涩里番

Doctoral Colloquium:听Aidan McGartland

Title: "Twelve-Tone Lizzie: Uncovering the Compositional Process of the Serialism of Elisabeth Lutyens"

Abstract: As a pioneer of modernism, Elisabeth Lutyens became the first British composer to employ serialism in her聽Chamber Concerto聽(1939). Her trajectory serves as the pivotal link between the English pastoralism of the early twentieth century and the high-modernist Manchester School of the late twentieth century. By the 1960s, her style had 鈥渕atured鈥� into a distinctly lyrical serialism. In this presentation I examine the creative process of Lutyens鈥� 1960s serialism through score analysis and sketch study of three works:听笔谤茅蝉补驳别蝉听(1963),听In The Temple Of A Bird鈥檚 Wing聽(1965), and聽And Suddenly It鈥檚 Evening聽(1966). First, I present post-tonal analyses centered on row structure, anomalies (repetition, reordering), inter-row patterns, texture, and the interaction of serial and non-serial techniques. Second, I compare these analyses with primary sources including row charts, sketches and autograph manuscripts. Bringing these strands together, the study highlights the compositional processes underpinning Lutyens鈥� distinctive serialism.

Biography: Aidan McGartland is a doctoral candidate in music theory at 涩里番 where he studies the serialism of Elisabeth Lutyens. Aidan鈥檚 research centres on twentieth-century music analysis, especially works by Benjamin Britten, Maurice Ravel, Igor Stravinsky and Margaret Sutherland. He holds prior degrees from the Universities of Melbourne and Oxford.

The Doctoral Colloquium is open to all.