Bricolage
Assemblage
Mashup
Montage

6) Song-level Concepts:

The basic building blocks of the terms in this category are songs or pieces, even if only

parts of them are used. Importantly, these terms deal with mixtures of musical texts that can

serve as markers of identity.

Mixtape
Potpourri
Medley
Playlist
60

1.4 Interpreting Hybridities


In their social and cultural dimensions, hybrids have been interpreted and valued on a

broad spectrum of positive and negative significations, a variability connected to changing views

on the concepts of “pure” and “mixed” in different periods and contexts. The musical examples

of hybridity from the previous section could be interpreted with quite distinct tropes, such as

parody (subversion, mockery), pastiche (homage), dramatic effect, unification and creativity,

engagement or reaction to tradition, and political and economic control or subversion. 23 In order

to facilitate navigating hybridity’s multiple potential meanings, this section approaches its

symbolic power by embracing sociocultural, political, and economic stances; some of these

stances focus on hybridity’s segregating functions, indicating power asymmetries, while others

are egalitarian and globalized. This kind of categorization was pursued by several writers, in

different guises and with different intentions, as will be seen in the discussion below.

For Bakhtin (1981) there are two kinds of hybridities: one is organic, unintentional and

reflected in circumstantial amalgamation; the other is intentional, with political purposes and

highlights separation, by disarticulating authority.24 In the latter, Young has observed,

one voice is used to unmask the other. This is the point where authoritative
discourse is undone. Authoritative discourse, Bakhtin argues, must be singular, it
“is by its very nature incapable of being double-voiced; it cannot enter into hybrid
constructions”—or if it does, its single-voiced authority will immediately be
undermined (Young 1995, 21).

But Young does not consider Bakhtin’s two perspectives exclusive; they can work

simultaneously, “‘organically,’ hegemonizing, creating new spaces, structures, scenes, and

23
Parody and pastiche also change meaning and value depending on the specific perspective taken.
24
N.B., Bakhtin (1981) was published posthumously.
61
‘intentionally’, diasporizing, intervening as a form of subversion, translation, transformation”

(Young 1995, 23).

Prabhu (2007, 3) similarly sees “two salient and opposed types of politics in the discourse

of hybridity”: diaspora and creolization (or postdiaspora hybridity). The former is a political

enterprise related with the power asymmetries of the colonial system and forced migration, as

well as ideologies of race. Creolization, which she considers as a postdiasporic theoretical

formulation, focuses on the dynamic and practical ways migrants connect with the “motherland.”

For Prabhu (2007, 14), “[w]hen creolization . . . dominates, there is a disregard for history and a

utopianism that is, in the end, unrealizable within current realities; when diaspora dominates,

there is a tendency to fall into a discourse of victimhood and/or of narrow ethnicities.” While one

can connect these categories with Bakhtin’s original classification of hybridity in verbal

discourse—intentional hybridity is similar to diaspora, and organic hybridity connects with the

notion of creolization—there are specific values and political nuances imposed by Prabhu’s

classification. In this way, one might profit from the combination of these several binaries that

contribute for a more fluid multidimensional network of the symbolic power of hybridities,

rather than rigid dualistic representations of these complex expressions.

Engaging predominantly with cultural aspects, Kraidy (2005) focuses on international

communications, and posits a framework for interpreting hybridity called “critical

transnationalism.” Kraidy also sees hybridity in tandem with power, a discourse articulating

geopolitical hierarchy, but one which should not only be approached through the generalizing

heroism/active and victimhood/passive axes. The author highlights the cultural neutralization

process carried out by cultural imperialism in the form of mestizaje; in Latin American and
62
Caribbean countries, in his estimation, mestizaje was a “bleaching” device, a way to deactivate

the identity of others through “nonthreatening arts”:

This process allowed nonthreatening arts, crafts, and rituals, but imposed the
Spanish language, the Catholic faith, and colonial political and social
organization. As a discourse that recognizes, even celebrates, cultural difference,
mestizaje in effect is a tool for “bleaching’’ all but the most benign practices that
gave pre-Hispanic natives their identities. (Kraidy 2005, 67)

The aim of Kraidy’s model is to address “how structures and discourses operate in a variety of

contexts to shape different hybridities, and how, in turn, hybrid cultural forms . . . reflect at once

the presence of hegemony and its limitations” (Kraidy 2005, 156). This attempt to critically

assess power is not only restricted to exogenous forces, but also to local power relationships

usually disregarded by theories of hybridity discussing cultural imperialism. Oftentimes, theories

of hybridity oscillate between generalized and pluralistic views. The generalization is present, for

instance, in cultural imperialism studies, which assume no agency on the part of the

“colonized,”25 as if there is tacit and complete acceptance of any element of the dominant

culture; a pluralistic perspective claims diversity of cultures and finds agency in the local

individual (Kraidy 2005, 149). Kraidy’s critical transnationalism integrates both views in a

dynamic, often lopsided, relation.26

Musical representations of identity, which serve as the main tools for the interpretation of

hybridity, are categorized by Born and Hesmondhalgh (2000, 35-36) into four possibilities: (1)

music developing an imaginary identification, never actualized; (2) music serving to indicate or

reinforce emergent sociocultural identities; (3) music being used to “reproduce, reinforce,

25
Criticizing Bhabha (1994), Puri (2004, 22) also highlights these problems in postcolonial discourse: “[b]ut when
postcolonial and minorities are defined as disruptions of the national narrative, deemed significant only insofar as
they interrupt the center, what these people actually say or do become quite irrelevant.”
26
Along the same lines, Nederveen Pieterse (2009) offers related interpretive axes related to power and identity:
center and margin, hegemony and minority (78), and homogenization and diversification (86).
63
actualize, or memorialize” existing identities, sometimes also repressing alternatives; and (4)

music representing an identity after the fact. Musical hybrids can relate to any of the four

possibilities, and the specific role they take will be inferred by considering music, composer,

context, and listener. The musical hybrid, considered from a production standpoint, is also a self-

reflective act by the composer, adding personal layers of signification to the choice of

techniques, combinations, materials, and identities being mixed. The specific choices may also

reflect a critique of a current identity’s state of affairs, or the imagination of a solution for an

issue related to those identities; all of these concern political and social aspects of which musical

categories serve, directly or indirectly, as markers. Born and Hesmondhalgh (2000, 39) mention

that these situations require an analysis that goes beyond formal aspects, pointing to the

subtleties in “the techniques’ different self-reflective cultural, psychological, and affective

properties.”

Furthermore, the different uses and interpretations of these musics by a listener can

attribute specific identity values, and the potential for disrupting or renovating identities. Given

these distinct capacities of music—and especially of a musical hybrid—to articulate identity, one

could also ask whether a mixture might be a “purely aesthetic play with other sounds . . .

unburdened by ideological association and the psychic dynamics of projection and splitting”

(Born and Hesmondhalgh 2000, 41). Again, these decisions are a matter of informed, situated

interpretation, but the potential for these categories (and their mix) to articulate no symbolic

power at all is also a possibility from certain points of view. Born and Hesmondhalgh also point

to distinct interpretations of different uses of “others” in music, which brings their discussion

closer to the focus of this study:


64
We might explore pastiche as an apparently affectionate and humorous mimesis, a
mode of musical obeisance to the “original”; parody, by contrast, as a satirical,
darkly humorous imitation that produces a critical distanciation from the original;
and juxtaposition as a musical collage that creates perspectival distance,
fragmentation, and relativism between each musical object alluded to. (Born and
Hesmondhalgh 2000, 39)

These significations of hybridity as politics of power and identity are articulated mostly

through elements representing nation-states, languages, classes, and races. But hybrids can also

be formed by mixtures of past and present, which are addressed by the notion of nostalgia: “. . .

(from nostos return home, and algia longing) a longing for a home that no longer exists or has

never existed . . . a sentiment of loss and displacement, but it is also a romance with one’s own

fantasy” (Boym 2001, xiii). Boym describes two different types of nostalgia: restorative and

reflective––the latter of which engages directly with the concept of hybridity. Whereas

restorative nostalgia attempts to reconstruct the past in place of the present, reflective nostalgia

embraces the “contradictions of modernity,” and “does not follow a single plot but explores ways

of inhabiting many places at once and imagining different time zones” (Boym 2001, xviii).

Finally, Sianne Ngai’s study of postmodern aesthetic categories is also connected to

hybrids. The category of “interesting,” based on Schlegel’s nineteenth-century theory of das

Interessante, highlights the trivial, day-to-day potential evaluation of a hybrid, in which there is

an “interpenetration of art and theory” (2012, 6), unveiling the processes behind the interesting

art. Ngai writes that “[s]tylistic variety and fluctuation are thus, in a certain sense, not only the

‘inner’ content or meaning of the interesting but also a formal, outwardly visible aspect of the

aesthetic style itself” (33). She also calls attention to the “reducibility of aesthetic experience to

selective attention” as a characteristic of the explicitly more “rational” style of conceptual art of

the late twentieth century (ibid.), in the same way that Schlegel approaches the Interessante as a
65
“style about stylistic eclecticism and hybridity” (ibid.). In a later work (2017) Ngai addresses the

notion of “gimmick,” which potentially relates to hybridity and mixture of styles when these are

interpreted as labor-saving devices, through simple amalgamation of ideas. Merely interesting art

can be “cool” (Ngai 2008, 789), gimmicks can be “comically irritating” (Ngai 2017, 466); such

judgments imply subtle but important values of postmodern cultures and their conflicts with

essentialist and organicist ideologies.27

Even though getting into a more detailed investigation of the politics of hybridity is

outside the scope of this study, I suggest that these often contradictory perspectives, while

certainly not an exhaustive list, can assist in interpreting different cases of hybridity in a less

restrictive manner. Tables 1.1 and 1.2 summarize the axes of signification and tropes discussed

above, and may serve as a guide for a contextualized engagement with musical mixtures, so that

one can locate a potential interpretation of a hybrid work. In other words, a dialog between all

these axes and tropes can help answer the question posed by Puri (2007, 41) and many other

authors: “which hybridity?”

Table 1.1. Axes of Signification of Hybridity


Axes of Signification of Hybridity
Organic and Intentional (Bakhtin 1981; Young 1995; Bhabha 1994)

Creolization and Diaspora (Prabhu 2007)

Heroism and Victimhood (Jameson 1998, but also discussed in Prabhu 2007)

Dominance and Pluralism (Kraidy 2005)

27
In a particular engagement in which I presented many examples of nuanced hybrid music, a person asked (I
paraphrase): “Ok, but is there more to this than just a bunch of cool mixtures?”
66
Axes of Signification of Hybridity
Center and Margin (Nederveen Pieterse 2009, 78)

Hegemony and Minority (Nederveen Pieterse 2009, 78)

Homogenization and Diversification (Nederveen Pieterse 2009, 86)

Purity and Impurity (Young 1995; Stross 1999)

Hybrid Vigor and Inbreeding (Genetics, Stross 1999)

Pure aesthetic difference and Power/political difference (Born and Hesmondhalgh 2000)

Past and Present (Boym 2001)

Parody and Pastiche (Born and Hesmondhalgh 2000, 39)

Patchwork and Organic/unified

Table 1.2. Tropes of Hybridity28


Tropes of hybridity:

Developing new forms, fusion (Young 1995, 22; Puri 2004, 54-55)

Dialogical articulation (Bakhtin 1981)

Unmasking of asymmetry in power, disarticulating authority (Bhabha 1994)

Subversion of authority (Bhabha 1994)

Interrogative effects of hybridization (Young 1995, 22)

“Empowering condition of hybridity” (Bhabha 1994, 227; Puri 2004, 25)

Hybridity as disempowering (Puri 2004, 25)

Non-threatening hybridities (Puri 2004, 45)

Hybridity as restorative nostalgia (the past, diasporic, imaginary homeland, Boym 2001)

28
There are, of course, many other tropes of hybridity. For instance, in what relates to exoticism, Locke (2009)
discussed overt and submerged exoticism, transculturation, and appropriation. Everett (2004b) discusses syncretism
and synthesis of instruments coming from different cultural traditions.
67
Hybridity as reflective nostalgia (present and future, creolization, Boym 2001)

Hybridity as a discourse with geopolitical directionality (Kraidy 2005, 68)

Cultural imperialism (Young 1995)

Cultural pluralism (Kraidy 2005, 149)

Globalization and capitalist imperialism (criticized as “mestizaje as a tool for bleaching”


[Kraidy 2005, 67-68])
Critical transnationalism (Kraidy 2005)

Exoticism (Locke 2009)

Orientalism (Day-O’Connell 2007, Locke 2009)

Nationalism (Bohlman 2004)

Pure aesthetic difference (Born and Hesmondhalgh 2000)

Use of “non-Western cultures purely as a resource for the reinvigoration of Western Culture.”
(Born and Hesmondhalgh 2000, 8)
Hybrid as interesting (Ngai 2012)

Hybrid as gimmicky (Ngai 2017)


68

1.5 The Boundaries vs. Hybrid Conundrum


The general notion of hybridity, discussed by theories from postcolonial studies and

related areas, needs the boundaries it criticizes in order to exist—race, nation, and class. The

attempts to focus on hybridity as a way to reverse the effects of power inequality and racial

discourse rely on the very essentialist categories that were reinforced by colonialists and

imperialists. In the same way, musical hybridity is conceptually dependent on boundaries of

styles and genres, despite questioning their permeability. It seems inevitable that we engage with

these concepts despite—but not overlooking—their imaginary and imposed rigidness. The

purpose of the postcolonial-based hybridity project is then built upon a paradox: to shift the

focus away from the boundaries of pre-established categories by attending to how these

categories interact, while depending on a somewhat clear definition of these same boundaries in

order to investigate their combinations. Whereas this seems like an unsolvable conundrum, the

majority of criticism aims not toward the categories themselves but toward the segregation,

inequalities, and restrictive ideologies their enforced impermeability serves. Moreover, not

addressing the interactions that integrate and diffuse these categories only serves to preserve the

essentialist myth surrounding them.

Musical features and contexts suggest many boundaries of identity—instrumentation,

timbres, melodic/harmonic, rhythmic features, as well as other contextual aspects such as place,

time, and function—but most of them are embraced by the notions of musical style and genre.

These group identifiers are especially pertinent because music, as a temporal art, relies on the

listeners’ quick recognition, familiarity, and categorization in order to fulfill any communicative

potential. Music inevitably depends on those “clear” identity concepts as both compositional and

listening frames. So essential are these categorizations, that they permeate all types of
69
engagements with music: be it in the concert hall, in day-to-day conversations, in reading New

Yorker articles,29 or in detailed music-analytical discourse.

In fact, the boundaries that delimit concepts and categories are essential for general

cognitive processes and sense-making; to engage with the complexities presented to our senses

we tend to abstract features and group external elements as an offload strategy. Stross reminds

us:

The human being is sometimes referred to as a classifying animal, and indeed our
very survival depends on our ability, usually quite out of awareness, to divide and
organize the welter of information that we perceive about our environment into
classes of things so that we can treat one thing like another that we perceive, or
believe, to be in the same class . . . whether or not natural categories exist, our
named categories are all socially constructed. (Stross 1999, 255)

That categories such as styles and genres are socially constructed indicates that, besides being

influenced by biases and interests, they are also not as rigid and stable as they are commonly

portrayed; their rigidness is in service of specific goals. Young (1995) claims that “[t]he question

is whether the old essentializing categories of cultural identity, or of race, were really so

essentialized, or have been retrospectively constructed as more fixed than they were” (Young

1995, 25).

In dealing with musical hybridity, there is no reason why a category in itself, a cognitive

and framing tool, should be taken as a negative thing. Potential problems arise when values are

assigned to a category, attaching it to specific classes, races, and nations, which might be used

for sustaining power dynamics; a musical category then becomes a flag for specific groups, and

its uses, changes, and mixtures carry sociopolitical weight. The purpose of this study is not to

29
Note how pervasive the notions of style and genre—and their mixture—are in this recent article by Amanda
Petrusich for the New Yorker, March 13, 2017, accessed May 17, 2017,
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/13/ maggie-rogers-an-artist-of-her-time
70
erase musical boundaries, nor to necessarily subvert the rigidness, impermeability, and values

attached to the original styles—even though in certain cases, there is potential to do so—but to

offer tools to engage with their blending and address their dynamic and processual status,

characteristics that form an essential part of the compositional and communicative processes.

Music analysis has few tools with which to approach mixtures in general. It is a field that relies

on stylistic and generic stability by default. Thus, before addressing the characteristics and

processes of combinations of styles and genres in detail, one should investigate these concepts on

their own; this is the purpose of chapter 2.


71
CHAPTER TWO: Style and Genre

Hybridity in music results from combinations of identity categories, or from crossing

idealized boundaries. As mentioned in chapter 1, these boundaries are often represented and

discussed through the notions of musical style and genre—two complex concepts that are related,

and have a long history of uses and practices that influence their dynamic, and perhaps

confusing, statuses as identity markers. Style and genre are often used interchangeably in many

settings, an ambiguity that obscures any attempt to define and differentiate them. Nevertheless,

their connection lies in the fact that both deal with categorization, grouping, and the labeling of

identities, albeit of varying aspects and with different purposes. Even though styles and genres

are subjects of scholarship in many areas of study, the current focus is limited to art history,

genre studies (including literature and film), and music studies. Despite differences of domain,

these distinct fields converge on recurrent themes surrounding the ontology, functions, and

values of style and genre. In this chapter, I will briefly review their historical roots and varying

definitions, both in general and in music. I will also discuss the differentiation between style and

genre, their relation with cognitive studies on categorization, and with their wide use in

streaming services and big data classification of music based on algorithms. Finally, I will

explain a few concepts that should facilitate the operationalization of style and genre in musical

hybridity. To be sure, restricting the exploration of such complex and wide-ranging topics to a

single chapter will inevitably result in omissions and limited depth. That said, I hope my ideas

are sufficient to illustrate my approach to styles and genres and their role in operationalizing

musical hybridity.
72
2.1 The Multiple Facets of Style: Norms, Originality, Aesthetic Historicism,
Organism, and Discourse

Style comes from the Latin word stilus, a tool for writing. The term, first used to indicate

an instrument, was quickly adapted by rhetoricians, who applied it figuratively in prescribing the

expression and register of a speech. This was the first in a series of uses and transformations of

the term: from a normative rhetorical concept, accounting for regularities in expression, to

arguments concerning individuality and originality, around the mid-eighteenth century.

Johann Heinrich Zedler’s Universal-Lexikon gives an early example of this connotational

shift from the normative to the individual.30 Zedler discusses style in music as “the kind or

manner, which a person has for himself in composing, executing and performing, and all this

varies according to the genius of the author, to the country and to the people” (Zedler 1750,

quoted in Sauerländer 1983, 256). Style changed from being a “recipe” to being “originality

tamed by rules” (ibid.), a “double-faced conception” that Sauerländer considered essential in

understanding the modern views of the notion. Notably absent in Zedler’s definition of style is

any reference to period—a conception that was articulated a few years later by art historian

Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1764). At this point, style was transformed into a “category of

aesthetic historicism,” becoming a “mirror of history” (Sauerländer 1983, 261). Winckelmann

claimed “an inherent analogy between style in the art of a period and the political climate of the

same period” (ibid.), and style turned into a “nostalgic mechanism” (Sauerländer 1983, 262).

Sauerländer explains that the historicist tendencies of the Enlightenment, represented by

Montesquieu and Voltaire, “became ‘aestheticized’ and the rhetorical and aesthetic concept of

30
Zedler’s Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon (Great Complete Universal Lexicon) was a 64-volume
encyclopedia published between 1732 and 1750.
73
style became ‘historical’” (260). This historicization of style was prone to evolutionary

perspectives that became prominent in the nineteenth century. Winckelmann transformed the

concept of style from a normative concept into a flexible hermeneutic instrument (259).

The last turning point in Sauerländer’s account—the “most radical”—is one where style

becomes “style for style’s sake” (Sauerländer 1983, 264). Heinrich Wölfflin describes, in 1886,

an agenda involving psychology and classification: “[o]ne can only work with precision when it

is possible to gather the stream of appearances into clearly defined, stable forms” (Wölfflin 1886,

quoted in Sauerländer 1983, 264). This scientific conception of style defines it as less restricted

by norms, which, according to Sauerländer, “enabled the art historian to recognize styles in the

same manner a botanist identifies plants” (ibid.). Thus, style became a “hermeneutical engine

which was constructed in the laboratories of German and Austrian university-thinking between

the late 1880s and the 1920s” (Sauerländer 1983, 263).

In Principles of Art History (1915), Wölfflin develops a system with five pairs of polar

terms: linear/picturesque, parallel/diagonal, open/closed, composite/fused, clear/unclear. The

first term of each pair characterizes the “Renaissance” stage of the development of a style, while

the second refers to the “Baroque” stage. In Wolfflin’s view, this development was considered a

natural and necessary process. The theories of Wölfflin (and also of Alois Riegl) focused on

systematizing, searching for patterns of evolution as a way of explaining style change and

development throughout all of history—a perspective that is strongly representative of the

aesthetic ideas prevalent at the turn of the twentieth century, and in many ways still part of the

discourse on style.31

31
See, for instance, LaRue’s Guidelines for Style Analysis (1970), which systematizes the analysis of music through
parameters that define style.
74
To summarize Sauerländer’s tracking of the complex developments of the concept of

style in art history, there is a general change from a (1) normative paradigm to another focusing

on (2) individuality and innovation (person, country, people), which mostly coexist. This

prompts (3), the “aesthetic historicization” of style, connecting style and a time period’s

ideology, making it prone to (4) evolutionary perspectives on the concept. Finally, in the first

decades of the twentieth century, another related perspective emerges which views style as (5) a

generative principle, organized by common basic parameters in all periods, creating a

systematization of the concept, which recurs in a cyclic manner.

From a musicological perspective, Rachel Mundy (2014) suggests a similar, if less

detailed, development of the concept with three stages: style as taste (which stands for the

individuality and innovation perspective above, similar to Zedler), style as organism, and,

finally, style as discourse. Mundy derives the style-as-taste perspective from her reading of Jean-

Jacques Rousseau’s 1768 definition from the Dictionnaire de musique: “a characteristic of music

that varies according to country, personal preference, and the composer’s muse; an acquired taste

that could be learned and taught” (Rousseau 1768, quoted in Mundy 2014, 736-37). Mundy’s

second stage of style-as-organism is represented by Guido Adler’s Der Still in der Musik (1911),

highly influenced by Spencerian evolutionism. For Adler, musical style is “based on the laws of

becoming, on the construction and descent of organic evolution” (Adler 1911, 13, quoted in

Mundy 2014, 737). The third, and last, stage of Mundy’s “trajectory” (2014, 737) is present in

Robert Pascall’s 2001 entry on style, in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, “as

a manner of discourse,” a definition as open as it is complex, and that serves as a reference for

“contemporary scholars and students” (Mundy 2014, 737).


75
Pascall’s definition of style as “a manner of discourse, mode of expression[, and] . . . type

of presentation” deserves a more thorough exploration. In the New Grove Dictionary entry, he

addresses different uses and functions of the term in music aesthetics and music history,

emphasizing the importance of context and purpose for an understanding of style: “[f]or the

aesthetician style concerns surface or appearance. . . . For the historian a style is a distinguishing

and ordering concept.”32 Pascall (2001) writes that style is “the general which surrounds the

particular and gives it significance.” His definition and investigation strongly connects style to

structural characteristics—a widely spread and accepted perspective—by dividing it into form,

texture, harmony, melody, and rhythm. This perspective is tied to LaRue’s (1970) understanding

of style in his SHMRG model (sound, harmony, melody, rhythm, and growth––to be discussed

below).

According to Pascall, these elements “present style” and form “unique blends by unique

expressive purposes,” which can acquire significance contextually and in relation to specific

functions. He is careful to not define the term merely as a structural phenomenon; his definition

highlights both a friction between originality and generality, as well as between structure and

context, both dichotomies that are crucial to the complexities of the concept. When he discusses

contextual aspects more closely—that is, the conditioning of styles by “expectations and

requirements of an audience”—Pascall refers to genre and ethos as its main triggers. The

tendency implicit in this and many other definitions of the term in music is that, generally,

32
I used the New Grove Music Online (Oxford Music Online), which contains the same entry by Pascall. Robert
Pascall, “Style,” Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online (Oxford University Press, 2017), accessed June 1,
2017, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.turing.library.northwestern.edu/subscriber/article/grove/music/27041. All
citations from Pascall are from this same source.
76
discussions of structure invoke the term style, whereas for matters of context and reception genre

is the category of discourse. (I explore this relationship in more detail below.)

The transition from Mundy’s “taste” or normative stage of style to “organism” aligns

with many prominent ideologies of the nineteenth century, mentioned above. She also discusses

the pathway from the “organism” to “discourse” stages, which is achieved through an abstraction

of style, and disconnects style criticism from evolutionary perspectives and related discourses on

race and nationalism. In order to demonstrate this focus on the “music itself,” Mundy (2014)

uses Leonard Ratner’s definition of the classical style, expressed in his analysis of Beethoven’s

Violin Concerto, op. 61 (in Harmonic Aspects of Classic Form, from 1949), and mentions

analyses by Richard Crocker, Jan LaRue, Charles Rosen, and Leonard Meyer as adopting similar

analytical discourse. According to Mundy, “this new style-criticism made available a history of

music that rejected racial politics by abstention, focusing on musicological attention on music’s

formal elements instead of its national or ethnic features . . . what Klára Móricz calls ‘castle[s] of

purity,’ utopias of modernist aesthetics haunted by the failure to extricate composers from

racialized discourse” (Mundy 2014, 750).

Jan LaRue (1970) approaches style predominantly in relation to musical characteristics, a

feature that partially connects his book to theories of style by art historians in the first decades of

the twentieth century, like Wölfflin and Riegl. LaRue states that, at least at the theoretical level,

style concerns musical characteristics, and rejects the philosophical, social, ethical, and cognitive

aspects that are inevitably connected with it.

[M]usical style is regarded as a matter of music rather than as a problem of


philosophy. Until the study of musical style purely as notes has advanced much
farther, it will be difficult to test and validate the theories of estheticians, however
persuasive their arguments. Taking a solely musical view, therefore, the style of a
piece consists of the predominant choices of elements and procedures a composer
77
makes in developing movement and shape (or perhaps, more recently, in denying
movement or shape). By extension, we can perceive a distinguishing style in a
group of pieces from the recurrent use of similar choices; and a composer’s style
as a whole can be described in terms of consistent and changing preferences in his
use of musical elements and procedures. Even more broadly, common
characteristics may individualize a whole school or chronological period. As these
shared choices become increasingly general, of course, their application to any
particular composer decreases. The only remedy for this statistical dilution is an
increasingly thorough and perceptive style analysis. (LaRue 1970, xxv)

Despite the conspicuous focus on structure—“musical style purely as notes”—one of LaRue’s

three stages of style analysis is “extra-musical features”––background, observations, and

evaluation––thus addressing, to an extent, context and reception. But, in the end, this heightened

focus on structural analysis comes at the expense of the social and historical aspects of style,

with, as Mundy writes, “the formal elements of a musical ‘typology’ supersed[ing] historical

change” (Mundy 2014, 757). If, as LaRue tells us, style amounts to the “choices of elements and

procedures a composer makes” (LaRue 1970, xxv), a sole focus on the elements and procedures

disregards two other perspectives that can be implied by this definition: that of the composer,

and, especially, that of choice as an act. For LaRue, style is musical organization, and something

subject to detailed analysis. Despite his stated openness to variability of interpretation, context,

and audience, the extreme systematization of stylistic elements and the meticulous process of

examining them, connects with perspectives on style as something closed, and confined to the

music. If we understand style solely as the “manner of doing things” or the “choice of elements

and procedures,” this restriction is mostly fine. However, manner and choices are fostered by

specific contexts and, furthermore, when a style becomes a label, it acquires a social and

discursive dimension; in this way, a sole focus on structure fails to provide a comprehensive

understanding of the concept.


78
For comparison, Leonard Meyer’s definition of style focuses more on choice, not on

elements and procedures. He understands “[s]tyle as a replication of patterning in human

behavior or artifacts produced by human behavior, resulting from a series of choices made within

some set of constraints” (Meyer 1989, 3). For Meyer, style is a constrained act that goes beyond

structure, since “works of art are understood and appreciated not only in terms of what actually

occurs, but in terms of what might have happened given the constraints of the style and the

particular context in which choice was made” (6). Meyer disagrees with LaRue by stating that

style is not in the constancy (in the synonymity of “the manner” between works, as can be

inferred by LaRue’s definition and project), nor in the deviations from it. While uses of style as

classifying and labeling tools may rely on some kind of synonymity, Meyer highlights the

importance of choices, what is not chosen, and the constraints that establish them. Thus, he

warns that many perspectives on style confuse its recognition and classification with an

explanation or analysis: “[w]hat the theorist and analyst want to know about, then, are the

constraints of the style in terms of which the replicated patternings observed can be related to

one another and to the experience of works of art” (Meyer 1989, 12); one “must infer the nature

of the constraints—rules of the game—from the ‘play’ of the game itself” (ibid.). Meyer

discusses three perspectives based on different uses of the concept of musical style:

analysis/explanation/interpretation, classification, and recognition. For LaRue, the focus is solely

on the first of these, while Meyer cuts across all three; in fact, these three perspectives are

intrinsically connected. Perhaps because the term came to refer, in general, only to structural

aspects in analytical discourse, it lost prominence in scholarship around the turn of this century,

when the social aspects of music were increasingly highlighted.


79
Mundy’s (2014) use of Ratner’s early work on style suits her “music itself” argument, but

overlooks his seminal work on musical topics in the 1980s. Ratner’s understanding of musical

style goes beyond this alleged “castle of purity,” and shaped much of the twenty-first century

scholarship on the subject. Danuta Mirka’s (2014, 3-9) topic-theory oriented account of style

intersects connotations of the normative, taste, and style as discourse. Musical topics are styles

and genres used as cross-references in eighteenth-century music, which have the potential to

evoke a network of signification that involves structure, context, and listener. Mirka locates the

onset of the use of the term style in music theory in the distinction between stilo antico and stilo

moderno, derived from Claudio Monteverdi’s and Giovanni Artusi’s discussion about prima and

seconda pratica. In the eighteenth century, these become known as strict and free (or galant)

styles, but further subdivisions of musical practice based on function and place were also used.

Scacchi (1649) discusses church, theatrical, and chamber styles––addressed later by Mattheson

(1739) as genera stylorum––which subsume the species stylorum, a different subdivision made

by Kircher (1650). There are other distinct and overlapping categorizations of music in the

eighteenth century made by Scheibe (1745), Forkel (1788), Sulzer (1792), and in the nineteenth

century by Koch (1802) and Schubart (1806).33

What starts as a descriptive, ideologically-fueled disagreement in Monteverdi’s prima

and seconda pratica would become a prescriptive and normalizing category. This latter

conception of style is emphasized in Johann Mattheson’s (1739) rhetorical characterization of

music. He refers, for instance, to “the good style,” evoking a judgment of taste, of what is

“proper.” Style is used, then, throughout the long eighteenth century as a way to orient

composers as well as to set standards of evaluation and criticism, always backed up by agendas

33
See Mirka (2014, 3-9) for a more detailed discussion.
80
and ideologies. It is at the same time a pedagogical tool (prescriptive/normative) and a judgment

measure (taste)—fitting into Mundy’s stage of “style as taste.” When used as topics, however,

musical styles have a contextualizing function and discursive dimension, both of which involve

audience, performer, and composer. While these categories may seem rigid and prescriptive, it is

important to highlight that Mirka, and topic theory scholars (Agawu 2009; Byros 2009, 2014;

Hatten 2004, 2014; McKee 2014; Monelle 2000, 2006; Sisman 1993, 2014), generally treat them

as hermeneutic tools that shape musical discourse, which are not mere labels but means for

interpretation. While mostly restricted to eighteenth-century categories, the topical use of styles

continued well into the nineteenth century (see Agawu 2009, 41-49). The older categories

continued serving as a backdrop for unique musical expressions, even while they were being

negated. This idea resonates with Sauerländer’s discussion of the dual-faced nature of style as

both a normalizing and individuating force.

Even though in its development the term has passed through all three stages of Mundy’s

“trajectory”––taste-organism-discourse––I question its potential simplifying status as single

reigning ideologies, especially in the contemporary perspective on style as discourse. As one can

gather from my brief summary of Sauerländer’s (1983) fairly detailed account of the concept in

art history, the development is more haphazard than a trajectory, more like an accumulation of

perspectives not necessarily forgotten or left behind. It becomes difficult not to mix these stances

according to the many possibilities of use and users of the term given the ubiquity of style in

formal and informal discussions about music.34 In other words, the paradigms of style, taste,

norm, organism, individual genius and innovation, and discourse––or “music itself”––are all still

34
This diversity is something hinted at in Pascall’s discussion above on the difference between the uses of style for
the music aesthetician and historian.
81
in use somehow, and inform each other constantly. Thus, I prefer to see the current situation of

style as a set of different paradigms that are filtered through contextual use, function, and

purpose.35 Example 2.1.1 below shows these different paradigms.

Example 2.1.1. Different paradigms of style—linear and cumulative development

THE REJECTION OF STYLE

Paul Butler’s (2007) account of the invisibility of style in recent studies of rhetoric is

helpful in understanding why it also disappeared from much music scholarship after the 1980s,

both as a theoretical concept and analytical tool.36 He suggests that the concept was absorbed

into several other areas; for instance, one finds it “‘lurking’ behind areas of critical theory like

deconstruction, which shares with style the search and play of tropes, and reader-response

35
As will be seen in the following sections, many of these paradigms are also valid for the concept of genre.
36
A potential exception is topic theory, even though its focus is not on conceptualizations of style per se, but on
their use as importations.
82
literary criticism” (Butler 2007, 5). Importantly, there was considerably more engagement of

music studies with critical theory in the late twentieth century, thus influencing the treatment of

the term in music as well. Butler claims that style “in its dispersed form is often not called style

but instead is named something else within the field” (ibid.). Medzerian (2008, 87) agrees that “it

is not the concept of style that has been rejected from scholarship, it is the name.” In music, style

was mostly reserved for technical and structural matters, the “music itself.” Its use as a more

embracing concept was substituted by genre, which stands in a somewhat confused relationship

to style––a relationship that will be addressed later in this chapter.

2.2 Genre: From Rigid Typologies to Dynamic Communities


Genre comes from the Latin genus, meaning “a class, kind, or group marked by common

characteristics or by one common characteristic” (Merriam-Webster). In Grove Music Online,

Jim Samson defines musical genre as a “class, type or category, sanctioned by convention.”37

Samson continues by claiming that genres both “codify past repetitions, and they invite future

repetitions.”38 Differing from Pascall’s perspective on style above, which is also conditioned by

context and reception but occurs in music, for Samson “the repetition units that define a musical

genre can be identified on several levels . . . social, behavioural and ideological domains as well

as in music materials.” Samson calls attention to the classificatory tendency of genre, which

serves not only “to organize, but also to close or finalize, our experience” as it “implies a closed,

homogeneous concept of the artwork, where it is assumed to be determinate and to represent a

37
Grove Music Online, s.v. “Genre,” by Jim Samson, accessed April 12, 2017,
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.turing.library.northwestern.edu/subscriber/article/grove/music/40599.
38
Ibid.
83
conceptual unity. Only then it is classifiable.” He compares this characteristic of genre with

style, which he assumes is related to originality and innovation: “[i]ndeed a genre, working for

stability, control and finality of meaning, might be said to oppose the idiomatic diversity and

evolutionary tendencies characteristic of both form and style.”39

The concept of genre goes through similar stages of development and understanding as

those mentioned by Sauerländer (1983) and Mundy (2014) in relation to style. However, it

followed a different path in the second half of the twentieth century. The development of the

concept of genre is strongly tied to literary theory, with its roots, according to Rick Altman, in

“Aristotle’s categorization of kinds of poetry” (Altman 1999, 2) into epic, tragedy, and comedy,

for instance. The classical theory of genre understands it as post-factum, taking the existence of

genres for granted. Aristotle’s perspective is mostly descriptive, while Horace, centuries later,

accepts the existence of fixed genres and uses them prescriptively, as a means for imitation:

. . . with this redefinition of generic imitation as a major form of cultural


indoctrination, a fundamental bifurcation occurs in generic thinking. Whereas
Aristotle aims primarily at description of existing works of art . . . Horace is
mainly concerned to prescribe appropriate modes of writing poetry. (Altman
1999, 3)

Horace’s perspective aligns with rhetoricians’ conceptualization of style as normative, but also in

many ways with the idea of “style as taste,” prevalent in musical discourse of the seventeenth

and eighteenth centuries. Genre theory also goes through an aesthetic historicization in the latter

eighteenth century, similar to that exemplified by the work of Winckelmann above (1764), in

which style becomes a representation of the sociopolitical aspects of a period.

During the nineteenth century, Altman writes,

[t]he romantics quickly discovered that new genre theories can be skillfully
buttressed by adducing a carefully concocted new canon . . . [they] fully revealed
39
Ibid.
84
for the first time just how effectively genre theory (and even the production of
generically marked literary works) can be pressed into the service of broader
institutional goals. (1999, 6)

This realization later afforded a connection between genre theories and biological and

evolutionary perspectives, in similar fashion to the development of the concept of style. Genres,

as organisms, could then be addressed with the scientific models of Charles Darwin and Herbert

Spencer—an approach described in Ferdinand Brunetière’s L’Evolution des genres (1890-94). In

Brunetière, genres “have distinct borders, that can be firmly identified[,] . . . operate

systematically[,] . . .[and] can be observed and scientifically described . . . [as] evolv[ing]

according to a fixed and identifiable trajectory” (Altman 1999, 6).

THE DECLINE AND RECONCEPTUALIZATION OF GENRE

In the beginning of the twentieth century, Italian literary critic Benedetto Croce writes

that “[a]ll the books dealing with classifications and systems of the arts could be burned without

any loss whatsoever” (Croce 1909, quoted in Kallberg 1988, 239). Croce’s claim, however, does
40

not stop Russian formalists like Viktor Shklovsky from continuing to develop theories of genre

based on “struggle and succession” among competing major and minor lines (Samson, Grove

Music Online). Theodor Adorno’s perspective on the decline of genre shifts the focus to a

historically contingent social dialectic between “universal and particular,” in which deviations

40
Croce’s rationale for the rejection of the concept of genre relies on its aesthetic inexistence: “[t]he things called
Arts have no aesthetic limits, because, in order to have them, they would need to have also aesthetic existence; and
we have demonstrated the altogether empirical genesis of those divisions. Consequently, any attempt at an aesthetic
classification of the arts is absurd. If they be without limits, they are not exactly determinable, and consequently
cannot be philosophically classified” (Croce 1909, accessed June 1, 2017, http://www.aolib.com/reader_9306_56.
htm). He understands genres as located in the text, instead of distributed between individual, text, and context.
85
from an established genre create new ones. Thus, according to Adorno, there has to be an

assumed and shared universal for genres to develop: thus “a countervailing dynamic” that affords

nominalism (Adorno 1970, quoted in Samson).

Within this context, Carl Dahlhaus (1967) suggests that during the course of the

nineteenth century the importance of musical genres declined, claiming its complete demise after

the turn of the century. A work-centered perspective that began in the Romantic period changed

the focus from exemplification of established genres to individual statements, explaining genre’s

increasing “subsidiary role in discussions of 20th-century music,” according to Samson.

Dahlhaus understands “genre as an idea strongly linked with the metaphorical concept of

‘tradition’” (quoted in Kallberg 1988, 239), and given the demise of the latter notion in the

twentieth century, genres also become less relevant.

A change to a more fluid and flexible understanding of genre prompted a resurgence of

the concept after the 1960s, especially in literary studies. (The same did not happen, as

mentioned above, with the concept of style, which remained connected with formalist

categorizations in musical discourse.) However, the lesser importance given to genre continued

in disciplines such as music theory, which oftentimes has a work-centered perspective on the

musical experience. Eric Drott (2013) challenges this decline-of-genre thesis, claiming that

. . . the groupings enacted by genre classifications, far from disappearing or


lapsing into irrelevance, continue to shape our understanding of modernist music,
up to and including its most recent expressions. If it appears otherwise, this is
because such groupings are misrecognized, disavowed in theory even as they
continue to be produced and reproduced in practice. (2013, 3)

Note that Drott discusses this decline of genre specifically in “concert music”—as Dahlhaus also

does—since in other repertories, such as popular music, the importance of the notion of genre

did not wane. In fact, with the multiplication of the number of genres and the increased
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accessibility brought about by the internet and music streaming, genres are both essential market

and reception categories in popular music. Drott points out that “[t]he denial of genre was less

the symptom of a broad, historical process than a distinguishing characteristic of a particular

body of musical texts” (2013, 6). The rejection of established genres created new ones, which

testifies, according to Drott, to “genre’s inevitability.” The latter is actually Toynbee’s

formulation (2000, 107), which viewed genre’s inevitability as “a by-product of the relational

nature of genre.” To negate a genre is also to endorse some type of connection with it (Drott

2013, 7). In investigating the terms used to refer to twentieth-century music (such as

experimental, avant-garde, modern, serial, and atonal, all usually referred to not as genres but as

“tendencies, movements, schools, or aesthetics”), Drott writes: “[c]ommunal patterns of musical

activity, no matter how vocally they are rejected in the discourse of contemporary music,

reemerge in the form of a metalanguage that shapes the limits of this discourse” (2013, 8).

Within this context, a renewed conceptualization of genre was developed. Drott defines

this renewed conception:41

A genre . . . is not to be construed as a stable class of objects, defined by


possession of some discrete set of fixed characteristics. Rather, it is to be
understood as a dynamic ensemble of correlations, linking together a variety of
material, institutional, social, and symbolic resources: repertories, performance
practices, distinctive formal and stylistic traits, aesthetic discourses, forms of self-
presentation, institutions, specific modes of technological mediation, social
identities, and so forth. These correlations in turn give rise to an array of
assumptions, behaviors, and competences, which taken together orient the
(individual) actions and (social) interactions of different “art world” participants:
composers, performers, publishers, audiences, critics, music industry personnel,
arts administrators, and music scholars (among others). (Drott 2013, 9)

41
Drott problematizes the meaning of categorizations through genre labels, which is also valid for style labels:
“even something as simple and apparently unproblematic as asserting that a work belongs to a genre is not devoid of
the specter of this violence, insofar as the ascription of the specific to the general that occurs when a text is classed
within a genre necessarily minimizes certain features and exaggerates others. . . . Given this legacy, it is small
wonder that genre has often been regarded as an impediment, a filter that impoverishes rather than enriches musical
practice” (2013, 9).
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This embracing definition also suggests that genres are unstable and in constant change, needing

to be “continually enacted and reenacted” in order to establish or keep their status. This is a

relational understanding, based not only on the work of a composer, but also on the acceptance

of audience members who can “recognize them, take them up, and thereby reproduce the specific

configuration of texts and contexts that they establish” (Drott 2013, 12). Audience members,

critics, performers, and managers have as much a role in the establishment, management, and

creation of a genre as does the composer.

Notably, almost nothing that surrounds the musical experience is left untouched in

Drott’s definition, which goes considerably beyond the older rigid and prescriptive notions of

genres as musical ideal types to be decoded and repeated. For Drott, as well as for most of the

recent scholars working with these issues, style is contained by genre, the former being reserved

to address structural and technical aspects of music. It is interesting to contrast this style-

contained-by-genre perspective with Franco Fabbri’s (and also Philip Tagg’s) notion that these

two concepts overlap but cover different semantic areas. For Fabbri, a “genre is a kind of music,

as it is acknowledged by a community for any reason or purpose or criteria, i.e., a set of musical

events whose course is governed by rules (of any kind) accepted by a community” (1999, 7).

This inclusion of community is what, most often, differentiates genre from style, even though

this is sometimes not enough to distinguish the two terms. In his definition of style, however,

Fabbri brackets out the social: style is “[a] recurring arrangement of features in musical events

which is typical of an individual (composer, performer), a group of musicians, a genre, a place, a

period of time” (1999, 8).

With this renewed understanding of genre, what was historically a tool for stability and

prescription is now used, contrastingly, to address pluralism by providing “a point of entry for
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considering how the plural and agonistic character of the cultural field, by imprinting itself upon

ourselves, shapes our perception and understanding of music” (Drott 2013, 40). Drott claims that

this plural condition is to be found in each text, agent, and genre. Genre is then a dynamic and

useful tool to engage with pluralism, which suits the purposes of this study and the framework

for musical hybridity that follows. Furthermore, I would add that the notion of style is also

subject to the same reconceptualization, despite its uses in music being more related to structural

matters: structure is not constrained by the score, but also involves the listener and context. Thus,

both concepts used for categorizations and connected to formalism, essentialism, and

nominalism, can be revisited and re-conceptualized to be used in an embracing way.

