Timothy L. Jackson (born 1958) is an American professor of music theory who has spent most of his career at the University of North Texas and specializes in music of the eighteenth through twentieth centuries, Schenkerian theory, politics and music. He is the co-founder of the Journal of Schenkerian Studies . In 2020, he became controversial for editing a special issue of that journal containing articles criticizing Philip Ewell's plenary talk "Music Theory's White Racial Frame". [1] [2]
Jackson was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, in 1958. Jackson received his B.A. in music in 1979 from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, his masters in music from Queens College, City University of New York; and his PhD in 1988 from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in music theory. His dissertation, chaired by Professor Carl Schachter, was on "The Last Strauss: Studies of the Letzte Lieder ". [3]
Jackson was an assistant professor at Connecticut College from 1990 to 1997. He then became an assistant professor at the University of North Texas (UNT) in 1998 and was promoted to associate professor in 2001, full professor in 2005, and distinguished University research professor in 2011. [4] He is one of the founding editors of the Journal of Schenkerian Studies, [5] and has extensively published on late Romantic music, particularly on Bruckner, Brahms, and Sibelius.
In 2020-2021 Jackson was involved in a controversy in relation to the Journal of Schenkerian Studies. Jackson's management of the journal was criticized by graduate students for "platforming racist sentiments" in response to Philip Ewell, as well as a "lack of peer review, publication of an anonymous response, and clear lack of academic rigor". [6]
Heinrich Schenker was a Galician-born Austrian music theorist whose writings have had a profound influence on subsequent musical analysis. His approach, now termed Schenkerian analysis, was most fully explained in a three-volume series, Neue musikalische Theorien und Phantasien, which included Harmony (1906), Counterpoint, and Free Composition (1935).
Schenkerian analysis is a method of analyzing tonal music based on the theories of Heinrich Schenker (1868–1935). The goal is to demonstrate the organic coherence of the work by showing how the "foreground" relates to an abstracted deep structure, the Ursatz. This primal structure is roughly the same for any tonal work, but a Schenkerian analysis shows how, in each individual case, that structure develops into a unique work at the foreground. A key theoretical concept is "tonal space". The intervals between the notes of the tonic triad in the background form a tonal space that is filled with passing and neighbour tones, producing new triads and new tonal spaces that are open for further elaborations until the "surface" of the work is reached.
Allen Forte was an American music theorist and musicologist. He was Battell Professor Emeritus of the Theory of Music at Yale University and specialized in 20th-century atonal music and music analysis.
Voice leading is the linear progression of individual melodic lines and their interaction with one another to create harmonies, typically in accordance with the principles of common-practice harmony and counterpoint.
Felix Salzer was an Austrian-American music theorist, musicologist and pedagogue. He was one of the principal followers of Heinrich Schenker, and did much to refine and explain Schenkerian analysis after Schenker's death.
In music theory, prolongation is the process in tonal music through which a pitch, interval, or consonant triad is considered to govern spans of music when not physically sounding. It is a central principle in the music-analytic methodology of Schenkerian analysis, conceived by Austrian theorist Heinrich Schenker. The English term usually translates Schenker's Auskomponierung. According to Fred Lerdahl, "The term 'prolongation' [...] usually means 'composing out' ."
The Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 105, is a single-movement work for orchestra written from 1914 to 1924 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.
The Symphony No. 6 in A major, WAB 106, by Austrian composer Anton Bruckner (1824–1896) is a work in four movements composed between 24 September 1879, and 3 September 1881 and dedicated to his landlord, Anton van Ölzelt-Newin. Only two movements from it were performed in public in the composer's lifetime. Though it possesses many characteristic features of a Bruckner symphony, it differs the most from the rest of his symphonic repertory. Redlich went so far as to cite the lack of hallmarks of Bruckner's symphonic compositional style in the Sixth Symphony for the somewhat bewildered reaction of supporters and critics alike.
Anton Bruckner's Symphony in F minor, WAB 99, was written in 1863, at the end of his study period in form and orchestration by Otto Kitzler.
The Symphony No. 4 in A minor, Op. 63, is a four-movement work for orchestra written from 1909 to 1911 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.
Carl E. Schachter is an American music theorist noted for his expertise in Schenkerian analysis.
Joseph Schalk was an Austrian conductor, musicologist and pianist. His name is often given as Josef Schalk.
The Journal of Schenkerian Studies is a peer-reviewed academic journal specializing in music theory and analysis, with a particular focus on Schenkerian analysis based on the ideas of Heinrich Schenker. It is published by the Center for Schenkerian Studies at the University of North Texas College of Music. Its first issue was published in 2005, under editor-in-chief Jennifer Sadoff. As of 2020, it has a paid circulation of approximately 30 copies per issue.
Martin Eybl is an Austrian musicologist.
Charles Burkhart is an American musicologist, theorist, composer, and pianist. He holds the title of Professor Emeritus in the Aaron Copland School of Music, Queens College, and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He is known especially as a scholar in Schenkerian analysis and as a successful lecturer and master class presenter.
In Schenkerian analysis, a structural level is a representation of a piece of music at a different level of abstraction, with levels typically including foreground, middleground, and background. According to Schenker musical form is "an energy transformation, as a transformation of the forces that flow from background to foreground through the levels."
The Wood Nymph, Op. 15, is a programmatic tone poem for orchestra composed in 1894 and 1895 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. The ballade, which premiered on 17 April 1895 in Helsinki, Finland, with Sibelius conducting, follows the Swedish writer Viktor Rydberg's 1882 poem of the same title, in which a young man, Björn, wanders into the forest and is seduced and driven to despair by a skogsrå, or wood nymph. Organizationally, the tone poem consists of four informal sections, each of which corresponds to one of the poem's four stanzas and evokes the mood of a particular episode: first, heroic vigor; second, frenetic activity; third, sensual love; and fourth, inconsolable grief.
Ernst Oster was a German pianist, musicologist, and music theorist. A specialist in the use of Schenkerian Analysis, he was the English translator of Heinrich Schenker's final work, Free Composition.
Matthew G. Brown is a British-American music theorist, musicologist, educator, and artistic director. He is Professor of Music Theory at Eastman School of Music.
Marjatta was a projected three-movement oratorio for soloists, choir, and orchestra that occupied the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius from 27 June to late-October 1905, at which point he abandoned the project. The libretto, a collaboration with the Finnish author Jalmari Finne, freely adapted the story of Kiesus's miraculous birth to Marjatta from Runo L of the Kalevala, Finland's national epic. Although Sibelius initially worked on the oratorio with alacrity, he soon soured on the project, perhaps finding Finne's text an unwelcome constraint on his "absolute music". Sibelius never again attempted an oratorio, making it one of the few major genres of classical music in which he did not produce a viable work.
