Schubert and the Ländler, part 1

This new series reproduces some of the examples from my PDF essay Scale degree ^6 in the 19th Century: Ländler and Waltzes from Schubert to Herbert: link. I have written about rising cadence gestures in music by Schubert many times, but that new essay cites the largest number of individual pieces, all of them called Ländler by the composer—or at least published under that label (see the introduction to the essay for more details).

The largest sampling of Schubert's earliest dances—from the period 1816 to 1821—appears in the two published collections, D 145 and D 365. It is worth remembering that Schubert was a skilled violinist, and his waltzes clearly show the strongly violinistic figures associated with the Ländler style. The unusual key of Db major, by the way, is easily explained as a “darkening” or expressive shading of the archetypical Ländler key of D major. In D 145, ns 4-12 are all in Db major. The large number of pieces in Ab major in D 365 and D 779 are accounted for in the same way: Ab as a shading of A major. (A few pieces from D779 were originally written for violin in A major.) D 145n4 may have been transposed down a half step from its "proper" violin key of D major, but there is no mistaking the source as the opening idea (bars 1-2) skates across the fingerboard from right to left.

Note that the very first figure is an expressive leap to an accented ^6, as 9 in V9. The string of similar accented and unaccented leaps that follow encourage a rising gesture in the cadence to the first strain. After such vigorous gestures, Schubert often creates a mirroring pattern in the cadence of the second strain, as he does here: a precipitous descent brings the melody down from the accented ^6 (as Bb6) to close on Db5. The wedge shape thus formed by the two strains is found in other ländler as well (as we will see below).

The voice leading that results from the several leaps is dense and not at all focused on a particular pitch.

Still it is easy to hear a connection between the first accented note, Bb5, its recurrence in bar 5 and a line completed in the cadence. To treat this formally in the Schenkerian manner, however, ^5s must be implied. I find this presence of ^6 with an absent ^5 to be particularly charming.

The ninth dance in D 145 is also in Db major. This time Bb6—the highest Bb on the pianoforte—opens the piece, and then is touched again in the cadence of the second strain. The effect is to draw our attention to the wedge shape, here with the motions dropping first, then rising, the reverse of n4.