[i]The American Popular Ballad of the Golden Era, 1924-1950[/i], by Allen Forte

01 October 1996 The American Popular Ballad of the Golden Era, 1924-1950, by Allen Forte. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995. vi + 366 pp. ISBN 0-691-04399-X. Very early in his most recent book, Allen Forte clearly articulates its purpose: "to offer a...

A Primer for Atonal Set Theory

01 October 1991 flexible and powerful enough to describe a new musical world. This new theory has its roots in work by Milton Babbitt, Allen Forte, David Lewin, Robert Morris, George Perle, and John Rahn, but it has flowered in many different directions.2 Set theory is...

[i]Tonal Harmony in Concept and Practice[/i], by Allen Forte

01 October 1962 Tonal Harmony in Concept and Practice, by Allen Forte. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1962. [vi, 503 p., 8vo; $6.50] The new college text of Allen Forte of Yale University steers carefully between theory and practice. It is historical, being...

A Theory of Pitch-Class-Set Extension in Atonal Music

01 October 2001 indeed an essential constructive element not only in Schoenberg's music, but also in much of the post-tonal repertoire.7 Allen Forte has shown that the concept of "motive" in twentieth-century music does not necessarily imply registral ordering. Forte...

Comprehending Twelve-Tone Music as an Extension of the Primary Musical Language of Tonality

01 October 1984 in the language of tonality. Such narrowness seems to be a common aspect of many of the current music theory textbooks. Allen Forte, for example, suggests that the Neapolitan Sixth chord should be considered subdominant function. He states, "The...

Shape/Interval Contours and Their Ordered Transformations: A Motivic Approach to Twentieth-Century Music Analysis and Aural Skills

03 October 2005 The Music of Edgard Varèse. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987. Browne, Richmond. "The Structure of Atonal Music by Allen Forte" (Review). Journal of Music Theory 18/2 (1974): 390-415. DeWitt, Lucinda A. and Crowder, Robert J. "Recognition of Novel...

"Music as a Pursuit for Men": Accompanied Keyboard Music as Domestic Recreation in England

01 October 1990 In his essay "Music as a Pursuit for Men," published in 1820, Norwich newspaperman and gentleman amateur Richard Mackenzie Bacon champions music as a masculine pastime. His case rests largely on an attribute that does not seem to have impressed other...

Some Aspects of Organization in Schoenberg's Book of the Hanging Gardens, Opus 15

01 October 1979 approaches to the analysis of atonal music, to be sure. Not to be ignored is the literature that has emerged from Allen Forte and like-minded analysts.3 These offerings perform an admirable service in outlining systems which might be used in the...

Sketch Study and Analysis: Berg's Twelve-Tone Music

01 October 1993 that information does not alter the analysis of the finished work. In the music theory community, writers such as Allen Forte and Carl Schachter have used sketches to confirm their analyses of finished works. Forte used the composer's sketches in his...

[i]Analytic Approaches to Twentieth-Century Music[/i], by Joel Lester

01 October 1990 that the new theories to which he refers focus on pitch structure and are based primarily on the work of Milton Babbitt, Allen Forte, and George Perle. He describes the text as introductory in nature, intended to address the problem of the widespread...

Empirical Reality Versus the Systems Malady

26 March 2014 the degree necessary—that the “method” cannot be supported as relevant to human auditory experience. From Schoenberg to Allen Forte, Milton Babbitt, Harold Lewin, and Andrew Mead,15 its credibility as an aurally relevant subject has depended upon...

Musicomp 76 and the State of DARMS

01 October 1977 aspect of a composer's notation. It was the completeness and accuracy of DARMS that attracted music scholars, notably Allen Forte and Harry B. Lincoln, who saw in the system a scientific objectivity necessary for scholarly studies. Mutual interests...

A New Learned Society for Music Theory

01 October 1978 conventions of CMS and the American Musicological Society, held at Washington, D.C. At Washington, leading theorists (Allen Forte of Yale University, Carl Schachter of Queens, Vernon Kliewer of Indiana University, Peter Westergaard of Princeton, and...

Concept-Based Pedagogy and its Application in the Private Clarinet Studio

01 April 2019 Abstract Educators are no longer the keepers of content. With the increase in accessibility to technology and the internet, teachers need to show students how to think critically and use facts to influence their own independence and creativity in the...

The Role of Musical Set Theory in Undergraduate Education

01 October 1999 to think of their musical language in a logical, demystified way. 1One may take as the basis for standard set theory Allen Forte's The Structure of Atonal Music (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), the book that introduced many musicians to atonal...

Celebrating 60 Years of the [i]Symposium[/i] (1961-2021): Learning from our Past

01 May 2021 the lauded theorist-composer, astutely discussed “Pitch-Class-Set Extension in Atonal Music” (Roig-Francoli 2001). Allen Forte, the master of music analysis, in 1977 mused on “Music Theory in Re-Transition” (Forte 1977); Thomas DeLio, the experimental...

If We Are All Theorists, Why Aren't We All Theorists?

01 October 1977 Sketch of a Foundation for Music Theory Today, by Carlton Gamer Music Theory in Re-Transition: Centripetal Signs, by Allen Forte (These papers were also included in SYMPOSIUM Volume 17#1.) From about 1940 to the present, in various journals, with...

Diabolical Dances and Rhythmic Poetry: Interpreting and Performing Franz Liszt’s Metric Conflicts

28 October 2025 Editor, Scholarship and Research James A. Grymes Expand Article The technical and musical difficulties of Franz Liszt’s piano music are well known to pianists and non-pianists alike. Such difficulties have been discussed in diverse venues from...

Repertoire Choices in the Classroom: A Music Theory Teacher’s Perspective

27 August 2012 appear in various editions of Charles Burkhart's (or Burkhart's and William Rothstein's) Anthology for Musical Analysis. 4Allen Forte speaks to the reciprocity between music theory and the repertoire it is designed to illuminate: "By its traditions...

The Lag of Theory Behind Practice

31 December 1960 music is understood. I think of the bold steps in this direction made by writers like Felix Salzer, Roy Travis, Allen Forte. To be sure, those terrifying graphs need patience, and above all to be understood as the final product of a process that far...