Harris, "Don't Blame Me"

Charles K. Harris, "Don't Blame Me" (1911). Another instance of a clearly defined proto-background, ^5/^3 here. Note the nicely presented interruption (bars 6–8) where both elements are cleanly positioned in the voice-leading--and there's even a direct resolution of the ninth in V9/V! (See bar 7, last beat, into bar 8.)

I am, however, primarily interested in the final cadence, which is one of those awkward lines that's not a line, as a very strong rising scale figure to begin the final phrase breaks as ^6 goes *down* to ^7. 

The alternate ending I have made below would have been very likely in performance, in the manner I have mentioned a number of times now based on what we know about singers' practices during this era. This song, indeed, really asks for that ending with its long scale followed by the emphatic "Don't blame me."

Grant, "When You're Away"

 Bert Grant, "When You're Away" (1911). A quite remarkable DM7 at the beginning relaxes into a clear focal tone ^5 (as A4). We are again reminded that ^7 had become rather more than a "leading tone" to ^8--that had already happened in Strauss waltzes as early as the 1860s. In the final cadence a simple ascending line with chromatic elaboration and ^3 subbing for ^2 in the dominant, making the sound of a V13.

[oj[poj

Harris and Williams, "What's the Matter with Father?"

 Charles K. Harris and [ ] Williams, "What's the Matter with Father?" (1910) A pronounced proto-background ^5/^1 and a simple ascending line. Note ^9 as a suggested alternate for ^7 over the dominant in the final cadence.

Harris, "Somewhere"

 Charles K. Harris, "Somewhere" (1906).  An unusual feature of this publication is the inclusion of a version for a male ("barbershop") quartet. I've used it here because it is a nicely concise rendering of the music. Remember that the second tenor carries the melody (see arrow). A clear focal tone ^8 is maintained and a line moves from and to it in an incomplete mirror, or ^8-^7-^6-^7-^8 (this happens twice). I've also provided the solo voice version for the last eight bars.

Voice, final section:

van Alstyne, "Why Don't You Try"

 Egbert van Alstyne, "Why Don't You Try" (1905). This has a wedge figure with the descending element as primary, not the inner-voice ascent in the cadence. The latter is prominent, however. I don't regard these figures, which happen fairly often, as counter-examples but as additional confirmation that musicians were quite aware of the counterpoint of ascents from ^5 and descents from either ^5 or ^3 and they were willing to exploit them as seemed creatively and expressively appropriate, including by flipping the voices.  For a striking example of the latter, see this post on a song by Pauline Viardot based on a Chopin mazurka: link. (Thanks again to Poundie Burstein for telling me about the piece.)

Marion Bauer, The Linnet

From March 2026: A post with information and links to galleries of simple ascending lines and to other essays of mine published on the Texas Scholarworks platform: link.

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Marion Bauer, "The Linnet is tuning her flute" (1915). In the beginning, full exploitation of the pastoral ^6. See the long-note pattern in the voice, the ^5-^6-^8 that is then echoed and filled out in the subsequent ascending cadence. The song is brief: this is the first verse of two, where the second has the same music. 

It really is quite remarkable how often one finds a "diversion" from ^7 in the ascent or, of course far more often, from ^2 in the descent, going back at least to the clichéd cadences of the mid- and later 18th century.

Pauline Viardot, two songs from the 1890s

From March 2026: A post with information and links to galleries of simple ascending lines and to other essays of mine published on the Texas Scholarworks platform: link.

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IMSLP page for "C’est toujours lui," VWV 1159: link. From a manuscript in the Houghton Library, Harvard University; obviously a fragment though musically  complete, but I know nothing more about it. The modern notation is by Pierre Girod. A mirror line, beginning from ^8 with a clear descent to ^5 in bars 6-8, then an even more pronounced, direct linear ascent in bars 13-16.

"Bonjour mon cœur!" is decidedly more complicated. Also a fragment, at least in the sense that it sets only the first verse of Ronsard's famous poem, this has one of the most tangled approaches to a structural cadence I have seen in any repertoire. Therefore, I have worked out three readings of the more abstract levels of melodic direction. These are a bit retrogressive as they are the well-worn three possible Schenkerian readings one teaches students to make: from ^3, from ^5, and from ^8--but they do the job for the present purpose. The harmonic reduction is mine. 

Score for page 1. The IMSLP page for "Bonjour mon cœur!": link.

From ^3:

From ^5:

From ^8:

Each reading has its virtues.