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CHAPTER 5
CONCLUSION
James Wintle's musical language has been influenced by B6la Bart6k's
compositions. He frequently uses symmetric gestures, melodic perfect fourths, fourth
chords, ostinato patterns, pentatonic and modal scales, whole-tone scales, irregular and
multi meters, and percussive treatment of the piano in his works.
Wintle has been interested in jazz, especially ragtime, which is present
throughout his many works, including Ballade, Etude Frangaise, and the third movement
of The Key. The main identifying trait of ragtime is its syncopated melody with an even,
steady duple rhythm. Ragtime music generally consists of five sections, and the usual
beat unit of ragtime is a quarter note. The arpeggiated figure is also one of the most
important characteristics of ragtime.
Although James Wintle's music has a great deal of connection to traditional
concepts of music, his actual compositional ideas are unique and creative. None of his
works is in a key. Most of them are freely atonal music.
Wintle employs some motives repeatedly throughout all movements. In addition,
he invents his own composite scales, which are nontraditional and unstable scales. He
often uses composite scales, which are based on tritone, Phrygian, Lydian, major,
minor, whole-tone, and octatonic scales in his works.
In terms of form, Wintle composes more single-movement pieces rather than
multi-movement pieces. Atypically, The Key consists of four movements: a fast
movement with six sections, a slow lyrical movement in song form (ABA'), a dance-like
movement influenced by ragtime, and a fourth movement with a slow introduction in
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