Mozart, Menuets, K. 164 (1772)

While working on a project to describe formal functions in the first strains of menuets from Mozart to Schubert (link to the essay), I noticed some ascending gestures in both n4 and its trio.

In the old Mozart Werke, K. 164 has four menuets and trios. Two others--titled "2 Menuette" as Series 24 N.14a--were found to belong to the set as well; these became ns 3 & 4 in the complete set of six. When I use "n4" I am referring to that number in the complete set. Here is the IMSLP link for both files: K164.

The rising scale is certainly fundamental to the first strain of n4, the entire octave G4-G5 being traversed before going one tonic chord tone "too-far" to B5 in bar 8, then dropping back. (Only violin1 and bass are shown here.)

The scalar mid-point D5 is reached in bar 4 and its role firmly settled with the echoing extension of bars 5-6. The melodic design of the whole is comfortably read with Schenker-style lines:

The second strain doesn't follow up on the hierarchy suggested by this arrangement of lines. Instead, it sets itself in the upper tetrachord, emphasizing ^8 with another confirming echo (bars 5-6). The parts shown are flutes, violin 1, and bass. The violins drop down an octave at the last moment (circled), but the flutes reiterate and reinforce the upper register.

In the trio, the gesture of ascent is, if anything, even more obvious and results in a simple ascending Urlinie figure, ^5-^6-^7-^8, across the first strain. Parts shown are flute, violin 1, and bass.

The second strain is in a sense the reversal of the second strain in the menuet: instead of holding to the high note reached there as the end of the line (G5), here Mozart turns back to the initial note of the line (G4 in the violin). Note the (unmarked) "one-too-far" C5 in bar 5.

A pairing of thirds in bars 1-4 involves an overlap--F4 should resolve to E4 but is "overlapped" by the recovered G4. I've always thought this stepwise overlap (as opposed to more vigorous "reaching over") was a bit of reductive sleight of hand but it is common in Schenkerian analytic practice and there is no question that ^5 as G4 is recovered, then dominates the rest of the strain's melody. At the end is one of those "nearly audible" ^3s that later became commonplace in the waltz (and polka) repertoire.

Here is a link to the first of three posts on formal functions in K. 164 on my blog Dance and Dance Music, 1650-1850: link.

Adam, Le Châlet, postscript

First, I have put together a PDF essay that gathers all the posts in this series on Adolphe Adam's Le Châlet. It's been published on the Texas Scholar Works platform: link. My home page there: link.

Second, as a footnote of sorts, here is a detailed table of contents for the most complete vocal score, the Tallandier edition from about 1900. This version of a TOC adds scene labels from the score, with my brief descriptions.

[0] Overture

 SCÈNE 1                                                                                              
1 Introduction et Chorus "Déjà dans la plaine"

SCÈNE 2
Daniel appears as the chorus is leaving the stage
2 Air "Elle est à moi! C'est ma compagne"

SCÈNE 3
Daniel reads the letter, monologue
SCÈNE 4
Daniel and Bettly, dialogue
3 Couplets "Dans ce modeste et simple asile"
Daniel and Bettly, further dialogue
Bettly leaves

SCÈNE 5
Daniel, alone, hears martial music; monologue over it
SCÈNE 6
Max and his company of soldiers appear
4 Air "Arrêtons-nous ici!"

SCÈNE 7
Max and Daniel, dialogue
SCÈNE 8
5 Ensemble "Par cet étroit sentier"
SCÈNE 9
Bettly enters; Max and Bettly (recitative, not dialogue)

6 Couplets with chorus "Dans le service de l'Autriche"

(cont.) Ensemble "Malgré moi je frissonne"

SCÈNE 10
Bettly, alone, monologue
SCÈNE 11
Daniel and Bettly, dialogue
7 Duo "Prêt à quitter ceux que l'on aime"

SCÈNE 12
Max, Bettly, and Daniel, dialogue
SCÈNE 13
8 Duo "Il faut me céder ta maitresse"

SCÈNE 14
Daniel and Bettly, dialogue
9 Romance "Adieu vous que j'ai tant chérie"

SCÈNE 15
Max enters; dialogue with Daniel and Bettly
SCÈNE 16
Daniel leaves; Max and Bettly, dialogue
SCÈNE 17 / SCÈNE 18 (when chorus enters)
10 Trio et Finale "Soutiens mon bras"

Adam, Le Châlet, part 8: trio and finale (conclusion)

Two rising cadence gestures occur in the finale, one buried in the midst of several in a row (the typical manner of the operatic finale), the other much more prominent, closing a cadenza by Max and heralding the arrival of the chorus.

In section 3, Max has signed the marriage contract, which is legal and complete since he is Bettly's brother, which fact he reveals to her and Daniel. The reconciliation of the three is settled in the Allegro mosso ensemble passage that ends the section.

