Schubert's string quartets : the teleology of lyric form [1 ed.] 9781009210928, 9781009210911

Citation preview

Schubert’s String Quartets

Franz Schubert’s music has long been celebrated for its lyrical melodies, ‘heavenly length’, and daring harmonic language. In this new study of Schubert’s complete string quartets, Anne M. Hyland challenges the influential but under-explored claim that Schubert could not successfully incorporate the lyric style into his sonatas, and offers a novel perspective on lyric form that embraces historical musicology, philosophy, and music theory and analysis. Her exploration of the quartets reveals Schubert’s development of a lyrically conceived teleology, bringing musical form, expression, and temporality together in the service of fresh intellectual engagement. Her formal analyses grant special focus to the quartets of 1810–16, isolating the questions they pose for existing music theory and employing these as a means of scrutinising the relationship between the concepts of lyricism, development, closure, and teleology, thereby opening up space for these works to challenge some of the discourses that have historically beset them.

anne m. hyland is Senior Lecturer in Music Analysis at the University of Manchester and Associate Editor of Music Analysis. Her work on Schubert has appeared in leading journals and edited volumes on the composer. Her first published article won the Music Analysis 25th Anniversary Prize (2009).

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

music in c ontext Founding editor Julian Rushton University of Leeds

General editor J. P. E. Harper-Scott Royal Holloway, University of London The aim of Music in Context is to illuminate specific musical works, repertoires, or practices in historical, critical, socio-economic, or other contexts; or to illuminate particular cultural and critical contexts in which music operates through the study of specific musical works, repertoires, or practices. A specific musical focus is essential, while avoiding the decontextualisation of traditional aesthetics and music analysis. The series title invites engagement with both its main terms; the aim is to challenge notions of what contexts are appropriate or necessary in studies of music, and to extend the conceptual framework of musicology into other disciplines or into new theoretical directions. Books in the series Simon P. Keefe, Mozart’s Requiem: Reception, Work, Completion J. P. E. Harper-Scott, The Quilting Points of Musical Modernism: Revolution, Reaction, and William Walton Nancy November, Beethoven’s Theatrical Quartets: Opp. 59, 74, and 95 Rufus Hallmark, ‘Frauenliebe und Leben’: Chamisso’s Poems and Schumann’s Songs Anna Zayaruznaya, The Monstrous New Art: Divided Forms in the Late Medieval Motet Helen Deeming and Elizabeth Eva Leach, Manuscripts and Medieval Song: Inscription, Performance, Context Emily Kilpatrick, The Operas of Maurice Ravel Roderick Chadwick and Peter Hill, Olivier Messiaen’s Catalogue d’oiseaux: From Conception to Performance Catherine A. Bradley, Polyphony in Medieval Paris: The Art of Composing with Plainchant Daniel M. Grimley, Delius and the Sound of Place Owen Rees, The Requiem of Tomás Luis de Victoria (1603) Nicole Grimes, Brahms’s Elegies: The Poetics of Loss in Nineteenth-Century German Culture Jane D. Hatter, Composing Community in Late Medieval Music: Self-Reference, Pedagogy, and Practice Daniel Elphick, Music behind the Iron Curtain: Weinberg and his Polish Contemporaries Emily MacGregor, Interwar Symphonies and the Imagination: Politics, Identity, and the Sound of 1933

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Schubert’s String Quartets The Teleology of Lyric Form

anne m. hyland University of Manchester

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8EA, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 103 Penang Road, #05–06/07, Visioncrest Commercial, Singapore 238467 Cambridge University Press is part of Cambridge University Press & Assessment, a department of the University of Cambridge. We share the University’s mission to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781009210928 DOI: 10.1017/9781009210911 © Anne M. Hyland 2023 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press & Assessment. First published 2023 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-1-009-21092-8 Hardback Cambridge University Press & Assessment has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

In ómós do agus le cuimhní geanúla ar mo mháthair, Margaret Teresa Hyland, née Normoyle (1941–2021)

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

To say that Schubert’s genius was essentially lyrical is not to belittle his achievement as an instrumental composer, but to define it. – John Reed, The Schubert Song Companion

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Contents

List of Figures [page viii] List of Tables [ix] List of Music Examples [xii] Acknowledgements [xv] Note on the Text [xix]

Introduction: Schubert as Vanishing Point [1] part i contexts 1 2

The Lyric Impulse: Musicological and Methodological Contexts [19] Schubert’s String Quartets: Historical and Analytical Contexts [65] part ii analysis

3 4 5

[17]

[105]

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation: Reanimating the Dynamics of the Lyric [107] Schubert the Progressive: Parataxis and the Dialectics of Lyric Teleology [160] The Temporality of Lyric Teleology: Once More between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets [208] Epilogue

[264]

Appendix: Schubert’s Compositions for String Quartet [274] Bibliography [279] Index [297]

vii

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Figures

3.1 3.2

viii

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Three stages of a complete MC, after Mark Richards (2013), 168 [page 137] Available routes through the three stages of a complete MC Complex [138]

Tables

1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6

Schubert, ‘Ihr Bild’, formal design [page 22] Schematic representation of Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, bars 64–168 after Salzer (1928), 99 [29] Mozart, Piano Sonata in D Major, K576/i, bars 1–16, form-functional reading [56] List of acronyms and symbols used in this study [60] Johann Traeg’s 1799 catalogue, ‘Camer-Musik’, ‘Quartetti à 2 Violini, Viola, è Violoncello’, highest represented composers [75] String-quartet publications in Vienna, 1800–28 [76] Mayseder, publications for string quartet with Viennese publishers, 1810–28 [78] GdMf Abendunterhaltungen, March 1818–April 1829, composer of the opening chamber work [82] GdMf Abendunterhaltungen, March 1818–April 1829, composer of the opening string quartet [83] GdMf Abendunterhaltungen, 1820–8, performances of Mayseder’s quartets alongside a Schubert vocal work [83] Mayseder, String Quartet No. 1 in A Major, Op. 5/i, exposition [86] Mayseder, String Quartet No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 6/i, exposition [88] Mayseder, String Quartet No. 5 in D Major, Op. 9/i, exposition [90] Categorisation of Schubert’s expositions in the early quartets [117] Identification of the EEC in Schubert’s quartet first movements, 1811–13 [119] Schubert, String Quartet in D Major, D.94/i, exposition, form-functional reading [124] Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor/B♭ Major, D18/i, form-functional reading [129] Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor/B♭ Major, D18/i, functional retrogressions [131] Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor/B♭ Major, D18/i, large-scale functional retrogressions [132] ix

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

x

List of Tables

3.7 3.8 3.9 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Schubert, String Quartet in D Major, D94/i, recapitulation, form-functional analysis [133] Schubert, String Quartet in D Major, D94/i, functional retrogressions [135] Schubert, String Quartet in D Major, D94/i, large-scale functional retrogressions [136] Schubert, String Quartet first movements, expositional MC totals [140] Schubert, String Quartet first movements, hierarchy of MC defaults [142] Schubert: String Quartets and Quintets, MC-declined categories [143] Schubert, Quartettsatz, D703, form-functional analysis [153] Schubert, chamber music for strings sonata-form first movements containing an expositional dramatic interpolation [166] Schubert, String Quartet in E Major, D353/i, exposition, form-functional analysis [171] Schubert, String Quartet in E Major, D353/i, recapitulation, form-functional analysis [173] Schubert: String Quartet in B♭ Major, D36/i, exposition, formfunctional analysis [179] Schubert, String Quartet in B♭ Major, D36/i, stratified design [182] Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, A group, form-functional analysis [187] Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, exposition, form-functional analysis [188] Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, exposition, stratified design [193] Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, recapitulation, form-functional analysis [198] Schubert, String Quartet in D Major, D94/ii, form-functional and variational reading [222] Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor, D173/i, B group, form-functional reading [229] Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, A group, large sentential structure [236] Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, A group, period structure [239] Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, A group, temporal functions [241]

List of Tables

5.6 5.7 5.8

bli h d

li

b C

Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, B group, stratified design [247] Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, development section [251] Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, development section, stratified design [253]

b id

i

i

xi

Music Examples

Music examples are based on the NSA which, especially for some of the early quartets, differs from the Dover edition of the Complete Chamber Music for Strings. 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4a 1.4b 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5a 3.5b 3.5c 3.5d 3.6a xii

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Schubert, ‘Ihr Bild’, bars 1–2 [page 23] Schubert, ‘Ihr Bild’, vocal line bars 1–10, Hauptmotif, ‘x’ [24] Schubert, ‘Ihr Bild’, vocal line bars 14–18, new motives, ‘x1’ and ‘x2’ [25] Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, rhythmic motif ‘x’ [31] Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, rhythmic motif ‘x’ in B group’s episode, bars 90–2 [31] Mayseder, String Quartet No. 1 in A Major, Op. 5, bars 162–31, tonal overview [87] Mayseder, String Quartet No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 6/iv, exposition [89] Mayseder, String Quartet No. 3 in A♭ Major, Op. 7/i, bars 99–105 [91] Mayseder, String Quartet No. 4 in F Major, Op. 8/i, bars 187–96 [93] Mayseder, String Quartet No. 5 in D Major, Op. 9/i, bars 49–58 [94] Schubert, Overture for String Quintet in C Minor, D8, bars 276–89 [101] Schubert, Quartettsatz, D703, (a) bars 36–8 and (b) bars 59–61, reduction [108] Schubert, String Quartet in B♭ Major, D36/i, bars 53–63 [116] Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor/B♭ Major, D18/i, bars 72–5 [120] Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor/B♭ Major, D18/i, bars 123–5, reduction [121] Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor/B♭ Major, D18/i, motif ‘x’, bars 1–2 [122] Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor/B♭ Major, D18/i, motif ‘x’, bars 40–3 [122] Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor/B♭ Major, D18/i, motif ‘x’, bars 76–9 [122] Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor/B♭ Major, D18/i, motif ‘x’, bars 95–100 [122] Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor/B♭ Major, D18/i, motif ‘y’, bars 58–62 [122]

List of Music Examples

3.6b 3.7 3.8 3.9 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16a 3.16b 3.17a 3.17b 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4a 4.4b

4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9a 4.9b 4.10a 4.10b

bli h d

li

b C

Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor/B♭ Major, D18/i, motif ‘y’, bars 161–5 [123] Schubert, String Quartet in D Major, D94/i, bars 82–94 [125] Schubert, String Quartet in D Major, D94/i, exposition, bass progression and tonal plot [126] Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor/B♭ Major, D18/i, voice-leading transformations in the displaced development, bars 165–99 [128] Schubert, String Quartet in D Minor, D810/i, bars 57–61 [144] Schubert, String Quartet in B♭ Major, D112/i, exposition, first MC, bars 39–45 [146] Schubert, String Quartet in B♭ Major, D112/i, exposition, second MC, bars 97–103 [147] Schubert, String Quartet in B♭ Major, D68/i, bars 16–20 [149] Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor, D173/i, overlap, bars 44–6 [150] Schubert, String Quartet in E Major, D353/i, elision, bars 29–32 [151] Schubert, Quartettsatz, D703, bars 23–30 [154] Schubert, Quartettsatz, D703, bars 91–6 [154] Schubert, Quartettsatz, D703, bars 121–6 [156] Schubert, Quartettsatz, D703, bars 285–90 [156] Schubert, String Quartet in B♭ Major, D36/ii, bars 19–30 [161] Schubert, String Quartet in B♭ Major, D36/ii, voice-leading transformations establishing V/VI [163] Schubert, String Quartet in B♭ Major, D36/ii, tonal scheme [163] Schubert, String Quartet in E Major, D353/i, exposition, B1, motives ‘x’ and ‘y’ [169] Schubert, String Quartet in E Major, D353/i, exposition, bars 45–8, motives ‘x’ and ‘y’ used contrapuntally in developmental episode [169] Schubert, String Quartet in E Major, D353/i, harmonic reduction of recapitulation, TR to B1 [172] Schubert, String Quartet in B♭ Major, D36/i, bars 26–8 [183] Schubert, String Quartet in B♭ Major, D36/i, bars 163–8 [184] Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, opening bars [185] Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, Episode 1, bar 32 [189] Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, Episode 2, bar 71 [189] Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, expositional motives, Episode 1 [190] Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, expositional motives, Episodes 2 and 3 [190]

b id

i

i

xiii

xiv

List of Music Examples

4.11

Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, emphasis on Neapolitan chord, bars 38–40 [191] 4.12 Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, chromatic tonal relationships in exposition and recapitulation [192] 4.13 Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, bars 81–5 [195] 4.14 Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, bars 140–5 [196] 4.15 Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, bars 283–90 [200] 4.16 Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, bars 293–6 [201] 5.1 Schubert, String Quartet in E♭ Major, D87/i, melodic variation of theme [217] 5.2 Schubert, String Quartet in D Major, D94/ii, bars 43–6 [224] 5.3 Schubert, String Quartet in D Major, D94/ii, bars 50–3 [224] 5.4 Schubert, String Quartet in D Major, D94/ii, bars 73–81 [225] 5.5 Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor, D173/i, motif ‘x’, bars 454–9 [227] 5.6 Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor, D173/i, B group, B2, bars 61–73 [230] 5.7 Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, bars 1–14, modified sentential structure [234] 5.8 Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, bars 1–54, series of cadences [237] 5.9 Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, bars 1–4 and 33–6, motivic correspondence [238] 5.10 Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, hypermetre of the sonata and variation themes [242] 5.11 Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, bars 1–14 (after Beach 1998, 90) [243] 5.12 Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, MC and B1 theme, sentential structure [246] 5.13 Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, expositional closing section [249] 5.14 Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, bass progression, bars 210–42 [252] 5.15 Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, recapitulation, bars 278–91 [257] 5.16a Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, excerpt from A1 in exposition, bars 15–18 [258] 5.16b Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, excerpt from A1 in recapitulation, bars 292–5 [258] 5.17 Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, coda, bars 429–44 [260]

