16th century cadences, part 4: Lassus, bicinia with text n14

Another texted duet borrows from the Magnificat. "Fecit potentiam . . ." is in KJV "He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts" Luke 1:51. Here a short first phrase ("Fecit potentiam") is without cadence, but the second is very clear (for "in brachio suo"), involving three thirds and two 2-3 bass suspensions.

The conclusion again is the point of interest, however: now familiar rising gestures in connection with a 6-8 cadenza perfetta, but note that the approach in the upper voice is repeated, a less likely option than a more varied, but still mainly stepwise figure.

16th century cadences, part 3: Lassus, bicinia with text n15

The last of the texted bicinia uses the same text as n6. Here again I have shown beginning and ending only, and here again the opening phrase is quite long and without cadence in my excerpt (probably this does have something to do with text painting, since the text is about "filling the poor with plenty"; KJV: "He hath filled the hungry with good things"). And here again the focus of my interest is the ending, which offers a more elaborately embellished cadence than did n6, along with even more emphatic rising gestures.

16th century cadences, part 2: Lassus, bicinia with text n6

This and several subsequent posts provide examples of cadences in 16th century bicinia, or pieces in two voices. The object is to discuss features and treatments of the two versions of the clausula vera (also known as the cadenza perfetta), intervals 3-1 and 6-8. An introductory post is here: link.

Lassus published two sets of bicinia in 1577. The first set of fifteen of these are texted, another with twelve are not. Among the texted duets, numbers 6 and 15 use the same text, "Esurientes implevit. . ." [KJV: "He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away," Luke 1:53; from the Magnificat]. I am not an expert in 16th century text painting and will not comment on that element. Which is another way of saying that I don't see anything obvious in the particular choices of figures or cadence types.

The opening and closing measures are in the example below. The points of interest here are that Lassus is not afraid to use the 6-8 cadence to close (that is, he shows no prejudice in favor of 3-1), and the overall gesture in the upper voice is rising.

Counterpoint and the rising cadence gesture

As we saw in yesterday's post, 16th century cadences with interval pairs 3-1 or 6-8, could be the ground or motivation for a rising melodic gesture, but the odds were against it, mainly because of suspension figures that provided additional downward momentum into the cadence.

In the abstract counterpoint exercises that were derived from 16th century music, the potential for rising cadential figures was, ironically perhaps, much greater than it had been in the actual repertoires those exercises were trying to model. There were two reasons for this: (1) the separation of figures into "species" served to isolate suspensions into a single type of exercise; (2) in two-voice instruction, it was routine to write one exercise with the ground or cantus above, then another with the ground below, a situation that guaranteed trading off the 3-1 and 6-8 cadences.

Beethoven studied strict counterpoint with Johann Albrechtsberger while Haydn was away in London. And it is here that the potential of a rising melodic gesture in counterpoint exercises came to fruition in music. Beethoven was apparently one of the first dance composers to make direct use of a rising cadence (but see below for a precedent from Mozart). Beethoven's 12 Deutsche Tänze, WoO8, were composed only three months after he finished his counterpoint studies with Albrechtsberger, but the first dance in the set follows an unexpected trajectory. It begins with a stepwise ascent from ^1 to ^3, elaborated and harmonized with an 8-10-10 voice-leading figure with the bass—this is one of the conventional figures of the partimento tradition. The second strain leads the melody in a determined way upward to ^8. The first dance in a set such as this one—like the menuets in WoO7, these waltzes were for a public ball—was often used as a refrain, so that Beethoven would have had incentive to make it memorable.

As it happens, Mozart had anticipated Beethoven by twenty years. His set of 12 menuets, K 176, opens with a similar promenade/refrain, and it uses virtually the same opening and closing figures.

On the clausula vera (3-1 or 6-8)

The articulation of cadences in sixteenth-century European music relied on the formula of third to unison intervals (if the parts are flipped, then it's sixth to octave). In each example just the beginning of a phrase in two voices is shown, followed by the cadence.

Here is an example from literally thousands of pieces showing the treatment of these figures. This is the fifth of Thomas Morley's Duets for Two Viols. In the opening phrase (mm. 1-5), a sixth (marked in m. 4) "prepares" a suspension dissonance that resolves into the 6 of the cadence: asterisks mark the 6-8. In the second phrase, similarly, a third D-F "prepares" a 2-3 bass suspension and the cadential 3-1 follows (note that the lower notated voice is actually higher in pitch at this point).

And here are the final two phrases, in which the cadence types are reversed: 3-1 first, then 6-8. Again note that the second cadence has the lower notated voice higher in pitch. Indeed, it is one of the uncommon instances of a rising cadential figure in notated ("art") music in the centuries before 1800.

Far more common in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries is to bring a string of parallel sixths down, often with suspensions, toward the 6-8. The example below is from the fifth of the texted bicinia (sometimes called "duets") of Lassus. Four sixth intervals in a row, three with suspensions, make for an inexorable drop to the cadence, and it is only the sudden turn to the final octave that stops the progression (and is a big part of the expressive and formal point).

Administrative post, part 2

In an earlier post, I provided links for some of the PDF files I have uploaded to the Texas Digital Repository (TDR). Files most relevant to this blog are listed there. Others appear here. Like those PDF essays in the earlier list, most of these are compilations of posts from my Schubert blog and from a defunct website.

Dance and Dancing in Schubert's Vienna

This file has six parts: the first concerns dancing in Vienna and dance music genres during the brief period between the Congress of Vienna and the July Revolution in France (1815-1830). The second part brings the focus focus down more locally to the Schubert-Kreis and Schubert’s improvisation practice for dancing. Part 3 looks even more closely at some of the mechanics of that practice. Part 4 turns to the extant repertoire of Schubert’s dances. Part 5 explores Robert Schumann’s review of D365 and D783 and turns it back speculatively onto D779. Part 6 offers a short list of links relating to Schubert.

Cotillon after Schubert, with audio

An episode from a cotillon as Franz Schubert might have played it in the 1820s. UT-Austin doctoral student Josh Straub is the pianist in the audio file.

Dance Designs in 18th and Early 19th Century Music

A study of harmony and formal functions in dance music of the 18th and early 19th centuries. The data and analyses are also intended to supplement the form theory presented in William E. Caplin, Classical Form: A Theory of Formal Functions for the Instrumental Music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). Classical Form discusses the different movement types one encounters in the Classical sonata, quartet, and symphony, but because of the meticulous attention given to small-scale, theme units, the theory is also very well-suited to style studies of dance musics.

Proto-backgrounds in Traditional Tonal Music

This article uses an analogy between "theme" in literary studies and "background" in linear analysis (or other hierarchical analytic models) for music to find more options for interpretation than are available in traditional Schenkerian analysis. The central construct is the proto-background, or tonic-triad interval that is understood to precede the typical linear background of a Schenkerian or similar hierarchical analysis. Figures typically or potentially found in a background, including the Schenkerian urlinie, are understood to arise through (informal) transformations, or functions, applied to proto-backgrounds.

Section from a chapter of an unpublished book:

On Edward Macdowell's "To a Wild Rose"

Historical and biographical background and analysis of MacDowell's "To a Wild Rose." Critique of Schenkerian analysis.

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)