Four from the movies (1): Waxman, "Hotel Lobby Waltz"

Franz Waxman wrote the underscore for Rebecca (1940; produced by Selznick, directed by Hitchcock). Early in the film we hear the "Hotel Lobby Waltz." A reduced version of the tune in transcription, along with chord symbols, is given below. Some bars of the reduction have all the notes, others have a principal note only. As the transcription shows, the final cadence rises.

Here is a formal Schenkerian sketch, with annotations that mark action in the film. "Exterior" refers to the exterior of the hotel; "interior" is the cut to the hotel lobby. "He" of course is Laurence Olivier in character as Maxim de Winter. "On reprise" refers to the reprise following a trio: the overall design is waltz (AABA)-trio-waltz.  (The "Hotel Lobby Waltz," by the way, segues directly into the waltzes by Lanner and Strauss used in the breakfast scene.)

The waltz has a trio, which is sketched below.

A middleground/background sketch of the entire cue is here. The striking thing about the piece is certainly the "naturalization" of add6, so that the Urlinie is not ^5-^6-^7-^8 but only ^6-^7-^8.

Tin Pan Alley and Broadway, 1910s and 1920s (4), continued

Yesterday I wrote about two numbers in The Vagabond King (music by Rudolf Friml, 1925). As a postscript, here is a number from Friml's version of The Three Musketeers (1928). Another march, like the drinking song in The Vagabond King, this one is a vigorous affirmation of D'Artagnan's (and the Musketeers') loyalty to king and country.

Focus on ^5 is very strong, but in the musical example below note the equally strong internal rising figure in the accompaniment.

In the cadence, a remarkable wedge figure takes the bass down through the octave and the melody up. The melody is easily divided at the focal note (C5, circled), with fifth below and fourth above, so that an ascending line ^5-^6-^7-^nat7-^8 is readily heard.

The entr'acte between Acts I and II is this same composition, but the orchestral accompaniment only: see the opening below. Of course, the same rising line ends, as above.

As a postscript to the postscript, here is the ending of number 24, a duet for Constance and D'Artagnan that parallels the one between Katherine and Villon that I discussed in yesterday's post.
Note especially the optional ending (arrow) that keeps the rising line in its "obligatory register."

Tin Pan Alley and Broadway, 1910s and 1920s (4)

Rudolf Friml's The Vagabond King was produced on Broadway in 1925. It remains the composer's best-known work. Wikipedia link to the musical: link. Because the music is still under copyright, I have reproduced only very brief excerpts with annotations.

The book for this musical is a heavily fictionalized and romanticized story about François Villon, taken from a popular novel and play, If I Were King (1901), by Justin McCarthy. In fact, about the only thing historical is the character of François Villon and his engagement in criminal activities. That he is presented as a swashbuckling type who would eventually put his skills to positive use fits a well-established stereotype in the nineteenth and early twentieth century stage and film repertoires (think Zorro, Captain Blood, Robin Hood [as played by Errol Flynn], and many others).

Briefly and very roughly, Louis XI condemns Villon to death; the latter raises the Paris rabble to defeat the besieging Burgundians; Villon is condemned anyway; Katherine de Vaucey offers to die instead; the King pardons -- and exiles -- them both. (The Wikipedia article has a good synopsis.)

Number 4 is a comic drinking song -- or one might say, a drinking march: note the "Marziale" annotation for the refrain, whose opening melody is shown here:

The second half of the refrain is a steady ascending approach to the cadence. The first motive offers a "flagon" (below) then expanding repetitions of the motive move upward -- the steps taken are shown at the right in the first system -- until we reach Ab5 and A5 (second system) and "an ocean of wine."

"Tomorrow" (n12) is a romantic duet for Katherine and Villon. Villon sings the verse and refrain, then Katherine sings the verse (to new words), and finally he repeats the refrain while she adds a descant part -- see the opening of this last below. Note the persistently rising figure in the descant, while the main melody hovers about ^3 (as C5).

In the cadence, a complicated set of figures emerges out of this pairing. In the main melody, C5 -- see circled note almost at the end of Villon's part -- substitutes for ^2 in an abstract third-line we would trace back to the focal note C5 at the beginning. When ^3 substitutes for ^2 over the dominant seventh chord, the V13 effect is created -- one can trace its use back at least to 1840. At the same time, the melody moves much more concretely up from ^5 -- see boxed notes in Villon's part. The double arrows show the complications: Katherine picks up ^5 an octave higher (Eb5) and doubles the chromatic progression and the tonic-note ending (boxed notes), but she uses the common substitution of ^5 for ^7 in the rising line. The progression, however, is literally given in the accompaniment, as Eb4-E4-F4-G4-Ab4 (see the sequence of arrows in the accompaniment).

