Anno 2023/1

The need for studies that investigate the relationship between the harmonic system and tuning was already recognised by Dahlhaus [1990], who was aware that almost all theorists of harmony have created their theses on specific tunings that optimally represent consonances. However, they were not able to find a tuning that allows an equal consonance between all triads.

Among the musical theatre performances that premiered in Europe in the years 1945–1947, Les Mamelles de Tirésias by Francis Poulenc (3 June 1947, Opéra Comique, Paris) stands out as a successful and bubbly musical adaptation of Guillaume Apollinaire’s surrealist drama.

Psychoanalytic explorations in music, from Ernst Kris, Heinz Kohut, to Stuart Feder, to Gilbert Rose, Michel Imberty, Zatkalik, Kontić, and many more, point to isomorphism between musical structures and processes on the one hand, and unconscious primary processes on the other, and demonstrate the role of primary process mechanisms (condensation, displacement, representation pars pro toto) in various aspects of music (thematic procedures, large-scale formal processes, elaborations of fundamental structures etc.).

This article focuses on two compositions by the African-American violinist Leroy Jenkins: O.W. Fredrick and Static in the Attic, included in the album Urban Blues (Black Saint, 1984). This musical analysis are carried out through the use of graphic representation of the formal structure, transcriptions and timelines obtained with the aid of a DAW.