We are pleased to announce the publication of a new issue of Music Theory Online.
The editorial team of Music Theory Online is pleased to announce the publication of our Spring 2026 issue, vol. 32 no. 1. This issue brings eight articles of cutting-edge music theory, with topics ranging from the escape tone to the glissando; from Sessions to Saariaho; from pre-dominants to pre-tonality; and from 1970s rock to 2020s anime. The table of contents is pasted below with links. Happy reading!
Best Regards,
Drew Nobile
Editor, Music Theory Online
Articles
When Music Theory Forgets Its History: How We Got into "Escape Tones," and How the Past Can Help us Escape
David Carson Berry (University of Cincinnati)
Structural and Rhetorical Closure in 1970s Rock Songs
Nick Braae (Waikato Institute of Technology)
A Context-Sensitive Analysis of the Pre-Dominant Function
Jenine L. Brown (The The Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University)
Daphne Tan (University of Toronto)
Victoria Boerner (University of Toronto)
Yeonju Lindsey Lee (The Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University)
Musical Distance, Anticipation, and Character Development in Kaija Saariaho’s Opera L’Amour de loin
Gabrielle Choma (University of Oregon)
Jack Boss (University of Oregon)
Compositional Pluralism in Roger Sessions’s Second Symphony
David Hier (Oklahoma State University)
Modulation and Chromatic Mediants in Japanese Anime Songs
Joy Li (University of Pennsylvania)
Rore’s Arcane Counterpoint
Peter Schubert (Schulich School of Music, McGill University)
Sylvain Margot (Schulich School of Music, McGill University)
The Semiotics of Glissandi in Video Games
Jeremy W. Smith (The Ohio State University)