| This dissertation is intended as a solution to a perceived problem with existing theories of pre-tonal chromatic music: many modern theories of this repertoire have made anachronistic uses of models from major/minor tonality, and contemporaneous theories were not broad enough to adequately represent the phenomena that, to my own (and, I believe, many other modern listeners') ears, gave chromatic music its unique sound. Both groups of theories missed the mark by treating all chromatic events in this repertoire equally.;This dissertation is therefore in three parts. The first part surveys existing theories of sixteenth-, seventeenth-, and eighteenth-century chromaticism, both from the period in question and from our own, and shows the specific ways in which these theories are deficient. The second part presents my own theory, which provides a model for separating chromatic tones according to their structural function and an analytical method for reducing chromatic works to their diatonic foundations. The third part applies this theory to selected works and passages of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, with an attendant discussion of the ways in which changes in musical style affected changes in chromaticism. The appendices show the analytical results of my research into the most common of chromatic progressions, the chromatic fourth, and also present an extensive catalogue of chromatic music from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth century. |