Genre here assumes the character of a resource that is summoned to help answer
the question, What kind of thing is this? And, as John Frow has observed, this is a
necessary preliminary to answering another, more crucial question: What is it
that’s going on here? (Drott 2013, 16)

There are multiple answers to these questions for any single text, since style and genre are

relational and their framing effects constantly changing depending on perspective and purpose,

reenacting specific categories, or dethroning them.

GENRE IN POPULAR MUSIC STUDIES

In the realm of popular music, the more embracing conception of genre is frequently

explored. Fabbri’s (1982) pioneering work addressed a renewed multifaceted perspective,

dividing genre’s characteristics into five groups: (1) formal and technical, (2) semiotic, (3)

behavior, (4) social and ideological, and (5) economic and juridical rules. These, of course, are
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only theoretically isolated, and can be weighed differently within each genre. Simon Frith (1996)

engages with Fabbri’s work and expands the discussion on genre’s instability and complex ties

with ideologies, market, lifestyle, as well as music-making. Frith addresses three distinct ways

“in which genre labels work in popular music evaluation” (1996, 87): organizing music-making,

organizing the playing process, and organizing the listening process. Scholars such as Negus

(1999), Toynbee (2000), Holt (2007), Lena (2012), and Brackett (2016), among others, also

explore “a more flexible, pragmatic understanding of the concept” (Drott 2013, 9) in popular

music.

Frith states that genre is not determined by the form or style itself, but “by the audience’s

perceptions of its style and meaning” (1996, 94); again, a genre does not exist for the composer

only, but needs an audience to confirm it. To exemplify this point, Frith uses indie music: a genre

label that indicates “both a means of production (music produced on an independent rather than a

major label) and [. . .] an attitude, supposedly embodied in the music, in its listeners, and,

perhaps most important, in the relation between them” (1996, 86). That is, indie music is

characterized by its means of production and attitude; in other words, the how of music-making,

but a “how” that is localized around the sound, not solely in its structure. Even though sonic

characteristics can also, very generally, connect with an “indie” sound, they do not suffice to

define it—they need to be connected to social, behavioral, and market characteristics that are

also part of the category. In this way, style and genre are entangled, and unraveling them proves

difficult. But the main point is that genres (and style) only work within cultures that recognize,

accept, and value them.

Toynbee builds upon Frith’s perspective, and posits that genre can be understood as an

expression of a community (2000, 111-13), highlighting the paradox intrinsic to the term:
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[I]t becomes impossible to define a genre in terms of a complete set of rules.
Exceptions keep cropping up. Still, genres do have rules. Repetition and
variations are regulated and musicians, inevitably, follow convention in their
creative practice. Such is the paradox of genre. (Toynbee, 128)

Fabian Holt’s (2007) ethnographic methodology brings a more nuanced perspective,

illustrating how a community establishes, confirms, and values the boundaries of a genre. For

Holt, who grounds his investigation in field-work, Fabbri, Frith, and Toynbee’s work “suffer[s]

from typical problems of armchair research” (2007, 8). He contributes several case studies of

popular music in the United States, including two chapters on the indie jazz community in

Chicago, and its discourses surrounding genre. Even though systemic aspects of genre can be

approached in light of structuralist thinking, Holt claims that genres “have system functions but

are not systems in a strict sense and certainly not mechanical or bounded entities” (2007, 23),

thereby fostering an understanding of genre through identification of values within its

community.

Jennifer C. Lena (2012) builds her approach to genre entirely from a sociological

perspective, and aims at a systematization of its development in twentieth-century American

popular music. In her account, echoing many scholars of popular music, a genre can only be

formed in the conflation of a community with a musical style. In this way, a musical style relates

to musical conventions, rules, and sonic identities, which at times are coupled with a community.

Lena’s definition of genre includes musical style (the musical text) as only a small part of a

genre; for her, “musical genres [are] systems of orientations, expectations, and conventions that

bind together industry, performers, critics, and fans in making what they identify as a distinctive

sort of music” (2012, 6). Genre comprises the “social arrangements that link participants who

believe themselves to be involved in a collective project” (ibid.). Thus, not all musical styles can
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be analyzed as genres, which appear in the community surrounding a musical style, not in the

music itself. In Lena’s account, style is a set of cohesive aesthetic traits that may be used by a

community; genres are “self-defined collectivities” (2012, 22).

Lena’s project is similar to Holt’s (2007), in its focus on community and discourse, but

her main argument is that musical genres can be analyzed and systematized as a “structure” of

the social realm. Whereas Holt’s framework is open-ended and adaptable to many different

cases, Lena perceives “formal similarities across musical communities” (2012, 5), which are

systematized through four genre forms: Avant-garde, Scene-based, Industry-based, and

Traditionalist, which she summarizes by the acronym AgSIT.42 The acronym encapsulates the

stages through which a genre develops. Even though Lena mentions that many genres do not

follow this specific path—they can stop before the traditionalist stage, or they can start at the

scene-based form—there is a hint of imposed teleology in her account. Genres have a birth,

development, and demise, similar to the “biological” or “evolutionary” model of development

proposed by Adler in the beginning of the twentieth century, which was criticized by many post-

1950s scholars.43

The dangers of a general systematization such as Lena’s—or even the one proposed in

this study—are to find stabilities where none exist. Her concept of musical community, albeit

crucial and identifiable, is also, to a certain extent, idealized as groupings of musical works

sharing certain characteristics. The boundaries between communities, as with the identification

of musical categories, are not rigid, and the stages of a genre’s development can, as Lena herself

42
For Lena, each genre form is characterized by a set of attributes or dimensions: organizational form, scale, and
locus, source of income, press coverage, genre ideal, codification of performance conventions, technology, boundary
work, dress/adornment/drugs, argot, source of music name. Noteworthy in this list is the absence of any musical
feature: there is no reference to timbre, textural, rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic characteristics. Granted, Lena’s
project is not a music analytical, but a sociological one.
43
For a review and criticism of these evolutionary perspectives specifically on musical styles, see Mundy (2014).
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notes, overlap or exist simultaneously (2012, 62-63). Lena’s work contributes to a better

understanding of how classificatory systems are used by communities and the market; however,

the manner in which musical characteristics, genre dimensions, and genre forms interact needs

much more investigation. Thus, the interaction between the affordances of a musical text and the

characteristics of its surrounding community still awaits proper treatment.

In a recent project, Brackett (2016) provides a “genealogical” approach to genre in

twentieth-century American popular music; “[r]ather than focusing on what constitutes the

contents of a musical category, the emphasis . . . falls on how a particular idea of a category

emerges and stabilizes momentarily (if at all) in the course of being accepted across a range of

discourses and institutions . . . to emphasize the conditions that support the singularity of the

function, use, and meaning of particular genres” (2016, 6). Brackett’s genealogy, following

Michel Foucault’s understanding of the term, “seeks both to analyze the conditions that make it

possible for an event to occur and, at the same time, to not occlude the current events to which an

interest in the past is responding, what Foucault termed a ‘history of the present’” (2016, 6).

Brackett writes that “genres are not static groupings of empirically verifiable musical

characteristics, but rather associations of texts whose criteria of similarity may vary according to

the uses to which the genre labels are put” (2016, 4). He observes that “‘[s]imilar’ elements

include more than musical-style features, and groupings often hinge on elements of nation, class,

race, gender, sexuality, and so on” (ibid.). Brackett strongly engages with Fabbri’s 1982 theory

(discussed above) promoting a divided focus on technical, historical, and socioeconomic aspects

of genre, which furthers the understanding of popular-music categorization throughout the

twentieth century.
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2.3 Style vs Genre
The similarly changing ideologies, values, and functions surrounding the concepts of

style and genre reinforce their corresponding ranks as means for classification. Even when

approached distinctly by different areas of scholarship, they still bear similarities in their uses.

The above accounts engage in both style and genre from the angles of typology, description,

prescription, biology/organism, representation of zeitgeist (aesthetic historicization), and

discursiveness. Nevertheless, as similar as they may be, style and genre are not synonymous. It is

noteworthy, then, that most theoretical accounts of one concept do not interact in any depth with

the other. The two classificatory terms, even though sometimes used interchangeably in practice,

bring different hierarchies in their classically rooted etymologies. Style’s etymology from stilus,

an instrument for writing, and appropriation by rhetorical tradition indicate a specific register of

discourse; genre is derived from genus, meaning kind, sort, or class. Style originally meant the

manner in which something is done, while genre meant a type or class of things, which includes

as one of its parameters the manner in which things are done. This distinction is also valid when

both concepts are used to classify something: style classifies the manner, while genre classifies

the type. Problems begin to arise because this separation between how and what is artificial.

Manner is intertwined with kind, and kind is connected to manner.44

Oftentimes, the relationship between the two terms is unclear, as in the following excerpt

by Mirka:

Affects were associated with genres. If styles encompass broad affective zones,
genres composed in these styles are related to specific affects. This concerns, in
particular, the instrumental genres that Mattheson called ‘small Pieçes’ . . . each
genre receives its typical affect. (2014, 7)

44
The ambiguity is increased when one thinks of other terms used as parameters for classification of identities:
mode, register, technique, character. None of these are strictly equivalent with style or genre, but constitute potential
(idealized) subdivisions of the aspects that form them.
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Some music scholars use the term interchangeably, as in this excerpt from Toynbee (2000), in

which he discusses Neale’s definition of genre:

[Neale’s] notion of genre as a social process enables a much more flexible and
comprehensive approach. For the present argument its importance lies in the
suggestion that style cannot be the exclusive domain of musicians. Rather it will
tend to be contested, becoming the subject of struggles for definition across the
continuum from production to consumption. (2000, 103, my emphasis)

Or in this other excerpt from the same chapter:

Above all identification depends on being able to read a generic signature right
through the fabric of the music; indeed, a style will usually “introduce itself” in
the first few bars of a song. But genre is also constructed through the structure of
record labels, the layout of bins in a record shop, in the constitutions of music
magazines or radio station formatting. (2000, 115, my emphasis)

Fabbri (1999) and Tagg (2012) explicitly differentiate between style and genre, with

accounts that point toward a better understanding of the problem. In Fabbri’s perspective, the

two terms “clearly cover different semantic fields,” since “style implies an emphasis on the

musical, while genre relates to all kinds of codes that are referred to in a musical event” (Fabbri

1999, 8-9). Genres operate in “[r]ituals, etiquettes, proxemic codes, the division of labour,

economic procedures and laws, common assumptions based on the music’s function shared in a

community, be it a rural community, an urban subculture, a group of people who have the same

religious or political beliefs” (10). Style is “at a level where more specific information is

articulated” (11); genre, according to Fabbri, “appears to be a less specific concept than style . . .

more about beliefs and practice than about theory” (ibid.). But Tagg, referring to Fabbri’s

distinction, warns that this does not make style a mere subset of genre. As an example, Tagg

cites the personal style of the composer Enio Morricone, which is “unmistakable whichever

genre he’s working in” (2012, 267).


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Perhaps the clearest perspective on the distinction between style and genre, and the only

head-on engagement with their confusing use in music, comes from Allan F. Moore (2001).

Moore provides a brief but thorough investigation of the distinct uses of these music categories,

which ranges from Schlegel to Adler, from Dahlhaus to Ratner and Meyer, as well as recent

musicological accounts by Kallberg (1988), Walser (1993), Krims (2000), Fabbri, and Tagg,

among many others. Departing from the idea that the terms have overlapping but different realms

of reference, Moore points to “four ways of distinguishing” between them (2001, 441). These

subdivisions cover a sizeable part, but certainly not all, of debates about style and genre in

music.

Moore’s first way of distinguishing style and genre is through understanding style as the

“manner of articulation of musical gestures” and genre as the “identity and the context of those

gestures” (2001, 441). Another possibility is to address genre as emphasizing the esthesic level,

while style pertains to the poietic. A third distinction is to address genre as constituting socially

constrained meaning; style would then “bracket out” the social and emphasize technical aspects.

Lastly, Moore regards the distinct hierarchy in the usage of both terms: “style operates at various

hierarchical levels, from global to the most local” (2001, 442); genre also has hierarchy, but

“sub-genres cover an entire genre territory in a way that ‘sub-styles’ do not” (ibid.). Moore

highlights the cognitive aspects of genre and style by suggesting that “much of the interest in

music comes from the realization of friction between awareness of stylistic [and generic]

conventions that appear to be relevant to a particular piece of music, and the sonic experience

itself” (ibid.). Style and genre, in the end, belong to the listening act as much as the

compositional one.
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Altman (1999, 49-68) thinks about genre as adjective and as noun, in discussing the

process of gentrification in films—when an adjectified noun is stable and accepted enough that it

becomes a compound noun in its own right.45 Building upon Altman’s idea, one could consider

the differences between style and genre by thinking of style as adjectival and genre as

substantival (noun). However, this falls short because in music-making (and also in other areas)

the kind, or noun, directly influences the manner in which (style, adjective) something is made,

and vice versa: the manner in which something is made (its style) influences its affiliation to a

kind. In music, style is recurrently used in a substantival way, to signify “kind.” Rarely,

however, is genre used to signify “manner.” This creates a lopsided and confusing hierarchy,

which very few scholars have tackled so far. Besides this skewed differentiation between manner

and kind, there is also the possibility of separating text and social, which is proposed by many

music scholars as defining, respectively, style and genre. Again, text and social (or context) are

not separate entities, and any attempt to divide them will overlook important dynamic aspects of

discourse. It is imperative, then, to acknowledge the fluidity between these two terms, especially

in relation to the varying purposes and contexts of their usage in music, which constantly affects

their definition.

Drott’s explanation above of the reconceptualization of genre, and its application in

music analysis as a flexible and dynamic tool, forms a useful perspective. The fixity of genres or

styles, when recognized and labeled, constitute a performative act that puts as much weight on

the reception as it does on the production or distribution of musical texts. Even when these

categories are determined by, for instance, a streaming service, the friction generated by other

45
Altman uses noir an example of genrification: it started as identifying a particular quality of a film, as in film noir,
but later used as a genre in itself.
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possible interpretations or disagreements creates a dynamic space for enactment and re-

enactment. Importantly, it is not because style is more related to “structure” in its use that it

should be less flexible (more formalistic, rigid) term than genre; structure goes well beyond the

sound or the page—it needs context and reception in order to exist. Styles and genres are not

classes, but “classifying acts” or “statements” (Altman 1999, 85) that serve communities in

different ways, and at different levels. Brackett (2016) discusses these different levels at which

genres simultaneously operate, an idea also based on Fabbri’s 1982 theory (more specifically, his

notions of “sets” and “subsets”). Brackett exemplifies these simultaneous, singular levels of

genres through marketing categories—chart name, radio format, critic-fan genres—which range

from vaguest to most specific uses of the concept and its potential signification (Brackett 2016,

11).

If one relies on recurring usage in music scholarship, genre is more often connected with

community, the discursive, and the pragmatic realm. Style, on the other hand, is employed as a

group of works that share a manner of doing things, or as a unique manner of making music—its

aesthetic characteristics. Style, I should emphasize, relies as much on the audience, performers,

and critics as it does on composers and technique to exist. So, in reality, style cannot completely

bracket out contextual and social matters, as many definitions imply (see LaRue 1970, for

instance). In fact, I suggest that none of these terms are constrained to structure or to community.

The answer to “where is genre?” or “where is style?” involves both structure (semantics and

syntax, form, and content), and the discursive (identity, sociopolitical, economic, and communal

aspects). Both terms cut across semantic, syntactic, formal, and discursive fields. They do not

exist in one specific place; both are spaces of struggle involving categorization, identity,

difference, value ascription, and sense-making. They are constructs for communication, and
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serve as mediators between an individual, a community/context, and text. This tripartite

mediation schema works in any direction, as shown in Example 2.3.1.

Example 2.3.1. Tripartite schema of style and genre as mediators

It is important to differentiate this “modern” perspective on styles and genres from their

use as more rigid and formalistic concepts, and, at the same time, not to overlook the normative

and organicist history of these ideas—which are still influential. Styles and genres are employed

in this study as the main identity categories that afford musical hybridity, throughout a spectrum

ranging from the structural/textual to sociopolitical levels. Thus, the two terms are understood

here as categories that create a set of expectations and form relational, and ever-changing,

systems of differences. As just mentioned, when an interpreter chooses to use the term style there

is a tendency (which will be adopted in this study) to refer to musical (textual, aesthetic)

differences and expectations; a choice to use genre denotes emphasis on social differences (race,

function, locale, fashion, behavior, economy, value) coupled with musical categories, hence

partly embracing musical style.


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The two concepts overlap when aesthetic characteristics somehow influence a

community’s specific kind of engagement, be they in social, political, or economic aspects. The

non-overlapping parts of the concepts are, for style, the more detailed level of structural and

technical characteristics; on the other hand, not all social, political, and economic aspects which

organize a community surrounding a genre will directly overlap with textual characteristics of its

musical style. Both terms are involved in identification and differentiation with style doing so

predominantly among musical texts, whereas genre deals mostly with contexts. The Venn

diagram in Ex. 2.3.2 shows merely an abstract representation of this basic interaction between

style and genre, which in practice is more complex.

Example 2.3.2. Style and genres and their overlapping and separate semantic fields

Styles, even if not clearly pertaining to a genre proper, can be used to create associations

with specific communities. Even in their more textual and technical focus, styles are not isolated

from the network of genres—they serve as triggers of socially based categories. The

aforementioned fluidity between levels in terms of association becomes a crucial factor when

investigating musical hybrids, from production, reception, or critical perspectives. Thus, the
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hierarchy of style and genre is not fixed. There is musical style in genre, but there is also genre in

musical style: for instance, when the function or political perspective of a specific genre

influences the aesthetic, structural, or textual choices made by an artist. Brackett writes that “the

‘effects’ of genre cannot be traced to the ‘cause’ of musical style in a direct, one-to-one

relationship” (2016, 4). This happens because the changing hierarchies within this ambiguous

condition of style and genre is highly dependent on perspective, purpose, and the context of the

uses of these categories.

2.4 Prototype Theory, Typicality, Gradience: A Cognitive Perspective on


Styles and Genres
Brackett (2016, 11-13) raises an important question about the association of an individual

work with a genre:

. . . a musical text that is not a literal quotation can only be understood as


participating in a genre if that genre is capable of being quoted outside of, or
beyond, the initial context in which it was created, and if that genre is legible to
addressees beyond the initial audience for the genre . . . [t]his is to say that
musical genres operate on the principle of general citationality or iterability.
(2016, 13)

Brackett draws on J. L. Austin’s and Jacques Derrida’s ideas on these matters, but leaves aside

the important works on concepts and categories by Eleanor Rosch and others, on prototypicality

and gradience, which address the issue from a complementary, and equally important, cognitive

point of view. Styles and genres are, after all, categories.

Prototype Theory provides a helpful perspective on how recognition and membership of

styles and genres work. The theory appeared in response to the difficulties faced by the rigidity

of the Classical Theory of concepts. Laurence and Margolis summarize this:


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According to the Prototype Theory, most concepts . . . are complex
representations whose structure encodes a statistical analysis of the properties
their members tend to have. Although the items in the extension of a concept tend
to have these properties, for any given feature and the property it expresses, there
may be items in the extension of a concept that fail to instantiate the property.
Thus the features of a concept aren’t taken to be necessary as they were on the
Classical Theory. In addition, where the Classical Theory characterized sufficient
conditions for concept application in terms of the satisfaction of all of a concept’s
features, on the Prototype Theory application is a matter of satisfying a sufficient
number of features, where some may be weighted more significantly than others.
(1999, 27)

There are better examples of a style or genre that have more prominence, or a higher number of

its typical characteristic features; however, examples without all of these characteristics need not

be excluded from the category, although would be less typical members of the same category.

This gradience is useful in understanding the absence of single exemplars of styles or genres;

that is, there is no one instantiation that serves to characterize the entire category, but many

different typical examples that establish a statistical prominence of some features—mostly

musical ones for style, and more general ones for genre.

Rosch (1978) systematizes this perspective by defining two dimensions of categories, one

vertical and the other horizontal. The vertical dimension addresses the hierarchical aspects of a

category, and the possibility of a “basic-level” category—a term that “refers to a particular level

of inclusiveness” (Rosch 1978, quoted in Laurence and Margolis, 1999, 192) afforded by being

neither too restrictive nor too inclusive. The verticality of categories, according to Rosch’s view,

puts the basic level at the center of the hierarchy, which she exemplifies with chair—a basic

level category—having furniture as its superordinate (too abstract), and kitchen chair and living-

room chair as its subordinates (offering more detailed information). Much of this can be used in

music, especially in considering the hierarchical notions of micro- and macro-genres or styles,

style streams (Lena 2012), clusters, or individual/geographical/period style. At the basic level,
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recognition and categorization are faster, even if not precise, cognitive processes, helping with

general musical engagement. The fluidity between levels of classification, as well as between

textual or contextual cues, is essential to understanding how one recognizes and labels music in a

less rigid way. A detailed cue (a style flag, indicator, or synecdoche, as per Tagg 2012, 268) can

trigger a macro-genre or cluster at a high level of abstraction (thus, having a high degree of

inclusiveness). This might be sufficient for some musical engagements, but others might require

attention to other cues that will locate the music at a more detailed level. Rosch further defines

the basic level of abstraction with the notion of cue validity:

Cue validity is a probabilistic concept; the validity of a given cue x as a predictor


of a given category y (the conditional probability of y/x) increases as the
frequency with which cue x is associated with category y increases and decreases
as the frequency with which cue x is associated with categories other than y
increases. (Rosch 1978, quoted in Laurence and Margolis 1999, 192)

“Cues” and “cue validity” can easily be transferred to music as style/genre markers or flags.

Rosch’s horizontal dimension deals with the rigidness of the boundaries separating

categories. “Most, if not all, categories do not have clear-cut boundaries. To argue that basic

object categories follow clusters of perceived attributes is not to say that such attribute clusters

are necessarily discontinuous” (Rosch 1978, quoted in Laurence and Margolis 1999, 196). As a

way of navigating the horizontal dimension of categorization, Rosch discusses the formation of

prototypes, which serve as “centers” of the clusters. Prototypes develop through “maximization

of cue validity and maximization of category resemblance” (Rosch 1978, quoted in Laurence and

Margolis, 197). In an earlier study, Rosch and Mervis (1975) have pursued empirical evidence

proving that (for their objects and concepts) “the more prototypical of a category a member is

rated, the more attributes it has in common with other members of the category and the fewer

attributes in common with the members of the contrasting categories” (Rosch 1978, quoted in
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Laurence and Margolis 1999, 197). While Rosch’s work does not deal directly with music, these

notions find their way in much of the discussion about music categorization, even if with

different terminology.

Whereas Prototype Theory has its problems, it serves to mitigate essentialist views of

musical style and genre—which are, in fact, closely connected to the more rigid Classical Theory

of concepts—since it describes graded concepts that involve typicality judgments and implies

degrees of membership.46 Granted, in relation to hybrids, Prototype Theory presents other

challenges.47 Perhaps the most problematic is that mixtures themselves may not be prototypical

by any measure: a musical hybrid might combine features never before combined, thus rendering

the mixture entirely unfamiliar as far as categorization is concerned. Such a combination of two

different, potentially unrelated categories, can have their conceptual blend explained, at least in

part, by the mixture strategies proposed in the next chapter, which work as processual

prototypes.

2.5 Maps, Trees, and Networks: Genre and Streaming in the Twenty-first
Century
Fabbri, discussing attempts to map music for market purposes in the, now gone, web

music store cdnow.com, claimed that

[i]t is definitely more comfortable to represent the universe of musics in terms of


maps, territories, fields, etc., and to dismiss exceptions as weird objects that live

46
For a discussion of the potential issues of Prototype Theory, see Laurence and Margolis 1999, 32-43.
47
A related, but different, take on these problems is Smith and Medin’s “exemplar view,” which posits that concepts
are represented by their exemplars rather than by the statistical clusters proposed by Prototype Theory. That is, that
people use one instantiation as representing the highest level of typicality of a category. See Smith and Medin’s
chapter in Laurence and Margolis (1999, 207-21).
104
across the borders, rather than account for the differences and nuances that can be
found even at the most basic level of musical categories. (Fabbri 1999, 13)

Fabbri focuses mostly on what is dismissed or overlooked when using abstract models to

approach music categories. Franco Moretti, in discussing literature, brings a contrasting

perspective that highlights the potential virtues of such representations, envisioning

. . . instead of concrete, individual works, a trio of artificial constructs—graphs,


maps, and trees—in which the reality of the text undergoes a process of deliberate
reduction and abstraction. “Distant reading,” I have once called this type of
approach; where distance is however not an obstacle, but a specific form of
knowledge: fewer elements, hence a sharper sense of their overall interconnection.
Shapes, relations, structures. Forms. Models. (Moretti 2005, 1)

Moretti’s research is based on a quantitative analysis of literature, which affords a specific kind

of engagement with a large, and more easily analyzable, corpus. Music is certainly a more

difficult “text” to quantify; nonetheless, given the multiplication of musical categories in digital

access to music, and the possible analysis of listeners’ habits by streaming services, much can be

learned about how music categorization—that is, styles and genres—works in practice.

Every Noise at Once (ENAO), a project based on the streaming service Spotify, attempts

an abstract and dynamic visualization of the organization of music genres. Its website has been

developed by Glenn McDonald, identified as a “Data Alchemist” for the Echo Nest at Spotify.

The Echo Nest, bought by Spotify in 2014, developed an API that relies on big data analysis of

the sonic signal to provide curation and information about music. ENAO uses the Echo Nest’s

music data analysis API to explore Spotify’s database of more than thirty million songs as well

as the behavior of its hundred million users, and to create a constellation of the available music

clustered by its more than 1500 genre labels (Example 2.5.1).48 When one clicks on a genre, it

opens a different map of the artists included in that category (Example 2.5.2). Echo Nest’s

48
According to their website, Spotify has over 100 million active users as of June 2016 (50 million are subscribers).
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interface uses eleven song attributes: energy, loudness, danceability, liveness, speechness,

hotttnesss (sic), tempo, duration, key, time signature, and mode.49 McDonald describes the

project as

. . . an ongoing attempt at an algorithmically-generated, readability-adjusted


scatter-plot of the musical genre-space, based on data tracked and analyzed for
1526 genres by Spotify. The calibration is fuzzy, but in general down is more
organic, up is more mechanical and electric; left is denser and more atmospheric,
right is spikier and bouncier.50

49
Echo Nest, http://developer.echonest.com/tutorial-overview.html
50
Glenn McDonald, Every Noise at Once, accessed July 6, 2017, http://everynoise.com
106

Example 2.5.1. Every Noise at Once map, with 1526 genres available on Spotify as of June 2017
(please access everynoise.com for a more detailed view of the names)
107

Example 2.5.2. Echo Nest visual organization of artists included in the category of “Classic
Rock”
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While the main feature of ENAO is its large map, McDonald can tailor the algorithm to filter

specific information and correlate musical categories with other user data. For instance,

McDonald used data concerning political filiation from some American users to find alignments

with genre preferences, and offered the algorithm online so that users could themselves

investigate the potential correlations between music and political views.51

Rather than delving more deeply into the specific possibilities of categorization, or even

their accuracy, my objective here is to point to different, and more fluid ways of engaging with

genres in the age of big data, streaming services, and the ubiquitous and mostly unlimited access

to music. Moretti asks: “Do maps add anything to our knowledge of literature?” (2005, 35). One

could ask the same for our knowledge of music: Do these data-based maps, which only recently

became possible, help us to understand musical styles and genres? I believe they can, especially

when these two categories are used as the principal mediators of access to and discourse on

music. These maps are not only “mere structures,” they signify, as Moretti insightfully puts,

“more than geography.”

[I]f I keep making diagrams, then, it is because for me geometry “signifies” more
than geography. More, in the sense that a geometrical pattern is too orderly a
shape to be the product of chance. It is a sign that something is at work here—that
something has made the pattern that way it is. But what? (Moretti 2005, 56)

For Eric Drott,

[g]enres . . . result from acts of assemblage, acts performed by specific agents in


specific social and institutional settings. . . . Differences in taste, interest,
education, identification, aesthetic ideology, and social positions influence not
only how individual genres are conceived but also how the broader field of
musical genres is imagined, giving rise to divergent maps of this field and
divergent ways of sitting texts within its strange and ever-shifting topography.
(2013, 10, my emphasis)

51
The algorithm can be found at http://everynoise.com/genrepolitics/. McDonald also presented this analysis of
genre and politics at the Museum of Pop Culture (MoPoP) Conference 2017, in Seattle. An adapted version of the
talk can be found at http://www.furia.com/page.cgi?type=log&id=456
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Drott relates the reconceptualization of musical genres (discussed above) with actor-network

theory (ANT), as developed by Callon (1987) and Latour (1987, 2007). Latour’s introductory

paragraph from his 2007 book summarizes many of the problems in considering styles and

genres as fixed concepts, in particular their dynamic functions in society:

The argument of this book can be stated very simply: when social scientists add
the adjective “social” to some phenomenon, they designate a stabilized state of
affairs, a bundle of ties that, later, may be mobilized to account for some other
phenomenon. There is nothing wrong with this use of the word as long as it
designates what is already assembled together, without making any superfluous
assumption about the nature of what is assembled. Problems arise, however, when
“social” begins to mean a type of material, as if the adjective was roughly
comparable to other terms like “wooden,” “steely,” “biological,” “economical,”
“mental,” “organizational,” or “linguistic.” At that point, the meaning of the word
breaks down since it now designates two entirely different things: first, a
movement during a process of assembling; and second, a specific type of
ingredient that is supposed to differ from other materials. (Latour 2007, 1)

Latour, among others, develops ANT by assigning agency to every item in a network of

associations, be they human or non-human, and redefining “the notion of social by going back to

its original meaning and making it able to trace connections again” (2007, 1). In light of this

theory, the visual, abstract representation of the connections among musical categories, along

with the acknowledgment of the many agents involved in their establishment, maps of styles and

genres are a useful tool, which allows for a clearer conceptualization of their dynamic status. The

pertinence of these maps to this study is related to potential ways of navigating style and genre

“systems,” as well as their “distances,” “clusters,” and associations, which depend on the

perspectives of listeners, musicians, and critics.


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2.6 Operationalizing Style and Genre
In order to define the roles of styles and genres in operationalizing musical hybridity, a

few specific concepts should be defined in order to facilitate their use in the following chapters.

This operationalization of style and genres will engage with their aforementioned system- and

network-like characteristics, and ideas mostly suggested by or adapted from the authors

discussed above.

IDEALIZED STABLE STYLE OR GENRE

In order to address the ineffability of styles and genres and their dynamic relational

status, they first have to be understood as concepts. The boundaries of concepts are not rigid; in

fact, there are no clear boundaries other than in attempts at classification. In this way, their

stability is idealized in order to organize information in acts of categorization, such as in the

cases of hybridity in this study. Hybridity, as mentioned before, relies on boundaries at the same

time that it argues for their permeability. This in itself is not a problem as long as we are aware

of the volatility of these boundaries, as well as their contingent, (inter)subjective, and situated

condition. The boundary versus permeability conundrum need not be solved, but certainly

engaged with, which I do by considering any judgments of styles and genres as idealized stable

concepts. In other words, they only are neatly bounded in their temporary and imagined status.

Idealized stable styles or genres organize musical information influenced by ideologies, values,

conditions, and motivations; thus, they do not exist “out there,” they are constructs in response to

constancy in musical characteristics and influence of contextual aspects. These constructs may

be imposed, personal, communal, goal-directed or, most often, a combination of these. Despite

their potential for indoctrination (especially if taken for granted and accepted as truth), they are
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vital for communication—they establish an intertextual background, a shared knowledge

allowing composer, performer, and listener to interact conceptually. Again, these concepts are

mediators between individual, textual, and contextual discourses. Idealized stable styles or

genres, then, are a possible response to the question: “where are styles and genres?” They are not

anywhere specifically, but in a relational space between music, mind, and community.

Membership to an idealized stable style and genre is temporary, situated, and goal-directed, and

can only be assessed in the aforementioned combination of context, ideology, purpose, and

personal aspects. This makes them tools, not strict categories. They are classification constructs

that can afford engagement with and interpretations of the musical act.

When I use the term “idealized stable styles and genres” throughout this study, I address

the contingency and impermanence of these kinds of categorizations, a feature that when

overlooked, taints these notions with tinges of rigid formalism, and is, perhaps, why they have

often been treated as taboo terms in music scholarship. Categorization in this study cannot avoid

“imposing” boundaries, a fact that, I hope, is mitigated by the acknowledgement of the idealized

status of these acts. Thus, when one indicates membership to a style or genre in an analysis, it is

not a strict membership, but a wide nexus of meaning within the network of musical

communication.

STYLE AND GENRE FIELDS, SUPERGENRES, MACROGENRES, CLUSTERS, AND


GAPS

Given the system of hierarchies and connections among genres and styles at any given

time—which have to do not only with structural features but also, importantly, with the social

and political values of each of these styles or genres and their associated communities—one can

obtain their visual representation as maps, networks, or constellations. A generic or stylistic field
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indicates the region surrounding a specific style or genre, which has categories with similarities

in some respect, depending on the type of map and the parameters used to create it. Style and

genre fields with a central category, hierarchically higher than the others, can also be addressed

as supergenres or macrogenres. Musical categories near to each other in a dynamic network or

map can create style and genre clusters that can be referred to more generally, and differ from

fields for not having a specific central category. Maps such as the ones presented in ENAO,

discussed above, provide somewhat clear visual representations of style and genre fields and

clusters. While not absolutely accurate, a virtual space in which genres and styles are located and

grouped by musical and social characteristics and usage is perhaps the most common form of

interaction with these concepts. Also, the map-like conceptualization of such systems affords the

notion of style and genre gap, which is the relative distance between categories or fields/clusters

in this sort of representation.

STYLE AND GENRE MARKERS (OR FLAGS); SYNECDOCHE

Tagg (2012, 522) defines the concept of style flag, which I will also refer to as a style

marker, as a “sign type [that] uses particular sounds to identify a particular musical style and

often, by connotative extension, the cultural genre to which that musical style belongs. They are

the elements that trigger the recognition of a style.” Whatever structural aspect may be triggering

an association with a style—a melody, a harmonic progression, a chord voicing, instrumentation,

or an effect—it can simultaneously refer to a related genre. Because stylistic characteristics are

connected to the recognition of genres, they can also be generic markers, which involve extra-

musical aspects also surrounding a musical text, such as locale, the audience, or the purpose of a
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52
certain musical engagement. Tagg also suggests a systematization of the style flags (or

markers), dividing them into two types: style indicators and genre synecdoche. Style indicators

are musical features that establish the “home” style (2012, 522-28). Genre synecdoche, akin to

musical topics, are references to external styles and their associated genres, also triggering

features that go beyond structural ones. Tagg writes:

A musical synecdoche is . . . a set of musical structures imported into a musical


“home” style that refer to another (different, “foreign,” “alien”) musical style by
citing one or more elements supposed to be typical of that “other” style when
heard in the context of the “home” style. By including part of the “other” style,
the imported sounds allude not only to that other style in its entirety but also to the
complete genre of which that other musical style is but a part. (2012, 524)53

To summarize, structural features serve as triggers, initiating associations with categories of

styles and genres, both those that are most prominent in a certain work (the host or home style or

genre), and potential importations. These importations, if also intersubjective conventions, can be

understood as topics. Styles and genres can also be triggered by what might surround the

music—such as fashion, behavior, or locale. Because fluidity occurs between levels of stylistic

and generic categories, a clear-cut directionality in these types of associations (as in an arrow

from style to genre) may not exist. Thus self-explanatory terms, such as trigger, marker, flag,

indicator, or unit, may be used interchangeably (as I do throughout this dissertation), oftentimes

acting as a synecdoche for both styles and genres in musical hybrids.

52
It is important to remind that for Tagg, who follows Fabbri, style and genre have different, albeit overlapping,
semantic fields: style concerns structure, while genre includes structure but embraces sociocultural aspects that
surround music.
53
Tagg’s explanation echoes the definition of topics in the recent work of topic theory scholars (Mirka 2014; Hatten
2004, 2014).
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STYLE AND GENRE SYSTEM

Frow (2015) writes that “language is systemically organised not only at the level of

phonetics or syntax but also at the level of use . . . constrained by the norms of rhetorical

appropriateness that I called genre” (2015, 134). According to Frow, genre systems are “neither

closed nor stable” (ibid.), and as an alternative to the formalist term, suggests Amy Devitt’s idea

of a “repertoire” genres (Devitt quoted in Frow 2015, 135). The notion of repertoire, however,

does not imply the hierarchy and specific relations that a genre system has, at any given moment,

from a given perspective. The notion of a system, even if a cause of concern among humanities

scholars,54 “is a way of talking about the formal and informal hierarchies of value that operate

any period” (ibid.). Thus, a genre system is a way to synchronically map the generic context that

is available at a given time, or diachronically, to consider the distance between a listener and the

context being engaged with. A genre system embraces clusters, gaps, and fields, all of which are

defined and valued based on contextual hierarchies and distributions. The same applies for style

systems, which place more emphasis on the organization of textual characteristics.

Now, combining the investigations of the concept of hybridity in chapter 1 with the study

of style and genre in the present chapter, I can start developing an analytical framework for

musical hybridity. The following chapters will, then, define, exemplify, and apply this

framework in different repertories.

54
As mentioned above, Holt claims that genres “have system functions but are not systems in a strict sense and
certainly not mechanical or bounded entities” (2007, 23).
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CHAPTER THREE: An Analytical Framework for Musical Hybridity

3.1 Purpose, Background, and Concepts


Moments of musical hybridity have several expressive possibilities, afforded by specific

mixtures of styles and genres, as discussed in chapter 1. These can involve, for instance, notions

of nostalgia, subversion, integration or unity, innovation, programmatic purposes, or depictions

of chaos, all of which are inferred from contextual cues, but also from the specific ways in which

the mixture is realized in music. Analytical discussions of musical hybrids have mostly focused

on listing sources and highlighting their characteristics. But this occurs to the exclusion of the

structural means by which hybrid conditions emerge in different repertories. Hybrid works offer

aesthetic, hermeneutic, and cognitive challenges in their combination, alteration, or manipulation

of recognizable and idealized stable categories. In order to examine the subtleties and

idiosyncrasies of a particular stylistic and generic mixture—be it in the Baroque period or in the

twentieth century, in rock or in concert music—it is necessary to develop an analytical apparatus

to take into account the musical processes of a mixture along with its contextual aspects.

Musical hybridity appears throughout the common practice period up to the present.55

The Baroque era, often compared with the twentieth century for exhibiting a similar change and

crisis in expression (Lobanova 2000; Baler 2016), presents several cases. The use of musical

topics in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century repertories relies on specific kinds of mixtures.

Popular music has, in particularly clear ways, used hybridity as a catalyst for change and

innovation (Brackett 2016), as well as for the establishment of communities and group identities

55
This is not to say that there are not cases of hybridity before the common practice period. In Chapter 1 I indicated
some occurrences in Renaissance music, for instance.
116
(Frith 1998; Holt 2007). Processes of hybridity become a significant, if not the most important,

layer of activity in the so-called polystylistic concert music of the post-1960s, and have the

potential to contribute to the internal development of a work as much as other, more commonly

addressed musical parameters.56 The combining and manipulating of styles and genres, as shown

in chapter 1, permeates musical expressions regardless of time period. Granted, these expressions

have different characteristics and peculiarities connected to their respective milieus; but the ideas

proposed in this chapter––because they are general and flexible––might be applied to any

repertory. Furthermore, the lack of an interpretive and analytical apparatus for investigating

musical hybridity per se causes many other less foregrounded cases to be overlooked,

consequently important layers of signification in these compositions remain obscure. The aim of

the present chapter is to introduce an analytical framework that might bridge this gap, addressing

mixtures of styles and genres structurally and contextually, and affording ways to connect their

historical, social, and cultural circumstances with their particular musical articulations, which

simultaneously inform and are informed by them. I should make it clear that the goal of this

chapter is not to provide a “hermeneutics of musical hybridity,” but to establish tools that, in

combination with the previous chapters, might afford a hermeneutical approach to mixtures of

musical styles and genres.

56
This music has been generally addressed by some music scholars as collage music (e.g., Watkins, 1994), a term
based on visual arts indicating cutting and pasting of disparate elements. Although certainly belonging to the
polystylistic repertory, collage works are only a part of it. I agree with Losada (2004), for whom collage works are
particular cases of hybridity in which elements of the mixture have clearly separate identities. Schnittke’s term
“polystylism” (Schnittke, 1971 in Schnittke 2002, 87-90) serves as a more embracing term, which points to the
plurality of styles as the main characteristic of a large and varied group of pieces in which he includes the third
movement of Berio’s Sinfonia, a staple collage work, as well as many other pieces from Webern to Ligeti.
Polystylism, and “polystylistic” works are present in many repertories, and will be used here interchangeably with
hybrid, mixed, or pluralist works. For further reading on musical collage and its origins see Losada (2004).
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I will first briefly discuss the rather thin literature on the analysis of hybridity in music,

and how earlier studies compare and contrast with this study. I then introduce the main concepts

of the framework—chimeric environments and mixture strategies—which will be developed in

detail in the next sections of the chapter.

ANALYTICAL WRITINGS ON STYLE AND GENRE MIXTURES

Schnittke (2002) and Rochberg (1984, 2009, 2012), both prolific composers of hybrid

music, also contributed important writings about the subject of polystylism from a compositional

and aesthetic standpoint. Meyer (1967), Lobanova (2000), and Metzer (2004) approach hybridity

and the notions of style and genre in the twentieth century mostly from historical and

sociocultural perspectives. Here I shall only discuss writings that offer somewhat systematized

analytic stances of musical hybridity, and that serve as the background for the framework

proposed in this study. I divide my discussion of these analytic writings on the mixture of styles

and genres into four groups: works that focus on structural matters of twentieth-century music

(Burkholder 1995; Losada 2004, 2008, 2009), popular music (Boone 2011), those influenced by

literary criticism and narrative (Berry 2006; Tremblay 2007; Dixon 2007), and topic theory

(Hatten 1994, 2014; Sheinberg 2000; Schumann 2015). Many other works touch on the subject

of hybridity and provide some analytic engagement with pluralist compositions;57 while I do not

engage with these writings here, they will inform the explanation of strategies below.

57
Dreyfus (1996) and Zohn (2008) are two examples that deal with hybridity in Baroque music, and will be engaged
with in specific cases in later discussions.
118
Hybridity in the Twentieth Century and Structural Analysis

Peter Burkholder (1995) is one of the first scholars to address the analysis of style and

genre mixture in music. He develops a refined categorization of the uses of “borrowed” music

within works from Charles Ives’s entire output. Ives’s mixture of styles is normally achieved via

quotations or paraphrases of existing pieces; thus, Burkholder understands these processes as

different kinds of musical borrowing. His extensive categorization of Ives’s practice includes 14

techniques (1995, 854), many of which are used by later composers in the post-1960s:

(1) Modeling a work or section on an existing piece


(2) Variations on a given tune
(3) Paraphrasing an existing tune to form a new melody
(4) Arranging a work for a new medium
(5) Setting an existing tune with a new accompaniment
(6) Cantus firmus
(7) Medley
(8) Quodlibet
(9) Stylistic allusion
(10) Cumulative setting58
(11) Programmatic quotation, fulfilling an extramusical program or illustrating part of a
text
(12) Collage, in which a swirl of quoted and paraphrased tunes, is added to a musical
structure based on modeling, paraphrase, cumulative setting, or a narrative program,
(13) Patchwork, in which fragments of two or more tunes are stitched together,
sometimes elided through paraphrase and sometimes linked by Ives’s own interpolations
(14) Extended paraphrase

Although Burkholder’s techniques of musical borrowing are useful as a starting point,

they are taken from the work of a single composer in the first half of the twentieth century. These

fourteen techniques also share many characteristics with general mixture strategies (discussed

below), and, in the end, Burkholder categorizes not techniques of hybridity, but types of mixed

58
According to Burkholder (1995:854), cumulative setting is “a complex form in which the theme, either a
borrowed tune or a melody paraphrased from one or more existing tunes, is presented complete only near the end of
a movement, preceded by development of motives from the theme, fragmentary or altered presentation of the theme,
and exposition of important countermelodies (Fugue in Four Keys on The Shining Shore and perhaps the lost organ
prototypes for Thanksgiving, both 1897).”
119
compositions in Ives. Furthermore, the term “musical borrowing” should be used carefully in

other repertories, even though it can be accurate for some uses of style and genre mixture, as in

direct quotations, for instance. The notion of borrowing implies that what is borrowed does not

belong in that environment, that it is taken from somewhere or someone else. This is decidedly

not the case with many polystylistic works in the second half of the century. In fact, hybridities

that stem from postmodernist ideologies in the later twentieth century promote a full accessibility

and fluidity of influences, and downplay notions of ownership and barriers between styles and

genres. This idea is made clear by Rochberg, one of the most prominent composers of 1970s

polystylism, in his essay No Center (1984, 158): “I stand in a circle of time, not on a line. 360

degrees of past, present, future. All around me. I can look in any direction I want to. Bella vista.”

