Biography
I am a PhD student at Gonville & Caius College, working under the supervision of Prof. Nicholas Marston. My dissertation title is 'Remystifying Scriabin: Scalar Quality in the Late Works'. This project addresses the enigmatic late works of Alexander Scriabin by proposing a novel model of tension and release properties for early-twentieth century scalar music. Close readings of several 'problem pieces' from Scriabin's output form the bulk of my enquiry.
I completed my undergraduate (BA, with distinction) and MPhil studies at Gonville & Caius College, where I was a Senior Scholar, a Tammy Chen Graduate Scholar, and the recipient of the Compton Wills Prize for Music. My work has been presented at music theory and analysis conferences both nationally and internationally.
Beyond Scriabin, research interests include the 'free atonal' music of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern, the late works of Franz Liszt and Igor Stravinsky, Film Music, particularly through an analytic-hermeneutic lens, and general intersections between mathematics, music-cognition, and music analysis. In October 2024 I will take up a 'Fellowship Under Title A' at Trinity College, Cambridge.
Publications
2024: 'Harmonic "Quality" and Set-Class Structure: Schoenberg's Opus 19 No. 2 Reconsidered', Music Theory Online, 30 (1).
2024: 'Alban Berg's Op. 5/2 and the Concept of "Recomposition"', Music Analysis {forthcoming October 2024}.
2025: 'Music as “Diegesis-Determinant”, Disability and the Representation of Madness in The "Bathroom Dance" Scene, from Joker (2019)’, in Laurel Parsons & Brenda Ravenscroft (eds.), Analytical Essays on Music by Women Composers, Vol. 4 (New York: Oxford University Press) {forthcoming 2025}.
‘Scriabin’s Lisztian-Stravinskian Sonata Forms’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association. {accepted, subject to revisions}
In Preparation:
Autumn 2024: 'A Webern "What If?": The Unfinished Cello Sonata (1914)'.
Autumn 2024: ‘Diatonic and Modal Issues in Scriabin’s Middle and Late Periods’.
Winter 2024: 'Beyond Scriabin: Kaikhosru Sorabji's Harmony as Prism for Mixed Identity'.
Winter 2024: 'When Williams "Recomposed" Stravinsky'.
Public Writings:
2022: 'Rajan Lal Reflects on 150 Years of Alexander Scriabin and the Analytical Task of "Remystifying"', University of Cambridge, Faculty of Music Research Blog:
https://musicatcambridge.wordpress.com/2022/12/16/rajan-lal-reflects-on-....
Teaching and Supervisions
I have taught Music Analysis at Part 1A, Part 1B, and Part II for numerous Cambridge colleges, principally: Gonville & Caius, Trinity, and Clare. To date, I have supervised ten Part II analysis portfolios to completion. I also teach the complete Tonal Skills pathway in 'Harmony' at Gonville & Caius College, working with students in orchestration and in style composition projects from 1800 to the present day. Projects supervised across the analysis and tonal skills papers range widely, including: performance analysis of J.S. Bach, structural depth in Sondheim's 'Sweeney Todd', 'octatonic serialism' in Dallapiccola, voice-leading reduction for Jazz, Stravinsky's transition to serialism, and more.
Other Professional Activities
I am co-convenor for the Cambridge Faculty of Music Colloquium Series, 2023/24. For three years from 2020-2023, I was head of Oxbridge Admissions at Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School, Rochester. I am the administrator for the First International Summit on Music Literacy in July 2024.
