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Composition without motive development?


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Bethoven was a king of the technique of developing a motif, of a small theme of 4 bars, he created long compositions.
Schubert, Schumann, franz liszt and many others also created their compositions using the technique of variations of an idea.

But my question here, are you know any old and new composers, who work with a melodic line without using motive development?

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No, in fact I would be surprised if any composer does not use motive development at all. There are some composers like Chopin, for whom the motive development is not so obvious and others like Beethoven and Bach for whom the motive/motives is very obvious. Even Debussy uses motives and develops them.

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1 hour ago, caters said:

No, in fact I would be surprised if any composer does not use motive development at all. There are some composers like Chopin, for whom the motive development is not so obvious and others like Beethoven and Bach for whom the motive/motives is very obvious. Even Debussy uses motives and develops them.

In fact, there's a composer who does that, Matt Uelmen, listen to this composition, 

Diablo 2 - Wilderness
 

there are several sections within the same composition, something like A, B, C, D, E, F, G, etc. Note that none of these sections has a melody / harmony similar to the previous section, each section presents a new harmonic and melodic material.   

I don’t know the name of this style of structure or composition, but i would like to know!

Edited by Victor_lod
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52 minutes ago, bkho said:

What you are describing is termed through-composed music, particularly common in songs.  "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen is often cited as a good example of this.

Thanks for the term name!

Is there a composer from the classical or romantic period who composes in this structure?

 

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6 hours ago, caters said:

Even Debussy uses motives and develops them.

I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean... does he have a reputation as a non-motivic composer?

1 hour ago, Victor_lod said:

Is there a composer from the classical or romantic period who composes in this structure?

Lizst was a big fan of through-composing. Many of his piano sonatas are written this way.

I don't know of any through-composing composers from the classical period.

Edited by Tónskáld
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2 hours ago, Tónskáld said:

I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean... does he have a reputation as a non-motivic composer?

Lizst was a big fan of through-composing. Many of his piano sonatas are written this way.

I don't know of any through-composing composers from the classical period.

 

Possibly Schubert's Erlenkönig. Perhaps there were other songs.

Most of my stuff is through-composed. It started, modelled on Villa-Lobos' Quinteto em Forma de Chôros. Now isn't the place for autobiographical stuff but it was the key to escape the attempt of musical education to serialise me so it's been hugely influential. A musical Eureka moment. Motifs may be developed locally within an episode - extending, widening the tessitura; making small variations - and sometimes borrowed by other episodes. But I've written a few pieces that have no melodic development. I don't post them here as they'd receive no comment - which means they're above criticism LOL, but more likely because they don't make classical sense and people think 'what the heck is this!?'

Edit: In fact H Villa-Lobos' Nonetto, Impressão rápida de todo o Brasil is another example of his composition in this form.

Another composer closer to our times was Elizabeth Lutyens. 

 

Edited by Quinn
because I can. Art.
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