Later, in the same text, he addresses the problematic notion of property, implied by the term

“borrowing,” more directly: “Everything we love belongs to us. That includes the past and the

future. We are the present” (159). Given these ideas, I prefer to use the term mixture instead of

borrowing in order to avoid the implications of property.

Losada (2004, 2008, 2009), who departs from Burkholder’s research, changes the focus

from Ives to collage works by Berio, Rochberg, and Bernd Alois Zimmerman. She clearly

defines collage, not as a general aesthetic embracing every kind of style mixture, but a specific

type of polystylistic composition that “incorporate[s] a variety of literal and recognizable

quotations from diverse sources within a single movement” (Losada 2004, 23). Losada details

pitch, rhythmic, and motivic strategies that afford simultaneities and transitions between

disparate music in a select group of collage pieces by the three composers. She uses formal and

motivic analysis, but the main ideas deal with pitch techniques specific to collage works:

modulation, chromatic saturation, and the “significant gap.” According to Losada (2004, 2008,
120
2009), the process of modulation—how one type of material transitions to the next—can be

convincingly achieved by: (1) converging on a specific overlapping pitch or motive, (2)

fragmentation of the texture, which blurs borders via chromatic insertions, or (3) alteration of the

rhythms of the excerpts. Chromatic saturation defines the pitch selection of both juxtaposed and

superimposed materials, which tends toward aggregate completion. The notion of the

“significant gap” addresses matters of expectation and larger-level coherence in determining the

completion of a chromatic space or range. Losada carefully explains the craft that goes into the

combination of contrasting materials, detailing techniques specific to this repertory, its demands,

and goals; these techniques show different kinds of coherence that mixtures afford, which are

sometimes atemporal. Although modulation, chromatic saturation, and the significant gap

elucidate many aspects of a collage work’s construction, and also serve as a guide for pitch

analysis of other pieces within the polystylistic repertory, the focus on detailed technical matters

can obscure other types of engagements with these processes. An important characteristic of

every technique discussed in her work is that they are mostly processual: they rely on

transformations, filling in, or achieving a complete chromatic collection (evoking equilibrium or

balance). Changes between styles and genres at a larger level—the focus of the present study—

are more easily grasped by a listener and are a result of the more detail-oriented structural

processes investigated by Losada.

Popular Music, Mashups

In twentieth-century popular music, the multiplication of subgenres (or microgenres) and

their strong connection with group identities make pluralism a common, almost normalized
121
feature, with listeners having to navigate their musical experiences through an ever-widening

number of categories. This constant pluralism also fosters creativity, innovation, and the

development of new styles and genres. However, few scholars have addressed the processes that

underlie this pluralism and the hybridity it affords, especially in terms of musical structure. This

is not to say hybridity has been completely overlooked. Recent work by Brackett (2016)

highlights the importance of categorization and mixtures of styles and genres in understanding

the development of American popular music, even though structural analysis is not the main

goal. Christine Boone (2011) addresses analytical issues more directly, in what are perhaps the

most foregrounded cases of hybridity in popular music—the mashup repertory. Boone’s analyses

of techniques and meanings of mashups, despite the delimited repertory, align with this study.

Mashups are entirely based on mixtures, and use only pre-recorded, mostly popular,

music. In chapter 1 of her dissertation, Boone defines four types of mashups, which are based on

the number of sources used, whether or not they are recognizable, and their interaction: this

includes juxtaposition, superimposition, and their combination, or no interaction at all.59 These

are variable characteristics, and certainly not restricted to this genre’s hybridity. In chapter 5, she

lists three main aspects that define the principles of construction of a mashup work: tempo, beat-

level rhythmic patterns, and the key of the sources. These aspects are also applicable to other

repertories, but vital to mashup music because of the constraints of pre-recorded music. Boone’s

attention to variables of recognizability, characteristics, and disposition of the material is an

important contribution, which becomes crucial in any attempt to engage with hybridity. Her

analyses go into details of rhythm, tempo, and harmonic and melodic adjustments, all used to

integrate disparate works in a mashup composition. Boone also addresses the reception of these

59
Boone’s basic typology of mashups is: basic mashup, cover mashup, paint palette mashup, and megamix.
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works by the mashup community, providing an insider’s perspective to her theoretical

framework.

In an attempt to systematize this type of composition and its analysis, Boone determines

“five constructive principles of the mashups:” matching tempos, goodness of fit of beat patterns

(the quality of the alignment of beat and meter in the mashup), alignment of keys, clear lyrics,

and use of common formal structure for a popular song (Boone 2011, 168). As for the structural

friction in these combinations of songs, she discusses the concept of clash, as understood by the

mashup community. The concept is ambiguously used in mashups both as key clash, denoting

failure to integrate the tonalities in the mixture, and genre clash, which stands for the conceptual

friction of a combination of disparate music.60 The latter acquires a subversive, often ironic or

humorous signification proportional to the varying levels of contrast of associations. Again,

hybridity in popular music is certainly not restricted to mashups, and one of the benefits of

having a general framework for mixtures is that one can address other, less foregrounded cases,

those still relatable with mashups but lacking analytical tools.

Literary, Critical, and Narratological Analysis

Another strain of research approaches the polystylistic repertory using concepts from

literary criticism, especially those developed by Bakhtin, as a way of interpreting the interaction

between multiple musical styles and genres, along with their cultural associations.61 Mark

Andrew Berry (2006) offers a fruitful perspective in his investigation of the political and cultural

60
These categories will be further compared with the strategies proposed in this study in the next sections.
61
Bakhtin proposed a dialogic, instead of monologic, view of the text. Concepts such as dialogism, heteroglossia,
double-voicedness or multi-voicedness, and polyphony (this one borrowed from music), serve to engage with the
verbal text, its multiple layers of discourse and meanings in the social and cultural contexts.
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environment of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as the authorial aspects of this type of music. Berry

interprets the dialogism afforded by mixtures in pieces by Bob Dylan, George Rochberg, and

Herbie Hancock, and shows the plural and oppositional contexts within which each of these was

created: American folk music and pop, concert tradition and new music, and black nationalism,

respectively.

Other studies rely mostly on narrativity to interpret polystylistic works. While this

approach has been productive, it has a tendency to promote teleological interpretations of such

music. It also proceeds immediately to a reading of music through the lens of verbal texts, by

projecting narratological models onto a musical work. Narratives can provide a compelling

interpretation, but also run the risk of quickly bypassing the actual musical material being used,

and the interactions and processes that develop a hybrid composition. An example is Dixon’s

(2007) dissertation, in which the author explores three symphonies by Schnittke in light of

Bakhtin’s theories in literature. Dixon proposes a framework of the polystylistic symphony as a

musical novel, approaching the identity of materials as characters. Tremblay (2007) also explores

Schnittke’s music, and posits that the gaps in discourse formed by the use of contrasting styles

make us “instinctively attempt to resolve them by the construction of a narrative” (ii).

I do not oppose a dialogic or Bakhtinian view of polystylistic music composition,

especially because these works present marked interactions between different styles and genres,

with distinct, idealized identities and meanings. Furthermore, a surrounding context of cultural

practices fosters and informs this kind of mixture, connecting it to different artistic expressions

and affording new possibilities of communication. However, imposing a narrative (and often

teleological) framework to this repertory also forces a specifically traditional kind of structure at

odds with the tenets of postmodernism, which underlie some of the music analyzed by these
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authors. The gap that, according to Tremblay (2007), needs to be filled is a result of the

fragmentation of the discourse, which promotes new ways of dealing with coherence. Attempts

to fill this gap “fix” it only by bringing us back to the older paradigms. Thus we should avoid

beginning the analytical process by readily adapting musical strategies to literary narratives.

Strategies for musical style and genre interaction can afford teleological readings—as in many

cases in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century music—but this should be a decision made among

other possibilities of signification. It is the goal of this chapter to define the general musical

strategies that may afford interpretations of different kinds from a more hermeneutically neutral,

if at times necessarily clinical, standpoint.

Topics, Troping, and Analysis of Hybridity

For Mirka, echoing Ratner’s 1980 definition, topics are “musical styles and genres taken

out of their proper context and used in another one” (2014, 2); they are stylistic cross-references

(2014, 3). But while topics are connected to styles and genres, and would point toward mixture

and permeability of categories, they might not bring identities contrasting enough to form

hybrids. The mere combination of different stylistic identities, which are still understood as

being within the same realm, may be hybrids conceptually, but may not be easily recognizable as

such. Cases of topical importation in classical music are hybrids primarily when the topic (or

mixture of topics) evokes contrasting identities.62

62
Mirka raises the important question of how topical importations are compatible with the “eighteenth-century
music aesthetics premises, according to which all dimensions of musical structure stand in service of affect and
character, which, in their turn, are closely related to styles and genres” (2014, 3). Mirka finds the answer in the
different functions and expectations of small and large works; the function provides the topics, while the expectation
is the place for topical play (2014, 21). This also explains the smoother integration of many cases of topical
interplay, which guarantee a general non-harsh musical surface in term of hybridity.
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The notion of troping in topic theory, first advanced by Hatten (1994, 2004, 2014),

engages with particular kinds of combinations of more contrasting topics. For Hatten, troping in

music is a kind of dynamic creative metaphor, in which “two different correlations are brought

together to produce a third meaning” (1994, 166). He establishes three conditions for troping,

closely related to the notion of musical hybridity proposed in this study: (1) it “must emerge

from a clear juxtaposition of contradictory, or previously unrelated, types” (for polystylistic

music, I would also add superimposition); (2) it “must arise from a single functional location of

process”; and (3) “there must be evidence from a higher level . . . to support a tropological

interpretation, as opposed to interpretations of contrast, or dramatic opposition of characters”

(170). Thus, the study of the troping of topics in Classical and Romantic music is, in fact, an

investigation of hybrids in that particular environment. Troping is present when two contrasting

topics, or a topic and its surrounding host environment, are mixed and alter each other’s

signification potential, thus affording emergent meanings. Hybridity here is usually clearer at the

referential than at the structural level, since in most cases of troping there is a musical integration

of the disparate elements. The range of incompatibility, however, is considerably narrower if

compared with other examples of hybridity, which is telling of the style and genre system and

the context of this music.63 Hatten systematizes the analysis by indicating four axes of

relationships between the imported topic’s correlations and its environment (or another topic):

degrees of compatibility, dominance, creativity, and productivity.

63
The constraints of hybrids’ stable style and genre system narrows down the possibilities of mixture and their
interpretations. Because the aim of this study is to approach hybrids in general, I chose a different, more general,
nomenclature, able to embrace a wider repertory, but that is certainly related to these matters raised by topic theory.
Hatten’s detailed axes of relationships between topics and their environments (or other topics) are powerful
interpretive tools for this repertory, and, in certain cases, can add to interpretations of other works and periods. I see
them as complementing this framework, especially in dealing with or referring to the long eighteenth century.
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Sheinberg (2000), following Clark (1970, 1987), notes that “[i]ncongruities seem to be

related to humour and to laughter,” and are often “classified as comic” (Sheinberg 2000, 27). But

she suggests that “it is not just the presence of an incongruity that will hint at the presence of

irony, but also its functioning as an indicator of structural negation” (57, my emphasis), which

can occur in the actual musical structure or in its contextual associations.64 Incongruities can

have more nuanced signification potential, those that need not rely solely on negation, as

Sheinberg maintains. They can also hint at integration, subversion, disruption, or innovation, for

instance. Because disparate contrast—and not negation—is the prerequisite for hybridity, the

interpretation of incongruities may go beyond types of irony.

Schumann (2015) expands Hatten’s ideas in order to engage with the music of Igor

Stravinsky, specifically to explore the composer’s reuse of early styles in his neoclassical

compositions. Schumann applies Hatten’s (2014) four tropological axes as a way of interpreting

the interplay of topics in this repertory, which differs from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century

uses of importations. His concept of “distorted topics” engages with Stravinsky’s

defamiliarization of the dance topics of march, sarabande, and waltz; the manipulation of metric

and rhythmic aspects, as well as pitch content, alters the recognized topics and creates a mixture

involving old and new, tradition and innovation. Schumann’s work provides an engagement with

musical hybridity, at many levels in Stravinsky’s music, through the lens of topic theory, with

analyses that range from minute structural aspects to large-scale forms, as well as the potential

signification of these mixtures.

64
Nevertheless, Sheinberg’s criteria for different types of irony in music (2000, 64) goes against the framework
proposed in the present study by subsuming any type of incongruity, discontinuity, and juxtaposition—structural or
contextual—as conveying irony.
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CHIMERIC ENVIRONMENTS AND MIXTURE STRATEGIES

In the present study, rather than rejecting these previously available analytical approaches

and start afresh, I expand them. Specifically, I organize them into a common basic framework,

which addresses mixture according to two main premises: (1) style and genre mixtures have

structural functions that play out dynamically on a large- and small-scale level, and that are

coordinated by general processes of interaction; and (2) these general strategies for style and

genre mixture apply in the organization of any hybrid work. In principle, any hybrid repertory

can be approached by four mixture strategies, each with different characteristic and effects,

which will be carefully addressed in the following sections. Clash identifies harsh and abrupt

juxtaposition or superposition of disparate styles and genres. Coexistence involves more unifying

types of combinations. Distortion is the alteration of a recognizable style or genre by some

incongruous musical agent. Finally, trajectory describes cases in which there is a gradual

transition from one style or genre to another. These strategies, alone or in combination, form

what I call chimeric environments: any musical excerpt formed by a mixture and/or distortion of

disparate styles, genres, topics, or more general fields of musical reference. Thus, a chimeric

environment is another name for moments of musical hybridity.

A chimeric environment circumscribes an analytic space specifically dedicated to

hybridity by conceptually framing it. In this way, the mixture strategies provide opportunities for

engagement and interpretation of such chimeric environments. The amalgams can be of any size,

sometimes embracing an entire movement, and thereby determining the overall activity of a

piece; in other cases, they last a few measures and quickly give way to other hybrid or

stylistically stable music. The openness of this suggestion may appear superficial or
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overgeneralized, but as embracing as it may seem to be, hybridity in music is organized by the

perceptual restrictions of mixture—the ways we attend to multiple ideas in pluralist expressions.

Given their more general perspective, it should be made clear that the ideas proposed here are

not a substitute for any of the more localized theories or analytical models that touch on

mixtures, but are an addition to them, highlighting different layers of compositional

characteristics and meanings in a larger repertory. Because of the wider focus and embracing

perspective, they in fact benefit from being used in combination with any other analytical tool

that may suit a specific example.

Chimeric environments work as general analytical frames, embracing one or more

mixture strategies. In this sense, they are roughly similar to Hatten’s (1994) concept of

expressive genre.65 For Hatten, expressive genres in the music of Beethoven function at an

archetypal level, and implicate “an adeptness at both [the] typological identification of topics and

temporal and processive interpretation of these” (1994, 70). Hatten uses expressive genres to

frame marked oppositions between styles and topics, their musical characteristics, and associated

values, affording a possibility of interpretation of their interaction. Similarly, at a strategic level

of musical hybridity, the chimeric environments in hybrid works afford and evoke the

identification of the stylistic sources and their processes of interaction; they serve as a substitute

of the framing provided by uniform styles in non-hybrid pieces. The framing of hybridity

patterns pursued in the present study, along the same lines, helps to engage with what on the

surface might seem a strange inconsistence or ambiguity, or even a chaotic musical texture, and

go beyond the mere labeling and listing of elements. The comparison with Hatten’s theory must,

65
Hatten defines expressive genres in the music of Beethoven as “the largest types encountered in a style . . . at a
more archetypal level. As schemata, they direct a wide range of different events and their interpretations, without
specifying precise outcomes in terms of formal design” (1994, 69).
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however, stop at this schematic/strategic level given the diverse repertory under investigation

here.

The goal of using more neutral and general descriptive concepts—mixture strategies and

chimeric environments—is to address the musical plurality on its own terms. The focus shifts to

the processes that shape this kind of work, those most often perceptually evident. Putting less

weight on pitch strategies, which are more carefully addressed in other works such as Losada

(2004, 2008) and Boone (2011), creates opportunities for communication-based analyses that

involve recognition and familiarity. These categories of style- and genre-interaction take into

consideration and identify the more direct affordances of the work, hinting at possible modes of

listener engagement with this music.

This framework cuts across theory, analysis, and interpretation. The categories developed

throughout this chapter are theoretical abstractions, but ones based on the experience of this

music—they come from listening with a focus on the style and genre layer of the compositions

and the processes that occur at that level. Establishing these processes as theoretical categories

can help guide an analysis, but also inform an existing interpretation. Thus, a cycle is formed by

experience, analysis/interpretation, and theory, which feeds back to experience. The concepts

proposed here are present in any of these stages, ranging from abstract constructions to

perceivable characteristics; thus, the theoretical categories are always being informed by the

listening experience, the analytical act, the potential signification of a piece, and its labeling.

These categories are not fixed. Nor should their boundaries be a constraint, but rather suggested

dynamic tools to interpret a work.

As the following sections show, similar basic strategies can be perceived in a diverse

range of periods, composers, and pieces; this connects a considerably wide group of works under
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66
the main perceptual and structural effects of hybridity. Such connection affords a more in-depth

perspective, as well as the potential to compare these expressions, highlighting characteristics not

only of the pieces themselves, but also their contexts—how hybridity is differently expressed

depending on the world in which it is inserted. Furthermore, because these strategies neither

focus on one specific layer of the composition (pitch, rhythm, texture, for instance), nor reduce

an analysis of this repertory to a catalogue of the sources alluded to or quoted, they allow flexible

and dynamic engagements with this body of work, a body connected only because of the works’

reliance on plurality. There are recurring patterns of compositional exploration of mixtures of

styles and genres. These “patterns of hybridity” (Nederveen Pieterse 2009, 118) can afford not

only a chronological perspective, following different ways that hybridity takes shape as

influenced by its surroundings, but also a comparative take of the many structures and cultures

expressing hybrids.

There is perhaps no limit to the possibilities of hybridity in pluralist music; however,

there is a restricted number of perceptually-evident strategies that serve to form them. The four

strategies briefly described above —clash, coexistence, distortion, and trajectory—are used

because of their perceptibility as distinct processes applied to the idealized stable concept of each

of the styles and genres used in a hybrid work. Importantly, analyzing chimeric environments is

not an objective process. As such, choosing one or more of the four strategies as the acting

process within an excerpt is a matter of interpretation; it depends on background, familiarity, and

(inter-) subjective perspective, as much as the structural and perceptual characteristics of a given

passage. In the following sections, I explore each of the four mixture strategies in detail, with

66
By addressing these mixtures in terms of relationships and processes between categories from a cognitive
standpoint, the present approach allows a connection with signification frameworks in cognitive sciences and
discourse processes. While this path is not considered in detail in this study, it affects many of its ideas.
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examples ranging from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century. Each strategy is represented by

a symbol (shown in Example 3.1.1), used as an annotation in the analytic examples of the

following sections.

Example 3.1.1. The four mixture strategies and their symbols

3.2 Clash
The first movement of George Rochberg’s String Quartet no. 3 (1971) displays stylistic

and generic stability for approximately eighty measures. It has clear non-tonal vocabulary

throughout, and relies on bursts of short repetitive gestures that orient its fragmented thematic

identity. At m. 87, however, a chain of major seconds in the violins, derived from the whole-tone

scale, is suddenly joined by a tonal chorale texture in B Major, which shows no relation to the

previously established non-tonal ideas (Example 3.2.1). This superimposition of whole-tone

material and B major chorale not only creates structural friction and instability, but also contrasts

references to two styles: the whole-tone sound can be associated with modernist sonorities, such

as those found in Debussy; the B major chorale is potentially associated with sacred music by J.

S. Bach. Acknowledging Rochberg’s selection of combined materials, and the references they

trigger to different periods and styles or genres, is part of the listener’s engagement with this
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brief musical moment. But it is also important to engage with the characteristics of the

combination, which add to potential interpretations of the excerpt. In this case, the identities of

both layers are kept intact, with no interaction between them other than their superimposition.

The harsh friction among the simultaneous elements, along with the almost stubborn

avoidance of integration in order to preserve their separate identities, illustrates a clash mixture

strategy. The strategy is not merely a structural phenomenon. In choosing to create friction

between the styles, Rochberg also influences how one might ascribe meaning to the piece,

especially after eighty measures of stability. The chorale seems to strive for its own new and

sudden allotted space, while the whole-tone material in the violin, related more to the non-tonal

vocabulary of the piece before that point, reclaims its former prominence. If one accepts my

perceived associations with the modernist stylistic unit and the Baroque genre, this specific

moment of hybridity highlights a conflicted opposition between sacred and secular, distant and

close past, as well as the relation of this music with the tonal tradition, all in service of

Rochberg’s expressive endeavors.


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Example 3.2.1. Rochberg, String Quartet no. 3, I, mm. 81- 95

This acute sense of difference, the harsh friction, and the separateness of identities

present in the excerpt of String Quartet no. 3 are characteristics of hybridity via the clash mixture

strategy. Not every contrast is a clash, however. The contrasting elements in a clash must be

stylistically or generically different, and must either overlap, as in Rochberg’s excerpt, or be

juxtaposed, as in the next example by Arvo Pärt. In his Sarabande from Collage über B-A-C-H

(1964), the clash mixture strategy occurs through the alternation of two contrasting

environments: a typically Baroque dance played by oboe, harpsichords, and strings, and thick

clusters in the piano and strings, which are completely disconnected from the previous material

(Example 3.2.2). These widely divergent musical idioms alternate without any transition

throughout the entire piece, as two different worlds sliced and pasted together, evoking a gap

between their associations that remains unfilled. In contrast with Rochberg’s fleeting moment of

clash, Pärt’s Sarabande movement is entirely organized by the alternation of these two disparate
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environments. Its hybridity, characterized by the juxtapositions of the clash mixture strategy,

also determines its form.

Example 3.2.2. Pärt, Sarabande, from Collage Über B-A-C-H, II

Clash is the central strategy in the collage repertory of the post-1960s. The third

movement of Luciano Berio’s Sinfonia (1968), a staple of collage in music, relies on many

carefully crafted juxtaposition and overlap clashes, along with other mixture strategies. Clash

appears often in the polystylistic repertory of the post-1960s, in general (not only in collage

works), becoming a marker––perhaps the most easily recognizable feature––of its style. Despite

their close connection with these particular mid-twentieth-century repertories, clash strategies

also appear in hybrid environments of earlier and later music, albeit with varying frequency,
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depending on the different contexts and level of stability of the style and genre systems in

question. As detailed in the previous chapter, this level of stability fluctuates widely according to

several sociopolitical and cultural factors that influence the communicative potential of

techniques and sounds belonging to a repertory within any period. Thus, it becomes important to

take contexts and ideologies into consideration while investigating any case of hybridity.

The instability of musical style and genre systems, which culminated in the artistic

responses of the post-1960s, is unique in many ways. But the Baroque, despite its embracing

tonal idiom, also displayed hybrid characteristics, as can be gathered from its reliance on

oppositions as a means for expression.67 Whereas materials in the Baroque were often combined

in less harsh ways, at least when compared to the cases discussed above, there are moments of

extreme friction that serve specific expressive, mostly programmatic purposes in that context.

Heinrich Biber’s Battalia à 10 (1673) is such an example, where the composer uses hybridity to

depict a battle (Example 3.2.3). In the short second movement, “Die liederliche Gesellschafft

von allerley Humor” [The dissolute company of all types of humor], eight popular song melodies

are played in quodlibet fashion, contrasting nationalities and dance/style types with aggressive

harmonic and metric dissonance. The identities and keys of each melody are preserved as they

clash with one another other, amounting to a cacophonous environment that requires listeners to

split their attention to individual features. Biber is aware of this; he indicates in the score “hic

dissonat ubique nam ebrii sic diversis cantilenis clamare solent” [here it is dissonant everywhere,

for thus are the drunks accustomed to bellow with different songs] (quoted in Brewer 2011, 251),

which also hints (because of the title) at soldiers taking a break from battle to drink and sing.

67
See Lobanova (2000) on the polystylistic situation in the Baroque.
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This interpretation of the clash strategy with programmatic motivations in the piece views its

hybridity as a distinct and more direct process which helps in depicting the scene.

Example 3.2.3. Biber’s Battalia a 10, II, „Die liederliche Gesellschaft von Allerlei Humor“

Despite the Battallia’s completely distinct context from the examples above, Biber’s efforts (or

lack thereof) to maintain the clashing identities are similar, and the harshness in the music is

clear.
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Musical, cultural, and communicative characteristics used to differentiate between the

Baroque and Classical periods in music are partly related to the increased stylistic and generic

stability of the latter. But the Classical style is not immune to mixtures. At times, these mixtures

may be less pronounced, and generally they rely on importations usually interpreted as musical

topoi. More rarely, they appear as cases of foregrounded hybridity in this context. Such an

example occurs in the closing scene of Act I of Mozart’s Don Giovanni (1787), in which a clash

with programmatic motivations helps to express the narrative of the libretto (Example 3.2.4).

Again, such harsh instances of the clash strategy are difficult to find in such a stable music-

communicative system, but the humorous conditions of opera buffa can easily support this type

of hybridity.

As discussed in chapter 1, there are three simultaneous dances in Mozart’s scene—

Minuet, Teitsch (Allemande), and Contredanse—each in a different meter, performed by a

different group of musicians. The intense overlap clash combines the 2/4, 3/8, and 3/4 meters of

each dance, creating a harsh friction. In this case, the mixture does not highlight the clash’s

potential to evoke discontinuity—as is usually the case with juxtaposition-type clashes. This

owes mainly to the underlying tonal structure that ties all three dances together. However, the

overlap in this case foregrounds the simultaneity of distinct scenarios, offering the listener a

bird’s-eye view of the action. The overlap clash of the dances also informs the interpretation of

their characters’ socio-economic statuses: the musical friction of the “aristocratic” minuet, the

“middle-ground” contredanse, and the “peasant” Teitsch represents clashes of class and

economic status, in addition to the programmatic aspects of the scene.68

68
See Allanbrook (1984, chapter 2) for a contextualized investigation of the social associations of specific dances in
Mozart’s time.
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Example 3.2.4. Mozart's Don Giovanni, last scene of first act

In 1805, the German journal Der Freymüthige published an anonymous review of

Beethoven’s Third Symphony, ten days after its premiere in Vienna. The review discussed the

perspective from a contrary group of listeners that

utterly denie[d] this work any artistic value and fe[lt] that it manifests a
completely unbounded striving for distinction and oddity, which, however, has
produced neither beauty nor true sublimity and power. Through strange
modulations and violent transitions, by placing together the most heterogeneous
things, as when for example a pastorale is played through in the grandest style. . .
. The third, very small group stands in the middle; they admit that the symphony
contains many beautiful qualities, but admit that the context often seems
completely disjointed. (Der Freymüthige, quoted and translated from German in
Senner, Wallace, and Meredith 2001, 15, my emphasis)
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The reviewer refers to the listener’s opinions using a terminology related to hybridity: in

a “completely disjointed” context, “placing together heterogeneous things,” “strange

modulations,” and “violent transitions,” for example. Specifically, this “disjointed context

formed by heterogeneous things” is related to the clash strategy, and raises the question of

whether one can find such an abrupt process of hybridity in Beethoven’s symphony. Vasili Byros

(2014) interprets the conflicts between musical materials, as well as between their respective

references in the context surrounding the Eroica, in viewing the work’s opposition between the G

minor and Eb major tonalities as general elements with a crucial semantic role throughout the

symphony. Both keys—abruptly juxtaposed in the beginning and end of the work—bring

contrasting musical material that refers either to specific topics or harmonic schemata, which

provide “the structural and expressive basis for communicating a cultural unit of ‘abnegation,’

with its connotations of ‘religious drama’” (Byros 2014, 382).

The Eroica opens with a subtle, but important, appearance of a clash that requires the

control of a specific shared knowledge from the listener’s perspective. Byros maintains that the

opening Eb major hammer blows and fanfare material contrast with an ombra topic, signified by

the le-sol-fi-sol schema, textural changes (tremolandi strings), syncopations in the first violins

(Example 3.2.5). These two types of material create contrast not only in their syntax, but in their

respective associations as well. Thus, the opening ten measures show two disparate musical

worlds, both at the intra- and extra-musical levels. When juxtaposed, these materials may seem

ambiguous and unsure, leading some critics at the time to differ in opinion as to how to interpret

it.69 But if understood from the vantage point of the entire composition they can highlight deeper

potential interpretations. This is especially the case in the shared associations of the ombra topic,

69
See Byros (2009) for a careful “archeology” of interpretation of the first measures of the symphony.
140
in contrast to the more danceable fanfare, which, Byros suggests, denote the initial amalgamation

of suffering and death (represented by the ombra), and life (contrastingly depicted by the

fanfare). These pairs of structural and cultural units, when juxtaposed, connect with the “the

spiritual consequences of suffering, self-sacrifice, and death,” (2014, 382), and the expressive

genre of “tragic-to-transcendent,” defined by Hatten (1994) and which serves as the scaffolding

of Byros’s analysis. The very disconnectedness of this clash is the source of its interpretive

possibilities.

Example 3.2.5. Measures 1-11 from Beethoven's Third Symphony, I (reduced version). Figure
from Byros (2014, 387, with additional annotations of the clash symbols)

Contrasting the overt disruption in Mozart’s Don Giovanni example, the disruption

representative of a clash is here more covert, even though the textural and extra-musical

characteristics act as triggers of a crucial opposition. The clash appears most clearly in two

syntactical disruptions: first in the le-sol-fi-sol in G minor perturbing the key of Eb major;

second, in the interruption of a cadence in G minor, by turning back to Eb. The remaining
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intensity of the clash is provided solely via situated associations with that material and its

somewhat abrupt juxtaposition.

The initial clash relies on many subtle references and the harmonic syntax for its lighter

disruption. The process, however, is revisited at the end of the symphony’s finale, widely

emphasizing its disruptive effect (Ex. 3.2.6). Now, the ombra material that begins at m. 410 is

abruptly disrupted at m. 433, when the fortissimo Eb major and fanfare material (m. 437) return.

For Byros (2014, 405), the “conclusion thus presents a magnified mirror image of the tonal and

topical confrontation between E flat major and G minor from its very opening gestures.” Byros’s

use of the word “confrontation” supports the interpretation of a clash strategy in the excerpt,

which creates a hybrid that never resolves or reconciles, keeping the two tonalities separated

even in their final cadences. Byros notices “an impression of two independent tonal endings for

the symphony,” calling the G-minor ombra’s sudden move into the fortissimo Eb major fanfare a

“rupture” (2014, 407) rather than a resolution. He further interprets the potential signification of

this abrupt clash:

The militaristic E-flat-major fanfare from m. 437 to the symphony’s conclusion is


thus not a representation of a public victory, but, bursting, as it does, from the
preceding G-minor ombra music, it becomes a metaphor for rebirth, joy, spiritual
perfection, and personal victory. (2014, 407)
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Example 3.2.6. Measures 429-42 from Beethoven's Third Symphony, IV. Score reduction from
Byros (2014, 406, with my annotation of the clash symbol)

No doubt, it takes a competent listener to engage with this clash, which differs from the above

cases. But Byros’s analysis of these hybrid musical moments and their context explains and

justifies many of the symphony’s disruptive effects.

As the stability of the Classical style gave way to Romantic ideals of subjectivity, there

was a corresponding multiplication of genres and styles in the nineteenth century. We might

view the clash mixture strategy (as well as other kinds of hybridity) as affording different ways

of expressing Romanticism’s themes of introspection, individual time, and imagination. The

revolutions of 1848 were, in part, a culmination of an upsurge in nationalist thinking, one closely

tied to the consolidation of group identities, which give particular mixture categories political
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connotations. These potential political associations can be read in Frédéric Chopin’s Nocturne

in G minor (1840), where a mazurka and a chorale are clash-juxtaposed to articulate a new

section of the piece. At first sight, the rather disparate references evoked by the two materials—

Polish dance and religioso—can be interpreted, according to Kallberg (1988), as related to Polish

nationalistic ideals. For Kallberg, “[t]he central tenets of the messianic brand of Polish Romantic

nationalism practically read like a description of the piece, particularly in its blend of the

‘nationalistic’ mazurka and the ‘religious’ chorale” (1988, 256). But he avoids discussing the

specific way in which the two references are disposed in the piece—as an abrupt juxtaposition

clash. The focus on the strategy between the environments serves to further clarify that these two

fields of Polish culture are intertwined, but not without opposition and friction.

Another example from Chopin is the Ballade no. 4 in F Minor, op. 52 (1842), which

features several sudden shifts (Example 3.2.7). The opening of the work establishes the key of C

major, and its texture and stylistic identity are distinct from what will preside throughout the

piece, thus a sense of discontinuity follows. The introduction sounds more like an ending (post-

cadential or “after-the-end,” in Caplin’s [1998] terminology) than a beginning. Besides the form-

functional discrepancy, Klein (2004) calls attention to the religious tone of the excerpt, which

becomes noticeable in the brief plagal motions at m. 7. When the slow waltz starts, after the

opening, there is a disruption of cause and effect when the initial material does not support what

comes next, an important characteristic of the clash strategy. This discontinuity, beyond the style

and genre layer, is also present in Chopin’s key choices. Even though the opening motto’s key of

C major could work as the dominant of the main key of the piece (F minor), the material creates

70
Granted, nationalities as categories were used in the Baroque, but in the nineteenth century there is a much more
acute sense of national politics and identity in general.
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no expectations for an F minor tonality, which appears at m. 8 with some level of

unpredictability. Whereas the stylistic reference of the F minor waltz is recognizable, the

previous opening motto lacks a clear identity due to its cadential characteristics, which rely on

the liquidation of defining stylistic units. The introduction, however, has traces of a broader

religious register, connecting with affective and expressive intersubjective categories that

contrast with the ballroom dance that follows. Ultimately, a juxtaposition clash emerges through

the opposition of the waltz’s clearly defined characteristics, beginning at m. 8, and its omission

in the opening motto—what happened previously is of a different ilk, even if a precise label is

elusive.

Example 3.2.7. Chopin, Ballade no. 4 in F Minor, op. 52, mm. 1-14
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More defined style fields appear in a subsequent clash in the piece, when an unprepared

appearance of Gb and Fb pentatonic material (mm. 38-45) is interpolated between two waltz

segments (Example 3.2.8). The pentatonic mode here can be read as a kind of orientalism, a

defined marker of “otherness,” contrasting with the waltz that surrounds it. Later in the work

(mm. 204-11), a juxtaposition clash between the waltz and a chorale creates a sudden opposition

between a religious genre and a ballroom dance. In this particular case, not shown here, a brief

transition makes the clash less harsh than a completely unprepared change; however, it brings

enough contrast to evoke a feeling of disjunction.

Example 3.2.8. Chopin, Ballade no. 4 in F Minor, Op. 52, mm. 32-49
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Klein (2004) views all these clashes in the ballade as oppositions between rural (religious

opening motto and chorale) and urban (waltz), certainly a productive interpretation. The use of

the clash strategy in combining these materials highlights the sense of an uneasy relation

between Klein’s categories, a discontinuity or an either/or dynamic between two worlds tied to

the effects of the industrial revolution at the time of the composition. The parenthetical uses of

the religious register, pentatonic material, and the chorale, also determine a specific hierarchy in

relation to the waltz, which remains the primary style throughout the piece. Additionally, all of

these elements are contained by the host genre of the ballade, which evokes a sense of

storytelling. The characters and scenes of this story are shaped by stylistic and generic

interactions. Finally, Klein also addresses this discontinuity in terms of past and present. For

him, the waltz in Chopin is a reference to something occurring in the past, while the religious

opening motto and chorale signify the present—a reversal of the rural and urban categories

mentioned above (2004). Even though it could be argued they refer to specific time periods,

these associations appear more connected with past and present states of the projected narrator of

the ballade.

Similar clashes that disrupt the temporal discourse appear in some of Debussy’s preludes,

written decades later, such as La Sérénade Interrompue (1909-10). Here, as the title implies,

there are many sudden interruptions of a serenade (Example 3.2.9). The most contrasting

interruption occurs through the interpolation of a march at mm. 74-84, creating a juxtaposition

clash, only slightly attenuated by a common-tone modulation (Gb = F#). Its parenthetical

character clearly separates it from the main environment of the piece—a serenade with lyric

melody and hints of Spanish music. The clash here brings a humorous effect, triggered by a

sense of discontinuity or failure of the serenade.


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Example 3.2.9. Debussy, La Serenade Interrompue, mm. 59-78

Even as Baroque, Classical, and Romantic examples illustrate a recurrent engagement

with clash mixtures in different ways, these are substantially more common in the polystylistic

repertory, whose mixture strategies became crucial features. Importantly, the responses of

polystylistic composers of the post-1960s to problems of style and genre—a culmination of

experiments with mixtures—are in many ways foreshadowed by mixture categories and markers

of hybridity I find in the music of Ives and Stravinsky, more than a half-century earlier. Both

composers make consistent use of the characteristics of discontinuity afforded by the clash

mixture strategy, among other types of hybridity. In The Unanswered Question (1908), Ives

constructs a clear overlap clash that anticipates the later collage works of the polystylistic
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repertory. In his personal notes, Ives describes the programmatic intentions of the use of

overlapping disparate material (Example 3.2.10). Chelsey Hamm (2016, 112-23), while

suggesting that Ives’s hidden program is not necessary for an engagement with the clear

oppositions in the piece, discusses the composer’s intended associations with the use of this

particular mixture of consonant and dissonant sounds. For Ives, dissonance is attached to

strength and freedom, and disrupts the primary, consonant stylistic layer. The latter he describes

in his writings as “tyrannical” (quoted in Hamm 2016, 123), and associates it with tonality,

which he compares to a “fenced-in field” (122). These personal associations, not in the least

implausible for the audience, are related to tonal and non-tonal style fields, and inform the

intermittent overlap clashes throughout The Unanswered Question.


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Example 3.2.10. Charles Ives, The Unanswered Question, mm. 18-29

Clashes are possible not only through opposing stylistic traits that rely on pitch, harmony,

and rhythm. The use of instrumentation with contrasting stylistic and generic associations can

also create hybridity. This occurs more often, especially, after the development of technologies

for music recording and reproduction in the twentieth century, where the actual sonic

characteristics of a recorded track trigger distinct musical categories. Hybridity can then result

from the use of stylistic units such as soundstage, effects, and other production techniques that
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become sonic synecdoches of musical genres. Oftentimes timbral stylistic triggers are

combined with pitch and rhythm to emphasize their specific associations. Studio tools and

processes have a central role in electroacoustic music as meaningful features of a composition,

but the wide network of genres and subgenres of popular music also offers great potential for

clash and other means of hybridity.

The introduction of David Bowie’s “Changes,” the opening track from the 1971 album

Hunky Dory, is divided into two subsections; it starts with mellow strings and a piano with jazz-

influenced chords, reminiscent of a typical beginning in an Ella Fitzgerald recording with

orchestra. Suddenly, a rock ensemble takes over, with piano, bass, drums, and saxophone playing

a simple boogie-woogie pattern. The juxtaposition clash of these two popular genres is somewhat

mitigated by the piano serving the role of a pivot in the instrumentation, but the change in the

style of the accompaniment pattern and harmony is apparent. Each subsection of the introduction

and its group of instruments––along with the choice of harmonic and rhythmic profiles––carries

specific stylistic and generic associations. The first subsection might be associated with big band

jazz, while what follows directly uses traditional patterns and timbres of boogie-woogie and

blues-rock. The track involves different combinations of these two references throughout, with

clash and other mixture strategies dialoging with the song’s theme, expressed in the lyrics:

“changes, turn and face the strange.”

Another case of a juxtaposition clash created through timbre can be found in the Beach

Boys’ “God Only Knows,” from Pet Sounds (1966). In this case, the stylistic and generic

associations are less defined than in Bowie’s example, pointing to wider genre and style fields

and their affects rather than a definite identity. Brian Wilson’s arrangement of the piece is

71
On the concept of genre synecdoche, see chapter 2 and Tagg 2012, 524-28.
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complex and uses atypical instruments for a rock band album, especially in the prominent use of

accordions and French horns. After two verse-chorus pairs, a contrasting interlude (1:03–1:11)

that foregrounds the woodwinds and snare drum carries associations with marching bands, as

opposed to the big-ensemble love ballad before and after that point. The melodic and rhythmic

elements certainly help identify the potential stylistic references, but the precise selection of

instruments, as well as a slight change in tempo, produce a more direct trigger. Remarkably,

Bowie’s version of the same song (1984) retains the instrumentation, rhythm, and tempo

throughout, which ends up obscuring the clash and its referential and affective possibilities; this

points to timbre and tempo as the main agents of the discontinuity of the original recording. This

is the only appearance of that material and specific selection of instruments in “God Only

Knows,” whose disjunction relates to Chopin’s or Debussy’s use of hybridity to potentially

change perceived narrative time, albeit within a very different context. Given the lyrics, which

hypothesize about a partner leaving, a possible interpretation of this distinct section is of an

idealized future where they are still together.

For mashup musical artists of the late twentieth century, like Girl Talk, clash serves as

one of the possible tools for the combination of contrasting, mostly popular, styles and genres—

the crucial and defining characteristic of the genre. As mentioned earlier, the mashup community

uses the term in two ways: key clash and genre clash (Boone 2011). While key clash refers to a

harmonic or melodic friction in the combination of pieces—thus, an example of clash strategy—

genre clash in mashup is a default label for the conceptual difference in the repertory combined,

and not necessarily the specific way genres are mixed. The mashup genre often aims for the

integration of disparate elements, even if conceptually contrasting, thus attempting to make two

or more songs “fit together,” most often in a way not typical of the clash strategy discussed
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here. In this way, not all “clashes” in mashups are clash mixture strategies; very often they

indicate conceptual friction of fairly integrated music. One must, however, avoid generalization

and note the distinct uses of the term in practical and analytical discourse: genre clash in

mashups is used ambiguously to indicate both structural and conceptual clashes, even if they are

realized in an integrative manner; in genre clashes as proposed here, there must be a friction at

the structural and conceptual levels, as well as an awareness of the degree of integration of the

materials. Also, key clashes, which affect the technical or structural level, are negatively

evaluated within the mashup community, which generally aims for traditional constructive

principles (Boone 2011, 150-1).

Other examples of the clash mixture strategy can certainly be found in different

repertories of the post-1960s and earlier.73 Such a focus on this mixture strategy helps to

compare these works, their contexts, and to discover the different expressive potential of distinct

musical hybrids at different periods. It should be clear throughout this section that the different

uses of a mixture strategy such as clash inform and are informed by the contexts surrounding

them.

INTERPRETING CLASH

Mixture strategies are at the same time structural and cognitive, cultural and aesthetic.

Structurally they serve to label techniques for combining disparate musical material. In terms of

72
This is made clear in Frere-Jones’s 2005 article on mashups titled “1+1+1=1: The new math of mashups,” thus
implying unity and integration. Mashups are very often cases of coexistence, which I discuss in the next section.
73
As examples not discussed here, in works of composers such as Dimitri Shostakovich (his symphonies), Béla
Bartók (string quartets), and Sergei Prokofiev (the piano concerti, for instance), the sense of discontinuity provided
by clashes are crucial to personal style, and also serve as articulations of the pluralism of the twentieth century
around them.
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cognition, mixtures strategies are specific types of conceptual blends, and point to the role of

the listener in recognizing the emergent features of these processes, which in clash often require

dealing with a divided focus. Culturally they address music’s referential capabilities to places,

times, and people. But mixture strategies are also triggers of aesthetic judgments; they are

attached to situated and intersubjective agreement on the values of their particular features. The

characteristics of the processes involved in a clash mixture strategy—in ways similar to how I

discussed the interpretation of the hybrid, in chapter 1—have a changing set of values related to

specific ideologies. The clash strategy highlights discontinuity, displacement or disjunction, and

disruption of cause and effect, characteristics that might be interpreted negatively as shock,

surprise, mistake, and lack of organization or incoherence. On the more positive side of the

spectrum, clash offers possibilities of commentary, or opening a new layer of discourse, which

can elucidate or problematize matters via musical and referential friction of contrasting material.

