Adam, Le Châlet, part 4 (n4: Max's aria)

After Daniel's aria (n2), there follows extended and animated dialogue between Daniel and Bettly, during which (a) he reads a letter in which Bettly says she will marry him; (b) Bettly reveals that the letter is a hoax perpetrated by other young people in the village; (c) that in any case she will not marry him. The third number of Le Châlet,"Dans ce modeste et simple asile," explains why: she is satisfied with her life as it is, doesn't want to give up her freedom, and (rough summary!!) thinks a man would be a nuisance anyway. After Bettly's couplets (n3) finish, another extended round of dialogue has Bettly admitting that Daniel has some fine qualities, but she stands by her decision. Daniel reads from another letter she has received (she cannot read herself, btw), this time from her brother Max, who is to pass through the area with his company of soldiers. Max advises Bettly to marry someone, and in the course of conversation Daniel is obliged to admit that he asked Max for help.

This is where things stand when a group of soldiers approaches, to the martial music of the Allegro theme from the overture. Max enters the chalet with his company and sings "Arrêtons-nous ici!"   (As with the previous post on Daniel's aria, I am drawing the musical examples from the German edition of 1835.)

The design is recitative-Andante in 6/8 (the cavatina)-Moderato in 4/4 (the cabaletta), this last being the bulk of the movement. "Arrêtons-nous ici!" opens the recitative, "Vallons de l'Helvétie" the Andante, and "Chant de nos montagnes" the Moderato.

The theme of the Andante is an 8-bar period with modulating consequent, but as it turns out this theme is also the presentation unit of a 16-measure sentence. The continuation, which is expanded from 8 to 11 bars, contains the first point of interest. Max's energetic exclamations of love for the "Vaterland" bring repeated surges to Eb4 (circled), the space defined being Bb3-Eb4. As the continuation unit moves on, the lower end of the space is expanded downward to G3 (see the arrow in the second system). This persists to the cadence, readily generating another ^7-^2-^1 figure (which we saw in the cabaletta of Daniel's aria in yesterday's post) -- with a firm descent ^3-^2-^1 and an ascending rising line variant complete except in its final note: ^6-^5-^7-(^8).

In the Moderato, a ^3-^5 frame is quite strong in the principal period and expands briefly upward but, in the cadence, again firmly downward, the end result (that is to say, the final interval) being the fifth space ^1-^5.

After a short B-section (14 bars total, with an "old-fashioned" emphasis in V and on ^b3),* a full reprise draws in the figure of the cavatina as a way of intensifying (and expanding) the approach to the cadence -- see circled notes below. All this makes the implication of ^8 above the final tonic all the more convincing.

* I say "old-fashioned" because one can find the mode-shift device already in Baroque-era da capo arias, and the combination of an unstable and therefore dramatically intensified V with lowered ^3 even before Glück's "Che faro" (section C in a five-part rondo).