Additions to the New Historical Survey series since September 2022

Update 18 December 2024: I have published the last two entries in the New Historical Survey series. Link to Part 4 summary. Link to Part 5 summary.

Update 29 July 2024: I have just published Ascending Cadence Gestures, A New Historical Survey, Parts 2g and 3c: Supplements. Link.

Abstract: Two supplements add to Part 2 (1450-1650) and Part 3 (1650-1780). New items were found through searches since June 2022. Composers include, among others, J. S. Bach, Beringer, Faber, Vincenzo Galilei, Kapsberger, Kerll, Sweelinck, and Wannenmacher. Historical or contemporary anthologies referenced were compiled and edited by Chilesotti, Gilst, and Phalèse.

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In the past year and a half, I have published eight essays in Parts 4 and 5 of the New Historical Survey series.

Ascending Cadence Gestures, A New Historical Survey, Part 4a1: 1780–1815. Link.

Abstract: This belongs to a multi-part essay series gathering compositions with ascending lines and upper-register cadence gestures in European and European- influenced music. Part 4 covers the period 1780–1860; this section is 1780–1815. Composers include, among others, Beethoven, Doche, Hummel, Mozart, Paisiello, Pecháček, J. A. P. Schulz, and Sterkel. Organ music compiled by Kaspar Ett concludes.

Ascending Cadence Gestures, A New Historical Survey, Part 4b3: Polkas, A Second Supplement. Link.

Abstract: This supplement has additional polkas from the 1840s and 1850s. Composers include, among others, Charles d’Albert, János Gungl, Charles Lenschow, Hans Christian Lumbye, and Johann Strauss, jr. An appendix is a list of all polkas discussed in this and previous essays,

Ascending Cadence Gestures, A New Historical Survey, Part 4c1: Music for Home, Salon, and Concert. Link.

Abstract: This continues Part 4 of a multi-part essay gathering compositions with ascending lines and upper-register cadence gestures in European and European-influenced music. The time period covered in Part 4 is 1780-1860. In Part 4c1 is instrumental music by, among others, Louis Adam, Chopin, Czerny, F. David, Heller, C. Schumann (Wieck), and R. Schumann.

 Ascending Cadence Gestures, A New Historical Survey, Part 4c2: Other Dances and Dance-Songs. 

Abstract: The time period covered in Part 4 is 1780-1860. Parts 4b, 4b2, and 4b3 focus on the polka, Part 4c1 on music for home or recital after 1820. The present Part 4c2 has items from contemporary anthologies: Hamilton’s Universal Tune-Book (2 vols.), Alexander’s New Scrap Book, and Köhler’s Violin Repository of Dance Music (3 vols.).

Ascending Cadence Gestures, A New Historical Survey, Part 5a: Songs, c1860-1890.

Abstract:

Composers represented in Part 5a of this multi-part essay on ascending and upper-register cadence gestures in European and European-influenced music include, among others, Bizet, Delibes, Fauré, Ganz, Gounod, Lalo, Wolf, and Zarzycki. Song collections include Matvey Bernard’s 50 Children's Songs and James William Elliott’s Mother Goose.

Ascending Cadence Gestures, A New Historical Survey, Part 5b2: Hymnals, Supplement, after 1900.

Abstract:

This is the second supplement to an essay gathering compositions with ascending lines and cadence gestures in hymn collections published in the United States. The two studied here are Alexander’s Gospel Songs and Solos (Philadelphia, 1917) and The Best Gospel Songs and Their Composers (Dalton, GA/Dallas, 1904).

Ascending Cadence Gestures, A New Historical Survey, Part 5b3: Ira D. Sankey, Sacred Songs and Solos

Abstract:

This is the third supplement to an essay gathering compositions with ascending lines and cadence gestures in hymn collections published in the United States. The collection studied here is Ira D. Sankey, Sacred Songs and Solos, New Hymns and Solos, and The Christian Choir (London, 1903).

Ascending Cadence Gestures, A New Historical Survey, Part 5b4: Ira D. Sankey, Gospel Hymns, volumes 1-6

Abstract:

This is the fourth supplement to an essay gathering compositions with ascending lines and upper-register cadence gestures in hymn collections published in the United States or in London by American compilers and composers. The collections studied here are Ira D. Sankey, James McGranahan, and George C. Stebbins, Gospel Hymns, Nos. 1 to 6 (Cincinnati/Chicago/NewYork, 1895); and Ira D. Sankey, Winnowed Songs for Sunday Schools (Cincinnati/Chicago/NewYork, 1890)

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As an addendum, here are two other newly published essays of interest for the period 1890 and later:

Mediant Progressions: A Sampling of Early 20th-Century Music.

