Guest Speaker (4/9/2018)

Dear RUMS member,

Please join us on Monday, April 9th, at 1:30pm in the Mabel Smith Douglass Library second-floor conference room when we welcome Dr. Charity Lofthouse (Hobart and William Smith Colleges) as our guest speaker for the spring semester. Light refreshments will be provided. Dr. Lofthouse’s talk is entitled “Sources, Paths, and Goals: Schemas and Tonality in Twentieth-Century Russian Sonata Forms.” An abstract for her talk and a short bio can be found below.

We hope to see you there!

Best,

The RUMS Colloquium Committee:

Michael Goetjen (Chair)

Blake Ritchie (Vice-Chair)

Michael Nokes

Sources, Paths, and Goals: Schemas and Tonality in Twentieth-Century Russian Sonata Forms

What makes a twentieth-century sonata a sonata? While one listener might center on the tonal goals of a sonata as the primary process, and another on the thematic or rhetorical layout, which is more crucial in connecting to genre-based norms and expectations? This talk engages twentieth-century Russian sonata movements through the lens of Sonata Theory, reexamining ideas of dialogic pathways and genre-based expectations and exploring the fusion of familiar rhetorical and thematic paths with new polystylistic and post-tonal cadential goals.

Whereas themes and rhetorical references in these movements provide recognizable correspondences to historical models, the task of reaching a tonal goal—and associated ideas of closure, goals, success, and failure—becomes more complex. In response, I expand notions of Sonata Theory’s Essential Expositional Close (EEC) and Essential Structure Close (ESC) to include three Russian techniques: (1) the use of alternate tonal events at generically expected cadential locations; (2) the use of non-diatonic progressions to delineate formal sections in ways that are analogous to historical tonal progressions; and (3) the use of thematic and rhetorical similarities between Russian sonata models and historical constructs. This lays groundwork for connecting tonal “failures” to the expressive dramaturgy of Russian practice while also recognizing their ongoing ties to genre-based sources and paths.

Bio: Charity Lofthouse is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Music at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. She has published articles on Sonata Theory in Dmitri Shostakovich’s symphonies, and presented papers and lectures on Shostakovich, Russian music, film music, and women monastic composers at Society for Music Theory, Music Theory Midwest, Music Theory Society of New York State, Feminist Theories in Music, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Eastman School of Music, Louisiana State University, Mannes College of Music, and at international conferences in Austria, Estonia, and Russia. She has previously taught at Baruch and Hunter Colleges and at Oberlin Conservatory.