Journeys Through Galant Expositions

Ever since the nineteenth century, descriptions of musical form have tended to rely heavily on architectonic analogies. In contrast, earlier discussions more often invoked the metaphor of a journey to describe the structure of a composition. In Journeys Through Galant Expositions, author L. Poundie Burstein encourages readers to view the form of Galant music through this earlier metaphorical lens, much as those who composed, performed, improvised, and listened to music in the mid-1700s would have experienced it. By elucidating eighteenth-century ideas regarding musical form and applying them to works by a wide range of composers DL including Haydn and Mozart, as well as a host of others who are often overlooked DL this innovative study provides an accessible new window into the music of this time. Rather than dissecting concepts from the 1700s as a mere historical exercise or treating them as a precursor of later theories, Burstein invigorates the ideas of theorists such as Heinrich Christoph Koch and shows how they can directly impact our understanding and appreciation of Galant music as audiences and performers.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: Introduction Part I: Theories and Terminology Chapter 2: Formal Punctuations: Perioden and Sätze Chapter 3: Hauptruhepuncte and Haupttheile Chapter 4: Eighteenth-Century Approaches to Expositions: Riepel and Koch Chapter 5: Other Eighteenth-Century Approaches to Expositions: Galeazzi, Kollmann, and Neubauer Chapter 6: Modern Terminology Part II: Expositions Chapter 7: Standard Punctuation Form Chapter 8: Two-Part Expositions Chapter 9: Division Following the Home-Key Dominant Chapter 10: Division Following the New-Key Dominant Chapter 11: Expositions with Two Half-Cadential Breaks Chapter 12: Division Following Arrival on Tonic Chapter 13: Uncommon Divisions Part III: The Entire Movement Chapter 14: The Movement's Second Half Chapter 15: Analyses Appendix Glossary Index

About the Author :
L. Poundie Burstein is Professor of Music at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His 2005 article "The Off-Tonic Return in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58, and Other Works" was the winner of the Outstanding Publication Award of the Society of Music Theory in 2008, and he served as the President of the Society of Music Theory from 2013 to 2015. For many years, he performed extensively as a freelance pianist for comedy improvisation groups in the New York City area.

Review :
"Burstein (Hunter College; Graduate Center, CUNY) has written a clever, idiosyncratic examination of the compositional procedures of the exposition sections of mid-18th-century sonata form movements. Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty." -- W. E. Grim, Strayer University, CHOICE "A new book, Journeys Through Galant Expositions, by Professor L. Poundie Burstein (The Graduate Center, Hunter College), seeks to reignite the experience of these listeners through the use of metaphors and approaches that were popular among musicians at the timeDSspecifically, metaphors that relate musical form to "journeys." -- The Graduate Center, Hunter College "A compelling 'journey' indeed, in witty and engaging prose. At last, an account of 'galant' musical form that doesn't merely pay lip-service to the theorists of the time, but genuinely understands and applies their ideas. Burstein provides a welcome and necessary corrective to currently dominant theories of sonata and allied forms" -- James Webster, Cornell University "Armed with a commanding knowledge of both modern and eighteenth-century theories of musical form, and of both the canonic repertory of the late eighteenth century and that of the Galant style that preceded it, L. Poundie Burstein's Journeys Through Galant Expositions creatively weighs both the theories and the repertories against one another. This original and eye-opening exercise is full of musical and music-theoretical surprises, and it establishes him as a scholar of the highest rank among today's theorists of musical form." -- Patrick McCreless, Yale University