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Acknowledgements

This book draws on more than fifteen years of work, during which time I have been engrossed, in one form or another, in Schubert’s music. And yet, despite this apparent single-mindedness, the completion of the monograph was anything but straightforward: characterised by brief periods of writing juxtaposed with episodes of disruption involving two changes of country, four institutional moves, two periods of maternity leave, and a global pandemic, the journey to publication was rather more circuitous (dare I say Schubertian?) than I had originally planned. An unexpected and happy consequence of that lengthy gestation period is that there are many people whom it gives me pleasure to thank in these pages for the part they played in helping to see this project through to fruition. The seeds of this book were sown during my doctorate at King’s College, Cambridge (2006–10), at which time I had the good fortune of working with Nicholas Marston, as well as benefitting from the probing critiques of Martin Ennis, Matthew Riley, and the late Robert Pascall. Never short of the mot juste, Nick’s meticulous attention to the finer details of my writing and voice-leading graphs taught me a great deal, and although the focus of this book is not that of my thesis, that period of tutelage was extremely formative for my thinking and approach to Schubert’s music. I remain indebted to these scholars for their engagement with, and shaping of my work in those early days, and especially to Nick, whose careful reading of the final typescript for this book was instrumental in bringing it to completion; I am grateful for his keen eye, sharp wit, and long-standing support. My specific ideas for the book, and especially its focus on lyricism, began to take shape during my tenure as lecturer in the Music Department at Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL), and continued to evolve during my first years in the Music Department at the University of Manchester (UoM). I am grateful to colleagues at both institutions for their support and encouragement along the way, and for the rich scholarly environments they foster through their collegiality and through the example of their own work. At UoM, I extend special thanks to David

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

xv

xvi

Acknowledgements

Fanning (for getting stranded in Copenhagen), Thomas Schmidt (who arranged for a collection of Schubert library scores to be sent my way), James Garratt (for generous bibliographic help), and Roddy Hawkins. Special mention goes to Barry Cooper for discussions regarding nineteenth-century editorial practices, for locating entries pertaining to Mayseder in Beethoven’s diaries, and for extending invitations to me to his Beethoven symposia through the years. I also thank the many students who have taken courses on Schubert with me, especially the undergraduates enrolled in ‘Schubert: Music and Biography’ at RHUL in 2013–14 for their unbridled enthusiasm and the postgraduate cohort in ‘A Post-Canonical Theory of Musical Form’ at UoM in 2018–19, who helped refine my thinking on Chapter 2 of this book. I owe a debt of gratitude to the staff at the British Library, Cambridge University Library, Pendelbury Library of Music, and University of Manchester Library who supplied key texts (on occasion even retrieving seemingly lost items), and to the staff at the Carnegie Library in Harrogate for providing a welcoming retreat for writing. For provision of primary source materials, I am grateful to the librarians at the Department of Music of the Austrian National Library (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek); the staff at the Department of Music at the Vienna City Library (Wienbibliothek im Rathaus), especially Mag. Kyra Waldner; and the staff at the archive of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, in particular Johannes Prominzcal for sending me electronic scans of documents when an international travel ban prevented me from accessing them. For significant financial support which enabled me to spend time at these libraries and archives, I offer sincere thanks to the Leverhulme Trust and British Academy, and I acknowledge the generosity of the Society for Music Analysis and the Music Analysis Development Fund as well as the Music and Letters Trust. I also thank the University of Manchester’s research office for a semester’s leave from teaching responsibilities to focus on writing. I am delighted that this book is appearing in the Music in Context series at Cambridge University Press, which I have long believed to be its natural home. To J. P. E. Harper-Scott, the former series editor, I extend profound thanks for his unwavering belief in this project from the moment I ran the idea past him in Egham when we were colleagues. Paul’s gentle nudging over the course of many years was an exemplar of editorial patience and persistence, and the contributions he made to the theoretical and philosophical bases of this book cannot be overstated. I thank him deeply. My gratitude also extends to Benedict Taylor whose immediate

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Acknowledgements

and sensitive engagement with my work as he took up the series editorship at the end of 2021 was the timely push I sorely needed. I also thank two anonymous reviewers, the second of whom provided important finetuning of the theoretical methodology in the summer of 2021: if you are reading this, thank you for that. At Cambridge University Press, I offer sincere thanks to the inimitable Kate Brett for encouragement and forbearance, and to Kate and Abigail Sears for their assiduous work in seeing this book through to production and their advice on areas completely new to me. Scholarly engagement can take many forms, and I wish to acknowledge a number of individuals who generously shared their unpublished work with me, among them Mark Anson-Cartwright, Pieter Bergé, John Gingerich, Roman Ivanovitch, and Naomi Waltham-Smith. Su Yin Mak deserves special mention in this regard for sending me her translation-inprogress of Salzer’s 1928 essay on Schubert, which greatly accelerated my progress with that text; it is wonderful to see her translation and commentary now in print. To Nicole Grimes I extend a special word of heartfelt thanks for her generosity in reading and providing feedback on an earlier draft of Chapter 5. I have presented on aspects of this work at international conferences and in invited lectures over the years, and I have benefitted greatly from comments received on those occasions. In this regard, I am indebted to William Caplin, James Hepokoski, James Webster, Janet Schmalfeldt, Suzannah Clark, Áine Heneghan, Steven Vande Moortele, John Koslovsky, Nathan Martin, Vasili Byros, Laura Tunbridge, and David Wyn Jones for influential conversations and intellectual exchanges, and more generally for their own inspiring work. To friends at the Society for Music Analysis I extend my thanks for many hours of fascinating discussion; as the discipline faces fresh scrutiny and finds itself under siege from certain quarters, their unflinching confidence in the indispensability of thinking and writing about music as music is fortifying. The Schubert scholarly community is unlike any other I have encountered for its sheer generosity of spirit and familial warmth; I am fortunate to have had the support and encouragement of Lorraine Byrne Bodley during the writing of this book, and I thank her profoundly for our exchanges about details of Schubert’s life that lent clarity to my thinking, and more generally for her inestimable kindness. For instilling in me the value and import of musicological discourse, as well as the power of the written word through his own incomparable work, I thank Harry White. Earlier versions of parts of Chapters 3, 4, and 5 appeared in print, respectively, as ‘Rhetorical Closure in the First Movement of Schubert’s

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

xvii

xviii

Acknowledgements

Quartet in C Major, D46: A Dialogue with Deformation’, Music Analysis 28/1 (2009), pp. 111–42; ‘The “Tightened Bow”: Analysing the Juxtaposition of Drama and Lyricism in Schubert’s Paratactic SonataForm Movements’, in Irish Musical Analysis, edited by Gareth Cox and Julian Horton (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2014), pp. 17–40, and ‘In Search of Liberated Time, or Schubert’s Quartet in G Major, D887: Once More between Sonata and Variation’, Music Theory Spectrum, 38/1 (2016), pp. 85–108. I am grateful for the permission to include them here. This material has been thoroughly reworked to reflect the book’s concern with lyric form, which refinement, I like to think, has clarified many of the analytical readings. I reserve special acknowledgement for Julian Horton, my immense debt to whom reaches back at least to 2001, when he arrived at University College Dublin and agreed to supervise my BMus dissertation on Schubert’s unfinished compositions. As well as for providing incisive criticism on Chapter 3, I am deeply grateful for Julian’s unique capacity to foster and embolden my music-analytic inclinations, even now. His influence as scholar, mentor, and personified tour de force is beyond reckoning; our conversations are a constant source of joy and (rare) sanity. Finally, to friends and family near and far who have asked about my progress with the book and provided encouragement and grounding, I extend my thanks: my friends i gCluain Dolcáin, Edel, Kevin, Brendan, Niall, and Keith who recently reminded me that I was ‘always 30,000 words into a 2,500-word essay’; nothing epitomises my writing process more aptly than that comment. I thank my husband, Lee, for his stoicism and for forfeiting his ‘spare’ time so that I might have a few regular hours of uninterrupted silence, and our two children, Clara and Felix, for filling that silence with resounding joy. It pains me that my wonderful mother did not live to see this book in print, but her wisdom and courage are behind every page; it is to her memory that it is lovingly dedicated.

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Note on the Text

Abbreviations and Acronyms Used in This Study AGA DTV

GdMf NSA

NZfM SDB SMF

WAMZ

(Alte Gesammtausgabe) Erste kritisch durchgesehene Gesammtausgabe Schuberts Werke (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1884–97). Deutsch, Otto Erich, Franz Schubert: Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge. Neuausgabe in deutscher Sprache/bearbeitet und herausgegeben von der Editionsleitung der NSA, ed. Walther Dürr, Arnold Feil, Christa Landon et al. (Kassel: Bärenreiter Verlag, 1978). Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. Franz Schubert: Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, Herausgegeben von der Internationalen Schubert-Gesellschaft, ed. Walther Dürr, Arnold Feil, Christa Landon, et al. (Kassel: Bärenreiter Verlag, 1964–). Series 6: Chamber Music, Volumes 4–6: String Quartets I–III with forewords by Martin Chusid translated into German by Walther Dürr (vol. 3) and Werner Aderhold (vols. 4 and 5). Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Leipzig: 1834–. Deutsch, Otto Erich (ed.), Schubert: A Documentary Biography, trans. Eric Blom (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1946). Deutsch, Otto Erich (ed.), Schubert: Memoirs by His Friends, trans. Rosamond Ley and John Nowell (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1958). Wiener Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung.

Translations Unless otherwise acknowledged, all translations from the original German are my own. My earlier translations of Felix Salzer’s essay ‘Die Sonatenform bei Franz Schubert’ have been updated with reference to Su Yin Mak, ‘Felix Salzer’s “Sonata Form in Franz Schubert” (1928): An English Translation and Edition with Critical Commentary’, Theory and Practice, 40 (2015), 1–121. xix

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

xx

Note on the Text

Register I use Helmholtz pitch notation to indicate register in the following manner: 3 octaves above = c4 – b4 2 octaves above = c3 – b3 1 octave above = c2 – b2 Middle C = c1 – b1 1 octave below = c – b 2 octaves below = C – B 3 octaves below = CC – BB

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Introduction: Schubert as Vanishing Point

Perhaps a more overrated man than this Schubert never existed. He has certainly written a few good songs. But what then? Has not every composer who ever composed written a few good songs? And out of the thousand and one with which Schubert deluged the musical world, it would, indeed, be hard if some half-dozen were not tolerable. And when that is said, all is said that can be justly said about Schubert.1 – James William Davison

Schubert, one might argue, has had his day in the analytical sun. The past four decades of close exegesis of his music have resulted in a welcome and much-needed reappraisal of his instrumental forms, particularly his idiosyncratic harmonic and formal practices.2 The disparity between the composer’s popularity as a song composer during his lifetime and the neglect and misunderstandings colouring the posthumous reception of his symphonies, string quartets, and piano sonatas is now something of a distant memory, summoned either for the salacious quotations (such as the one at the beginning of this section) or to illustrate the distance separating modern Schubert scholarship from that of earlier generations. Schubert’s instrumental works have become some of the most frequently and skillfully analysed compositions in what might be called the music-analytic canon, contributing vitally to areas including sketch studies, performance practice, the new Formenlehre, gender theory, and the theory of emotion, to name but a few. They are also the primary catalyst for critical reflection on existing music-analytic theories leading to the development of new and 1

2

h

d i

0 0

James William Davison, review in The Musical World, 13 June 1844, cited in Charles Reid, The Music Monster: A Biography of James William Davison, Music Critic of The Times of London, 1846–78 (London: Quartet Books, 1984), 143. A representative cross section of this scholarship can be witnessed in James Webster, ‘Schubert’s Sonata Form and Brahms’s First Maturity’, 19th-Century Music, 2/1 (1978), 18–35; Suzannah Clark, Analyzing Schubert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); the Special Issue on Schubert’s String Quintet in C Major, D956 in Music Analysis, 33/2 (2014); Rethinking Schubert, ed. Lorraine Byrne Bodley and Julian Horton (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016); Schubert’s Late Music: History, Theory, Style, ed. Lorraine Byrne Bodley and Julian Horton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), and Drama in the Music of Franz Schubert, ed. Joe Davies and James William Sobaskie (Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 2019).

