New essay published: supplement to British Isles essay

I have published a new essay on Texas Scholar Works: English, Scotch, and Irish Dance and Song: Supplement. Link.

Here is the abstract:

A supplement to the essay English, Scotch, and Irish Dance and Song, which is primarily a documentation of rising cadence figures in dances, fiddle tunes, and songs. Gathered here are another 50 examples found in files downloaded on 2 May 2017. These were the coincidental result of a search for more information on Nathaniel Gow, the son of the famous Scottish fiddler Niel Gow.

JMT series, part 4d (simple rising lines)

The final post for note 28. The first post is here: link.

Schumann, Album für die Jugend, op. 68, no. 20, “Ländliches Lied.” No comment in the note.

Schumann, Albumblätter, op. 124, no. 3, “Scherzino." Comment in the note: "the first ^5 is somewhat muddled by registral confusion, but a rising motive is strong." Now I think the opening is less muddled than I thought in 1987, though there is consistent covering play. The line, overall, is quite clear and coordinates with the harmony as well as any I have seen.

Schubert, Schwanengesang, no. 7, “Abschied." Comment in the note: "the conclusion is strong, but ^8 could be the initial tone, and the piano overreaches the voice with a descent ^3-^2-^1." I have nothing to add to this comment.

Finally: "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)." I have already written about this at length: link to the first post; link to the follow-up post. The "short version": Until recently I was comfortable with the comment above, despite the work needed to imagine ^2; Carl Schachter repeated the analysis without giving me credit for precedent; and recently Emily Ahrens Yates revisited the piece and produced a thoroughly convincing analysis that shows the piece does have an ascending Urlinie.

JMT series, part 4c (simple rising lines)

Thirty years later I am not overly impressed by my readings of the three pieces by Debussy mentioned in note 28, though each does involve rising figures, to be sure. These are Suite bergamasque, Prelude; Ballade (1890); and Valse romantique (1890).

Suite bergamasque, Prelude. My comment in note 28: "^5 is implied over the initial I; ^6 is actually given in m. 1!"  In the example below, I have shown the parallel place in the reprise. I don't think it is ^6 that Debussy is fixated on but ^2 (or ^9), as the opening of the reprise shows. The subsequent approach to the structural cadence is marked by the interaction of ^6 and this ^2, which eventually overtops its companion and, remarkably, makes a final push to ^3 while ^6 moves through ^7 to ^8. Thus, although there is a strongly expressive ascent, it is not a simple ascending Urlinie ^5 to ^8.

Debussy, Ballade [slave] (1890). My comment in note 28: "in the cadence 9-11 bars from the end, the ascent is actually a doubled inner voice." A traditional Schenkerian analysis of this piece should certainly be possible, but would require considerable effort. By and large, I think I was right about the ascent (see the first example below), but complicating factors are that it isn't clear whether this is the structural cadence, or, to put it a different way, it isn't clear if there is one at all: a page or more of E major "resolves" back into F major but the effect is that of a coda, rather than a reprise -- see the second example below. Finally, the choice of a fundamental tone for this piece would involve quite a bit of "reading into" and would always remain open to challenge.

Debussy, Valse romantique (1890). My comment in note 28: "the ascent is literally the top voice in the structural cadence, but properly an inner voice in the Ursatz." The structural cadence is at the very end -- the only simple cadence to the tonic in the piece -- and I was referring to the four bars marked with an unfolding symbol, from G4 to E5. The primary figure, though, is the uppermost voice: A6 reached dramatically in the first bar of the example, then plenty of attention to ^2 and a decisive conclusion on ^1. The ascent from ^5 to ^8 is very much a secondary feature. As with the Ballade, whether ^3 is the fundamental tone is open to discussion.

JMT series, part 4b-2 (simple rising lines)

Next is Liszt, Gnomenreigen (1863), about which I noted that "^7 [is] strikingly extended." A plausible observation if one is just considering score in hand, but not if one is listening to a performance, where notes, bars, and phrases fly by. I find this performance by Vestard Shimkus striking -- relatively slow in the main theme, but rushing by in the usual manner in the secondary theme, it is particularly expressive and "gnomish": link.

Here is a brief narrative of the design:  An introduction precedes the 16-bar main theme (A):

An abrupt shift to the secondary theme (B), in the relative major key "giocoso" -- it leads back to the introduction a complete reprise of A.

