Influence of linguistic rhythm on individual compositional style in 19th century French and German art song

Abstract

This study extends prior research on the influence of linguistic rhythm on musical rhythm to 19th-century French and German art songs. Results indicate that the measurement of rhythmic variability used in prior studies, the nPVI, or normalized Pairwise Variability Index, may be of use in studying individual compositional style even when a significant correlation with spoken language characteristics is not present in the repertoire. By modifying and focusing the results of the nPVI, it is possible to determine musically meaningful information about individual composer’s rhythmic characteristics.