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

1

2

Introduction: Schubert as Vanishing Point

sophisticated analytical approaches and theoretical models.3 Schubert, as Suzannah Clark wrote in 2002, has become ‘the new pearl of wisdom’, and this recent ‘flowering of theoretical and analytical engagement . . . has’, as Lorraine Byrne Bodley noted, ‘placed [him] at the centre of mainstream music theory’.4 What, therefore, is there left to say? The opening epigraph, perhaps implausibly, goes some way towards suggesting an answer. Understanding Davison’s remarks necessitates an awareness of the impact of delayed posthumous dissemination on the reception history of Schubert’s instrumental music as well as a recognition of its continued relevance to scholarship today. The review dates from 1844 when Davison attended the sixth concert of the Royal Philharmonic Society on 10 June, during which Mendelssohn conducted Schubert’s overture to Fierrabras (D796), having failed to convince the orchestra to perform the ‘Great’ C-Major Symphony. Davison’s specific comments on the overture held it ‘literally beneath criticism’, but it is his complete dismissal of Schubert as a composer which is the most revealing element of his review: aside from some songs, he asks, what has Schubert written?5 Of course, Davison was not to blame for what we might recognise as the sciolism of this remark, given that in 1844 not a single one of Schubert’s symphonies was available in print, and this very concert marked the première of an orchestral work by the composer in England. Schubert’s renown – his centrality – was that of a song writer, a fact that complicated and dominated his emerging reputation as an instrumental composer, leading, more often than not, to less-than-favourable reviews of his ‘new’ instrumental works.6 Even when serious intellectual engagement with this music took 3

4

5 6

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

The application of Neo-Riemannian theoretical approaches to Schubert’s harmony is one such development. See Richard Cohn, ‘“As Wonderful as Star Clusters”: Instruments for Gazing at Tonality in Schubert’, 19th-Century Music, 22/3 (1999), 213–32; David Kopp, Chromatic Transformations in Nineteenth-Century Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), and Clark, Analyzing Schubert and ‘On the Imagination of Tone in Schubert’s Liedesend (D. 473), Trost (D. 523), and Gretchens Bitte (D. 564)’, in The Oxford Handbook of Neo-Riemannian Music Theories, ed. Edward Gollin and Alexander Rehding (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 294–321. These are complemented by the extended Schenkerian approach in David Damschroder, Harmony in Schubert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) and the spatial theory of harmonic geometry advanced in Jason Yust, ‘Schubert’s Harmonic Language and Fourier Phase Space’, Journal of Music Theory, 59/1 (2015), 121–81, and ‘Ganymede’s Heavenly Descent’, Music Analysis, 39/1 (2020), 50–84. Suzannah Clark, ‘Schubert, Theory and Analysis’, Music Analysis, 21/1 (2002), 209–43 (209), and Lorraine Byrne Bodley in Rethinking Schubert, 1. Davison, cited in Reid, The Music Monster, 143. A factual account of the emergence of Schubert’s instrumental music in the nineteenth century is found in Christopher H. Gibbs, ‘German Reception: Schubert’s “Journey to Immortality”’, in The Cambridge Companion to Schubert, ed. Christopher H. Gibbs (Cambridge: Cambridge

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Introduction: Schubert as Vanishing Point

hold (initiated by Robert Schumann’s 1840 review of the ‘Great’ C-Major Symphony in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik), it did so under the impression that this was the (perhaps misguided) work of an otherwise-disposed composer: these were the symphonies or string quartets of Franz Schubert, der Liederfürst.7 Their unusual harmonic strategies were criticised as remote and illogical digressions, and their expansive dimensions were seen to betray Schubert’s inability to control the materials of his form.8 John Hullah exemplified this nineteenth-century bias towards Schubert the songwriter: The isolated songs of Schubert . . . place him in general estimation, and deservedly, at the head of all song-writers, of whatever age or country. As a practitioner on a more extended scale, a composer of symphonies and of chamber music . . . his place is lower. He is rich in, nay replete with, ideas of which he is rather the slave than the master.9

Even into the twentieth century, Schumann’s championing of Schubert’s ‘heavenly lengths’ was construed as an apology – a thinly veiled attempt to defend the prolixity of Schubert’s instrumental idiom by emphasising the music’s expansive beauty.10 And so, the perceived opposition between vocal and instrumental composition underwrote Schubert’s reception: for many authors, Schubert’s gift for melody was suited to Kleinigkeiten, but restricted his ability in large-scale form.11 Consequently, the widely

7

8

9

10

11

h

d i

0 0

University Press, 1997), 241–53. It is instructive to contrast this with the contemporaneous reception of Schubert’s music in England in John Reed, ‘Schubert’s Reception in NineteenthCentury England’, in The Cambridge Companion to Schubert, 254–62 and in Clark, Analyzing Schubert, 26–39. On the ‘Prince of Song’ see Albert Sadler, 1853 (SMF 215) and Dolf Six, Liederfürst Franz Schubert und Wien 1828–1928 (Wien: Kommissions-Verlag Wolfram 1928). This was an opinion advocated even by members of Schubert’s close circle. In an undated letter from early 1829, for example, Joseph von Spaun wrote to Eduard von Bauernfeld that Schubert’s instrumental compositions were ‘less interesting and partly less successful’ than his Lieder, continuing: ‘For all the admiration I have given the dear departed for years, I still feel that we shall never make a Mozart or a Haydn of him in instrumental and church composition, whereas in song he is unsurpassed.’ Spaun’s letter to Bauernfeld, quoted in SDB, 895–6. See also Franz Brendel’s dismissal of Schubert’s instrumental music in favour of the Lieder in his Geschichte der Musik in Italien, Deutschland und Frankreich, Vol. 2 (Leipzig: 1855), 176–8. John Hullah, The History of Modern Music: A Course of Lectures Delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1875), 188. Richard Aldrich of The New York Times described Schumann’s epithet as ‘a euphemism, for what [Schumann] realized as a defect’. See Aldrich, ‘The Heavenly Lengths in Schubert’, The New York Times, Section 8, Drama, Music, Art, Fashions (Sunday November 9, 1919), 3. Such negative appraisals appeared during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the work of, inter alia, John Hullah (1875), Henry Heathcote Statham (1883), Daniel Gregory Mason (1906), George Grove (1908), and Richard Aldrich (1919).

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

3

4

Introduction: Schubert as Vanishing Point

celebrated lyricism of Schubert’s music is intimately bound up with the critical reception of the instrumental music. Davison’s comments, then, open up a host of questions regarding the perceived dichotomy between vocal and instrumental composition in the reception of Schubert’s music, a dichotomy captured by Carl Dahlhaus’s notion of the Stildualismus underpinning the history of nineteenth-century music and exemplified by Beethoven and Rossini.12 The fact that Schubert traversed the instrumental/vocal boundary by imbuing his instrumental compositions with the quality of lyricism means that he straddles both sides of that opposition uneasily.13 His marginalisation is further underwritten by the disciplinary remnants of Beethoven’s centrality to the formalisation of music theory in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It has long been acknowledged that Beethoven’s middle-period works proved vital to two of arguably the most influential musictheoretical paradigms: Adolf Bernhard Marx’s theory of musical form, and Heinrich Schenker’s hierarchical theory of voice-leading and underlying structure.14 In 1994, Charles Rosen recognised that this ‘has unnaturally restricted analysis by limiting it almost entirely to methods of examination relevant to [Beethoven’s] music.’15 Around the same time, Scott Burnham, in his influential Beethoven Hero, placed this into a specifically Schubertian context:

12

13

14

15

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Carl Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-Century Music, trans. J. Bradford Robinson (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), esp. 8–16. Suzannah Clark has traced the influence of the Stildualismus on the reception of Schubert’s instrumental music in Clark, ‘Rossini and Beethoven in the Reception of Schubert’, in The Invention of Beethoven and Rossini: Historiography, Analysis, Criticism, ed. Nicholas Mathew and Benjamin Walton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 96–119. See Adolf Bernhard Marx, Musical Form in the Age of Beethoven: Selected Writings on Theory and Method, ed. and trans. Scott Burnham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). As well as creating a complete edition of Beethoven’s piano sonatas for Universal Edition (Leipzig and Vienna, 1926), Heinrich Schenker turned repeatedly to Beethoven’s music in the explication of his music theory over the course of his career. The treatment of Beethoven’s music in Harmonielehre, for instance, exceeds that by any other composer (see Schenker, Harmonielehre [Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta’sche Buchhandlung Nachfolger, 1906]). The ‘Eroica’ analysis (Meisterwerk III) is perhaps the most representative case of the importance of midperiod Beethoven for mature Schenkerian thought (see Schenker, ‘Beethovens Dritte Sinfonie zum erstenmal in ihrem wahren Inhalt dargestellt’, Das Meisterwerk in der Musik, Jahrbuch III [Munich: Drei Musik Verlag, 1930]). An informative overview of Beethoven’s centrality for Schenker’s thought and published works by Ian Bent and William Drabkin can be found at the website, Schenker Documents Online, https://schenkerdocumentsonline.org/index.html, accessed 12 November 2021. Charles Rosen, The Frontiers of Meaning: Three Informal Lectures on Music (New York: Hill and Wang, 1994), 56.

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Introduction: Schubert as Vanishing Point

From Theodor Adorno to Carl Dahlhaus and Susan McClary, Schubert’s music is consistently characterized as non-Beethovenian rather than as Schubertian. We can hardly begin to talk about Schubert in any other terms . . . The heroic style controls our thinking to the extent that it dictates the shape of alterity: it is the daylight by which everything else must be night.16

While the analysis of Schubert’s harmonic and formal idioms has now largely broken free of its Beethovenian inclinations, there nonetheless remains a distinct ‘logic of alterity’ in the adopted interpretative metaphors and gender categorisations which sustain the antithetical positions of these two composers.17 Partly in response to the issue to which Rosen and Burnham gave voice, subsequent scholarship transformed Schubert’s ‘otherness’ into a positive attribute by focusing on what Lawrence Kramer terms Schubert’s desire to ‘represent deviation as affirmation, as positive difference rather than default, as desirable lack rather than insufficiency’.18 Even here, Schubert’s music is understood as exposing an absence (of logic, of dynamism), even if that absence is a self-conscious one. Thus, celebrating Schubert’s difference still comes at a price, a tacit understanding that in their indifference to key concepts such as teleology and dialectical synthesis these practices represent a retreat into subjectivity and a negation of formal responsibility rather than a re-negotiation of it.19 In the analytical realm, the ramifications of this took the form of a rich, and richly contested, scholarly debate: the [un]suitability of Schubert’s lyrical idiom to Classical sonata form. This was given extended consideration in Felix Salzer’s 1928 essay, ‘Die Sonatenform bei Franz Schubert’, which was the first direct engagement with the notion of the lyric in Schubert’s instrumental music and remains one of the most detailed analytical accounts of the phenomenon.20 But Salzer’s view had preechoes in the work of earlier writers such as Daniel Gregory Mason: 16 17

18

19

20

h

d i

0 0

Scott Burnham, Beethoven Hero (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 155. Lawrence Kramer, Classical Music and Postmodern Knowledge (Berkeley, London: University of California Press, 1995), 34. As an example of how endemic such categorisations became, see Volker Kalisch, ‘Wie “männlich” ist Schuberts Es-Dur Klaviertrio (D. 929)?’, Schubert Jahrbuch (1998), 113–23. The topos of alterity in Schubert’s reception history is summarised in the introduction to Schubert, ed. Julian Horton (Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2015), ix–xxxiv. Lawrence Kramer, Franz Schubert: Sexuality, Subjectivity, Song, Cambridge Studies in Music Theory and Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 2. In arguing that Schubert’s sonata forms collectively represent ‘the functional negation of all thematic, dialectical development’, Adorno’s 1928 essay has proved influential in this regard. See Adorno, ‘Schubert (1928)’, trans. Beate Perrey and Jonathan Dunsby, 19th-Century Music, 29/1 (2005), 3–14 (11). Felix Salzer, ‘Die Sonatenform bei Franz Schubert’, Studien zur Musikwissenschaft, 15 (1928), 86–125. Salzer’s essay has appeared in English translation by Su Yin Mak, ‘Felix Salzer’s “Sonata

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

5

6

Introduction: Schubert as Vanishing Point The chief faults of Schubert’s instrumental works – and they are grave ones – result in part from his way of composing, and in part from the untraversable opposition between the lyrical expression native to him and the modes of construction suitable to extended movements.21

