Reverberating Nerves: Aspects of Enlightenment Science and Early Romantic Music
133 Cottage St. apt G6 New Haven, CT 06511 USA
Patrick McCreless
My dissertation explores the influence of Enlightenment-era models of the nervous system on early Romantic music composition, theory and discourse. The focal point of the project is the vibrating nerve model introduced by the English physician David Hartley (1705-1757), who proposed a psychological framework whereby the brain receives sensation through vibrating nerve strings, associating them into increasingly complex ideas in the form of miniature vibrations in the brain. I use the ideas of Hartley and his successors to reinterpret developments in the domains of early Romantic composition, orchestration, and instrument design as a response to scientifically based beliefs regarding the transmission of sensation and emotion via vibration.
Instructor, Yale University: Tonal Harmony and Form (Spring 2013) Introduction to the Elements of Music (Fall 2012) Course assistant, University of Chicago: Harmony and Voice Leading Sequence (2005-2006)
Publications: “Tafillalt’s “Soulmate” and the Israeli Piyyut Revival.” In Al-Andalus and its Jewish Diasporas: Musical Exodus. Ruth Davis, editor. Scarecrow Press. Forthcoming “At Adama: A Musical Vignette.” In Art Musics of Israel, Malcolm Miller, ed., Brepols Publishers. Forthcoming “From Trinidad to Cyberspace: Reconsidering Toch’s Geographical Fugue.” Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie, 2012, 9:2. 2013 “Wagnerpunk: A Steampunk Reading of Patrice Chéreau’s Staging of Der Ring des Nibelungen (1976).” Journal of Neo-Victorian Studies, 2011, 4:2, 91–107. 2012 Conference Papers: “Hector Berlioz and Some Music-Aesthetic Implications of Neuroscience in the Romantic Era.” Musiktheorie und Ästhetik. 13. Jahreskongress der Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie, Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Rostock, Germany. October, 2013 “From Trinidad to Cyberspace: Reconsidering Toch’s Geographical Fugue.” Music: Cognition, Technology, Society. Cornell University. May, 2013. “Songs of a Land: Arrangements of Shirei Eretz Israel as Expressions of the Shifting Politics of Israeli Identity.” Art Musics of Israel: Identities, Ideologies, Influences, University of London. March, 2011.
Fellowship, Baden-Württemburg / CT Exchange (2011–2012), Mellon Graduate Achievement Fellowship, the University of Chicago (2004-2005)