{"id":2220,"date":"2012-07-09T06:03:02","date_gmt":"2012-07-09T10:03:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/?p=2220"},"modified":"2014-10-15T12:23:43","modified_gmt":"2014-10-15T16:23:43","slug":"other-planets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/2012\/07\/other-planets.html","title":{"rendered":"Other Planets"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0
\nRecurring patterns of signification in music — topoi<\/a>. The grand unfolding of time and space represented by a steady repeated-pitch ostinato with slow-motion harmonic change around it, found at the opening of Haydn’s Creation<\/em><\/a>, for example. (Haydn could have had a career in sci-fi futurism…)<\/p>\n

I heard a pianist play through Debussy’s prelude “…La terrasses des audiences du clair de lune.” Near the end, there’s an anomalous passage that extends an F-sharp-minor harmony, and puts a rhythmic group of 4 in the space of 3<\/a>, in a square-peg-in-round-hole way. It makes for a few remarkable moments:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\n<\/p>\n

Debussy: “…La terasse des audiences du clair de lune”<\/p>\n

<\/a>As I heard it, a question formed. Did Debussy know Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet, written\u00a0four years before the prelude? And whether he did or not, isn’t the F-sharp otherness<\/a> topos present in both pieces? (A topos carried through at least from earlier Viennese music\u00a0such as\u00a0the second movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto, K. 488<\/a>, or the slow movement in Schubert’s Sonata, D. 959<\/a>.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the last movements of Schoenberg’s quartet, there are words of Stephan George, sung by the deeply anomalous fifth participant, a soprano:<\/p>\n

Ich f\u00fchle Luft von anderem Planeten. (I feel the air of another planet.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For Debussy, no words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Recurring patterns of signification in music — topoi. The grand unfolding of time and space represented by a steady repeated-pitch ostinato with slow-motion harmonic change around it, found at the opening of Haydn’s Creation, for example. (Haydn could have had a career in sci-fi futurism…) I heard a pianist play through Debussy’s prelude “…La […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[950,953,698,959,960,889,719,9,621,954,955,949,947,948,39,530,956,958,16,239,957,951,952],"class_list":{"0":"post-2220","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"tag-creation","8":"tag-d-959","9":"tag-debussy","10":"tag-f-sharp","11":"tag-f-sharp-otherness-topos","12":"tag-franz","13":"tag-george","14":"tag-haydn","15":"tag-joseph","16":"tag-k-488","17":"tag-kv-488","18":"tag-la-terrasse-des-audiences-du-clair-de-lune","19":"tag-marcelle","20":"tag-meyer","21":"tag-mozart","22":"tag-musical-signification","23":"tag-other-planets","24":"tag-otherness","25":"tag-schubert","26":"tag-signification","27":"tag-stefan","28":"tag-topoi","29":"tag-topos","30":"entry","31":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2220"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4008,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2220\/revisions\/4008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}