Interlude: Three from Victor Herbert, continued

In yesterday's post, I wrote about movements from Sweethearts (1913) and Naughty Marietta (1910). Today's focus is on no. 23, the final number in Babette (1903). This short and uncomplicated finale—no extended szena!—is a reprise of two earlier numbers, n5: "The Letter Writing Song," in which Babette sings about her work writing letters for others, and n2: "My Honor and My Sword." The reprise of n5 is an invitation to Babette's wedding, n2 a trio (in the subdominant), and an instrumental version of n2 closes the operetta. Both n2 and n5 independently have rising-line-based designs.

The "trio": reprise of n2: "My Honor and My Sword."

The instrumental conclusion: reprise of n5.

Interlude: Three from Victor Herbert

"Interlude" in the title refers to a short break from the "JMT series," which will resume soon.

I spent a week or two earlier this month going through vocal scores of Victor Herbert operettas. By the time I was done, more than ninety pieces—songs, marches, scenes, finales—emerged with ascending cadence gestures. I have chosen three to present here because they are typical of Herbert's writing and because each has a design that can be heard as a simple rising Urlinie.

The first is from Sweethearts (1913), the second from Naughty Marietta (1910). The third is discussed in a separate post: from Babette (1903).

 Sweethearts, n7: "Jeannette and Her Little Wooden Shoes." A solo version is presented here for efficiency's sake. See further below for the original quartet version (where three other singers accompany a soloist). This is the refrain of a verse-refrain (or chorus) design, and it is followed by a purely instrumental repetition ("Wooden-shoe Dance"). The sforzando C5s establish the register that is then occupied by a strongly defined focal tone Bb4. The ascent to the cadence is quite straightforward. And of course all of it is repeated in the instrumental dance. The style is close to that of the rural Schnadahüpfl and related dances and dance-songs (link).

Original quartet version, opening.

 Naughty Marietta, n17: "The Sweet Bye and Bye." Similar to the preceding in that a focal tone is firmly established—here even more directly, with clearly identifiable figures moving above and below—and the ascent in the cadence unmistakable.

JMT series, part 3b (more on BWV 924 & 924a)

The earlier of two published analyses by Schenker is in an issue of Der Tonwille—see references at the bottom of this post. It is the only reading with a rising line in his published work.

A facsimile of the detailed reading is below. This comes from my own copy, given to me by my former Indiana colleague Vernon Kliewer on the occasion of his retirement. You can find a cleaner version in Drabkin and Annibaldi, page 63 (again, see references at the end of this post). I wrote this in my JMT article: Schenker "gives an analysis of the first of J. S. Bach’s Twelve Little Preludes in which the essential motion is the 'composing-out of the space of the fourth from G to C.' He describes this motion as accomplished by ^5-^6-^7-^8 over I, followed by a repetition of ^7-^8 over V and I, respectively. . . . By the standards of the fully developed theory, this analysis is unconvincing, but it is more to the point that Schenker’s essay contains no comment suggesting that the rising Urlinie is in any way problematic. In fact one of his closing comments is, 'After this presentation, who can still doubt that this Prelude, through Urlinie, voice leading, and harmony, develops only the triad, the chord of C?'” (276-77; see note at bottom of this post] I then recount how he changed his mind about rising lines over the course of the next two years. As we will see below, I came up with quite a different reading myself—Urlinie from ^5—but on revisiting the matter over this past week, I find this first reading of the piece the most convincing of them all. It charts the course of the upper voice beautifully and therefore also matches the bass and its implied (partimento) figures.

William Drabkin has an equally interesting reading that retains Schenker's upper-voice shapes but expands on them using my three-part Ursatz device (from another 1987 article). His graph is the lower system below. In the upper system, I have pulled out a pair of unfoldings as a complementary way to relate the two upper voices.

Schenker's later analysis (here in a version from Meeùs, Figure 8) runs from the initial ^3 and shifts a great deal of the earlier-level motion to the pedal-point dominant. Allen Forte and the Forte & Gilbert textbook follow this.

Nicolas Meeùs tries to solve the problem of too much attention to the end by creating a different kind of rising inner voice (the one he labels "Cantizans").