Abstract:

This is a collection of mediant progressions from music published in the first quarter of the 20th century. It is intended primarily for pedagogical use but may have some interest for music history and music analysis. Composers are Marion Bauer, Lili Boulanger, George Butterworth, Claude Debussy, George Gershwin, Charles Griffes, Ivor Gurney, Paul Hindemith, Gustav Holst, John Ireland, Jerome Kern, Charles Loeffler, Roger Quilter, and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

A Guide to Schenkerian Analysis, File 4: Original (1992) Publication, Chapter 9.

Abstract:

This continuation of the Guide to Schenkerian Analysis series include all the original publication’s Chapter 9, “Analysis of Music before Bach and after Brahms.”

 

Post no. 300

It is four years to the day that I started this blog (introductory post), and this post is the 300th in the series. The blog has provided material for over twenty essays published on the Texas ScholarWorks platform (link to my author page).

The focus has been quite narrow throughout: ascending cadence gestures in traditional European tonal music. Though my work on these figures has its roots in Schenkerian analysis—an article I published thirty-one years ago ("The Ascending Urlinie," in Journal of Music Theory)—I use those particular constructions only some of the time, because of problems with the figure of the focal tone (Kopfton), which I see as defined too narrowly to be generally useful. I opt more often (1) for the model of proto-backgrounds (link; see also Neumeyer 2009), (2) for style historical methods in connection with the dominant ninth chord and what I call the “waltz ninth,” (3) for similar methods and speculative modes for improvisatory practices, especially in the later 18th and early 19th centuries, and (4) for historical narratives of music for social dance, of music for the stage through the nineteenth century, and of composition in general in the later decades of that century, both narratives continuing to be relevant in the first half of the 20th century, as well.

The great majority of the traditional tonal music preserved in scores and manuscript makes use of form-defining cadences in which the principal melody line descends the scale to end on the tonic note. A significant minority, however, follow an upward path to end on scale degree eight (^8), a “circling” path around ^8, or a “mirror” path down from ^8 to ^5 and returning. An early surprise in my work was to find a considerably larger than average percentage of rising lines in the country dances preserved in John Playford's Dancing Master (first edition 1651; link to essay), which fact suggested to me that the figures were relatively common in dance-performance practice, including improvisation. It must be remembered that music for social dance was predominantly music for the violin (secondarily, flute) and that the instrument’s fifths mapping made it as easy to rise from the middle of the scale to ^8 as it did to descend to ^1. 

I later found considerable corroborating evidence in Scottish and Irish dances and dance-songs, these coming largely from the later 18th century (link; link; link), and in the Germanophone Laendler, one of the waltz ancestors and especially closely associated with the violin, later in the 18th century with an ensemble of two violins and bass.

In the example below, the four open strings are depicted at the left in (a) and (b). From the open A-string, one moves with the greatest ease down the D-major scale, as in (a), or up the D-major scale, as in (b). In counterpoint, supposing for example, one violin improvises a descant to the other, the work is almost as easy, one of the simplest versions shown in (c). Another version with a bit more melodic complexity is shown in (d). Register play, in other words, offered a simple device to "do something different," specifically to do something different for an ending/articulation that didn’t run afoul of the traditional cadenza, where ^2 goes down to ^1 while ^7 goes up to ^8, making intervals of the major sixth and the octave (or minor third and unison). Not coincidentally, the alternative higher-register cadence offered a sound that was "bright" or "brilliant."

Additional corroboration of early practices came from 17th-century Germany and Austria; these included repertoires across the entire spectrum of genres, excluding only sacred choral music: link to essay.

The history and practice of rising cadence gestures quickly became more complicated in the early 19th century. Broadly, though, cadences can be heard as prominent expressive gestures and a turn toward less common cadences fits nicely with our familiar nostrums about Romantic rebellion against eighteenth-century conventions—and it aligns well with music theorists' recent revelations about a kind of shadow tonality of hexatonic relations that arise from the exploitation of chromatic mediants, early on especially by Schubert, whose Laendler and Deutscher ("German dance," the other ancestor of the waltz) made significant use of rising figures. This is music, incidentally, we know passed back and forth between music for dance and music for performance, not only in Schubert’s case but in the pragmatic circumstances of music publishing and (especially) domestic use. 