Then B returns, but now a half-step higher, in Bb major--a major third away from F# minor and a distant tonal relationship. This leads eventually to its own relative minor, G minor, and what I have called "C" but which is really a distorted variant of A.

Using a traditional device, where G minor: V7 becomes F# minor: +6 Liszt returns to F# minor but the harmony is unstable (over V).

The B theme returns one last time, now in F# major,

from which moves the (relatively) slow ascent to the structural cadence. A coda (not shown) reminds us of the figures and repeated notes of C.

An overview of the formal elements and harmony:

The ascent is overly simplified in this figure. Here are more details:

I am not overly pleased with the way that the long ascending line from A#5 to E#6 is split at C#6, but that disruption of a line is very common in Schenkerian analysis, and -- as here -- at the point where the foreground passes into the middleground or a middleground 2 to middleground 1.

JMT series, part 4b (simple rising lines)

Continuing with pieces listed in note 28 of my 1987 JMT article, we reach J. S. Bach, cantata No. 11, "Lobet Gott in seinen Reichen!", the soprano aria “Jesu, deine Gnadenblicke." For this piece I neglected to provide the qualifying comment that I gave for a Handel aria to be discussed in a later post; namely, that the rising line occurs in the instrumental parts, not in the voice, and thus—although interesting, to be sure—it is not part of the background. If this were 1990, I might be worried about the loss of an example of an ascending Urlinie, but since the number has burgeoned in the intervening years to well over 1500, it is now longer a matter of concern.

Cantata 11 is for the Feast of the Ascension, which fact probably sparked my interest in the first place, before I realized that the power of stylistic clichés in the 18th century would overwhelm text-painting/motivic analogues.

The text of the cantata follows the narrative of the Ascension. After a grand opening chorus of praise (complete with trumpets and drums), a bass recitative and alto aria implore Jesus not to leave his disciples. (The alto aria is unusually long.) A brief tenor recitative announces that He has ascended into Heaven, and a chorale verse follows, its opening line perhaps a bit too obvious—"Nun lieget alles unter dir"; literally "Now everything lies under you"—but the argument of the verse is actually "Everything is now subject to You," as the title of the chorale it derives from already makes clear: "Du Lebensfürst, Herr Jesu Christ" (You Prince of Life, Lord Jesus Christ). Further recitatives recount the explanation of the two angels who appear to the disciples and the latter's response. Then, as the tenth (and penultimate) number—another exuberant chorus closes the cantata as its n11—is the alto aria “Jesu, deine Gnadenblicke."

In the appendix of their book Dance and the Music of J.S. Bach (1991), Meredith Little and Natalie Jenne label “Jesu, deine Gnadenblicke" a menuet, based on their extensive (and I will say quite convincing) research into dance topics. In early 18th century music and dance culture, the menuet combined qualities of the pastoral, elegance, and confirmation, and is therefore a perfect fit for this aria, in which the individual is reconciled to the Ascension, especially clear in the third line "Deine Liebe bleibt zurücke" (Your love remains behind).

The design is a da capo aria, laid out as follows (it fits the standard formula: two segments in A, each using the same two lines of text and surrounded by ritornellos; mode change for B with the remaining text, no ritornellos; and of course A da capo):

A
Ritornello
Jesu, deine Gnadenblicke
Kann ich doch beständig sehn.         (close in the dominant)
Ritornello
Jesu, deine Gnadenblicke
Kann ich doch beständig sehn.         (close in the topic)

Ritornello

B                                      (opens in E minor, internal cadence in A minor, close in B minor)

Deine Liebe bleibt zurücke,
Daß ich mich hier in der Zeit
An der künft'gen Herrlichkeit
Schon voraus im Geist erquicke,
Wenn wir einst dort vor dir stehn.
A da capo

From the outset (and throughout, even under the voice part), the counterpoint in the instrumental parts is complex--far more so than the typical menuet of chamber or larger ensemble music.

The voice in the first section of A establishes a tonal space of B4-D5-G5 -- boxed below -- and lines move about within this space, but focused on the lower third. In this context, G5 is a cover tone and the principal space is B4-D5.