I have an unpublished analysis, probably from the 1980s, in which I read the Prelude from ^5. My octave couplings -- at (a) -- imitate those of the WTC I C Major Prelude. At (b) sixths elaborate from above, starting from a unique C6 cover tone. At (c) I might have unfolded a third from B4 to the open note D5.

References:
Meeùs, Nicolas. "Fundamental Line(s)." Conference paper, 2004. Available from the author's website: link.
Drabkin, William, and Claudio Annibaldi. "'Bisogna leggere Schenker': Sull' analisi dell Preludio in  Do Maggiore BWV 924 di Bach." Rivista Italiana di Musicologia 24/1 (1989): 48-66.
Forte, Allen. "Prelude in C Major." Allen Forte Electronic Archive. University of North Texas. Link.
Forte, Allen, and Steven Gilbert. Introduction to Schenkerian Analysis. New York: Norton, 1982.
Schenker, Heinrich. Der Tonwille: Pamphlets in Witness of the Immutable Laws of Music: Offered to a New Generation of Youth. Translated by William Drabkin. Cambridge University Press, 2004.
------------
Note: I am embarrassed to say, thirty years later, that I seem to have mischaracterized Schenker's Tonwille background by writing "the graph of the piece shows all six upper-voice tones as large notes (that is, as Urlinie tones) with a subordinate Anstieg leading to the ^5" (277). As you can see from both background and Urlinietafel (foreground) above, this is not the case. Nevertheless, the basic characterization of the Urlinie as consisting of all the labeled notes, except the opening ^3 & ^4, is correct, as it is consistent with Schenker's conception at the time. (He repeatedly refers to "the composing-out of the space of a fourth" in the Tonwille essay.)  If we do read the background strictly according to notation as in Free Composition, then the background is an ^8-^7-^8 neighbor figure: see below (adapted from Drabkin and Annibaldi's example 6). This is Drabkin's reading above without the structural alto.

JMT series, part 3a (more on BWV 924 & 924a)

The Clavier-Büchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1720 to 1725–6) has been described this way: "it is unlikely that this keyboard book reflects [the child's] very first systematic music lessons. . . . More plausibly it may be regarded as instruction in composition" (Christoph Wolff/Peter Wollny, "Wilhelm Friedemann Bach," Oxford Music Online). Wolff & Wollny place BWV 924a among "Friedemann’s own first attempts at composition."

Thus, we must once again be wary of the monumentalizing tendencies in analysis, radicalized in the notion of organic unity, of course, but also through an inevitable tendency in the rhetoric of analysis and its presentation or argument, intensified in the publication-oriented authenticist biases of the nineteenth and early to mid-twentieth centuries. (Not to mention the hardening of attitude about a particular reading that often results from classroom repetition.) Perhaps I am myself more than usually sensitive to this at the moment, having just recently finished an essay whose repertoire draws heavily on eighteenth-century Scottish fiddle tunes (link).

In any case, Urlinien and other abstract shapes for BWV 924 and 924a must be regarded cum grano salis. Not with respect to their basic legitimacy as readings—the piece, in either version, is so short that one really can hear some of these shapes—but with respect to subsequent claims that might be made. That is to say, the informal nature of the Clavier-Büchlein and the presence of BWV 924a undermine any conclusion that one's analysis demonstrates just how BWV 924 is another perfect, gleaming jewel in J. S. Bach's compositional crown, another example of German genius, or another instance of a musical genius manipulating the "tonal system." What we can say certainly is that the two versions are evidence of practice in performance, improvisation, and composition.

The collated block-chord reductions below are intended to show how young Friedemann might have developed his own composition out of his source. First, we assume that he learned to play BWV 924, probably as given in the score but also as its bass line, to which he supplied upper voices in the manner of the Neapolitan partimento pedagogy. From this point, he would be expected to use the musical materials to fashion original pieces, the best of which was written into the Clavier-Büchlein as BWV 924a.

It is worth asking if BWV 924 is an exercise in composition, what is the task? What is the student's assignment?

