JURGIS PALIAUKA

PATTERNS IN ORGANIZATION OF MUSICAL MATERIAL IN THE STRING QUARTETS OF ONUTĖ NARBUTAITĖ

JURGIS PALIAUKA

Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre jurgis.paliauka@lmta.lt

Before now, music analysis has been predominated by classical categories, defined by clear boundaries and therefore not overlapping and only dealing with members that clearly correspond to the defined list of features. This approach was complemented by the prototype theory developed in the 1970s. Among the first to use it in music was musicologist Dora A. Hanninen (1997, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2009). Based on the theory and Hanninen’s methods and terms of analysis, this presentation seeks to illustrate the patterns in organization of musical material in three pieces by Onutė Narbutaitė for a string quartet, representing different periods of the composer’s creative life (“Piešinys styginių kvartetui ir sugrįžtančiai žiemai” (The Drawing for a String Quartet and Returning Winter / String Quartet No. 3, 1991), “Drappeggio” (String Quartet No. 4, 2004), “just strings and a light wind above them” (2018).

Using the Hanninen analytical model, associations between musical segments are sought in the entirety of the works mentioned above. This gives an opportunity to see the typical organizational factor of these works: exact and varied repetition of segments. It was also noted that while part of segments in one associative set are found in several places of the work, they are mostly used locally, thus creating musical fragments predominated by segments from a single associative set. The presentation generalizes the research results, discussing both the spread of segments in the string quartets and their similarities described using the contextual associations graph created by Hanninen (2002).

Keywords: categorization, prototype theory, similarity, Onutė Narbutaitė, Dora A. Hanninen.

Jurgis Paliauka (b. 1982) studied composition (BA) and musicology (MA) at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, where he now works as an assistant and is a PhD candidate. He has published scientific articles in international musical journals and several essays in various musical magazines and has taken part in several international and local conferences. His major interests are linked with the issues of music theory and analysis.