JMT series, part 6b-2 (note 31, the waltz ninth)

Beethoven, Symphony no. 1, Scherzo. As we saw in the earlier post, part 6a-1, the scherzo of the Second Symphony clearly draws on the "waltz ninth" device -- that is, positioning both ^6 and ^7 over the dominant. The Menuetto in the First Symphony is equally clear in its final cadence—see below—but the analysis of the background will not be as simple.

My comment in the note: "if the structural cadence is taken to be at the end and not in mm. 57-58." That was a somewhat risky statement, as the usual formal functions would certainly point to bars 57-58. In an essay on analysis and performance (that is, recordings), Carl Schachter predictably took me to task on that point: "The phrase that begins with m. 52 represents the Menuet’s structural cadence, closing into the final structural tonic in m. 58. The emphasis on ^1 starting in m. 58 is so unremitting that we must regard the closing measures as a coda; David Neumeyer's suggestion that the structural close might be at the very end, with an ascending Urlinie ^5-^6-^7-^8 is not very plausible, at least to my ear." On the face of it--thinking of it in terms of 18th century formal function clichés--he is right. Here is the reprise (in Singer's transcription) with annotations following Caplin. Everything is "textbook": the reprise offers a complete theme (a 14-bar sentence) with a PAC in the tonic at the end, after which a pedal point tonic runs along for several bars before giving way to accelerated V-I figures culminating in one last emphatic cadence. The two cadences are boxed.

Nevertheless, this menuet/scherzo strikes me as an early instance in which the rising gesture, common to codas in this period, begins to contest priority with the standard structural cadence that complies with the expected formal functions. As I have written elsewhere in this blog and in essays, this change was in part due to the historical shift away from partimento practices; that is to say, from the Italian models that had dominated European music for well over a century. The muddling of the formal functions themselves was the principal route for a changed role for rising gestures, including the rising line, as we saw in the scherzo of the Second Symphony. Beethoven doesn't rethink cadence and coda so fundamentally in the First Symphony—basically, I agree with Schachter's objection as based on routine formal functions—but I will argue for the final bars as the culmination of a developmental process that bypasses—skips over—the structural cadence.

I am, however, obliged to disagree almost entirely with Schachter's Schenkerian analysis, which is, to put it mildly, bizarre, with chromatic parallels in the first middleground, notes plucked out of the bass when they don't need to be, and an imagined ^3 and ^2 in the background descent.

Schachter describes his essay as a study in “how an awareness of large-scale connections can help one in working out appropriate strategies for pacing, accentuation, and other rhythmic details of performance. I shall be concentrating on a few small details, but they are details whose shaping depends upon a conception of the work as a whole, for these details—far from having a simple location in their immediate environments—reverberate throughout the entire piece. . . . These intimations of the whole suggest to me ways of playing that one might not adopt if the detail were of purely local significance” (48).

He looks at three pieces on these terms, the last of them being the scherzo in the First Symphony. A “Menuetto” in name only, this movement is in a tempo fast enough to push it well out of the realm of dance music—the topical basis of the third movement in 18th century symphonies, including Mozart’s and (most of) Haydn’s—toward autonomous instrumental music. Or, better said, toward a different and largely new topical association. Had he followed 18th century conventions, Beethoven would have notated the movement in 6/8 time, as a gigue.

Beethoven, Symphony no. 1, III, opening (reduction):

Notation of the opening melody as a gigue:

As we know now, in the 18th century notation itself had strong topical associations (Allanbrook 1983; cited in Mirka 2014). Listening to the examples above, it is obvious that the "Menuetto" is no jig either, practical or stylized: it is frenetic, quixotic, sometimes dramatic, and sharply profiled in dynamics, register, and treatment of instruments. In other words, the topic is new, perhaps born out of the late symphonies of Haydn or perhaps an intensified (but also warped), stylized version of the German dance (Deutscher), the faster and usually louder alter ego of the Ländler.

We will pass through the early history of "scherzo" quickly. It apparently originated about 1600 as a verse form and therefore was linked to vocal music. When the term moved over into instrumental music later in the century and in the early 18th century, it almost always designated a movement in a multi-movement set, in duple meter (most often 2/4) and without trio. It may well have been an alternative title to the ambiguous "aria." Haydn in his string quartets, opus 33, used the term deliberately to designate movements that take the place of the menuet in a sonata cycle, and Beethoven eventually followed suit. According to Hugh McDonald, "it was Beethoven who established the scherzo as a regular alternative to the minuet and as a classic movement-type. From his earliest works the scherzo appears . . . in place of the minuet, and he took the term literally by giving the movement a light and often humorous tone." Of the pieces immediately preceding the First Symphony, which is Opus 26, four (opuses 20, 23-25) contain scherzi. Here are incipits:

From the Septet, op. 20, in Carl Czerny's reduction. As in opus 26, instrumentation, register, dynamics, and meter/accent are all in play.

 From the Violin Sonata, op. 23. "Scherzoso" here is obviously a qualifier for "Andante," not a topic on its own.

From the Violin Sonata, op. 24:

From the Serenade, op. 25 in a later reduction:

And here are incipits from pieces following the First Symphony:

From the Piano Sonata, op. 28:

From the String Quintet, op. 29 in a later reduction:

From the Violin Sonata, op. 30n2:

Not surprisingly, the issue at hand for Schachter with respect to performance is hypermeter; like Beethoven’s later scherzi, the First Symphony's "Menuetto" is written in 3/4 meter but without question each bar is like a beat. Schachter focuses on the problem of the proper downbeat for the hypermeter: is it in bar 1 or bar 2? I have rewritten the opening melody in 6/4 meter to try to capture these two versions:

To Schachter, "b" is the proper meter, and "a" is a "shadow meter," maintained sufficiently that it *could* become the primary meter by means of later developments in the movement. The drama of the piece is the conflict between these two and its late resolution (in the reprise). Engaging though the account is on its own terms, it founders on two points: (a) as I said earlier, a bizarre, in my view radically un-Schenkerian reading of tonal structure; (b) in Schachter's final recommendation, small fruit from all the detailed analysis: he suggests making the accents of bars 3 & 4 roughly equal, the larger gestures of the reprise then bringing the metric conflict to resolution. Those larger gestures were going to happen anyway, the aural legacy of subtle differences in the opening measures being negligible.

The figure of the rising fourth motive, on the other hand, will remain memorable throughout.

I'll discuss point (a) in tomorrow's post.

References:
Allanbrook, Wye. 1983. Rhythmic Gesture in Mozart. University of Chicago Press.
McDonald, Hugh, and Tilden A. Russell. "Scherzo." Oxford Music Online.
Mirka, Danuta. 2014. "Topics and Meter." In The Oxford Handbook of Topic Theory, 357-380.
Schachter, Carl. 2000. “Playing What the Composer Didn’t Write: Analysis and Rhythmic Aspects of Performance.” In Essays in Honor of Jacob Lateiner, edited by Bruce Brubaker and Jane Gottlieb, 47-68. Pendragon.