https://hastac.hcommons.org/members/arthurmaisel/activity/ Activity feed for Arthur Maisel. Sat, 04 Apr 2026 08:17:55 +0000 https://buddypress.org/?v=10.6.0 en-US 30 hourly 2 d1ab653971cfb5ce31f598711ed550b5 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1824254/ Tue, 29 Nov 2022 15:40:56 +0000 This is the (slightly) expanded, final version.

]]> 0 531bf763f52fc0fea59d4af722feb582 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1786703/ Tue, 12 Jul 2022 13:24:25 +0000 This amateur exercise in the philosophy of music—my second, after “Musical Ambiguity and Musical Analysis” (or third, if you count the excursus on Ives and Emerson in the update of my article on The Fourth of July)—was written mostly to clarify for myself, and for anyone else interested, what I think. In writings where the focus is on doing m…[Read more]

]]> 0 64daa1da72de0fedbd6539cc8c3d0f20 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1784541/ Mon, 20 Jun 2022 05:30:17 +0000 “Un bacio”—ancora? Un altro “bacio” examples (complete)

]]> 0 6f593674ed58e382270e3856dcc91a84 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1784540/ Mon, 20 Jun 2022 05:24:26 +0000 It is difficult to credit the usual explanation that the mere fact of the “bacio” theme’s recapitulation in act 4 of Verdi’s Otello accounts for its powerful effect. Even the irony of dramatic circumstances radically altered from those it accompanied when introduced in act 1 seems insufficient to explain the complex impact of the theme’s return. I…[Read more]

]]> 0 f336c9980604eb62a84a5f084e8445bc https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1784524/ Sun, 19 Jun 2022 18:09:32 +0000 What do we analyze when we analyze a piece of music? Arguing from the point of view of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy (Philosophical Investigations, etc.), and using a somewhat similar method and some of the same concepts (e.g., “playing a game”), this essay asserts that analysis has a distinct role to play apart from providing data to theor…[Read more]

]]> 0 a63888295336fbcdea93daa13f7e31dd https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1667126/ Tue, 22 Oct 2019 13:45:45 +0000 General-interest article on George Gershwin’s opera “Porgy and Bess” (intended as a two-page spread in the London Review of Books or the Times Literary Supplement), based on a book-length work in progress. A propos the forthcoming critical edition of the opera by Wayne Shirley.

]]> 0 afb91b64b7297e7b21ce6e3608d294dd https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1667125/ Tue, 22 Oct 2019 13:30:00 +0000 This is a revised version of a chapter in the book “Schenker Studies 2,” edited by Carl Schachter and Hedi Siegel (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 160-91.

]]> 0 b0ac64d92c9a0a8243ae5e49801b4cbe https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1667124/ Tue, 22 Oct 2019 13:24:49 +0000 This is a revised version of a chapter from the book “Schenker Studies 2,” edited by Carl Schachter and Hedi Siegel (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 160-91.

]]> 0 f3b1985989aae5cbfc86cb720b4b7452 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1597472/ Wed, 17 Jan 2018 18:03:38 +0000 Some thoughts on a favorite book by a favorite author. Not my field, but at this stage not my concern, etiher. A sort of a compensation for my wish that I had proposed writing an opera together to Thomas Pynchon when I had the chance.

]]> 0 94e1b76deaa6b4749538e8540497a256 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1596842/ Sat, 13 Jan 2018 05:20:05 +0000 The trill in Schubert’s B-flat piano sonata taps into a network of musical symbols. One of the marks of a great composer is a deep intuition as to what meaning can be conveyed by notes deployed in a certain way, a sense similar to one great poets must have to make us feel connections between words.

]]> 0 7667d12bb51efd047e3566f3eb6849d5 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1596841/ Sat, 13 Jan 2018 05:11:48 +0000 What do we analyze when we analyze a piece of music? Arguing from the point of view of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy (Philosophical Investigations, etc.), and using a somewhat similar method and some of the same concepts (e.g., “playing a game”), this essay asserts that analysis has a distinct role to play apart from providing data to theor…[Read more]

]]> 0 4164c086852f310d357dcf82d489a5c7 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1596840/ Sat, 13 Jan 2018 05:02:14 +0000 Most of the songs of John Lennon and Paul McCartney during the Beatle years were largely written by one or the other of the two. But because they acted as mutual editors and occasionally combined segments by each of them into one song, and because the songs were published as if they were true collaborations, the distinct individual styles of…[Read more]