Tin Pan Alley and Broadway, 1910s and 1920s (3)

Today's entry is by Wallie Herzer, still another Tin Pan Alley composer active around the time (before and after) World War I. "Everybody Two Step" is his best known piece. Wikipedia entry for Herzer: link. Link to the song on the Levy Collection site: link.

The chorus is a straightforward double period where the melody is controlled by obvious stepwise figures: Bars 1, 3, and 5 below will illustrate. The ending, with the ascent from ^5, is at the bottom of the page.

Tin Pan Alley and Broadway, 1910s and 1920s (2)

Albert von Tilzer was a contemporary of Joseph E. Howard and an equally successful song writer, known best now for "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."  "Down Where the Swanee Flows" (1916) is typical of a sentimental strain of "Southern songs" that, yes, does go back as far as Stephen Foster in the mid-19th century. Link to the sheet music on the Lester Levy Collection website: link.

The design of the chorus is 32 bars, but what I am tempted to call "through-composed" -- that is, every eight-bar unit is different, so ABCD (most certainly not the stereotypical AABA). The opening defines two spaces, Eb4-Bb4 and Bb4 (here, C5)-Eb5. The lower of the two predominates throughout, which permits reading Bb4 (or ^5) as a focal tone and the progression to the cadence in the final 8-bar unit both clear and simple (second example below).

(Chorus ending)

Tin Pan Alley and Broadway, 1910s and 1920s (1)

The Library of Congress and several other collections have digitized and made available an enormous number of musical compositions published in the United States before 1923. In this series, I will comment on a few with ascending cadence gestures.

Herbert Stothart is well-known as the director of the music department at the MGM studio in the 1930s and 1940s. He came to Hollywood, along with a good many others, from Broadway, where he had established a reputation as an orchestrator and composer by the early 1920s.

The song "Strictly Neutral Jag," co-written with Joseph E. Howard for the show "The Girl of Tomorrow" (1915) in which the song was featured. (All this according to the cover page. I was unable to find anything more on the show. Howard was a Tin Pan Alley composer who wrote "Hello Ma' Baby," among other well-known tunes. Howard's name is listed first on the cover and first page of the score.) The sentiment of the song's subtitle "A Dramatic Appeal with Music" was for American neutrality in World War I, by no means an uncommon view in 1915. "Jag," of course is a play on "rag."  The music can be found on the Lester Levy Collection website: link.

The opening of the chorus (refrain) sets up an interval frame ^5-^8, both rising and falling (boxed notes).

The potential of this frame is eventually realized in the close. The chorus is not in the familiar 32-bar AABA design: it is a double period whose first unit is a sentence (see the continuation phrase in the example below -- first four bars) and whose second unit (consequent) is expanded by 4 bars -- those extra bars appear in the second example below. As the opening bar above (repeated at the end of the first example below, with ^1) shows, D5 is well defined as a focal note. Scale degree ^2 is reached at the end of the first unit, and I suppose could be called an interruption, but I have become increasingly skeptical of that term and would find neighbor note quite sufficient: so ^1 -- ^2 -- ^1.

In the consequent D5 descends by sequence down to B4 (not A4) and then rises again to C#5-D5 in the cadence.

Chorus ending:

Distler, "Der Gärtner," third version

Hugo Distler's Opus 19 is a large collection of a cappella songs to texts by Eduard Mörike. Several of the texts were set in multiple versions, including "Der Gärtner." I am discussing the third version, which is for three-part men's chorus. Because Distler's music is under copyright, I reproduce only the opening two measures, with an annotation, and then offer the entirety of my analysis.

The uncertainty of the tonal basis of the opening seems to dissipate by bars 4-5, with a secure cadence to Bb. Everything thereafter, however, is in F, including the close. Thus the possible Bb: ^3 at the beginning turns out to be F: ^6. Because the tonal design is reminiscent of the first strain of many small binary forms -- as Bb: I-V -- Distler succeeds in balancing the two tonalities beautifully.

Continuation of the analysis graph: