Recurring patterns of signification in music -- topoi. The grand unfolding of time and space represented by a steady repeated-pitch ostinato with slow-motion harmonic change around it, found at the opening of Haydn's Creation, for example. (Haydn could have had a career in sci-fi futurism...) I heard a pianist play through Debussy's prelude "...La terrasses des audiences du clair de lune." Near the end, there's an anomalous passage that … [Read more...]