]]> 0 7a4e7e7daf9f9b6afeeb53345806393c https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1596838/ Sat, 13 Jan 2018 04:59:07 +0000 Most of the songs of John Lennon and Paul McCartney during the Beatle years were largely written by one or the other of the two. But because they acted as mutual editors and occasionally combined segments by each of them into one song, and because the songs were published as if they were true collaborations, the distinct individual styles of…[Read more]

]]> 0 e683204780a5a43b3e2e53a85184de0f https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1596833/ Sat, 13 Jan 2018 04:21:20 +0000 The norm of large-scale composition is for a motive to be established on the surface and then for there to be hidden repetition, whether the camouflage takes the form of ornamentation or augmentation.
George Gershwin’s music, however, has a number of notable reversals of this norm of motivic presentation, and his well-known reliance on i…[Read more]

]]> 0 73fbce5c562575b9f5ab2d7653522125 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1596830/ Sat, 13 Jan 2018 04:18:08 +0000 The norm of large-scale composition is for a motive to be established on the surface and then for there to be hidden repetition, whether the camouflage takes the form of ornamentation or augmentation.
George Gershwin’s music, however, has a number of notable reversals of this norm of motivic presentation, and his well-known reliance on i…[Read more]

]]> 0 ef1607bd00ac6f3a2eb9b59e5cf2d6c1 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1596811/ Sat, 13 Jan 2018 04:12:06 +0000 “Un bacio”—ancora? Un altro “bacio”!—examples

]]> 0 237bed32000422c0205c281cef7d621d https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1596809/ Sat, 13 Jan 2018 04:06:12 +0000 It is difficult to credit the usual explanation that the mere fact of the “bacio” theme’s recapitulation in act 4 of Verdi’s Otello accounts for its powerful effect. Even the irony of dramatic circumstances radically altered from those it accompanied when introduced in act 1 seems insufficient to explain the complex impact of the theme’s return. I…[Read more]

]]> 0 f7d370cc21cf93fb6d2f8411ba2c9a0d https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1596803/ Sat, 13 Jan 2018 03:23:54 +0000 examples 13-A2

]]> 0 a6f5cd6928cbfe2451694fc88b7de424 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1596802/ Sat, 13 Jan 2018 03:19:00 +0000 examples 1-12

]]> 0 b192ef30a7e030a0c27d0ce36105e840 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1596801/ Sat, 13 Jan 2018 03:13:57 +0000 Attempts to account for the undoubted impact of the interview chords in Billy Budd have had the unfortunate aspect of responses to a Rorschach inkblot, tending to reveal more about the respondent than the work. For many theorists, the most convincing approaches have been negative—understandably, because the chords do seem set apart in their lack o…[Read more]

]]> 0 575fb411e2acbcfe954c5703fe325fd1 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1596379/ Thu, 11 Jan 2018 20:36:54 +0000 These are examples to go with http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M64Z69. The handwritten examples existed only in hardcopy, so rather than simply scanning them, I redid them. Aside from a couple of clearly marked changes, they are the same as the 1981 versions.

]]> 0 445312203191ba337d7a73c352b1929b https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1596377/ Thu, 11 Jan 2018 20:36:36 +0000 This is an updated version of the 1981 paper. The first part, published in Theory and Practice, is substantially unchanged save for some details of the analysis and several added comments. The second part, written over the past year, is an appendix that addresses the role of memory in Ives’s music. There is an additional analysis of his song “The…[Read more]

]]> 0 16bcaa661a7504d0c533f3b99d7a8ad5 https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1595235/ Sun, 07 Jan 2018 00:50:44 +0000 The handwritten examples existed only in hardcopy, so rather than simply scanning them, I redid them. Aside from a couple of clearly marked changes, they are the same as the 1981 versions.

]]> 0 57f0d000f5186a035eebc611c9cc08ce https://hcommons.org/activity/p/1595234/ Sun, 07 Jan 2018 00:47:04 +0000 This is an updated version of the 1981 paper. The first part, what was published in Theory and Practice, is substantially unchanged save for some details of the analysis and several added comments. The second part, written over the past year, is an appendix that addresses the role of memory in Ives’s music. There is an additional analysis of his…[Read more]

]]> 0