This argument centred on the idea that lyricism is primarily associated with vocal genres, and the descriptor ‘lyrical’ often taken to denote ‘any passage whose purpose is relative relaxation away from dramatic pressure and whose content is relatively melodic rather than merely motivic’, thus, shunning the drama and motivic derivation of the Classical sonata.22 Its amalgamation into the realm of serious instrumental music therefore amounts to a clash of aesthetic priorities: as Donald Francis Tovey put it, ‘Schubert’s large instrumental forms are notoriously prone to spend in lyric ecstasy the time required ex hypothesi for dramatic action.’23 How lyric themes behave was also seen as inimical to sonata form. According to Salzer, the lyric reveals a tendency to proceed by repetition; it lacks developmental strategy and organic inevitability, and its internalised perspective tends towards recollection and retrospection rather than goal-orientation. These qualities – symptoms of the selfcontainment and self-sufficiency of Schubert’s themes – contravene what Salzer, following Schenker’s teachings, calls the sonata’s ‘improvisatory element’ which is thereby conspicuously absent from Schubert’s sonatas.24 Thus, paradoxically, Salzer argues that ‘the stable forms of lyricism represent dissipation rather than order, and that improvisation is an agent of discipline rather than freedom’.25 Schubert’s lyrical themes, in other words, are simply too stable to give way to rigorous motivic development and instead proceed

21

22

23

24

25

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Form in Franz Schubert” (1928): An English Translation and Edition with Critical Commentary’, Theory and Practice, 40 (2015), 1–121. Daniel Gregory Mason, The Romantic Composers (New York and London: Macmillan, 1906), 97–8. See also Mason’s ‘Franz Schubert, Romanticist’, New Outlook, 82/11 (1906), 311–15, especially his comment that the second theme of the ‘Unfinished’ Symphony’ is like a stanza or strophe . . . it is an instrumental song. And, like a song, it is complete in itself, not subjected to development’, 313. Nicholas Toller, ‘Gesture and Expressive Purpose in Schubert’s Instrumental Music of 1822– 28’, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Hull (1987), 74. Donald Francis Tovey, ‘Tonality’, Music & Letters 9/4, Schubert Number (1928) 341–63 (348). It is surely no coincidence that Tovey made these remarks in the context of a discussion of Rossini’s influence on Schubert. For Tovey, certain Schubertian fingerprints such as the mixture of the minor and major modes were direct consequences of Rossini’s influence: ‘Schubert, who was thoroughly seasoned by the Rossini fever which devastated musical Vienna in the ‘twenties, took this over with many of the Italian expressions.’ (348) I engage in more detail with Salzer’s reading of Schubert’s sonata forms and with the centrality of the ‘improvisatory element’ to it in Chapter 1. Salzer first became acquainted with Schenker’s teachings through studying with Hans Weisse, and later (after 1931) with Schenker himself. See Mak, ‘Felix Salzer’s “Sonata Form in Franz Schubert” (1928)’, 2. Ibid., 2.

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Introduction: Schubert as Vanishing Point

via expansion.26 This results not only in a dissipation of order, but also a distinguishing lack (of dynamism, of drama, of development, of shape). Instrumental lyricism, under Salzer’s model, ultimately represents an absence of form.27 The historiographical picture emerging from this suggests that the narrative of alterity in Schubert’s reception results not only in marginalisation (which has largely been addressed), but also in a misguided perception of absence or loss: a loss of formal responsibility tied to a lyrical condition that leads ultimately to a negation of form.28 Schubert’s music, it seems, offers us not more, but tangibly less. It encourages us to reflect on loss as an aesthetic concept, to experience the self-conscious absence of goal-direction and to bask in the sonorous beauty of the present moment without consideration of its relationship to an idea of the ‘whole’.29 As such, it offers us not so much an alternative to Beethoven’s music, as the loss of its defining aesthetic:30 For romanticism’s stepchildren of Schubert’s generation, the operative paradigm could no longer be heroism but had perforce become loss, and self-consciousness could no longer confidently inhabit telos but must perforce come to terms with the memories of loss.31 26

27

28

29

30

31

h

d i

0 0

A candid and convincing rebuttal of the idea that thematic expansion is not constitutive of development can be found in Poundie L. Burstein, ‘Lyricism, Structure, and Gender in Schubert’s G Major String Quartet’, The Musical Quarterly, 81/1 (1997), 51–63. The idea of an absence of formal logic is echoed in Arnold Whittall’s comment that ‘Schubert’s “freedom” from the dominant encouraged him to inflate his expositions, but suggested no new structural principle’. Whittall, ‘The Sonata Crisis: Schubert in 1828’, Music Review (1969), 124–30 (130). The poetics of loss can be traced back to the etymology of lyric, the term used to describe a collection of texts that were gathered together in the Alexandrian period which had been excised from the music that once accompanied them in performance as song. Thus, lyric described ‘a music that could no longer be heard’, and lyric poetry represented ‘a lost collective experience’ of song. See Virginia Jackson, ‘Lyric’ entry in the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, ed. Roland Greene, Stephen Cushman, Clare Cavanagh, Jahan Ramazani, and Paul Rouzer (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), 826–34 (826). On this, see Scott Burnham, ‘Schubert and the Sound of Memory’, The Musical Quarterly, 84/4 (2000), 655–63. The perception of loss, or absence, that I invoke here should be distinguished from the aesthetics of loss (of a past happiness or lost innocence, of a previous time or state of being) to which Schubert’s music often gives voice and which may be captured in the phrase from Schiller’s Die Götter Greichenlands that Schubert set as his D677 (1819): ‘Schöne Welt, wo bist du?’. On this, see Nicholas Rast, ‘“Schöne Welt, wo bist du?”: Motive and Form in Schubert’s A Minor String Quartet’, in Schubert the Progressive: History, Performance Practice, Analysis, ed. Brian Newbould (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), 81–8 and Benedict Taylor, ‘Schubert and the Construction of Memory: The String Quartet in A Minor, D. 804 (“Rosamunde”)’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 139/1 (2014), 41–88. John Gingerich, ‘Remembrance and Consciousness in Schubert’s C-Major String Quintet, D. 956’, The Musical Quarterly, 84/4 (2000), 619–34 (629).

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

7

8

Introduction: Schubert as Vanishing Point

But what if we were to reverse this comparison? What would be the result of replacing the centre (Beethoven/dynamism) with the margins (Schubert/lyricism)? Schubert, after all, resides at the very epicentre of the move towards a lyrical conception of form in the nineteenth century and his contributions are therefore fundamental rather than peripheral. Foregrounding – centring – these would open up the possibility of defining the lyric based on what it is, rather than continuing to define it by what it is assumed to lack. Equally, it would allow an interpretation of Schubert’s music qua Schubert, a call made by many Schubertian scholars before me.32 This process, then, is less a de-centring of Beethoven than it is a reframing of Schubert as central to the development of nineteenth-century lyric form.33 To do this, we need to shift the perspective of enquiry, to consider the lyric not as a negation of form, but as a distinct formal category in itself – a palpable presence, rather than a perceived absence. We need, moreover, to move beyond its role as topic, mood, or melodic descriptor to a consideration of its aptitude as a category of form with specific and identifiable temporal associations and significations. The work of scholars such as Carl Dahlhaus, James Webster, Hans Joachim-Hinrichsen, Robert Hatten, Poundie Burstein, Julian Horton, and, most crucially, Su Yin Mak is central in this regard because it lays the foundations upon which a more developed concept of lyric form can be advanced for Schubert’s music.34 Although distinct in methodology and focus, this body of work extends the remit of the lyric beyond the consideration of theme types and phrase 32

33

34

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

This urge can be traced back to at least 1978 with the appearance of Dahlhaus’s ‘Die Sonatenform bei Schubert: Der erste Satz des G-dur-Quartetts D 887’, Musica, 32 (1978), 125–30 and Walter Gray, ‘Schubert the Instrumental Composer’, The Musical Quarterly, 64/4 (1978), 483–94. James Webster’s classic Brahms/Schubert pairing points at least partially in this direction; see Webster, ‘Schubert’s Sonata Form’. See Carl Dahlhaus, ‘Sonata Form in Schubert: The First Movement of the G-Major String Quartet, Op. 161 (D. 887)’, in Schubert: Critical and Analytical Studies, translated by Thilo Reinhard and ed. Walter Frisch (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986), 1–12; Webster, ‘Schubert’s Sonata Form’; Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schubert (Tutzing: Hans Schneider Verlag, 1994) and ‘Die Sonatenform in Spätwerk Franz Schuberts’, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 45/1 (1988), 16–49; Robert S. Hatten, ‘Schubert the Progressive: The Role of Resonance and Gesture in the Piano Sonata in A, D. 959’, Intégral, 7 (1993), 38–81; Burstein, ‘Lyricism, Structure, and Gender’; Su Yin Mak, ‘Schubert’s Sonata Forms and the Poetics of the Lyric’, Journal of Musicology, 23/2 (2006), 263–306 and Schubert’s Lyricism Reconsidered: Structure, Design, and Rhetoric (Saarbrücken: Lambert, 2010); Julian Horton, ‘Stasis and Continuity in Schubert’s String Quintet: Responses to Nathan Martin, Steven Vande Moortele, Scott Burnham and John Koslovsky’, Music Analysis 33/2 (2014), 194–213.

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Introduction: Schubert as Vanishing Point

construction which characterised the work of Salzer and, to an extent, Theodor Adorno, thereby disentangling the lyric’s affective characteristics from its formal functions.35 Thus, similarly motivated, this study takes up the challenge obliquely bequeathed by the work of these authors: to set out the criteria for a definition of Schubert’s lyric form. * To that end, this study is underpinned by two interrelated convictions. First, that the lyricism of Schubert’s music extends to aspects of form and articulates the dialectical condition of lyric teleology.36 I regard these terms not so much in the traditional way as thesis/antithesis, but rather as forming a kind of oxymoronic synthesis, which I attempt to deconstruct in the ensuing chapters. Second, that Schubert’s chamber music for strings is representative of this condition in a special way since it was there that the young Schubert first gave voice to some of his most characteristic formal innovations which were brought to new heights of sophistication in his last three quartets and the Quintet in C, D956. This dual focus is reflected in the two chapters comprising this book’s Part I: Chapter 1 considers the conditions under which the lyric can be said to possess a dialectical nature, and Chapter 2 attends to the history and reception of the quartets, uncovering the historical and ideological reasons for the neglect of the earliest works. The centrality of the quartet to this study is symbolic of the immense personal and creative importance the genre held for Schubert at the extremities of his artistic life: as well as providing the medium through which his development as a composer of sonata forms can be traced, it is also the site of Schubert’s transition from a composer of Biedermeier Hausmusik (1810–16) to the monumental achievements of his so-called Beethoven Project (1824–8).37 The pre-1816 quartets in particular are crucial in identifying lyric teleology’s formal markers; consequently, each of the analytical chapters couples an early work with a later one, permitting

35

36

37

h

d i

0 0

See, for example, the affinities drawn by Mak between Schubert’s instrumental lyricism and the discursive strategies of poetry. Mak, ‘Schubert’s Sonata Forms’. This formulation was used by Horton as a descriptor for Schubert’s D956; see ‘Stasis and Continuity in Schubert’s String Quintet’, 212. The idea that Schubert saw the quartet as a vehicle for formal experimentation and innovation stems from the composer himself. Recall the letter to Leopold Kupelwieser of 31 March 1824 in which Schubert details his aspirations towards mature symphonic composition: ‘I wrote two quartets for violin, viola and violoncello and an Octet, and I want to write another quartet, in fact I intend to pave my way towards a grand symphony in that manner’. SDB, 339. A reappraisal of this letter is central to John M. Gingerich’s thesis in Gingerich, Schubert’s Beethoven Project (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

9

10

Introduction: Schubert as Vanishing Point

a more robust understanding of the compositional affinity they share with the quartets of the last years. That is not to deny that many of the formal fingerprints explored in this study are also detectable in other genres – the ‘Unfinished’ and ‘Great’ C-Major symphonies would provide fertile ground for an investigation of Schubert’s lyric teleology in the public sphere as well as its influence on later nineteenth-century symphonism. But the symphonies do not display the same concentration of episodic construction across Schubert’s career as do the quartets, and thus what is relevant in a symphonic (or piano-sonata) context is not necessarily transferable to Schubert’s quartets. For instance, Horton’s comparative analysis of the thematic syntax of Schubert’s Fifth and ‘Unfinished’ symphonies sees no trace of the episodic design or extreme juxtapositions of the ‘Unfinished’ in the earlier work, concluding that ‘if Schubert’s great innovation in sonata practice was the incorporation of lyric elements, then in a symphonic context this interpenetration occurs as part of the shift of symphonic priorities after 1822’.38 While this is borne out by Horton’s analytical evidence, the same conclusion cannot be drawn in the case of the string quartets. On the contrary: if the stylistic chasm dividing the early and late symphonies is a symptom of the comparative lack of lyric elements pre-1822, then in the string quartets, stylistic differences mask formal affinities. Thus, while acknowledging the difference in style and assuredness between the quartets of Schubert’s youth and his full maturity, yet in this generic context there are fundamental formal fingerprints of the lyric perceptible across the early–late divide which justify their treatment as a defined and delimited corpus of works in this study. Furthermore, since many of the musical features defining Schubert’s lyric teleology are concentrated in opening movements, my analyses give special focus to the first movements of these works, with passing mention to other movements where relevant. Although such prioritisation might lead to disenchantment for some readers, it is necessary for a thick analytical exploration of the concepts central to the book’s thesis and thus I hope can be forgiven. Similarly, I do not confront the questions of interpretation and performance raised by my analyses despite their attraction: how would a performer, if so moved, articulate in performance the kind of stratified formal design I develop in Chapters 4 and 5? Is the parataxis of this music something to be brought out in performance, or should a performer aim for a more coherent, or linear, reading, one which establishes a single interpretative pathway, so to speak? And what might paratactic (or for that 38

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Schubert, ed. Horton, xxvi.

