Suzannah Clark on analysis

This is the last entry in the "internet search" series.

Suzannah Clark comments on an analysis by Thomas A. Denny of Schubert's song "Ganymed," D544. He is concerned to locate

the degree to which symmetrical pairs of thirds may be detected in its array of five keys. He spots them between Ab and Cb on the one hand and E and C on the other, [but] this configuration problematically omits the final key from consideration. [He therefore] invokes Schenker. The complex of keys in "Ganymed" unfolds beneath, he says, an Urlinie. But this is no ordinary Urlinie. The thread that joins the keys in "Ganymed" turns out to be an extraordinary turn of Schenkerian events. Denny finds an ascending Urlinie, from Eb to E-nat to F. It is even chromatic. He makes no comment about its unusual behavior (Schenker's final verdict was that an Urlinie should always descend and should always be strictly diatonic). Instead, Denny slips seamlessly to another hermeneutic plane and suggests that the Urlinie that he identifies "mirrors Ganymed's ascent into the clouds." (Clark, 108)

I would not rule this "Urlinie" out, of course, but I doubt I'd call it an Urlinie—maybe something more like "abstract top-level melodic shape," but that's not very snappy sounding, alas. And abstract it certainly is, as its connection to specific melodic elements has no stronger a claim than do other triad notes. The best one can say is the voice never goes above the notes indicated as background tones, and the piano is quite restrained, too, only going higher in the E major section and in its short coda. Here are excerpts from the score, taken from the first edition, with relevant pitches marked.

The Ab major opening; the turn to Cb major:

 The confirming cadence in the E major section:

The turn from E major to F major:

And the ending, with half of the piano's coda. Here, not making any claim about focal notes preceding it, I mark out a relatively simple descent from ^4 to ^1 in the closing cadence.

Clark's attitude seems to be critical of Denny's reading—and of its source (note the phrase "Schenker's final verdict")—but the real focus of her critique is Denny's shift from analysis to hermeneutics ("Instead, Denny slips seamlessly. . ."). Shortly after (109), she says that "This book aims to expose how an analyst's choice of music theory can shift hermeneutic windows. As suggested already, an object of interpretation can indeed 'be made to appear explicitly problematic' by one theory, but not another." Thus, it would appear that the shifting is the problem, but in a note (108n96) she also says that "I do not mean to imply that a musical structure should only ever be explained by means of a single theory. Rather, I wish to note that the impulse to shift theoretical positions is usually accompanied by a desire to draw some hermeneutic conclusion that is not accessible through a single method of analysis." The uncertainty I feel about what to make of this is apparently shared by at least one of the book's reviewers: "I dwell on this example because it illustrates a tendency I found frustrating in Clark’s otherwise admirably readable and engaging book. We gladly follow [Clark’s] lively discussions of published analyses. Yet when Clark locates [a hermeneutic window] she can seem reluctant to open it very far, preferring to make only hasty notations" (Muxfeldt, ¶6).

References:
Suzannah Clark. 2011. Analyzing Schubert. Cambridge University Press.
Thomas A. Denny. 1989. “Directional Tonality in Schubert’s Lieder.” In Franz Schubert—Der Fortschrittliche? Analysen, Perspektiven, Fakten, edited by Erich Wolfgang Partsch, 37–53. Tutzing: Hans Schneider.
Kristina Muxfeldt, Review of Suzannah Clark, Analyzing Schubert (Cambridge University Press, 2011). Music Theory Online 18/3.

Jeffrey Swinkin on Scriabin

Jeffrey Swinkin's dissertation is on a topic that is not in my area of expertise--analysis and performance--but his opening chapter has an analysis and discussion of a Scriabin prelude that is of interest here.

The G-flat major prelude is the 13th in Opus 11, a set modeled closely on the Chopin Preludes, Op. 28. Although Swinkin does considerably more with this, I call attention only to the opening segment of analysis, which finds an ascending Urlinie. First of all the score, which reflects, along with the composer's strong absorption of the Chopin model, an unusually strong left hand (acquired as the result of a time of practice limited by an accident to his right hand).

Next, my harmonic reduction, whose main task was to dispose of the many accented neighbors:

Now essentials in Swinkin's analysis example. Note that he has produced a harmonic reduction that is more diatonicized than mine (mine in other words is an intermediate stage between score and Swinkin's graph):

And mapping the notes of his analysis back onto the score, with an assumed tonic root-position chord and ^5 above before the composition begins. What this claims is that the design only arrives at clarity through the cadence, and thus allows (or requires) a retrospective reading of the beginning. By the later 19th century, such processes were commonplace (vide Debussy).

