Sunday, March 18, 2018

Three more from Ball's Musical Cabinet

Ball's Musical Cabinet was published in two volumes. The three pieces discussed yesterday are from volume 1. From volume 2, I have chosen three more: "The Carpet Weaver," "Peggy Ban," and "The Tank." The first two of these are well-known tunes, like those in yesterday's post. About "The Tank," I know nothing more.

"The Carpet Weaver" is unusual in its boundary play, a Schenkerian term for melodic figures above the basic line. Here we would assume through the first phrase that the focal pitch is F#5, but in the second phrase of both theme statements, F#5 disappears, and attention goes entirely to the lower register, the end result being a mirror, ^8 down to ^5 and then back up again.


On the other hand, in the second half F#5 gains considerably, but the usual B-section contrast (at "vow'd") and the melodramatic long note (at deny'd him") are still not enough to displace the octave (that is, D5) as the focal note.


"Peggy Ban" (better known as "Peggy Bawn"). The play of ^3, as F#5, above the focal note ^8 is very similar to "The Carpet Weaver."


I've isolated the interval frame (which I would take to be a proto-background) in this version:



"The Tank" is a curious piece -- no song, it is highly violinistic, which character it promptly announces with the octaves in bars 1-2. I put it down to an eighteenth-century contredanse, perhaps put in by the publisher because there was empty space on the page (I have seen more obvious insertions in other collections of the period). Note that every phrase is different. Thus, each strain is what Caplin calls an antecedent + continuation hybrid. I use the term "galant theme" because this particular hybrid is especially common in virtually all types of instrumental music from roughly 1750-1800. Periods are more likely in contredanses (a fact reflected in the themes of many finales in Classical period sonatas and symphonies), so in another sense, then, "The Tank" is unusual.

The second through fourth phrases are quite distinct from the first: all have interesting—but differing—plays on ^3 and ^5 (as F#5-A5).