Czerny, Album Elegant des Dames Pianistes, op. 804 (continued)

"Helene" is another number in Carl Czerny's Album Elegant des Dames Pianistes, op. 804.

In the first phrase, M is main melody, C is cover tone. M centers on ^1, C on ^5. In the second phrase the two trade places, with the result that ^5 is heard as the focal tone throughout (in the upper voice from 1-4, then the inner voice from 5-8). The leap upward in bar 6 is replicated in bar14, from which a simple rising line to ^8 follows in bars 15-16.

The design of the piece is ternary, with a small ternary form as the A-section. In the reprise ending the A-section, Czerny alters the consequent phase such that the upper tetrachord is starkly foregrounded throughout.

In the final cadence of the larger reprise, Czerny introduces another set of changes, now such that the rising line and upper-tetrachord emphasis disappear, replaced by a descent from ^3. (Presumably we would locate an imagined ^4 in the preceding bar in order to complete an Urlinie from ^5.)

Czerny, Album Elegant des Dames Pianistes, op. 804

Carl Czerny's Album Elegant des Dames Pianistes, Op. 804, is subtitled "24 Morceaux melodieux." Each of the pieces is assigned a woman's first name (these are character types, rather than actual individuals). I had volume 1 (nos. 1-12) available to me. Of those, two are of interest.

"Arabella," in Ab major, is a nocturne in the familiar Field/Chopin manner. The design fits the genre also: ternary where A is a 16-bar period with a sentence as the antecedent phase and with an embellished consequent, B is a 16-bar sentence, and the reprise of A is complete, but varied. A five-bar coda ends.

The structural cadence, ending the reprise, complicates the voice-leading in the right hand, but the motions are clear enough as outlined below. From IV6, an augmented sixth resolves outward to the octave—with Eb4 at the top—and then the parallel sixths that carry Eb4 up to G4 through the chromatic F#4 (which "might have been" ^6 otherwise), the octave doubling of C & Db (circled notes), and the traditional 6-8 close—the cantus-tenor formula—that amplifies ^7-^8 (as G4-Ab4).

Here is a slightly simplified version of the right hand tracing structural soprano and alto:

Here is the passage, simplified a bit more,  with scale degrees for a primitive ascending Urlinie and structural soprano and alto.

And here is a final simplification, to remove the register changes in the alto voice and also the chromatic note, suggesting that a simple rising line abstractly underlies the passage.

Priorities and methods

Since recent posts have made liberal use of Schenkerian linear analysis tools, it will be useful to remind readers that this is not a blog limited to those tools. In connection with a briefly displayed subtitle, I discussed the several methods I am employing in this long-range study of ascending cadence gestures in traditional tonal music for concert and dance: link.

Emile Waldteufel, Les Patineurs (Skaters), Op. 183

The famous "Skaters Waltz" is  Les Patineurs by Emile Waldteufel (published in 1882). Given its main melody—the first strain of waltz n1—the notion of ascending cadences would seem far afield, but look at this simplified piano edition:

In a version for salon orchestra, the piano/conductor score (a two-stave score with abbreviated instrumental indications) also shows the rising scale figure from F#4 to A4. In the full orchestral score, this figure is taken by the second clarinet and second trumpet. The piano/conductor score, btw, shows the complete texture: there are no subsidiary parts or notes in different octaves.

Les Patineurs has an introduction, four waltzes, and a coda. The 16-bar main theme is anticipated in the introduction, appears twice in the first waltz (a small ternary design), and three times in the coda. The cadential counter-motive appears in all of these but the first (the introduction) and the last, grandioso statement.

Looking at it in Schenkerian terms, three possible hearings are readily imagined. The first is a rising line from ^5, where an Urlinie parallelism traces across the middleground in bars 2-10. The E4 (circled) in bar 11 is particularly interesting in that it clearly initiates a lower, descending line through the 4-3 figure over B2, but E4 is also an aural trace of the initial ^5 that prepares for the ascent that begins a bar later.

Alternatively, if we give full sway to hypermetric accent, that allows a hearing from ^3, with a neighbor in bar 5, a possible return to C# in bar 7, a consonant C# touched on at the end of bar 10 and a twice-dissonant C# at the end of bar 12 and in bar 13.

Combining the figures of both lines in a three-part Ursatz design produces the following, quite satisfactory reading:

The problem is that the counter-motive is barely audible—to my aging ears, effectively inaudible—in all the recorded performances I listened to. The second clarinet and trumpet are simply overwhelmed by the unison melody in the first violins, cellos, and first clarinet and trumpet. In the end, then, if one is using Schenkerian tools, I think the best reading is this:

Note: I've left out one intermediate step, where the "quarter note" G#5 would have a C#4 below it and a bass C#3 (to account in some fashion for bars 7-8).