If it is the bass figure, as in the simpler partimento exercises, then this is a very odd one. The figure of the opening is the rising fifth, so C-G-D-A-E. Bach stops only when the next chord would be an undesirable diminished triad in root position (middle of bar 3 below). In the various documents available on Robert Gjerdingen's Monuments of Partimenti website (link), I found only one "rule" (sample progression) focused on a sequence of rising fifths (link), but no partimento compositions. The only composition that features rising fifths in its opening is the very last of 44 by Fedele Fenaroli (link) and that uses the Romanesca bass rather than a simple sequence of rising fifths. In this connection, it is interesting that Friedemann abandons his father's sequence almost immediately and converts the figure into the Romanesca bass--at (a)--but then breaks that after four notes to continue in A minor--at (b). Fenaroli has a rule for the Romanesca bass immediately preceding the one mentioned above: link.

It would seem, then, that the task is to take the given figures and combine them in a different way. Thus, the rising fifth of the opening becomes the Romanesca bass; the pair of 6/5s with stepwise bass has its upper voices rearranged at (b), continuing in sequence for 2.5 bars then merging with the version at bar 3 of BWV 924: see the arrows; at (c), Friedemann expands on bar 6 (literally present in his bar 7--see below) by preceding it with a transposition a fourth below, with the result that much greater attention goes to IV.

BWV 924 clearly also seems to be a lesson in suspensions, beginning with the "easy" ones -- 4-3 over root position triads -- then proceeding to the dissonant 6/5 pairs, then to 9-8. The positions for all these are shown with asterisks (*). (The only common type missing is the 2-3 bass suspension, which, of course, is prominent in the WTC I, C Major Prelude, a version of which also appears in the Clavier-Büchlein.) Note that Bach Vater continues the suspension work over the extended cadence dominant--see ** below; these are 7-6 figures between the upper voices. Friedemann, on the other hand, abandons suspensions altogether and has some fun with marching triads and dramatic arpeggios in the minor key.

BWV 924, ending:

BWV 924a, ending:

Here is another graphic to compare the two versions: the reduced upper line only, up to the first part of the dominant pedal. Note how the same materials are used in each section, until Friedemann turns to triads (section 3) and reverses the direction of the line (section 4).

JMT series, introduction, part 2

In yesterday's introductory post to this series, I did not include a list of compositions analyzed by others and only mentioned in my 1987 JMT article. That list is actually quite short:

J. S. Bach, Prelude in C Major, BWV 924  (Schenker)
J. S. Bach, Prelude in F Major, BWV 927  (Schenker)
Beethoven, Piano Sonata in A Major, Op. 101, first movement  (Schenker)
Beethoven, Symphony No. 5, second movement   (Schenker)
Chopin, Etude in Eb Minor, Op. 10n6   (Schenker)
Schubert, Valse sentimentale, D779n2   (Salzer)

My intention was to comment briefly on each of these before proceeding, as promised, to discuss at greater length the pieces named in the article's endnotes. Immediately, however, I am faced with a small but significant literature on BWV 924. The revised plan, then, is to look at this one piece and its literature in some depth and then move on to music named in the endnotes.

There are two versions of BWV 924, both of them in the Clavier-büchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. I have "disassembled" Pierre Gouin's excellent digital notation (link to Preludes page on IMSLP) and collated the two versions below.

In tomorrow's post I will reduce both versions to block chords and collate those.

JMT series, introduction

Recently I uploaded the 200th post to this blog. By way of celebration for another milestone—thirty years since the publication of my article, "The Ascending Urlinie" (Journal of Music Theory 31/2: 275-303)—I begin a series based on its examples and notes.

First, however, I would like to acknowledge the crucial role played by then-JMT editor Martha Hyde, who received conflicting recommendations from the editorial board's readers but decided to approve the article after the two of us talked by phone. The pattern of acceptance by one reader and ideologically driven disapproval by another reader has been consistent through the years since, even for my non-Schenkerian linear analysis articles. I am pleased to say that only once was an article actually rejected for publication. That was in 2008, again for JMT. The article was for the most part a response to, and extension of, Walter Everett's "Deep-Level Portrayals of Directed and Misdirected Motions in Nineteenth-Century Lyric Song," Journal of Music Theory 48/1 (2004): 25-58. Two of my principal examples were Schubert's "Die Nonne," D828, and Brahms's "Über die See," Op. 69n7 (this latter song was mentioned, though not discussed, by Everett (55)). For "Die Nonne," see this blog post: link. For "Über die See," see these essays published on Texas Scholar Works: link; link.

