Klarinet Archive - Posting 000016.txt from 2002/08

From: "Patricia Danton" <pmdanton@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] retrograde
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2002 09:32:20 -0400

At 07:45 PM 7/31/02 -0400, you wrote:
>Ummmm,
> Isn't that how Rachmaninoff got that melody in the first place?
> The begining original theme of Pagannini up a minor third, down a half,
> down a whole, up a fifth...Rachmaninoff's tune is DOWN a minor third, UP
> a half, UP a whole, DOWN a fifth. right?
>
>~Alexander
>On Wednesday, July 31, 2002, at 07:10 PM, Neil Leupold wrote:
>
>>--- rien stein <rstein@-----.nl> wrote:
>>
>>>I remember the theme because, cutely enough,
>>>it's the retrograde inversion of Rachmaninov's theme from his Paganini piano
>>>variations.
>>>
>>>What do you mean by "it was the retrogade"?
>>
>>Retrograde @-----. Among all of that fun gobble-degook about set theory
>>and matrices and rows, theory coursework in an undergraduate music curriculum
>>also addresses other such mechanical means of composition as taking a line of
>>pitches and arranging them in reverse order, such that the last note becomes
>>the first, the penultimate note becomes the second, and so forth. Taking the
>>retrograde inversion of a line involves first arranging the pitches in
>>reverse
>>order, and then inverting the series of intervals that makes up the line, be-
>>ginning with the interval between the first and second pitches. If the
>>inter-
>>val is a rising minor third from the first to the second note, you
>>rewrite the
>>second pitch to *descend* a minor third from the first note, and so on
>>for all
>>subsequent intervals in the line. Do that to Rachmaninov's famous romantic
>>theme from his Paganini piano variations, and you get the minor, plaintive,
>>lamenting melody that we hear in the contra-alto clarinet part in the band
>>arrangement of the Fantasia on a Theme by Paganini.
>>
>>Neil
>>
>>Do You Yahoo!?
>>Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
>>http://health.yahoo.com
>>
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>
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