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Introduction: Schubert as Vanishing Point

matter hypotactic) performance equate to and is it even desirable to adopt such terms in the realm of performance studies? Jeffrey Swinkin’s work addresses these questions, among others, and his consideration of paratactic performance presents a complementary side of the Adornian reading of Schubert presented in the analytical chapters of this study.39 My focus remains the explication and demonstration of Schubert’s development of a lyrically conceived teleology which brings together matters of form, expression, and musical temporality in the service of fresh intellectual engagement. At base, lyric teleology describes a condition whereby lyric material serves a developmental or teleological function. I first developed the idea that the repetitive and paratactic tendencies of Schubert’s music can be understood as functionally teleological (rather than tautological) in my doctoral dissertation, wherein I posited that teleology can productively be disrobed of its specifically Beethovenian connotations and understood in a more fundamental light as ‘ascribing to music a sense of directed purpose’.40 Here, that idea is further developed in relation to the lyric by disassociating teleology from the need to sound dynamic, instead considering how lyrical material and processes can articulate purpose and direction.41 Moreover, I bring the concept into dialogue with a growing body of scholarship seeking to understand better nineteenth-century form and syntax, thereby situating my work within the burgeoning field of the new Formenlehre.42 A basic premise upon which my conception of lyric teleology rests is that a good deal of what we have come to accept, indeed celebrate, in Schubert’s lyric idiom is ill-fitting for understanding how lyric form is articulated in his instrumental works. Specifically, the lyric is all-too-frequently viewed as occupying one side of a binary opposition, on the other threshold of which looms the daunting figure of Beethoven, or, more accurately, an idealised version of Beethoven’s ‘heroic’ style. Such accounts serve ultimately to maintain Schubert’s alterity with respect to Beethoven: the lyric is pitted against the dramatic, stasis against the improvisatory impulse, repetition against development, and parataxis against hypotaxis, in an attempt to define Schubert’s distinctiveness. In maintaining these antithetical 39

40

41

42

h

d i

0 0

See Jeffrey Swinkin, ‘Paratactic Performance: Toward an Adornian Theory of Musical Interpretation’, IRASM 50 (2019), 221–53. Anne M. Hyland, ‘Tautology or Teleology? Towards an Understanding of Repetition in Franz Schubert’s Instrumental Chamber Music’, PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge (2011), 8. Horton’s reading of the String Quintet, D956, identifies precisely this need, locating the work’s analytical challenge in ‘the paradox of its lyric teleology’. Julian Horton, ‘Stasis and Continuity in Schubert’s String Quintet’, 212. The literature falling under this title is far too extensive to list. See my discussion under ‘Methodology’.

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

11

12

Introduction: Schubert as Vanishing Point

categories, we problematically enshrine Schubert’s status as ‘other’ in the Beethovenian narrative and needlessly restrict our understanding of the lyric (and indeed of Beethoven). Indeed, we deny the possibility that the lyric idiom can express its own dialectical identity in Schubert’s hands. Consequently, the understanding of ‘lyric’ pursued in this study does not always imply lyrical melodies, but is just as relevant to short, motivically driven thematic groups which are nonetheless underpinned by the episodic or paratactic structures associated with lyric discourse. In other words, the lyrical melodies of Schubert’s music and its episodic or paratactic designs are two sides of the same coin: the difference is one of kind, not type. So, I ask: is the lyric – understood as something more than a cantabile melodic style – really inimical to the dramatic? Does it, by definition, shun thematic development and teleology? Or, alternatively, do these categories acquire new meaning via their manifestation in Schubert’s music and therefore call for new understanding? One could go further: can the lyric in fact embody the dramatic, indeed, can it subsume its ‘other’ within a paratactic formal design? Likewise, in its ultimate denial of large-scale teleological resolution, does the lyric in fact intensify the processes whereby such synthesis is pursued? Perhaps such questions are ultimately of little consequence: of course, there is nuance and contradiction to be found in music to which the label ‘lyric’ applies, and no single monolithic definition can do justice to the rich complexity of the music of this, or any comparable, composer. But these questions suggest that there remains a need for fresh contemplation of the relationship between lyricism, development, and teleology in Schubert’s instrumental music that moves beyond the basic dualisms that currently characterise it towards a more complex, multifaceted concept of lyric form defined dialectically. Under this definition, lyric teleology is a supremely progressive phenomenon.43 The pairing of lyricism and teleology in this way might initially seem rather crude and my calls for lyric elements to articulate a teleological trajectory might seem mistaken at best (at worst, a violation). They might even be viewed as ‘arrogantly turn[ing a sphere of expression] into the opposite of what it conceives itself to be through the way it is examined’.44 43

44

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

As will become clear, I believe that there is a positive reason to persist with ideas such as dialectic, progressiveness, and teleology in music studies, not because I am wedded to these as an automatic assumption about how music ‘should’ go, but because this music and its reception history offer an opportunity to reflect critically on their inherited meaning. Theodor W. Adorno, ‘On Lyric Poetry and Society’, in Notes to Literature, I, ed. Rolf Tiedemann, trans. Shierry Weber Nicholsen (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 37–54 (37).

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Introduction: Schubert as Vanishing Point

And this might be especially felt in the setting of a study of the string quartet, a genre frequently understood as a private conversation between four players. Adorno confronted a similar problem in his 1957 essay ‘On Lyric Poetry and Society’ which also considers the lyric in relation to an extraneous, and traditionally oppositional, concept: society. Adorno recognised that this had the potential to make his readers/listeners uncomfortable since the intimacy and solitariness of the lyric genre seem more suited to contemplation in a hermetically sealed environment, an abstracted reality unconcerned with the vicissitudes of sociological or cultural context.45 But such expectations, Adorno posits, are themselves socially constructed: You experience lyric poetry [music] as something opposed to society, something wholly individual. Your feelings insist that it remain so, that lyric expression, having escaped from the weight of material existence, evoke the image of a life free from the coercion of reigning practices, of utility, of the relentless pressures of self-preservation. This demand, however, is itself social in nature.’46

Similarly, as the ensuing chapters will demonstrate, it is possible – indeed, desirable – to acknowledge a sense of teleology in Schubert’s lyric forms without imposing an extraneous logic of hypotaxis or Beethovenian dynamism on the works. The teleology to which these works give voice is not confined to Beethovenian accounts of the phenomenon, nor indeed to dubious (or at least out-moded) idea[l]s of organic unity. On the contrary, this class of teleology stands as a critique of those very ideas, gaining substance and significance through the ways it departs from that model. In defining the lyric as a category of form, Chapter 1 submits three central propositions, each of which forms the basis of one of the analytical chapters in the book’s second part. Chapter 3 considers the hegemony of cadence in the articulation of closure and explores Schubert’s persistent manipulation of the parameters of closure at traditionally significant junctures in the sonata. Chapter 4 explores parataxis’s juxtaposition of ostensibly unrelated propositions, revealing the ways by which these quartets pursue a kind of synthesis distinct from tonal resolution. And the final analytical chapter, by focussing on the diverse temporalities generated by Schubert’s lyric forms, offers a way of reimagining teleology. Taken together, these analytical case studies demonstrate that recognising lyric teleology as a dialectical phenomenon gets beyond any overly reductive 45 46

h

d i

0 0

The essay originated as a radio talk broadcast in the Federal Republic of Germany. Adorno, ‘On Lyric Poetry and Society’, 39.

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

13

14

Introduction: Schubert as Vanishing Point

understanding of the lyric as confined to one side of a constructed dualism, instead appreciating how Schubert’s practices are defined as much in relation to Beethoven’s as against them. As such, this book is less a study of Schubert’s quartets per se than it is an attempt to open up space to allow these works to challenge some of the discourses (analytical, aesthetic, historiographical, ideological) that have surrounded and epitomised them. Attending to Schubert’s quartets involves not only rethinking the composer’s instrumental lyricism, but also confronting the calcification that has surrounded some of the most basic (and arguably most treasured) concepts in which our discipline trades. Teleology is just one such phenomenon. In 1987, Janet Levy exposed the covert value judgments that often accompany the explicitly or implicitly organicist vocabulary employed in musicological scholarship, urging her reader to ‘be aware of covert values, of the surreptitious biases that limit and block inquiry’.47 As well as the organic metaphor, she summons the valuing of economy, the reverence of idiomatic writing and originality, and the high position of chamber music as inherently economical in means as defining values and challenges the ‘cherished absoluteness that they seem to have acquired’.48 The analytical chapters that make up Part II of this book seek to interrogate such values, chief among them the concepts of closure (Chapter 3), synthesis (Chapter 4), and unidirectionality (Chapter 5). Ultimately, in attending to the lyric teleology of Schubert’s quartets, this study seeks not to grant his music an ill-fitting Beethovenian accolade, but rather to open up genuine inquiry into the limitations that have begun to surround such values, indeed, how Schubert’s music, by virtue of its innate lyricism, can lay bare and transcend such limitations. * The assumed dichotomy between these two composers is, of course, not so strict, so absolute, ‘so pristinely dualistic’, in Hepokoski’s memorable parsing.49 No Schubertian work is irreducibly lyrical, paratactic, retrospective.50 Likewise, Beethoven was not only the composer of dramatic, dynamic forms, but (as the 47

48 49

50

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Janet Levy, ‘Casual and Covert Values in Recent Writings about Music’, Journal of Musicology, 5/1 (1987), 3–27 (27). Levy, ‘Casual and Covert Values’, 27. James Hepokoski, ‘Dahlhaus’s Beethoven-Rossini Stildualismus: Lingering Legacies of the TextEvent Dichotomy’, in The Invention of Beethoven and Rossini: Historiography, Analysis, Criticism, ed. Nicholas Mathew and Benjamin Walton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 15–48 (19). Recall Hatten’s remark that ‘In his appropriation of sonata form, Schubert finds means to achieve both a dramatic evolutionary process and a depth of contemplation in alternating plateaus of pure lyricism’. Hatten, ‘Schubert the Progressive’, 49.

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Introduction: Schubert as Vanishing Point

Missa Solemnis, Adagio of the Quartet in E♭, Op. 127 or the Heiliger Dankgesang ably attest) he was also moved to the mellifluousness and depth of the lyric. The persistent treatment of Beethoven and Schubert as opposites in respect of the lyric represents not only an over-simplification of their individual idioms, but also of the progress of music history. As Dahlhaus recognised, the turn towards lyricism in the early nineteenth century, particularly that of composers such as Schubert and Mendelssohn, was a response to such works as Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 74, Piano Trio Op. 97, and the Piano Sonatas Opp. 78 and 90.51 In these works, Beethoven began a softening of the motivic rigour associated with his middle-period style, making room ‘for a lyrical emphasis which permeated whole movements, instead of being limited to their second subjects’.52 Moreover, Beethoven’s late style, as James Webster points out, ‘relaxed the teleological drive of his developments and codas, and favored “weak” structural cadences.’53 Beethoven’s music therefore briefly opened doors, but the imperative to explore what lay beyond them was felt only in later generations, beginning with Schubert. Thus, Schubert did not abandon the axioms established in Beethoven’s music, but drew on and enriched them in his development of lyric form. He also went a step further in confronting a compositional problem which exercised a generation of Romantic composers: ‘how to integrate contemplative lyricism, an indispensible ingredient of “poetic” music, into a symphony without causing the form to disintegrate or to function as a mere framework for a potpourri of melodies’.54 Although this has traditionally been considered in the symphonic context, this study maintains that the string quartets articulate this same basic concern. Schubert’s innovation in bringing the vocal to bear on the instrumental in his sonatas was therefore not indicative of a crisis in the history of the sonata, the result of which was the inevitable disintegration of the concept of sonata form in the nineteenth century, as Arnold Whittall maintained.55 Rather, it announced that the lyric was no longer auxiliary, but had perforce become a foundational stylistic and formal building block; dynamic form and lyric contemplation were to come together in Schubert’s articulation of lyric teleology. Consequently, the opposition of 51 52

53

54

h

d i

0 0

On this, see Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-Century Music, 80–1. Dahlhaus, Ludwig van Beethoven: Approaches to His Music, trans. Mary Whittall (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 203. Webster, ‘Music, Pathology, Sexuality, Beethoven, Schubert’, 19th-Century Music, 17/1 (1993), 89–93 (92). Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-Century Music, 153. 55 See Whittall, ‘The Sonata Crisis’.