Generally, the disruption of a causal chain can be negatively valued from a rationalist and

organicist perspective, for instance. Perceptions of incoherence and fragmentation of discourse

have been historically attached to mental illness, a possibility Peter Maxwell Davies used

productively in Eight Songs for a Mad King (1969), which I discuss in detail later in this study.

But clash also affords an interference of time and space, a utopian perspective on music, where,

as Schnittke writes, one can create “the links between the ages” (Schnittke 2000, 90), and the

entire past is at the composer’s disposal.

Furthermore, the characteristics of specific instances of clash strategy directly influence

their interpretation along the spectrum of aesthetic value. The two different types of clash—

juxtaposition and overlap—have distinct signification potential. So do the levels of friction and

74
See previous discussion in chapter 1; also Fauconnier and Turner, 2002.
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contrast between disparate musical elements, the specific hierarchy perceived, and the presence

or absence of silence or a brief transition. For example, a parenthetical use of juxtaposition clash

can, as in the Chopin, Debussy, and Beach Boys examples above, be interpreted as commentary,

creating a secondary layer of discourse, or signifying the disruption of time/space––a quick

alternation of reality, such as in daydreaming. Clashes through juxtaposition can arguably afford

a more accessible, milder, kind of hybridity than overlap clashes, one where it is possible to rely

on the return to the “original” material as a way of creating a separation between the primary and

parenthetical musical discourse. An overlap clash can create multiple simultaneous discourses,

which inform one another in a more literal manner than Bakhtin’s concept of double-voicedness,

since in the musical clash the two references are actually present.75 Thus, for instance, if one

compares Chopin’s juxtaposition clash with Rochberg’s overlap of widely contrasting

references, the latter displays an acceptance of the conflation of time and space, a characteristic

of many twentieth-century ideologies and musical practices, which might help explain the higher

number of overlap-clash occurrences in comparison with earlier periods. Juxtaposition-clashes,

on the other hand, still distinguish between elements in time; that is, they are never literally

synchronic as is an overlap.

The variety of potential interpretations of this hybridity strategy can be seen by briefly

comparing some of the examples discussed. To be sure, they all present situations of the same

mixture strategy: Biber’s and Mozart’s use of clash with clear programmatic intentions, Chopin’s

parenthetical use of chorale juxtapositions, Ives’s use of intermittent overlap of dissonant sounds

within the host style-field of tonality/consonance, Pärt’s use of juxtaposition clash in Collage

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Bakhtin applied the concept of double-voicedness in analyzing Dostoevsky’s work (Bakhtin 1984) and the
capacity of the same words to address, in different ways and with different meanings, more than one public sphere.
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über B-A-C-H with no clear subordination, and Bowie’s “Changes” and the dialog between

alternating textures/styles. But each brings specific situated meanings, further explored by

focusing on the particular characteristics of their hybridity. Indeed, contexts directly influence

these different types and effects of clash, but contexts are also informed by the specific musical

features that give rise to them. Whereas one can think of these comparisons as anachronistic, my

purpose is to highlight their common hybridity, their compositional layering of style and genre,

and establish a framework that can approach the situated expressive subtleties of each mixture.

Further, more than one mixture strategy may appear in a single chimeric environment and piece,

and thus influence the effects and interpretations of all strategies being used; I explore these

other strategies and their simultaneous use in the next sections of this chapter, as well as in

analyses of chapter 4.

To summarize, clash is the strategy most commonly associated with the polystylistic

repertory. It occurs as a juxtaposition or an overlap of disparate materials, which maintain their

separate identities and form a unique type of mixture. Clash between disparate material does not

necessarily imply the absence of organization, rather an increased sense of friction between the

elements due to a lack of stylistic alignment. This friction is achieved by keeping the different

strands structurally and perceptually distinct through the use of different tonalities, tempi,

register, texture, instrumentation, and timbre. A collage work, as defined by Losada (2004, 2008,

2009), has a prominence of clashes throughout the piece in order to achieve its typically

fragmented musical surface. Other hybrid works, which are neither collages in the sense of

Losada’s conception of the term, nor belong to the wider polystylistic repertory of the post-

1960s, also use clash to create abrupt changes and overlaps as expressive devices. This mixture
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strategy depends on stylistic or generic contrast locally, within a movement; thus, not every

change of material or texture can provide the contrast necessary for a clash.76

The two basic types of clashes, juxtaposition and overlap, are graphically represented in

Example 3.2.11.77 Overlaps are necessarily harsh because of the efforts needed to keep both

strands separate while sounding simultaneously. Juxtapositions can be abrupt or have a brief

transition, using texture dispersal (Losada 2004, 2008), a very short overlap, or brief silence.

These different clash types lie on a spectrum of harshness illustrated in Example 3.2.12. At a

mild level we find juxtapositions with some transitioning material, or brief overlaps of the

contrasting ideas; in the middle of the spectrum are abrupt juxtapositions with no transitions; and

the harshest of the clashes are overlaps of contrasting styles. This spectrum should serve only as

a general guide, since several other factors can further influence the perceived harshness of a

specific clash, the clearest of which are volume, texture, and the level of musical contrast

between the materials being juxtaposed or overlapped.

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There are several levels of pluralism, and the contrast between the materials being mixed directly affects their
level of complexity and type of hybrid. There are possibilities for mixtures at the level of movement, but also album
or playlist levels, for instance. A clash can happen at m. 1 of a piece, for example, if it is clearly contrasting with the
contextual stylistic expectations for that composer or style/genre. In this chapter, I will focus on more prominent
mixtures.
77
Interpolation is a case of juxtaposition clash.
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Example 3.2.11: diagram of the clash mixture strategy (juxtaposition and overlap)

Example 3.2.12. Spectrum of clash harshness

3.3 Coexistence
Scott Joplin’s Pleasant Moments (1909) begins with a syncopated pentatonic line in

octaves, an expected characteristic of the many rags that made him famous. The pattern is,

however, played in a slow tempo and establishes a triple meter. After the introduction, as the

accompaniment pattern is established, the left hand plays an “oom-pah-pah” waltz pattern, while

the right hand continues with the syncopated line in 3/4 (Example 3.3.1). There are, then, clear

references to two popular styles: the syncopated pentatonic in the introduction and right hand
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material point to ragtime pieces, and the triple meter and the “oom-pah-pah” accompaniment can

be associated with waltzes. These different characteristics and the potential classificatory friction

of an otherwise musically unified piece is a type of hybridity, one indicated by the publisher on

the score beneath the title: this is a “ragtime waltz by Scott Joplin, composer of the Maple Leaf

Rag,” highlighting the triple meter of the composition.78 Whereas the contextual information

provided in the published score certainly helps to understand the elements of the mixture, a

situated listener could recognize the interplay of identities, as well as the smooth, mild manner in

which they were combined. Unlike the clash mixture strategy explained above, here no distinct

conflicting layer occurs, no foregrounded friction or sudden change. The two references and their

musical characteristics are integrated into one compound hybrid style. Joplin’s piece is both a

syncopated waltz and a triple meter rag, thus a hybrid––ragtime waltz––as the score implies. It

aligns the waltz accompaniment in the left hand, the “oom-pah-pah,” with the “oom-pah” of the

ragtime, as it adds syncopated rhythms to the melody.

78
The label always referred to any waltz in the era of ragtime; in this way, the coexistence would be only
contextual—what was expected from a piano composition by ragtime composers, and the waltz actually being
written. Joplin’s foregrounded potential references to two styles was a clearer example of the hybrid, even if
considerably less pronounced than other cases discussed in this section. I thank Jennifer Griffith for remarking that
ragtime waltzes account for about 1/8 of Joplin’s repertoire. The triple meter, while certainly not as prevalent as the
duple meter rags, was by no means a rare case.
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Example 3.3.1. Scott Joplin’s Pleasant Moments

More than seventy years later, Mauricio Kagel revisits this hybridity in “Ragtime-Waltz,”

from Rrrrrrr . . . : 8 Orgelstücke (1980/81). While in Joplin’s mixture the waltz still dominates,

Kagel attempts a more symmetrical combination of the two styles implied by the title. This is a

re-imagined 1900s mixture in a 1980s postmodernist light. Kagel departs from the

accompanimental alignment mentioned above, but builds upon it. In this case, other than the

syncopations to counterbalance the prominent triple meter of the waltz, the melody brings clearer

characteristics of a rag through the use of chromaticism and large leaps (Example 3.3.2).

Melodically, especially if we think of a Chopin waltz, for instance, chromaticism is common to

both styles; it also serves as a “bridge” for integrating the styles in the piano right hand. The

resulting amalgam is, even more literally than in Joplin, what the title implies: a Ragtime-Waltz,
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not one or the other. None of these styles is hierarchically more important. No clash occurs in

Kagel’s piece because the two identities are combined, with a few concessions from each style,

into a third compound identity.

Example 3.3.2. Kagel’s “Ragtime-Waltz” from Rrrrrrr..., mm. 1-9

79
The slight difference in the title of the old 1900s’ style and Kagel’s piece is notable. For Joplin, Pleasant Moments
was a ragtime waltz, placing emphasis on the fact that it is, de facto, a waltz, and the “ragtime” signifies the quality
of it. Kagel uses the term perhaps as a paying tribute to Joplin, but with a hyphen that hints at the codependency of
both styles. Granted, this might be reading too much from a single hyphen, but it works well as a synecdoche for the
difference in the use of the same strategy in both pieces.
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Both Joplin’s and Kagel’s pieces use the same mixture strategy of coexistence to

articulate their hybridity, even if separated by more than seventy years.80 Coexistence designates

not only existing at the same time or place; it also implies a smooth, “pacific” relationship. This

mixture strategy provides a more nuanced way of combining disparate styles or genres, one in

which a new amalgam is formed without the harsh friction of a clash. In coexistence, contrasting

materials are put together by aligning some of their characteristics, while maintaining the identity

of their unaligned features and creating only slight friction. This alignment is normally formed

by exploiting the few similar traits of each of the references, which serve as pivots, or a bridge,

for the styles’ coexistence; they cohabitate without struggling to assert or keep their separate

identities. Examples of this strategy use part of each identity to create something new—a

compound of a few elements from each style or genre, forming a new amalgam with a hybrid

identity, as shown in the two works above. Any situation of coexistence relies heavily on the

listener’s recognition of the elements of each style, more so than in the clash strategy where the

perceptual separateness of the material is crucial and serves as a clue for this type of hybridity. In

cases where one of the coexisting elements is not clearly recognized, the listener may perceive a

sense of inaccuracy, inconsistency, or strangeness in the initially recognized style, until the other

is also identified.81 The analytical symbol for coexistence is based on the triangle formed from

the different stylistic elements in the diagram below (Example 3.3.3), which represents their

alignment and transference to a new compound style.

80
Please note that the analytical symbol for the coexistence strategy, an inverted triangle, the styles or genres mixed
written above it. This is influenced by the abstract diagram shown in the next pages.
81
This strangeness and inaccuracy are typical of another mixture strategy, distortion, which I discuss in the next
section. If one of the styles is not recognized in a case of coexistence, it has similar perceptual effect to that of a
distortion.
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Example 3.3.3. Diagram of coexistence strategy

The overture of Thomas Adès’s opera Powder Her Face (1995) alludes to stylistic

identities through instrumentation characteristics, which contrast with other disparate melodic,

harmonic, and rhythmic elements; it thus expands the coexisting elements to include timbre.

Beginning around m. 6, Adès creates a nuanced chimeric environment that mixes two popular

styles—tango and jazz, the latter having a sonority influenced by Duke Ellington’s music

(Example 3.3.4). The tango allusion is clear in the rhythmic and melodic patterns of the

accompaniment, as well as in the use of an accordion, a characteristic instrument of the style.

Meanwhile, typical voicings of jazz harmony, chromatic runs, and glissandi on brass emphasize

the jazz style field. The overall emphasis on quarter-note accompaniment serves to align the

stylistic interplay, bringing associations with both the traditional tango rhythmic pattern and

some early examples of jazz, such as Ellington’s Black and Tan Fantasy (1927). The string

ensemble acts as a stylistic mediator, a more neutral element in this environment that aggregates
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characteristics of both coexisting style fields. In these measures, Adès merges both styles in a

way that makes it difficult to disentangle them. Furthermore, he creates an amalgam that

involves disparate potential meanings and values, by mixing idealized categories of popular and

concert, African American, and South American styles. Thus, the overture both eclipses and

subverts these conceptual and musical gaps. Adés’s composition seemingly aims for a unified

style in the sense proposed by Alfred Schnittke twenty-five years earlier:

I have this dream of a unified style where fragments of serious music and
fragments of music for entertainment would not just be scattered about in a
frivolous way, but would be the elements of a diverse musical reality: elements
that are real in the way they are expressed, but that can be used to manipulate—be
they jazz, pop, rock, or serial music (since even avant-garde music has become a
commodity). (Schnittke 2000, 45)
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Example 3.3.4. Thomas Adès, overture to Powder Her Face, mm. 6-10

I mentioned Telemann’s Gulliver Suite (1728) for two violins in chapter 1 as an example

of Baroque hybridity; in fact, it also demonstrates coexistence. The last movement, as already

seen, is a superimposition of the “Loure of the Well-Mannered Houyhnhnms and the Wild Dance
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of the Untamed Yahoo;” the slow, cantabile loure dance in the first violin contrasts with the fast-

paced and dynamic “wild dance” in the lower violin (Example 3.3.5). Despite their distinct

identities, the potential friction of the contrasting materials is mitigated by the use of elements

shared by the two styles: harmonic progression, voice-leading, and meter. The coexistence

strategy integrates the distinct identities in such a way as they can still be recognized; though

they are superimposed, the harsh friction of the clash is not apparent. The mixture reflects

directly Jonathan Swift’s 1726 story, in which Houyhnhnms and Yahoos coexist, despite their

widely contrasting characteristics, and the dominance of the former over the latter.82 Both

peoples define a spectrum of existence in Gulliver’s narrative: the horse-like Houyhnhnms (the

fictional etymology of which is, according to Swift, “the perfection of nature”) are rational and

lead an almost stoic life; the human-like Yahoos, on the other hand, are considered “abominable

animal[s]” (Swift). In this way, the stylistic gap between the two violins can be interpreted as

establishing a range of musical affect: from the constrained and elegant loure dance of the horse-

like people to the blazing, uncontrolled melody of the Yahoos.

82
In Swift’s story, Yahoos are servants to Houyhnhnms, who control the land.
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Example 3.3.5. Telemann, Gulliver’s Suite, “Loure of the Well-Mannered Houyhnhnms and the
Wild Dance of the Untamed Yahoo”

Coexistence is also seen in another example of Baroque hybridity discussed in chapter 1:

J. J. Fux’s Concentus Musico-Instrumentalis (1701), which explores the combination of Italian

and French styles, aiming at the mixed taste celebrated by many composers of the period. In

“Aria Italiana-Aire Françoise,” from the seventh piece of the work, the flute/recorder and oboe

have different meters, rhythms, and ornamentations, which signal their associated

nationality/style. The Italian aria is played by the flute in 6/8 meter, and superimposed over a 2/2

French aria in the oboe (Example 3.3.6). While this might seem like a clash characteristic—the

abrupt overlap of distinct and unintegrated characteristics—Fux aligns the triple subdivision of

the flute’s 6/8 with the long notes of the cut-time oboe. When they do produce friction, the result
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is diffused by dotted rhythms in the oboe (mm. 6-7, for instance); these adjustments are

indicative of an integration of both references. The two melodic instruments also have

contrasting rhythmic patterns, which reinforce their intended associations—the flute tends

toward regular patterns, while the oboe emphasizes dotted rhythms common in the French style.

The “Italian” flute is conservative in its trills, which appear only at important cadences of the

piece (mm. 18, 26, and 35); the “French” oboe has many trills, which are not constrained to

cadential points (for example, the trill at m. 2). This excessive ornamentation alone might not be

a clear demarcated reference, but the combination of the distinct metric, rhythmic, and

ornamental features can be associated— emphasized by their opposition—with the two identities

indicated in the title, at the same time preserving their characteristics throughout.
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Example 3.3.6. Fux, Concentus Musico-Instrumentalis, “Aria Italiana-Aire Françoise”

The continuo acts not as a mediator of these two styles, rather more strongly supports the

French aria by adopting a 2/2 meter. This choice of emphasis, in fact, creates a more stable

environment (a French one), so that the differences brought by the Italian material can be

highlighted. Dreyfus (1996, 120) is more precise in labeling the two contrasting styles in Fux’s

trio as a combination of the Italian giga and the French entrée. Unlike my reading above,

Dreyfus views the interaction between these two categories as “forced and harsh: each voice

proceed[ing] as if oblivious to the presence of the other” (1996, 120). While the identities are in

fact recognizable and, to an extent, separate, they do interact—they afford each other space to be
169
foregrounded at different times. While for a specialist or a learned contemporary listener the

combinations between the Italian and French genres can be interpreted as harsh, given the

expected stability of affect in Baroque compositions, within the spectrum of mixture strategies

there is considerable alignment of features to support its interpretation as coexistence. Dreyfus’s

interpretation of the example as harsh and forced points to the clear recognizability of contrasting

identities, a discourse that would certainly put the Concentus trio within the realm of a clash.

However, the Baroque mixed taste mindset (goûts reünis) that prompts this mixture focuses on

unification rather than friction, coexistence rather than clash, as their musical interaction makes

clear.83

In fact, Dreyfus (1996, 120) contrasts this “forced and harsh” and “brutally

superimposed” coexistence with J. S. Bach’s Sonata for viola da gamba and harpsichord in G

minor (BWV 1029; Example 3.3.7). According to Dreyfus, Bach’s piece “conceals” beneath its

surface a French Sarabande and an Italian Adagio, again evoking the Baroque notion of mixed

taste: “they hibernate in a structure guaranteed to cover them up” (1996, 120). If this were

actually the case, the hybridity would be inaudible and the identities cancelled out (Dreyfus’s

own words)—only a conceptual mixture, after thorough analysis. Dreyfus dedicates almost an

entire chapter to disentangling these two “hidden” identities, an enterprise prompted by the

difficulty of categorizing the piece with an established genre label. Nevertheless, he discusses

elements of the two contrasting identities, which are indeed foregrounded, even if not in as clear

a way as Fux’s Concentus. In the first half of the piece the harpsichord plays musical markers of

83
During the Baroque period, the intention of combining several national styles in vogue was called mixed taste, or
goûts reünis. The Italian and French styles were characterized by clearly different features, and their combination
served as the musical and narrative basis for some works like François Couperin’s L’Apotheose de Lully and
L’Apotheose de Corelli.
170
the French Sarabande identity, while the viola da gamba emphasizes features of an Italian

Adagio. Markers of these contrasting identities coexist throughout the sonata, and they do not

sound musically disconnected (as, for instance, in Biber’s clash in the Batallia discussed above).

Dreyfus provides a list of the characteristics of audible markers for each of these styles. In the

melodic realm, the Sarabande is represented in the sonata by a prevalence of stepwise motion,

“runs in the style of double, and the use of essential ornaments (die wesentlichen Manieren),”

belonging to the French style. The Italian Adagio is signaled, contrastingly, by large leaps,

arpeggiated lines and scalar flourishes, and arbitrary ornaments (die willkürlichen Manieren). In

terms of phrase structure, the Sarabande is associated with “marked 4-bar phrases” (1996, 118),

whereas the Adagio is characterized by the avoidance of clear divisions. Rhythmic markers are

among the most noticeable signs of each style/nationality. The Sarabande stresses the second

beat, with dotted patterns at phrase endings, and hemiolas preceding the cadences; the Adagio’s

contrasting rhythmic features include “long sustained notes tied over the bar line” and “running

notes starting off the beat” (1996, 118), according to Dreyfus.


171

Example 3.3.7. J. S. Bach, Sonata for viola da gamba and harpsichord in G minor, I (BWV 1029)

Such integration of divergent elements is typical of the coexistence mixture strategy, and

the Adagio and Sarabande features also “affect each other,” as Dreyfus acknowledges (1996,

122). Furthermore, the two styles relate to specific affects and values: the Sarabande is a dance

of “gravity . . . [and] expresses ambition, grandeur, and dignity” (ibid.); the Italian Adagio is a

more improvised style, which “evokes the passions of fantasy, spontaneity, and astonishment”

(ibid.). In this way, the coexistence is not only of geographical markers reflected in the music,

but also of the notions of arbitrary or measured and restricted, which are associated with the two
172
styles. The contrasting musical categories of dance and lyricism also act as elements in Bach’s

hybrid. But here, as in Fux (and Telemann, Joplin, Kagel, and Adés), many aligned features

allow for them to coexist in a unified amalgam: harmonic progressions and cadences,

counterpoint, and form, all contribute to integrating the contrasting elements in the work, while

maintaining their disparate identities.

Topics, Troping, and Coexistence

In the majority of instances of topical importation in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century

music, imported elements are musically integrated into the prevailing environment. This occurs

by combining features associated with two or more contrasting categories, while aligning many

others, such as harmonic progressions, melodic contour, and rhythmic/metric profiles. In other

words, these cases of topical hybridity are largely examples of coexistence. As mentioned earlier,

Hatten’s notion of troping attempts to understand and systematize these hybrid features in topic

theory. Though troping is certainly not limited to the coexistence strategy, in the repertory Hatten

discusses coexistence tends to be the norm.

Other than the four tropological axes mentioned above—degree of compatibility, degree

of dominance, degree of creativity, and degree of productivity—Hatten (2014) indicates three

main potential significations for the hybridity achieved through troping in Classical and

Romantic music: merger (akin to a poetic metaphor), irony (contradistinction or contradiction,

commentary), and parody (merger and commentary combined).

A merger of the imported topic with the prevailing style (or with other imported
topics) produces a trope akin to a metaphor in poetic language. The trope of irony,
on the other hand, typically avoids such a merger; instead the topic maintains its
distinct character and plays a role in contradistinction to, or even outright
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contradiction of the prevailing discourse. Thus, in the case of Romantic irony, the
unassimilated topic may be interpreted as commenting on the prevailing musical
discourse. A combination of metaphorical merger and ironic commentary may
result in parody or satire, since the potential merger is subject to critique (as
implied by its lack of fit, its exaggeration, or its deliberate distortion by other
means . . . ) (Hatten 2014, 515).

These meanings are, in part, conditioned by the mixture strategies applied in each case—

coexistence most often in this repertory—but are ultimately determined by the type of material

used and their potential associations. If one reads the above definitions broadly, the merger trope

is akin to the coexistence mixture strategy; Hatten’s trope of irony relates to the clash strategy,

but usually lacks the surface harshness typical of those cases; and the third—a combination of

both, creating a potential parody or satire—relates to the distortion strategy, discussed below.

However, as discussed in chapter 1, the range of significations of musical hybridity can go well

beyond metaphor, irony, and parody.84 These are simply characteristic in the stable constrained

environments of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century concert music.

The mixture strategies for hybrids proposed in this study help to locate eighteenth- and

nineteenth-century cases of troping within a larger framework of hybridity, one whose

components are emphasized differently across historical periods. Cases of metaphor, irony, and

parody in Classical music are, more often than not, related to the variable incompatibility of their

associations, not to their perceptible characteristics on the musical surface. Most friction here

then is at the referential level, which determines the nuances of the troping. It is often a

hermeneutic hybrid process, but not always a musical one, a characteristic that might be sparked

by the aforementioned stylistic and generic stability of the period. An example of this subtle type

of troping, with relatively compatible musical elements, can be seen in Hatten’s analysis (2014,

84
Even though they may serve as a starting point for more nuanced significations.
174
516-17) of Mozart’s Piano Sonata in F major, K. 332, I, which features no fewer than six topics

blended in the first twelve measures of the piece: pastoral, singing style, yodel, Ländler,

empfindsamer Styl, and learned style (Example 3.3.8, mm. 1-12). In Hatten’s words, “it requires

a higher degree of interpretive abduction—exceeding mere recognition of style types and topics”

(2014, 519). These topics all coexist to an extent, but are not readily recognizable, differing from

other cases of mixtures because of the compatibility and integration of the musical surface.

Taking into consideration the specific narrow range of compatibility/incompatibility

afforded by a stable system, cases of coexistence abound in the Classical and Romantic periods.

The same movement from Mozart’s sonata combines three other styles and topics in a unified

musical surface a few measures later. Here, according to Hatten (2014, 520), after the minuet is

established in the first measures (comprising the six topics mentioned above), mm. 13-16 bring

clearer correlations with the music-box topic in terms of register, and the hunt topic, in its

rhythms and voicings (Example 3.3.8). The music-box register may be interpreted as adding a

melodic layer reminiscent of children’s songs (subversive?), to the other more serious elements

in this section of the piece.


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Example 3.3.8. Mozart, Piano Sonata No. 12 in F major, K. 332, I, mm. 1-18

Another example of this subtle coexistence with troping in Mozart, which Hatten discusses,

occurs in the combination of the march topic with the learned, imitative polyphonic style at the

beginning of the first movement from the Piano Concerto in C major, K. 415 (Example 3.3.9).

Musically, these materials convey no friction whatsoever; however, the social environments with

which both styles are associated are perceptible, creating an incompatibility that adds extra layers

of meaning to the work.


176

Example 3.3.9. Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C major, K. 415, mm. 1-6

Since nineteenth-century music continued and expanded the use of topics, Hatten also

interprets Robert Schumann’s “Chiarina,” the eleventh piece in Carnaval, op. 9, as a case of

troping: a “waltz-metered march” (2004, 71; Example 3.3.10). But despite the waltz being a

quality of the march in this Hatten’s description (it is a waltz with the meter of a march), no clear

asymmetry appears in these measures, no dominance of one over the other, but rather a

coexistence of the two styles that might force the listener’s attention to alternate between both

perspectives, and which results in a third compound style. The potential interpretations of this

troping, thus are informed by the integration of the associations of both styles, which adds a

more serious, perhaps military tone to the ballroom dance, or, seen from the other perspective,

mitigates the march’s solemn affect.


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Example 3.3.10. Schumann, Carnival, op. 9, XI, “Chiarina,” mm. 1-12

A related, later case of coexistence is found in Debussy’s Estampes, II, “La Soirée dans Granade”

(1903), which combines a habanera accompaniment pattern with harmonies that correlate with

the composer’s modernist style (Example 3.3.11). Again, there is no clear prevailing style, except

the two identities: this is neither a habanera with modernist harmonies, nor a modernist piece

with habanera rhythms. Both coexist to create a compound style.85

85
This relates, albeit from a more general perspective, to Ralph Locke’s notion of “submerged” exoticism (2009,
217).
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Example 3.3.11. Debussy, Estampes, II, mm. 23-37

Timbre, Effects, and Space in Recorded Tracks

Timbre or instrumentation are effective elements for creating coexistence because of their

separation from what Leonard Meyer called “syntactical” parameters.86 One can use, for

instance, rhythm, melody, or harmony belonging to one genre or style, and timbres and

instruments from another disparate style, without any necessarily apparent friction on the

86
According to Meyer’s highly influential perspective—one built in order to approach a very specific repertoire—
these primary parameters stand for the “syntactical” and usually statistical, quantifiable, aspects of music such as
harmony, melody, rhythm and meter. It would follow then that secondary parameters—tempo, sonority, and timbre,
according to Meyer—be the ones that cannot be quantified and cannot serve to organize a musical composition. But
this separation between “primary” and “secondary” parameters in musical thinking seems less rigid and restrictive if
one reads Meyer carefully (Meyer 1989, 14-15), and takes into consideration that he is addressing eighteenth- and
nineteenth- century concert music.
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musical surface; but there is friction nonetheless. While this appears in many repertories—such

as in Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 1, II, in which a tango is played by a harpsichord––

associating to Baroque music––or Adés’s overture from Powder Her Face (discussed above),

developments in recording technologies facilitated an enhanced engagement with such elements

in repertories that centralize their production in the studio. Timbres or instruments attached to

specific styles and genres can act as topics—timbre topics—and follow the same signification

processes, mentioned by Mirka and Hatten, in achieving cross-references and troping; or they

might also correlate with wider and less defined fields of signification. Many popular musics of

the post-1950s, because of their use of the recording studio as a creative tool, contain examples

of these kinds of mixtures with timbres, effects, or combinations of disparate instruments.

Timbres are also used in order to categorize and label; thus, an ambiguous combination of such

identity markers with other contrasting elements (timbre-related or otherwise) can create

hybridity through coexistence.

The Alabama Shakes’ “Sound and Color” (2015), the first track from their eponymous

album, shows how this relationship among timbral layers, styles, and hybridity can occur.

Attention to hybridity processes unveils an intricate amalgam of references to multiple

simultaneous styles. Even though market-wise the band is labeled as a rock group—which, on

this track, might serve as an idealized background—few elements on it clearly relate to rock.

“Sound and Color “(Example 3.3.12) opens with just vibraphone and bass (0:00 to 0:25). The

generic inferences made during this first twenty-five seconds rely largely on context. Thus, the

first contextual friction and opposition occur because (if) the listener knows Alabama Shakes as

a rock group, even though no clear elements of the style appear in the music. Second, the

contrast in the timbres—the vibes associated with jazz, as a contrast of rock, for instance. At
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around 0:26, faint harmonics on bowed instruments slightly alter the generic scenario, hinting at

a string quartet, or even an orchestra on the track. Drums, potentially more often associated with

rock, come in at 0:50, but create friction within themselves: the timbre of the drum set is typical

of the Motown sound (especially the bass drum, prominent in the mix), but the rhythms are not

so much native to R&B or rock as they are characteristic of electronic sequenced beats. The

strings’ harmonics disappear with a glissando as we hear the vocals entering the mix at 1:00. The

vocals are a prominent feature of the song, with a delivery that mixes rock and R&B influences,

while vocal timbre (with added reverb and a higher harmonizing voice) seems again to reference

the Motown sound. At 1:28, a repetitive guitar line with a low-frequency oscillator creates a

pattern mixing rock and electronic genres. At 2:03, a fuller-sounding string ensemble connects

with the layer of the orchestral reference hinted at the beginning of the track, and is soon joined

by a synthesizer sound (I refer to this as a “click” in Example 3.3.12, below), which lasts until

2:20. The only additional element until the end of the track is the guitar playing a bent note at

2:50, which again associates closely with rock and blues. The elements combined, even in

contradicting expectations and referring to multiple genres, work together to create a unified

amalgam. They coexist, aligning rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic features to create a hybrid

environment articulated by timbre.

Because subtle timbre combinations act as accompaniment to the more dominant vocal

and lyrics, such interactions between timbre elements often go unnoticed, especially because

they form a unified coherent amalgam through coexistence. But in this specific track, words are

scarce––with many repetitions of “sound and color with me on my mind.” These repetitions,

combined with the few clear harmonic patterns, and lack of harmonic direction, bring listener

attention back to the timbral interplay—the most dynamic feature of the song—helping to
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emphasize their associated styles. Thus, timbres become the subjects of musical discourse, to use

Ratner’s (1980) oft-cited definition of topics. Example 3.3.12 below shows these pluralist

interactions on a timeline of the recording, and Examples 3.3.13 and 3.3.14 illustrate my

interpretation of the associations with styles and their “gaps.”

Example 3.3.12. Timeline of the timbres in Alabama Shakes’ “Sound and Color”
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Example 3.3.13. Stylistic and generic associations of timbre and instrumentation in Alabama
Shakes’ “Sound and Color”

Example 3.3.14. “Distance” of styles and genres interpreted in “Sound and Color”

The variety of the interplay of timbral elements in the track demonstrates that hybridity (and

especially coexistence) need not rely on pitch and rhythm to be expressed musically. In fact, the

subtlety and ease of mixing these elements with the “syntactical” parameters render them

suitable as creative tools for hybridity—possibilities explored by composers and producers of

many popular genres, and which question the restrictive perspective of assigning syntactical
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status only to pitch and rhythm. Moreover, this kind of timbral hybridity also commonly fosters

stylistic development and expansion.

Spatiality, another aspect of a recorded track, can be easily altered and used as a creative

tool in the studio; that is, the location of instruments in the “soundbox” and the size of the

constructed or emulated performance space.87 Certain specific configurations combining

timbre/instrumentation, effects, and soundbox characteristics can also establish a record

producer’s sonic signature, which develops into another category for cross-reference and

hybridity.88 For instance, Phil Spector’s “wall of sound”—discussed briefly in chapter 1—

established an intersubjective association with the producer’s sonority and the popular music of

the 1960s, as well as with the specific cultural and social aspects surrounding this music.89

Spector’s use of considerable amounts of reverb and doubling of instruments in the track—which

caused a “blurring” of the sources—acquired the status of a meaningful stylistic marker. In this

way, a sonic signature coexists with contrasting features belonging to other styles, genres, and

periods, such as in Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” (Born to Run, 1975), Super Furry

Animals’ “Run-Away” (Hey, Venus!, 2007), or MGMT’s “It’s working” (Congratulations,

87
A soundbox “provides a way of conceptualizing the textural space that a recording inhabits, by enabling us to
literally hear recordings taking space” (Moore 2012, 30). This spatial representation deals with the perceived
location of the sources in a recording in terms of laterality, prominence (how close the source is to the listener), and
the register of the source, using the typical high-low mapping of the pitch spectrum. The soundbox is notated—if
needed—by placing figures of each instrument inside a three-dimensional box.
88
Gillespie (2007, 31) defines the term as follows: “[s]ound-signatures” refer to non-vocal sonic material meant to
help signify production authorship in a recording. As the text will explain, this refers to various levels of musical
material: discrete-sound, abstract, performative, structural, orchestral, non-musical, and phonographic sound-
signatures.”
89
The Wall of Sound is a production technique that consists in having several musicians playing the same line on
the same instrument, as well as the use of an echo chamber to create a massive space in the recorded track. An
example of this sonority can be found in Ike and Tina Turner’s “River Deep-Mountain High” (1966)—Spector’s
favorite among his productions— in which one cannot tell clearly the individual sources that contribute to the sonic
result. Spector’s influence in music production made this sonic signature not only something of a personal trademark
but also a marker of a specific historical moment in music and music technologies. It directly influenced other artists
such as Brian Wilson (specifically the “Pet Sounds” album [1966], which in itself became another marker of the
sound and spread it even further).
184
2010). In recognizing Spector’s sonic signature alongside contrasting elements that identify each

of these other artists, an added sense of homage occurs, of the “vintage” and raw sound—a

characteristic mostly associated with authenticity in rock music.

The coexistence of Spector’s sound and Springsteen’s musical identity in “Born to Run”

was not accidental, as becomes clear in Mike Appel’s—one of the producers of the track—

account:

Bruce had just finished a concert in Richmond, Va. He was in the back seat of the
car. He leaned over the front seat and said, ‘Mike, I’m trying to meld my lyrics
with more Phil Spector-type songs and I’d like to use his production values.’ And
I said, ‘O.K., I got it.’ Then he said, ‘Do you know anything about Phil Spector
production values? And I said, ‘Yes, I do.’90

Springsteen’s to meld in the quote indicates his intention not to create friction, but to integrate

both identities, creating something new from the combination. The use of the sonic signature to

add an “old” sound did not go unnoticed by media and critics of the album either, as is clear in

the 1975 review of the record in Rolling Stone magazine:

In one sense, all this talk of epic comes down to sound . . . . [E]ditor Jon Landau,
Mike Appel and Springsteen produced Born to Run in a style as close to mono as
anyone can get these days; the result is a sound full of grandeur. For all it owes to
Phil Spector, it can be compared only to the music of Bob Dylan & the Hawks
made onstage in 1965 and ’66. With that sound, Springsteen has achieved
something very special. He has touched his world with glory, without glorifying
anything: not the romance of escape, not the unbearable pathos of the street fight
in “Jungleland,” not the scared young lovers of “Backstreets” and not himself.91

Similar cases of integrating the “wall of sound” with other identities appear later in Super

Furry Animals’s 2007 track “Run-Away” and MGMT’s 2010 “It’s Working.” In “Run-Away,”

90
Peter Gerstenzang, “How Bruce Springsteen Made ‘Born To Run’ an American Masterpiece,” (accessed March 8,
2017), http://observer.com/2015/08/how-bruce-springsteen-made-born-to-run-an-american-masterpiece/
91
Greil Marcus, “Bruce Springsteen—Born to Run,” (accessed March 27, 2017)
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/born-to-run-19851001
185
the homage aspect is more noticeable; the band seems to be trying to record a “Phil Spector”

song (using even Spector’s typical tambourine trills, for instance), but the timbre and prominence

of the guitars and voice bring a contrasting style and period to mind, thus, achieving a

coexistence of the 1960s and 2000s, of millennial rock and Spector. MGMT’s example is more

distant from an outright copy of Spector’s sonic signature, establishing a more even blend of the

group’s peculiar psychedelic compositions with the 1960s’ sonority.

In mashup music, as mentioned in the previous section, the term genre clash is most

often used not as a clash strategy (as understood in this study), but as coexistence. Key clashes,

the actual structural clash in mashups through disparate keys or other rhythmic and melodic

structural frictions, is usually assigned negative aesthetic values; on the other hand, conceptual

genre clashes—coexistence—are praised and sought after:

Although structurally similar to mainstream pop songs, mashups relish giving


meaning ironic twists. The underlying aesthetic principles governing meaning
favor mixing “two seemingly disparate songs ... the more odd pairing the better.”
People “[judge] the quality of a song in part by the producer’s cleverness or
audacity at bringing different elements together.” If the concept of clash carries a
negative charge when it appears under the basic constructive principles, that same
concept is valorized at the level of meaning, especially with respect to genre. It is
instructive that the mashup community employs the term clash for both genre and
key, yet in one case embraces its effect but in the other case rejects it. Whereas a
key clash mixes tones that result in harmonic confusion, a genre clash mixes
meanings and allows something new and unexpected to emerge. One aspect that
traditional constructive principles contribute to this mixing of meaning is
therefore to place the mashup under the sign of integration: despite the disparity
between the source songs, they nevertheless appear to go together. The meaning
that emerges is therefore all the more powerful for the adherence to the
constructive principles. The more disparate the genre-blending is, the better; the
best mash-ups blend punk with funk or Top 40 with heavy metal, boosting the
tension between slick and raw. (Boone 2011, 150-51)92

92
Boone is also citing Raju Mudhar (see Raju Mudhar, “Five Years After the Genie-us, Mashups May Go
Mainstream,” Toronto Star, December 24, 2006, sec. Entertainment).
186
Thus, the coexistence strategy is a common feature in mashup compositions. One early example

is Alan Copeland’s 1968 mashup “Mission: Impossible Theme/Norwegian Wood,” often referred

to as the first mashup. Here, Copeland aligns the 3/4 of the Beatle’s song and the 5/4 of

“Mission: Impossible” without any harsh clashing characteristics. A choir sings the melody of the

Beatles’s “Norwegian Wood,” adjusted over Lalo Schifrin’s orchestral recording of the TV

show’s theme.93 The result is a coexistence hybrid that carefully avoids friction, but still refers to

two disparate pieces/styles/contexts, and, at the same time, adds another layer of meaning

through the use of the choir. Since both pieces used in the mixture have very clear associations—

one with a mystery/action TV show (and later film) and the other with a famous love song—they

affect each other without undermining one another, creating a humorous combination.

CAMOUFLAGED COEXISTENCE

There are some less clear cases of coexistence, which purposefully hide or subtly

camouflage material of a contrasting style or genre within an established one. I call these rarer

cases camouflaged coexistence, a subtype of the coexistence strategy. A camouflaged

coexistence might have a hidden quotation, strict paraphrase, or very strict allusion smoothly

integrated into a stable style, creating no clear structural friction between the two styles.

Compared to what might be called ordinary coexistence cases, an additional effort is required on

the listener’s part to recognize the camouflaged elements. Because the camouflage purposefully

veils the extraneous material with puzzle-like characteristics, most of its identifying features are

93
Alan Copeland, “Mission Impossible Theme/Norwegian Wood” (1968), (accessed March 21, 2017),
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUV-WghBifc
187
94
aligned with the environment. On the surface, then, no perceivable mixture or friction is

apparent until the listener identifies the camouflaged material along with its contrasting

associations. In this way, camouflaged coexistence creates a mixture environment at the

referential level, but not so much (at times not at all) on the surface. Hence, the hidden elements

usually bring contrasting stylistic or generic associations, so that a chimeric environment can

actually exist. The enhanced challenge of recognition makes this strategy subtype temporary.

Once the camouflaged material is identified, the environment can be dealt with as if it were a

simpler case of a coexistence strategy, since the listener can now track two integrated layers and

their references.

An example of camouflaged coexistence is Salvatore Sciarrino’s Anamorfosi for piano

solo (1981; Example 3.3.15), in which the melody of “Singin’ in the Rain” is “hidden” in a

texture built from quotations of Ravel’s piano music—Jeux d’Eau––and later in Sciarrino’s piece

a brief reference to “Une barque sur l’océan” from Ravel’s Mirroirs.95 The pluralism in

Anamorfosi is of contrasting repertories, akin to a mashup, where distinct, so-called low-brow

and high-brow references are combined. Because of the dual perspective that the piece affords,

there is a temporal misalignment, which is distinct from the effects achieved in other cases of

coexistence. In Anamorfosi, the constant change of focus, as we recognize the melody, changes

94
The puzzle-like aspects of camouflaged coexistence are widely explored on the NPR radio show Piano Puzzler, a
5-minute game show. A piano puzzler is a composition that hides the melody of a famous tune (usually Broadway
songs or well-known folk songs) within the style of a major composer from the classical music canon. The “style” is
expressed in texture, rhythm, melody, and harmonies, and several times even using quotations from a piece by the
specific composer being emulated. The pianist/composer Bruce Adolphe, weekly writes a puzzler, performs it, and
helps the contestant with pertinent information and hints, if necessary. The overall format is simple: (1) the
contestant is identified and asked about musical background; (2) Adolphe performs the puzzler; (3) the contestant
tries to guess the hidden tune and style; (4) from the correct or wrong answers provided, Adolphe helps the
participant with verbal and musical cues until there is a final answer. A similar earlier show is BBC’s Hidden
Melodies.
95
Please note that the symbol for coexistence is slightly altered in camouflage cases, with the added grid over the
triangle.
188
our perception of time flow as well, since the two materials appear at different rates. Sciarrino

makes it more difficult to spot the melody of “Singin’ in the Rain,” in the following ways: (1) the

composer aligns the melody to coincide with the articulation of rhythms of Ravel’s Jeux d’Eau;

(2) the vast majority of the melody notes make sense within Ravel’s harmonic vocabulary; (3)

both Ravel’s Jeux d’Eau and “Singin’ in the Rain” are based on pentatonic material; (4)

Sciarrino avoids putting the melody in the upper or lower voice of the overall texture; (5) he fits

two measures of “Singin’ in the Rain” (in 2/2 meter) in every measure of Jeux d’Eau (in 4/4),

thus creating the temporal misalignment mentioned above; and (6) the popular tune begins after

almost one full measure of Ravel’s music, which constrains the listener to focus first on the

repetitive arpeggiated texture rather than attend to the horizontal, melodic aspects of the piece.

Example 3.3.15. Camouflaged coexistence in Sciarrino’s Anamorfosi for piano solo

In camouflaged coexistence, the style or genre that perceptually and compositionally

frames the hidden quotation or allusion is usually at a higher hierarchic level, differing from the

more usual balanced combination in regular coexistence. Also, in more ordinary cases of

coexistence, concessions are made by each style so as to form a chimeric third style; in

camouflaged coexistence, nothing changes in the ruling style. It absorbs the hidden quotation,
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which only creates friction when discovered in the texture, and is perceptually segregated as a

separate layer. Musically, there is no third style—no combination of competing styles—in

camouflaged examples, only a coexistence of contrasting references of the combined layers after

the hidden material is discovered. This reliance on the recognition of the hidden strands and

associations of well-integrated elements is what forces camouflaged coexistence to use strict

quotations, or very clear paraphrases of melodic fragments. In order to allude to a more general

style field or genre, the composer needs to foreground its defining traits, thus making it difficult

to hide the reference.

