Document Type
Article
Publication Title
College Music Symposium
Abstract
Seldom does a composer parody his or her own style, and even more rarely does that composer acknowledge doing so. Yet the Czech composer Josef Suk does precisely this in a short piano lullaby entitled "Self-Parody on a Street Song" (1912). In this miniature, Suk appears to be lampooning one of his most popular pieces, "How Mother Sang at Night to the Sick Child" from the suite About Mother (1907). However, the "Self-Parody" can also be seen as a caricature of a general style of composition associated with Suk: the pedal-point ostinato composition. Several movements of his most famous works, including the Andante of the Asrael Symphony (1904-07), the second movement of the Summer's Tale (subtitled "Noon," 1909) and two pieces from About Mother ("How Mother Sang" as well as the disturbing portrait "About Mother's Heart"), are composed around an ostinato pitch. In these movements, some for piano and others for orchestra, Suk's use of harmony and melody, usually densely chromatic and turgid, becomes particularly lucid, allowing the listener to hear the repeated pitches move in and out of consonance with the harmonies around them. Thus, these pieces serve as a primer to Suk's compositional style. In several of these works, the pitch level of the ostinato moves temporarily a tone or semitone away to fulfill both a musical and dramatic purpose: this is the "non-obstinate" aspect of the works. This study presents analyses of these movements and investigates harmonic characteristics such as Suk's brand of extended tertian harmony, chromatic mediant harmonies, suspended tonality, and equal division of the octave in various levels of composition. Reductions of passages of Suk's music reveal a talent for employing a central motive at varying levels of composition. In addition, the analyses reveal self-quotations which inform the affective and programmatic realms of the works.
First Page
86
Last Page
104
Publication Date
2003
Recommended Citation
Novak, John K., "Josef Suk’s Non-Obstinate Ostinato Movements: A Study of Harmony and Style" (2003). Faculty Peer-Reviewed Publications. 1234.
https://huskiecommons.lib.niu.edu/allfaculty-peerpub/1234
Department
School of Music
Rights Statement
In copyright
Comments
The citation for the version of record for this article is: Novak, John K. “Josef Suk’s Non-Obstinate Ostinato Movements: A Study of Harmony and Style.” College Music Symposium 43 (2003): 86–104. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40374472.