abstract:
This essay investigates the expressive potential of tuning, as it applies to musical interpretation. Four case studies are presented, each involving a preexisting work subsequently rendered with explicit tuning instructions.
The four original pieces are: the Prelude to Tristan und Isolde, Erik Satie's Vexations, John Cage's Cheap Imitation, and an unpublished fragment by Morton Feldman. Spanning the mid-nineteenth century to the late-twentieth, these four pieces belong to very different idioms, but are connected through a common use of enharmonic spelling. Following its usage in Tristan und Isolde, this technical feature is variously employed by the three successive composers: as a means of parody (Satie), hommage (Cage), and earnest musical invention (Feldman).
The tunings are examined both for their immediate musical expression as well as any metaphorical significance. Through a close analysis of the original scores, I show how their shared enharmonic resources assume individual meaning in each new setting, thereby presenting a unique ideal for the subsequent tuning. Out of this investigation arises the question: what aspects of intonation lie coded within conventional pitch notation and how might these be transmitted across style and epoch?