Finally, for reference, a less adventurous analysis that takes the prominence of ^3 as a clue to the background. This is an entirely plausible reading that misses almost everything of expressive interest in this prelude.

Reference: Jeffrey Swinkin, "Performative Analysis: Theorizing the Interpretation of Tonal Music." PhD dissertation, The University of Michigan, 2013.

More from Martin; response from McFarland

In yesterday's post I summarized analytical work by Henry Martin including three non-traditional Schenkerian backgrounds for jazz compositions. One of those was a rising line, as a reading of Miles Davis's "Four."

One response to that article touches on the rising line and so I continue comment here, with the caveats that (1) I am not at all knowledgeable about jazz repertoire and practices; but (2) I am wary of the ideological work being done by any applications of Schenkerian or Neo-Schenkerian models to this music.

That said, the other scholar who was engaged with Schenkerian analysis of jazz over a long period of time is the late Steve Larson. Martin and Larson seem to me to have carried over the 1970s' era differences with respect to tonal analysis between Princeton and the New York/Yale axis, the one more methodologically liberal and composition-oriented, the other more methodologically conservative and musicology-oriented. As that survives into the present here, it is mostly about different attitudes towards the Schenkerian background constructs and the rules or heuristics for their derivation.

In Music Theory Online (18n3, September 2012--link to the issue), a memorial issue for Larson, Mark McFarland describes the basic differences well: Larson, he says, "strove as much as possible to approach jazz using as orthodox a form of Schenkerian theory as possible" (¶1), where Martin was willing to entertain a "list of modifications to Schenkerian theory" based on the view that conventional readings may be unconvincing and thus alternatives should be developed that could "provide superior readings” (¶2). The core of the difference in practice is that Larson insisted on reducing dissonances, including the most characteristic dissonances of jazz, to traditional consonances, where Martin insisted on the inviolability of the tune, which not only preserved dissonances but provoked readings with non-traditional backgrounds.

McFarland's critique of Martin's analysis of "Four" is in ¶¶5-10 of his article, and I refer the reader to those paragraphs for details. McFarland starts by noting that the analysis "is, in some ways, the least controversial graph in Martin’s study as it ultimately reduces to the ascending Urlinie." Further, "While I have no problem with the ascending Urlinie, . . . I question the scale degrees at which [this] Urlinie is interrupted, the number of appearances of interruption within this opening chorus, and the radically different reading of the two halves of this antecedent-consequent period" [¶5].

Here are the basic elements of McFarland's reading, pulled out of his Example 2. Unlike Martin, McFarland commendably reads the entirety of the 32-bar chorus.

Note that, although McFarland uses the term "ascending Urlinie," he has notated the alto voice with the background's open notes and the "4-zug" with beamed closed notes. Thus, in fact the ascending cadence gesture, according to him, belongs to the middleground, not the background. This is pretty much what William Rothstein, whom McFarland cites, said in 1991. Note also that the alto is given priority at bar 9 -- this reminds me of Channon Willner's privileging of the alto in Baroque music (see an earlier post on this blog), but where I found that plausible, I have trouble seeing the justification here.

Below, I have reproduced only the final eight bars of McFarland's graph aligned with the middleground level of Martin's analysis. This is for reference. I don't have anything to add.

Finally, I have isolated the same elements from McFarland's transcription (it is Example 1 in the article examples file on MTO). The boxes indicate the specific elements included in my "short" version of McFarland's graph (the first example in this post). The asterisks mark the only two chords that are the same. That alone suggests to me that the "underlying consonances" approach threatens to distort not only the surface of the music but its foundations. All this connects, not surprisingly, to the theoretical problem of variations: does the structure of the theme underlie all the variations, or is it the musical task of the variations to "rewrite" the theme? That can't be answered with any simple pronouncement.

Further citations:
William Rothstein 1991. “On Implied Tones.” Music Analysis 10, no. 3: 289–328.
Steve Larson 1998. "Schenkerian Analysis of Modern Jazz: Questions About Method," Music Theory Spectrum 20/2, 209-241.
Steve Larson 2009. Analyzing Jazz: A Schenkerian Approach. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press.
Henry Martin. 2011. “More Than Just Guide Tones: Steve Larson’s Analyzing Jazz—A Schenkerian Approach.” Journal of Jazz Studies 7, no. 1: 121–44.

Henry Martin on Miles Davis's "Four"

Continuing the series of posts based on entries from my internet search on "Ascending Urlinie," I look at an article by Henry Martin and a response by Mark McFarland.

