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 interpreted with explicit tuning instructions.
The four original works are the Prelude to Tristan und Isolde, Erik Satie’s Vexations, John Cage’s Cheap Imitation, and an unpublished fragment by Morton Feldman. Despite their vastly different idioms, these four pieces intersect through a similar reliance on enharmonic spelling. Building on the innovative use of pitch spelling in Tristan, each of the three successive composers employs this technical feature in a distinct way, as a means of parody (Satie), hommage (Cage), and earnest musical invention (Feldman).
The tunings are examined not only for their immediate musical expression, but also for their metaphorical significance within each piece. Through a close comparison, I show how their shared enharmonic resources assume individual meaning in each new setting, conveying a distinct interpretive ideal for the performer. This investigation raises a broader question: what kinds of tuning information are encoded in conventional pitch notation, and how might such information be transmitted across style and epoch?