To start, here is a list of the examples discussed in the main text, with links where I have also discussed them in blog posts or essays on Texas Scholar Works:

Schubert, Valse noble, D969n7.       link
Schumann, Faschingsschwank aus Wien, op. 26, first movement.
Grieg, Pier Gynt Suite No. 1, “Morgenstimmung.”        link
Francois Couperin, Pièces de clavecin, 8e ordre, Passacaille (en rondeau).      link
Brahms, Waltzes, op. 39, n12.
Schubert, Valse sentimentale, D779n2.         link
Schubert, Valse sentimentale, D779n3 (counter-example).
Beethoven, Piano Sonata in Bb Major, op. 22, third movement .
Beethoven: Piano Sonata in E-Major, op. 14, no. 1, first movement.
Beethoven: Piano Sonata in A Major, op. 101, first movement.

The notes mention a larger number of compositions. This first list is by note number, with the original comments.

n28: The Menuet of Haydn’s Symphony no. 100 is a case in point. In the first period (measures 1-8, which stand for the whole), the initial motion is strongly downward, but the final cadence produces a clear ascent from ^5 to ^8 in the upper-most part.

n28: Other pieces that use the simplest form of the rising Urlinie include the following (qualifying comments in parentheses): 

J. S. Bach, cantata No. 11, soprano aria “Jesu, deine Gnadenblicke”
Haydn, Symphony no. 104, III
Liszt, Gnomenreigen (^7 strikingly extended)
Debussy, Suite bergamasque, Prelude (^5 is implied over the initial I; ^6 is actually given in m. 1!)
Schumann, Album für die Jugend, op. 68, no. 20, “Ländliches Lied”
Albumblätter, op. 124, no. 3, “Scherzino” (the first ^5 is somewhat muddled by registral confusion, but a rising motive is strong)
Schubert, Schwanengesang, no. 7, “Abschied” (the conclusion is strong, but ^8 could be the initial tone, and the piano overreaches the voice with a descent ^3-^2-^1). Pieces that appear to use a rising line from ^5 but in fact do not include Chopin, Prelude in E Major, op. 28, no. 9 (three-part Ursatz with line from ^3 above ^2 implied in the cadence)
Debussy, Ballade (1890) (in the cadence 9-11 bars from the end, the ascent is actually a doubled inner voice)
Debussy, Valse romantique (1890) (the ascent is literally the top voice in the structural cadence, but properly an inner voice in the Ursatz).

n29: ^5-^6-(^8)-^7-^8 model or one of its variants are 

Haydn, String Quartet, op. 76, no. 2, II
and Handel, Jephtha, aria “Waft her angels” (orchestra in the framing ritornello, not the voice).

n30: ^5-^6-(^5)^7-^8 

See also Drei deutsche Tänze, D. 973, no. 2
and Winterreise, no. 2, “Die Wetterfahne.”  

n31: the “waltz ninth,” 

Beethoven, Symphony no. 1, Scherzo (if the structural cadence is taken to be at the end and not in mm. 57-58)
Symphony no. 2, Scherzo (a very clear case)
Debussy, Deux Arabesques, no. 2
Grieg, “An den Frühling,” op. 43, no. 6
Lalo, “Chanson de l’Alouette” (ascent occurs in the piano)
Offenbach, Les contes de Hoffmann, Barcarolle (^5 is prominent in the upper octave as a cover tone, also)
Duparc, “Phidylé “ (in the piano, but quite clear).

n32: The form ^5-^6-(reg.)^7-^8 

Haydn, Piano Sonata in E-flat, Hob. XVI/52, II
Haydn, Piano Sonata in A-flat, Hob. XVI/43, Menuet (the large-scale structure is obscured somewhat by strong emphasis on ^3 in the Trio)
Haydn, String Quartet, op. 76, no. 2, II
Beethoven, String Quartet, op. 74, IV (where ^6 is somewhat extended).
Very occasionally register transfer is applied to other tones: in Corelli, Trio Sonata, op. 2, no. 8, Preludio, the variant ^5-^6-^7-(^8-^7)-^8 has a dramatic octave-leap downward applied to the first ^8.