The citation is Henry Martin. 2011b. “Schenker and the Tonal Jazz Repertory.” Tijdschrift voor Muziektheorie [Dutch Journal of Music Theory] 16, no. 1: 1–20. I found this through the journal's archive: link. Martin has been a long-time advocate of Schenkerian analysis applied to the jazz repertoire. His publications can be accessed through his personal website: link.

"This paper proposes ways of expanding the three Schenkerian paradigms (Ursätze) to enable more convincing readings of problematic pieces found in the traditional jazz repertory of standards written generally before 1950. . . . I hope to show that background paradigms differing from Schenker’s provide superior readings of these pieces. I also hope that these additional paradigms will suggest yet even further extensions applicable to jazz literature that is less conventionally tonal" (1). Martin takes up this last issue in a detailed list at the end of the article (pp. 16-18). Here I am concerned with the three analyses that provide the case studies: (1) Buster & Bennie Moten, "Moten Swing," A section only; (2) Sy Oliver, "Opus One," cadencing A section; (3) Miles Davis, "Four" (he shows the final eight bars).

(1) Buster & Bennie Moten, "Moten Swing," A section only;

(2) Sy Oliver, "Opus One," cadencing A section;

(3) Miles Davis, "Four" (he shows the final eight bars, that is, all of the continuation). Here is a condensed version of his level c, a middleground 2, showing the elements of the rising line with its pre-figuring in ^6 as neighbor to ^5. Note the interruption symbol in bar 4 -- we have seen this interruption of the rising line at ^6 before, in the recent post on Naphtali Wagner's chapter about "She's Leaving Home."

Here is a lead sheet I downloaded from an online source (there are multiple copies of this out there and so I am assuming that it is acceptable to use). In any case, I have annotated -- in red -- to show at (a) and (b) the strong motivic directionality at the two-bar level of idea [note that "Four" is structured as a sentence], at (c) a hint of movement still further up beyond ^5, then at (d) the turn back down, and at (e) the crucial and decisive move up to ^8. Note there are two chord differences in the continuation: where Martin has EbM7 in the first bar, the lead sheet has G-7, and where Martin has Dm7(b5) and G7 in bar 4, the lead sheet has simply Bb7. Neither of these materially affect the reading.

In the next example, for reference I have fashioned an "obbligato grid" based on the chord symbols in the lead sheet.

Finally, here is my own simplified graph (without interruption and encompassing both statements, with first and second endings):

Channan Willner on the polyphonic Ursatz

This post is not about rising lines (mostly -- see the postscript), but it does belong to the "internet search" series that started on 15 March. In 2007, Channan Willner published an essay on his website titled "The polyphonic Ursatz": link to his publication page. The essay is well-known and thus shows up relatively early on a search for "ascending urlinie" because of a reference to my JMT article on p. 13n4, but except for one highly speculative example it has nothing to do with ascending cadence gestures. Rather, it is a very detailed study of Handel, Suite in D Minor (1720), Allemande, that invokes—but then further develops—my three-part Ursatz construct.

As the title suggests, Willner accepts the three-part Ursatz (enthusiastically, even—I am said to have "blazed an 'obbligato trail' with [the] three-part Ursatz, which allows for the structural descent of both soprano and alto" (2)); but he then expands the options to include the tenor and bass, though not in a consistently maintained voice leading grid (as if a kind of background chorale setting), so "not [an Ursatz] in which all four voices are equal, nor one in which the tenor part embodies a genuine structural voice" (2). The argument becomes a bit tortuous as he then asserts that "the background structure does indeed remain two-voiced at the very deepest level. The obbligato voices realized by the alto and by the tenor unfold a little closer to the surface than the fundamental two voices do. But in practice, as an aural and as an analytical experience, this is a distinction without much of a difference, at least in what concerns the alto" (2-3). I might complain that a distinction without a difference may not warrant a distinction at all.

Still, Willner grounds his adjustments in a compositional device that was especially important to 17th and 18th century practice: "Letting the Ursatz remain in a state of polyphony points to the dependence of all voice leading—from the foreground to the background—on invertible counterpoint" (13). He also makes a revealing comment about style features: "Despite the soprano’s prominence, it’s actually the alto’s descent that usually provides the scaffolding over which the thematicism of the piece rests, at least in the Baroque repertoire" (3). The analysis of the Allemande is guided by this idea throughout.

I will reproduce here only the background graphs from early in the essay, as these reflect the point just made above. The first graph shows a three-part Ursatz with a diversion by the alto into the tenor (arrow). I have added the red circles to bring out the alto, which—following from the comment above—Willner takes to be the primary upper voice.