The other rising cadence figure:

Adam, Le Châlet, part 8: trio and finale

Karin Pendle writes about the chorus in  Le Châlet that "the groups of soldiers and villagers, often found in Scribe’s libretti, are a dramatic force: the villagers set the plot in motion; the soldiers . . . are a means to disturb Bettly’s peaceful existence. In addition, they enhance the musical content of the piece, particularly in the introduction and finale, providing good contrast to the solo voices" (87).

Although Pendle's comment is certainly correct as a general characterization, the great bulk of the finale is in fact a trio—the chorus (both soldiers and villagers) enters only in the last minute or two for a few celebratory hurrahs. Before that, Max has the predominant role as he carries out the final deception that will bring Daniel and Bettly together. The musical style is a fluid combination of clearly defined themes and a declamatory patter that resembles recitative.  (Note: The French edition labels the final number "Trio and Finale." As before, I am using the German edition of 1835 for my examples.)

The finale can easily be divided into four sections. In the first, Bettly insists that she and Daniel are married, while putting asides to Daniel that she is only trying to save him from a duel with Max. The three characters go back and forth until closing the section with an ensemble passage. At the beginning, Daniel is still very worried about the prospect of the duel (see below). The principal tune is carried in the orchestra; Daniel's melody sounds more like a descant against it; its double-neighbor figure about C5 is circled. An interesting feature is the symmetry in the registral frames (boxed): the orchestra's third above/sixth below is mirrored by Daniel's third below/sixth above.

In the second section, Max presses the point, saying they don't seem to act like husband and wife, and Bettly produces the incomplete marriage contract that villagers had sent Daniel earlier as a joke. The basic design is like section 1, with interaction between the characters and a closing ensemble passage (that is the same as in section 1). As the musical example shows, the tonal design in section 2 is initially unstable and modulatory, mirroring the heightened tension for Daniel and Bettly as Max pushes them.

The third section begins in the same circumstances (see below), but Max quickly announces that he has surreptiously signed the contract and reveals that he is Bettly's brother. Again the overall design is that of interactions followed by an ensemble passage.

For the fourth section, then, the chorus of soldiers and villagers enters for a final toast to the new couple.

In tomorrow's post, I will discuss the two rising cadences, the first in the ensemble passage of section three, the other in Max's contribution to the opening of section 4.

Source
Pendle, Karin. "The Transformation of a Libretto: Goethe's 'Jery und Bätely'." Music & Letters 55n1 (1974): 77-88.

Adam, Le Châlet, part 7 (n9: romance: Daniel and Bettly)

The last of the three successive duos is in couplets, two verses total.  The design is a small binary form, where Daniel sings during A and the opening of B, then Bettly sings the majority of B. In the second verse, the two sing the final phrase together.

The A section is a clear 8-measure period with modulating consequent. The prominent Eb4s finally give way to D4 as the fifth of the cadence harmony, G minor.

 The B section begins with a passage of standing on the dominant, during which Daniel recovers the Eb, then drops to D4 again for the dominant triad (4th measure below). Bettly picks up the passage with a brief minor-mode shift, then puts the focus firmly back on Eb, as Eb5, with a double-neighbor figure (for "allons, allons").

In the second verse, the B section's close, then, brings the voice (Bettly's) back to Eb5 (circled in the example below); and the orchestra drives it home with a repetition of the double-neighbor figure.

Adam, Le Châlet, part 6 (n8: duet: Max and Daniel)

This picks up the commentary on Adolphe Adam's one-act opera comique Le Châlet (1834). Link to the (previous post); to the (first post) in the series.

After the large central chorus scene, the music turns to duets: first, Daniel and Bettly (in n7: "Prêt à quitter ceux que l'on aime"), then Max and Daniel (in n8: "Il faut me céder ta maitresse"), and Daniel and Bettly (in n9: "Adieu vous que j'ai tant chérie").

Daniel announces to Bettly that he is going to join the army, but she enjoins him to stay, as she is worried about her safety while the company of soldiers are camped at the chalet. The duet follows; it is in three parts, all in D major: Andantino in 4/4 -- Allegro in 3/8 -- Allegro moderato in 4/4. In the Andantino Bettly continues her increasingly agitated request that Daniel stay, and in asides he says he cannot believe what he is hearing. In the Allegro, a full ternary form, Daniel confirms that he will stay as Bettly continues to implore him. In the Allegro moderato, the two alternate between expressions to each other and in interior monologue, Bettly thankful that Daniel will stay, he happy that she wants him to.

Max enters, feigning drunkenness, and argues with Bettly and Daniel. The duo that follows (n8) is really two separate pieces. In the first part, Max demands that Daniel give up Bettly to him (in case you've lost the thread of the plot, this is a ruse, as Max is actually Bettly's brother, whom she has failed to recognize), and the two agree to a duel. In the second part, they agree on time and place. The same combination of interaction and interior monologue as in n7 is evident throughout here.