Strangely, perhaps, I have found so far that straightforward expressive motivations for rising gestures—exhilaration, release, etc.—seem to have been far less prevalent than generic, topical, or formal-design considerations. The few coincidences of text and cadence, predictably, were found in the 19th century, after the clichéd cadence figures derived from earlier Italian practice had been largely abandoned (or, at least, their authority undermined). Examples: Grieg, Morgenstimmung (the analogy of musical ascent and the rising sun; link); Schubert, "Die Nonne" (the religious-utopian; link); Strauss, jr., Die Fledermaus n2 (increasing energy, demand, insistence: "Hinaus!”; link); Wolf, "Trunken müssen wir alle sein!” (as in Strauss; link).

As I have already noted, the rising cadence gesture was part of the toolkit of the waltz, and from there it went directly to the polka by no later than 1840. When an aria or other song used a waltz topic, the gesture went along with it. The floodgates were opened in French comic opera by no later than 1834 (see my essay on Adolphe Adam's Le Châlet: link), and rising cadences remained a factor in the opera bouffe and operettas of Offenbach, Lecocq, and others before finding a niche in the American operetta (Herbert) and the musical (notably those by Richard Rodgers).

The formal figure of the rising gesture in the coda of an aria or instrumental movement became firmly established in the last quarter of the 18th century. In some pieces, though, the boundary line between the "structural cadence" and coda figures became blurry—a process already underway earlier in the ensemble finales of Galuppi, with their many repetitions of cadential phrases, a dramatic device adopted by many composers, notably Mozart and Rossini. The process accelerated in the 19th century, more vigorously and consequentially in music for the stage than in instrumental concert music.

An important outlier in all this is Beethoven, for whom transcendence, as a philosophical-religious category, could mean striving to move not just to the top of the voice leading, but outside or beyond it. For my only comments on this to date, see my post on Op119n7: link. My plan is to do more with this eventually, engaging work by David Lewin, Robert Fink, and, more recently, Malcolm Miller.

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.

Fledermaus essay published

I have gathered all the blog posts in the Fledermaus series, added additional information, and published an essay on the Texas Scholar Works platform: Johann Strauss, jr., Die Fledermaus: Ascending Cadence Gestures on Stage. Link.

Here is the abstract:

Die Fledermaus (1874), today the best-known operetta by Johann Strauss, jr., is also a treasure trove of ascending cadence gestures. This article documents and interprets those multiple instances and their effects.

Strauss, Die Fledermaus, addendum: Act II n10 Csardas

Apart from Adele's "Laughing Song" ("Mein Herr Marquis," n8b), the best known solo aria in the operetta is Rosalinde's Csárdás, n10. The two sections of the standard slow-fast design both make use of rising gestures.

In the opening section, unfoldings over a simple cycle of fifths progressions—ii-V-I, mostly in inversions—bring ^9 (E5) down to ^8 (D5) in the first four bars. A rising line fills the second fourth, A4-D5 (bars 3-4). The figure is repeated and stretched into the final cadence (bars 5-8). Considered abstractly, then, a background for this section would be a stationary ^8.

In the second, fast section, ^5 is the focal tone, aided by its upper neighbor (B4 circled in bars 2 and 6) and a descending figure running across V7 closes (also circled). A line of the rising fourth is now the bright flourish at the very beginning.

The Più Allegro—another of those codas that confound the difference between formal-structural and coda-accessory closes—takes the same figures, but shifts the focal note up an octave to A5 and carries that into the voice's ending, where ^5 substitutes for ^7 in order to give even more dramatic emphasis to the final D6!

Strauss, Die Fledermaus, addendum: Act II n6 chorus

After finishing the series on Die Fledermaus, I again watched the excellent performance from the Wiener Staatsoper starring Lucia Popp and Bernd Weikl, with Theodor Guschlbauer conducting  (1980; DVD release 2007).

In the course of this audio-viewing, two more numbers revealed themselves as having rising cadence gestures. The first of these is an omission: the opening chorus of Act II (n6) reprises, but also develops, Falke's "Komm mit mir zum Souper" invitation to Eisenstein (from n3). The reprise is also a reminder to the audience that Falke is the driver behind the narrative's events.

