Postscript to Strauss, Die Fledermaus n11, Act II finale

The five parts of the Act II finale are (1) Orlofsky's toast to champagne--which we discussed in the previous post; (2) a comic exchange between Frank and Eisenstein; (3) Falke's waltz-song "Brüderlein und Schwesterlein," which leads into the "Du und Du" waltz; (4) ballet (handled in various ways in different productions); and (5) Prince Orlofsky's call to dance "Stellt Euch zum Tanz" and the dance itself "Ha, welch ein Fest, welche Nacht voll Freud!"

In the last of these, Strauss shows one of the strong tendencies in his later waltzes: toward 32-bar units, either by "stretching out" double periods or sentences (making them 16 + 16 rather than 8 + 8), or--as here--by so closely linking two 16-bar strains that they make a single musical unit:

There are no ascending cadence gestures in this extended and exhilarating waltz, but it doesn't have the last word in the Act II finale, as the proceedings come to a halt on a resounding cadential dominant -- see the beginning of the example below -- and everyone offers up a last salute to champagne by repeating the music for the Prince's toast. In the process the choral sopranos mark out the essential elements of the voice leading for the tune that Rosalinde—along with Orlofsky, Adele, and her sister—sings in a register that makes its yodeling topic even more obvious than it was earlier.

The orchestra, then, goes loudly to it one more time, stretching ^6 over IV and ^7 over V to two bars each and then beating on ^8 for no less than nine bars.

Two galops by Johann Strauss, sr.

It is probably not surprising that music for the galop was prone to the same repetitious figures and "square-cut" designs as the contradance (in its 19th century form of the quadrille), although the reasons were different. The latter needed its repeated units and "quadratic syntax" as aural markers of the changes of figures for group dancing. The galop, on the other hand, was a fast couple dance that often amounted to little more than holding onto your partner and skipping/racing down the floor: here it was the sheer speed that demanded simplicity and clarity in the music.

Galops are the second most numerous compositions in the work lists of both Joseph Lanner and Johann Strauss, sr., a reflection of the dance's popularity in the 1830s and 1840s. An early galop by Strauss (his op. 8) shows the musical priorities plainly. "Sauf aus!" in the introduction, by the way, means "Drink up!" Both strains are periods. In the first, a measure-long motive is heard three times and then the phrase is distinctively rounded off with a higher flourish. The consequent phrase does the same. The pattern is reversed in the second strain: an opening lower-register flourish is followed by three statements of a one-bar motive. Overall, the form is what I call an "AB design": two strains with largely unrelated materials (in contrast to the traditional small binary form of the 18th century, where there was usually a tight relationship between the two sections). For more on this design, see this post and its link: Lanner.

Appropriately, Strauss's Op. 28 is titled Wettrennen-Galopp, or "Racing Galop." Steady progress upward, aided by the transposition of the consequent up one step, is broken only at the last possible moment to finish the line in the lower octave.

Hummel, Ecossaise, op52n6

Hummel published 6 Pièces très faciles, Op.52, in 1815. The set is structured in such a way that one could assemble a three or four movement sonatina out of its members, complete with a short opening cadenza (n1), a sonata-form Allegro (n2), a Romance (con dolcezza) (n4, the only piece in the set not in C major), and a Rondo (n7).

The Menuet (n3) might substitute for the Romance, or be added to make a four-movement piece, but the ecossaise (n5) is a mystery -- tucked in between the Romance and the Rondo, it is only 24 bars long, hardly weighty enough to count as a movement, but perhaps in the context of informal performance, such departures from form were common enough in Hummel's generation -- or perhaps the young woman playing it would be expected to improvise some variations to augment it.

An opening upward-reaching arpeggio -- at "a" -- is mirrored at "b" and the cadence is clear in its linear contrast, at "c" but is undercut by repetition of "a." In the consequent, that repetition is deleted and the cadence simple and direct. As often happens in dance music, the second strain contrasts sharply with the first: a strong descent from the start -- boxed -- comes down through the octave C6 to C5, and in the continuation phrase there are lines but they go stolidly up from C5 to E5, then down again.