The second graph demonstrates the source of this unequal pairing: the "obbligato soprano" would be a line of lower thirds under the primary voice, the "structural alto." (It is now also easy to see why invertible counterpoint is a factor.) My circled notes attempt to bring out these underlying thirds: F4-A4, E4-G4, F4-D"4", E4-C#"4",  and D4 unison to close.

Postscript: "Examples [of minor-key ascending Urlinien, despite the odds against them] can be found throughout Bach’s suites, sonatas, and partitas for various instruments. Most movements of the D minor Suite for Violoncello Solo, for instance, close with a motivically charged ascending Urlinie" (14n20). Here I will respond with the same quibbling distinction Willner made about the three-part Ursatz and the background—I'm not at all sure those ascending cadence gestures belong to the largest-scale melodic features in the Bach cello suites, despite their position in the final cadence. I have written so far only about two major-key cello preludes, Eb and G: link; link.

Napthali Wagner on Sgt. Pepper

Naphtali Wagner's chapter on Sgt. Pepper (see citation at the end of this post) includes a reading of "She's Leaving Home" based on an ascending Urlinie. A large portion of the chapter can be found on the Google Books page: link.

The chapter is about the varying combinations of classical and contemporary popular elements in the songs of the Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper. Of the songs discussed, "She's Leaving Home" is described as "the most classical" and is said (therefore?) to be "to a large extent Schenkerable" (82). But that Schenkerability (!) is conditioned on an ascending Urlinie and on an interruption of that Urlinie: see Wagner's Example 6a & 6b (81; here without the caption and with added letter labels).

I wrote about the possibility of interruption and division in the 1987 JMT article, defining two accessible types (see example below; 293) and suggesting others.

In addition to the two division classes given above, others might be proposed; for example, ^5-^6-^7 || ^5-^6-^7-^8, ^5-^6-^7-^8-^9 (=^2) || ^5-^6-^7-^8, or even ^5-^6-^7 || ^5-^4-^3-^2-^1, and so on. I do not suggest these as practical possibilities, but only because I have found no compositions to which they unequivocally provide the best solution for the first middleground. (296)

In his example (a), Wagner reads "She's Leaving Home" based on the first of the additional figures—^5-^6-^7 || ^5-^6-^7-^8—but notes that the song actually uses a "twisted realization" of that figure (see his example (b) above). The relation of this strategy to the lyrics is explained succinctly as follows:

“She's Leaving Home” is full of ambivalent situations that evoke conflicting feelings: harmonic and contrapuntal retreat, internal motion within a static block of harmony and a distorted superstructure. . . . The ambiguous musical environment is amazingly appropriate for the ambivalence that emerges from the text: the scenario is dawn twilight, no longer night but not yet really day; mixed feelings (the girl's sense of liberation mixed with extreme distress; the parents' discomfiture. . . ). These are threshold states that are easily assimilated to the psychedelic concept of the album. . . . However, the classical framework encompassing all these occurrences is not in doubt. (83)

Here is the detailed analysis (81; here without the caption and the underlain lyrics):

If examples (a) and (b) above were offered as conceptual layers of, say, a movement in a Mahler symphony, I would be very skeptical of the abstractions, but in a strophic song like this and in this repertoire (mid-century popular song), I find the reading entirely convincing.

Reference: Naphtali Wagner. 2008. "The Beatles' psycheclassical synthesis: psychedelic classicism and classical psychedelia in Sgt. Pepper." In Sgt. Pepper and the Beatles It Was Forty Years Ago Today, edited by Olivier Julien, pp. 75-90. Aldershot/Burlington: Ashgate.

Michael Buchler (from the Search: "Ascending Urlinie")

Yesterday I started a series of posts based on an internet search for "Ascending Urlinie." Among the entries on the first page was my post giving title and abstract for Michael Buchler's SMT conference paper from 2015: link. As I noted, I have no idea why that particular post should appear so early, but if it gives attention to Michael's work, I am pleased with that. Later in the listings, at nos. 23 & 26, respectively, are a PDF of the handout for that paper (from the SMT website: link) and his C.V. from his Florida State University website. A separate list of his publications is here: link.

The majority of Michael's published articles are on aspects of atonal theory and critiques of transformational theory, but he has also published work on American popular music. The three below are available in PDF format through links on his list-of-publications page.

1. "Modulation as a Dramatic Agent in Frank Loesser's Broadway Songs." Music Theory Spectrum, vol 30, no. 1, 2008: 35-60.

