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It is well known that Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov used various types of octatonicism in his music, and that he likely passed on this eight-note device to his students, including, most famously, Igor Stravinsky. However, little work has been done with respect to Rimsky-Korsakov’s use of hexatonicism, despite its frequent appearance in his music. Octatonic and hexatonic structures arise naturally in Rimsky’s concept of “false progressions” along the cycle of minor and major thirds, respectively, a concept that he included at the end of his influential harmony textbook from 1885. In this article I examine his use of hexatonicism and demonstrate how it was a significant part of both his pedagogy and his compositions. In music examples selected from his operas, I identify three types of hexatonic structures and suggest specific dramatic and expressive functions for why he may have used them. I then discuss Rimsky’s own beliefs, expressed in his writings, about the hexatonic collection, which he called “wild” and “luring.” Ultimately, I aim to enrich the discourse on Rimsky-Korsakov the teacher, writer, and composer, beyond the typical Western narrative of Rimsky-Korsakov as, primarily, the teacher of Igor Stravinsky.

Essential features of a stairway are shown in figure 1 , a representation of the stairway in photograph 1 . The place on which one stands before taking the first step up we will call the first-floor level. The top of the first step we will call the second-floor level. The difference in height between the first-floor level and the second-floor level we will call the rise

The concept of geographical scale, despite being one of geography's foundational concepts, has been undertheorized compared to other core concepts such as environment, space and place. Two aspects of the concept of geographical scale (size and level) are relatively well recognized. A third aspect (scale as relation) is not. In this exploratory paper, the implications of the metaphors conventionally used to think and write about scale are considered, and some musical metaphors of geographical scale are used to sketch out the importance of scale as a relation.

It is a curious fact that in ninety-five years no one has published a detailed analysis of theConcordSonata. Interestingly, there are, as we will discuss, previous analyses of its less celebrated sibling the First Piano Sonata. There are analyses of many other Ives pieces in existence, particularly the songs and shorter chamber works. The songs are brief and their techniques often driven by textual concerns; many of the chamber works have mechanistic aspects or are written to explore some technical device. With theConcordSonata, though, we have a large, sprawling Romantic structure with some programmatic elements, though

Nearly all musical bows used in the indigenous music of southern Africa are single string melody instruments. The player uses the overtones of the string to produce melody. This is done in various ways according to how the bows are constructed, what sort of resonator is used, and how the bow is played. Some bows have an attached resonator, with others the player uses her/his mouth as resonator. Bows may be played by percussion (striking the string), by plucking, and by friction (rubbing the string or the bow stick).

Mussorgsky's Sunless cycle is aesthetically and stylistically an anomalous member of his oeuvre. Its notably effaced, pared-down, and withdrawn qualities present challenges to critical interpretation. Its uniqueness, however, renders it a crucial work for furnishing the fullest possible picture of Mussorgsky as a creative artist. The author of its texts, Golenishchev-Kutuzov (whose relationship with Mussorgsky at the time of its writing possibly extended beyond the platonic) has been identified by recent scholarship as an essential \"eye-witness\" for those to whom Stasov's populist characterization of the composer does not ring entirely true. Golenishchev-Kutuzov believed that in Sunless Mussorgsky first revealed his authentic artistic self. According to Golenishchev-Kutuvoz, Mussorgsky regarded his signal achievement in Sunless to have been the eradication of all elements other than \"feeling.\" In other words, he had thrown off the stylistic shackles imposed by the aesthetics of realism and relied entirely on intuitive harmonic invention as the sole conveyor of a purely subjective, \"affective\" meaning in the cycle. This hypothesis forms the point of departure for an investigation of select numbers of the cycle. Analysis reveals that the affective aspect is not the only significant element operative. Alongside remnants of the realist style, there is evidence, of varying degrees of subtlety, for a knowing use of symmetrical pitch organization. Mussorgsky not only adapted the usual referential attachments of symmetrically based chromaticism--typically found in Russian operas of the second half of the nineteenth century--he also, through extremely simple but effective means, synthesized the \"intuitive\" harmonic and \"rational\" symmetrical elements of the cycle's pitch organization so that the latter emerges seamlessly out of the former. This remarkable synthesis ensures the cycle's uniformity of tone while also allowing for a reading that extends beyond the generally affective to the symbolically more specific. This symbolic level of reading offers several interpretative possibilities, one of which may refer even to the relationship of the poet and the composer. Irrespective of such potentials for interpretation, the most significant achievement in the cycle remains the synthesis of the intuitive/affective and rational/symbolic elements of its organization. Songs 1, 2, 3, and 6 of the cycle are considered in detail.

If Ives’s “Emerson” movement is a massive, complicated form to try to bring into focus, his “Hawthorne” movement may seem even more perplexing. At least “Emerson” can be outlined into a pattern of recurring themes; aside from a few appearances of the Human Faith theme and some evocations of “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean,” “Hawthorne” has virtually none. “Emerson” has a few identifiable elements of sonata-allegro form; “Hawthorne” resembles no traditional form of classical music, least of all the ABA scherzo whose place in the sonata it occupies. As we’ve already suggested, “Hawthorne” is largely a collage of images

Ives’s “Emerson” movement is a massive chunk of piano music and ferociously difficult to play—though perhaps exceeded by “Hawthorne” in this respect. (Ives himself wrote, “Emerson is more difficult mentally, perhaps spiritually, but Hawthorne is more difficult physically.”¹) Speed and number of notes are only occasionally the issue; what is more daunting is the number of lines going at the same time, the extent to which some inner lines are irregularly divided between the two hands, and the seeming randomness at times of Ives’s variations of harmony, which can make the piece’s details difficult to internalize. On the available