Montage and Block Form in Ralph Shapey's Seven for Two Pianos

Ralph Shapey's music combines the continuity of developing variation with the discontinuity of block forms. Through this paradoxical reconciliation of opposing principles, his music brings together divergent compositional traditions from the first half of the twentieth century. This article considers this reconciliation through an analysis of compositional technique in Seven for two pianos. The analysis draws on Shapey's definition of ‘montage’ and on Wolpe's notion of ‘tempo of transformation’. It also incorporates information taken from unpublished sketch materials for Seven. During the preparation of this article I had on hand 15 pages of draft score and a one-page self-analysis of Seven, which was prepared by Shapey. Notes [1]Seven was written in 1963 between 10 June and 7 July in Woodstock, New York. The piece is dedicated to the pianists who commissioned the work, Peggy and Milton Salkind. The Salkinds enjoyed a long career as a piano duo, and were both associated with the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Taking Shapey's precise metronome markings into consideration, as well as the fermatas, a performance of the work should run seven to eight minutes. [2] The definition of ‘montage’ is contained within the sketches for Seven in Box 29 of the Shapey Papers. I was not able to determine if Shapey invented this definition or copied it from an unidentified source. For a different view of montage in contemporary music, see Andriessen and Schönberger (Citation1989). [3] The one-page analysis Shapey prepared of Seven is contained in Box 143 of the Shapey Papers. [4] Since Seven does not employ bar lines except to indicate sectional divisions, this paper uses page/system indexing. So in Example 1, ‘17.2’ refers to page 17, system two, of the Presser score. [5] In the self-analysis page of the sketch materials Shapey uses the term ‘cantus firmus’ to refer to the final statements of the row seen in the published score at 18.1. [6] For a discussion of Stravinsky's variation of blended strata, see Horlacher (Citation2001). [7] An example of a montage development that progresses in the usual direction, from simple to complex, is Musiques Nocturnes, the fourth movement of Bartók's Out of Doors suite for piano. [8] Many characteristics of Shapey's pitch procedures can be traced to the music of his teacher, Stefan Wolpe. His fixing of pitches in register suggests additional comparisons with the music of Varèse and Carter. [9] For more on Shapey's notion of what he calls ‘tone circulation’, see Shapey (Citation2001, p. 25). [10] Example 5c from Shapey (Citation2001, p. 19) illustrates pitch and interval sharing between musical strata. [11] This ‘art of transition’ is associated with the music of Berg and Wagner (see Adorno, Citation1991). [12] For more on ‘block form’, see Cross (Citation1998). [13] Discontinuity between strata is a hallmark of Messiaen's style, as in his Vingt Regards. I thank Barry Wiener for pointing out to me the similarity between Seven and Vingt Regards. [14] Shapey describes his music as combining ‘two fundamentally contradictory impulses—radical language and romantic sensibility. The melodies are disjunct and dissonant; they contain atonal harmonies and extremes in register, dynamics and textural contrasts. Yet the musical structures are grandly formed and run the gamut of dramatic gestures. Like the Romantics, I conceive of art in a deeply spiritual way. A great work of art transcends the immediate moment into a world of infinity’ (cited in University of Chicago News Office, Citation2002). [15] Of course antecedents for Shapey's reconciliation of metamorphic process with sectional form can be found in the Second Viennese School—e.g., in Schoenberg, Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31, and Webern, Symphony, Op. 21, II

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• Ralph Shapey at the Piano

  Gordon Marsh, Gordon E Marsh•American Music•2015

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