Even more complicated cases of camouflaged mixture, while not the main focus of this

study, may occur when a clear quotation of or allusion to obscure material occurs, usually with

strong cultural meaning, creating an environment where a quotation “can be noticed but not

identified” (Metzer 2004, 7). This kind of occurrence creates a camouflage coexistence only at

the referential level: one can perceive a different strand in a piece, but not create any specific

associations that could be knowingly contrasting and indicative of mixture. An example given by

Metzer (2004) is Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Hymnen, which contains a collage of hymns from

different countries, which mostly combines socio-politically contrasting or rival nations. A

specific case of this referential camouflage occurs when Stockhausen mixes, for instance, West

Germany anthem “Deutschlandlied” with “Horst Wessel Lied,” the anthem of the Nazi party

(Metzer 2004, 142, n. 90). The listener can hear two different strands but in order to understand

the somewhat sordid referential contrast one needs to have a deeper knowledge of the uses of this

music in history.

INTERPRETING COEXISTENCE
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Much of the potential signification in cases of the coexistence strategy directly contrasts

with that of clash. Coexistence serves, compositionally and hermeneutically, as a “conciliatory”

counterpart to the harsher clash strategy. Thus, it brings unifying, integrative meaning by not

relying on separation. Whereas clash highlights discontinuity, displacement, or disjunction

between the disparate associations, coexistence can add a sense of coalescence. Coexistence, as

an integrative type of mixture, has innovative potential usually reflected in a third, compound

identity created without much friction. While clash might be interpreted as shock, surprise,

mistake, or incoherence, coexistence allows a more prominent sense of productive creativity, an

enriched potential for development of the combination. The possibility for any hybrid to open a

second layer of discourse as commentary is still valid in the coexistence strategy; however, the

nature of the commentary tends to be interpreted differently in these cases. In the clash strategy,

the second layer of discourse is mostly a critical, potentially subversive, or political act; on the

other hand, coexistence tends to lean toward utopian and pacific cohabitation, albeit not

restricted to it.

Hatten’s approach to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century mixtures has metaphorical

synthesis or ironic subversions as the main categories of interpretation (a mix of both would

carry potential for parody or satire). While this approach can embrace the significations of works

within the constraints of a stable system of styles and genres, these need to be expanded for

different repertories and uses of the coexistence strategy. Parody and irony can still be

communicated by an integrative musical surface if its associations are harshly contrasting. For

instance, Hatten (2014, 522-23) suggests a parody in the childlike evocation of the march topic

in the coexistence of the first movement from Mozart’s Piano Concertos No. 13 in C Major, K.

415, and No. 21 in C Major, K. 467. Importantly, the level of incompatibility of associations also
191
affects the interpretation of a musical surface built through coexistence, which can influence the

integrative hybridity’s meaning in a range from serious to comic.

The strategy of clash is associated with a fragmentation of the discourse and, in some

specific cases, connected to mental illness (such as in Maxwell Davies’s Eight Songs for a Mad

King). Coexistence, on the other hand, can be ambiguous; it lacks a defined identity, and can

trigger a related sense of inconsistence or omission, as in Dreyfus’s reaction to Bach’s sonata,

discussed above.

What is it then, in the Adagio movement that encourages one historian to refer to
Beethoven, and another to objectify processes inconsistent with any contemporary
genre? How, in fact, can a sonata movement of the eighteenth century sustain
such a suspension of time and place? One approach to these problems is to take
the absence of clear signs of genre or style as a significant omission (1996, 116,
my emphasis).

In such cases, this ambiguity is interpreted as a negative characteristic. But it can also yield

positive interpretations as an original blend that fosters innovation. Coexistence can be used to

develop new styles and genres by merging previously established categories into new ones that

might—with time, recurrence, and intersubjective acceptance—achieve a status or label of their

own, as in the notion of the life cycle of tropes suggested by Hatten:

[w]hen strategic juxtapositions and superpositions of even highly contrasting topics have
occurred often enough, they may enter into the style as fully troped blends that require no
interpretive labor . . . their interpretation is then deproblematized into an act of mere
recognition.” (Hatten 2014, 521-22)

3.4 Distortion
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In the seventh piece of her Musical Toys, “A Bear Playing the Double Bass and the Black

Woman” (1969), Sofia Gubaidulina presents a walking bass, reminiscent of jazz but that follows

no clear harmonic progression, as would be expected from this accompaniment pattern. In fact,

the pitches delineate no tonal or jazz harmonies at all; rather, they emphasize a non-tonal or

chromatic collection (Example 3.4.1).96 The piano right hand plays a pentatonic melody, evoking

the blues—a choice stylistically representative of jazz pieces—but this material is interrupted

suddenly by a few clusters, destabilizing or undermining any style continuity. The coexistence of

jazz and blues is a natural one, since the two styles are combined often enough (and are

genealogically related) to become a common and unsurprising combination. But a strange sense

of incongruity within each layer occurs: some of their defining elements are either suppressed

(the harmonic progression of the walking bass) or altered and expanded (pitch collection, sudden

clusters in the right-hand melody). The jazz/blues styles are recognizable, but appear in a

“strange” manner, altered by incongruous non-tonal elements. While these elements might be

loosely connected to a wide non-tonal style field, is not specific enough reference to be identified

as a style or genre. This distortion, active throughout the entirety of this short piece, forms

another strategy for hybridity. Distortion differs from clash or coexistence primarily due to its

asymmetry—one clearly recognizable style or genre is altered by elements incompatible with the

primary reference. These incongruous elements are distortion agents, which affect the primary

style but do not associate directly with a second clear-cut category.

96
Please note the analytical symbol for distortion in the example.
193

Example 3.4.1. Sofia Gubaidulina, Musical Toys, VII. “A Bear Playing the Double Bass and the
Black Woman”

A similar example appears in the first piece of Rochberg’s Carnival Music (1971),

“Fanfares and March,” in which the composer employs the rhythms and gestures of a traditional

fanfare while distorting its pitch elements by substituting tonal with non-tonal material (Example

3.4.2). The first fanfare excerpt, occurring in the first system, relies on a repeated stepwise

gesture of a major second. The second––on the third system, after a long-note interruption––uses
194
an ascending gesture with emphasis on minor and major seconds. Both gestures avoid the usual

arpeggiated lines of typical fanfares and bring alterations in the pitch domain, but the stylistic

association with a fanfare remains clear due to the rhythmic aspects, ascending gesture, and

brevity of the material.

Example 3.4.2. Rochberg, Carnival Music, “Fanfares and March”


195
And so, distortion occurs when a style, genre, or topic is altered by incompatible

elements that are not clearly recognized as another category of musical identity. This can

materialize through expansion of the elements of a recognizable style, suppression and

substitution of some of its defining components, or––more commonly––addition of new features

perceived as outside and unfamiliar to that style. Schumann (2015) discusses distorted topics,

defining them “as any topic in which one or more of its defining components or characteristics is

altered, suppressed, or entirely removed” (2015, 60); the same ideas can be used more generally

with genres and styles. The degree to which a style or genre is distorted will vary, depending on

how many of its defining characteristics are altered by processes of suppression, substitution, or

addition. Of these processes, suppression is the weakest; and at times, the mere suppression or

removal of less important components of a style will not even be perceived as a distortion, since

other important traits might remain and serve to represent it.97 Stronger distortions arise when

extraneous features are added, or suppressed features are substituted by incongruous material,

thus creating a mixture between the idealized stable style and these new elements. The level of

contrast and incongruity between the added material and the established style or genre will affect

the intensity of the distortion. Again, I refer to this incongruous idea or process as the distorting

agent, which is not always neutral. It can refer minimally to another stylistic field, but a clear

hierarchy appears between the main style being altered and what is causing the distortion. If this

hierarchy is more balanced, the strategy can be potentially interpreted as (or confused with)

coexistence, in which the contrasting elements are of roughly the same importance in forming

97
This is related to the notion of membership gradience in theories of categorization. These ideas can be found in
Eleanor Rosch’s work, as well as in George Lakoff’s 1992 review of these theories.
196
the chimeric environment. Finally, it is common for distortion to be nested in other strategies,

especially trajectory and coexistence.

Distortion is an instance of hybridity, even though it does not equally treat two distinct

identities. The hybridity here is not created by alluding to two disparate styles, but by changing

an established category and questioning its identity, thus opening space for instability. Distortion

emphasizes a single stylistic identity, but one that is, as Baler put it, “a manifestation of

imbalance (an intrinsic failure of agreement) destined to upset the mechanisms of transmission”

(2016, 8). Example 3.4.3 displays an abstract graphic representation of the strategy and the

symbol that will represent it in the analyses.

Example 3.4.3. Diagram of the distortion strategy


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As mentioned above, cases of distortion where elements are more symmetrically present

can very often be considered as coexistence. The decision is an interpretive one and relies on

how strongly and well-defined the distorting agents are in each case. Since the mixture strategies

are interpretive categories, labeling an excerpt as one or the other is less important than the

meaningful layers each interpretation can highlight. Generally, in distortion, incongruous

elements (the distorting agents) alter a fairly recognizable style or genre; the distorting agents do

not establish a clear reference other than that of being external, unfamiliar, and inconsistent with

respect to what they are altering. In coexistence, two recognizable identities are combined in a

more symmetrical way.

The beginning of Adès’s Piano Quintet, I (Example 3.4.4) features a very local case of

distortion. The violin plays an iteration of the “do-re-mi” galant style schema (Gjerdingen 2007)

in C major, which Adès distorts on reaching the “mi” stage of the model, altering the I chord

with D# and A#, as well as adding notes from a whole-tone scale (WT1) in a descending line.

The gesture is repeated twice, with the same strategy, leading into a non-tonal environment in the

violin. This distortion is part of a larger tonal to non-tonal motion that organizes the beginning of

the piece.98

98
This is in fact also a trajectory strategy at a higher level. Trajectories will be discussed in the next section.
198

Example 3.4.4. Thomas Adès, Piano Quintet, I, mm. 1-6

Two of these distortion cases—Gubaidulina and Rochberg—come from the post-1960s,

and Adès’s Piano Quintet, even though composed in 2007, derives from a similar style.99 The

post-1960s is a period whose stylistic and generic instability was compared to the Baroque by

Lobanova (2000), who focused on music, and by Baler (2016), who focused on visual and

literary arts. For Baler (2016), distortion is an embracing concept defined only in contrast to

clarity: in sculpture, for example, he cites the “contorted bodies of Gianlorenzo Bernini as

opposed to the static figures of the High Renaissance” (Baler 2016, 2), and in rhetoric, the

hyperbaton (the inversion of the order of words), compared to an earlier “restrained fluency”

(ibid.). Finally, Baler mentions the distortion of “atomized landscapes of the historical avant-

gardes in contrast with mimetic realism of positivist hue” (Baler 2016, 2), which echoes the

parallel Lobanova made in music.

Although they manifest themselves in an incredible variety of forms and have


embodied, historically, different worldviews, the works that partake of this
distorting impulse tend to evoke an imaginative universe that is connected to the

99
Even though Adès’s Piano Quintet I was published in 2007, I still consider it part of the stylistically unstable
period that had its origins in the 1960s.
199
metonymic series of imbalances, disfigurements, monstrosities, chaos, and
uncertainties. (Baler 2016, 2)

Baler points to anamorphosis as a staple case of distortion in Baroque visual arts, one

which can serve here as a starting point to approach the strategy’s musical counterparts in the

period. Even though cases of anamorphosis appear before the Baroque, such as the infamous The

Ambassadors by Hans Holbein in the sixteenth century, the technique was widely embraced in

the seventeenth century. Taking Holbein (1533) as an example, however, one can see how the

visual distortion is quite literal in these cases (Example 3.4.5). In The Ambassadors we have a

central naturalistic scene with two august figures standing in a room, a distorted skull apparent in

the lower part of the painting. In fact, if we stay with the mixture strategy terminology proposed

here, the naturalistic scene and the skull overlap in a clash.100 But the skull itself looks out of

place; it needs the viewer to observe it from a different perspective so its distortion is “fixed.” At

a more conceptual level, there is also a distortion of the consistency of the perspective in the

painting; Jon Snyder (2010) describes the distortion in anamorphosis as

a system of deliberate double-imaging, [in which] whenever the once-skewed


realistic order is restored through the discovery of the hidden “correct” viewpoint,
the unnatural or distorted original order is lost to sight, and vice-versa. (Snyder
2010, 20)101

100
The skull served as a symbol of the vanitas topos in 16th- and 17th-century paintings. Vanitas paintings and
symbolism reminded of the “inevitability of death and transience of life” (Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Vanitas.”
https://www.britannica.com/art/vanitas-art (accessed October 1, 2017). Baler aptly describes the disruption of the
skull over the primary scene in Holbein’s painting: “[t]he French envoys to Henry VIII are haughtily watching over
instruments that symbolize the spheres of knowledge (astronomy, arithmetic, geometry, and music) while at their
feet, from an anamorphic perspective, a skull intrudes, threatening, as an infallible symbol of death, the attainments
of all knowledge, temporal and spiritual” (Baler 2016, 20).
101
Baler (2016) makes a good point that any two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional object is in fact
a distortion of reality, a thought that, analogous to music, would by equivalence make any extra-musical meaning,
any association made from music with the external world a distortion.
200

Example 3.4.5. Holbein’s The Ambassadors (1533)

But what is the musical equivalent of the Baroque anamorphic distortion? Treadwell

(2010) suggests the bastarda style as the musical counterpart of visual anamorphosis. She

exemplifies the style as threatening “the assumed authoritative ‘voice’ of the composer,” with the

incorporation of

embellishments that go well beyond those a singer might choose to articulate


within his or her “natural” voice range. Music on the printed page—as a tangible
element of material culture—provided a mere basis for the bastarda musician to
create a composition anew, through anamorphic performative process. The
original (notated) musical model was already completely internalized by the best
of singers, allowing maximum flexibility, moment-by-moment, during the course
of a performance. (Treadwell 2010, 31)

A bass singer’s part could, for instance, thread through all voices with virtuosic embellishments,

subverting its supporting, foundational role in a four-part harmony (Treadwell 2010, 31), a

characteristic that was criticized at the time. The bastarda style was not mere ornamentation; it

was a considerable alteration of the composition that opened a layer for commentary by the

distorting agent: the singer or the viola da gamba player, for example.
201
Michael Praetorius’s understanding of the bastarda style creates close links with the

subject of hybridity. The German theorist, according to Treadwell (2010), implied that the style

was some sort of “mongrel,” since it involves the appropriation by the musician of other parts of

the composition and the addition of new material. Emphasizing this perspective, is the

etymology of the term bastarda: “literally one who is born outside of the legitimate social

contract of marriage. Socially and musically, the bastarda [or bastardo] is one who moves both

inside and outside of traditional structures.” It indicates a “question of illegitimacy” with

“derogatory implication” (Treadwell 2010, 34).

If the bastarda style—an excessive alteration of a model which reflects the identity of the

one delivering the performance—is an example of distortion, many other cases in music would

be as well. This more embracing perspective on distortion is, in fact, supported by Baler, who

writes about the “aesthetics of distortion” as being useful to understanding the logic of instability

that permeates “crucial moments of the visual and literary production” both in the twentieth and

seventeenth centuries, as briefly discussed above (Baler 2016, xi). Distortion, if understood as a

kind of creative instability of defiguration and refiguration (Snyder 2010), does happen

recurrently in many subtle and not-so-subtle cases, thus bringing hybridity closer to common

discourse. Indeed, the general idea of distortion is crucial to any kind of hybridity, even if in

many cases it only forms a part of the resulting amalgam. In clash, the notion of linear time and

unified whole are commonly distorted. In coexistence, certain features are altered via distortion

to provide the alignments of contrasting styles. Thus, it is common to find chimeric

environments that combine distortion with other strategies.

A distortion in John Coltrane’s famous (1961) recording of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s

“My Favorite Things” (from The Sound of Music 1965), uses similar processes to those in the
202
early Baroque bastarda style. A comparison of the original melody to Coltrane’s recomposition

shows the detailed ways in which he altered the song’s identity. Both the album name and the

track title emphasize the Broadway musical’s song identity—this is still “My Favorite Things”

but distorted, defamiliarized. Other than the obvious omission of the lyrics and original timbres,

both less essential for the recognition of the song, the main “carriers” of the song’s identity are

melody, rhythm, and harmony.102 And each of these three elements is considerably altered by

Coltrane, while retaining the original song’s form to be fully recognizable.103

As shown in Example 3.4.6, Coltrane’s version begins with the original first measure of

melody, albeit shortening the duration of three quarter notes, and changing the harmony to a

tonic pedal in the first four measures. In the second measure Coltrane’s alters clearly the rhythm

and melody: a half note prolongs the resolution of scale degree 2 to 1, which contrasts with the

original version (here shown in the Real Book transcription).104 In measures 3 and 4 Coltrane

considerably alters the original by adding a note and changing the rhythmic profile. In these four

measures he progressively distorts the identity of “My Favorite Things”—setting the stage and

giving the listener time to recognize the tune in the first two measures, and then starting to

diffuse its identity at mm. 3 and 4. The second 4-bar phrase (mm. 5-8) carries similar alterations,

but here the first measure of the group (m. 5) is also changed, since the identity of the source

102
Since many jazz musicians played the repertory from Broadway musicals, the omission of the lyrics is a fairly
common feature, thus less essential for identifying the work. Perhaps the most effective of Coltrane’s distortions are
his rhythmic alterations of the melody. Thanks to Jennifer Griffith for the “insider’s perspective” about this
repertory.
103
I am not even considering here the hybridity (a coexistence) that happens between the genre of musical, or
Rodgers & Hammerstein, or Tin Pan Alley, conflated with the bebop group or Coltrane’s own identity. Nor am I
dealing with the duration of each version: Coltrane’s stretched-out version lasts fourteen minutes.
104
I am aware of how fallible the Real Book transcriptions are, but use it here only for comparative purposes. Julie
Andrews’s recording of the song in the original soundtrack add fair amounts of rubato to the melody but it is still
based on constant quarter notes, in general. Nevertheless, Coltrane’s version is very different if compared with the
original recording.
203
song has already been clarified enough in the previous measures. The second half of the A

section (mm. 9-16) has fewer pitch alterations but the underlying rhythm is distorted at mm. 9,

10, and 15, providing more of a “swing” feel to the melody. The harmony continues with slight

alterations throughout, but conflicts less with the original than do pitch and rhythmic

modifications. The distortion strategy, which constantly places Coltrane’s version against the

backdrop of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s original, is a crucial characteristic; the resulting friction

and novelty defines the hybrid identity of this iteration of the tune.

Example 3.4.6. Comparison of the first 16 measures of the original (Real Book) and Coltrane’s
versions of “My Favorite Things”

This process of altering a famous work is not restricted to jazz, and raises questions

pertaining to the ontology of music: how is it that hybrid variations, and at times perhaps even

extreme variations of a work, do not prevent listeners from perceiving the source of the
204
105
recomposition? In “My Favorite Things,” the absence of the words in Coltrane’s version does

not prevent its recognition in the harmonic and melodic elements. On the other hand, Bob

Dylan’s two versions of “Forever Young” have completely distinct musical characteristics with

the same words—one is a lullaby, the other a rock song. These two related tracks are put back to

back in the album Planet Waves (1974), indicated as a slow and fast version, respectively. Since

in the folk genre the lyrics are a central part of the composition, one could also consider Dylan’s

case as a distortion of the identity of the song, preserved by the words in both versions. This

wider conception of distortion, embracing arrangements, or versions of any musical work—even

if an attempt to perfectly emulate—highlights the idea of distortion as a natural part of creativity.

To make something unclear by altering, substituting, or omitting some of its identifying

characteristics can be a catalyst for creation and innovation; in other words, creative acts are

fostered by this specific kind of interplay of identities.106 To use another Coltrane example, in his

1966 live version of Naima (his own composition), at Temple University, he distorts the original

piece as a catalyst for developing the performance. The piece acquires a different and unique

identity, built against the backdrop of the original version, creating friction by his modifications.

A clearer case of hybridity through distortion appears in the third movement from Gustav

Mahler’s Symphony no. 1 (1888), in which he alters the popular French nursery rhyme “Frère

Jacques” (“Bruder Jakob,” in German) by recasting it in the minor mode (Example 3.4.7). While

the mode switch is certainly not a clear reference to a defined style or genre, it signifies an affect

incongruous with the traditional musical setting of the nursery rhyme. Mahler also adds passing

105
The notions of thin and thick ontologies, proposed by Geertz (1973), even if potentially problematic, can
illuminate how these processes of identity change from genre to genre or even from composer to composer.
106
Harold Bloom’s The Anxiety of Influence (1997) provides a thorough account of these processes in poetry. In
Remaking the Past (1990), Joseph Straus similarly approaches the influence of tonal tradition in the developments of
the earlier twentieth-century music.
205
tones, ornamenting the melody and emphasizing the descending motion, which helps to highlight

the distortion. This relatively simple iteration of the strategy triggers a happy/sad opposition that

creates a hybrid-like friction, but with a clear sense of hierarchy between what is being distorted,

and the distorting agent. Thus Mahler resists a coexistence of these two affects, but one affect

alters the other, which is attached to the identity of a lullaby. Along with the distortion of “Frère

Jacques,” this section of the symphony combines a lullaby with a march topic, implied by the

accompanying bass line, an example of coexistence: thus, a lighthearted tune (made sad) is

combined with an austere style, evoking a nostalgic, but depressive, childhood environment.107

Example 3.4.7. Mahler, Symphony no. 1, III, mm. 1-16

107
Sheinberg discuses the relationship between march and lullaby: “the active, choleric import of ‘the military’
excludes the passive and mild character of a ‘lullaby’, so that their coexistence will certainly create a confusing
musico-semantic paradox” (7). Sheinberg also indicates the lullaby in the first act of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck (Maria’s
lullaby) as an example of this coexistence with march (2000, 8-9).
206
Satire as a manifestation of irony strongly relies on distortion. Sheinberg writes that

“[b]eing always based upon the violation of a set of norms satire is structurally bound to distort

its object” (Sheinberg 2000, 82). There are three devices for “structural distortion:” removal,

insertion, or replacement of characteristic elements.108 While these devices can indeed create

distortion, the specific characteristics of insertion or replacement may also lean toward

coexistence or clash, which changes the potential engagement with the mixture. Sheinberg also

discusses exaggeration (satirical exaggeration) as a means of distortion. Exaggeration is defined

as “transgressing a convention or social agreement about the appropriateness of certain ways to

express one’s reaction to specific situations and contexts” (107), and is categorized into two

primary types: qualitative and quantitative, the latter being articulated either through repetition or

accumulation. But, as mentioned above, not all cases of distortion are hybrids; an exaggeration

through repetition can create a second layer of discourse, a commentary, but it might not

generate enough instability in terms of identity so as to put it in question and create ambiguity.

The waltz from Modest Mussorgsky’s Rayok (1870) is used by Sheinberg to illustrate a

caricature satire through distortion (Example 3.4.8). The distortion is achieved by exaggeration

through repetition in the vocal part, which also emphasizes the repetitive text of the composition.

Even if in a subtle way, this repetition creates a sense of hybridity: the nineteenth-century

ballroom dance, associated with elegance and status, is tinged with—in Sheinberg’s own

words—“manifestations of musical imbecility” (Sheinberg 2000, 118), thus creating categorical

opposition and ambiguity. This specific comic distortion was directed at Mussorgsky’s “personal

enemy” Theophil Tolstoy, who praised popular virtuoso soprano Adelina Patti. The exaggerated

108
Sheinberg (2000, 82) defines structure as “the proportions among its components and their essence, and/or one or
more of its components.”
207
repetition in the waltz is also a synecdoche for virtuosity, satirizing “the blind idolatry that [the]

public and critics alike tended to cultivate for vocal virtuosos” (Sheinberg 2000, 116).

Example 3.4.8. Mussorgsky, waltz from Rayok, mm. 89-104


208
However, it is important to note that even if exaggerations are often used with comical

connotations, there are cases in which exaggeration is indicative of other modes of expression.109

An example would be Maxwell Davies’s many uses of distortion through exaggeration in Eight

Songs for a Mad King, linked to the King’s mental illness, which, if misread as comic or a

caricature, would overlook important aspects of the hybridity in the piece.110

“Wrong-note” distortion, such as in Prelude No. 24 from Shostakovich’s Preludes for

Piano, op. 34, can be understood, in Sheinberg’s terms, as a qualitative exaggeration (Example

3.4.9). The “D minor” prelude moves in and out of the key, through the replacement of diatonic

pitches by incongruous (“incorrect”) ones that have no tonal functional purpose;111 it also has

unusual changes in the chord progression and suggestions of other incongruous triads and

tonalities. In this way, not only “D minor,” but the entire notion of tonality is distorted—the

latter a concept with its established values and associations.112

109
I do not mean to imply that Sheinberg is unaware of the varied uses of exaggeration; in her text she clearly
delimits this type of distortion for satirical, comic situations.
110
Davies’s Eight Songs for a Mad King will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 4.
111
In other words, these pitches do not act as chord extensions, chromaticism, or modal inflections, even though the
latter could be claimed for certain notes like the B natural in m. 8. Furthermore, the clear cadences in D minor at
mm. 9 and 17 emphasize the key being distorted by these processes.
112
Shostakovich’s example differs slightly from Gubaidulina’s walking bass, discussed in the beginning of this
section, because here there is a hint of tonality with the initial arpeggio and the right-hand accompaniment. In
Gubaidulina’s piece, there is never a “regular” walking bass.
209

Example 3.4.9. Shostakovich, Preludes for Piano, op. 34, Prelude 24, mm. 1-17

Stravinsky’s music features many similar distortions by exaggeration or repetition.

Schumann (2015) has discussed distorted dance topics in the composer’s work, focusing on

rhythmic and metric alterations and manipulations of eighteenth-century styles. The march from

The Soldier’s Tale, briefly cited above in chapter 1, is a staple case of hybridity triggered by

metric and rhythmic distortion of defining aspects of a march, further altered by the use of non-

tonal pitch content. Schumann (2015) points out that the contrabass keeps a 2/4 ostinato

throughout almost the entire piece, while the other instruments either imply different meters or

create friction by displacing metric layers, distorting one of the most characteristic features of a

march (2015, 73-74). Stravinsky achieves distortion at rehearsal mark 8 (Example 3.4.10) by
210
delaying the beginning of the motive in the winds and brass by one beat, as well as extending

their fourth note while the ostinato remains constant.

Example 3.4.10. Schumann’s (2015, 76) comparison of rehearsal mark 8 in Stravinsky’s The
Soldier’s Tale with a normalized model

Schumann (2015, 77) suggests a programmatic motivation for the march’s distortion, since

Joseph, the soldier in question, lacks the virtuous characteristics of “heroism and victory . . . or

authority of the cavalier and the manly virtues ascribed to him.”113

The importance of distortion in jazz arrangements and varied renditions of standards, as

exemplified by Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things,” appear for many popular music repertories,

and such processes should certainly not be constrained by the idealized boundaries of either

113
Schumann is quoting Monelle (2006, 113) and Ratner (1980, 16) here.
211
popular or concert music. For instance, Sciarrino’s Pagine (1998) produced arrangements for

saxophone quartet of music by J. S. Bach, Carlo Gesualdo, Domenico Scarlatti, Mozart, Cole

Porter, and George Gershwin. The fact that, throughout his career as a composer, Sciarrino re-

read and adapted many works of differing styles suggests that his arrangements and adaptations

are also (re)compositions of a sort, where distortion plays a crucial role.114

Other cases of distortion in recorded popular music tie more closely to situations of

foregrounded hybridity discussed in this study.115 The combination of elements coming from

diverse styles and genres is common in Daft Punk’s music, providing many instances of mixture

strategies. “Give Life Back to Music” (from Daft Punk’s 2013 album Random Access Memories)

was produced by Nile Rodgers from Chic, and exhibits hybridity at different levels. First, there is

a juxtaposition clash between the introduction and the verse, where rock-influenced material

shifts abruptly into a funk environment in order to articulate the new section.116 The introduction

is also formed by a coexistence of melodic material and instruments from rock, combined with

the style field of electronic music, triggered by the use of synthetic instruments and texture. The

verse that follows has characteristics of funk: drums, bass, guitars, keyboard, and claps, all of

which belong to that style. However, when the voice comes in, it uses an incongruous vocoder—

a synthesizer that uses the voice as an input—which distorts the prevailing style. The asymmetry

is clear, making the verse not a coexistence of funk and EDM, but an alteration of the vocal

timbre by a diffuse incongruous element within a clear host style. If the effect were to be

disabled in the voice, this track would be a staple example of funk, with no friction in the verse.

114
Tre canzoni del XX secolo (1983) and Brazil (1988) are, among others, examples of Sciarrino’s adaptations.
115
It is important to discern between the specific effect of distortion, widely used in rock music and related genres
(which can also articulate a distortion strategy) and the mixture strategy.
116
This acts as a clash divider, discussed later in this chapter.
212
“Digital Love” (2001, from the album Discovery) is another case of distortion from Daft Punk.

Here, the French duo samples the song “I Love You More” (1979) by George Duke, altering its

timbre with a frequency filter and other added sounds. The original music is clearly recognizable,

but the added elements provide a sense of re-reading, re-utilizing the material in an electronic-

influenced environment.

The Beatles’ “Don’t Pass Me By” (1968, from the White Album) also uses effects to

distort a popular style. While it is difficult to label the song’s style or genre exactly, it makes

clear reference to country and polka, thus situating it within that wider style field. The reference,

however, is distorted by recording the timbre of the grand piano through a Leslie 147 speaker.117

While this procedure might have been used as a way to get closer to an accordion sound,

belonging to the style field, it ends up rendered ambiguous. In support of the country/polka style,

the violin/fiddle in the track is played with clear country characteristics, and the bass plays

mostly the root and fifth of each chord in quarter notes. The location of the instruments in the

track emphasizes the distortion, creating a lopsided sound box, with drums on the far left, bass

and fiddle on far right, and the vocals and piano occupying the center of the recording.118

Distortion can also be achieved by a musician’s particular delivery that creates friction

between the peculiarities of the performance and a standard or predictable way to sing or play a

piece within a certain style or genre. Bowie presents “It’s No Game,” from Scary Monsters (and

Super Creeps) (1980), in two versions, Parts 1 and 2, which respectively open and close the

album.119 Part 1 has a rather complex arrangement, with words in Japanese in the introduction, a

117
A Leslie speaker has a peculiar sound because of its rotating loudspeakers.
118
This lopsided in relation to the prevalent triangular sound box in recorded popular music, with drums around the
center, and bass and guitar or keyboards on each side.
119
It’s No Game Parts 1 and 2 was produced by Tony Visconti and David Bowie.
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distorted guitar (played by Robert Fripp), and a head-turning vocal performance by Bowie, who

adds ambiguity to the track by screaming suddenly on specific notes. Part 2 is similar to the

initial composition, and serves as a background against which to compare the distorted version; it

has no screaming, and includes a simpler arrangement of the same song. Bowie included both

versions to bookend the album, the two tracks perhaps having an effect of “hell-heaven

opposition,” given their sonic characteristics and the content of the lyrics.120 Example 3.4.11

provides a transcription of Part 2’s non-distorted melody and bass line, with the circles indicating

the distorted notes in Part 1. The distorted version also bypasses mm. 8-15; the phrases are

rearranged by shortening the first verse to eight rather than sixteen measures (it bypasses the

second phrase “just walkie-talkie, heaven or hearth...”, connecting mm. 7 to 16). Transcribing the

more stable performance helps to identify the changes in Part 1; several of the 2-bar semi-

phrases release tension by using longer, sustained notes after more active rhythms (mm. 2, 4, 7,

10, 12, 14, and 17 in Example 3.4.11). The distorted version in Part 1 (0:41–1:04), reduces (or

omits) this release of the long notes and their melodic function; however, instead of achieving

this through a change of rhythm or pitches, the more obvious syntactic choice, Bowie adds

tension in his screams, marked at the points circled in the example.121 In this case, the tension

and release determined by the rhythmic and melodic profile of the piece is reversed by the sonic

characteristics of the voice. The expected delivery from a singer in a pop/rock song would be to

clearly present the lyrics; Bowie expresses ambiguity by omitting this in Part 1, he creates

hybridity by potentially creating associations with screamed/screeching genres such as heavy

metal or punk.

120
An interpretation hinted at by the lyrics of the song mentioning the opposition “heaven or hearth.”
121
The only rhythmic and melodic changes happen in m. 16, not transcribed herein, and the subtle inflections in
tuning that Bowie uses in the “screamed” version.
214

Example 3.4.11. Transcription of bass and vocals from David Bowie’s “It’s No Game,” Part 2.
Circles indicate screamed notes in Part 1

Distortions via timbre alteration or exaggeration occur outside the realm of recorded

popular music as well. An example comes from George Crumb’s Makrokosmos (1974). In

volume 3, the fifth piece (“Music of the Starry Night,” Example 3.4.12) interpolates a direct

quotation of the D# minor fugue from J. S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II, into a non-

tonal environment through a juxtaposition clash. Along with the clash, the Bach material is

distorted by Crumb’s use of a prepared piano, with a piece of paper over the strings, and an echo

of the melody played by a vibraphone. Additionally, the composer indicates in the score that the

Bach quotation should sound like a “ghostly-surreal harpsichord.” The distortion is achieved

exclusively through timbre, with both the prepared piano and the vibraphone echo contributing to

the alteration of Bach’s style.


215

Example 3.4.12. George Crumb, Makrokosmos, volume 3, V, “Music of the Starry Night”

INTERPRETING DISTORTION

In his popular TV shows for young audiences, Leonard Bernstein discussed incongruity:

Incongruous means, for example, Alice in Wonderland, when she gets all mixed
up in that strange new world of hers, and can't remember anything right; so she
suddenly begins to recite:

Twinkle twinkle, little bat


How I wonder what you’re at
Up above the world so high
Like a tea-tray in the sky.
Incongruous. Tea-trays have nothing to do with the sky; they have nothing to do
with bats either.122

Along these lines, distortion is expressed through a sense of incongruity, deviation, or a sign of

imbalance, as Baler (2016) puts it. He writes that “the works that partake of this distorting

impulse tend to evoke an imaginative universe that is connected to the metonymic series of

imbalances, disfigurements, monstrosities, chaos, and uncertainties” (2). Baler discusses

122
Leonard Bernstein, “Humor in Music,” Young Peoples Concerts (accessed March 31, 2017),
https://leonardbernstein.com/lectures/television-scripts/young-peoples-concerts/humor-in-music
216
distortion and its opposite category of clarity as dynamic concepts that move between two poles

along “the chain connecting a signifying center with its representation” (2); distortion, then,

affects this chain by obscuring the connection. He continues:

The stylistic resource of distortion should be understood, from this angle, as a


manifestation of imbalance (an intrinsic failure of agreement) destined to upset
the mechanisms of transmission. . . . These disturbances suggest—as noteworthy
expressions of modernity indicate—the breakdown of the correspondences that
make possible or assume meaning, thus transitively challenging the validity or the
very existence of all signification, and hence, of the world itself. (8)123

In other words, distortion plays a central role in questioning “the legibility and illegibility of the

universe” (23). It affords and emphasizes “the simultaneity of identity and alterity, the coinciding

of contradictory readings” (33-34), thus becoming a common means for hybridity in moments of

systemic instability in the arts, such as in the late twentieth century.

Given these ideas, distortion can be seen as an aesthetic category with attached values.

Snyder (2010) approaches distortion in visual anamorphosis as defiguration and refiguration,

concurring with Baler. But he also indicates the strategy’s role in alternating the focus between

the interpreted text and the viewer (or listener):

Anamorphosis effectively de-faces or de-figures the signs in the visual field,


alienating them from themselves and from the viewer, although this is not meant
to be a permanent state of affairs. There is of course a way and a moment for
restoring the logic of vision to its rightful place by suitable manipulation of the
visual field that has been destabilized by anamorphosis (through the placement of
a suitable mirror or the proper positioning of the viewer’s eye) . . . .

Snyder uses Lyle Massey’s (2007) take on this ambiguous alternation of anamorphosis:

In other words, the anamorphic image is not solely a passive recipient of the gaze,
but ambiguously makes the viewer at once subject and object of a reconfigured
123
Baler mentions a few mechanisms related to visual arts and literature that can be transferred to music, to an
extent: “angle, distance, focus, syntax, viewpoints, illumination, legibility, causality, temporal linearity, or narrative
continuity” (2016, 8).
217
viewing space, as Lyle Massey has brilliantly argued (Massey 2007, 68-69). As
she points out, one is forced to move, or to move something, in order to see
properly the anamorphic picture: in some cases the viewer may feel compelled to
push the subject-object distinction to the very limit, by bringing herself or himself
hard up against the plane of the picture in an effort to resolve the visual enigma.
(Snyder 2010, 21).

In music, incongruities are not always as clear as Alice’s recitation of a distorted

“Twinkle, Twinkle” above, but are achieved by similar means. Other than substituting elements

by incongruous ones, distortion in music can also be achieved by exaggeration, accumulation,

and omission/suppression, often interpreted as “mistakes” of some kind. A case in point would

be my interpretation of “wrong note” distortions in Shostakovich’s Prelude discussed above. Due

to such common reactions, it is not surprising that distortion tends to be perceived as ironic, with

(potentially) comic significations. In fact, the ironic, satirical, and caricatural connotations of

incongruity and distortion drive much of Sheinberg’s (2000) discussion of these processes as

well as Bernstein’s quote, used to explain humor in music.

Both Schumann (2015) and Sheinberg (2000) mention distortion as a means of

defamiliarizing. While discussing parody, Sheinberg writes: “‘conventionality’ is apprehended as

the reason for our perceiving things without becoming aware of them. Things can be

defamiliarized if our attention is attracted to their conventionality, an end that can be achieved by

distorting the convention” (2000, 161). This process of defamiliarization is also the subject in

Sheinberg’s investigation of the grotesque, a trope often related to hyperbole, and based on

accumulation and exaggeration. But the author states that a “grotesque object is . . . never

‘comic,’ but rather ‘ludicrous’; never just ‘unpleasant’, but rather ‘repellent’ or ‘horrifying’”

(2000, 210). Thus, the signification potential of the distortion strategy is broadened, even though

still restricted to ironic utterances in Sheinberg’s account. But irony can also be skeptical, not
218
necessarily comical. When combined with other strategies in a hybrid expression, with a diverse

range of incongruities, distortion can be located along a wider interpretive spectrum.

Distortion can also be assigned negative values, such as in Schumann’s (2015) reading of

Stravinsky’s “Soldier’s March,” in which the soldier’s lack of virtues is expressed musically by

the composer through distortion. Distortion also had a pejorative connotation for some critics of

the bastarda style in the early Baroque, represented in Praetorius’s aforementioned comparison

of the style/technique to a mongrel.124

Finally, the complexity and apparent ubiquity of the concept of distortion makes it crucial

to distinguish it from cases of coexistence. Coexistence and distortion both rely on ambiguity

and incongruity, but these are emphasized differently in each strategy. Coexistence emphasizes

the ambiguity—a dual reading derived from a more symmetrical combination of styles or

genres. Distortion, on the other hand, emphasizes incongruity, the defamiliarization of one

prevailing style or genre, altered with incompatible elements to that idealized category. Whereas

some instances can certainly include more than one interpretation, the clear prevalence of one

style is indicative of distortion, making critical one’s attention to the hierarchy between the

distorted material and the distorting agent.

124
Treadwell writes: “[t]he question of illegitimacy is key here: the bastarda is The creative insights gleaned from
such a position, and the practical results of such insights—most significantly the potential to reproduce—were
clearly threatening to musical (and social) order as traditionally understood, hence the derogatory implications of the
term bastarda, adopted to describe a musical practice that nevertheless produced awe and astonishment in those who
witnessed performances” (Treadwell 2010, 34).
219
3.5 Trajectory
In the introduction to this dissertation, I noted the beginning allusion to Baroque music in

the second movement of Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 1 (1977), entitled Toccata. The

movement begins with two violins, which play the same melodic line in canon at the unison and

separated by a quarter note. With a casual hearing, one would not realize the piece was

composed in 1977, the first few measures containing no hint of mixture. Schnittke establishes

this material as a traceable feature and, beginning at rehearsal mark 1 (Example 3.5.1), gradually

transforms it through more canons at the unison, with entrances an eighth note apart, into a

different environment. The “toccata clusters” keep the rhythmic profile of the initial material but

bring in clusters resulting from the overlapping of the multiple lines in canon. Example 3.5.1

shows the beginning of this process.125

125
A similar example by Schnittke happens at the beginning of the third movement of his Concerto Grosso No. 2.
This example is less clearly gradual. Again, a typical Baroque allusion is transformed into non-tonal material, a
common opposition for Schnittke—and other polystylistic composers.
Example 3.5.1. Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 1, II

220
221
One could perhaps read this transition between these two styles as an example of the distortion

strategy, since one can follow Schnittke gradually altering the toccata material before finally

forming it into clusters. Indeed, this distortion is nested, participating in a larger process that I

call trajectory. The distorted environment cannot be isolated from the materials that surround it;

thus, in this example, the process encompasses the initial stage of stable Baroque music, its

gradual distortion through the reiterated canons, and its final stage as a hybrid non-tonal

environment, keeping the rhythmic characteristics and imitation of the Baroque but with different

pitch content. In this specific case, it is as if Schnittke sought to legitimize the non-tonal

environment by rooting it in the “pure” past, while distorting it into an expanded, mixed idiom. It

becomes difficult to understand the resulting environment apart from the initial one, since there

is connection between all stages of the trajectory. One stage leads gradually into the other,

forming a single chimeric environment. The matrix of structural oppositions in Example 3.5.2,

based on Hatten’s (1994) matrices, shows how this strategy shapes the first section of the piece,

and affords interpretations that rely on the listener’s capacity to trace the gradual change, along

with its contrasting characteristics and associations. A focus solely on the distortion process that

sets the trajectory “into motion” would overlook important characteristics of this particular

hybridity. In the opening section of Schnittke’s piece, the strategy of trajectory exploits

oppositions of past and present, and tonal and non-tonal, determining the initial form of the work

and hinting at a specific kind of teleological engagement that might be interpreted

narratologically.
222

Example 3.5.2. Possible matrix of oppositions from Schnittke’s Toccata

Trajectory is then the transformation of a musical environment into a contrasting one

through a traceable, gradual process. This strategy can connect any setting, hybrid or otherwise,

given that they are momentarily established—one before and the other after the transition

process. In its clearer examples, both the initial and ending materials are uniform/stable styles or

genres, but contrast with respect to one another—the transition serves to progressively change

one into the other. The crucial characteristics of the strategy of trajectory are the perceptible

process of somewhat gradual change (especially in large-scale examples), and the traceability of

the elements of that change. I propose trajectory as the last strategy of hybridity here because it is

a compound strategy—unlike the previous categories of mixture, it requires another strategy to

be incorporated during the transition. In this way, trajectories operate at a higher hierarchical

level, and use gradual distortion, momentary coexistence, or brief overlap clash to achieve

gradual and traceable changes. The transformation of one stylistic or generic environment into

another occurs through addition, subtraction, overlap, expansion, or exaggeration of elements.

Although the strategy of trajectory requires another nested strategy to exist, it is a specific and

recurrent kind of interaction of disparate materials achieves a particular effect, and thus warrants

categorization as a separate strategy.


223
The transition or transformation process can range from strictly linear and cumulative to

blocks of increasing alterations. The dimension of this strategy also varies, ranging from a short

fragment to a movement-wide trajectory, as long as it is clearly perceived as a single

transformation, not a plain juxtaposition. In larger examples of trajectory, the strategy itself can

determine the formal aspects of a work, while “mini-trajectories” can take part in more complex

chimeric environments formed by several strategies combined. A trajectory consists of three

stages: Stage 1 establishes the first style or genre; Stage 2 is a perceptible and traceable

transition; and Stage 3 is the establishment of the second style or genre. This creates a linear

process that embraces the two established environments and the transition between them.

Trajectories often incorporate widely contrasting styles, with a common recurrence of an

opposition between tonal and non-tonal materials, as will be noted in some of the examples

below. But they can potentially involve any two styles (or hybrid environments) that bring

enough contrast in their structure and associations. An abstract diagram of the strategy is

represented in Example 3.5.3.126

126
Please note I use the arrow as the analytical symbol for trajectory in the examples below.
224

Example 3.5.3. Diagram of trajectory strategy

Trajectory occurs mostly in post-1960s music and is restricted to the twentieth century,

thus the only mixture strategy of this study localized within a specific period. Perhaps the

heightened thematization of hybridity in the 1900s accounts for fewer cases of trajectory as a

strategy in earlier music.127 To organize mixture strategies into the compound and linear hybrid

environment of trajectory requires that the hybridity control the musical discourse, that it be at

the forefront of the processes developing the piece; and there were few repertories before 1900

that could afford, both in terms of communication and syntax, such a prominence of hybridity.

