Emile Waldteufel, Les Patineurs (Skaters), Op. 183

The famous "Skaters Waltz" is  Les Patineurs by Emile Waldteufel (published in 1882). Given its main melody—the first strain of waltz n1—the notion of ascending cadences would seem far afield, but look at this simplified piano edition:

In a version for salon orchestra, the piano/conductor score (a two-stave score with abbreviated instrumental indications) also shows the rising scale figure from F#4 to A4. In the full orchestral score, this figure is taken by the second clarinet and second trumpet. The piano/conductor score, btw, shows the complete texture: there are no subsidiary parts or notes in different octaves.

Les Patineurs has an introduction, four waltzes, and a coda. The 16-bar main theme is anticipated in the introduction, appears twice in the first waltz (a small ternary design), and three times in the coda. The cadential counter-motive appears in all of these but the first (the introduction) and the last, grandioso statement.

Looking at it in Schenkerian terms, three possible hearings are readily imagined. The first is a rising line from ^5, where an Urlinie parallelism traces across the middleground in bars 2-10. The E4 (circled) in bar 11 is particularly interesting in that it clearly initiates a lower, descending line through the 4-3 figure over B2, but E4 is also an aural trace of the initial ^5 that prepares for the ascent that begins a bar later.

Alternatively, if we give full sway to hypermetric accent, that allows a hearing from ^3, with a neighbor in bar 5, a possible return to C# in bar 7, a consonant C# touched on at the end of bar 10 and a twice-dissonant C# at the end of bar 12 and in bar 13.

Combining the figures of both lines in a three-part Ursatz design produces the following, quite satisfactory reading:

The problem is that the counter-motive is barely audible—to my aging ears, effectively inaudible—in all the recorded performances I listened to. The second clarinet and trumpet are simply overwhelmed by the unison melody in the first violins, cellos, and first clarinet and trumpet. In the end, then, if one is using Schenkerian tools, I think the best reading is this:

Note: I've left out one intermediate step, where the "quarter note" G#5 would have a C#4 below it and a bass C#3 (to account in some fashion for bars 7-8).

All in all, it must be said that this famous theme has a remarkable collection of diatonic dissonances.

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.

Kirnberger, Lob des Weins (1761)

This little vocal gavotte by Kirnberger, "Lob des Weins," is in the 4th installment of the Musikalisches Allerley von verschiedenen Tonkünstlern (Berlin, 1761). The text, which had been set by Telemann twenty years earlier, runs to six verses praising the wine god (Rebengott--see bar 5). (Marpurg, like Kirnberger a frequent contributor to the Allerley, also set the text (1763).) The gavotte was already long associated not only with the pastoral (see "Bacchus" in bar 6) but also with the contredanse, so that a certain "party atmosphere" is undoubtedly meant here. The only oddity is that the gavotte, when meant to be danced, was never written in 6-bar strains.

A clear focal tone (^5) in the first strain is displaced by an equally clear ^3 in the second strain.* The closing cadence is a wedge, where ^3 descends by line, and ^5 ascends from below, also by line.

*A Schenkerian might well bring a line down from ^5 through ^4 in bar 7, but doing so would obviously be forced and unmusical.

Kirnberger, Vivace (1763)

Kirnberger, Vivace (1763). This little keyboard piece is in the 8th installment of the Musikalisches Allerley von verschiedenen Tonkünstlern (Berlin, 1763). Its simple 16-bar small binary design is matched by an equally simple pitch design with a primitive Urlinie in the closing cadence.

Czerny, Praktische Studien des Generalbasses, Op. 838: ninth chords

Czerny introduces the dominant with a minor ninth relatively early in his harmony exercise book. Much later he has a section titled "Der Nonen-Accord." It consists of one two-page composition, a 43-bar agitato that begins in C minor but ends triumphantly in C major.

With only three exceptions, the ninth chords are again dominants with a minor ninth--as at the first arrow below--and those ninths are resolved within the chord--as at the second arrow. Only over pedal point basses are the ninths allowed to resolve directly. In other words, Czerny's treatment of ninth chords is very conservative for the 1850s.

Two of the three dominants with major ninth are close together--see arrows below--and both resolve their ninths within the chord. (Chords with minor ninth are boxed.)

All this being the case, the primary closing cadence is a surprise: not only does it have a chord with major ninth (boxed) but that chord is treated in the manner I call the "waltz ninth," where 9 moves upward, the result being an emphatic ascending cadence gesture (beamed at (a)).  (At (b) is an example of the minor ninths over a pedal point.) Here it is Beethovenian heroic transcendence we are hearing, definitely not a lilting upward turn to end a waltz or polka.

A Curiosity: Czerny, Praktische Studien des Generalbasses, Op. 838

Carl Czerny's Studien zur praktischen Kenntniss aller Accorde des Generalbasses auf dem Pianoforte sowohl in festen als bewegten Finger-Übungen, Op. 838—or simply "Praktische Studien des Generalbasses," as the interior title page has it—was published in Vienna by Spina in the early 1850s.

Czerny's foreword is a short paragraph that immediately suggests his attitude toward the subject:

The study of figured bass can only be of real value to the student if he learns to play all the chords in their many forms on the piano and is able to play them securely. The present work offers a contribution to that goal, in that the first nine numbers present the chords in block-chord form, and the remaining numbers the same chord repertoire in elaborated form, so that the student can be made more familiar with the various harmonic combinations. (my translation)

His footnote to the title of the first section is decidedly more revealing: "The figures in all of these examples must be worked out by the student, who can avail himself if necessary of help from a textbook or a teacher." Thus, Czerny is really offering a practical diatonic and chromatic chord primer, not a figured-bass textbook.

The first example is of interest here. It covers all 24 major and minor triads in a total of 13 bars. The upper most voice covers the distance of an ascending octave, C5-C6.

The pattern of thirds within fifths—C-a-F in bars 1-2—is strictly maintained throughout, and it charts a simple path through the Riemannian Tonnetz. Here is a fragment of a common representation of the Tonnetz, with arrows showing the starting path of Czerny's progression:

And here is the entire sequence, separated out from the diagram:

I should note, incidentally, that is impossible to maintain the close voicing in the right hand with anything other than a rising line. Analogously to suspensions, which tend to force voice leading down, relative (R) and leading-tone (L) relations force voice leading upward.