From the pitch to the sound: exploring harmonic terrories

Author(s)

Rodrigo Lima

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Artes
• Defense date: 2009-12-08

Examining board members

Silvio Ferraz de Mello Filho; Denise Hortencia Lopes Garcia; Maria Barcellos Rezende

• Advisor: Silvio Ferraz de Mello Filho

Abstract

This study has the goal of evaluating certain aspects that guided some of the main speculations in harmony in twentieth-century music. Among its objectives are: to point out the premisses and strategies that took part in each new harmonic territory, as well as to explore the use of harmonic matrixes as a compositional principle. At the same time we underline how compositional strategies relate by means of pitch manipulation, and their results in timbre and sonority. To achieve this, we chose composers that in some point made use of harmonic timbre and sound matter as a distinctive element in the compositional process. Among them stand: Claude Debussy, Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, Edgard Varèse, Pierre Schaeffer, Olivier Messiaen and Pierre Boulez. In Varèse's case, we justify his significant appearance by judging his relation to sound matter, and his own composition material, as pioneering in twentieth-century music. For this reason, an analysis of Intégrales became necessary, aiming at a closer approach to his musical idiom and his strategies for the writing of timbre. Besides the studies, we had as a result a series of works composed by the author in which the use of harmonic matrixes became a relevant feature in the compositional process, a sort of a guide to sonority. (AU)