Trajectories always involve some combination of the mixture strategies placed along a timeline,

and it is this compound and linear status that allows this compound hybrid process to define the

form of a piece––or parts of a piece––more easily than other strategies. The example here from

Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 1 is such a case; hybridity is determinative of form, which I

discuss in more detail later.

A trajectory of considerably smaller proportions is found in the 33rd caprice from

Rochberg’s Caprice Variations for Unaccompanied Violin (1970; Example 3.5.4). In this

127
I found no examples of trajectory occurring before the twentieth century.
225
example, the tonal/non-tonal opposition is still the main guide for the small-scale process, with

the arpeggiation of an A-major triad quickly changing into a non-tonal melodic fragment: at m.

11, a repeated a3 creates momentum for an upward arpeggiation of the A-major triad, a gesture

that carries the expectation of tonal continuity (Stage 1); however, it dissolves the briefly

established tonal sense by adding notes outside the triad (Stage 2). This new environment is

suddenly interrupted by a juxtaposition of pizzicato chords, making the first attempt a failed

trajectory, lacking Stage 3. At m. 15, the trajectory from A major to non-tonal restarts, this time

achieving Stage 3, and establishing the non-tonal environment for one measure. As a way of

compensating for the failed initial trajectory, a third iteration appears at m. 18, now compressing

Stages 1 and 2, while widely expanding Stage 3 with three measures of clear non-tonal material.

The transition of all these trajectories involves a nested distortion, expanding and adding new

elements to the triadic arpeggiation. The annotations in the score of Example 3.5.4 show this

chimeric environment formed by three trajectories (the first of them failed), and their specific

stages. The smaller scale of the excerpt raises the question as to whether an actual gradual

process takes place, but the group should be clear as a unique block of ideas with directionality:

an A-major triad moving, via brief distortion, toward the non-tonal melodic fragment. The style

fields framing this process are both a kind of synecdoche: the A-major triad representing

tonality, and the non-tonal line standing for post-tonal styles. Despite the lack of specificity of

these style fields, their contrast works well in establishing the trajectory.
226

Example 3.5.4. Rochberg, Caprice no. 33, Moderato-con amore, mm. 11-23

A similar use of triadic arpeggiation to represent tonality in the context of a trajectory appears in

the third movement of Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 3, III (Example 3.5.5). In this case, the

composer establishes a long initial environment of non-tonal counterpoint that gradually gives

way to the D major arpeggio, enabled by an overlap clash, with notes from the D-major triad

appearing in one instrument at a time. At Stage 3, the texture is entirely composed of notes from

the D-major triad, with the exception of the solo violins, which keep their non-tonal material,

sustaining dissonances, and clash against the newly stablished major chord.
Example 3.5.5. Schnittke, Concerto Grosso no. 3, III, r.m. 11+4128

227
128
R.m. 11+4 means the fourth measure after rehearsal mark 11.
228
Maxwell Davies’s Eight Songs for a Mad King (1969) is formed by multiple chimeric

environments involving trajectory. In the seventh song, “Country Dance (Scotch Bonnet),” the

composer progressively transforms a B-major chord in the piano (which concludes a distortion of

Handel’s “Comfort Ye’ My People”) into clusters, another example of a small-scale trajectory

(Example 3.5.6). Stage 1 is formed by the major chord tremolo for the duration of a half note. In

the transition (Stage 2) Maxwell Davies uses a clear graphic notation indicating the increasing

thickness of the lines as “ever-widening clusters”—with progressive addition of notes to the

chord until it contains the complete chromatic scale. This is a gradual distortion of the major

chord through substitution and addition of elements. A fermata over the resulting sonority

completes the trajectory, with a held cluster indicating Stage 3 of my strategy.

Example 3.5.6. Maxwell Davies, Eight Songs for a Mad King, no. 7, “Country Dance,” mm. 38-
40

The polystylistic repertory, as can be seen above, is the main locus for the compound

strategy of trajectory, but examples abound in popular music. I have already discussed Bowie’s
229
“Changes” to exemplify clash between two disparate style fields: rock/blues and big

band/orchestral jazz. However, the track also brings an instance of trajectory, even if in a more

veiled manner when compared to the polystylistic repertory. In “Changes,” when the chorus

enters, a somewhat gradual transition occurs from the big band/orchestral environment to the

typical rock instruments. Following a quick ascending string line (0:55–0:57), which serves to

articulate the transition, the volume of the drums and bass in the mix slowly increases until they

are completely foregrounded (0:58–1:11), thus smoothing out the change of texture. This is a

good example of how mixing techniques can be incorporated into hybridity processes.

Daft Punk’s “Digital Love” samples and distorts George Duke’s “I Love You More,” as

mentioned above. Additionally, an instance of trajectory occurs in the bridge of the song (2:46–

3:47). As acknowledged by the musicians in Daft Punk, timbre triggers the association that will

be further manipulated in the composition:

In at least one instance on Discovery, Daft Punk used a vintage keyboard to evoke
a specific artist from another era. “On ‘Digital Love,’ you get this Supertramp
vibe on the bridge,” remarks de Homem-Christo. “We didn't sample Supertramp,
but we had the original Wurlitzer piano they used, so we thought it would be more
fun to have the original instrument and mess around with it.”129

At 2:46, the “Supertramp” keyboard plays alone, establishing Stage 1 of the trajectory (Example

3.5.7). After fifteen seconds it is gradually joined by elements related to Daft Punk’s original

sonority, as well as a slow unveiling process of the sample of Duke’s “I Love You More.” The

sample achieves gradual prominence through the simultaneous use of a sweeping frequency filter

and slow increase in volume, which emphasize the gradience of the trajectory’s Stage 2. The

final stage (ca. 3:34–3:47) arrives at a triple coexistence of references, gradually added or

129
“Daft Punk,” Brian Reesman. Mix Online (accessed March 31, 2017),
http://www.mixonline.com/news/profiles/daft-punk/372628.
230
unveiled in the track—Supertramp (rock style field), “I Love You More” (funk), and Daft Punk

(EDM). Equalizer and volume play a key role in defining this musical hybrid; their linear

controls serve well to establish trajectories, creating gradual transitions between disparate

references, which are triggered by timbre.

Example 3.5.7. Graph depicting the trajectory in Daft Punk’s “Digital Love”

INTERPRETING TRAJECTORY

It is noteworthy that there is a perhaps contradictory aspect to some cases of trajectory.

On the one hand, the repertory in which one finds the clearest trajectory strategies is post-1960s
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polystylism—music connected to postmodernist impulses, and that generally articulates

avoidance or, at least, a problematization of teleological narratives. On the other hand, trajectory

is the strategy that most strongly affords a teleological narrative in cases of hybridity. It

establishes a literal musical path or connection between disparate styles or genres, which can

provide goal-directed organization to post-1960s works. This reliance on linking oppositions can

be interpretively highlighted with matrices, such as the one used for Schnittke’s Toccatta above,

demonstrating the dynamics between the oppositions between styles and genres (or wider style

and genre fields).

Candace Brower’s (2000) suggested embodied schema of SOURCE-PATH-GOAL also

relates to the trajectory strategy, and can help inform potential teleological interpretations.130 For

Brower, this schema “organizes our experience of motion, specifically goal-directed motion”

(2000, 331). If the trajectory strategy in music can be compared to the SOURCE-PATH-GOAL

schema, it needs a force (or agent) that can propel that motion, as well as a definition of the goal

of the process. Brower describes a general tension-release organization for the goal-directed

schema: “the approach to a goal tends to be accompanied by an increase in tension and arrival at

a goal by a relaxation and the slowing and/or stopping of motion” (2000, 331). This can indicate

a gap to be filled, or an obstacle to be surpassed before reaching a stable level—something not

clear in every case of trajectory. However, these ideas can help inform an interpretation. The

status of agent of the trajectory can be assigned to the music, objectifying (or

anthropomorphizing) the category of a style or genre that sets itself into motion, becoming the

focus of the hybridity process and musical work. Alternatively (and perhaps the default option),

130
Brower (2000) uses all capital letters to indicate a schema.
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one can consider the composer (or the performer, or even a combination of the two) as an agent,

one who triggers the sonic/conceptual processes of the trajectory. Yet another perspective can

place the listener at the center of the experience: they move along with the trajectory from one

style and genre category to another. These perspectives on goal-directed agency focus on change,

and the varying tension that it may establish can be combined, and will influence, the

signification of a trajectory strategy. Example 3.5.8 shows Brower’s diagram for this schema.

Example 3.5.8. Elements in the embodied schema of SOURCE-PATH-GOAL, as shown in


Brower (2000)

Situating the listener, performer, or composer within the embodied schema also relates to

what the “goal” of the trajectory may be, as well as to the quality of the tension and release in the

process—definitions that can afford different perspectives. By taking these variables into

consideration, the interpretive leap from the SOURCE-PATH-GOAL schema to a narratological

perspective of trajectories becomes feasible. In fact, narrative has been recurrently explored as an

option, for instance, in studies of Schnittke’s music, which tend to rely on these kind of

processes more than any other polystylistic composer (see, for instance, Tremblay 2007, and

Dixon 2007). The strategy of trajectory, with its marked oppositions and linear characteristics,

has more teleological and narrative potential than any of the others discussed in this study.

Narratological interpretations of trajectories are more convincing when dealing with larger
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examples of the strategy, but there is also a possibility of reading “mini-trajectories,” or a

combination of trajectory environments, as being goal-directed.

The objective of the transition from one material to another might be assigned different

meanings, and this will be affected, among other things, by the kind and level of opposition they

evoke. Nevertheless, the two main perspectives of a trajectory’s goal are related to change: (1)

substitution, when one is taking over the other (as in Example 3.5.6 above by Maxwell Davies),

or (2) unification, when they are being combined into a pluralist environment (as in Schnittke’s

Example 3.5.1).131 These interpretations vary case by case, and depend on several contextual and

structural aspects, such as the characteristics of the materials, the length of the trajectory, and the

processes used in Stage 2 to move from one to the other. Additionally, one has to deal with the

interpretation of any other hybridity in Stages 1 and 3, in cases where styles are unstable.

3.6 Combination of mixture strategies: Nesting, Vertical and Horizontal


Combinations132
Many chimeric environments are formed not by one but multiple strategies, which

interact through nesting, vertical, and horizontal combinations of these processes. In what

follows, I will explain the possibilities and characteristics of these combinations of mixture

strategies.

131
Schnittke discusses the polystylistic method’s merits as being the widening of the expressive means through an
integration of disparate styles, as well as expressing the philosophical idea of “the links between ages” (2000, 90).
132
The examples in this section will come mostly from the polystylistic concert music post-1960s. This is due to the
fact that these more intricate combinations happen considerably more often in this repertory, and because the scores
help to better understand them.
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NESTING

Strategies are combined through nesting when one process is contained by a larger one.

Since trajectories are a compound strategy, they always contain coexistence, distortion, or brief

clash, and always have some kind of nesting. But coexistence with nested distortion is also a

recurrent case of such a combination. An example of the latter is Adès’s first piano mazurka

from Mazurkas, op. 27 (2009), discussed above as an instance of coexistence: specifically, the

bass line and pentatonic blues melody coexists with the rhythm, meter, and rubato feel of a

mazurka. But a third style field is triggered by the dissonant harmonic filling of the

accompaniment, which references, albeit less specifically, a non-tonal style field (where Adès

borrows from his own music). These sonorities (see Example 3.6.2) are the distorting agent, and

constitute nested distortions of both the blues and mazurka that coexist. This nested distortion

blurs the borders of the styles, facilitating their combination. Example 3.6.1 shows an abstract

depiction of this kind of nesting. Another nesting of strategies can be found in Daft Punk’s

“Digital Love,” discussed in the previous sections. In this case, the bridge (2:46–3:47) develops a

large trajectory, formed by a nested, and gradual, triple coexistence of three references—

Supertramp, George Duke, and Daft Punk (see Example 3.5.7 in the previous section).
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Example 3.6.1. Diagram of nested strategies (e.g., coexistence with nested distortion)

Example 3.6.2. Adès, First Mazurka, coexistence with nested distortion

VERTICAL COMBINATION

Vertical combination occurs when distinct layers or levels of the composition have

different strategies (Example 3.6.3).


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Example 3.6.3. Diagram of vertical combination of strategies (e.g., simultaneous clash and
distortion)

For example, at rehearsal mark 17 of Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 1, II (Example

3.6.4), a chimeric environment is formed by clash and coexistence, each at a different level, with

no interaction between the two strategies. The non-tonal material in the violins clashes with the

waltz and tango coexistence in the cellos and double basses.133

133
Several times, what seems to be a vertical combination of strategies may be interpreted as a nesting. This should
be decided individually in each case, taking into consideration the hierarchy and separation of the layers being
affected by the strategies.
237

Example 3.6.4. Schnittke, Concerto Grosso no. 1, II, r.m. 17+4, showing vertical combination of
strategies (simultaneous clash and coexistence)
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HORIZONTAL COMBINATION

The horizontal combination of strategies occurs when a sequence of shorter strategies

appears, not necessarily connecting, but still within the same chimeric environment. Any pair of

mixture strategies can be horizontally combined in the hybrid repertory, having no strict

hierarchy or restrictions (Example 3.6.5). The horizontal combination highlights, however, the

problem of segmentation, which is not uncommon for analyses of post-tonal music (for instance,

Hasty 1981 and Hanninen 2012). The choice of whether or not to define a border between one

environment and the next is an interpretive decision; as such, it should be based on the motivic-

thematic identity of the amalgam, the processes and mixture strategies involved in its formation,

and general articulations in the structure and gestures of the piece. The first movement of

Rochberg’s Music for the Magic Theater (Example 3.6.6, r.m. 19-20) horizontally combines two

strategies within a single chimeric environment: a clash between a descending minor seconds

line in the piano, and the following distortion of Mozart’s Divertimento K. 287, I, mm. 60-66, in

the strings. The distortion transpires with the piano and tuba playing I–V7 in B major (a tritone

above the Mozart), with plausible rhythms for the style. I analyze this excerpt as forming a single

environment because the piano creates a connection with the following material as it continues to

play when the strings start sounding.


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Example 3.6.5. Diagram of horizontal combination of strategies (e.g., clash followed by


distortion)
Example 3.6.6. Rochberg, Music for the Magic Theater, Act I, r.m. 19, example of horizontal combination of strategies (e.g., clash
followed by distortion)

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Example 3.6.7. Schnittke, Concerto Grosso no. 1, II, r.m. 14, showing a clash divider

241
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3.7 Strategies as Formal Devices and Hybridity Plan Graphs


Chimeric environments are any musical moments formed by a mixture and/or distortion

of disparate styles, genres, and topics. The four mixture strategies that form chimeric

environments, discussed in this chapter, are types of mixture, characteristics of the interaction

between materials in a hybrid musical excerpt. Each of these strategies has distinct perceptual

qualities along with structural possibilities and constraints. They are simultaneously

characteristics of the musical surface and compositional procedures, and because of this dual

function they may serve as a way of highlighting active two-way communication between

listener (reception) and composer (production). The varying familiarity, background, and context

of a specific listener may alter the type of interaction between materials perceived, or even

obscure a process, thus affording flexibility to the analytic framework. At the core of these

strategies are the notions of reference and association, concepts that work both at the esthesic and

poietic levels of the signification process. Mixtures can also raise expectations and goals of the

musical discourse relating to hybridity. In other words, chimeric environments and mixture

strategies can articulate musical form. In this brief section, I discuss the larger formal

implications of hybridity, as well as conceptual and analytical tools—specifically, chimeric

sections and hybridity plan graphs—that organize what has been discussed so far in this chapter

at a higher hierarchical level.

In a similar way that Caplin’s (1998) and Hepokoski and Darcy’s (2006) theories focus

on deeper details of Classical forms by assigning functions, harmonic goals, and signposts to

elements of that repertory, the mixture strategies carry potential to understand how certain hybrid

works develop in time. A chimeric environment occurs as a segmentation of a piece, thus


243
indicating formal articulations. They can each constitute a section, or belong to a clear formal

articulation of a piece defined by aspects unrelated to hybridity. But chimeric environments can

also be grouped into chimeric sections, a related group of distinct hybrid moments in sequence,

which might also articulate the form at a higher hierarchic level. In this way, a grouping

hierarchy involves hybridity patterns: mixture strategies form chimeric environments, which can

be grouped into chimeric sections as shown in Example 3.7.1.

Example 3.7.1. Formal hierarchy: chimeric sectionsàchimeric environmentsàmixture


strategies

CLASH DIVIDERS

A recurrent case of a strategy that acquires the status of a formal device is that of clash

dividers. Clash dividers are instances of clash that designate the articulation from one chimeric

environment to another through a juxtaposition clash. This divider status can be achieved by the

change itself—a clash with an added role of dividing sections—or by a brief interpolation of

unrelated material. An example of a clash divider occurs in Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 1, II

(Example 3.6.7). Here, a trajectory ends and new material is abruptly juxtaposed at r.m. 14,

introducing an unrelated chimeric environment formed by distortion. I use the same symbol for

clash divider as that used for other clashes, and indicate its function inside the box, “divider.”
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HYBRIDITY PLAN GRAPHS

In cases where hybridity influences form, the composer strings together chimeric

environments or chimeric sections, creating a formal design particular to the work and connected

to its mixtures. The perceived hybridity is then organized by the types of interaction of the

material within each chimeric environment or section, as well as by their disposition and

characteristics. The specific pattern of hybridity of a piece can be shown in a hybridity plan

graph, serving both as a summary of the composition’s structure and a potential listening guide

that works as a formal plan. A hybridity plan graph abstracts the main processes and materials of

the work, showing the interpreter’s segmentation of the piece into chimeric environments (which

can possibly form chimeric sections), and further defines these with common strategies of

mixture, with their particular characteristics and set of variables. There is plenty of flexibility in

how to notate hybridity plan graphs, but a general guideline is to use the symbols of each

strategy within dotted line circles, which represent hybrid styles and genres, reserving solid line

circles for stable moments (Example 3.7.2). These graphs work well in cases where hybridity

influences the formal aspects of a piece; on the other hand, they inform little in works with

sparse mixtures, which do not affect formal articulations.


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Example 3.7.2. Visual representation stable and hybrid environments

Example 3.7.3 shows the simple hybridity plan graph of Arvo Pärt’s Sarabande from

Collage über B-A-C-H. The piece, briefly discussed in the section on the clash strategy, is

entirely composed by clashes at the movement level.

Example 3.7.3. Hybridity plan graph of Pärt's Sarabande from Collage über B-A-C-H.

A considerably more complex hybridity plan graph represents such processes in

Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 3, III. Even though I discuss only parts of the work in the

present study, the analytic summary in Example 3.7.4 demonstrates the visual and graphic

possibilities of these tools.


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Example 3.7.4. Hybridity plan graph of Schnittke's Concerto Grosso no. 3, III

3.8 Final Thoughts


This chapter presented a framework to interpret mixtures of styles and genres

structurally, and applied these ideas to a repertory ranging from eighteenth- to twenty-first

century concert and popular music. The aim of developing four basic mixture strategies—clash,

coexistence, distortion, and trajectory—is, first, to afford general analytical and interpretive tools

for a compositional layer that has lacked a detailed perspective. Second, the same basic strategies

might be applied to a diverse range of musical works, and allow for a contextualized, diachronic

comparison through the central perceptual and structural effects of hybridity. Furthermore, these

strategies need not focus on one specific compositional aspect (pitch, rhythm, texture, for

instance), nor do they reduce an analysis of this repertory to a listing of sources alluded to or

quoted; they focus on flexible engagements with expressions of hybridity. Finally, the notions of

chimeric environment and mixture strategies proposed here help to investigate patterns of

hybridity in music. Once we consider contextual aspects, conditions, and motivations of specific
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cases of hybridity, the present analytical framework provides a way to connect compositional

strategies, values, ideologies, and perceptually evident patterns, thus emphasizing the

communicative possibilities of this music. The framework also contributes to a dynamic

analytical process, involving context, familiarity, and recognition as important variables of the

musical experience. These variables highlight the potential for multiple meanings in the network

of stylistic associations and the processes that affect them in hybrid compositions.
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CHAPTER FOUR: Analyses

In this chapter, I analyze hybridity in movements or entire works to demonstrate the

application of the analytical framework developed in chapter 3. The concepts introduced there

are meant to address moments of mixture and hybridity; some pieces rely entirely on these

processes, while others have only short sections with mixture. That said, in cases of intermittent

moments of mixture, it is also useful to understand the relationship between hybrid and non-

hybrid environments and how they interact with the general layout of the work. Furthermore, in

all analyses of musical hybridity one might profit from using different tools and perspectives

pertinent to specific pieces, both in terms of structural and/or sociocultural aspects. Concerning

the latter, the concepts of mixture strategies and chimeric environments (or sections) serve to

frame interpretations of the contextual conditions and motivations of a certain composition.

These can be used as mediators between musical and extra-musical features. In the analyses that

follow I tackle the musical intricacies of the work, and with a hybridity plan graph in hand,

articulate extra-musical perspectives in dialogue with structural ones to varying degrees. Sections

4.1 and 4.2 are the most comprehensive analyses, exploring in more detail the sociopolitical and

cultural realms surrounding the hybridity in works by Schnittke and Maxwell Davies. Sections

4.4, 4.5, 4.7, and 4.8 closely investigate the structural organization of hybridity in Schnittke,

Rochberg, and Adès. While most of the pieces in this chapter come from the post-1960s

polystylistic repertory, sections 4.3 and 4.6 deal with Baroque and recorded popular music,

respectively, and demonstrate the potential of this framework to approach hybridity in many

types of music.
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4.1 ALFRED SCHNITTKE, CONCERTO GROSSO NO. 1, II
The second movement of Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 1 (1977), Toccata, used to

exemplify the strategy of trajectory in the previous chapter, showcases all four mixture

strategies. A recurrent descending minor-second motive and overall emphasis on ic1 establish a

unifying sonority of the piece, with its predominance of clusters, minor seconds, major sevenths,

and minor ninths. These sonorities help to make the mixtures throughout the piece more

cohesive, despite their at times abrupt appearances and disparate stylistic references. The

movement begins with three large trajectories with gradual distortion, which depart from stable

tonal idioms into clusters or non-tonal counterpoint. After these linear, and less sudden,

transformations, the composer uses coexistence, distortion, and clash with additional allusions to

tango and waltz, creating a complex network of stylistic and generic associations.

The first trajectory (discussed in chapter 3) begins with tonal material that references

Baroque music. This material Schnittke gradually transforms through canons into a cluster

environment that preserves the same rhythmic characteristics—or “toccata clusters” (see

Example 3.38 above). An abrupt change functions as a clash divider at r.m. 6, articulating a new

version of the trajectory “tonal to non-tonal,” this time starting with an Alberti bass

accompaniment and imitation in the two violins—referencing Classical style as well as, more

specifically, a learned style topic. This gradual transition in Trajectory 2 establishes another clear

non-tonal environment, which also incorporates ideas from the beginning of the movement,

maintaining the cluster until the end of the trajectory at r.m. 11 (Example 4.1.1). Trajectory 3

begins at r.m. 12, articulated by another clash divider, when the sudden appearance of a “brilliant
250
134
style” pedal is gradually taken over by clusters. I interpret this trajectory as developed with a

nested distortion, in which the pedal notes in the strings progressively imitate a chromatic line in

the violins. All strings adhere to the chromatic motive at the trajectory’s final stage except the

violins, which play motivically contrasting material that still aligns with the non-tonal style field

of the established environment (Example 4.1.2).

This group of three trajectory environments forms a chimeric section, not necessarily

because of their motivic relationships, but in their related hybridity strategies. This chimeric

section contains the only trajectories in the entire movement, which are placed together at the

beginning of the piece as if to show the gap between the styles, genres, and style fields in use.

Further, this section connects these references to Baroque and Classical music with Schnittke’s

style, demonstrating how one can smoothly become the other through canons. The strategy of

trajectory fittingly fulfills that role, setting the stage for the more complex non-linear chimeric

environments that follow. Again, trajectories allow for more linear relationships interpreted, for

example, as teleological narratives. In this case, the transformation of one stylistic reference into

another can be heard as aiming at the “unified style,” which Schnittke mentions in his discussion

of this piece.135 The perspective of unification is also supported by the avoidance of abrupt

134
Ratner identifies the brilliant style as referring to “the use of rapid passages for virtuoso display or intense
feeling” expressed “by systematic repetitions and sequences” (1980, 19).
135
Part of Schnittke’s quote about the Concerto Grosso that follows appeared in the introduction to this dissertation,
but I repeat it here to make it more easily accessible. “For several years I experienced an inward urge to write music
for the cinema and theater. At first I enjoyed doing this, then it became a burden, and then it dawned on me: my
lifelong task would be to bridge the gap between serious music and music for entertainment, even if I broke my neck
in the process. I have this dream of a unified style where fragments of serious music and fragments of music for
entertainment would not just be scattered about in a frivolous way, but would be the elements of a diverse musical
reality: elements that are real in the way they are expressed, but that can be used to manipulate—be they jazz, pop,
rock, or serial music (since even avant-garde music has become a commodity). An artist has only one possible way
of avoiding manipulation—he must use his own individual efforts to rise above materials that are taboo, materials
used for external manipulation. In this way he will gain the right to give an individual reflection of the musical
situation that is free of sectarian prejudice, as, for example, in the case of Mahler and Charles Ives. So into the
framework of a neoclassical Concerto Grosso I introduced some fragments not consonant with its general style,
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interruptions, other than those separating the three trajectories, making more difficult the

interpretation of parody or mockery.

which had earlier been fragments of cinema music: a lively children’s chorale (at the beginning of the first
movement and at the climax of the fifth, and also as a refrain in the other movements), a nostalgically atonal
serenade—a trio (in the second movement) guaranteed as genuine Corelli, “made in the USSR,” and my
grandmother’s favorite tango (in the fifth movement), which her great-grandmother used to play on a harpsichord . .
. . But all these themes are perfectly consonant with each other (a falling sixth, the sighs of seconds), and I take them
all completely seriously.” (Schnittke 2002, 45)
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Example 4.1.1. Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 1, II, r.m. 6-8, second trajectory
Example 4.1.2. Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 1, II, r.m. 12-13, third trajectory

253
254
Chimeric Section 2 involves faster changes of environments and the simultaneous use of

several strategies through nesting, vertical, and horizontal combinations. This section begins with

an abrupt change in material after Trajectory 3, which ends at r.m. 14, and this juxtaposition

clash works as a divider, introducing a distortion environment entirely unrelated to the

trajectories. Here, a tango accompaniment and melody (in harpsichord and Violin 2,

respectively) are distorted by non-tonal pitch material (Example 4.1.3). The first violin plays

tango-influenced rhythms with dissonant leaps evoking the minor seconds used by Schnittke as a

motive throughout the piece. The melody in Violin 2 is based on a descending chromatic scale

with octave displacement, but its rhythms and contour—a stepwise descent, followed by a large

upward leap and another stepwise descent—are closer to the tango style. Additionally, the

constant downbeat rhythmic profile in Violin 1 and harpsichord, along with the contour of the

Violin 2 melody, reinforces the tango allusion. At r.m. 14+4, the harpsichord maintains the

distorted tango accompaniment, but now with an overlap of the toccata material from the

beginning of the movement, thus forming a clash environment with nested distortion: the clash

between the Baroque material in the violins and the distorted tango accompaniment (see

beginning of Example 4.1.4).

This pair of related chimeric environments forms a unit that will appear twice more in

this section. At r.m. 15 (Example 4.1.4), a sudden cluster interrupts the texture for a single

measure. It works as a divider, after which the pair of environments—distorted tango (r.m. 15+1)

and clash between tango and Baroque (r.m. 15+6)—repeat. The same alternation between

distorted tango, overlap clash, and abrupt cluster interpolations appears once more at r.m. 16.

This repetition creates a connection between these three pairs of chimeric environments within
255
Chimeric Section 2, each presenting a simple distortion in alternation with the more complex

process because of the added overlap clash.

Example 4.1.3. Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 1, II, r.m. 14, distorted tango
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Example 4.1.4: Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 1, II, r.m. 14+4, clash overlapping with
distorted tango

At r.m. 17, the last of these one-measure cluster interpolations (exactly like the one

depicted at r.m. 15 in Ex. 4.1.4), functions as another clash divider, articulating a different but
257
related environment formed by clash, coexistence, and distortion. Violins 1 and 2 play a

repeated-note pattern that creates a cluster sonority, which overlaps with the tango-like melody

in the cellos, this time accompanied not by harpsichord, but by violas and double basses

(Example 4.1.5). The addition of double bass only on the downbeat changes the overall accent

pattern to that of a waltz. This creates an intricate network of potential stylistic references seen

more clearly in Example 4.1.6 and forming a coexistence of tango and waltz, both distorted,

while overlapping with the cluster sonority of the solo violins. If we take into account the

previous chimeric environments at r.m. 14, 15 and 16—the three similar pairs articulated by

cluster interruptions—r.m. 17 functions as an achieved goal. There is a small increase in

complexity, as each new pair occurs. The three iterations of this process have linear/goal-

directed characteristics, which find fulfillment and climax with the chimeric environment at r.m.

17.136 There is a sense of propulsion in this section, even though less prominent than in the first

trajectories. After this environment, no more references to tango or waltz appear, reinforcing the

segmentation of all this as one chimeric section.

136
Please consult the hybridity plan graph in Example 4.1.8 for an abstract visual depiction of these processes. In the
graph, the pairs of environments in Chimeric Section 2 are joined by a dotted-line oval shape, and the climax is
indicated in the last environment of the section.
258

Example 4.1.5. Schnittke, Concerto Grosso no. 1, II, r.m. 17, coexistence, distortion and clash
259

Example 4.1.6. Diagram of the climactic hybrid environment of Schnittke’s Concerto


Grosso no. 1, II, r.m. 17

Chimeric section 3 differs in its lack of linear processes. It begins at r.m. 18, with

momentary stylistic stability for four measures of a strictly non-tonal environment. Here, the

concertino (harpsichord and solo violins) play material based on the seconds motive, with a

predominance of minor ninths in the violins, creating a fairly stable cluster environment. At r.m.

18+5, however, the harpsichord’s return creates a mixed environment, where the music suddenly

changes to a “C-minor” lullaby, thus forming an overlap clash with the non-tonal material in the

violins.137 Here an abrupt change occurs only in the harpsichord material, rendering the

segmentation of these two chunks ambiguous and subject to interpretation. I consider the

remaining of r.m. 18 (from r.m. 18+5 onward) as a single chimeric environment (Example 4.1.7).

A clash divider at r.m. 19 articulates a new stable environment formed again by descending

seconds in the strings, interrupted by the interpolation of seven measures of non-tonal

counterpoint in the solo violins at r.m. 20. The descending seconds resume in all strings at r.m.

137
This lullaby material returns from the beginning of the first movement of the concerto, where it is played by a toy
piano.
260
21, but with material from the interpolation persisting in the solo violins, creating an overlap

clash.138 Finally, at r.m. 22, the full texture is interrupted by a stuttering motive in the solo

violins and harpsichord, which then overlaps with triadic material a minor second apart in the

other instruments at the last measure, thereby clearly articulating the end of the movement.

Example 4.1.7. Schnittke, Concerto Grosso no. 1, II, r.m. 18, overlap clash

This admittedly somewhat clinical analysis is important for demonstrating how the

hybridity processes explained in the previous chapter may give rise to crucial interpretive

insights that otherwise go unnoticed. Specifically, the characteristics of the mixture strategies

and hybridity complexity of the chimeric environments foster a grouping of the Toccata into

three large chimeric sections, each treating the disparate materials in a progressively harsher

manner. Thus, there is a teleological sense to the movement’s often-contradictory surface both at

the chimeric environment level (from one chimeric environment to the other), as well as at the

chimeric section level, each with added friction. One gets a bird’s-eye view of these processes in

138
Despite the overlap of two very distinct layers, the stylistic contrast is not as clear. The association of the
“seconds material” on the string ensemble with the first measures of the movement makes it trigger—albeit only
slightly in my interpretation—the previous Baroque environment, which clashes with the strictly non-tonal material
of the solo violins.
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the hybridity plan graph of Example 4.1.8, which summarizes the strategies and mixtures that

develop the composition.

Example 4.1.8. Hybridity plan graph of Schnittke's Concerto Grosso no. 1, II

This structural analysis is not meant to exist in isolation, but ultimately brought to bear on

perspectives of hybridity in the sociocultural and political realms. Thus, we have a situated

interpretation of the work and its potential significations within these other dimensions of

hybridity. Schnittke claimed that his intentions in using the “polystylistic method” are grounded
262
in the search for a unified style (Schnittke 2002, 45)—a personal quest for settling the conflicts

of his own plural musical background by combining, what he calls, “serious music” and “music

for entertainment.” From this perspective, then, the Toccata becomes a field for the articulation

of contrasting, and at times taboo, identities. His choice of references, according to the categories

of this analysis—of Baroque, classical, waltz, tango, along with non-tonal elements and

clusters—triggers different identities. Here, stylistic and generic aspects such as tonal/non-tonal,

concert/popular, and past/present, become the building blocks with which Schnittke pursues a

“unified style.” But the specific ways these elements are combined can also inform (and be

informed by) the work’s connection with sociocultural and political layers of hybridity and

difference.

Cues for engaging interpretively with these layers come not only from the composer’s

motivations and conditions—expressed thoughts and intentions on polystylism and the piece

itself—but also directly from Schnittke’s musical articulation of the aforementioned markers of

identities. As shown above, there is an emphasis on linear processes: first clearly in Chimeric

Section 1 through the use of trajectories, then less evidently in Chimeric Section 2, with the

increasing hybrid complexity of the pairs of chimeric environments. Finally, Chimeric Section 3

lacks any linear process, with harsher mixtures of disparate material. A way of operationalizing

this relationship between musical and non-musical aspects of hybridity—which, once again, I

have kept separate thus far for purely methodological and practical purposes—is to engage with

the axes of signification and tropes of hybridity defined in chapter 1. In this way, I interpret

Schnittke’s movement as engaging with three axes of hybridity signification, organized here

from subjective to collective: (1) past and present, (2) parody and pastiche, and (3) aesthetic,

political, and power difference.


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The first axis deals with examining how Schnittke approaches notions of past and

present. To that end, the ideas of Svetlana Boym, briefly discussed in chapter 1, are instrumental.

As a reminder, Boym (2001) defines two types of nostalgia: restorative or reflective. The former

focuses on the past, or an imaginary homeland, similar to the one articulated by “diasporic”

accounts of hybridity; restorative nostalgia attempts to reconstruct a lost world or

time. Reflective nostalgia, on the other hand, can be both about past and future, akin

to “creolization” interpretations of hybridity, engaging with the past while embracing modernity

and exploring the outcomes of its many contradictions (Boym 2001, XVIII). Schnittke’s

nostalgia in composing a concerto grosso is not necessarily related to a return to tradition, but

rather to exploit it for developing new expressions: a fusion of past and present aimed at the

utopian future of his unified style—and here the aim is quite clear if we follow the linear and

gradual processes discussed in the previous paragraphs. For Boym, nostalgia “is a sentiment of

loss and displacement, but it is also a romance with one’s own fantasy” (2), one that seems to be

constantly at play in Schnittke’s movement and polystylistic output in general.

Furthermore, Schnittke’s individual path as a composer during the Soviet “Thaw” (in the

1950s and early 60s) contributes to a more complex relationship with the constraints of tradition,

pointing to the second proposed axis of signification—that of parody and pastiche (closely

related with the trope of hybridity as a subversive space [Bhabha 1994]). Commonly, musical

hybrids are addressed as expressions of irony or parody. But a more nuanced view of mixtures

allows also for a different interpretation, more akin to pastiche, in which there is no mocking or

irony by default in the use of disparate styles or genres. The hybridity in the Toccata exemplifies

such a nuanced approach. The composer claimed to “take them [the styles] all seriously”

(Schnittke 2002, 45), but how, if at all, is this expressed in the way the materials are combined?
264
Does the Toccata sound like a parody? Are its processes reinforcing an expression of irony? I

suggest neither is the case. Schnittke carefully prepares the harsher mixtures in the piece by

creating linear and gradual chimeric environments in the first two sections. This care in treating

stylistic oppositions distances the work from parody, and the sense of subversiveness it

articulates does not rely on mockery. The subversion here is, in fact, that of attempting to treat

musical hybridity seriously, as something more than a senseless combination of disparate

material and, again in Schnittke’s words, “the right to give an individual reflection of the musical

situation that is free of sectarian prejudice” (Schnittke 2002, 45).

At this point in the discussion it becomes difficult to consider the mixtures in the Toccata

as “pure aesthetic difference,” a question appropriately raised by Born and Hesmondhalgh

(2000) in considering music and alterity. Hybridity in Schnittke’s movement engages with-–

whether the composer intended it or not––politics of difference and the geopolitical directionality

involved in hybridity, our third and last axis of signification. For the most part, Schnittke alludes

to stylistic features and concepts that belong strictly to the Western concert music tradition

(concerto grosso, toccata, learned style, Alberti bass, non-tonal counterpoint, and clusters), the

only potential exoticism being the allusion to tango. However, as the composer writes, it was the

tango his grandmother used to play for him, which provides a completely different take on the

appropriation of a non-Western style: this is rather an autobiographic marker. Also, having lived

during Krushchev’s Thaw, Schnittke’s status as a Western or non-Western composer is not

completely clear. This ambivalence blurs the geopolitical lines of power, and mitigates an

interpretation of the appropriation of popular references as a way to “reinvigorate the dominant

culture”—in this case, the concert music tradition. Nevertheless, Schnittke’s Toccata is not a

non-threatening hybridity, going much further than a simple mindless patchwork of appropriated
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styles. It is an engaged exploration of plural musical identity at the personal level (Schnittke’s

own search for expression), questioning the place for hybrids in the concert music tradition.

Schnittke’s hybridity engenders, in this way, an empowering condition, one of taming tradition

to fit his own project.

4.2 PETER MAXWELL DAVIES, EIGHT SONGS FOR A MAD KING, NO. 5
AND NO. 7
Maxwell Davies’s Eight Songs for a Mad King (1969) differs from most pieces analyzed

in this chapter because it portrays a specific story that directly connects with the hybridity in the

work.139 It tells, of course, a story about madness: King George III’s attempts to teach birds to

sing while succumbing to his mental illness. The sudden change of styles, cacophony, and the

“sounds made by human beings under extreme duress, physical and mental” (Maxwell Davies

2005, 3) provide rich combinations that can be addressed by mixture strategies. Davies describes

his use of styles this way:

Until quite recently “madness” was regarded as something at which to laugh and
jeer. The King’s historically authentic quotations from the Messiah in the work
evoke this sort of mocking response in the instrumental parts—the stylistic switch
is unprepared, and arouses an aggressive reaction. I have, however, quoted far
more than the Messiah—if not the notes at least aspects of the styles of many
composers are referred to, from Handel to Birtwistle. In some ways, I regard the
work as a collection of musical objects borrowed from many sources, functioning
as musical “stage props,” around which the reciter’s part weaves, lighting them
from extraordinary angles, and throwing grotesque and distorted shadows from
them, giving the musical ‘objects’ an unexpected and sometimes sinister
significance. (Maxwell Davies 2005, 3).

139
Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso no. 1 had a secret program (Tremblay 2007, ii), but the inaccessibility to it does not
prevent engaging with the hybrid aspects of the music.
266

I will focus on two songs from the set, no. 5 (“The Phantom Queen”) and no. 7 (“Country

Dance”), which provide many opportunities for the application of the framework proposed here.

I also engage with the notions of madness, power, and hybridity informed by the mixture

strategies Maxwell Davies uses.140

THE PHANTOM QUEEN (HE’S AY A-KISSING ME)

In “The Phantom Queen,” “an eighteenth-century suite is intermittently suggested in the

instrumental parts” (Maxwell Davies 2005, 3): Rondino, Arietta, Allemande, Courante, and a

return to the Rondino. The first dance starts with a typical Alberti bass pattern in the piano left

hand, accompanying a distorted “tonal” melody in the other (Example 4.2.1). The melody stays

consonant for two beats, but soon begins to oscillate in and out of key. This combination of

distorted Alberti bass and melody simultaneously clashes with the King’s conversations with

himself, rhythmically recited but hinting at a singing voice at specific moments.

140
I used the Boosey & Hawkes vocal score published in 2005 for the present analysis.
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Example 4.2.1. Maxwell Davies, “The Phantom Queen,” beginning, clash with nested distortion
of Alberti bass

A three-measure Arietta follows this brief opening at m. 3 (Example 4.2.2). As the King

continues his monologue, the material is again tonally distorted: the clarinet plays an A-major

arpeggiation accompaniment, while the flute has a chromatically-embellished B-mixolydian

melody. The piano adds to the amalgam by playing minor thirds (Eb–Gb) for the first measure.

The voice switches from reciting to singing during the second measure of the Arietta, albeit with

disconnected registers and unclear tonal inflection.


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Example 4.2.2. Maxwell Davies, “The Phantom Queen,” mm. 3-4, clash with nested distortion of
arietta

The Allemande (m. 6) considerably changes the environment, now with the use of a

harpsichord instead of piano (Example 4.2.3). It starts with a do-re-mi schema in C# minor,

followed by a modulation to V (G# minor). There is only a slight distortion in the harpsichord,

but the “singing” clashes with the more stable accompaniment. The King is talking, and

attempting at singing, albeit out of tune, with the words “you too, my darling.”
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Example 4.2.3. Maxwell Davies, “The Phantom Queen,” m.6, distorted do-re-mi schema nested
within an overlap clash

A short trajectory strategy appears in the Courante (m. 14), Stage 1 starting where a more

drastic change of tempo occurs (Example 4.2.4). The clarinet and flute play typical Baroque lines

against the King’s inner dialogue and shouts. According to Maxwell Davies, after the words

“strike you,” “the flute part hurries ahead in a 7:6 rhythmic proportion, the clarinet’s rhythms

become dotted, and its part displaced by octaves, the effect being schizophrenic” (Maxwell

Davies 2005, 3). There is goal-directedness from the stable Courante to a gradually distorted

environment formed by the rushing flute and wide leaps in the clarinet, while the singer is asked

to “ululate, like a dog” (see Example 4.2.3).


270

Example 4.2.4. Maxwell Davies, “The Phantom Queen,” mm. 14-25, trajectory
271
The Rondino (m. 26) fulfills its intended role by abruptly returning with mostly stable material,

with subtle distortions, for five measures (Example 4.2.5). The Alberti bass accompanies the

singer’s shouts and moans with the same kind of intermittent “out-of-key” melody, which is then

interrupted by non-tonal melodic and percussive fragments, and minor thirds in the piano,

building a generally non-tonal environment with no mixture.

Example 4.2.5. Maxwell Davies, “The Phantom Queen,” mm. 26-31, clash with nested distortion

Example 4.2.6 shows how these hybridity strategies develop the form of the piece generally.
Example 4.2.6. Hybridity plan graph of Maxwell Davies's Eight Songs for a Mad King, V. “The Phantom Queen”

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273
COUNTRY DANCE (SCOTCH BONNETT)

In song no. 7, Maxwell Davies writes, “the sense of ‘Comfort Ye, My people’ is turned

inside out by the King’s reference to Sin, and the ‘Country Dance’ of the title becomes a foxtrot”

(Maxwell Davies 2005, 3). Handel’s introduction is turned into a popular dance, but keeping

roughly the same harmony and melody (Example 4.2.7). After seven measures, the King sings

the words of the Handel piece, creating a distortion of the composer’s melody and style in

general. It has hints of mockery, as shown by the indications in the score: the baritone starts the

melody as a “female vocalist” in falsetto, then suddenly changes into “in style”—meaning a

serious tone with vibrato—followed by “like a horse.”141

141
See Everett (2004) for a brief discussion of this piece through the lenses of irony and parody.
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Example 4.2.7. Maxwell Davies, “Country Dance,” beginning, distortion of Handel's “Comfort
ye’ my people”

Abruptly changing the texture, a series of arpeggiations of four chords moves from piano

to forte throughout the entire ensemble, resembling a pre-cadential environment. This entire

section works as an interpolation (juxtaposition clash) between the previous “Comfort Ye’ my

People” foxtrot (Chimeric Section 1) and its return at m. 13 (Chimeric Section 2), with the King

rhythmically reciting the text, bawling into the cupped hand as a megaphone, and clashing with

the accompaniment by the piano, violin, and percussion. After sixteen measures (m. 33), a

distortion of gradually added clusters appears in the left-hand piano pattern (Example 4.2.8).
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Example 4.2.8. Maxwell Davies, “Country Dance,” mm. 29-35, trajectory

A constant eighth-note pattern follows, yet another distortion of Handel’s piece, still

keeping the harmony and melody evident while continuing to clash against the King’s deranged

singing (Chimeric Section 3). This new distortion of “Comfort Ye’” then progressively

transforms into clusters, which creates another small trajectory (Example 4.2.9).
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Example 4.2.9. Maxwell Davies, “Country Dance,” mm. 36-40, distortion nested within clash
and small trajectory

Finally, Chimeric Section 4 begins with a very sparse environment formed by percussion sounds.

