Anno 2021/2

The aim of the study is to analyze some specific aspects of Corelli’s style, remaining close to the references of his time, i.e. by considering the trends of the current style and the crystallization of these trends in contemporary treatises on counterpoint. The analysis was systematically conducted on two contexts in which Corelli commonly uses suspended dissonance: the final cadence and the descending chain of suspensions. 

After presenting the main theoretical orientations in the contemporary philosophical debate on the topic of musical expressiveness, in this article I will discuss the solution to the question of musical expressiveness that, also considering recent developments in the field of musical psychology, I take as the most interesting and compelling one: the person theory. Finally, by resorting to the enactivist theories of human mind, I will suggest that an improvisational dimension, linked to the concrete situativity of performative (inter)action, is proper to musical expressiveness.

The theory of the tonalità neutre (neutral keys) exposed by the Italian composer and musicologist Domenico Alaleona in 1911 was one of the first attempts to explain “modern” (post-tonal) harmony according to entirely different principles than those of traditional tonal harmony. Alaleona’s theory has been the subject of several comments and descriptions, and many scholars have highlighted its innovative character. However, so far little attention has been paid to an aspect that plays acrucial role within it: the acoustic basis — natural or tempered — underlying the practice of modern harmony. 

This paper intends to demonstrate how the tritone in the Debussy’s Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp becomes a tool of the memory, capable of revealing an underlying cyclical unity. The analysis consolidates Jean-Louis Leleu’s insights (Leleu 2017), reinterpreting the function of some recurring intervals in the construction of the Sonata. What emerges is a path of progressive revelation of a few supporting elements, in particular the α interval [6–0], which gradually shed their themes to reveal a distinctive identity. So far, the cyclical nature of the work has been evaluated only with regard to the resumption of the theme of the Pastorale in the epilogue. But the analysis of this paper highlights a much denser network of links, which tends to go beyond the thematic dimension, to favor a substantially athematic connection.