The second section in A is considerably more complex, and patterns of lines would be more abstract, but the clue to a principal space B4-D5 is in "kann ich doch" or just the word "doch." It may seem odd to give special attention to this word, as Bach certainly does, but it is the expressive key to the text. "Despite" (that's the sense of "doch" here) the Ascension and subsequent lack of His physical presence, I (the singer, the believer) can still continually see (beständig seh'n) Him in a vision of Grace (Gnadenblikke).

The closing ritornello continues the complicated counterpoint, which closes three times on the tonic: bar 6 of the example below, bar 10, and finally bar 17. The phrases are then six bars (1-6), four (7-10), four (10-13), and four (14-17). Of course, the overlapping at bar 10 would not happen in a menuet actually meant for dancing -- but, still, Bach holds to the underlying dance model surprisingly well. The first and last cadences ascend to ^8, the second, and weakest of the three, descends from ^3 (B5).

JMT series, part 4a-2 (simple rising lines)

In note 28 I wrote "Other pieces that use the simplest form of the rising Urlinie include the following (qualifying comments in parentheses)."

Among the pieces named was Haydn, Symphony no. 104, III. It's not quite as simple as I claimed, however—there is a drop from ^6 down to ^7, which also happens in the menuet of Symphony no. 86 (as discussed in my essay Ascending Cadence Gestures: A Historical Survey from the 16th to the Early 19th Century, published on Texas Scholar Works: link). About Symphony 86 I wrote:

This time [in the reprise] B5 drops to C#5-D5 for the cadence. The end result is a "circle" of sorts, from D5 back to itself, but by means of an octave's worth of a scale. This device of undercutting the rise from ^6 to ^7 is discussed in my JMT article and seems to be particularly characteristic of the later 18th century. To speculate: the conventions associated with the dominant Italian style (which we know better nowadays through research on the partimenti, evidence of methods of instruction) were so strong that Haydn felt an obligation to observe them in some situations, rather than take full advantage of the rising cadence gesture. In any case, the leap downward from a subdominant to the leading tone is very expressive in and of itself.

The key is the same in Symphony no. 104, ^5 is as firmly settled as the tonic pedal note underneath it, and a string of parallel sixths lead the melodic line down to the cadence. Only the sforzando on the last beat of bar 6 suggests anything different: B5 sticks out above, then leaps down to the dominant's C#5 (see the box).


What that sforzando hints at it is the possibility of a rising line from A5, but, as happened in Symphony no. 86, directionality is undermined by curling back to the lower octave instead of rising toward C#6 and D6.

As is well known, Haydn can't seem to leave things alone in a reprise, and the effects can easily be seen even in design features like linear patterns. In the A section, the eight-bar theme is repeated (in different instrumentation). In the reprise, the theme statement makes it through six bars before changes start, the overall result being an extension of the continuation phrase from four bars to eleven, including two bars of grand pause (!), and a clearly profiled stepwise ascent from B4 through C#5 to D5 (see the second system below). The codetta adds a little flourish that gives us C#5-D6 at last.

This condensed version shows just the ^5-^8 progress over the course of the reprise.

JMT series, part 4a-1 (simple rising lines)

Note number 28 is the first in my article "The Ascending Urlinie" (Journal of Music Theory 1987) to contain a list of additional examples. In the article I wrote that motivic foregrounding and layering did not necessarily generate rising background lines. Here is my text for the first example:

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.

Thinking of this in Schenkerian terms—as I was in 1987—the rising line is not workable in the theme's first presentation because it doesn't mesh well with the bass, especially in bars 5-6, where one would have to imagine a doubling of bass and soprano, never a good idea. It's much easier to build a line in this way: D5 initiates a fifth-line; to C in bar 4, recapture C in bar 6, B on the last beat of that bar, then A in bar 7, and an implied G in bar 8. The ascending scale in the cadence is boundary play. See this version here:

In the reprise, on the other hand, the chromatic passing tone D# in the bass (from m. 6) is gone, and a string of diatonic figures, all rising, take over the lower parts, directly linking the chromatic scale fragment to the diatonic scale fragment (see the arrows in the figure below). As a result, the rising line from ^5 to ^8 has a clear path and pitch design can be read as well-matched to the important aspects of expression.

The text above comes from my essay Ascending Cadence Gestures: A Historical Survey from the 16th to the Early 19th Century, published on Texas Scholar Works: link.

