Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Work Overview

Scenetta per Barletta or Scene for Barlett was especially composed for Carmine Marcello Rizzi (Barletta, Apulia, Italy) and represents an hommage to Joseph Schillinger (1895-1943). The work serves as an exploration of the novel concept of 'serial development of pitch scales in relation to chord structures,' or the musical implications of melodic continuity from a family of scales via the utilization of a series of melodic/harmonic materials presented in the aforementioned text by Schillinger. In his work 'Kaleidophone,' Schillinger explains that "the main purpose the Kaleidophone tables serve, is the instantaneous location of scales which correspond to any given chord. Such scales, and melodies which derive therefrom, are supposed to satisfy the chord. The reason for this is all stationary pitch-units of the scale are identical with those of the chord, while the remaining units are inserted between the stationary tones and act as leading, that is, moving tones, thus providing directional units." The system represents all the possible chord structures within the range of one octave: two part structures (diads), three part structures (triads), four part structures (tetrads), and five part structures (pentads); with the total number of families for each of these structures being 10, 16, 14, and 5 respectively.

Work Details

Year: 2018

Instrumentation: Violin.

Duration: 9 min.

Difficulty: Advanced — Professional

Dedication note: Hommage à Joseph Schillinger (1895-1943).

Written for: Carmine Marcello Rizzi

First performance: 4 Aug 21. ‘Incontri col Contemporaneo: Contemporary Violin’, Auditorium GOS (Giovani Open Space), Barletta, Apulia, Italy

The composer notes the following styles, genres, influences, etc associated with this work:
'Kaleidophone: Pitch Scales in Relation to Chord Structures' by Joseph Shillinger, and the Shillinger system of musical composition.