Beethoven, German Dances, WoO8, 6 and 7, orchestral score

In yesterday's post, I wrote about Beethoven, German Dances, WoO8, numbers 6 and 7: link. My comments were based on the keyboard scores, which were published at the same time as the original orchestral versions in 1795.

In n6, I found a proto-background of the triad D5-G5-B5, with a descending line from ^3 in the A section, and a rising line from ^5 in the B section.

The orchestral score complicates that reading. At A1, Beethoven tops the violin melody with ^7-^8 in the oboes. At A2, the oboes repeat the figure but now they are overtopped by the flutes giving the violins' tune an octave higher. The net result, though, is that the descending third-line of my reading remains intact.

In the B section, the violins' accented restatement of triad tones in bars 9-11 (B5 in bar 9, G5 in bar 10, and D6 in bar 11) is undermined by the oboes' definite stepwise ascent from F#5 to B5, which suggests the latter as a goal for the phrase. In the final phrase, however, at C1, C2, C3, the winds' doubling of the violin figure clearly reinforces the sense of the rising line (D5-E5-F#5-G5) as primary.

In WoO8n7, the winds move predominantly stepwise and may be said emphatically to "choose" their candidate for primary voice from among the scales, arpeggiations, and unfoldings. When their input is accepted, there is no other choice but to hear ^3 as the focal tone and a descent to ^1 in both sections.