One Hundred Years of Research on Octatonicism. First Part: From Yavorsky to van den Toorn

Abstract

Over the last hundred years, much musicological research has been carried out on the
octatonic scale, referred to by Olivier Messiaen as the deuxième mode à
transpositions limitées. This paper presents, in chronological order, the work of
fourteen analysts and composers; it emphasizes the significance of their contribution
to the theoretical development of octatonicism, at times criticizing positions and
practices considered questionable. The factors of tonal polarity, in relationship with
the symmetrical structure of the scale, are particularly noteworthy. The first part of
the article thus deals with the work of Boleslav Yavorsky, Olivier Messiaen, Ernö
Lendvai, Arthur Berger, Joseph N. Straus and Pieter C. van den Toorn; the second
part, to be published in the next issue of Musurgia, will deal with that of Elliott
Antokoletz, Richard Taruskin, George Perle, Richard Cohn, Paul Wilson, Cheong
Wai-Ling, Allen Forte and Fred Lerdahl, and will conclude with a bibliography of
octatonicism that lists the major researches not mentioned in the text and its
footnotes.