It is followed by another distortion of Handel: arpeggiated chords in the harpsichord accompany

the King’s last words in a cadential melodic pattern (Example 4.2.10). This is tailed by a short

non-tonal section at the end, representing the death of the King. Example 4.2.11 shows the

hybridity plan graph of the entire song.


277

Example 4.2.10. Maxwell Davies, “Country Dance,” mm. 40-44


278

Example 4.2.11. Hybridity plan graph of Maxwell Davies’s “Country Dance,” from Eight Songs
for a Mad King

“Phantom Queen” and “Country Dance” demonstrate hybridity in domains of madness,

mental health, and difference. Madness as a framework for Maxwell Davies’ hybridity differs

from Schnittke’s personal pursuit of a unified style. The axes of signification suggested here are

“intentional/organic and non-intentional” and “parody and pastiche.” The character (King

George III) “on display” with a monologue creates a dual perspective of agency (or lack thereof):

there is hybrid intentionality in Maxwell Davies’s composition, of course, but the character’s

expressions of hybridity are unintentional. They are representations of a lack of control. This

ambiguity between the uncontrolled character and the controlling composer becomes then an

intentional expression of non-intentional hybridity.


279
The process of “losing one’s mind” is carefully crafted by Maxwell Davies, not in the

plurality of associations, but in the specific choice of references and the ways he combines the

disparate material. The chimeric environments in the two songs, for the most part, make no

attempts to unify styles and genres, but rather show the ruptured boundaries as a sign of the

King’s madness, emphasizing their gaps as mistake or misreading. Maxwell Davies resists the

notion of madness “as something at which to laugh and jeer” (Maxwell Davies 2005, 3). The

idealized binaries of sanity/madness, controlled/uncontrolled, and pure/hybrid all deal with

alterity and difference. A superficial rendering would associate concepts of sanity, control,

and pureness with stable music environments, while mixed musical contexts signify madness,

lack of control (and uncontrolled emotional state), and hybridity. The subtlety here lies in going

beyond the idea of “hybridity as chaos,” common in much essentialist and organicist music

analysis, and that emphasizes it hybridity as simple lack of organization. Rather, this is a

complex process—an irregular, non-linear one—of maddening. The strategies in the work

support this latter interpretation, which echo the composer’s stated intention of “throwing

grotesque and distorted shadows from them, giving the musical ‘objects’ an unexpected and

sometimes sinister significance” (Maxwell Davies 2005, 3).

“The Phantom Queen (He’s ay a-kissing Me),” on a comprehensive level, illustrates a

distorted eighteenth-century suite. The dances offer associations with a fading court life, even

though the King cannot notice. This blurred perspective of reality is depicted in the local

distortions and overlaps, which sound like mistakes, not like unified disparate styles. The King’s

“singing,” filled with shouts and noises, links the mistakes directly to the character’s mental

health. There are no attempts to show connections between contrasting material in the song, with

the exception of Courante’s trajectory. Rather than integrating one style (eighteenth-century
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dance) into another (non-tonal style field), or filling in the gap between them, this a trajectory

moves into mayhem and confusion, a depiction of loss of control inside the King’s head and his

surroundings.

The distortions in “Country Dance (Scotch Bonnett),” on the other hand, sound nothing

like mistakes, but the stylistic gap is much wider than in “The Phantom Queen.” Here, Maxwell

Davies’ combination of the serious religious reference in Handel’s “Comfort Ye’” and the

foxtrot––a twentieth-century jazz dance––disrupts not only the boundaries between style and

genre, but also popular and concert, and past and present. These referential gaps render this

song’s hybridity more audacious compared to the eighteenth-century suite in the earlier song

“The Phantom Queen,” a characteristic representing the King’s increasingly disturbed mental

state. The anachronistic use of the jazz dance in the depiction of a nineteenth-century character

points to the agency of the composer in creating a sense of misreading. This anachronism has

communicational value: it clearly presents the loss of control to a twentieth-century audience.

Puri observes that hybridity also has disempowering effects (2004, 25), in reaction to

Bhabha’s (1994) accounts of hybridity as a subversive “third-space,” which allows colonized

people to use cultural representations of power in their favor. Puri claims that some hybridities

have the opposite effect, disempowering the groups colonized (some instances and uses of the

concept of “world music” with capitalist/imperialist intentions come to mind). The relationship

between musical hybridity and madness in Maxwell Davies’ piece depicts a different kind of

disempowerment, but disempowerment nonetheless. In these two songs from Eight Songs for a

Mad King, the weakening of the King’s control over his own mind is at play. While this also

reads as a metaphor for the weakening of royalty and its power asymmetries (thus, the possible
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trope of “hybridity as subversiveness”), the more salient and universal reading points to the

mind’s disempowerment of the individual.

While the connection between musical hybridity expressions and madness has yet to be

widely explored, this example from Maxwell Davies offers opportunities for doing so. The story

of Eight Songs for a Mad King singles out one mind that, in its deterioration unobstructed by the

conventions of normalcy, now runs free between ideas, realities, and different styles and genres.

This depiction of madness does not mock, but in fact humanizes the King through hybrid

music.142 Even if madness and hybridity are concepts of difference, through a careful choice of

mixture strategies Maxwell Davies provides an empathetic look at a King, who, by losing control

of his mind, becomes more similar to us “nonroyals.”

4.3 BATTLES AND NATIONS: SOME ANALYTICAL INSIGHTS ON


BAROQUE HYBRIDITY
So far in this chapter, I have focused primarily on examples from the polystylistic

repertory of the post-1960s because of their recurrent thematization of mixture strategies.

Polystylism allows for perhaps the most foregrounded cases of hybridity, with materials and

identities contrasting enough to become themselves the subjects of discourse. However, both

music from the common practice period––especially the Baroque––and recorded popular music

also find in hybridity a means for creativity and communication, as I show throughout the

142
This is not to say that audiences cannot find it humorous, or that the composer would necessarily have a problem
with that reaction.
282
previous chapter. In these repertories, mixture strategies tend to either be used more

continuously—that is, once a chimeric environment is established, it lingers without many

changes—or they are momentary within a composition. Thus, instead of providing complete

analyses of a single piece, I will group some works and offer a comparative perspective on their

uses of hybridity. First, I will discuss examples from the common practice repertory, in which

programs and national identities orient the mixtures. In section 4.6, I also provide a similar

comparative approach using examples from recorded popular music, with effects, instruments,

and sampling being the agents of hybridity.

I focus the first comparative analysis around two themes: battles and nations. These two

subjects are, in different ways, spaces that afford hybridity in Baroque music. Battle music is, for

the most part, programmatic and––given the peculiar characteristics of its subject––suitable for

mixtures, contrasts, and the dynamic interplay of identities. National identity played an important

role in the Baroque era and the formation of Baroque composers (see discussion in chapter 1).

The notion of mixed taste (goûts réunis)—for François Couperin, the conflation of Italian and

French styles—provided space for hybridities both in musical text and its surrounding context.

Unlike other analyses in this chapter, the approach to identity mixture through the four strategies

will serve as a means for comparison rather than showing measure-level changes. As mentioned

before, this repertory does not always reveal mixture strategies that develop the shape of a

movement, but rather features occasional or more consistent plans of hybridity.

TWO BATTLES: CLASH AND COEXISTENCE


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Many cases of hybridity are foregrounded for programmatic reasons. Military battles are

a recurrent theme in the Baroque period, for example, Heinrich Biber’s Battalia à 10 (1673),

discussed earlier, and––in a different way––the fifth piece from Jean-François Dandrieu’s Les

Charactères de la Guerre (1733). The depiction of battles is recurrent enough to grant the genre

label “Battle Music,” and is explored by other composers such as Couperin, Girolamo

Frescobaldi, and William Byrd.143 The subject of war and battle is certainly prone to many levels

of social commentary, even though Alan Brown writes that “Battle music of the Baroque period

is only occasionally linked to recent events. Rather, composers cultivated the genre for its

expressive potential, or for dramatic or allegorical purposes.”144

Dandrieu’s “Deuxième Fanfare – Minuet” mixes the two references in its title through the

coexistence strategy, which lasts for the entire piece. The minuet markers are clearly demarcated

in triple meter, accents on the first and third beats, and the overall form and harmonic plan—a

simple binary with the expected modulation to V at m. 8, even with the insistent D pedal that

connotes a fanfare. The fanfare also appears prominently in the rhythmic figure of the bass, as

well as in upper lines in thirds (Example 4.3.1). We might compare the coexistence in

Dandrieu’s piece with Biber’s harsh clashes in the Battalia, discussed in chapter 3. Dandrieu’s

programmatic reasons for mixing a minuet and a fanfare are unclear; the sonic result is

“ballroom fanfare,” thus one of the “characters of war” might relate to a connection with the

court. The imitation in the inner voices evokes the learned style, a topic relating to the church

143
Couperin’s La Triomphante, Frescobaldi’s Cappriccio sopra la battaglia, and Byrd’s The Battell are examples of
battle music without clearly foregrounded hybridity as discussed here.
144
Grove Music Online, s.v. "Battle music," by Alan Brown, Oxford Music Online (Oxford University Press
accessed June 16, 2017), http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.turing.library.northwestern.edu/subscriber/article/
grove/music/02318.
284
and sacred music. Hybridity then is not used here to depict a story per se, but, as in many other

later cases, potentially adds tinges of social commentary by conflating disparate identities. Even

though both fanfare and minuet are eighteenth-century topics, they work less as an importation to

an established environment and more like a chimeric compound identity in themselves. While

topic theory engages with the sociocultural signification of these conventions when mixed, a

focus on mixture strategies highlights other layers of their combination.


285

Example 4.3.1. Dandrieu’s “Deuxième Fanfare – Minuet,” from Les Characteres de la


Guerre

Sixty years separate the overlap clashes in songs of Biber’s Battalia (1673) and the

smooth coexistence between minuet and fanfare in Dandrieu’s Les Caractères de la Guerre
286
(1733). The subject of these pieces facilitates the use of hybridity, even though in many other

instances of battle music around the same time, mixtures are not used as prominently as in these

two examples. Furthermore, despite being part of the “long eighteenth century,” the distinct

environments of Biber and Dandrieu influence what strategy for hybridity might best fit (and

choice of subject, of course). Biber’s piece is more prominently programmatic, in the sense that

noises and scenes of war are depicted more literally. Dandrieu, on the other hand, avoids

clashing the two contrasting identities, and instead prefers their conciliation, keeping the musical

discourse unified despite its hybrid character.

TWO NATIONS AND TWO KINDS OF COEXISTENCE

A considerably more explored source of hybridity in the Baroque is the aforementioned

notion of mixed taste or goûts réunis, which is especially clear in the music of Couperin,

Telemann, and, in a more integrated manner, in J. S. Bach. For instance, two of the pieces

discussed in the previous chapters—Bach’s Sonata for Viola da Gamba BWV 1029 (1720) and J.

J. Fux’s Aria (1701)—mixed national identities in coexistence, as the notion of mixed taste

would imply. However, Bach’s iteration of the mixture between the Italian Adagio and French

Sarabande, despite having foregrounded elements of both identities, creates a much more

cohesive compound. (As a reminder, Dreyfus dedicates an entire chapter of his 1996 book to

disentangle the two genres, which evoke national styles). Fux, on the other hand, already makes

the mixture clear in his title—“Aria Italiana-Aire Françoise”—and separates the instruments with

distinct meters, rhythmic profiles, and ornamentations.145 Both Fux’s and Bach’s works are

145
See the section on Coexistence in chapter 3, for a more detailed discussion.
287
examples of coexistence, but differ in their level of foregrounding the strategy. These differences

also affect the interpretation of coexistence as innovation and creativity, or as homage and utopia

of unification.

Couperin engaged with national identities in many of his compositions, but only created

hybridity structurally a few times. A programmatic layer in a couple of works indicates

Couperin’s use of coexistence as homage or utopia rather than a means for innovation of

personal style. In Les Goûts-Réunis ou L’Apotheose de Corelli (1724) and L’Apothéose de Lully

(1725), as programmatic means, the composer uses Corelli and Lully to personify two national

identities (Italian and French), cultures, and their identifying musical characteristics. In the

preface to L’Apothéose de Corelli (1724) he states his purposes:

Italian and French styles have for a long time (in France) shared the Republic of
Music; for my part, I have always esteemed those things which have merit,
without distinction of author or nation; and the first Italian sonatas which
appeared in Paris more than thirty years ago, and which afterwards encouraged
me to compose some, did no disservice to my mind, either to the works of Lully
or to those of my forebears, who will always be as admirable as they are
inimitable. Thus, by the right which my neutrality confers on me, I always sail
under the favourable auspices that have guided me up to the present. Italian music
having the right of seniority over ours, there will be found at the end of this
volume a grand Trio Sonata entitled The Apotheosis of Corelli. A little flash of
self-esteem made me publish it in score.146

In L’Apothéose de Lully, a similar programmatic work published a year later (1725), the

fictional “Apollo persuades Lully and Corelli that the bringing together of French and Italian

styles must create musical perfection.”147 Couperin’s aim with any mixtures of the two national

styles is to achieve musical perfection. I will base this analysis of hybridity on Tunley (2004, 89-

93), who writes that “[a]s well as giving us some of Couperin’s most attractive pages,

146
Quoted and translated in Tunley 2004, 143.
147
This is the subtitle of the ninth movement—“Essai in form d’Overture”—translated by Tunley (2004, 89).
288
L’Apothéose de Lully provides a witty commentary in music on the two main national styles of

the day, the significance of the subtly allusive writing no doubt being clear to Couperin’s

contemporaries” (2004, 89, my emphasis). Tunley thus reads (and I agree) the foregrounding of

the national characteristics as, in fact, a means of communication.

While the first movements of the composition are solely in the French style, the ninth,

“Essai en forme d’Overture,” presents the mixed taste in juxtaposition (Example 4.3.2).

Importantly, the juxtaposition implies no harsh contrast, but instead creates a cohesive and

unified piece. The subtitle explains the program, and emphasizes the smooth coexistence, the

“bringing together,” of the nationalities in the movement. As in Fux’s Concentus, the national

identities in the “Essai” are emphasized through characteristic articulations and ornamentations

of each style, although difficult to perceive aurally. The two melodic lines are mostly the same,

but one is “played” by Lully and his French muses, while Corelli and his Italian muses

“perform” the other. The audibly perceptible hybridity occurs in juxtaposition, akin to Bach’s

combination of styles in BWV 1029: the first half of Couperin’s piece reads as French, and the

second, a faster Italian style, is reminiscent of an Italian Baroque sonata (Example 4.3.3). As

Tunley puts it:

So, in the Essai we find Lully’s style in evidence in the opening section, and
Corelli’s in the second; as a compliment to each other both composers and their
Muses play very largely in unison, as though to show that each is capable of
playing like the other. Thus, the first section having paid tribute to the originator
of the form, the second offers homage to Corelli and the Italian sonata style.
(Tunley 2004, 90-92)

Example 4.3.4 illustrated the hybridity plan of the movement.


289

Example 4.3.2. Beginning measures from the first section of Couperin’s “Essai en Forme
d’Ouverture,” ninth movement from L’Apothèose de Lully

Example 4.3.3. Beginning measures from the second section of Couperin’s “Essai en
Forme d’Ouverture”
290

Example 4.3.4. Hybridity diagram of Couperin’s “Essai en Forme d’Ouverture”

The two styles are more distinct in the tenth movement, now a superposition of the two

contrasting references, which are more clearly presented in the musical structure. First, the

fictional Lully plays the melody of an aria, with Corelli accompanying; this is followed by the

reverse: Corelli takes the lead and Lully provides the accompaniment. Tunley describes the

movement and the interaction between the two styles, which I marked in Example 4.3.5:

The music is a duet (without continuo) between Lully and Corelli. The
Frenchman leads off with a terse fugue-like subject and, as though bowing in
response to this most tactful opening gambit, Corelli replies with the same. The
courtesies having been observed, Lully’s theme dissolves into a sweet and
flowing melody adorned with coulades—typically French ornaments that add
smoothness to expressiveness—while Corelli develops the sonata-style opening
into an accompaniment largely made up of arpeggios and almost wholly devoid of
ornamentation. It is only in the second half of this air that Lully adjusts his style
to catch the Italian spirit of his partner. The roles of melodist and accompanist are
then reversed in the second air, and the key now being minor, Corelli can exploit
something of the famous Italian pathos, this reaching its peak four bars from the
end in a poignant chromatic chord––the so-called Neapolitan sixth. These two
short airs thus present a microcosm of the two different worlds of French and
Italian styles, sometimes juxtaposed, sometimes united in Couperin’s works.
(Tunley 2004, 90-92)
291

Example 4.3.5. The two airs that form the tenth movement from Couperin’s
L’Apothèose de Lully

Even if in a smooth coexistence, Couperin’s “subtly allusive writing” (Tunley 2004, 89) might

easily be apprehended in the context it was composed. The hybridity is there, even if for our
292
148
twenty-first-century ears (and eyes) it seems more veiled. This is especially the case if one

compares this hybridity with the more extremely foregrounded cases of the post-1960s. Given

the context and motivations for this specific hybridity in Couperin’s pieces, the interpretation

regarding its mixture strategies, and the differences in their coexistence, validates Tunley’s

perspective when he says that this “is thus not a work in imitation, but a work in homage” (2004,

94).

It might be asked if L’Apothéose de Lully is a mere pastiche in which Couperin’s


musical personality is largely withdrawn in order to serve the poetic programme.
The answer is an emphatic no. In this work, as well as in L’Apothéose de Corelli
and Les Nations, Couperin absorbed the Italian manner into his own technique
which remained always the servant of his peculiarly French imagination. (94.)

A superficial comparison of the different iterations of mixed taste in Bach, Fux, and

Couperin through the lenses of mixture strategies might simply reveal the use of coexistence in

these composers’ combinations of national identities. This is an important first step in better

understanding musical hybridity; but within this same strategy, the nuances of its realization

substantially inform the composers’ unique motivations and contexts, enhancing our engagement

with these works. Couperin makes his intentions quite clear in his preface, and uses coexistence

accordingly. While clearly labeling the different identities musically, his characteristics remain

too mild to create harsh hybridity—an integrative trait that underlies the coexistence strategy.

The composer explains that his attempt to write in both the Italian and French styles “did no

148
About the visual aspects of the score, Tunley writes that “[a]lthough having no impact on the actual sound, in the
original score Couperin visually reinforces the stylistic differences by writing Lully’s part (and that of his Muses)
using the French violin clef––a kind of ‘in-joke’ for the performers. . . . Convinced by this demonstration, all the
musicians are called upon to execute a splendid finale, described, of course, by the newly-coined term Sonade en
trio, in which French and Italian styles join together to confirm Apollo’s declaration that musical perfection will be
achieved through their union” (Tunley 2004, 93). The same can be said about the b2 of the Neapolitan sixth chord in
the second air, occurring only on Corelli’s line (see Example 4.3.5)—the chord is in the combination of both lines,
but the care in choosing which composer takes the b2 is, as Tunley says, an “in-joke.”
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disservice to [his] mind” and asserting his “neutrality.” This justification also points toward a

political discourse, even if not foregrounded. Fux’s Aria and its “national coexistence” is

interpreted along the same lines of Couperin’s smooth references. On the other hand, Bach’s

coexistence in the Sonata for Viola da Gamba (BWV 1029) is a more veiled mixture, only

clearly perceptible when one untangles the many frictions that characterize the piece, as Dreyfus

(1996)—even if slightly at odds with my reading—did in his thorough analysis. Bach uses

coexistence for innovation and the development of personal style; Fux and Couperin use the

same strategy for its conciliatory possibilities. Finally, a different take on the distinct shades of

coexistence is afforded by each composer’s national identity. The most clearly utopian

conciliation is provided by the Frenchman Couperin—thus, one of the national identities in the

mixture is his own. For Bach, on the other hand, there is the third, German identity, which might

serve as an explanation for the more veiled and creative use of the coexistence strategy. Again,

the conflation of identities, styles, nations, and strategies in hybridity afford nuanced

perspectives that could otherwise be overlooked.

4.4 ALFRED SCHNITTKE, STRING QUARTET NO. 3, I


In the first measures of his String Quartet no. 3, I (1983), Schnittke deals with the

problem of familiarity and the recognition of contrasting materials used in polystylistic pieces.

The composer uses slightly altered, but fairly clear, quotations from two composers: an

embellished suspension cadence from Lasso’s Stabat Mater (mm. 7-8 to G and 17-18 to D, both

from the second piece of the setting), and the dissonant motive from Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue.
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After the Beethoven quote, Schnittke transposes that material to D, creating yet another

reference, now to the DSCH motive—an homage to Dimitri Shostakovich. This entire network

of references appears in the first eight measures of Schnittke’s first movement, and serves as

both a compositional and listening guide, establishing the materials developed throughout the

piece. Schnittke even references the titles of the pieces and composers by name in the published

score (Example 4.4.1).149

Example 4.4.1. Schnittke, String Quartet no. 3, I, initial quotations

At r.m. 1 (m. 9), Schnittke provides a sample of what will occur throughout the entire

quartet: he takes Lasso’s G cadence and distorts it with unexpected dissonances (Example 4.4.2).

149
Schnittke, Alfred. String Quartet no. 3. Vienna: Universal Edition, 1983.
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With the reference established a few measures earlier, the distortion strategy becomes clear; even

without the score to view the Lasso reference, the cadential pattern still creates a strong

association with tonal and pre-tonal idioms, a style field distant from Schnittke’s non-tonal

manipulations of the material. This distortion is followed by his original material from mm. 11 to

23, which includes what I will refer to as the “Schnittke motive” at mm. 15-16.

Example 4.4.2. Schnittke, String Quartet no. 3, I, r.m. 1 (m. 9), distortion and Schnittke motive

At r.m. 2 (m. 17), the four strings outline a C-minor chord, beginning a small trajectory

(Stage 1), through a chromatic wedge that gradually accelerates at m. 19 (Stage 2), arriving at a

cluster (mm. 20 and 21). The C-minor chord and cluster act as opposing synecdoches of tonal
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and non-tonal style fields, respectively. The cluster serves both as Stage 3 at m. 20 and Stage 1

for a new trajectory at m. 21, which quickly reaches a D unison at m. 23, and connects with the

tonal style field. All instruments then play a distorted “Lasso cadence” separated by a half-step

and with different rhythmic profiles (Example 4.4.3).

Example 4.4.3. Schnittke, String Quartet no. 3, I, r.m. 2 (m. 17), trajectories and
distortion

Rehearsal mark 3 (m. 27) begins with new mixolydian material, influenced by Lasso’s

music, and strongly resembling mm. 22-24 of the cadence quoted at the beginning of the quartet.

Besides the association with the melodic line, the canonic technique at the unison that develops
297
the section is an additional reference to the style; however, Schnittke allows for more

dissonances than the original, creating a slight distortion emphasized by the sul tasto sonority of

the excerpt (Example 4.4.4). The canon ends on an embellished suspension cadence, first on D

(m. 32 and 33), and then on G (mm. 35 and 36). Schnittke uses the same canon technique at r.m.

4 (m. 36), but now a distortion on different starting pitches (G, D, A, and E) produces more

dissonance (Example 4.4.5). Back to back, these two canons create a hint of trajectory from a

“modal” to a cluster environment, which occurs with more distortion in the repetition of the

contrapuntal process with similar material. When the second canon concludes, the texture

quickly disperses, leaving only a cadential pattern on G.

Example 4.4.4. Schnittke, String Quartet no. 3, I, r.m. 3 (m. 27), beginning of first canon creating
distortion
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Example 4.4.5. Schnittke, String Quartet no. 3, I, r.m. 4 (m. 36), beginning of second canon
creating distortion

Still a third distortion by canon appears at r.m. 5 (m. 48), now with Beethoven’s motive,

which leads to a cluster accompaniment at m. 54 (Example 4.4.6). On top of this new cluster

environment, Violin 1 plays variations on the Schnittke motive, and ends at m. 64 with a

juxtaposition clash of the Lasso cadence in an extreme high register (Example 4.4.7).
299

Example 4.4.6. Schnittke, String Quartet no. 3, I, r.m 5 (m. 48), distortion of Beethoven
motive through another canon
300

Example 4.4.7. Schnittke, String Quartet no. 3, I, r.m 6 (m. 65)

Similar blocks of material and processes recur at r.m. 6 (m. 65), where a return of the

“Schnittke motive” appears over clusters, followed by a weak reference to Beethoven’s theme in

Violin 1, with cluster accompaniment. The last measures of the movement are built from another

canon of the mixolydian melody, beginning on Db, G, and D every quarter note (r.m. 8, m. 73),

creating an even more distorted reference to Lasso (Example 4.4.8). Overall, a weak hint at a

large-level trajectory emerges in these canonic environments, one that takes us through a

gradually more distorted environment of Lasso-influenced material. From r.m. 4 to r.m. 8,

however, this trajectory is obviously non-contiguous, and relies on an accurate tracking of


301
Schnittke’s process and material. The hybridity plan graph in Example 4.4.9 clarifies the

suggestion of a non-contiguous trajectory.

Example 4.4.8. Schnittke, String Quartet no. 3, I, r.m. 8 (m. 73), distorted Lasso

Movement I of the quartet uses at least three different style fields: (1) Schnittke’s cluster

environments, chromatic/non-tonal lines, extreme registers, and constant trills; (2) a reference to

Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue via its characteristc motive and the imitations/canons used

throughout the music; and (3) Lasso’s Stabat Mater (and pre-tonal idiom) expressed in the
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embellished suspension cadential pattern, mixolydian material, and canons. Several alignments

appear among the characteristics of these different styles. First, the chromaticism in Beethoven’s

theme aligns with Schnittke’s melodic style. Second, Schnittke’s canonic technique echoes its

use both by Beethoven (in the fugue’s imitations) and Lasso’s Stabat Mater, suggesting another

coexistence. The reference to Shostakovich’s name at the beginning of the movement, which

could be a fourth style field, serves as a general homage, and always implied in Beethoven’s

motive, one a transposition of the other—thus one could view an additional contextual

coexistence of Beethoven and Shostakovich throughout the piece.

A good overview of these hybrid process and manipulation of previously quoted material

can be seen in the hybridity plan graph in Example 4.4.9.


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Example 4.4.9. Hybridity plan graph of Schnittke’s String Quartet no. 3, I

4.5 GEORGE ROCHBERG, PARTITA-VARIATIONS, 3. BURLESCA


In Rochberg’s “Burlesca,” the third short piece from Partita-Variations for piano solo

(1977), the composer distorts a military/hunt topic through repetition and pitch deflection (an

out-of-tune effect). The rounded binary uses specific expectations of that form as a backdrop.

The A section (mm. 1-8) is stable, with the hunt/military topic being presented over a I–IV–V–I

harmonic progression in G major (Example 4.5.1).


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Example 4.5.1. Rochberg, Section A of “Burlesca” from Partita-Variations

The contrasting middle (m. 9) uses a fragment of the A section material and begins a

sequence with secondary dominants. But it widely deviates from G major with an ascending

major-second pattern: V/E, V/F#, and V/Ab. The key of Ab major is established for five

measures through repetition of a V–I motive, although distorted because of the uneven

repetitions, creating a stuttering effect (Example 4.5.2). After a few measures of this Ab major

stuttering, the pattern returns to G major, but the resolution (mm. 15-16) is deflected by the

sforzando chord in a higher register, still on an Ab triad, forming another distortion of the

pitch/harmonic layer. The stuttering continues with the distorted resolution until m. 21, where the

A section material is fully recapitulated, now in Eb major. We might read hybridity not only in

the invocation of a different style, but also in the altering of important features and expectations

of a stable style. In this case, phrase structure is distorted through “stuttering,” and the tonal
305
organization is altered using “wrong note” chords. These specific aspects of distortion-based

hybridity might be interpreted as a parody of the material and styles being manipulated.

Interestingly, the rounded binary tension-release schema is preserved in the hybrid

activity, if we assume that more hybridity equals more tension. There is no mixture in the A

section, a considerable increase of tension through distortion in the contrasting B section (along

with the typical chromaticism of the sequence material), and then release of that tension with the

return of the A material, which now lacks mixture. Example 4.5.3 shows the piece’s hybridity

plan graph aligned with the rounded binary sections.


306

Example 4.5.2. Rochberg, Section B of “Burlesca” from Partita-Variations


307

Example 4.5.3. Hybridity plan graph of Rochberg’s “Burlesca,” from Partita-Variations

4.6 OPPOSITION, INTEGRATION, AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN:


DIFFERENT WAYS OF BRIDGING IMAGINARY GAPS IN RECORDED
POPULAR MUSIC

Much of my discussion throughout this study has dealt with parameters related to pitch or

rhythm. Associations with styles, genres, and other fields of signification can indeed be triggered

by what Leonard Meyer called “statistical musical parameters.”150 However, non-statistical

150
Meyer (1989, 14-15) called “primary” the statistical, or syntactical musical parameters, reserving the problematic
term “secondary” for the non-statistical, non-syntactical ones. He writes: “[b]ecause of the nature of the
perceptual/cognitive capacities of the human nervous system, some of the material means of music can be readily
segmented in constant, nonuniform, proportional ways. In most musics of the world, this is the case with those
parameters that result from the organization of, and interaction between, pitches and duration: melody, rhythm, and
harmony. When the relationships within such a parameter are governed by syntactic constraints, the parameter will
be called primary. The material means of other parameters cannot be readily segmented into proportional
relationships. There is, for instance, no relationship in the realm of dynamics that correspond to a minor third or a
308
parameters also function as markers of styles and genres in musical hybridity. In fact, some cases

discussed in the previous chapters highlighted the use of instrumentation, timbre, texture,

articulation, and studio effects and techniques to evoke musical identity. From the 1950s

onwards, samples of other musics served as quite literal triggers of associations. The

development of hip-hop and mashups was, to different degrees, based on sampling. Recorded

popular music, having a considerable part of its creative production inside the studio with

possibilities of multi-tracking and overdubbing, recurrently uses these dimensions, as well as the

recorded “space” of the track, to add potential layers of signification. In the present study, no

essential difference appears in a hybrid strategy established through statistical or non-statistical

parameters. Regardless of how identities are triggered, listeners may use them as cues for various

associations. In the following comparative analyses, I will focus on different popular music

repertories that use non-statistical parameters, as well as statistical ones, to create mixtures.

DAVID BOWIE’S “CHANGES” AND DAFT PUNK’S “DIGITAL LOVE”: OPPOSITION


AND INTEGRATION IN THE STUDIO

In chapter 3 I briefly analyzed moments of hybridity in David Bowie’s “Changes” and

Daft Punk’s Digital Love. Bowie’s piece exemplified both clash and trajectory in recorded

popular music, mixing statistical and non-statistical parameters. “Digital Love” contained

instances of distortion and coexistence, as well as another trajectory. To recapitulate, I will go

through the two pieces more thoroughly, and provide a hybridity plan graph for both. Their

dotted rhythm. And the same is true of tempo, sonority, timbre. . . . It is then the presence of syntactic constraints
that distinguishes primary from secondary parameters. . . . Secondary parameters tend to be described in terms of
amount rather than in terms of classlike relationships . . . as the primary parameters are.”
309
comparison—now that all four mixture strategies are explained—will allow us to reflect upon

different goals of mixtures, as well as their role in emphasizing specific interpretative

viewpoints.

Bowie’s “Changes” creates contrasts between two disparate stylistic and generic

references: an orchestral jazz environment, and boogie-woogie or rock/blues.151 These two stable

environments can be clearly heard, one after the other, at 0:00–0:10 and 0:11–0:21, respectively.

The two stylistic fields are triggered by several different markers: the orchestral jazz section is

established by the instrumentation and melodic and harmonic content, as well as Bowie’s mellow

vocal timbre and austere delivery.152 The rock/blues environment changes all of these aspects,

including the vocals, which acquire a harsher timbre and delivery. Their abrupt juxtaposition at

the beginning of the track highlights the stylistic and generic gap that can influence the

interpretation of the song and its lyrics about growing up and changing. This gap (Example

4.6.1) between the two genres and specific categories surrounding them, the generic fields, evoke

many potential associations, which, when abruptly juxtaposed, become more marked: 1920s or

1950s, old or young, slow- or fast-paced, very different levels of connection with concert music

and the Western European tradition, and elegant or raw, for example.153

151
The album Hunky Dory, which includes “Changes,” was co-produced by Bowie and Ken Scott.
152
This orchestral sound could very well be considered a pop orchestra, but the harmony on the piano makes me
choose the jazz reference.
153
This visualization of the generic gap is taken from Glenn McDonald’s Every Noise at Once (accessed June 19,
2017) everynoise.com, which, as mentioned before, uses Spotify’s algorithms to map these categories. This is only
one possibility of visualization.
310

Example 4.6.1. Generic gaps and fields interpreted in Bowie’s “Changes”

The chorus, even though empty of any boogie-woogie patterns, relates to the former

environment at 0:11–0:21 due to its similar instrumentation. It now emphasizes the rock

characteristics, part of the second general style field in the track. The gradual increase in volume

of the drums and electric bass (rock-and-roll markers) feature significantly in the arrival of the

chorus. Instead of a clash, a trajectory is realized through this gradual volume build-up (0:58–

1:11), which is emphasized by the ascending line in the strings that precedes it (0:55–0:57).154

The chorus also features backing vocals—all performed by Bowie—that create a compound

persona (or a hint at a community), in contrast with the single vocal during the jazz orchestra

section. At 2:29, the bridge in between the last choruses retains the rock-and-roll style field, but

the string ensemble—a marker of the jazz orchestra environment—joins in a conciliatory effort

through coexistence, bridging the evoked gap for the first and only time. The track ends with a

sax solo over the orchestra and piano texture (3:15), with no vocals, denoting an absence (or

154
The ascending string line can be understood as an analogy of the trajectory in the pitch realm.
311
disappearance of the persona from that environment). The hybridity plan graph in Example 4.6.2

illustrates the details of these processes in Bowie’s (and the co-producer Ken Scott’s) 1971 track.

Example 4.6.2. Hybridity plan graph of Bowie’s “Changes”

In Daft Punk’s example, the stylistic gap is created, highlighted, and bridged differently

from the Bowie example. “Digital Love,” produced thirty years after the volume trajectory and

instrument juxtapositions of “Changes,” makes use of recording technologies developed at the

turn of the century to construct different hybridities. In this work, as I pointed out in chapter 3,

one finds a manipulated sample from the introduction to George Duke’s “I Love You More,” and

a timbral reference to the rock band Supertramp (through the use of the same Wurlitzer keyboard
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model they used in the bridge), combined with the French duo’s EDM/House characteristics, the

latter of which creates the host style for the other disparate elements mixed in. Duke’s sample is

manipulated through a frequency filter and other added electronic sounds doubling the original

lines. These create a coexistence of EDM and Duke (attached to Funk/R&B/Disco), as well as a

distortion of the recognizable quotation from “I Love You More.” This coexistence is apparent

from 0:07–0:23, when the distortion of the sample and coexistence with EDM materials first

appears. In addition, a trajectory forms via volume increase of the sampled material and

alteration of the filter used on it. The sample serves as the background for the verses (0:23–1:08)

and chorus (1:09–1-35), joined by a synth pad, electronic beats, and an original vocal melody

with vocoder. At the repetition of the chorus (1:29) the insertion of a trumpet phrase contrasts

with the other style markers in the track, which is vaguely reminiscent of Baroque music (the

arpeggiation is similar to the theme from J. S. Bach’s Invention no. 8 in F major, with scale

degrees 1-3-1-5-1-8). At 2:45, the Wurlitzer keyboard appears abruptly, starting a trajectory that

gradually adds material toward a triple coexistence of rock (Supertramp), EDM/House, and

Funk/R&B/Disco (Duke’s “I Love You More” sample). The established coexistence

environment serves as an accompaniment to a long synthesizer solo (3:32–4:17). Finally, at 4:18,

a synth pad and the filtered Duke sample create another trajectory, the sample gradually

disappearing as the pad becomes more prominent.

Thus, at least three—possibly four, if we count the Baroque fragment—different style

fields combine creatively on “Digital Love,” using the four mixture strategies discussed in this

study. The disposition and attributes of these combinations—depicted on the hybridity plan

graph shown in Example 4.6.3—in and of themselves, suggest a communicational layer of the

composition.
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Example 4.6.3. Hybridity plan graph of Daft Punk’s “Digital Love”

Daft Punk approaches the idealized gaps between these musical categories in a different manner

—specifically in the use of sampling and distortion through studio techniques—if compared with

Bowie’s “Changes.” In the latter, more opposition appears between disparate categories, which

are kept more separate. In Daft Punk’s track, integration becomes prominent, even with some

well-established identities, as with the Duke sample. These elements are tangled into a complex

compound within Daft Punk’s sonority, the predominant identity, which could just as easily (and

superficially) be indicated as the sole style.


314
MAGGIE ROGERS’ “ALASKA”: A TRAJECTORY TOWARDS THE DANCE FLOOR

In mid-2016, unsurprisingly, another YouTube video went viral. In the video, NYU

student Maggie Rogers participates––along with other aspiring artists––in a masterclass with

music producer and songwriter Pharrell Williams. The viral fragment begins with a nervous

Rogers, gesticulating awkwardly, explaining her background and intentions to Pharrell:

I grew up in a very rural area, in the eastern shore of Maryland, and I grew up as a
banjo player; and always made folk music, and love being outside. And that’s my
space (. . .) All I wanna do is, like, kind of combine that folk imagery and
harmony, and natural samples that I have been picking up while hiking over the
last couple of years, with that sort of backbone and energy of dance music.155

Next, they listen to “Alaska,” composed by the student. In a New Yorker article about the

encounter, Amanda Petrusich describes the moment in detail:

Rogers wears her long blond hair loose. She is dressed in worn jeans, woollen
socks, and a plain black shirt; elk vertebrae hang on a string around her neck.
There is something elemental about her presence that feels at odds with the
metallic studio equipment gleaming in the background. When Rogers’s song
starts to play, Williams is visibly affected. The beat is skeletal and twinkling. In
the pulsing pre-chorus, Rogers’s voice leaps an octave and thins out, like a candle
flame stretching for more oxygen. As the chorus begins, Williams scrunches his
face, as if someone had told him something ridiculous. Because the class is being
filmed, there’s an inevitable element of performance to their reactions, but his
incredulousness and her nervousness—she appears deeply uncertain of where to
direct her gaze—feel true. They sneak anxious looks at each other. Williams
periodically shakes his head in disbelief. “I’ve never heard anyone like you
before,” he says when it’s over. “That’s a drug for me.”156

“Alaska” mixes many stylistic references through distinct means (Example 4.6.5). The

first twenty-five seconds, including introduction and verse, bring low hip-hop bass and bass

drums, mellow finger snaps, an ethereal synthesizer (with a catchy, repetitive riff), Rogers’ folk-

155
iamOTHER, “Pharrell Williams Masterclass with Students at NYU Clive Davis Institute,” 2016 (accessed June
20, 2017). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0u7lXy7pDg. Transcription of selected dialog from 18:36 to 19:59.
156
Amanda Petrusich, “Maggie Rogers, An Artist of Her Time,” The New Yorker (accessed June 25, 2017),
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/13/maggie-rogers-an-artist-of-her-time. All quotes from Petrusich
come from this article.
315
like vocal melody sung in a slurred, laid-back manner, along with samples from conversations.157

The pre-chorus (0:26–0:45) maintains all the previous elements, but adds a more constant bass in

eighth-notes. The chorus (0:46–1:22) arrives to only partly fulfill the expectations of more active

subdivisions of the beat. The bass and bass drum become more persistent, and hint at a more

danceable environment, even though still restrained. The most palpable change in the chorus is

articulated by Rogers’ voice: the melody moves to a higher octave, and she sings with a more

“airy” timbre, reminiscent of pop divas and R&B. The second half of the chorus (1:04–1:22)

adds a snare drum and sparse hi-hat to the mix, and provides the most danceable feel in the track

so far.

Now that the direction of a trajectory, from ethereal/folk/organic to synthetic/dance hall

music, is established, the second verse (1:23–1:40), already starting with a “four-on-the-floor”

bass drum, leaves space in the sound box for more elements to join. The ensuing pre-chorus

(1:41–2:00) brings even more constant snare and hi-hat to the beat—and the stylistic trajectory

appears to repeat, albeit departing from a more advanced stage indicated by the ever-increasing

dance music elements and attributes (see Example 4.6.4 for an opposition matrix depicting these

two trajectories). This process of accumulation culminates in the second chorus (2:00-2:54), with

its more crowded sound box, which, beyond a more complete beat, adds other synthesizers and

sustained guitar chords. At this stage, there is no question as to whether this is music for the

dance floor, even with the many elements mixed into its development. The track ends with a

brief return to the introduction material (2:55–3:06), as if to remind us where it came from. The

157
According to Petrusich (2017), “Rogers deploys several original samples, drawn from recordings of a mourning
dove, found conversations from a marketplace in Morocco, finger snaps, and the patting of her own thighs through
her jeans.”
316
finger snaps, as in the beginning, bring organic and introspective qualities that could perhaps

oppose the EDM chorus; however, they seem more to address the gap just bridged—from grass

fields to strobe lights.

Example 4.6.4. Opposition matrix and “Alaska”’s two trajectories


317

Example 4.6.5. Hybridity plan graph of Maggie Rogers’ “Alaska”

Petrusich also discusses the manner in which the diverse influences are mixed in

“Alaska,” writing that “most of its borrowing is less explicit. Hip-hop, folk, dance, rhythm and

blues, gospel: they’re all here. Some of these traditions have been crossbred before. . . . But

‘Now That the Light Is Fading’ [Roger’s 2017 album that contains the song] is being released

into a culture that no longer thinks the organic and the synthesized are in opposition. All our

musical planes are lateral; all our inspiration is ambient” (Petrusich 2017, my emphasis). When

the audience corroborates the impermeability of these boundaries, such oppositions, commonly

used to expand specific styles, can only have innovative effect via clash strategy. When “the

musical planes are lateral,” as Petrusich writes, it is the particular means of integration that

counts. In organic and synthesized, dance music and folk music, or any other opposed categories
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used to confine specific creative fields, the communication of hybridity has become

progressively more important at the processual level, whether combined through conspicuous

clashes, harsher or smoother cases of coexistence, distortions, or a blend of strategies.158 In

“Alaska” this process occurs through coexistence and trajectory, a subtle use of mixture

strategies also a characteristic of Alabama Shakes’ “Sound and Color” (2015; see chapter 3)—

another hybrid that exhibits the same “lateral musical planes” of today’s popular music, and

which showcases an integrative iteration of coexistence.

A mix of statistical and non-statistical features establish the hybrid identity of “Alaska,” a

work which, partly for not being easily labeled, is praised as innovative and unique by critics.

But it is not only the diversity of elements mixed that affords this perspective—the subtlety of

means for their combination and disposition also influences this reading. In “Alaska,” no

apparent intention to shock is suggested by mixing electronic and folk music. The song reads not

as a transgressive or subversive act, but as a liberation from established boundaries, by

considering their permeability and “laterality” to find means of expression. Disentangling these

layers of influence and reference is complicated, and, perhaps, one of the reasons behind the

astonishment and excitement that Pharrell (a seasoned producer) expresses in the video.