The first part, "Il faut me céder ta maitresse," is a large binary form with parallel endings to the two sections. The second part, "Dans ce bois de sapins," is a two-part aria form, with Andante sostenuto (the cavatina), and Allegro (the cabaletta), the sections being in Gb major and Bb major, respectively.

Max sings the first half of the cavatina, which traces an arch-shaped pattern with a gradual ascent (circled notes below) balanced by a more rapid descent that becomes exaggerated in the cadence (arrow).  (Note: As in earlier posts, I am using the German edition of 1835 for examples.)

Daniel responds anxiously. He repeats the figure below -- or a close variant --  several times before a cadenza interrupts (second example below). Note the density of the arpeggio frame in the figure.

The upper Gb of this frame moves to F over and over because of the repetitions of the figure. When the cadence (and two cadenzas) interrupt, F5 is over-leapt by Cb6 but the goal of the falling rapid notes is F4. When Daniel returns to F5 to close, the two singers together create the cadenza perfetta, 6-8.

Adam, Le Châlet, resumed

An incomplete series of posts on Adolphe Adam's Le Châlet concerned the successful one-act opera/opera-comique/operetta that I argue is particularly influential in the history of rising cadence gestures. The most recent post on the topic was on 31 May: link.

I will discuss three remaining numbers (two duos and the finale) in posts beginning tomorrow. Here I will cite a few points from Karin Pendle's article comparing Le Châlet with its source, Goethe's Singspiel Jery und Bätely (1779).

Pendle begins by noting that "Goethe was continually occupied during the first 20 years of his creative life in writing or rewriting libretti. . . . The importance [he] attached to the writing of libretti is demonstrated not only by his extensive activity in the field but by his statements of concern for German opera and his desire to improve the level of libretto-writing in his native land. He had respect for the craft of the librettist and was aware of the many practical problems involved in writing operas" (77). Jery und Bätely "was Goethe’s most popular libretto during his lifetime" and was produced (with music by several composers) into the early decades of the nineteenth century in several other German cities as well as in Vienna (78).

Nevertheless, when Eugene Scribe and Mélesville decided to adapt Jery und Bätely as Le Châlet, they made a considerable number of improvements: they were able "not only [to] tighten the dramatic structure, but [also to] strengthen the characters, clarify their motivation, and make the music a vital part of the whole. [Through these means,] Goethe’s by now old-fashioned libretto [was] made to fit the new conventions of nineteenth-century French opéra-comique" (81). Pendle notes that "nearly every character or event in Le Châlet stems in some way from Goethe [but that] Scribe . . . pared the work down to its essentials and made those elements retained as dramatically vital as possible" (82).

Given the significant differences in the style of dramatic writing, the role of music, and the intended audience, one might ask whether comparison of Jery und Bätely with Le Châlet can tell us anything much in addition, but it is certainly worth knowing that Scribe and Mélesville were working up to their standard. A well-fashioned libretto combined with the youthful composer's spirited and tuneful music helps explain the long-term success of Le Châlet.

Source
Pendle, Karin. "The Transformation of a Libretto: Goethe's 'Jery und Bätely'." Music & Letters 55n1 (1974): 77-88.  Pendle, btw, is the editor of the essay-anthology/textbook Women and Music: A History (Indiana University Press, second edition 2001) and co-author of Women in Music: A Research and Information Guide (Routledge, 2013). Her early research was on 18th and 19th century opera.

Links updated

I have fixed all broken links in earlier posts. Most of those that needed repair now point to PDF essays published on Texas Scholar Works. My page there: link.

Buchler on Disney

During a conference session provocatively called "Musical Ascents," Michael Buchler gave a paper on what he calls "upper-tetrachord" songs in classic Disney films. Here is the abstract:

When You Wish Upon A Star Your Melody Ascends: Aspirational Disney Songs and the Ascending Urlinie
Michael Buchler (Florida State University)

“When You Wish Upon A Star,” “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” and “You Can Fly! You Can Fly! You Can Fly!” all end high, ascending to their respective final tonics, and all explore the upper tetrachord (scale degrees 5-6-7-8) to a far greater degree than the lower pentachord (scale degrees 1-2-3-4-5). Upper-tetrachord songs such as these often depict escalating intensity, anxiety, and joy and they sometimes even marry the conceptual metaphor of pitch height to other metaphors involving height. These songs also run afoul of the well-known core principle (especially attributable to Schenker) that structural closure is brought about by a stepwise descent to tonic at or near the end of a work. This talk explores both structural and affective trends in upper-tetrachord songs from the mid-century Disney songbook.

