Friday, May 20, 2016

Between Haydn and Schubert, part 1

Franz Xaver Süssmayr, not long after finishing Mozart's Requiem, wrote a set of 12 menuets for a ball in the Redoutensaal, the same Imperial hall for which Mozart himself wrote dances and for which Beethoven wrote the Menuets, WoO7 and Deutsche Tänze, WoO8. Both of Beethoven's sets were played in the same 1795 season as Süssmayr's.

The opening of the first menuet has the processional/refrain quality that I alluded to in connection with WoO8n1 (link), and at first it seems equally unpromising with respect to rising cadence gestures.

But instead of no promise, a surprise. Not only do the 1st violins rise steadily through the scale in the second strain, but their progress is rendered unmistakable by accompaniment of the piccolo. Note that the first Horn, with the 1st violins, accomplishes the cadenza perfetta.


One other menuet marks a similar figure. Here again the principal melody does not offer any hint of a cadence figure in the first strain, but the first oboe and first Horn do at least produce a ^5-^7-^8 figure in the dominant.

As in no. 1, however, the menuet ends with a quite determined move upward. Note that Süssmayr avoids parallels in the penultimate bar with some violinistic double-stops.

In the trio, on the other hand, the antecedent already uses a rising motive, which is dutifully filled out in the consequent (which is shown here):

As a postscript, Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf's Brief Ballet in Form of a Contredanse is an Anglaise (a schottisch or ecossaise) with five trios and a vigorous coda. The fourth trio (or "Alternativo") consists of four phrases, three of which trace the same ascent from ^5 to ^8. All 16 measures, but only the relevant orchestral parts, are shown here.