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

15

16

Introduction: Schubert as Vanishing Point

vocal and instrumental inherent in Dahlhaus’ Stildualismus (which for so long dictated the reception of Schubert’s instrumental music) coalesces in Schubert’s lyric form, which becomes the vanishing point of its associated dualisms. More is therefore at stake in this venture than a mere repositioning of an already familiar term: in acknowledging the lyric’s status as an autonomous formal category with identifiable processes and temporal implications, this book confronts some of musicology’s most tempting, but also most damaging, legacies. Ultimately, the development of the lyric in Schubert’s music encompassed not merely a change of idiom or style, nor even one of emphasis, but a fundamental transformation of the status of the lyric itself. The question remains how Schubert did this and to what end.

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

part i

Contexts

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

1

The Lyric Impulse: Musicological and Methodological Contexts

Introduction: The Unitary Nature of the Lyric The term lyric itself is unsatisfactory. . . The very definition of ‘lyric’ in the Oxford Dictionary indicates that the word cannot be satisfactorily defined.1 – Thomas Stearns Eliot

For many, the lyrical nature of Schubert’s melodies is a defining feature of his music. In both vocal and instrumental genres, his profound gift for lasting and memorable melodies which possess a sense of emotion both natural and powerful is widely celebrated. Yet what we mean by the term lyric remains ill-defined in musicological literature, and discussions of the long history of lyric poetry in Western traditions reveal, as T. S. Eliot decried, a lack of general consensus regarding its generic status.2 The term has traditional usage as both a noun and an adjective. This book’s subtitle, the Teleology of Lyric Form, presents the adjectival meaning describing a category of musical form to which the lyric is foundational. As a noun, the lyric can be understood as a poetic genre (as distinct from the epic or dramatic) – although the defining attributes constituting that genre are anything but unambiguous – or as a mode of expression which permeates distinct generic categories, and can appear in texts of very different generic lineage.3 While these categories (genre and mode) intersect in important ways, they are also distinguishable: on the one hand, the generic definition assumes the participation of the lyric mode, but the latter is not exclusive to the former. This distinction is vital to the understanding of lyric proposed in this study, which traces articulations of the lyric mode 1 2

3

h

d i

0 0

Thomas Stearns Eliot, The Three Voices of Poetry (London: National Book League, 1953), 197. For a contemporary take on this debate, see Jonathan Culler, Theory of the Lyric (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014). On this distinction, see Stephen Burt, ‘What Is This Thing Called Lyric?’, Modern Philology, 113/3 (2016), 422–40.

9 8 0092 09

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

19

20

Lyric Impulse: Musicological and Methodological Contexts

in generic contexts from which it has traditionally been excluded or in which it has been confined to specific contexts (second subjects and slow movements).4 The theorisation of the lyric by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in his Aesthetics has become one of the most influential in the scholarly literature, and it provides a basis for understanding the lyric in music. For Hegel, the lyric is a subjective poetic genre in which the ‘content is not the object but the subject, the inner world, the mind that considers and feels, that instead of proceeding to action, remains alone with itself as inwardness and that therefore can take as its sole form and final aim the self-expression of subjective life’.5 This inward subjectivity is tied to the lyric’s self-professed unitary nature, concerned with a single governing idea or emotional or psychological state. This is both introspective and self-contained, ostensibly standing apart from broader considerations of socio-historical context or the articulation of plot (or musical trajectory), something which is more normally associated with narrative. Lyric subjectivity is represented through the lyric ‘I’, the subject who speaks through the poem’s content. As a lyric reader/listener, we receive the lyric’s content directly, unmediated by a fictional narrator or through the creation of a fictional world, and this unmediated connection with the lyric subject heightens the sense of an enclosed, hermetic experience. The lyric subject, however, speaks not to us, but to him/herself or to an object (a Grecian urn), projected being, or muse within the poem. As such, the lyric ‘is pre-eminently the utterance that is overheard’ (a formulation echoing John Stuart Mill’s notable distinction between poetry and elegance).6 It is, in Jonathan Culler’s words, ‘a discourse of withdrawal, private vision, addressed to no one’.7 The idea that the lyric subject outwardly ‘turns his back on his listeners’, while at the same time being dependent upon them resonates with contemporaneous ideas of the string quartet as a private conversation between four players, all of whom seem blissfully unaware of their audience.8

4

5

6 7 8

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

On the lyric mode, see Paul Alpers, ‘Lyrical Modes’, in Time and Text: Critical Inquiries, ed. Steven Paul Scher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 59–74, especially 59–63. See Hegel’s Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, trans. Thomas Malcolm Knox (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), 1038. Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957), 249. Culler, Theory of the Lyric, 321. Frye, Anatomy of Criticism, 250. On this idea of the quartet see Nancy November, Cultivating String Quartets in Beethoven’s Vienna (Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press, 2017). The 1810 Petiscus article she cites throughout this book is also pertinent here; see Johann Conrad Wilhelm [‘P’.] Petiscus, ‘Ueber Quartettmusik’, Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 12/33 (1810), 513–23.

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Introduction: The Unitary Nature of the Lyric

Importantly for Hegel, the subjectivity of the lyric is part of a broader process of universalisation which is reliant on the relatability of the poem’s subject to a collective understanding held by the ‘reader’. In other words, the impact of the lyric relies on its ability, paradoxically, to give voice to a universal – and thus unifying – experience. The lyric therefore stresses what Culler refers to as the ‘purification or universalization of the poetic subjectivity, which functions above all as a unifying principle’.9 Thus, Hegel’s understanding of lyric subjectivity highlights the potential of the lyric to address, albeit indirectly, broader, collective experiences and situations: it is poetry both of the individual and of the communal. We shall return to that idea in relation to Adorno’s theory of lyric parataxis later in this chapter. Heinrich Heine’s ‘Ihr Bild’ and Schubert’s setting of it which became the ninth song of Schwanengesang (1828) fulfil many of the key features of the lyric mode thus defined. The lyric status of this poem is granted fundamentally by the presentation of a subjectivity (the lyric ‘I’) cut off from a supposed objectivity. Specific details of its design further reveal typical characteristics of the lyric. The poem focuses on the lyric subject’s inner turmoil, torn between the reality of loss and the memory of his beloved, and is indicative of the lyric mode in its extreme inwardness and representation of an expressive or mental state, rather than action or dialogue.10 In Heine’s poem, the protagonist’s feelings of unrest and despair are articulated inwardly, as he stands motionless, absorbed in a portrait of his lost beloved (‘Ich stand in dunkeln Träumen, Und starrt’ ihr Bildnis an’). The only outward display of emotion arrives in the third stanza, where tears begin to flow down his cheeks (‘Auch meine Tränen flossen Mir von den Wangen herab’), but even this seems a passive, involuntary response to feelings evoked by her portrait rather than a change of mode towards action or drama. Emil Staiger’s assertion that ‘[i]n the lyric, unity of mood is especially necessary’ seems, at first blush, to be undeniable here.11

9 10

11

h

d i

0 0

Culler, Theory of the Lyric, 97. A useful summary of the lyric mode from this perspective appears in Richard Kurth, ‘On the Subject of Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony: Was bedeutet die Bewegung?’, 19th-Century Music, 23/1 (1999), 3–32, especially 28. Emil Staiger, Basic Concepts of Poetics (Grundbegriffe der Poetik), trans. Janette C. Hudson and Luanne T. Frank, ed. Marianne Burkhard and Luanne T. Frank (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991), 62. See also C. Day Lewis, The Lyric Impulse (London: Chatto and Windus Ltd., 1965) and James William Johnson, ‘Lyric’, in The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, ed. Alex Preminger and T. V. F. Brogan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), 713–27.

9 8 0092 09

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

21

22

Lyric Impulse: Musicological and Methodological Contexts Table 1.1 Schubert, ‘Ihr Bild’, formal design Section Bars

A

B

A’

1–14

14 –24

244–36

i–I

VI

i–I–i

Harmony Cadence

11–2 I: PAC

4

12–3 I:IAC

17–8 VI: PAC

21–2 VI: IAC

33–4 I: PAC

35–6 i: IAC

Yet the apparent simplicity of the lyric poem – what Edgar Istel referred to in Schubert’s Lieder as ‘a clear-cut unity of mood’ – co-exists with an overtly sectional musical design.12 Schubert’s ‘Ihr Bild’ sets Heine’s three stanzas in three musical verses outlining a 32-bar rounded binary form, ABA’, as shown in Table 1.1. The resulting critical tension between the lyric’s unitary idea and the music’s sectional design can be explained with reference to A. B. Marx’s concept of the Liedsatz. Marx defines the Liedsatz as ‘a musical piece that holds to only one idea (a unitary [einig] content). . . regardless of whether or not it is meant to be sung’ and which can adopt either a rounded binary or closed ternary sectional form.13 It is further characterised by balanced phrasing, symmetrical periods, and cadential parallelism, all of which can serve to delineate the formal sections. For Marx, although the possibility of ternary form implies a contrasting B to an A, the form is most unified – and thus successful – when they ‘share the same basic content [Grundgehalt]’, such as a motif or an underlying musical idea.14 Whether or not one seeks this underlying coherence, it seems more appropriate to describe the lyric not as a unitary idea but rather as expressing fundamentally the juxtaposition of two contrasting ideas based on shared material – as setting ‘two simple moods one against the other.’15 This is an important facet of Schubert’s setting, as we shall see. Schubert answers Heine’s lyric with a musical setting initiated by stasis: as Example 1.1 illustrates, the Lied begins at a pianissimo dynamic with highly expressive octave B♭s in the piano part sustained through the first 12

13 14

15

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

One of the earliest attempts to characterise Schubert’s lyric style in relation to his vocal compositions came from Edgar Istel whose essay appeared in the same year as Salzer’s influential essay on the instrumental music. See Edgar Istel, trans. Frederick D. Martens, ‘Schubert’s Lyric Style’, The Musical Quarterly, 14/4 (1928), 575–95. Marx, Musical Form in the Age of Beethoven, 52. Marx, Musical Form in the Age of Beethoven, 76. This is what made Beethoven’s music so foundational to Marx’s theory of sonata form. Lewis, The Lyric Impulse, 3. For a fuller explanation of the details of this way of conceptualising the lyric, see my engagement with Su Yin Mak’s work later in this chapter under ‘Adorno, Mak, and Lyric Parataxis: A Viable Alternative’.

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Introduction: The Unitary Nature of the Lyric Example 1.1 Schubert, ‘Ihr Bild’, bars 1–2

two bars before the upbeat to the vocal entry. This is a characteristic opening gesture used by Schubert in the openings of his String Quintet in C Minor, D8, the Fantasie for Piano Duet, D9, the C-Minor Impromptu, D899 and the Finale of the Piano Sonata in B♭, D960. It affects a kind of suspension of the tempo before the main theme or vocal part enters, and heightens anticipation for that moment.16 The melodic line that follows is both rhythmically and melodically confined: repeated notes continue in the vocal entries at bars 2–3, 14–15, 18–19, and 24– 25, and, as Martin Chusid pointed out, the melody line pivots around B♭: each phrase either begins or ends (or both) on this pitch.17 The vocal range is itself rather limited, remaining comfortably within an octave from e♭1 to e♭2, with phrase endings coming to rest on either ^1 or ^5 . Consequently, the melody suggests neither motion nor progression but instead heightens the static interior subjectivity of the poem. Moreover, the dotted-figure Hauptmotif heard in bars 2–4 and 8–10, and shown in Example 1.2, and the mix of the slow tempo and dotted and double-dotted figures throughout the A section, lend a halting feeling to the musical line, as though it struggles to move forward; like Heine’s protagonist, the music seems rooted to the spot. Furthermore, the contrast between the A and B sections seems negligible upon first hearing. The symmetrical four-bar phrasing indicative of the lyric, for instance, is maintained throughout the two sections (indeed, the period design of the A section, whereby bars 3–6 are an antecedent and bars 9–12 a consequent, facilitates the juxtaposition of the minor and major modes of the 16

17

h

d i

0 0

D899 and D960 differ from ‘Ihr Bild’ in that they propose a dominant and submediant, respectively, not a tonic. Here, the repetition of the tonic is indicative of the overall sense of stasis. Martin Chusid, ‘Texts and Commentary’, in Companion to Schubert’s ‘Schwanengesang’: History, Poets, Analysis, Performance, ed. Martin Chusid (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), 90–155.

