Song by Pauline Viardot

 Thanks to Poundie Burstein for this one, which he describes as follows:

The piece is "Aime Moi” (1864), a song by Pauline Viardot based on a Chopin mazurka [op. 33 no. 2] to which she added a vocal melody (with text by Louis Pomey). At the end of her song, she superposed a ^5-^6-^7-^8 in the melody above Chopin’s original mazurka (and she does something similar in the key of V twice earlier within the song).   (email communication 22 March 2026)

Here is a comparison of the designs of Chopin's original and Viardot's arrangement.

Chopin's main theme from the first edition:

Viardot's opening. Note the inner-voice potential for ^5-^6-^7-^8 (in magenta).

Same with some parsing of intervals and lines. Note the wedge created by the rising line below and the descending line above.

In the final statement of the theme, clear realization and superposition of the rising line:

An excellent example of a professional musician's frank knowledge--and in this case exploitation--of the rising line from ^5 to ^8.

Ascending Lines in the 18th century

 This continues the series of posts about a short section in William Caplin's Cadence: A Study of Closure in Tonal Music (2024). Here as a reminder is the basic design of chapter 5, with §5.1.2.11.

Caplin begins the section with "Despite what is often taught in elementary harmony classes, a melodic line that ascends to its goal tonic occurs infrequently in the classical repertory" (265) and ends it with "In both cases, we sense the composer giving special emphasis to the ascending line in a manner that highlights all the more this nonconventional melody." I know of no textbook that does what Caplin claims; perhaps he is referring to the rule about the leading tone ^7 resolving upward to ^8, but two notes are not a line. And as we'll see below it is Haydn's treatment in op.77, no 2, that is "special," not the ascending line in general, even in the 18th century.

In his review of Cadence, Poundie Burstein is a bit more generous, beginning with "[the book] explores at length various standard top-voice paradigms for cadential progressions. One such paradigm that it briefly addresses is the melodic pattern ^5-^6-^7-^8,"--note "standard" and "paradigm"--but then he emphasizes what seems the opposite:

What is particularly striking about the ^5-^6-^7-^8 cadence is that its top voice surges entirely upwards, which tends to militate against the sense of closure expected at a cadence. As Caplin rightly notes, such a cadence is a “nonconventional" one that "occurs infrequently in the classical repertory” (265). In contrast, cadences whose top voice is framed by 5-6-7-8 in the upper voice are far more typical of nineteenth century practice.

This last is certainly true, but the generalizing that Burstein does is more of a problem. According to him, the ascending line in the Haydn quartet example (see below) has an "odd character," a "striking nature" that suggests it might better be called a "non-cadential 'tonic arrival'" rather than a "genuine cadence." Burstein also echoes Caplin's reading of "struggle" in this cadence.

I wrote in my earlier post (link): I hear it quite differently, as the most emphatic, in-your-face ascending ^5-^6-^7-^8 line in the Classical repertoire. It stands out in every respect, you can't miss it, and you know you're done when it's done. That's a cadence.

And to "odd character," "striking nature," and "non-cadential 'tonic arrival'": Consider that the simple descending line must cope with the disruptive ("striking"?) cadential 6/4 that was essential to the Italian style after its introduction into Neapolitan opera in the 1730s. Disruptive enough, in fact, that a few Schenkerians are still arguing about it three centuries later. By contrast, the harmony and voice leading for the rising line, with a pleasant set of parallel sixths or thirds even, are quite smooth.

Here is an example I found recently: Mozart, Divertimento [Trio] for Violin, Viola, and Cello, K. 563 (1788), Menuet 2, Trio 2. No mistaking this for anything other than a Ländler, or we should say the very recognizable Ländler topic within a typical ABA small form in a multi-movement instrumental piece meant for private or salon performance. 

The fact that Mozart includes the upper-register close, with the ascending line based on the focal note F5 as a bonus, shows not only what we would expect of him, a comprehensive, curious, and immediate knowledge of all the music around him, but also the definite possibility that musicians playing in public places like restaurants and taverns occasionally used these cadence figures in performance. The instrumentation, btw, invokes what became known in Vienna as the "Linzer Geiger," a popular type with two violins and bass.

Here is a reduction of the A-section:

Note that Mozart maintains the one-chord-per-bar convention of the Ländler.
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My series Ascending Cadence Gestures: New Historical Survey includes the time span 1650-1780 in Part 3 and 1780-1860 in Part 4. Link to a post directing to Part 3 files: link. Link to a post directing to a Part 4 summary: link.

William Caplin on rising lines

In what seems to be a movement toward monumentalism in music theory, three major books have appeared in the past few years with page totals running over 600 pages: Julian Hook’s Exploring Musical Spaces: A Synthesis of Mathematical Approaches (Oxford, 2023), at 864 pages; Dmitri Tymoczko’s Tonality: An Owner’s Guide (Oxford, 2023), at 672 pages; and William E. Caplin’s Cadence: A Study of Closure in Tonal Music (Oxford, 2024), which comes in at 648 pages with 715 musical examples. 