The article focuses on “direct stepwise modulation” using “two analytical models. . . : one represents a coloristic or purely dramatic tonal ascent, while the other represents a more profound sense of melodic ascent that reassigns scale-degree function to a different pitch class” (35, abstract). The title song from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1961) demonstrates both. “How to Succeed” sets the table of contents of a (supposed) self-help book, and thus “pitch height can be understood as depicting building height [the singer is a window washer], which in turn corresponds to positional status (that old ‘corporate ladder’)” (44). Buchler’s Example 12 (p.49) succinctly shows the ascent across the entire song; it’s not a line in the usual sense but a repositioning of scale degree ^5 in successive keys. As he puts it, “I hear linear motion, but I never sense that a different scale degree is being prolonged” (48).

Ascending gestures are not a factor in items 2 & 3 below, but the same sense of a methodologically flexible, hermeneutically charged analysis of pitch design is present.

2. "Every Love but True Love: Unstable Relationships in Cole Porter's 'Love for Sale'." In PopMusicology, edited by Christian Bielefeldt and Rolf Grossmann, Lüneberg, Germany: Transcript Verlag, 2008: 184-200. A revised version of this article appears in A Cole Porter Companion, edited by Don M. Randel, Matthew Shaftel, and Susan Forscher Weiss (University of Illinois Press, 2016). Link to the Press’s page for this book: link.

Buchler examines the unusual (and for its time risqué) song, which “can be thought of as an anti-love song. Though the primary topic of the song and one of its most frequent lyrics is, in fact, ‘love,’ this song is more about the absence of love . . . in a . . . real and disturbing sense. This . . . gave Porter license, and perhaps even a mandate, to confront some of the tonal and contrapuntal norms of this genre” (185). In addition to form-design peculiarities, the principal issue is tonal ambiguity, where much of each phrase is in the orbit of Eb major but the close (and of course the song as a whole) is in Bb. Connecting this to the song’s text, Buchler offers the memorable observation that Eb “perhaps functions more as a hotel room than a residence” (192).

3. "'Laura' and the Essential Ninth: Were They Only a Dream?" Em Pauta, vol. 17, 2006: 5-25 (published March 2007).

As he puts it, this is mainly a “structural and hermeneutical analytical reading of the song” “Laura” from the film of the same title. The vantage point is Schenkerian; the author compares alternative readings and discusses the problem of what is the proper tonic key. Along the way, he necessarily parses and re-evaluates Schenkerian (and earlier) views on the status of ninth chords. By conceiving the song’s dissonances as “non-essential,” he arrives at a reading in which “the primary melodic tones at the beginning of the tune can . . . be understood as dissonant projections onto a stable harmonic plane. The majority of apparently stable melodic notes point to notes that are not actually there,” (17) an allusion to the female lead, who is absent from the film’s first act.

Rising lines do figure prominently in the paper referenced earlier: "When You Wish Upon A Star Your Melody Ascends: Aspirational and Celebrational Disney Songs and the Ascending Urlinie" (Society for Music Theory national meeting, October 2015).

A repertoire list of common-practice-era upper-tetrachord Disney songs is included in the handout, with titles placed under the following categories:

1. 5-8 or 5-(6-7)-8 ascents with weak Urlinie support. -- 18 items.

2. Ascending Urlinie Songs. -- 16 items.

3. Gradually higher ascending Urlinie songs. -- 8 items.

4. Upper-tetrachord songs that begin and end on 8.  -- 5 items.

5. Upper-tetrachord songs that end on 5. -- 3 items.

6. “False Alarms:” songs with standard descending Urlinien, but which have appended material that ends high. -- 6 items.

Examples in the handout; I have condensed the graphics to show only the largest structural features.

Sketch 1. Ned Washington (lyrics) and Leigh Harline (music), "When You Wish Upon A Star" (1940). The rising line ^5-^8 is motivic in this song, but note that a greater ascent comes with substitutions in the final cadence.

Sketch 2. Richard Sherman and Robert Sherman, "The Age Of Not Believing" from Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). An interesting comparison, as each close of the A phrase is different, the first suggesting an ascending Urlinie, the second contradicting it, and the third finally achieving it.

Sketch 3. Mack David, Al Hoffman, and Jerry Livingston, "A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes" from Cinderella (1950). We have seen quite a few of these already in the blog posts: a three-part Ursatz with both soprano and alto voices. As the notation shows, Buchler hears the balance as tipped in favor of the alto voice.

Search: "Ascending Urlinie"

All this long while it never occurred to me to do a simple internet search on "Ascending Urlinie." Having now done same, I have a couple comments about entries and their position in the list; and I will publish posts about some new items found through the search. NB: The search was done on 16 January 2017. As little as a week later, I noticed several changes in the search results, especially after page 1.