Subsequent posts will offer more discussion of pieces named in note 28.

Gallery of Simple Examples, volume 2

I have posted a sequel to the gallery of simple examples (link to volume 1). The title is A Gallery of Simple Examples of Extended Rising Melodic Shapes, Volume 2: link to volume 2.

Here is the abstract:

This second installment of direct, cleanly formed rising lines offers examples from a variety of sources, ranging from a short early seventeenth century choral piece to Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony, and from Scottish fiddle tunes to Victor Herbert operettas.

Here is a combined table of contents for the two volumes, arranged chronologically and with the volume number indicated:

Praetorius, three-voice motet "Preis sei Gott in der Höhe"       -- vol. 2
Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, Partita ex Vienna, Courante      -- vol. 2
Böhm, Suite in F minor, Courante       -- vol. 1
Anon., Chelsea Stage    -- vol. 2
Anon., The Duchess of Gordon     -- vol. 2
Anon., The Kerry Jig       -- vol. 2
Anon., The Nabob        -- vol. 2
Anon., The Runaway Bride   -- vol. 2
Anon., Shepherds Jigg   -- vol. 2
Anon., Yankey Doodle      -- vol. 2
Mozart, 12 Menuets, K176n1       -- vol. 1
Haydn, String Quartet in D Major, Op76n2, III       -- vol. 1
Haydn, Symphony no. 86, III      -- vol. 1
Beethoven, 12 German Dances, WoO8n1       -- vol. 1
Hummel, from 6 German Dances & 12 Trios, op. 16      -- vol. 2
Schubert, Wiener-Damen-Ländler, D734n15       -- vol. 1
Schubert, Valses sentimentales, D779n13       -- vol. 1
Schubert, Ländler, D814n4       -- vol. 1
Schubert, Deutscher Tanz, D769n1       -- vol. 1
Schubert, Grazer Walzer, D924n9       -- vol. 1
Johann Strauss, sr., “Champagner Galop,” Op. 8      -- vol. 2
Johann Strauss, sr., Das Leben ein Tanz, oder Der Tanz ein Leben!, Op.49       -- vol. 1
Johann Strauss, sr., Exotische Pflanzen, Op.109       -- vol. 1
Johann Strauss, jr., Künstlerleben, op. 316       -- vol. 1
Brahms, “Über die See”       -- vol. 1
Tchaikovsky, The Nutcracker, March       -- vol. 1
Herbert,  Sweethearts, n7: "Jeannette and Her Little Wooden Shoes"      -- vol. 2
Herbert, Naughty Marietta, n17: "The Sweet Bye and Bye"      -- vol. 2
Herbert, Babette, n23: Finale III      -- vol. 2
Prokofiev, Classical Symphony, Gavotte      -- vol. 2
Gershwin, Shall We Dance, "Slap That Bass"      -- vol. 2
Waxman, Rebecca, "Hotel Lobby Waltz”      -- vol. 2 

Praetorius, Terpsichore

IMSLP recently added a file with the part-books for Michael Praetorius' Terpsichore (1612) (link). In celebration of that event, here are three examples. The pieces (in score) are discussed, along with many others, in my essay Ascending Cadence Gestures: A Historical Survey from the 16th to the Early 19th Century (link). Edited versions of the text are given here along with a facsimile of the cantus part.

Number 35 is the first of the more than 160 courantes in the volume. In the second strain the range F4-C5 is established firmly at the beginning, C5 held, then a partial descent occurs midway, and the pattern is repeated, at which point the range F4-C5 is covered yet again and expanded by one for the cadence on D. (Note: The score in modern notation was transposed up a fifth.)

n147: "Incerti" = author of the melody is unknown. This is one in a series of courantes in once-transposed Dorian mode (final G; one flat in the signature). In the first strain see a simple linear ascent to the cadence on D5. In the second strain, the figure in part or whole occurs four times in a row, leading to G5 in the end.

n265 is a three-strain ballet, without notated repeats. The first strain ends with the long note in the middle of the third system. The second strain ends with the last long note in the fourth system. 

In effect this ballet is really two strains, as the third is a close variation of the second. The point of interest is in the cadences for the second and third strains: the first of these cadences lies (and is somewhat buried) in the lower register, ending on F4, but the second is made very prominent by transposition up the octave, ending on the same F5 that started the strain.