Dr Oliver Chandler
Organising Tutor and College Lecturer in Music
Director of Studies
Oliver Chandler is director of studies in music at Hertford and Keble Colleges, University of Oxford and an academic professor at the Royal College of Music. He is also a musicianship and guitar teacher at the Royal College of Music Junior Department. His first monograph, A Twelve-Tone Repertory for Guitar: Julian Bream and the British Serialists, 1956-1983, was published in June 2023. With Professor Emeritus J. P. E. Harper-Scott, he is also the co-author of Return to Riemann: Tonal Function and Chromatic Music (RMA Monograph Series, 16 February 2024), which explores the limits of harmonic-functional analysis in the music of Richard Wagner. Also interested in a broad range of British music, he began his academic career with a Ph.D. on Edward Elgar’s late chamber music before going on to write about composers such as Humphrey Searle, Malcolm Arnold, and Stephen Dodgson. Much of this work has been published in academic journals, including Music & Letters, Music Theory Online, and Music Theory & Analysis. Committed to the survival of music analysis in British Higher Education, he is a trustee of the Society for Music Analysis. He also sits on the editorial board of Soundboard Scholar.
Teaching
Oliver is responsible for all of Hertford’s music analysis teaching, as well as teaching techniques of composition and various historical/philosophical modules.
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Research interests
Oliver is interested in music analysis in all its forms. He has particular expertise in pitch-class set theory, (neo-)Riemannian and Schenkerian analysis, and discrete Fourier transform, among other methods.
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Publications
Books
- Oliver Chandler and J. P. E. Harper-Scott, Return to Riemann: Tonal Function and Chromatic Music (London: RMA monograph series, scheduled for publication on 16 February 2024: https://www.routledge.com/Return-to-Riemann-Tonal-Function-and-Chromatic-Music/Harper-Scott-Chandler/p/book/9781032025056).
- Oliver Chandler and Thomas Hyde, The Music of Stephen Dodgson (de la Porte publishing, in press: due to appear November 2023).
- A Twelve-Tone Repertory for Guitar: Julian Bream and the British Serialists, 1956–1983 (Guitar Foundation of America Refereed Monograph Series, Volume 4 (2023), eds Nathan Cornelius & Jonathan Leathwood): https://digitalcommons.du.edu/gfamonographs/vol4/iss1/
Journal Articles
- ‘Reginald Smith Brindle’s Concept of Tonal-Atonal Equilibrium in Theory and Practice’, Soundboard Scholar 7 (2021): 1-24
- ‘Tonal Dodecaphony and Sentential Form: Extracts from Humphrey Searle’s Symphony No. 2, Op. 33’, Music Theory & Analysis 8/2 (2021): 43-53
- ‘Structural Dissonance Reimagined: the Finale of Elgar’s Violin Sonata, Op. 82’, Music & Letters 102/2 (2021): 294-316
- ‘“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 (2020), 8,500 words https://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.20.26.1/mto.20.26.1.chandler.html
- ‘Diatonic Illusions and Chromatic Waterwheels: Edward Elgar’s Concept of Tonality’, Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, 15/1 (2020): 3-29
- ‘A Diminished-Seventh Bassbrechung: Tonal Ambiguity and the Prolongation of Function in Edward Elgar’s String Quartet, 1st movement’, GAMUT: Online Journal of the Music-Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic 9/1 (2020): 1-29
Book Chapters
- ‘Chapter 17: Eclectic Unities? Malcolm Arnold’s “Symphonic Thinking”’, The Symphony in Britain and Ireland Since 1900, ed. Nicholas Jones (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 5,500 words [commissioned; submitted third round of edits to the editor])
- ‘Stephen Dodgson’s Neo-Classical Language’, The Music of Stephen Dodgson (de la Porte publishing, in press, 7,000 words)
- ‘Chapter 3: Tonality in Waltraute’s Plaint’ (co-authored with J. P. E. Harper-Scott) in Wagner Studies, ed. Steven Vande Moortele (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [commissioned; in press; anticipated publication Winter 2023, 7,500 words])
- ‘Tonality and (the) “Beyond”: Elgar’s Gerontius and Piacevole’ in Art, Music, and Mysticism in the Long Nineteenth Century, eds. Michelle Foot and Corrinne Chong (Routledge [commissioned; in press; anticipated publication January 2024: 7,500 words])
Reviews
- Musics with and after Tonality: Mining the Gap ed. Paul Fleet (review), Music & Letters 104/1 (2023), 147-50