(Like everyone else, of course, I do occasionally check my name; recently, an internist from Burlington, Massachusetts, and a lawyer from Virginia ousted me from my longstanding top spot on a Google search, but I'm retired and they're welcome to it.)

Not surprisingly, my JMT article from 1987 came up first--that's due, no doubt, to a combination of longevity and the fact that it continues to show up on course syllabi. I do find it odd that JStor has altered the title to The Ascending "Urlinie" -- quotes rather than italics for the second word. That seems to be the rule for articles--I note that Steve Helfing's article on Quantz in the same issue has "Versuch" and not Versuch. Yet book titles in the reviews are italicized. Something clumsy left over from old library database programs?

The second entry in the search results is the first in a long series of posts responding to Carl Schachter's criticisms of the ascending Urlinie: link to that post. As I explain there, the opportunity for personal engagement on the question was cut short by the coincidence of my being out of the country when he delivered a talk at my home institution, Indiana University, and by the fact that I was already becoming heavily involved with film and film music studies; although I did publish a few things in the 1990s, including one of the first articles to focus on ideology in Schenkerian theory and practice, my mind was on Max Steiner, not Mozart. I am glad to see that readers do go to that page. Also, after two irrelevant entries (they find "ascending" and "Urlinie" separately) there appears my PDF essay that gathers all the posts in the series: link to that essay.

The sixth entry is this blog. [place pleasantly smiling emoji here] The seventh is my post giving title and abstract for Michael Buchler's SMT paper from 2015: link. I have no idea why that particular post should appear so early, but if it gives attention to Michael's work, I am pleased with that.

The last three entries on the first search page are a citation to the JMT article from one of those useless "open library" sites, then a citation to a book chapter by Schachter, and a citation to a footnote in an early article on Richard Strauss by Timothy L. Jackson.

Page 2 in the search has items 11-20. Among these are mentions in two research guides (by Benjamin Ayotte and David Carson Berry), two citations in work I have discussed elsewhere on the blogs (Schachter on Chopin E-Major Prelude; Matthew Brown on Schenkerian theory), PDFs of William Drabkin's chapter on Schenker from the Cambridge History of Western Music Theory (presumably meant for class use--I hope they were cleared).

On this and subsequent pages (I only went as far as page 6), there appeared links to several items that are of interest to us here: among them, a passage from Suzannah Clark's book on Schubert, Channan Willner's essay "The Polyphonic Ursatz," and articles on Sergeant Pepper and on jazz. In subsequent, if occasional, posts, I will have comments on these, as well as on Michael Buchler's published articles about popular music (but also the SMT paper examples).

Karl Michael Ziehrer, Der Himmel voll von Geig'n, part 2

In the third waltz of this unique set (unique because it uses rising figures or neighboring figures about ^8 in a consequential way in every part), we encounter a fairly simple melodic design: unfoldings now place ^5 and ^6 above (marked in the score), and thus ^5 is well positioned by register, by repetition, by motivic definition, to ascend to ^8 in the cadence (see the circled notes). In keeping with one style characteristic of the Laendler tradition, the second strain is an extended "yodeling" figure focused entirely on ^8-^7-^8.

The fourth waltz simplifies things even further and is the only one in the set where the first strain clearly uses a descending line -- each half of the double period is based on one. See the beam in bars 1-8; in 9-20 (antecedent-expanded continuation) it's obvious without annotation; in the further expansion of bars 21-28 I've put in a beam again. Note the clean "fall from the dominant" involving ^6 and ^7 in bar 27. The second strain is another yodeling theme on ^8.

The final waltz in its first strain is framed by a very well defined mirror Urlinie. A focal tone in the second strain is not so easy to decipher and thus the ending is not, either.

The coda, in a model established already by Lanner and Strauss, sr., in the late 1820s, strings together strains from several of the waltzes. The first is a minor-key version of the yodel in n4; that turns out to be an introduction reaching V -- the first system below. Then follows the entire first strain of n4 and a quick modulation -- the second system below. Next is n2, first strain and another quick modulation -- third system. And finally the first strain of n1, extended through a deceptive cadence -- see the sixth bar in the bottom system -- so that the final cadence offers ^7 and ^8, thus an overall ^8-^7-^8 figure at the background, as promised in yesterday's post.

The note sequences at the upper right of the example trace an upper line from the initial G5 and an inner line ("alto") from (D5) Eb5 [boxed in the second bar of the first system]. I offer these for sake of interest. In fact, I think rather little of "backgrounds" in recitatives, melodramas, potpourris, and similar genres or characteristic formal sections.