158
Petrusich also mentions this broader characteristic of contemporary music consumption: “[w]hen an immense
library of songs can be tucked into your pants pocket, the spirit of the past is always close. It is how that influence
manifests that is changing” (Petrusich 2017).
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4.7 THOMAS ADÈS, MAZURKAS, OP. 27, FIRST MAZURKA
In chapter 3 I briefly examined Adès’s “First Mazurka,” from Mazurkas, op. 27 (2009),

an example of coexistence strategy. Here, I analyze the piece more deeply, detailing its use of

coexistence, distortion, and clash strategies. The title already creates contextual expectations,

fulfilled by musical characteristics that allude to the mazurka genre (or generic field, rather): the

triple meter underlying most of the piece, the bass line reinforcing the downbeat, the rubato feel,

and the arpeggiations, recurrent in the piece. Whether or not this mazurka strictly follows the

“rules” of the genre is less important than that these musical features indicate expectations of an

idealized generic field of triple meter nineteenth-century ballroom dances—mazurkas or waltzes.

They create a background against which to listen to the actual music and perceive its alterations,

deviations, additions, and combinations. These mixtures rely on the listener’s awareness and

conceptual understanding of the specific genres and styles in use, and are actualized only when

this familiarity is triggered. Hence, the present analytical framework is dynamic and subjective

in the sense that it implies the contrast between generic fields I have perceived, and could change

depending on the listener or as further relationships and associations are triggered.

The first sixteen measures of “First Mazurka” are divided into four-measure chunks,

articulated by the varied repetition of the motive in the right hand along with an A–F bass, each

lasting two measures (Example 4.7.1). This even-numbered subdivision reinforces the dance-like

characteristics implied by the title. Furthermore, the first eight measures form a larger unit

because of the continuity of the A–F bass. These aspects alone do not imply mixture, but there is

a contrast in the use of non-tonal sonorities against a tonal genre. That is, the mazurka genre is

distorted by a selection of pitches at odds with its harmonic model. The opening measure’s

harmony could be interpreted as a first-inversion F7/13 chord but, as we move to measure 2, the
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159
added notes mitigate any clear tonal sense. Similar sonorities appear in mm. 3-8 with some

variation.

Example 4.7.1. Adès, “First Mazurka” from Mazurkas, op. 27, mm. 1-16

A closer look at the melody in the right hand brings other possible generic oppositions

that help disentangle Adès’s amalgam. The melodic pattern has clear traces of an A blues scale—

159
Specifically, the descending line Eb-D-C-A-F in the right hand, along with the A bass, provides cues for my
hearing of F7/13.
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A-C-D-Eb-E, changing the G that would complete an A minor pentatonic (with a blue note) for

an F. Also, the trill on D-Eb is a characteristic bended note (adapted to the piano) of the “blue

note” in blues, and the dotted-eighth rhythm resembles the swing feel in blues and jazz (notated

in triplets), but in a more Europeanized manner.160 If these aspects are recognized by the listener,

a wide generic gap is formed by the two styles: mazurka to blues or, more generally, nineteenth-

century triple meter dance to African American popular styles of the twentieth century. Measure

2 contains no pentatonic or blues-related melodic fragments, but maintains the dotted-eighth

swing feel from the previous measure. The pitch material in the right hand of m. 2, a mixture of a

B-major triad with C, Ab, and G, unsuitable for either mazurkas or blues, vaguely foregrounds a

third generic field—the non-tonal characteristics hinted at above. However, because “non-tonal”

is a diffuse generic field, compared to mazurkas and blues, it serves as a distorting agent more

than a coexisting style in this context. These three generic fields, then, are constantly at play

through coexistence (blues and mazurka) and distortion (mazurka and blues distorted by non-

tonal sonorities). There is no clash between these allusions, but rather an amalgam formed by

their adjusted combination.

Yet another allusion to the blues occurs as a larger level distortion: the change of bass

pattern moves up a perfect fourth, to D–F#, inverting the major third relation of the A–F. This

takes place at m. 9—exactly where the 16-bar blues progression moves from I (after eight

measures) to the IV.161 Adès’s distortion of the progression overrides the expected change at m.

11 (usually a tonic chord in the blues), but articulates the last two changes in the 16-bar blues: m.

160
Thanks to Jennifer Griffith for this insight.
161
The 16-bar blues has several versions. The one that resembles Adès’s composition the most is I-I-I-I/I-I-I-I/IV-
IV-I-I/V-IV-I-V, an example of which is Willie Dixon’s “Hoochie Coochie Man,” first recorded by Muddy Waters
in 1954 (accessed July 11, 2016), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoochie_Coochie_Man
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13 and m. 15, in which the bass line changes, but not to the expected V and I (E and A in the key

of A), respectively. It moves to G and C, the V and I of a different key. All these aspects

illustrate how dense the initial sixteen measures of the “First Mazurka” become once we focus

on the mixtures occuring in the piece.

At the new section, mm. 17-32, a non-tonal distorted march contrasts the previous music

with both its stylistic difference and its musical characteristics: the specific rhythmic patterns,

sudden short gaps in the melody, and faster tempo (Example 4.7.2). No other mixture appears

within the section, only the distortion of march material creating a clash divider from the

mazurka/blues/non-tonal idiom environment in the previous sixteen measures.


323

Example 4.7.2. Adès, “First Mazurka” from Mazurkas, op. 27, mm. 17-32

At m. 33, with the instruction “Avanti,” Adès returns to the mazurka allusion with a

distorted descending-second sequence in both its whole-step and chromatic versions (Example

4.7.3).
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Example 4.7.3. Adès, “First Mazurka” from Mazurkas, op. 27, mm. 33-52

The reduced analysis in Example 4.7.4 shows the two eight-measure chunks forming the

sequence. The first (mm. 33-40) is a distorted whole-step descending-second sequence beginning

on Ab, moving to Gb and E.162 Along with the bass pattern, a descending chromatic scale in the

right hand is transposed down a major second in sequence every two measures. Most steps of the

sequence present a minor ninth accompanying the bass line instead of triadic harmonies. The

162
This descending-seconds sequence that occurs at every two bass notes is, in other words, a circle of fifths at every
note.
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only exception is the hint of F major over the F bass at m. 38. Despite this local hint at tertian

harmony, the vertical sonorities that rely on the minor 9th distort the sequential bass pattern,

which alludes to the traditional harmonic sequence. After the arrival on E, a double-neighbor

bass note embellishes that step and completes the first 8 measures of the section.

Example 4.7.4. Reduced analysis of the sequences from mm. 33-48 in “First Mazurka”

The second phrase of the distorted sequence begins at m. 41, and descends chromatically

every two measures: Gb-Cb, F-Bb. The melodic material is again based on the descending

chromatic scale, and follows the bass pattern transposition in the first four measures of the

second chunk. The expected E in the bass, continuing the descending seconds transpositions, is

embellished by an Eb at m. 53, and the sequence ends at that point. In the two phrases of this

distorted sequence, one can see how phrase structure, bass, melody, and harmony are in dialogue

with the common cycle of fifths pattern at different levels of compliance (phrase structure, most
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of the bass, and transposition of the melodic pattern remain close to the original model) or

interference (harmony, melody, and some bass notes deviate from the model).

Two measures of march-like material (mm. 49-50) indicate a clash divider, and separate

the sequence from the varied return of the mazurka-blues theme that follows. Measures 51-52

reduce the harshness of the articulation, leading to the last iteration of the theme (mm. 53-60),

which focuses more on the distorted blues melody than the mazurka-blues coexistence. The

accompaniment, which clearly references a traditional mazurka earlier, is idiosyncratic and lacks

the strong downbeat accent of the beginning (Example 4.7.5). But little more than the pentatonic

line is needed to create a sense of return to that previous coexistence environment. This final

section preserves the two-measure modules of the initial idea, and repeats three times, with the

last two measures of the piece serving as a cadential marker by expanding in register and coming

to a sudden halt.

Example 4.7.5. Adès, “First Mazurka” from Mazurkas, op. 27, mm. 53-end
327
The following hybridity plan graph (Example 4.7.6) serves as a summary of this analysis,

highlighting the strategies that define the structure of the piece.


Example 4.7.6. Hybridity plan graph of Adès’s “First Mazurka”

328
329
To review, the first section (mm. 1-16) of the “First Mazurka,” a chimeric environment

formed by coexistence with nested distortion, mixes mazurka and blues or, more generally,

nineteenth-century salon dance and African American popular music styles. The mazurka

contributes the 3/4 accompaniment pattern and the rubato feel (and at a contextual level, the title

that implies Adès’s overt intention of writing a mazurka). Adès alludes to the blues using the 16-

bar blues progression and a pentatonic melody. Within this coexistence are three nested

distortions: (1) the mazurka accompaniment is altered pitch-wise by the use of, almost

exclusively, non-tonal elements; (2) the blues pentatonic melody is also altered with non-tonal

material, especially in the second measure of the pattern (mm. 2, 4, 6, 8, and so on); and (3) at

certain points (detailed above) Adès changes the harmonies of the traditional 16-bar blues

serving as a more general model. In this analysis we might question whether or not the non-tonal

material used as a distorting agent in all the three distortions is a third generic field in

coexistence with the other two. But the non-tonal idiom gives no clear allusion to a style; rather,

its purpose is to smoothly merge the mazurka with the blues form and melody. The march

section (mm. 17-32) begins with an abrupt juxtaposition, indicating a clash. This march reference

is also distorted by non-tonal material, relying primarily on major and minor seconds along with

a general lack of tonal orientation in the excerpt. Measures 33-48 constitute a chimeric

environment formed by distortion of a staple harmonic sequence of the common practice period.

Here, different compositional layers—bass, phrase structure, melody, and harmony—dialogue

with the idealized pattern of the descending-seconds sequence (or cycle of fifths). The march

interrupts the sequential environment, functioning as a clash divider. Finally, this passage

smoothly leads to the return of the initial theme, now with no clear allusions to the mazurka,

using only the distorted blues melody and a high-register, sui generis accompaniment.
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4.8 GEORGE ROCHBERG, MUSIC FOR THE MAGIC THEATER, ACT I
Rochberg’s Music for the Magic Theater, composed in 1965, is a collage work that

precedes Berio’s notorious Sinfonia (1968). Superficial engagements with collage works have

been limited to an indexing of the different materials used and highlighting their mélange in a

very general way. Losada (2004, 2008, 2009) goes into considerably more detail in her analysis

of Rochberg’s piece, and highlights several pitch-related aspects that serve to organize it. She

considers the first movement a “prototypical model of a musical collage” (2009, 299), and

describes the general characteristics that make it such a staple work:

It is composed of numerous successive short segments which are set off from the
surrounding sections either by textural, stylistic or tonal juxtapositions, or by
rests. These sections correspond to fragmentary quotations from a variety of
pieces, with original material by the composer interspersed and superimposed in
newly composed sections which relate to the quoted content in a myriad of ways.
These layers again provide a form of commentary incorporating a broad range of
styles and textures, from freely atonal lyrical passages in the solo flute to strident,
hocket-like passages in the upper woodwinds and brass which, although aggregate
based, are not strictly serial. Likewise, the distinct musical languages of the
incorporated quotations (from Mahler, Mozart and Varèse) contribute to the
formation of an extremely disjunct musical texture. Furthermore, though both
quotations and commentary surface in different guises throughout the piece, the
various recurrences form no distinguishable pattern. (Losada 2009, 299-300)

Losada’s focus on the pitch realm of the composition illuminates several crucial

characteristics of the piece, such as the pitch aggregate of the materials overlapping in the music

that simplify their integration and manipulation by the composer.163 While drawing considerably

on Losada’s efforts, my focus will be on the hybrid processes that take place in this piece with its

many disjoint strands.

There are at least five idealized stable styles used in the Act I of Music for the Magical

Theater: (1) Rochberg’s original music, (2) Mahler’s Symphony no. 9, I and IV (3) Mozart’s

163
This also happens in Schnittke’s quotation of Beethoven in String Quartet no. 3.
331
Divertimento K. 287, I, (4) Varèse’s Déserts, and (5) Miles Davis-style trumpet with Harmon

mute, which also serves as a synecdoche for jazz in general.164 The use of these elements range

from direct quotation to slight allusions, using their key characteristics to compose new material.

Clash and distortion mixture strategies are prominent throughout the movement, as expected in a

staple collage composition, and form eleven different chimeric environments in total.

Coexistence at the motivic level occurs through the use of a descending chromatic line motive

that belongs to Mozart’s Divertimento, Mahler’s Adagio from Symphony no. 9, and Varèse’s

Déserts.

To provide a linear perspective of the movement, the table in Example 4.8.2 shows a

brief description of the materials, labeled by rehearsal mark, along with a description of the

chimeric environments that form the piece. I use a description of the movement in list form as it

is a collage work—fragmented, disconnected, with no overall linear development. As such, a

thorough description of the chimeric environments must be done in a blow-by-blow fashion; the

piece provides no clear linear narrative that could be used to create a condensed take of its

features. The table format is also better suited as a detailed listening guide, or to elucidate

specific sections that peak the listener’s curiosity in terms of mixtures. Example 4.8.2 is followed

by the annotated scores of ten out of the eleven chimeric environments in the piece (Examples

4.8.3 to 4.8.10).165 First, however, the hybridity plan graph below in Example 4.8.1 more clearly

illustrates the mixtures of the entire movement and its overall structure. In the graph, I chose to

164
There is no mention of Miles Davis until r.m. 51 of Act II, where the cadenza material is “[t]o be played like
Miles Davis—intense, felt, singing.”
165
Chimeric Environment 11 is very similar to the Chimeric Environment 2 in terms of hybridity, so I opted not to
include the score of that excerpt in this analysis, even though I still discuss it in the text.
332
divide the movement in three chimeric sections, defined by the type of material used in the

mixtures: Mahler/Varèse (Chimeric Sections 1 and 3) or Mozart (Chimeric Section 2).

Example 4.8.1. Hybridity plan graph of Rochberg’s Music for the Magic
Theater, Act I
Table 4.8.1. Table of Hybridity in Rochberg’s Music for the Magic Theater, I
R.M DESCRIPTION OF THE MUSIC CHIMERIC ENVIRONMENTS (C.E.)

Beginning— Rochberg’s non-tonal material is followed by a quotation of


r.m. 1 Mahler’s Symphony no. 9, IV, m. 13

[CLASH DIVIDER (Juxtaposition preceded by brief transition)]

The introduction material, which bears Varèse-like characteristics, is followed by widely contrasting string music from Mahler (m. 13 from
Symphony no. 9, IV). The juxtaposition is preceded by brief texture dispersal and 2-3 seconds of silence, making it less harsh than a sudden
change.

333
C.E. 1: [COEXISTENCE (Miles Davis/Jazz + Mahler) +
CLASH (Interpolation between strings and trumpet)]

At a larger level, Mahler’s Adagio is altered by the


interpolation of new material. The following strategy is
nested within this one.

NESTED C.E. 1a: [DISTORTION (of Mahler ’s


Symphony no. 9, IV, mm. 13-14, by interpolating new
material)]
r.m. 2
A trumpet with Harmon mute plays a tritone that serves to
separate the previous material from a rereading, a third
above, of the previously presented descending chromatic
line from Mahler. Given the associations of this specific
Interruption of the Mahler quotation by a trumpet with Harmon instrument and muted timbre with jazz––specifically,
mute. It plays the descending chromatic line from Mahler’s first Miles Davis––a coexistence occurs with the Mahler
violin a third above. The quotation of Mahler resumes from where it reference in the pitch content and the jazz style field (or
stopped, at m. 14 in the original. Miles Davis-style trumpet) in the timbre realm. The
descending chromatic melody only creates a clear
reference to Mahler because it was just quoted in a direct
way few seconds before. In itself, the melodic line
conveys no clear stylistic association, but Rochberg
makes sure there is enough familiarity with the fragment
in its original context before the trumpet enters and after,
when Violin 1 repeats the trumpet melody.

334
R.M DESCRIPTION OF THE MUSIC CHIMERIC ENVIRONMENTS (C.E.)
[CLASH DIVIDER (juxtaposition of m. 14 from Mahler and Varèse allusion)]
The clash divider happens when Rochberg changes from a held chord prolonging m. 14 of Mahler’s Adagio into an allusion to Varèse’s
sonority.
r.m. 3 Allusion to Varèse’s Déserts sonority, which prepares a direct
quotation of m. 242 of Déserts. The Varèse fragment also contains a
descending chromatic motive, played by piano and flute in a high
register; this is structurally related to the Mahler excerpt, facilitating
combinations and manipulations of this material.
r.m. 4 A direct quotation of m. 242 of Varèse’s Déserts. This excerpt also
has a descending chromatic motive; from now on, whenever this
idea appears, it has the potential to allude to both composers.
r.m. 5 Descending chromatic line on trombone with long notes on bassoon
and double bass. The motive, which at this point was used in
Mahler’s and Varèse’s quotations, can create associations at the
structural level more than at the stylistic one. This sounds like an
extension of Varèse’s quotation, so no clear mixture occurs.

r.m. 6-7 Material from the first movement of Mahler’s Symphony no. 9. C.E. 2: [DISTORTION (of Mahler’s first movement from
Symphony no. 9, mm. 3-6)]
The cello plays a distortion of melodic material from the
harp in the first movement of Mahler’s Symphony no. 9,
mm. 3-6, overlapping with long notes on trombone and
horns. At r.m. 7, the horn plays mm. 4-5 of Mahler with
more rhythmic freedom, followed by the harp material
again. This chimeric environment is mostly a temporal
distortion of mm. 3-6 from Mahler, with added long notes
on other instruments. The change from Varèse to Mahler
environment is not clearly articulated, so no clash divider
occurs.

[CLASH DIVIDER (between Mahler and Varèse-like material]

335
R.M DESCRIPTION OF THE MUSIC CHIMERIC ENVIRONMENTS (C.E.)
r.m. 8-11 Rochberg, influenced by Varèse’s Déserts sonority.

[CLASH DIVIDER (between Varèse material and Mozart quotation)]

r.m. 12-14 Direct quotation of mm. 6-24 from the first movement of Mozart’s C.E. 3: [DISTORTION (of Mozart’s Divertimento K.
Divertimento. After the first measure of Mozart’s music in Bb 287, mm. 6-24) + CLASH (overlap of non-tonal
major, the dominant chord is prolonged while clarinet and piano sonorities)]
play a string of thirds beginning on Db. Mozart’s material returns
beginning exactly from where it stopped, only now superimposed
by intermittent non-tonal chords in the woodwinds. Rochberg also This chimeric environment is formed overall by a
adds a diatonic ascending scale to m. 24, a cadential moment. quotation of Mozart, overlapped by non-tonal sonorities,
Measure 24 from Mozart also presents the descending chromatic creating a clash through an overlap of distinct layers.
line used by Mahler and Varèse. From this point on, it has potential Additionally, Mozart’s quotation is distorted by the added
to represent a coexistence of the three composers at a contextual thirds and scale runs in the first and last measures of the
level. excerpt (r.m. 12 and 14).
[CLASH DIVIDER (between Mozart material and Rochberg’s music)]
r.m. 15-18 Rochberg’s material. Twelve-tone outbursts on woodwinds, C.E. 4: [CLASH (overlap of the F dominant pedal from
trumpet, and piano, while horns hold the F (the dominant) from the Mozart and 12-tone music) + CLASH (interpolation of a
previous Mozart quotation. At r.m. 17, the horn plays a variation of different texture/style)]
the descending second motive while a cluster is held on cello, brass,
and bassoon. At this point, this material can potentially be Twelve-tone outbursts, overlapping with F dominant
motivically associated with Mahler, Varèse, and Mozart. It serves as pedal, interrupted by the horn motive and then return.
an interpolation between the previous 12-tone environment and its
return at r.m. 18, now with no F pedal from Mozart.

[CLASH DIVIDER (at r.m. 19, descending line on solo piano separates 12-tone outbursts and Mozart material)]
r.m. 19-20 Mozart’s mm. 60-66 on the string orchestra. The piano and tuba
play I–V7 in B major (a tritone above the Mozart). C.E. 5: [DISTORTION (piano chords a tritone above
Mozart quotation of mm. 60-66)]
[CLASH DIVIDER (between distorted Mozart and flute solo)]

336
R.M DESCRIPTION OF THE MUSIC CHIMERIC ENVIRONMENTS (C.E.)
r.m. 21-22 Rochberg’s material. Flute solo with 12-tone influence and (012)
trichords.

r.m. 23 The horn plays the pitches from mm. 381-82 of Mahler’s first
movement of Symphony no. 9. The fourth note is prolonged while C.E. 6: [DISTORTION (of Mahler mm. 381-2)]
the flute comments on the motive, creating a temporal distortion of
the quotation before it resumes.
r.m. 24-25 Flute, horn, and bass play a direct quotation from mm. 383-90 of
Mahler’s first movement. This material is accompanied by the rest
of the ensemble holding long and ppp non-tonal sonorities, C.E. 7: [DISTORTION (of Mahler’s mm. 383-390)]
distorting the original material.

r.m. 26 An alteration of the rhythms in m. 391 of Mahler’s first movement’s


chords are played without fixed duration. The flute and trombone C.E. 8: [CLASH (overlap of non-tonal material and
play new non-tonal material over that distortion, creating a strategy Mahler) + DISTORTION (of Mahler’s m. 391 rhythms)]
overlap; of clash and distortion here, the solo horn plays a variation
of the descending second motive fortissimo.
r.m. 27 Direct quotation of m. 14 of Mahler’s fourth movement. Horn C.E. 9: [DISTORTION (of Mahler’s m. 14)]
continues and plays descending fourths as the Mahler chord is held.
The quotation is distorted by sustaining the last chord
while the horn plays other material that fits stylistically
within the original environment.
[CLASH DIVIDER (between Mahler’s m. 14 and 12-tone texture)]
r.m. 28 Rochberg 12-tone-like music. Some influence of Varèse on the
piano.
[CLASH DIVIDER (between 12-tone texture and cluster environment)]
r.m. 29 Rochberg’s cluster gradually fading into silence.

[2-3 seconds of silence]


r.m. 30-31 C.E. 10: [DISTORTION (of Mahler’s mm. 409-15) +
Allusion to cello material in Mahler’s first movement mm. 409-15 DISTORTION (of Mahler’s mm. 3-6 harp motive)]
overlapped with (013) and (014) chords on brass, which resemble,
albeit with some alterations, the lines from mm. 410-13 in Mahler’s

337
R.M DESCRIPTION OF THE MUSIC CHIMERIC ENVIRONMENTS (C.E.)
piece. At r.m. 31, the harp motive from Mahler’s first movement These Mahler quotations may not always directly
(mm. 3-6) appears in Horn 2, accompanied by a (0148) chord. reference a style or style field, and, as such, do not form a
distortion with the same communicational potential as
others discussed in this chapter. They provide, however, a
second-level association as motives belonging to
Mahler’s piece, which is associated with a style, if
recognized.
[2-3 seconds of silence]
r.m. 32 Varèse-influenced gradual clusters on woodwinds and brass.

r.m. 33 Return of the harp minor-third motive from Mahler’s first C.E. 11: [DISTORTION (of Mahler’s mm. 3-6)]
movement at mm. 3-6 in the horn.

338
Example 4.8.2. Chimeric Environment 1 (and CE 1a) from Rochberg’s Music for the Magic Theater, Act I

339
340

Example 4.8.3. Chimeric Environment 2 from Rochberg’s Music for the Magic Theater, Act I
Example 4.8.4. Chimeric Environment 3 from Rochberg’s Music for the Magic Theater, Act I

341
342

Example 4.8.5. Chimeric Environment 4 from Rochberg’s Music for the Magic Theater, Act I
Example 4.8.6. Chimeric Environment 5 from Rochberg’s Music for the Magic Theater, Act I

343
Example 4.8.7. Chimeric Environments 6 and 7 from Rochberg’s Music for the Magic Theater, Act I

344
Example 4.8.8. Chimeric Environments 8 and 9 from Rochberg’s Music for the Magic Theater, Act I

345
Example 4.8.9. Chimeric Environment 10 from Rochberg’s Music for the Magic Theater, Act I

346
347
The details of this analysis and of some of Rochberg’s quoted material make

inconspicuous several of the mixtures on the surface. I have described them, in part, for the sake

of completeness, but also to highlight how recognition, familiarity, and background become

important variables in the perception of mixtures and chimeric environments. In order to

perceive all the chimeric environments in this piece, a listener needs not only familiarity with the

quoted pieces, but also access to the scores. Above all, this analysis shows that, despite the

peculiar formal and surface characteristics of each piece in the polystylistic repertory, the entire

range of hybrid works links up by these same strategies and processes.


348
CONCLUSION

The goal of this study was to develop a flexible but consistent analytical framework to

approach the mixture of styles, genres, and other triggers of musical identity, in order to

operationalize music’s patterns of hybridity.166 The choice of the term hybridity—a loaded and

complex term, with a long history of pejorative uses—to indicate these mixtures adds a

sociopolitical layer to any combination of musical categories. I have discussed these categories

primarily through the notions of style and genre, idealized concepts that serve as synecdoches for

many layers of associations, musical or otherwise, and that articulate musical hybridity. In order

to develop an analytical framework for the mixture of styles and genres, I needed first to engage

with both the concept of hybridity itself (chapter 1), and to attempt disentangling complex

perspectives on style and genre (chapter 2). In chapter 3 I presented the actual framework, and

focused on defining and exemplifying chimeric environments and the four mixture strategies that

form them—clash, coexistence, distortion, and trajectory. I included the variable characteristics

of these interpretive tools in this discussion, and demonstrated some interpretive insights

developed with them. Finally, in chapter 4 I showcased the potential of these ideas by applying

the framework to entire compositions or movements from diverse music repertories.

The ideas developed in the previous chapters were based on a few important assumptions

that underlie this study: (1) musical hybridity goes beyond the polystylistic repertory from the

1960s and 1970s; (2) the analysis of hybridity should be more than the determination of the

sources mixed, and should also embrace the processes acting upon these sources; (3) there are

166
Nederveen Pieterse (2009, 118) calls attention to the importance of the different patterns of hybridity from a
cultural perspective, listing their many variables.
349
four mixture strategies that may be used to identify and engage with these processes; and (4)

these four strategies are subject to perception, assuming a set of intersubjective agreements from

a given community of listeners, critics, performers, and composers.

Another important idea pervading this study is that structural characteristics are

inevitably connected to contextual ones. Thus, hybridity has structural effects, and one cannot

bracket out the musical text or musical technique. In the analyses of musical hybridity in this

study I attempted, as much as possible, to transcend text, context, individual, and communal

perspectives. The examples and analytical insights in chapters 3 and 4 demonstrate the flexibility

of this framework, and indicate how, when clearly operationalized, attention to this level of

musical experience (styles, genres, and their interactions, alterations, and associations) can be

useful in interpreting diverse repertories.

By way of summary and reflection, my conclusion attempts first to answer the questions

posed in the introduction:

1 - What is musical hybridity and how is it articulated?

Musical hybridity is any combination of identity markers we can recognize in a

composition. These combinations occur in many different ways and with varying prominence of

the identities involved. Any musical characteristic that triggers an identity for a specific, situated

listener can articulate hybridity when it contrasts with another in the same or different

compositional realm. Most often, these identities are connected to, and mediated by, categories

of musical style and genre. Musical hybrids, by having two or more identities triggered in the

same environment, share a discursive space, idealized as being a single, unified entity.

Importantly, this is not restricted to the polystylistic repertory of the post-1960s and 1970s,
350
although that era most clearly foregrounded the expression of hybridity within the concert music

tradition.

2 - Can one hear hybridity?

The recognition of musical hybridity is contingent on the individual’s background,

familiarity, and purpose in a specific musical environment. However, based on shared

knowledge within a community—especially through the notions of styles and genres, common

both in mainstream media and academic discourse—many hybridities can be potentially

generalized, even with enough room for variability of interpretations. Given that identity

categories are idealized as bounded entities, the manner in which they interact, or are

manipulated, becomes recognizable as processes, either as the performer or composer acting

upon them or as an autonomous work. I labeled these processes as clash, coexistence, distortion,

and trajectory in this study—as strategies for identity mixtures, each with peculiar characteristics

and significations contingent on their use structurally and contextually. Furthermore, the gap

between styles and genres within a specific communicational system—their “distance” in an

analogy to geography—provides opportunities to engage with varying degrees of associational

contrasts shared by a community that occur in hybrid music.

3 - Is musical hybridity, and the layers of style and genre, analyzable? If so, why analyze

hybridity?

Analyses of hybridity can address both structural and contextual parameters, and, ideally,

will combine both. Essentialist thinking is ingrained in many music theory perspectives for its

generalizing and systematizing ambitions, characteristics that I share to some extent. Using the
351
present framework I have attempted to mitigate this essentialism by engaging with the analytical

layer of style and genre as a parameter—a variable means for musical expression and

interpretation. This parameter affords opportunities to address the dynamic status of boundaries

in a productive and contextually engaged manner. Once a reconceptualization of the notions of

style and genre occurs, moving beyond their essentialist perspective, these categories may serve

to guide and organize, while not rigidly defining or restricting musical engagements.

Nederveen Pieterse writes that “the importance of hybridity is that it problematizes

boundaries” (2009, 5). Furthermore, in music, a focus on matters of identity through hybridity

can connect structural choices with their social, political, and economic contexts. This focus may

elucidate as much about an individual musical work and its technical characteristics as the

systems of categories that guide a specific creative community. Hybridity, understood as a

common and ubiquitous cultural process, also helps to counter pejorative perspectives on

mixture (which can have, for instance, essentialist connotations of impurity or inauthenticity).

Instead, hybridity may highlight the fluid and contingent status of identities—a subject

increasingly vital in the twenty-first century, as we face far-reaching discussions about identity

politics. In this way, music is––as it always has been––a space for a projection of these matters;

styles, genres, and their manipulations in hybridity become important tools in this equation.

4 - Are there available tools in music studies to analyze hybridity?

One of the motivations behind this study was to address the hesitation or resistance

around embracing analytical perspectives on styles and genres, and, more specifically, their

interactions and manipulations. The few scholarly exceptions either focus on a specific repertory

(for instance, Losada 2004, 2008, 2009; Burkholder 1994; Hatten 2004, 2014), or discuss mostly
352
the social aspects that surround styles, genres, and hybridity (Born and Hesmondhalgh 2000;

Locke 2009; Lena 2014, among other works discussed in previous chapters). My analytical

framework in this dissertation attempts to bridge this gap between different perspectives,

allowing a more flexible understanding of the interactions of stylistic and generic domains,

inevitably intertwined as they are. Even though the initial ideas for this study surfaced while

engaging with 1960s and 1970s polystylism, it became increasingly clear that strategies heavily

foregrounded during this period in concert music—within a very particular sociopolitical and

cultural environment—were not restricted to that repertory. As mentioned in chapter 3, my

framework is less a substitution of existing perspectives than an attempt to dialogue with,

organize, and expand them. Having such scope and flexibility, the framework focused not on a

single repertory, but on a layer of musical expression that forms part of many different

repertories—that of difference and categorization (articulated through the notions of hybridity,

style, and genre) in order to organize the potential musical experiences with hybridity.

INTERSECTIONS

I developed the very initial ideas for this analytical framework when thinking about

Schnittke’s use of the musical “past” as a topical field, thus connecting with the music-

theoretical discourse of topic theory. This connection was especially strong with Robert Hatten’s

work (1994, 2004), and became particularly important in light of his 2014 chapter on

tropological axes—an investigation of the “parameters” of troping of topics in Mozart’s

instrumental music. In a similar fashion, while writing chapter 1, on the concept of hybridity,

many intersections with studies of musical exoticism could have been made, especially with
353
Ralph Locke’s work (2009, 2015). As my thoughts developed, I felt the need to work on the

periphery, not basing my ideas on any single music-theoretical discourse. This necessity became

more urgent when I decided to expand the framework to embrace other repertories, moving

beyond the foregrounded mixtures of styles in polystylistic composers and their specific

relationship to tradition. The wide scope of the framework made it difficult to relate to a single

discourse. However, now that the framework has been established, I believe it can be fruitful to

go back and discuss how it can connect with these intersecting areas of scholarship.

Hybridity Framework and Topic Theory

If topics are stylistic importations—as, for instance, Mirka (2014) and Hatten (1994,

2004, 2014) define them—there is a potential level of hybridity in their uses and interpretations.

A large part of what topics do is to refer to something “outside” a host musical environment,

given their conventionality (recognizability) and the specific shared associations they bring to a

particular, situated listener. In many ways, these signification processes belong to the more

general category of musical hybridity. Mixture strategies are, after all, distinct ways of

combining disparate materials, and a view of topics through these lenses can further inform how

they achieve a specific effect. Mixture strategies inform how these imported elements are

included in a context, which can in turn emphasize, illuminate specific hues, or counteract and

reverse expected significations. Whereas many cases of topical importations in the eighteenth

and nineteenth centuries rely on what I call the coexistence strategy, as discussed in chapter 3,

others do not. Even within coexistence, there are variables that can help interpret each particular

case.
354
As Hatten’s (2014) account of Mozart’s instrumental music highlights, topical

importations and combinations do not all happen in the same way. There are many situated

variables that can change the signification of a topic or troping of topics. The manner in which

they are combined (both with a host style or with another topic) becomes, then, an important

layer for interpretation. Hatten’s terminology, albeit applied to Mozart’s instrumental works, is

closely related to the mixture strategies proposed here. And I shall return briefly to one of his

analyses—discussed in chapter 3—in order to demonstrate this potential connection.

Hatten discusses the “fresh meanings” (2014, 515) of musical tropes as articulated by

merger, contradistinction/contradiction, or exaggeration/distortion. These relate to three of the

strategies discussed in my framework: coexistence, clash, and distortion, respectively. The latter

terms, in many ways synonymous with Hatten’s categories, are studied in detail as more general

strategies in this dissertation, beyond their connection with musical topics. These mixture

strategies can further inform Hatten’s merger, for instance, by zooming in on the alignments and

misalignments of the topics being merged by considering it a case of coexistence. While Hatten

clearly notices the subtleties of such a mixture, a more systematized discussion of these cases in

relation to general mixture strategies could be potentially profitable. For instance, take the

disruption (in the context of eighteenth-century musical topics) in the first eight measures of

Mozart’s K. 332, I, briefly discussed in chapter 3 (Ex. 3.3.8). Hatten leaves open the question of

how to connect the first four measures of the excerpt to the latter ones, instead suggesting that

“one might develop a higher-level trope that somehow integrates ... the two four-measure topical

characters” (2014, 518). An analysis through the perspective of the clash strategy affords such a

higher-level trope, and connects this particular case with many others, evoking the entire range
355
of interpretations of a juxtaposition clash: from shock and disruption to a secondary layer of

discourse or commentary. The idea of a commentary is, in fact, mentioned by Hatten, but it lacks

the more embracing and detailed support that is afforded by the framework in this dissertation.

Moreover, this approach could afford comparisons that would not be explicit at first

sight. Note, for example, how the clash in K. 332 is different from the juxtaposition clashes in

the final scene of the first act from Don Giovanni (Ex. 3.2.4), or from the G minor and Eb major

clashes in Beethoven’s Eroica (Ex. 3.2.5 and Ex. 3.2.6), analyzed by Byros (2014). This

comparison might seem exaggerated, but when focusing on the details of strategies for topical

combination—all three are cases of clash, despite their differences—it becomes a bit more

plausible and, perhaps, productive in light of these processual prototypes. To be sure, my

framework does not substitute for or criticize topic theory or Hatten’s troping discourse; rather, it

has the potential to expand the interpretive details of these mixtures, as well as embrace them in

a wider collection of uses of these processes—in Hatten’s words, “higher-level trope[s]” (2014,

518). The hybridity framework proposed here can help investigate the “mechanics” of musical

topics and troping, connecting them to a number of other uses of hybridity in music.

Lastly, for some years now, there has been a welcome tendency to expand topic theory

beyond the stable stylistic and generic systems of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century concert

music. An understanding of general mixture strategies as processual prototypes can serve to

engage with topics in Mozart or Beethoven, as much as they can illuminate music by Schnittke,
356
Adès, or Daft Punk. All of these works, in their own way, use “ever more specialized” (Atkinson

2013) musical topics in the twentieth century. 167

Hybridity Framework and Exoticism

Locke’s thorough work on musical exoticism through many historical periods (2009,

2015) also warrants attention for its intersections with the framework proposed here. Again, in an

attempt to avoid confusion, exoticism has been kept somewhat at bay, as just another kind of

hybridity, without getting a detailed discussion of its history and nuanced significations—a job

that Locke does in a flexible and coherent fashion. Locke (2009) defines different kinds of

exoticism, all of which are intertwined with the mixture strategies discussed here. Three of his

categories become especially relevant: overt exoticism, submerged exoticism, and transcultural

composition. Overt exoticism occurs when the foreign material keeps its exotic frame—that is, it

is not widely integrated into the host style or the composer’s personal style. This use contrasts

with later cases of submerged exoticism, when the integration of foreign sounds blurs an

interpretation of the exotic in its earlier, “distant,” sense. Finally, Locke uses the term

transcultural composition (also used by Loya [2008, 2011], in his analyses of Liszt’s “gypsy”

tradition) as a way of addressing cases where the boundaries are even less clear, and the sense of

appropriation ceases to be framed as exotic because of the permeability of geographical and

167
Some examples are Yayoi Uno Everett’s study of parody in György Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre (2009), Johanna
Frymoyer’s topical investigation of waltzes in Arnold Schoenberg’s works (2017), and Edward Venn’s (2013)
survey of the pianto topic in the music of Thomas Adès (as well as his 2016 book on Adès). Nicholas McKay (2013)
uses a topic-theoretical approach to Stravinsky’s music, a repertory that was also tackled by Scott Schumann (2015),
who focused on distortion of dance topics in the composer’s output (discussed in chapter 3).
357
cultural boundaries in the twentieth century. One need not go into much detail in order to see the

potential intersections with mixture strategies as a way to help disentangle (or further

problematize) many of these cases. The variable here seems to be the level of integration, which

is particularly addressed by clash and coexistence strategies.

As an example, in relation to Britten’s reference to gamelan music in Peter Grimes and

Death in Venice, Locke quotes Annegret Fauser’s description of these sounds as “abstract rather

than picturesque engagement with alterity” (Fauser 2005 in Locke [2009, 242]).168 In Locke’s

terms, Britten’s uses of gamelan sounds in these pieces are cases of submerged, rather than overt,

exoticism.169 Mixture strategies offer the possibility to focus on the processes of integration (or

lack thereof) of these “foreign sounds.” Moreover, my hybridity framework allows for a

comparison of these potentially exotic (or transcultural) hybridities with other contemporary

cases, especially in the twentieth century, when other composers combine or import a diverse

range of styles, foreign or not, in many different ways. Mixture strategies are tools for bringing

focus to the level of symmetry and the manner of stylistic combination, as well as providing

options for interpreting cases of exoticism: for instance, via clash or coexistence of elements,

(the latter could address the submerged or half-submerged cases). However, these alone cannot

interpret the kind of exoticism; rather they provide support to better understand these questions.

Furthermore, I believe that other cases of hybridity which somehow relate to exotic

elements and practices at a less conspicuous level can, in turn, largely profit from Locke’s

categories and careful investigations. A caveat, however, is not to frame any case of hybridity as

168
Fauser, Annegret. Musical Encounters at the 1889 Paris World’s Fair. Rochester: University of Rochester Press,
2005.
169
Locke (2009, 242), emphasizing the difficulty in labeling these cases, asks: “[o]r is it only half-Submerged?”
358
an instance of exoticism, since the latter has a history of its own, and thus tends to engage with a

specific geopolitical directionality: appropriation and the reinvigoration of Western culture.

Locke is very aware that this is not necessarily the case in many examples from twentieth-

century music. The terms “transcultural composition” and “submerged exoticism” both tend to

mitigate the appropriation narrative, when the boundaries of the categories of West and East (and

many others) become increasingly problematic. In the post-1960s—what Locke calls “exoticism

in a global age” (2009, 276)—rigid cultural categories are not always sustainable, and the

hybridity framework proves even more useful in addressing the different, and fluid forms of

combining stylistic and generic markers.

***

Perhaps one of the most productive aspects of the framework proposed here lies in its

potential to compare widely distinct repertories through the strategies they use to combine and

manipulate musical identities. Such a comparative approach need not overlook the motivations

and conditions surrounding a musical hybrid, as should be clear from the previous pages. In fact,

the framework might emphasize these contextual aspects by showing how idealized boundaries,

and the processes used to disrupt or integrate them, are influenced by different factors. Thus, a

“picture” of a localized identity system or network emerges, with all the tacit biases and purposes

incorporated in its establishment and communication. This perspective understands styles and

genres, their manipulations, and combinations as important mediators of the musical experience,

serving as means for assessing diverse music, given a familiarity with the constellation of

references and their assigned hierarchy.


359
It is vital to emphasize, once again, the varying roles of boundaries throughout different

periods. Styles and genres—as well as races, ethnicities, social status, nation, and political

affiliations—may be viewed or approached as rigid and impermeable, in order to serve a specific

goal, but are actually fixed only when idealized. The twenty-first century brought, for some

privileged groups, accessibility to multiple cultures and ideas, and, to an extent, a “laterality” and

fluidity of many categories, once imposed as neatly hierarchical (even though, depending on the

environment, they remain strongly separated).

However, since old habits die hard, a constant friction persists between the tendency to

impose values and ideologies through difference and hierarchy, and the new scenario—what

Petrusich (2017), for instance, called the “lateral planes” of today’s mainstream musical

culture.170 The study of musical hybridity serves well our attempts to address this friction both in

the musical “texts” and the communities and contexts surrounding them, along with variations

that depend on specific individual perspectives. There is considerable potential to engage with

these matters in different repertories and perspectives, and in order to pursue future research, it is

important to consider the connected, but different, spaces of signification of styles and genres, as

discussed in chapter 2. The concept of style embraces a more detailed structural level, while

genre covers contextual aspects beyond the conception of style proposed here. Both, however,

share a large portion of the spectrum between the technical and the sociocultural/political

aspects, whose borders are constantly in flux. Styles and genres are thus not literal containers,

but situated mediators between individual, textual, and contextual domains. Mixture strategies

170
Petrusich (2017) was discussing mainstream musical culture, but I consider this true for other creative
environments as well. This concept also relates to Loya’s (2008, 2011) and Locke’s (2009) “transcultural
composition.”
360
operationalize their dynamic statuses, serving as interpretive tools connected with both

sociopolitical, cognitive, and communicative aspects.

Further, timbre, effects, instrumentation, and spatiality in recorded music all trigger

associations with styles and genres, thus are worthy of more attention. Even though scholars in

sound studies and phonomusicological studies have more carefully addressed the sound,

especially in approaching recorded popular music, there yet remains opportunity for further

investigations of its communicational and cognitive significance.171 As many analyses in this

study have shown, these sonic parameters are compositional features, not mere auxiliary

ornamentations. Record producers (or often composers themselves) think of the sonic parameters

of a track as an expressive compositional medium, which act as immediate markers of musical

identity categories. There is certainly much more to be developed in relation to the recorded

track and a potential future path of the research presented here is to engage more thoroughly with

these sonic matters from the perspective of the hybridity framework.

Even though I mention cognitive studies, especially in relation to styles and genres as

concepts and categories, there is much to be pursued in engaging musical hybridity with

cognitive science. Future research can also investigate mixture strategies in an experimental

setting, given a degree of ecological validity. More specifically, this can happen through the use

of dynamic tracking of listener associations, using, for instance, eye-tracking devices. The

intersections with the areas of study mentioned above further emphasize the importance of this

kind of study, which can support perspectives—or propose new ways of thinking—about the

combinations of distinct musical styles and genres from the viewpoint of an engaged listener.

171
Phonomusicological studies is the area that approaches the recorded track and its productions features as part of
the musical text and context. See, for instance, Moore 2012; Zagorski-Thomas 2014; and Bennet 2015.
361
***

The variety of analyses in the present work––embracing repertories from the seventeenth

to the twenty-first centuries, and crossing idealized boundaries between concert and popular

music––demonstrates the potential applicability of this framework in further exploring musical

style, genre, and hybridity. From a broad perspective, the future of this research lies in

demystifying the hybrid in cultures where it has become a ubiquitous feature, but which is still,

in many instances, treated as an exception. The framework presented here, in an attempt to

search for the “patterns of hybridity,” can be used to engage with these matters, combining

musical structures, communities and their practices, and the individual. It must be said, however,

that I offer no “hermeneutics of hybridity,” since––for methodological reasons––structure and

context are still artificially separated in the previous pages. Thus, the investigation of patterns of

interactions of musical styles and genres, with their entire signification potential, should foster

future studies in a hermeneutics of hybridity. The development of this framework for

operationalizing mixtures might generate some promising ideas for such studies, pointing toward

other potential applications, and inviting scholars to investigate any music through the lenses of

hybridity.
362
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