9 8 0092 09

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

23

24

Lyric Impulse: Musicological and Methodological Contexts Example 1.2 Schubert, ‘Ihr Bild’, vocal line bars 1–10, Hauptmotif, ‘x’

tonic). Topically and expressively, the A and B sections are also minimally contrasted: nowhere does the B section venture into the realm of the dramatic, the accompaniment is not highly contrasting, and the dynamic level returns to pianissimo for the beginning of each section, reaching forte only in the piano postlude. As such, the setting seems to answer perfectly the characterisation given by Hegel: ‘Lyric music. . .expresses individual moods of the soul melodically. It must above all maintain its independence of what is merely descriptive and declamatory.’18 One could argue that in avoiding the declamatory or dramatic, Schubert’s music maintains a single emotional and expressive state, mirroring the overarching mood of the poem. Lastly, there is a clear motivic link connecting the two sections: the first three beats of A’s Hauptmotif are taken up in the B section, spawning two new motives (‘x1’ and ‘x2’; the latter a fragmentation of the former) which are repeated in bars 14–15 and 16–17, as can be seen in Example 1.3.19 Importantly, there is no apparent development of this motif into something identifiably new, only its repetition, and thus the music seems to give voice to the ideal of lyric stasis. But the opposite is in fact true: lyric stasis gives way to transformation and progression, both poetically and musically, even if it effects no lasting change on the lyric subject’s condition. The subjectivity represented in stanza three is not the inert, motionless persona of stanza one, but has been moved – literally – to tears, and to an outward display of inner turmoil (‘Und ach, ich kann es nicht glauben, Dass ich dich verloren hab’!’). As Christopher Wintle aptly noted: this Lied ‘raises the familiar question of the suitability of architectural symmetry (a–b–a) for a lyric whose three verses are typically progressive (they address the self, the other, and the impact of the other upon the self).20 For Wintle, the 18

19

20

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, ‘Aesthetik’, in Music and Aesthetics in the Eighteenth and Early-Nineteenth Centuries, ed. Peter le Huray and James Day (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 339–53 (349–50). Note also the repeated unison B♭s as in stanzas 1 and 3 here: the G♭ major context is revealed only after these, not with them. Christopher Wintle, ‘“Ihr Bild” (1828): A Response to Schenker’s Essay in “Der Tonwille”, Vol. 1’, Music Analysis, 19/1 (2000), 10–28 (23).

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Introduction: The Unitary Nature of the Lyric Example 1.3 Schubert, ‘Ihr Bild’, vocal line bars 14–18, new motives, ‘x1’ and ‘x2’

transformation, or ‘rupture’ incited by the switch to the lyric present tense (‘I cannot believe that I have lost you’), finds a musical corollary in Schubert’s return to the tonic minor (B♭ minor) in the piano postlude. Unlike the equivalent moment in the A section which ends in B♭ major, Schubert alters the final piano phrase to the minor, thereby exposing the folly of the original A section’s ‘visionary’ major mode, and revealing that the protagonist remains ‘stuck where he began’.21 Significant though the minor-mode ending is, one could argue that it is also noteworthy that the only PACs in the entire Lied are articulated in the tonic major at bars 11–12 and 33–4. B♭ minor, conversely, is established only via IAC, and the piano postlude ends with an incomplete sounding ^5 in the top voice, drawing attention once again to the prominent ^6–^5 motif of bars 5–6 and 27–8 (Wintle’s ‘figure of distress’).22 Alternatively, contra Wintle, one could read the moment of transformation in this Lied as occurring at the point at which the beloved appears to smile – at the line, ‘ein Lächeln wunderbar’. It is this moment that transports the lyric subject to an idealised lost reality represented through the transformation of a familiar motif (‘x’) into a luminous G♭-major cadence. Here, ‘x’ remains identifiable, but it is wholly recontextualised by the new harmonic setting, which is at once comforting and dishonest.23 Schubert maintains ^3 of G♭ over the tonic chord in bar 18, such that the melodic line ends a third higher than the previous phrase (see again Example 1.3). The dual potential of the pitch B♭ to function within either harmonic context (i or VI) reflects the protagonist’s contradictory mental state. This moment acts as a Durchgang: the glimmer of warmth breaking through the protagonist’s stoic façade is a gateway into a different musical and psychological world. Could there yet be reconciliation and acceptance? The connection between this tonicised G♭ and the ‘figure of distress’ heightens the impression that it is only through pain (the pain wrought by looking at her portrait) that the protagonist can enter this idealised ‘dreamscape of the inner world’.24 It is this moment in the central B section that has a lasting 21 23

24

h

d i

0 0

Wintle, ‘“Ihr Bild” (1828)’, 26. 22 Ibid., 21. The fact that the same music accompanies eyes ‘glistening with tears’ in the next line is evidence of this cruel, false comfort. Wintle, ‘“Ihr Bild” (1828)’, 21.

9 8 0092 09

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

25

26

Lyric Impulse: Musicological and Methodological Contexts

impact on the remainder of the Lied, for the simple modal change within B♭ seems to pale in comparison to the vivid memory of the beloved brought to life by the submediant.25 G♭ therefore becomes crucial to a transformative reading of the poem, and this is facilitated by the ABA formal design. Thus, although a single expressive state is outwardly maintained in the Lied, Schubert’s setting gently suggests the anguish and fragility beneath the surface, bringing the agent of that transformation (G♭) fleetingly to the fore first in the context of pain (‘gazing at her picture’) and ultimately realised in the contrasting B section. The unity of mood may not be dramatically shattered here as it is in other of Schubert’s three-part Lieder (I think, for instance, of in ‘Die Liebe hat gelogen’, D751), but it is nonetheless subtly undermined.26 This short analytical vignette serves to demonstrate that even in the most ostensibly simple lyric form, the ABA format of the Liedsatz holds within itself the potential for contrast, and for drama. The lyric thus facilitates the voicing of critical tensions, conflict of material, and the articulation of extreme emotional and expressive states in close proximity, and its unitary nature can support a wildly disjunctive or fissured musical surface. Wintle credits Schubert with laying the path for Webern’s lyric style which, ‘by harnessing Schoenberg’s principle of developing variation. . . was able to amplify the central “unstable” part of the song’.27 While Schubert, he argues, alters his lyric material only minimally in the contrasting section, Webern’s variations give rise not only to contrast, but also to material development via ‘comprehensible connections’, leading to the aesthetic category of ‘developmental lyricism’.28 One could go a step further and argue that Schubert’s lyric forms themselves already reveal such comprehensible connections, and thus the potential for the lyric to function developmentally.

25

26

27

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

It is a shame, from that perspective, that Wintle’s voice-leading graph of the Lied downplays this moment in what is otherwise a beautifully rich reading of this Lied. Myriad other examples could be offered here of instances where Schubert dramatises the contrast between the A and B sections in his tripartite Lieder. I think of ‘Auf der Donau’, D553 (1817) or ‘Der Kreuzzug’, D932, which is broadly contemporaneous with ‘Ihr Bild’. For a list of Schubert’s lyrical Lieder which introduce dramatic elements, usually in the contrasting middle sections, see Marjorie Wing Hirsch, Schubert’s Dramatic Lieder (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) 97–8. Wintle’s analysis of ‘Die Liebe hat gelogen’ demonstrates that the stark rhetorical contrasts belie a fundamental continuation of material: the B section, specifically its emotional apex (bar 12) has its motivic and intervallic origin in the A material. See Wintle, ‘Webern’s Lyric Character’, in Webern Studies, ed. Kathryn Bailey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 229–63 (239–41). Wintle, ‘Webern’s Lyric Character’, 241. 28 Wintle, ‘Webern’s Lyric Character’, 241–2.

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Lyric Repetition: The Will to Vary and the Imperative to Develop

Older ideas of the lyric as a short, relatively simple, personal utterance will therefore get us only so far. To reach further, the ensuing section offers a refutation of three of the central tenets associated with Schubert’s lyric style, considering how they are nuanced in and by his instrumental forms. The section’s division into two parts reflects its basis in two concomitant questions: how has the lyric been defined for Schubert’s instrumental music in existing scholarship, and how might it be better understood to reflect its formal, as well as stylistic, profile?

– PART I – Lyric Repetition: The Will to Vary and the Imperative to Develop Lyric repetition, in using the same words [musical material], does not express anything new; the same unique mood is evoked again.29 – Emil Staiger

The tension between the lyric’s tendency to sustain a single idea and the inherent contrast offered by its ABA structure just discussed comes into clearer view in Salzer’s account of the second theme group of the G-major Quartet, D887/i in his influential 1928 essay. Salzer’s critique of Schubert’s sonata forms (for his judgment is ultimately negative) centres on the problems he perceives with incorporating a contemplative lyrical idiom into a dynamic form.30 This position relies on the distinction he makes early in the essay between outer form (der äußeren Form) and inner form (der Formung).31 The former consists of a generalised pattern or 29 30

31

h

d i

0 0

Staiger, Basic Concepts of Poetics, 58. In this judgment, of course, Salzer was not alone. Schubert’s lyrical idiom led many to be suspicious of his handling of large-scale form, an attitude exemplified by the work of Daniel Gregory Mason, Hans Gál, and Anton Rubinstein. And this is not confined only to nineteenthand early twentieth-century criticism: recall Robert Bruce’s remark that ‘it is a truism that [Schubert’s] instrumental works show a conflict between the established forms and the lyrical ideas that would not be contained within them’. Bruce, ‘The Lyrical Element in Schubert’s Instrumental Forms’, The Music Review, 30 (1969), 131–7 (132). Bruce, ultimately, argues that the instrumental works imbued with lyricism are ‘formally as revolutionary and original as any of the songs.’ Bruce, ‘The Lyrical Element’, 131. Salzer, ‘Die Sonatenform bei Franz Schubert’, 86. Formung literally translates as ‘forming’, ‘shaping’, or ‘formation’, which more accurately reflects its more dynamic quality, in contrast to outer form. I retain the generally accepted translation of ‘inner form’ here since it has become common in the secondary literature. See Mak, ‘Felix Salzer’s “Sonata Form in Franz Schubert”

9 8 0092 09

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

27

28

Lyric Impulse: Musicological and Methodological Contexts

framework prescribed by the dictates of the form in question which affords a similar construction to different works bearing that formal or generic title. Inner form, conversely, is more distinctively personal: it involves the artistic participation of the composer and represents no less than ‘the activity of creation itself’, filling the outer form with ‘individuality’.32 As Formung, Schubert’s instrumental lyricism is immanently constructive of form, rather than exhibiting some kind of lack in respect of it. But here Salzer locates a deficiency. While granting that the outer form of a sonata is an ‘expansion of song form’ (ABA form), Salzer holds that the inner form of the work must, however, ‘deny its relationship to the prototype’, writing explicitly that ‘the essence of sonata form therefore lies in the elimination of the lyrical condition’.33 For Salzer, Schubert’s adherence to the lyrical condition is problematic because it impedes what he, following his tutor Schenker, views as the essence of sonata form: the ‘improvisatory element’.34 This drives the music forwards, and begets dramatic tensions, development, and teleological coherence in the music. Instead, the lyrical condition effects the opposite: its tendency towards self-containment gives rise to the expansion of a single idea via repetition and sequence, the essence of which is static and non-teleological:

32

33

34

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

(1928)’ and John Charles Koslovsky, ‘From Sinn und Wesen to Structural Hearing: The Development of Felix Salzer’s Ideas in Interwar Vienna and their Transmission in Postwar United States’, unpublished PhD dissertation, Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester (2009). ‘so ist Formung die Tätigkeit des Schaffens selbst’ and ‘erfüllt so die äußere Form oder das Formgerüst erst mit einer Individualität’. Salzer, ‘Die Sonatenform bei Franz Schubert’, 87. Mak, ‘Felix Salzer’s “Sonata Form in Franz Schubert” (1928)’, 10; revised translation. ‘Wir stehen nun von dem Ergebnis, daß in ihrer äußeren Form die Sonatenform eine Dehnungserscheinung der Liedform bildet, der Charakter ihrer Formung aber die Beziehung zum Urbilde verleugnen muß.’ And ‘Das Wesen der Sonatenform besteht also in der Ausschaltung des lyrischen Zustandes’, Salzer, ‘Die Sonatenform bei Franz Schubert’, 89. Mak, ‘Felix Salzer’s “Sonata Form in Franz Schubert” (1928)’, 16; revised translation. Salzer’s is but one instantiation of the distinction between Form and Formung, on which topic see James Webster in Musical Form, Forms and Formenlehre: Three Methodological Reflections, ed. Pieter Bergé (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2009), 123–5. In his foundational essay, ‘On Organicism in Sonata Form’, Schenker memorably – and controversially – underlines the importance of the improvisatory element to sonata form in his criticism of the ‘talents’. See Schenker, ‘On Organicism in Sonata Form’, trans. William Drabkin, in Heinrich Schenker, The Masterwork in Music: A Yearbook, Vol. 2 (1926), ed. William Drabkin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 23–30.