Cadence finishes a trilogy of exceedingly detailed and careful studies of formal functions in what is still usually called “Classical” music; that is, larger-scale compositions by musicians working mainly in Vienna from roughly 1780 to 1830 and, to be honest, among them really only Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. 

The earlier volumes are Classical Form: A Theory of Formal Functions for the Instrumental Music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven (Oxford, 1998) and Analyzing Classical Form: An Approach for the Classroom (Oxford, 2013), this latter monumental in its own right at 736 pages. 

The first of these books was largely responsible (along with one by Warren Darcy and James Hepokoski) for the revival of scholarly interest in the formalist analysis of formal functions in European music of the 18th and 19th centuries. The second was a pedagogical expansion of same, although for practical use in teaching one might reasonably have hoped (I certainly did) for more concision, not greater length. The new entry focuses on a single aspect, the cadence, and classifies and interprets formal functions on those terms.

Classical Form was certainly a great accomplishment, valuable for teaching (we used it for more than a decade as the primary text in graduate analysis courses; I was even able to teach its rudiments in a graduate harmony review course) and for research (though Hepokoski and Darcy’s focus on sectional processes seemed to capture graduate student interest more than Caplin’s priority to quadratic syntax, 8-bar themes, and a tight/loose binary). 

I used the book’s categories at the theme level for an extended, multi-part study of formal functions in Mozart menuets and to develop a model for the galant theme (Caplin’s antecedent–continuation hybrid), which was foundational to that musical style in the 1750s-1770s. 

Here are some links: Index to my essays, which has a complete list of the essays relating to formal functions: link. The first of the Mozart studies: Part 1: Orchestral Works and Independent Sets. Mozart, J. C. Bach, and the galant theme: Part 3: A Comparison with Johann Christian Bach.

    ————————

The point of interest here is a short section in chapter 5 of Cadence. For reference, the chapter titles and subheadings are on the book's webpage: link to OUP titles; click on the tab “Table of Contents.” Here are the chapter titles only:

CHAPTER 1 IDEAS OF CLOSURE

PART 1 THE CLASSICAL CADENCE

CHAPTER 2 GENERAL CONCEPTS OF THE 

CLASSICAL CADENCE

CHAPTER 3 BASIC CADENCE TYPES: 

MORPHOLOGY AND FUNCTION

CHAPTER 4 CADENTIAL DEVIATIONS

CHAPTER 5 CADENTIAL EXPANSION

PART 2 CADENCE IN OTHER TONAL STYLES

CHAPTER 6 CADENCE IN THE HIGH BAROQUE

CHAPTER 7 CADENCE IN THE GALANT ERA

CHAPTER 8 CADENCE IN THE ROMANTIC ERA

CHAPTER 9 CADENCE IN THE MID TO LATE 

NINETEENTH CENTURY  

As his reviewer, Poundie Burstein, describes Caplin’s method,

[it] is to seek precision in establishing strict formal categories matched by flexibility in analytic application. [He] tends to regard (at least ideally) the categories associated with cadential status as either-or propositions. An advantage of his absolutist attitude is that it allows for remarkable lucidity by establishing sharp definitions. This provides a solid vantage point to discuss specific analytic situations, avoiding the waffling that might result from vaguer definitions. [At the same time,] to help counter the [inevitable] problems that arise from categorical strictness, Caplin's analyses of cadences tend to be impressively flexible. [In some cases, he will provide] either hedged or alternative readings of the phrase endings. 

Here is the section in Chapter 5 on ascending lines: 5.1.2.11. Additional Patterns/Ascending Melodic Pattern (5̂/6̂/7̂/8̂) (p265)

Despite what is often taught in elementary harmony classes, a melodic line that ascends to its goal tonic occurs infrequently in the classical repertory. In the context of an ECP, a straightforward case arises at the end of the main theme group shown in Example 5.46, where the process of attaining the high F (8̂) represents the melodic, dynamic, and textural climax of the section. 

A similar, but more complex case, is seen in the earlier discussed Example 5.2. Like the previous example, this passage also produces the climactic moment of the main theme, though the sudden shift to piano in measure 19 slightly delays the ongoing progressive dynamic. In both cases, we sense the composer giving special emphasis to the ascending line in a manner that highlights all the more this nonconventional melody.

Both of these are indeed straightforward, but I should note that they are internal to the movement, whereas I decided several years ago to focus only on principal ending cadences. A small matter, perhaps, as either of these could have served as such, with a coda or codetta to follow and finish.

Burstein hedges more than a bit: "What is particularly striking about the ^5-^6-^7-^8 cadence is that its top voice surges entirely upwards, which tends to militate against the sense of closure expected at a cadence." About the Haydn passage above, he asks "Might its striking nature be better highlighted by labelling it as a non-cadential 'tonic arrival,' thereby helping to distinguish it from more normative authentic cadences?" It's very hard to hear such a thing as mere "tonic arrival" in the context of this strongly defined two-reprise form.

Because of the long notes, Burstein also refers to the ascending line as "struggling," but I hear it quite differently, as the most emphatic, in-your-face ascending ^5-^6-^7-^8 line in the Classical repertoire. It stands out in every respect, you can't miss it, and you know you're done when it's done.