The Manchester Music Theory and Analysis reading group (MMTA)
The Manchester Music Theory and Analysis reading group focuses on discussing new and significant scholarship in the field of Music Theory and Analysis, broadly defined. It was inaugurated in autumn 2022 and is headed by Dr Anne Hyland and Dr Sarah Moynihan.
The group meets once a month during the academic year excluding the Easter/Christmas breaks and exam periods.
It is open to all second and third-year undergraduates, postgraduates (PGT and PGR), Music Fellows, ECRs and any staff in the University who have an interest in the topic.
The reading group has discussed the following publications at previous meetings:
July 2025
In July this year, the Martin Harris Centre for Music and Drama and Royal Northern College of Music will host the Society for Music Analysis's annual international conference, the Manchester Music Analysis Conference 2025 (McrMAC25). The conference will be preceded by a Student Study Day organised by the Formal Theory Study Group with workshops run by the conference keynote speakers and a Formal Dialogues Panel on Sibelius's Sixth Symphony.
April 2025
Kelvin H. F. Lee, 'Formalising Star Clusters: Sonata Process and Breakthrough Function in the Adagio of Mahler's Tenth Symphony', Music Analysis 40, no. 2 (2021), 178–226.
March 2025
Analysis of Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54/i with Julian Horton, 'Analysis (I): the First Movement' in Robert Schumann: Piano Concerto (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023), 83–114.
February 2025
Janet Schmalfeldt, '"Nineteenth-Century" Subdominants', Music Analysis, 41/iii (2022), 349–393.
December 2024
David L. Forrest, 'PL Voice Leading and the Uncanny in Pop Music', Music Theory Online, 23(4) (2017).
November 2024
Denis Smalley, 'Spectromorphology: explaining sound-shapes', Organised Sound, 2(2) (1997), 107–126.
October 2024
Stephen Rodgers and Tyler Osborne, 'Prolongational closure in the lieder of Fanny Hensel', Music Theory Online, 26(3) (2020).
February 2024
Andrew Aziz, 'Merging the Sonata and the Concerto: The Role of Virtuosic Passages in Determining Formal Closure in High-Classical Sonata Expositions', Music Theory Spectrum, 44/ii (2022), 304-39.
March 2024
Ji Yeon Lee, 'Rotational Principle as Teleological Genesis in the “Annunciation of Death” Scene from Wagner's Die Walküre', Music Theory Online, 28/ii (2022).
April 2024
Nicole Grimes, 'Formal Innovation and Virtuosity in Clara Schumann's Piano Trio in G Minor, Op. 17', in Clara Schumann Studies, edited by Joe Davies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 139–64.
November 2023
Kenneth M Smith, 'The Enigma of Entropy in Extended Tonality', Music Theory Spectrum, 43/i (Spring 2021), 1–18.
October 2023
Naomi Waltham-Smith, 'The Time is Takes to Listen', Music Theory Spectrum, 39/i (2017), 18-35.
March 2023
Stephen Rodgers, 'The Fourth Dimension of a Song', Music Theory Spectrum 37/1 (Spring 2015), 144-53.
December 2022
One-day Workshop chaired by Dr Anne Hyland: 'Sonata Typologies and Micro-Theories of Nineteenth-Century Form'. This workshop brought together leading scholars in the field of the New Formenlehre (the analysis of musical form). It consisted of two analytical case-study workshops framed by two short discussion sessions concerning larger theoretical questions.
Speakers included:
- Prof. Steven Vande Moortele (University of Toronto)
- Prof. Julian Horton (Durham University)
- Dr Benedict Taylor (Edinburgh University)
- Dr Sarah Moynihan (The University of Manchester)
- Dr Anne Hyland (The University of Manchester)
November 2022
Oliver Chandler, '"Octatonic" Voice Leading and Diatonic Function in the Allegro molto from Elgar's String Quartet in E minor, op. 83', Music Theory Online, 26/1 (March 2020).
October 2022
Special Issue on Sonata Typologies, Music Analysis (October 2021):
- Julian Horton and Peter H. Smith, Editor's Introduction: 'Sonata Typologies and Theoretical Dialogues', Music Analysis, 40/iii (2021), 303-311.
- Peter H. Smith, 'Parallel Binary or Tripartite? Formal Hybridisation of Sonata Types in the Ninteenth Century', Music Analysis, 40/iii (2021), 534-578.