posted July 22, 2008
) Dr. Austin Patty |
The paper explored how Brahms and other romantic composers often create a sense of yearning by dwelling on unstable harmonies, chords that demand resolution. They deemphasize stable chords by moving quickly through them. Composers "balance" the inconclusiveness of an unstable chord by slowing down and lingering on that chord; they "balance" the conclusiveness of a stable chord by changing chords more quickly. This delicate balance postpones a sense of resolution and closure until the very end of a piece of music.
Dr. Patty joined the Department of Instrumental Music in the fall of 2006 as an assistant professor of music. He received his undergraduate training at the University of Oregon, where he was a Presidential Scholar and held a School of Music Scholarship. He graduated in 1994 with a Bachelor of Arts in Music with emphasis in violin performance.
He received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for work on his senior thesis, "Elements of Moravian Folk Music in Leos Janácek's Second String Quartet." He entered the doctoral program at the Eastman School of Music in 1994 for work in music theory where he received the Master of Arts degree in music theory from Eastman in 2005 and his doctorate in the summer of 2006. His dissertation was entitled, "A Theory of Pacing Scenarios with Application to Brahms's Violin Sonatas."
Prior to joining Lee, Dr. Patty served as a teaching assistant in first- and second-year music theory at Eastman and was nominated for the teaching assistant prize in 1996. He also taught first- and second-year aural skills and first-year music theory at the Music Department of the University of Rochester and was nominated for the outstanding graduate teaching prize in 1999. He then served as an instructor on the faculty at Eastman.
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