Thursday, July 19, 2018

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.