Student Theses
Date of Award
Spring 6-2-2022
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Music
Language
English
First Advisor
William Rothstein
Abstract
This thesis is an exploration of how tuning practices can influence compositional practice, focusing on the way temperament can provide new insights to a close reading of keyboard music by Johann Jakob Froberger (1616–67), a transitional figure between a predominantly meantone-oriented musical environment of the 17th century and the well temperament of the 18th century. Many scholars have pointed to Froberger’s characteristic chromaticism and experimentation with novel keys as indicative of his desire to compose beyond the restrictions of meantone tuning and towards well temperament. In an effort to move away from this oft-cited teleological narrative from unequal to equal, my analyses attend to the ways that Froberger works with the boundaries of meantone, ultimately arguing that a meantone tuning is integral to Froberger’s musical language. Transgressions of these boundaries, as we shall soon see, involve mistunings that result in shocking discordances, a rough aural quality that Froberger exploits to craft structures of expectation in the dimension of discordance that operate independently of harmony.
Recommended Citation
Ai, Stephen T., "Danger: Wolf Crossing! Meantone Tuning and Froberger’s Keyboard Music" (2022). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/qc_etds/12