All in all, it must be said that this famous theme has a remarkable collection of diatonic dissonances.

Johann Strauss, jr., a galop (schnell-polka)

After mid-century, the galop (see previous post) was displaced by the faster-tempo polka (the slower-tempo polka was the original type that had become very popular by about 1840). The dance was slightly different from the galop but the music was the same. (The can-can, btw, evolved the same way and at the same time.) The slower-tempo polka became known in Vienna as the polka française, the faster one as the schnell-polka.

Johann Strauss, jr., wrote polkas of both types (though not nearly so prolifically as he did waltzes) and also gave them prominent placement in his stage works.  The Schnell-Polka (Galopp) "So ängstlich sind wir nicht, Op.413" uses motives from the comic operetta "Eine Nacht in Venedig."

The second strain of the trio, below, gives yet another of Strauss's manifold plays on the upper tetrachord of the major key, and on the functions and relationships of ^5, ^6, and ^7. At (a), ^5 is the traditional consonance; at (b), ^6 is possibly the ninth of a V9 but doesn't resolve directly--in fact it doesn't resolve at all as the ^6-inflection is repeated in bar 4. At (c), the string of sixths, rising, lends strength to a focus on ^5 as G4. A crucial moment is in bar 8, where the ^6-inflection occurs over the tonic resolution (arrow). Bars 1-8 are repeated and the ^6-inflection disappears in the cadence, clarifying a straightforward rising fourth line. (Note that this line is confirmed by the strong position of ^5 at (a) and strong-beat placements of each member of the line in the ascent.)

Galops by Johann Strauss, sr.

The galop (galopp, gallopade), a simple dance in duple meter and rapid tempo, undoubtedly had 18th century predecessors, but it was in the 1820s that it quickly became popular in urban ballrooms. Johann Strauss, sr., wrote a large number of them. Here are five.

Erinnerungs-Galopp, Op.27 (1830?)
Sperl-Galopp, Op.42 (1831)
Reise-Galopp, Op.85 (1836)
Cachucha-Galopp, Op.97 (1837)
Furioso-Galopp, Op.114 (1840)

The Erinnerungs-Galopp, Op.27 (1830?), is a musical instantiation of both the simplicity and the speed of the dance. The tendency toward 16-bar themes/strains is clear in the galop; this opening strain is unusual in its twenty bars. The ascent through the octave is one of the most direct I have found anywhere in the repertoire of European traditional tonal music.

The second strain of the Sperl-Galopp, Op.42 (1831) shows the typical violinistic distinction of registers (^5 and ^3 in bars 1-2), but the upper register is definitely the focus. The point of interest for us is the cadence (boxed), in which the wedge figure brings a secondary line up from ^5 (B4). Note that the codetta brings the total number of bars to twenty again and contradicts the preceding by its emphasis on ^7-^8.

The second strain in the trio to the Reise-Galopp, Op.85 (1836), "flips" the wedge as an obvious fifth-line descends but is then suddenly overtaken by a rising line in the cadence.

The second strain of the Cachucha-Galopp, Op.97 (1837) attempts an imitation in 2/4 time of the Spanish cachucha, a mainly theatrical dance from the 1830s that was in 3/4 meter. Another wedge figure.

The opening of the Furioso-Galopp, Op.114 (1840), offers an ascending line as direct as the one in the Erinnerungs-Galopp of a decade earlier, but now running through two-plus octaves (B3 to B4 to B5-C#6-D#6-E6) and with persistent chromatic inflection.

Kirnberger, Lob des Weins (1761)

This little vocal gavotte by Kirnberger, "Lob des Weins," is in the 4th installment of the Musikalisches Allerley von verschiedenen Tonkünstlern (Berlin, 1761). The text, which had been set by Telemann twenty years earlier, runs to six verses praising the wine god (Rebengott--see bar 5). (Marpurg, like Kirnberger a frequent contributor to the Allerley, also set the text (1763).) The gavotte was already long associated not only with the pastoral (see "Bacchus" in bar 6) but also with the contredanse, so that a certain "party atmosphere" is undoubtedly meant here. The only oddity is that the gavotte, when meant to be danced, was never written in 6-bar strains.

A clear focal tone (^5) in the first strain is displaced by an equally clear ^3 in the second strain.* The closing cadence is a wedge, where ^3 descends by line, and ^5 ascends from below, also by line.

*A Schenkerian might well bring a line down from ^5 through ^4 in bar 7, but doing so would obviously be forced and unmusical.

Kirnberger, Vivace (1763)

Kirnberger, Vivace (1763). This little keyboard piece is in the 8th installment of the Musikalisches Allerley von verschiedenen Tonkünstlern (Berlin, 1763). Its simple 16-bar small binary design is matched by an equally simple pitch design with a primitive Urlinie in the closing cadence.