Minor key series, part 6b (Couperin)

Repeated from an earlier post:

Figure f underpins the Dorian-octave elements with a very tonal third divider and the ubiquitous move i to III, minor tonic to relative major. The example is a very striking, counter-intuitive one, where the surface appearance of the structural cadence is down, not up. I am grateful to Charles Burkhart for sharing his reading with me and for permission to reproduce it along with his commentary.

The composition is "La Flore" from Ordre 5, and Burkhart told me that he worked on a reading of the piece because a former student had asked about it.

Levels (a) and (b), background and middleground, are shown below. Level (a) is nearly identical to figure f; the G3 in the bass of the figure appears at bar 12 in level (b). As level (b) clearly shows, the move from i to III is elaborated as a circle of fifths move A-D-G-C. Once ^#7 over V is reached, it is significantly elaborated.

Level (c) is the foreground, shown here in three systems. The first is bars 1-19 and covers the initial ^5 over i to ^7 over III, reached in the typical internal cadence to the opposite mode at bar 19.

The second system here is the expansion of ^#7 over V and the completion with the arrival of ^8. Bars 19 to 27.

This third system shows the coda, bars 27 to 31, whose elaboration out of a set of parallel octaves is traced through its levels (a), (b), and (c).

We pick up Burkhart's commentary now (in italics). An important compositional feature is a hill-shaped motive whose basic shape— E-F#-G-A-G-F-E—occurs several times. In my graph, at Level c, the motive is marked by brackets numbered 1, 2, and 3. The changes this motive undergoes are an important narrative strand.       ----   See the sketch fragments below, where the three versions are also collated with the score.   ----

Prominent in each version of the motive is the note G4, which is always metrically strong. Also important is A5, the peak of the hill. What happens to this note? 

Bracket 1: A5 is a weak neighbor tone.


Bracket 2: A5 is stronger—an accented neighbor, but part of an (unstable) 6/4 chord.


Bracket 3: A new harmonization of the motive emphatically brings A5 as an essential member of a I6 chord. Yet this A5 is still not entirely stable, occurring as it does within a larger V#.

 The complete Urlinie, E-F#-G-G#-A, stretching from bars 3 to 27, is an enlargement of the rising notes of the hill-motive—the motion up to its peak. However, La Flore's final two phrases—bars 20 (with pickup)-27—complete this enlargement—and the Urlinie—by plunging downward to end in the lower octave, that is, on G#3 and A4. How should we understand these plunges? They extend the down-side of the hill-motive, recall earlier downward motions, and provide a dramatic conclusion. Of course they strike the ear like the fall of a traditional Urlinie, but this is illusory. Their source is the upward progression G#4-A5, as Levels a and b of the graph reveal. Thus, it is the A of the enlargement that brings the motivic narrative to a close.

The coda (mm 27ff.) now celebrates, mimicking the hill-motive's up-down at a different pitch-level, and echoing 26-27.       [Coda level graph reproduced below. It's the same as the one shown earlier.]

And here is the coda, level c again, aligned with the score:

Update (21 September 2017): At the Euromac conference in July of this year, Stephen Slottow read a paper responding to Burkhart's analysis. Here is the abstract: link.