The Music of Donald Martino

Donald Martino (1931-2005) has received a significant amount of recognition for his work both as a composer and a scholar. To date, however, a detailed theoretical-analytical study of Martinos music has yet to be published. Moreover, while Martinos twelve-tone compositions have received attention in the literature, his pre-dodecaphonic works have not. This is unfortunate since, as this book illustrates, Martinos pre-dodecaphonic compositions significantly inform his later works. Indeed, the present study, which traces the development of Martinos compositional technique and style from his initial experiments with octatonicism through to his mature dodecaphonic works, addresses this lacuna in the literature devoted to Martino. Pitch-class set theory and transformation theory form the theoretical basis for the analytical chapters. These theoretical perspectives are combined in order to take advantage of two different, yet complementary, modes of analysis; that is, the static classification of sets and the dynamic process of transformations.