n33: the “line” ^5-^7-^8 does occur in 

Schubert, Ländler, D. 681, nos. 1 & 2 (perhaps as ^5-(^8)-^7-^8)
Ecossaisen, D. 781, no. 9
and the “verlorener Bruder” Trio, D. 610.

n34: This double treatment of the fourth ^5 to ^8 occurs also in 

Saint Saëns, Le Carnival des animaux, “Le cygne”
and Telemann, Harmonischer Gottesdienst, cantata no. 9, first aria, where affect and tonal design are nicely linked, as the text is “Liebe, die von Himmel stammet, steigt wieder hinan.”

And here are the pieces from the notes in alphabetical order by composer.

Bach, cantata No. 11, soprano aria “Jesu, deine Gnadenblicke”
Beethoven, String Quartet, op. 74, IV (where ^6 is somewhat extended)
Beethoven, Symphony no. 1, Scherzo
Beethoven, Symphony no. 2, Scherzo
Chopin, Prelude in E Major, op. 28, no. 9 (counter-example)
Corelli, Trio Sonata, op. 2, no. 8, Preludio
Debussy, Ballade (1890)
Debussy, Deux Arabesques, no. 2
Debussy, Suite bergamasque, Prelude
Debussy, Valse romantique (1890)
Duparc, “Phidylé “ (in the piano, but quite clear)
Grieg, “An den Frühling,” op. 43, no. 6
Handel, Jephtha, “Waft her angels” (orchestra in the framing ritornello, not the voice)
Haydn, Piano Sonata in E-flat, Hob. XVI/52, II
Haydn, String Quartet, op. 76, no. 2, II
Haydn, Symphony no. 100, III
Haydn, Symphony no. 104, III
Haydn,  Piano Sonata in A-flat, Hob. XVI/43, Menuet
Lalo,  “Chanson de l’Alouette” (ascent occurs in the piano)
Liszt, Gnomenreigen (^7 strikingly extended)
Offenbach, Les contes de Hoffmann, Barcarolle
Saint Saëns, Le Carnival des animaux, “Le cygne”
Schubert, Drei deutsche Tänze, D. 973, no. 2
Schubert, Ecossaisen, D. 781, no. 9
Schubert, Ländler, D. 681, nos. 1 & 2
Schubert, Schwanengesang, no. 7, “Abschied”
Schubert, “verlorener Bruder” Trio, D. 610
Schubert, Winterreise, no. 2, “Die Wetterfahne”
Schumann, Album für die Jugend, op. 68, no. 20, “Ländliches Lied”
Schumann, Albumblätter, op. 124, no. 3, “Scherzino”
Telemann, Harmonischer Gottesdienst, cantata no. 9, first aria

My intention in this series of posts is to follow the order of the article's notes, as that makes for a topical sequence.

In 1987, the compositions discussed in main text or mentioned in the notes constituted nearly all of the music I had located and read as using rising-line background figures (with a few exceptions and counter-examples, as noted). After the article was published, I searched primarily through vocal scores of operas and operettas, in part because these are richly represented in the library of Indiana University's School of Music. The results formed the core of what became a table of rising lines, whose first version—so far as I can recall—was published on my university-supported personal web page in 2001 or 2002. Its most recent version can be found here: link. Shortly after 2000, library digitization projects in the United States and in Europe and the gathering power of IMSLP enabled the number of examples of ascending cadence gestures—most of them tied to focal notes and thus plausible as Schenkerian backgrounds—eventually to reach well and far beyond a thousand. And that number continues to rise (pun intended).

Essay on British Isles Dance and Song

I have published an essay titled English, Scotch, and Irish Dance and Song: On Cadence Gestures and Figures. It can be found on Texas Scholar Works: link.

Here is the abstract:

This is a documentation of ascending cadence gestures in some 260 songs and dances from the British Isles, taken from eighteenth and nineteenth century sources, with some emphasis on collections for practical use published between about 1770 and 1820 and on the later ethnographic collections of P. W. Joyce and the anthology of Francis O’Neill.