Pecháček, 12 Laendler (1801)

František Martin Pecháček (1763-1816) was a Bohemian violinist, conductor, and composer who spent his professional career in Vienna, mainly as a conductor in the theaters. He was the father of the violin virtuoso Franz Xaver Pecháček.

A prolific composer, Pecháček senior wrote in all contemporary genres, including music for social dance. His 12 Ländler, written for an ensemble unusual in the waltz repertoire—2 clarinets, 2 horns, and bassoon—were published in 1801.

Like Beethoven's Ländler in WoO11 and WoO15, written about the same time, this set provides an excellent example of the Ländler in its traditional form—as distinct from the later keyboard Ländler of Schubert and many other composers in the 1820s, who strove to make the Ländler congenial and specific to the piano, using less common keys with chromatic twists and pianistic registral play, thus blurring the distinction between music for dance and music for recital. A characteristic that Pecháček's 12 Ländler do share with later Ländler is their repetitiousness, a marker of their primary role as music for dance, not for performance.

The texture is uniform throughout all twelve pieces, with the first clarinet leading, the second clarinet playing a parallel melodic part below, the horns providing consistent quarter-note motion with simple figures (though not often in the familiar oompah-oompah version), and the bassoon playing the bass line. I have gathered the parts for the first strain of number 5 into score as an example. Published parts were downloaded from IMSLP.

Though written for clarinet, the melodies are highly violinistic, another reflection of the historical traditions of the Ländler. As a result, the play of register and the marking out of fifth spaces are prominent features. Here is the first strain of n1:

The fifth C5-G5 is defined as the frame of the basic idea (bars 1-2), and a line descends from G5 in the varied basic idea (bars 3-4). In the consequent phrase, the line again descends toward ^3, which is not sounded but easily imagined (and in all likelihood was sometimes improvised). I have written about such "complex lines" here: link. The same third-line and its repetition with the "imagined" E4 occur in the same places in the second strain. This time, however, the upper voice confirms the highest register of bar 1—that is, C6—with what I call the "primitive" ascending Urlinie ^5-^7-^8. (I am not terribly proud of that label, btw, as it privileges line over interval frame, but I have used it for so long now that I may as well continue to do so.)

In n5, G5 dominates (so to speak) and the first strain expresses two complete rising lines in its two phrases. The second strain reuses the figure of n1, but the final bars are a little more complicated in that *three* lines are expressed: the incomplete ascending line, the third-line from G5 (as in n1), and a secondary third-line E4-D4-C4. The last pitch is imagined in the clarinet -- the complete third-line is played by the first horn.

n10: The basic linear figure in the second strain is that of n5, second strain, with the difference that the descent from ^5 is complete (albeit with an imagined ^1). The first strain, however, exaggerates the registral play to open a 13th from E4 to C6, then continue with the more compact B5-D5. In the consequent phrase we hear the final C5 and imagine (easily) the upper C6.

n9: The uppermost registral figure in n10, first strain, is anticipated in n9, where a simple neighbor figure, C6-B5-C6, dominates the first strain. The contrast is substantial with the second strain, which plods along in repeated short descending lines, and not surprisingly then puts out a ^3-^2-^1 frame overall.

In the context of this set, n12 is an anomaly: its first strain is in the relative minor (the second clarinet even plays G#, the only accidental in the entire set), but the second strain is equally firmly in C major. In the repertoire of Ländler and Deutscher Tanz, however, such pairings are not unusual, if also not common. Examples in Schubert include D145ns 5, 8; D365n22; and D779ns7, 22, 31. Here, as in some instances in Schubert, the second strain is essentially a transposed version of the first, with the important exception that the lower ^1 is missing in the final bar, replaced by the upper C6, so that the framing figure is the primitive Urlinie ^5-^7-^8.

Grape Juice Reel

The first track on Frank Ferrell's CD Boston Fiddle: The Dudley Street Tradition (Rounder Records, 1995) is a medley of "Mrs. Hogan's Birthday," "Grape Juice," "Mrs. Hamilton's [Reel]," and "The Wind-up." As of this posting, the CD is still available for purchase in major venues, and the medley can be heard in a youtube audio/video file: link.

It's the second tune that is the topic today. In the liner notes, Ferrell reproduces what I take to be the version he says he "found in one of Tommy [Doucet's] old hand-written dance folios." Two contrasting (that is, motivically largely unrelated) strains of 8 bars each close with PACs in the main key, F major. The first strain is entirely diatonic, whereas the second indulges in some slightly unusual chromaticism: cadence to vi (D minor) in bars 11-12, a fully diminished seventh chord in bar 14, and a chromatic ascent in the cadence.

At (a), the violinistic frame of the fifth is established, at (b) it is expanded in both directions: from C5 to F5 upward and F4 to C4 downwards (arrows). At (c), the common one-too-far gesture reaches A5. At (d), the three unfolded thirds that follow from this. At (e), the consequent phrase begins; at (f), the closing figure: ^8-^7-^9-^8, as F5-E5-G5-F5; at (g) the "boundary play" of the upper thirds.

In the second strain, a "mirror Urlinie" where ^8 descends to ^5 -- line from (a) -- then ascends again to close -- line at (b). In both instances, the chromatic figures sit between ^5 and ^6.

An upper-voice wedge in a contredanse gigue (1781)

One of the clearest examples of a wedge figure in a three-voice texture can be seen below. The handwritten title is "Les Caprices de Galatée," which may or may not refer to a Parisian dance-pantomime of that title. This is the 17th page in volume 3 of the collection The celebrated Dances performed by Messrs. Vestris &c. at the King's Theatre in the Hay Market, 1781, composed by G. B. Noferi. Link. Giovanni Battista Noferi was an Italian violinist (he also played guitar) who apparently came to England early and stayed, working mostly in London. He died in 1782, the year after this collection was published. The Vestris were a large French family of professional dancers.

Very plainly a contredanse gigue, this piece is cast in the very common design of three strains (ABC) and five sections en rondeau (ABACA). All three strains are simple period themes. Indeed, the design is so familiar that amateur dancers would have no trouble dancing to it, either in the four-couple quadrille formation or as a long dance.

The principal strain has a stationary voice on E5, which the surrounding voices approach in a wedge, the "alto" voice reaching the tonic note, the upper voice making it part-way to G#5 (^3) but losing even that in the consequent. As readers of this blog will know, this strong implication of a pitch not actually sounded in the cadence is a common device, especially in violin music, and one can readily imagine it as an inducement to particular figures in ornamented repetitions (see below the score for one obvious such figure here).  For more on complex upper voices, see this essay of mine: link.

A likely (actually, almost inevitable) cadence figure improvised in performance: