New publications: Kern and Gershwin songs; polkas after 1860

I have published four new essays on the Texas ScholarWorks platform.

These two are bundled under one heading:  Alternate cadences in recordings of "All the Things You Are" and "Embraceable You"

Abstract:

Some cadences in European and European-influenced tonal music show a contradiction in direction between registral stasis and linear movement, an example being alternative endings written into a song by Jerome Kern. The topic is explored through analysis of 51 recorded performances. In addition, a registrally complex cadence in Gershwin’s “Embraceable You” is surveyed through 44 recordings.

Ascending Cadence Gestures, A New Historical Survey, Part 4b2: 1780-1860, Polkas (2)

Abstract:

This essay supplements the Historical Survey Part 4b, which covered ascending cadence gestures in polkas between 1840 and 1861. Most items come from the Library of Congress collection Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music, ca. 1820 to 1860.

Ascending Cadence Gestures, A New Historical Survey, Part 5d2: 1860-1900, Polkas

Abstract:

This essay continues from the Historical Survey Parts 4b & 4b2, which covered polkas between 1840 and 1861, to document ascending cadence gestures in more than fifty polkas after that, to c. 1890. Composers represented, among many others, are Gonzaga, Kéler, Johann Strauss, jr., Sullivan, and Ziehrer. An appendix discusses the Clarinet Polka and Modřanská Polka (“Beer Barrel Polka”).

New publication on polkas

I have published the essay Ascending Cadence Gestures, A New Historical Survey, Part 4b: 1780-1860, Polkas on the Texas ScholarWorks platform. Here is the link: polka essay.

Here is the abstract:

This is Part 4b of a multi-part essay gathering compositions with ascending lines and cadence gestures in European and European-influenced music. The repertoire here is polkas published in Europe or the United States between 1840 and 1861. Composers include, among others, Barili, D’Albert, Dodworth, Dressler, Grieg, Grobe, Lumbye, Rziha, Smetana, Johann Strauss, jr., Johann Strauss, sr., Valentini, Viereck, and Zawadzki. An appendix lists polkas mentioned in other publications of mine. A separate file contains data on form design in fifteen published polkas.

Part 4a is the general essay for the time period 1780-1860 -- it will be published at a later date.

Grieg, Larvikspolka, EG 101 (1858)

Presumably a collected piece of social dance music. Larvik is a city in southern Norway. The design of this polka is the very common ABACA of social dance music, beginning with contredanses in the late 1700s and then spreading to almost all other types. The ABACA can be almost indistinguishable from a small ternary form (ABA) with trio (C) and truncated reprise (A), though the "trio" is only one strain, not the two we usually find in the familiar Classical instrumental repertoire of sonatas, etc. The equally common case used here has A as a single principal strain, B a first "trio" in the subdominant key, and C a second trio in the relative minor. (In the contredanse repertoire C is almost always in the parallel or relative minor, which fact might suggest that Larvikspolka is a traditional tune, not a newly composed one from the 1850s). The modern notation is by "Sigerland" and is available on IMSLP: link.

I hear a primitive rising line in A:

In the first iteration of A, however, an inner voice is pushed above (F4 to F5) and the unfolded B4-F5 closes into C5-E5--see below. We can then trace the voices in the two trios. The C5-E5 interval remains stable in the first trio B, except that E5 moves up to F5. In the second trio C, G4 becomes A4/A5 and C5 remains stable.

A synoptic view, then, is as follows:

Note: I have "collapsed" two aspects into one, as the line ^5-^7-^8 is easily understood based on the proto-background ^5-^8.

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:

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.

Strauss, Die Fledermaus n3, duo

Complications arise. (These, of course, will all be resolved happily in the Act III finale.) After Rosalinde and the lawyer Blind have left the room, Eisenstein's friend Falke arrives to invite him to a party that evening. Eager to escape, Eisenstein agrees but says that Rosalinde must not know. What Eisenstein himself does not know is that Falke is planning pay-back for a practical joke that left him wandering the city after a ball dressed in a bat costume (hence, the title Fledermaus, of course).

Falke opens the number with his invitation, "Komm' mit mir zum Souper," an Allegretto grazioso in polka rhythms. The design has a dance's clarity, too: introduction (4 bars), strain 1, strain 2, repeat introduction, strain 1, strain 3 (coda; repeated to equal 16 bars). The principal strain balances rising and falling lines beautifully:

The coda strain brings the rising line to the fore through Falke's expansion of it as he presses his invitation and Eisenstein at last agrees:

After some musical banter back and forth, they return to the polka, this time making a simple attempt at closing off the rising line, but the final ^8 is undercut dramatically by the harmony:

The coda follows (in A major), another polka (the polka schnell now: Allegro), in which first Eisenstein, then both, sing in high spirits.

Although the ending offers a ^7-^8 ascent (in the orchestra, a high A5 undoubtedly also chosen by singers in some productions), it is not convincing overall, as the focal tone ^3 (as C#5) is quite firmly established and maintained throughout.

Costa Nogueras, from 12 Composiciones musicales (1881)

Recent posts on nineteenth century music have brought forward composers from the Alsace (Wekerlin), and Norway (Lehmann). Continuing the international theme, two posts will look at music by Vicente Costa Nogueras, a Spanish (Catalan) composer who lived from 1852 to 1919. He was a pianist, professor in the conservatory at Barcelona, and he wrote predominantly music for that instrument, but also works for the stage and orchestra, as well as songs. The 12 Composiciones musicales (1881) appear to be a gathering of individually published pieces. Here is the cover page, which lists them all; I have added numbers to show the ordering in the PDF file on IMSLP. Pages in the volume are not numbered consecutively.

Six of the twelves pieces incorporate prominent rising lines. The opening "Melodia" is in a ternary form, where A is a double period closing on the dominant, B is a typically unstable middle section, and the reprise is rewritten -- see below. The opening presentation phrase is from the beginning, as is the first idea in the continuation. After that is a two-bar insertion in the piano, and then a considerable expansion of the cadential progression. Scale degree ^5 is quite clear at (a), as is the transposition up a step at (b), and the expressive leap at (c) -- which is magnified in the reprise by the piano's "echo" at (d). At (e) we hear the figure from (c) again but now touching and holding ^6; after a fall from that note, the line closes in the lower octave.

Polichinella is n2 in the set, a polka whose melody--another double period--takes the inverted arch form and finishes with ^6-^7-^8.

The Mazurka (n3) is named Colombina (why Costa Nogueras invokes the commedia del'arte characters is unknown--we will see Harlequin too in n11). Here, the main figure is an ascent from ^5 to ^8, although in the cadence ^5 substitutes for an obviously intended ^7.

In the second strain, likewise, an ascending line is the main figure. In a formal analysis graph, I would treat this as a three-part Ursatz, with ^3/^5.

Bell Polka (1855)

The Bell Polka (1855) was published in Detroit as a "Remembrance of the Germania Musical Society" and "dedicated to the Ladies of Detroit." Link to the Library of Congress page for this piece: link. According to Nancy Newman, the composer—who is listed here only as "Buchheiser"—was William Buchheister, a violist in the Germania orchestra, a group of German and Irish musicians who came to the United States in 1848 and were active in New York and Boston till they disbanded in 1854. Buchheister and his colleague Carl Stein then moved to Detroit to establish the Boston Music Store, renamed Weiss & Buchheister after Stein left in 1865; Buchheister died sometime after 1869; the store closed in 1880 (Newman 249).

The design is a very common one: dance-trio-dance da capo, where the dance has two repeated eight-bar strains -- each shown below -- and the trio, in the subdominant key, has the same. The da capo repeats the dance but then adds a coda which is still another repetition of the two strains with a slightly altered cadence to close -- see the third example below. The alteration consists of a simple rising line, followed by a brief codetta.

second strain:

coda:

text

Reference: Nancy Newman, Good Music for a Free People: The Germania Musical Society in Nineteenth-Century America. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2010.

Nineteenth-century polkas with rising melodic and cadence gestures: a new PDF essay

Title: Nineteenth-century polkas with rising melodic and cadence gestures

 Link: Polkas

Abstract: This essay provides background on dance in the nineteenth century and then focuses on characteristic figures in the polka, especially those linked to rising cadence gestures. The polka became a popular social dance very quickly in the early 1840s. Its music was the first to introduce rising melodic frames and cadence gestures as common features. This essay provides a series of examples with commentary. Most pieces come from the 1840s and early 1850s. Variants of the polka—polka-mazurka, polka française, and polka schnell—are also discussed and illustrated.

Publication on Texas Scholar Works (University of Texas Libraries)