Karl Michael Ziehrer, Der Himmel voll von Geig'n, part 1

Karl Michael Ziehrer was a contemporary and musical rival of Johann Strauss, jr. Indeed, he was first publicly promoted in the 1860s by Strauss's publisher, Carl Haslinger. The two had had a falling out, and Haslinger was looking for a new protégé. Ziehrer was known primarily as a composer and conductor of military bands and concert/dance orchestras. Late in life he focused on operettas.

One curiosity is that he was a student of Simon Sechter, organist, composer, and professor in the Vienna Conservatory who established what is known as Viennese fundamental bass theory, the foundation of Schenker's view of harmony (Schenker's harmonic model is a radicalization of Sechter's own radicalization of Rameau). Sechter's best known student was Anton Bruckner.

The piano solo version of Der Himmel voll von Geig'n, op. 34 [Heaven is full of fiddles] -- sorry, I couldn't resist that -- is an 1878 French reprint of a waltz set published ~20 years earlier. (I don't have easy access to any of the original editions.) Its title here is Les Cieux sont pleins de Mélodies, slightly different: "The Heavens are full of Melodies" ["Songs" might be more accurate, since "mélodie" in 19th century France was roughly equivalent to "Lied" in German].

This set is one of those very rare waltz sets that follows through on the implications of its title, and in so doing is also one of those relatively rare compositions that expand on rising figures to embrace whole strains and whole waltzes. We're not done yet: it is unique in my experience in that every section, including introduction and coda, exploits ascending cadence gestures or ^8-^7-^8 figures. Not even Lanner's Steirische Tänze, op. 165, manages that. (My discussion of op. 165 can be reached through this link: link.)

The introduction is much simpler than the typical ones in the waltzes of Johann Strauss, jr. A 16-bar waltz strain, a double period, is followed by a short modulation. Unfoldings (circled) are the basic figure, and a line descends from them in the antecedent. In the consequent, the cadence is more complicated. I've added a "close-up" below.

One could write a long post on these four measures of intricate meshing of gestures (motives) and voice leading. Suffice to say that each of the three triad notes in the first bar is easily traced throughout. A4 gradually ascends, with notable steps along the way: the very expressive B5 in bar 2, and the cadence melody itself. F#5, which has dominated the preceding melody, descends into inner voices in bar 2. With its companion D5, it eventually "exchanges" to the final sixth, F#4-D5. All this, of course, assumes that the piano version in its reduction is faithfully following the orchestral score.

The first waltz in its first strain hints at a "mirror Urlinie" that we will see (almost) fulfilled when it is reprised in the set's coda. Note that unfoldings dominate again and that the waltz, first strain and as a whole ("pour Finir"), ends on ^3. The overall design of this waltz, incidentally, is ABA (note again the "pour Finir" accounting for the ending of the reprise).

The second waltz uses the same unfolding, ^8-^3, here as Bb5-D5, and the balance also favors the upper note, but this time the linear ascent is obvious -- and it is repeated in the second strain. This waltz is played alternativo, or ABAB (note that "pour Finir" is now positioned at the end of the second strain).

The examples and comment will continue in Part 2 tomorrow.

Isaac Strauss, Figaro-Revue

Isaac Strauss was born in Strasbourg, the principal city on the French side of the Rhine river, and was active in Paris. A skilled Conservatoire-trained violinist, he took up conducting and became very successful (and also wealthy). He wrote original music but also many arrangements for dance and concert, including the Figaro-Revue for piano four-hands based on tunes by the younger composer Marius Boullard. Isaac Strauss was no relation to the Vienna Strausses.

The design is that of a quadrille, five parts with the traditional names (Pantalon, etc.), to which Strauss has added another whimsical title. The two of interest to us are n2 (Éte; Le Cigare) and n4 (Pastourelle; Le Mur de la Vie privée).

As in a few earlier instances on this blog, I have collated the prima and secunda parts. At the beginning, ^3 has the better of the cover tone ^5. Note the lower neighbor (interruption) at phrase end and the doubling of ^3 in the secunda part -- at (a). In the second phrase, however, the cover tone suddenly comes alive and takes over -- at (b) -- while ^3 descends in the secunda part, right hand.

In n4, a pattern of thirds puts the focus on ^5 and thus the ascent in the cadence is not much of a surprise. Note that the voice splits as F6 moves down in inner voices.

Addendum to the historical survey, index, published

I have published an addendum to the historical survey (link to that document) on Texas Scholar Works: link to the new document.