The chorus takes full advantage of this charming polka as guests laud the pleasures of Prince Orlofsky's party/dance. In the principal strain, neighbor notes moves about ^8:

After a second strain, the first is repeated. Then the tempo changes abruptly, to Molto animato as the singers call out their orders, after which a new strain, Vivo, uses an eight-bar unit as the presentation phase of a 16-bar sentence -- see bars 1-8 below, with its remarkable treatment of ^7 and ^6. The continuation moves quickly up to ^8 (bars 9-12 below) then adds four more bars of descent ending with an IAC.

The continuation is then repeated, but now the ascent is the main event, and ^8 is celebrated, fortissimo, for several more bars:

Concluding comment on Die Fledermaus

The number of ascending cadential gestures in Die Fledermaus is substantial. Certainly there are many more than one would expect in the waltz sets of Johann Strauss, jr., where he tends to be conservative in the cadences (apart, of course, from the characteristic figures of the waltz repertoire). On the other hand, significant ascending motives and cadences are very typical of the opera bouffe and operetta repertoires. Clearly Strauss knew and responded to those genre-based opportunities.

 In the introduction to this series, I wrote that—in addition to continuing documentation of rising cadential figures—I wanted "to put more emphasis on the expressive and dramatic functions of ascending cadence gestures in texted works. My method is quite simple: for each song or number I will ask the question, Why does an ascending melodic figure dominate the cadence(s) and not the clichéd falling version inherited from 18th century practice?"

As will be obvious if you have read earlier posts, I didn't follow through on that plan. After n2—the trio for Rosalinde, Eisenstein, and Blind—I largely gave up. I did manage these observations there: [link to the post]

In this case, (1) the focus on the upper edge of the register in the main phrase (bars 1-5 above); (2) the repetitions of the pick-up chromatic ascending figure (bars 9-12), which invite continuation in the same direction (bars 12-13); (3) the more and more peremptory "hinaus" (get out!) (bars 12-13); (4) the exaggerated melodramatic humor in the subverted tonic at the end, as Rosalinde hits and holds her high note. 

The Vivace [ending] is a typical operatic ensemble close, whose simple harmonic progressions and repetitious figures are similar to "one more time" passages in Classical-period instrumental codas. After waltzes and polkas, these ensemble endings are the most frequent source of rising cadence gestures in 19th century music.

Perhaps  Die Fledermaus wasn't the best subject for an inquiry like this, if the goal is to make fine distinctions (why rising in this aria, falling in that?). Almost all of its songs and ensemble pieces are dance-based, with particular emphasis on the waltz and polka. By 1850 at the latest, the endings of songs, but especially ensemble pieces and finales, generally favored rousing high-register gestures. Thus, the answer to my question is simple: genre expectations assumed the possibility of significant ascending motives and cadences.

I would like to be able to claim the following, as well, but I will do no more than hint for now. A study now underway of songs by Cécile Chaminade and Hugo Wolf will, I hope, offer some insights.

Such genre expectations also made it easier to experiment with ascending figures and cadences in relation to mood or affect: instead of the typical falling line for slow-tempo melancholy, a rising conclusion could signal an existentially charged sighing regret, nostalgia, or utopian feeling. In a faster tempo, a falling cadential line could more easily signal assertion, firmness, or resolve when understood as balanced against the option of the lighter, brighter quality of an ascending line. 

Waltz "Du und Du," op. 367

Die Fledermaus draws on a variety of musical resources, including—as we have seen—popular dances of its era: the polka, galop, and waltz.

Strauss published a set of waltzes derived from the operetta; it is named "Du und Du," after the choral section of Falke's "Brüderlein und Schwesterlein" in Act II.

The set consists of an introduction, three waltzes (not the standard five), and a lengthy coda. The introduction immediately quotes "Brüderlein und Schwesterlein":

but before too long inches its way toward "Ha, welch ein Fest," the climactic dance of the Act II Finale:

The first waltz, then, offers up the two strains of that waltz:

Waltz n2 gives us Rosalinde's rebuke to the jail warden Frank in Act I and Adele's rebuke to Eisenstein from Act II.

Finally, n3 brings us two strains from "Du und Du":

In typical fashion, the coda then recapitulates several strains from the waltzes, separated by dramatic transitions.

As a point of interest, Strauss published several other pieces with material derived from Die Fledermaus: a Fledermaus-Polka, Op. 362; a Fledermaus-Quadrille, Op. 363; a polka "An der Moldau," Op. 366; and a polka-mazurka "Glücklish ist, wer vergisst!", Op. 368.