Conference: Annual meeting of the Society for Music Theory, St. Louis, October-November 2015. Link to information and program.

Post-Schubert Composition list

In posts last month, I introduced examples by Schubert from my PDF essay Scale Degree ^6 in the 19th Century: Ländler and Waltzes from Schubert to Herbert, published on Texas Scholar Works: link to the essay; link to the first Schubert post.

Here is a list of the compositions discussed in the final section of Part I of the essay and in Part II (“After 1850”).

Josef Lanner, “Die 28er” Ländler, op. 20
Josef Lanner, Altenburger-Ländler, op. 40
Johann Strauss, sr., Feldbleamel’n (im Ländler-Style), op. 213
Brahms, Walzer, op. 39
Brahms, Liebeslieder-Walzer, op. 52
Johann Strauss, jr., An der schönen blauen Donau
Johann Strauss, jr., Künstlerleben
Johann Strauss, jr., Geschichten aus der Wiener-Wald
Josef Strauss, Mein Lebenslauf ist Lieb’ und Lust, op. 263
Eduard Strauss, Das Leben ist doch schön, op. 150
Tchaikovsky, The Nutcracker, Waltz of the Flowers
Fauré, Dolly-Suite, Kitty-Valse
Chaminade, Valse-Caprice, op. 33
Debussy, Valse romantique
Victor Herbert, The Only Girl (1914), Overture

Offenbach's "catalogue" of melodic figures

In correspondence, Jeremy Day-O'Connell asked what I thought of the V9 chord in the theme of the famous can-can (Galop infernale) from Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld (Orphée aux enfers [first production 1858]). I took a look and found that, within a few seconds, that great genius of satirical operetta (opéra bouffe) packed in hints or realizations of many of the century's characteristic melodic treatments of scale degrees ^2 and ^6. Here they are:

At (a), a hint of what became the V13 chord (more on that below). At (b1), ^2 colors the tonic with a major second (as 9 in 9-8). At (b2), ^6 colors the tonic triad, a hint of what shortly would become the Iadd6 chord. At (c), ^6 in its classical position as third of the subdominant triad. At (d), a true dominant ninth chord. At (e1) and (e2), the alternation of 9-8 and 6-5 over tonic and dominant, a figure that is a cliché in the early waltz repertoire, as we saw in previous posts on Schubert.

As a postscript, here are bars 1-2 rewritten as an "evolution of the 13th chord." At (a), bars 1-2 showing the ancient escape tone figure I have mentioned in previous posts. The more common version creates a ninth as the escape tone, but this one can be found often in eighteenth-century music as well. At (b), the melody is simplified, the longer note values giving more attention to the dissonance, raising the question (note the ?) of whether this might be a harmony rather than a coincidental dissonance. At (c), then, the V13 has fully arrived as the 13th displaces the 12th altogether.

Pause; restatement of goals and priorities

Beginning with some comments in early April on the cadenza perfetta or clausula vera (link) I began one more parsing of the history of rising cadence gestures. Almost daily posts since then have covered the territory from early 17th century Venice to mid-17th century London and late-18th and early-19th century Vienna. Most recently the turn was to Paris in the mid-1830s.

With the arrival of June, however, it's time for a brief pause in the Adam Le Châlet series. I will pick this up again in a week or two. Four numbers remain: three duos—Daniel and Bettly (in n7: "Prêt à quitter ceux que l'on aime"), then Max and Daniel (in n8: "Il faut me céder ta maitresse"), and Daniel and Bettly (in n9: "Adieu vous que j'ai tant chérie")—and the finale (n10). Rising cadence figures occur in all but the first of these.

The goal of this spring's project is to reaffirm and document my claim, developed through a series of score searches begun nearly thirty years ago, that Le Châlet is a milestone in the history of rising cadence gestures and, as such (combined with its popularity), may have been a primary influence on other composers as rising cadence gestures proliferated in operetta, opera bouffe, and eventually the American musical. The authors of the Grove Music Online article note, after all, that some of the contributions of early composers for the Opéra-Comique (that is, in the 1830s), including those of Adam, "held the stage in Paris for over 50 years."

At some point in the future, I will add some more or less immediate context for my Le Châlet narrative through posts on La Dame Blanche (1825; by Boieldieu, Adam's mentor); Adam's three-act opera Le Postillon de Lonjumeau (1836); and Donizetti's La fille du régiment (1840). All three of these operas just named were also produced at the Opéra-Comique and were very successful. Some background for La fille—and more comparison with Le Châlet—will come from a post on Donizetti's Betly (Naples, 1836; two-act version 1837), which uses the same Goethe Singspiel as its source.

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Quote from Grove Music Online: article “Opera comique,” §5. M. Elizabeth C. Bartlet with Richard Langham Smith.