Here is the abstract:

This is an addendum to the essay Ascending Cadence Gestures: A Historical Survey from the 16th to the Early 19th Century (published on Texas Scholar Works, July 2016), consisting of posts since that date to my blog “Ascending Cadence Gestures” (on Google blogspot). This is also an index to musical compositions discussed in essays published or re-published on this platform since 2010, through 03 March 2017.

Milestone; new publication

Yesterday the number of posts to this blog reached 175. By way of celebration, I have published a A Gallery of Simple Examples of Extended Rising Melodic Shapes on Texas Scholar Works. Here is the abstract.

Prevailing stereotypes of formal cadences and arch-shaped melodies were especially strong in the eighteenth century, but they did not prevent European musicians from occasionally introducing rising melodic figures into cadences and sometimes connecting those figures abstractly in lines with focal notes earlier in a composition. This essay presents a few of the most direct, cleanly formed rising lines in music from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Here is the table of contents

Introduction
   1. Beethoven , 12 German Dances, WoO8n1
   2. Mozart, 12 Menuets, K176n1
   3. Johann Strauss, sr., Das Leben ein Tanz, oder Der Tanz ein Leben!, Op.49 (1831)
Music for Social Dance
   4. Schubert, Wiener-Damen-Ländler, D734n15
   5. Schubert, Valses sentimentales, D779n13
   6. Schubert, Ländler, D814n4
   7. Schubert, Deutscher Tanz, D769n1
   8. Johann Strauss, sr., Exotische Pflanzen, Op.109 (1839)
   9. Johann Strauss, jr., Künstlerleben, op. 316 (1867)
Minor Key
   10. Böhm, Suite in F minor, Courante
   11. Schubert, Grazer Walzer, D924n9
   12. Brahms, “Über die See”
Additional Examples
   13. Tchaikovsky, The Nutcracker, March
   14. Haydn, String Quartet in D Major, Op76n2, III
   15. Haydn, Symphony no. 86, III

Four from the Movies (4): Shawshank Redemption ending

The ending of The Shawshank Redemption (1994) has a recently paroled Red (Morgan Freeman) on his way to join Andy (Tim Robbins), who had earlier escaped the prison in Maine where they both were confined and was now in Mexico. The entire trip, from a rooming house in the town where the prison was located to Red's arrival on a Mexican beach, is accompanied by the film's main theme. My transcription of the music below is annotated. Of particular interest is that the first statement of the theme ends with a descending line to a PAC (just before 1:05), but the second statement (ending just before 1:43) rises to close (against Red's line "that only a free man can feel").

From 1:43 on I have marked shots (numbered 1-13). During this segment, the orchestra's melody ascends twice (marked with an annotation the first time, with notes the second time). From a musical standpoint, the effect is that of a coda.

At (a) is a sketch of the melody in its first statement (which incidentally matches the earlier iterations of the theme in the film). A three-part Ursatz (bass isn't shown here) works well as ^5 is obviously the focal note but the descent is from ^3.

At (b) is a reading that encompasses the theme in both statements -- that is, the music from the beginning through 1:43.

Four from the movies (3): "Slap That Bass"

George and Ira Gershwin wrote several original songs for the RKO feature Shall We Dance (1937), which stars Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.  Among them was "Slap That Bass," to which Astaire dances in a very spacious Art Deco engine room. Here is a transcription of the opening bars of the chorus.

And here is the ending, which turns minor into major and then marches upward to close on ^8.

Four from the movies (2): Le Tourbillon

Four from the movies (2): "Le Tourbillon" from Jules et Jim (Truffaut, 1962). Link to YouTube clip with the scene from the film: link.

Here is my transcription of the tune. A two-part design with closely similar endings—rising figures in bars 7-8 and 17-18. Part B has a double ending, a "standard" position for the cadence in 15-16 and the ending in 17-18 that we hear as nearly the same as bars 7-8. The figure in bars 10 and 14 is particularly expressive as it carries the text "tourbillon."

Two graphs: the first divides the tune in half, with a three-part Ursatz in 1-8 and a different one in 9-18. In the latter, the background ^2 is assumed at bar 12, which I grant is not entirely satisfactory as it forces the ^1 to appear at the beginning of the repeated figure (13-14) that held ^3 the first time around (9-10). An alternative would be to imply ^2 in bar 15 and ^1 in bar 16, with the latter only sounded in retrospect in bar 18. Again, not entirely satisfactory.

The second graph draws on the common "one-too-far" figure that is often used in, for example, country dances, at the beginning of the B-section, as here. The association of "one-too-far" with the text at that moment (in one of the verses, at least) "tourbillon" seems apt. The result of isolating ^3 in this way is a reading that seems more in tune, so to speak, with the shapes of the melody.