Strauss, Die Fledermaus n16, Act III finale

In Act III, as we saw in the previous post, everyone converges on the jail, for different reasons but mainly to participate in Falke's revelation of his trick on Eisenstein. Since that trick was to induce Eisenstein to flirt with his disguised wife, the main element of the plot now is their reconciliation. Consistent with the farcical nature of the plot, when Eisenstein blames the champagne, Rosalinde promptly forgives him and all ends well.

The finale is brief, compared with those for the first two acts. A polka sets up an explanation of the ruse. Its introduction generates a simple ascent from ^5 to ^8. The theme that follows consists of unfolded intervals; the main voice is the lower one, ^1-^7-^1, with a covering ^5-^4-^3.

When Eisenstein says "Du siehst, nur der Champagner war an allem Schuld!," everyone joins in a reprise of the Prince's toast that opened the Act II finale—and now closes the operetta.

Strauss, Die Fledermaus n14, Act III, "Spiel' ich . . ."

In one of the subplots (if we can dignify them with that term), Rosalinde's maid Adele aspires to be a professional singer and actress. During the evening party, she comes to believe that Frank (the warden disguised as a marquis) can help her. The following morning (we are now in Act III), she and her sister show up at the jail. In n14, the couplets "Spiel' ich die Unschuld vom Lande," Adele presses her point. Musically, she shows off a variety of styles within a compact form. 

A1   8 bars        — for the naïf from the countryside, a 6/8 tune like a contredanse gigue, one of the types that had become identified as French folk song by the later 19th century.
A2   8 bars with 4-bar extension  (on V)
B1   8 bars closes on tonic -- the second from section
B2   12 bars coda, repeats 4 bar phrase of A1 

C    8 bars    meno mosso in 3/4   — leads to a bit of a waltz at the end. Adele makes the point of her varied skills.
2 bars transition 

D1  8 bars  Tempo di marcia    -- "Spiel' ich eine Königin"  (for the queen, a regal march)
1 bar intro
D2  8 bars
D2   repeat with Ida and Frank 

C   reprise
repeat 2 bars transition 

E1   10 bars 2/4 Allegretto grazioso.  "Spiel ich 'ne Dame von Paris" (for the lady of Paris, a 2/4 grazioso--these have their source in the 18th century contredanse-gavotte and remain a staple as late as film music underscore in the 1940s)
E2    8 bars
F      12 bars
E2’   9 bars; with cadence to tonic

The music of interest to us here is in sections D and E/F. The 8-bar consequent of D finishes with a descending but open cadence. The focal tone is ^5 (as D5); in the cadence this moves to ^4 (C5) and one then imagines ^3 (B4). (So, an unfolded third C5-A4 to the third G4-[B4]).

In the repeat of the consequent--with added sound effects from Ida (Adele's sister) and Frank--Adele takes the focal tone ^5 up to ^7 and ^8 (F#5-G5) in the cadence:

In the analogous place in the E theme (specifically, the repeat of it that closes the aria), the focal tone is again ^5 (D5), the singer takes it up through D#5 to E5 over the cadential ii6, then substitutes ^5 for ^7, while the orchestra provides the ^7:

Strauss, Die Fledermaus n12, Act III, Entre'act & n13, Melodrama

The scene for Act III is the jail. The Entre'act--which functions as the introduction to Act III--helps switch locations for the audience in that it is a reprise of all of the Vogelhaus march, both the 2/4 and 6/8 sections. In the course of that, the powerful (con forza) cadence is repeated:

In n13, Frank has returned to the jail and settles down, all the while recalling pleasant memories (and, of course, several musical fragments) of the evening's party, including the Prince's toast, with its ascending cadence gesture. At the end of the melodrama (that is, a scene of action--or in this case rather less and less action) he falls asleep.

Strauss, Die Fledermaus n9, the "Eins, Zwei, Drei" galop

Before we leave Act II, there is one further number to discuss. The action during n9 is between Rosalinde (disguised as a Hungarian countess) and Eisenstein, who is trying to seduce her using his special chiming pocket watch (which, we learned in Act I, he claims never fails). A brief galop, "Eins, Zwei, Drei," appears three times in the course of the scene. Its melody is about as obvious a rising line as one could want, but it is given a proper harmonization only in its first iterations, not the repetitions.

