Rusca, Sacri concerti (1630), 1

Claudia Francesca Rusca published a varied collection of music in Milan in 1630: her Sacri concerti a 1-5 con salmi e canzoni francesi includes nearly 30 choral pieces, ranging from solo motets in a modern style to an 8-voice Gloria in Venetian style. Along with these are two instrumental "canzoni francesci." Of all these pieces, a surprising eight have upper register endings. I will look at the equally surprising three of those that tie their endings to exultant "alleluias." Although one might suppose that a closing section with multiple "alleluias" would be an open invitation to upper register endings and even rising lines--whether exuberant or mystical-transcendental--that doesn't seem to be the case, which of course makes the three illustrated here all the more remarkable.

From the fourth of five solo motets for soprano or tenor with continuo, here are the opening and the close of "Veni sponsa Christi." In the end, the hushed echo of "in aeternum" (boxed) gives way to dotted rhythms in the continuo and then the voice in sequences that lead to a lower register cadence in bars 72-73 (circled). The sudden shift to the "subdominant"--arrow in bar 74--normally signals a final flourish over that sonority and ending with the tonic major. Here, the octave-length rising line fits the description but a final full cadence with the voice in the upper register literally upends the usual structural cadence/coda flourish design. As the subdominant flourishes in published music are often frozen versions of improvisations, it is not at all difficult to imagine a solo singer in the first half of the 17th century (and probably earlier) adding one of these spontaneously.  The score in modern notation is by Lorenzo Girodo (2016).

Ending:

The four-voice motet "Hic accipiet benedictionem," on the other hand, gives us a firm upper-register structural cadence (boxed), after which the alleluias follow.

I will discuss the third piece, "Gaudete gaudio magno martyres Christi," in tomorrow's post.

Paul Peuerl, Padouan (1611)

Paul Peuerl (1570-c. 1625?) was a German-Austrian composer, organist, and organ builder. Below is the first pavane in the collection Newe Padouan, Intrada, Dantz und Galliarda (1611). Source: Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich, Bd.70.

The opening -- at (a) and (b) -- gives us a very compact "mirror": from Dorian ^8 down to ^5 and back up again. At (c) and two later places (arrows), an expressive upper note F5. At the end, the figure of (a) is repeated with a repetition of its head (also boxed) and then the cadence line follows: (e), which is a variant of (b). The surprising restriction on range is typical of published instrumental ensemble music through as late as 1650.

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.

New publication: more music before 1650

I have published a new essay on the Texas ScholarWorks platform: link. This includes seventy compositions I found after the Part 2 essay was published in May of this year: link to Parts 2a-d.

Ascending Cadence Gestures, A New Historical Survey, Part 2e: to 1650, addendum

Abstract:

This is Part 2e of a multi-part essay gathering compositions with ascending lines and cadence gestures in European and European-influenced music. Compositions include psalm settings by Le Jeune and Schütz, sacred songs by Henry and William Lawes, music from Felipe Pedrell’s historical anthology of Spanish organ music, keyboard music by Trabaci, instrumental ensemble music by Buonamente, Merula, and Turini.

Castillon, Valses humoristiques (1871)

Alexis de Castillon followed one of the familiar trajectories for a 19th century musician. From an aristocratic family, he was intended for law or the military but resisted and went into music instead. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Massé and Franck; among his friends was Saint-Saëns. Generally in poor health, he died young.

In de Castillon's 6 Valses humoristiques (1871) the first number is of interest. Its principal strain offers the rising line from ^5 in stark simplicity, including V9:

(Note that the second strain drills in the upper tetrachord, now with a descending scale figure--boxed.)

The design is ABCDAE, where E is a coda whose final phrase is recalls the opening with the melody in the left hand:

New blog: On the Dominant Ninth

The number of blogs I maintain has recently grown to four. Hearing Schubert D779n13 was the first of them: it was (and still is) meant to create rich contexts for that curious A-major waltz that is so out of place in the Valses sentimentales, D. 779 (publ. 1825). As material accumulated on ascending cadence figures (which D. 779n13 offers in the most direct and both structurally and expressively consequential way) and on formal designs in early waltzes and related dances (there also D. 779n13 is an anomaly), two additional blogs emerged as spin-offs, the goal in both being primarily to document occurrences and patterns, primarily in 19th-century music but also in earlier music where relevant. These blogs are the present one and Dance and Dance Music, 1650-1850.

Continuing the derivations, On the Dominant Ninth is a spin-off mainly from this blog, given (1) that it was treatments of scale degree ^6 in the major key that enabled the ascending cadence lines that one finds already in Schubert and then more and more often in others as the 19th century moved on; and (2) that in the majority of cases the chord of the dominant ninth was involved. In the new blog, however, the work is not restricted to cadences or to rising figures. Instead, it "is intended to document [the variety of treatments of scale degree ^6 as the ninth of a dominant ninth chord], especially in the essential 19th century European repertoires of the musical stage and music for dance" (quote from the first post to the blog, 21 June 2018).

The new blog has already inspired two publications on the Texas ScholarWorks platform: most recently Dominant Ninth Harmonies in American Songs around 1900; before that Dominant Ninth Harmonies in the 19th Century. A new series on the blog—documenting presentations of the dominant ninth in theory textbooks and treatises in the 19th century—began with a post today on Catel's Traité d'harmonie.

I have published a new essay on the Texas ScholarWorks platform: link.

Title: Offenbach, Rising Melodic Gestures in La belle Hélène (1864)

Abstract:

Jacques Offenbach’s La belle Hélène (1864) was the successor to Orphée aux Enfers (1858; 1874) in both its send-up of Greek myth and its production triumph. Four other mature and now well-known operettas followed: Barbe-bleue (1866), La Vie parisienne (1866), La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein (1867), and La Périchole (1868). All of these—along with La belle Hélène—were composed to libretti by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy.