In this article I investigate aligned cycles in Thomas Adès's Piano Quintet, Op. 20. First identified by Berg in a letter to Schoenberg and later discussed by George Perle and Dave Headlam, an aligned cycle is the result of two or more interval cycles unfolding in the same direction in a note‐against‐note alignment – for example, a rising whole‐tone scale (an interval‐2 cycle) simultaneously with a rising chromatic scale (an interval‐1 cycle). I begin by exploring in more detail the theoretical properties of three‐voice aligned cycles and use concentric circles to show how these cyclic structures generate a closed, tight‐knit family of harmonies. I then reveal how Adès uses aligned cycles to provide harmonic, melodic and motivic material throughout his Quintet. These cyclic structures are combined not only with other kinds of cycles (one‐, two‐ and five‐voice, and multi‐aggregate) but also with the non‐cyclic material in the piece. Finally, I discuss how all the transformations of the different cycles function within the large‐scale formal design of the piece.
In this article I investigate aligned cycles. First identified by Alban Berg in a letter to Arnold Schoenberg and later discussed by George Perle and David Headlam, an aligned cycle is when two (or more) interval cycles unfold in the same direction in a note-against-note alignment, for instance, a rising whole-tone scale (an interval 2-cycle) simultaneously with a rising chromatic scale (an interval 1-cycle). This article extends beyond prior discussions of aligned cycles by exploring the different combinations and rotations of these cyclic structures and investigates how these permutations create different families of harmonies. In particular, this article focuses on three-voice aligned cycles. I show how the different combinations, alignments, and rotations of the individual voices of an aligned cycle create a unique collection of aligned-cycle classes and, at a more large-scale level, aligned-cycle families. To conclude, I reexamine a three-voice aligned cycle from the second movement of Berg's String Quartet, op. 3, and investigate cyclic progressions in Thomas Adès's Piano Quintet, Lieux retrouvés, and The Tempest.
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