In the first instance, the repetition of the theme is cut off partway through by a dissonance as Eisenstein reacts to Rosalinde's miscounting:

In the second instance, Eisenstein deliberately miscounts wildly and the final tonic is replaced by another dissonance.

The third instance is at the end of the number, which the two singers bring to a dramatic close, but where the tune only appears once the cadence is finished, over a tonic pedal (circled). Adding insult to cadential injury, the codetta surges past ^8 to ^10 (F#6; see the box) and we hear several V-I's in a row.

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.

Strauss, Die Fledermaus n11, Act II finale

The setting of Act II is the ball to which Eisenstein and Falke have stolen away. Thanks to Falke's plan for revenge on Eisenstein, however, pretty much everyone shows up, although in disguise; the only person who isn't in disguise is the host, Prince Orlofsky. Unlike the first act, the second has no rising cadence figures outside of the finale.

The Prince opens with a toast to champagne. The music is mapped out as three eight-bar strains (A, B, C below; C is repeated as C') with a twelve-bar insert. Strain B, in the dominant, functions as Caplin's contrasting middle, a "B-section" in traditional form terms, to which the insert adds a retransition. Strains A and C are distinct, but both use ascending lines in their cadences.

The two phrases of A are essentially the same, and they would form a simple wedge figure except that ^2 in the descent has to be imagined. The ^3 (as F#5) is clear enough as a focal tone, but all the attention after the first bar goes to ^5 and then its tra-la-la-ing ascent in the cadence. The voice is accompanied by lower orchestral voices in this segment, and one can find the requisite ^2, though as E4 not E5 and in the third horn and viola, which placement doesn't inspire confidence about the musically revelatory.

Strain C has the toast itself, and its tune is built much like the one in A, but with the lower line stretched out to a sixth and the force of the upper ^3 as focal tone much diminished. In the cadence it's more plausible, to my ears anyway, to hear F# moving up to its similarly expressed neighbor G than it is to pull out the sixteenth-note E4 for a descent. The priorities I am hinting at here become obvious in C', where the cadence brings more attention to ^6 and an over-reaching ascent in the Flute 1 part (marked and notes circled below).

Strauss, Die Fledermaus n5, Act I Finale, "Mein schönes, grosses Vogelhaus"

The final two scenes of Act I involve a farewell kiss that Alfred manages to extract from Rosalinde and Alfred's departure, which is initiated by the warden Frank ("Nein, nein, ich zweifle gar nicht mehr") but whose principal tune is his "Mein schönes, grosses Vogelhaus," a comic march:

Eventually all three characters sing the tune together and then close with a 6/8-time coda, whose tune is:

This is repeated, with an elaborate and forceful cadence at the end of which Rosalinde finds her way to a high C:

Here is the line she follows from ^3 (E5) to ^8 (C6), in course of which ^5 substitutes for the scalar ^7, presumably to give even more dramatic weight to the final high note.

Strauss, Die Fledermaus n5, Act I Finale, "Herr, was dächten Sie von mir"

Alfred and Rosalinde's duo in the "Trinklied" was the first musical section of the Act 1 finale. In the subsequent section the jailor Frank enters and a comic szena ensues in which Alfred continues to sing phrases of the "Trinklied" while Frank attaches his own meaning to them, in the process mistaking Alfred for Eisenstein. Rosalinde realizes what is happening and, because she is trying to get rid of Alfred, claims he is in fact Eisenstein. Her strophic song "Mein Herr, was dächten Sie von mir" elaborates on this ruse ("How could you imagine I would be here with anyone other than my husband? Etc.). See the opening below. Strauss often uses polkas for happy moods or congeniality, but sometimes for irony or, as here, for a series of comic double entendres. (The polka I am referring to is the original type from the 1840s, known in the second half of the 19th century as the polka française, or a slower tempo polka. The music of the polka schnell, in a fast tempo, is barely distinguishable from a galop.)

Note the very strong emphasis on ^6 (E5) as the ninth in a V9. Also note the tonic with add6 at the end.

Still putting emphasis on ^6, the second half of each strophe switches to a waltz, which consists of a double period (Caplin's 16-measure theme) that is repeated. In the first iteration the melody makes its way through an octave -- see the beam.

In the second iteration, Frank and Alfred join in, making for a bit of contrapuntal play. In the cadence, Rosalinde takes the melody back up to G5.

Here is a reduction of the voice leading for the final bars.