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Lyric Repetition: The Will to Vary and the Imperative to Develop

29

Table 1.2 Schematic representation of Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, bars 64–168 after Salzer (1928), 99 A (bb. 64–108)

B (bb. 109–141)

A1 (bb. 142–168)

1. Secondary theme antecedent (b. 64) & consequent (b. 77)

1. Secondary theme in B♭ major (b. 109)

1. Secondary theme antecedent (resp. consequent) (b. 142)

2. Group (b. 90) in three parts

2. Modulating Part (b. 122)

2. Closing group (b. 154)

The lyrical idea is the expression of a specific emotion that the artist wants to seize and, above all, to shape artistically. This striving to capture the emotion brings with it the tendency of each lyrically determined idea to expand and develop, particularly through the repetition of the same groups of motives. An idea formed in this way ultimately produces a unified structure that exists for itself alone.35

In this way, Salzer’s view is of a piece with Staiger’s commentary on lyric poetry, quoted at the head of this section: for Staiger, the uniqueness of the lyric utterance means that it cannot express anything new, only repeat itself in a new evocation. As a result, Salzer concludes, Schubert’s sonata forms become overly reliant on the repetition of a single idea – what Istel called ‘sequential musical development’ – thereby shunning the kind of rigorous thematic development evident in the work of the Classical masters.36 A visual representation of Salzer’s reading of the second group of D887/i as a ‘closed, three-part song form’ is given in Table 1.2.37 As shown, Salzer divides the tripartite design into six sub-divisions: A is a two-part thematic complex beginning with the secondary theme in D major (his ‘antecedent’), followed by its ‘consequent’ – a varied repetition with new figuration, but without the usual tonal function of a consequent phrase.38 This is supplemented by what he calls a ‘group’ spanning bars 90–109 which is characterised 35

36 37

38

h

d i

0 0

‘Der lyrische Gedanke ist der Ausdruck einer bestimmten Empfindung, die der Künstler festhalten und vor allem künstlerisch gestalten will. Dieses Streben, die Empfindung festzuhalten, bringt es mit sich, daß jeder lyrisch angelegte Gedanke dazu neigt, sich auszudehnen und besonders aus Wiederholungserscheinungen derselben Motivgruppe sich weiter zu entwickeln. Ein so geformter Gedanke ergibt abschließend ein einheitliches Gebilde, das für sich allein dasteht.’ Salzer, ‘Die Sonatenform bei Franz Schubert’, 88. Mak, ‘Felix Salzer’s “Sonata Form in Franz Schubert” (1928)’, 14; revised translation. Istel and Martens, ‘Schubert’s Lyric Style’, 576. ‘einer geschlossenen dreiteiligen Liedform’, Salzer, ‘Die Sonatenform bei Franz Schubert’, 98. Salzer’s original table can be found on Salzer, 99. I have retained Salzer’s use of ‘secondary’ (Seiten) rather than use ‘second’ theme in my translation since it reflects the hierarchical nature of his discourse. It is unclear why Salzer uses the terms antecedent and consequent here except to indicate the parallel thematic construction between the two phrases; there is to my mind no functional difference in the degree of closure offered by the cadences in bars 76–7 and 89–90.

9 8 0092 09

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

30

Lyric Impulse: Musicological and Methodological Contexts

by three separate scale-degree moves from ^1 to ^5 , ^7 to ^4, and thence back to ^1, corresponding to his three internal parts: bars 90–94, 95–99, and 100–109. The B section is initiated by a change in tonality, where the secondary theme is heard in B♭ major followed by another internal section, analogous to A’s ‘group’, but which functions as a ‘modulating part’. This is followed by A’ again in D major. Salzer’s distinction between the A and B sections relies on the relative autonomy of the contrasting key, which is here afforded not by stronger cadential closure, but by the ‘rich scale-degree activity’ in B♭ outlining a full descent from ^5 to ^1 in the bass part.39 This is what distinguishes Schubert’s practice from earlier precedents, and Salzer contrasts D887/i with the second group of Haydn’s ‘Emperor’ Quartet in C major, which tonicises (rather than effects a modulation to) the submediant scale degree, and the first group in the Finale of Beethoven’s Piano Trio in D Major, Op. 70, No. 1 (‘Ghost’) which enacts the same procedure. In Schubert’s D887/i, conversely, the immediate repetition of the consequent phrase at bar 77 (resulting in a further repetition of the theme) as well as the independent status of B♭ major together suggest a more developed practice: in D887/i, he writes, we have a ‘fully fledged three-part song form containing a middle section in a contrasting key’.40 From a tonal perspective, this tripartition makes sense, and the fourfold presentation of the second theme, heard in each of the four instruments, offers a clear example of the kind of lyric redundancy that Salzer wishes to define, relying as it does on the repetition of the same group of motives. But the twopart division of each of Salzer’s main sections betrays a more complex thematic layout than he is perhaps willing to admit. As Table 1.2 suggests, each section is better understood as the juxtaposition of two contrasting ideas: the theme itself, and what we might term a developmental episode or interpolation. These interpolations between the thematic statements are not merely a recycling of the same motives, as Salzer suggests, but differ fundamentally from the thematic statements in both character and function. First, they are characterised by a marked increase in rhythmic vigour and activity in contrast to the more static theme and therefore produce an element of drama. They are also contrapuntally open, ending on HCs which introduce the key of the next section via its mediant – they therefore serve a transitional function.41 39

40

41

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

‘das reiche Stufenleben jenes Mittelteiles verweisen’, Salzer, ‘Die Sonatenform bei Franz Schubert’, 100. Mak, ‘Felix Salzer’s “Sonata Form in Franz Schubert” (1928)’, 47; revised translation. ‘Wir haben es also mit einer ausgebildeten dreiteiligen Liedform zu tun, die einen in der Tonart kontrastierenden Mittelteil enthält.’ Salzer, ‘Die Sonatenform bei Franz Schubert’, 99. Mak, ‘Felix Salzer’s “Sonata Form in Franz Schubert” (1928)’, 45; revised translation. When referring to contrapuntal closure in this study, I do so in a broadly Schenkerian sense, meaning that full contrapuntal closure comprises a linear descent in the top structural line

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Lyric Repetition: The Will to Vary and the Imperative to Develop Example 1.4a Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, rhythmic motif ‘x’

Example 1.4b Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, rhythmic motif ‘x’ in B group’s episode, bars 90–2

Moreover, these interpolations transform the theme’s Hauptmotif – motif ‘x’, shown in Examples 1.4 (a and b) – by halving its first note from crotchet to quaver, giving it a new urgency which is heightened by its juxtaposition with a new rhythmic figure cutting across the beat. This fragmentation and transformation of a motif from the main theme’s Hauptmotif suggests a clear developmental strategy; yet even this is insufficient to induce the improvisatory element so desired by Salzer and Schenker in sonata form. For Salzer, this lack is a consequence of the ‘lyrical expansion of the theme through the retention of the same chain of motives.’42 In other words, the sonata’s dynamic is problematised by the fact that Schubert ‘recycles’ the same motives between sections – Salzer is unwilling to recognise that the same motivic material serves a different function, and thus to acknowledge the developmental strategy at play in these episodes, although nowhere does he explain why this does not constitute development. Ultimately, Salzer’s appraisal of Schubert’s sonata procedure articulates two complementary tendencies which are informed by his particular understanding of the lyric: first, that Schubert’s concept of thematic invention gives rise to lyrical themes which cannot be developed, but only repeated or varied, and second, that these themes, often placed in remote key areas, deny the improvisatory impulse and stand apart from any sense

42

h

d i

0 0

(normally, ^ 3 -^ 2 -^ 1 ) accompanied by the necessary bass progression. A PAC, for instance, typically produces full contrapuntal closure, whereas an IAC or HC does not. ‘das Fehlen des improvisatorischen Elementes ist eine Folge der starken lyrischen Ausbreitung der Gedanken bei Festhaltung der gleichen Motivketten.’ Salzer, ‘Die Sonatenform bei Franz Schubert’, 100–1. Mak, ‘Felix Salzer’s “Sonata Form in Franz Schubert” (1928)’, 49; revised translation.

9 8 0092 09

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

31

32

Lyric Impulse: Musicological and Methodological Contexts

of formal direction and are fundamentally non-teleological in design. What is at stake here is the music’s potentiality: its potential to develop, to engender dynamic forms, and to avoid formal and aesthetic redundancy. Salzer views this as a uniquely Schubertian problem: in his music, in direct contrast to Beethoven’s, the lengthy subject groups amount to a rehashing of the same theme or motives, which results in saturation and stasis. The question that all of this raises is what constitutes musical development. The term itself refers to both a formal unit (the development section) and a formal function and is therefore associated not only with a set of particular practices (the inversion, fragmentation, diminution, augmentation, and liquidation of recognisable thematic or motivic material), but it is also expected to occur at a specific place in the form.43 Both of these assumptions are problematic for understanding Schubert’s instrumental forms. First, as Burstein has convincingly argued, Schubert’s practice of developing his themes via processes of expansion and elongation presents a logical alternative to the Beethovenian paradigm of fragmentation. He writes: ‘there is no reason why fragmentation should be considered essential to development. Schubert’s lyrical method of exploring the inner workings of themes by developing them through expansion is no less logical a procedure.’44 Second, Schubert is prone to develop his themes immediately after their initial statement in the exposition, thereby reserving the development section for the manipulation of a new theme. The second group of the C-Major Quintet offers a case in point on both counts: the arrival of a fully established PAC in G major at bar 100 of the exposition marks both the end of the second theme’s statement and, simultaneously, the launch of its seventeen-bar development. Schubert extends the melody to soaring new heights, adds a syncopation to its characteristic rhythm at bars 105–10, and introduces a canon between first violin and viola beginning at bar 101 (the voices entering imitatively at two-bar intervals). These procedures unmistakably affirm a developmental process in the music, a fact identifiable on even a single hearing of the passage. Here, Schubert’s second subject undergoes a kind of thematic growth in its production of a new entity (a canon) in microcosm within an abstraction of itself. Hence, the theme is embellished and flourishes within its own ‘developmental space’, where conventionally this might involve a dismantling within a process of fragmentation. Nonetheless, the expansive 43

44

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

See William E. Caplin, Classical Form: A Theory of Formal Functions for the Music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998) 139ff. Burstein, ‘Lyricism, Structure, and Gender’, 53.

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Lyric Repetition: The Will to Vary and the Imperative to Develop

manner in which Schubert develops his themes, coupled with their conspicuous absence from the traditional development section, amounts to a procedure that, although normative to Schubert, became thought of as profoundly unconventional.45 Yet there is no reason why development needs to be confined by these two conventions. As a function of form, it can be understood in more general terms as generating a feeling of ‘structural instability’ and the consequent motivation for the ‘restoration of stability’.46 Nicholas Temperley defines the processes involved in development in the following terms: The purpose of development is to lead the listener through an intellectual and emotional experience that could be described metaphorically as exploration, adventure, or transformation. From the starting-point of a readily grasped theme, which may have been heard more than once, the listener is drawn into less predictable situations where the theme, or part of it, is still recognizable but has taken on new characteristics and is perhaps combined with other materials or with other versions of itself.47

Two aspects implicit in Temperley’s remarks are helpful in disentangling Salzer’s criticism from Schubert’s practice. First, his reference to ‘new characteristics’ points to one of the most indispensable features of development: that something identifiably new is generated as an outcome of the process (cf. Staiger’s comment quoted above regarding the lyric’s inability to express anything new). The second is more complex. On the one hand, Temperley suggests that development is a progressive process containing various essential stages marked by logical, comprehensible connections (from a readily grasped theme to less predictable situations). We might understand this in terms of Friedrich Blume’s idea of Entwicklung, which he associated with the thematic development evident in Haydn’s music in contradistinction to the Fortspinnung practices in Mozart’s. For Blume, development is ‘a process of gradual transformation of a beginning element into further elements, substantively related to it and joined to it’.48 To

45

46 47

48

h

d i

0 0

Or worse: recall Arnold Whittall’s criticism of the Great C-Major Symphony on precisely these grounds (that the development is ‘cut off’ from the main line of progress). See ‘The Sonata Crisis’, 128. Caplin, Classical Form, 139. Nicholas Temperley, ‘Development’, in The Oxford Companion to Music, ed. Alison Latham (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 355–6. Friedrich Blume, ‘Fortspinnung und Entwicklung: Ein Beitrag zur musikalischen Begriffsbildung’, Jahrbuch der Musikbibliothek Peters 36 (1929), 51–70 (reprinted 1963) quoted in Carl Dahlhaus, ‘Some Models of Unity in Musical Form’, Journal of Music Theory, 19/1 (1975), 2–30 (25).

9 8 0092 09

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

33

34

Lyric Impulse: Musicological and Methodological Contexts

frame this differently: the intervening stages between the initial statement of the theme or thematic element, its manipulation via development, and the final, altered outcome are indispensible to the process and cannot logically be omitted if we are to grasp the significance behind the process. This emphasises the continuous – indeed, organic – nature of development: once the process has begun, the theme in its original configuration is left behind. It is this understanding of development that Salzer, I imagine, has in mind. But Temperley’s remarks also make space for the kind of non-literal repetition and variational development often found in Schubert’s music (‘the theme, or part of it, is still recognizable’). Although neither Salzer nor Temperley invoke variation, it plays a central role in Schubert’s developmental processes despite the traditional opposition of the two concepts. In contrast to development, variation works by constantly referencing the theme such that no matter how many variations occur, or how far from the original they journey, some aspect of the theme is always recognisable ‘behind’ the variation (this principle of identifying the similarity amid the differences is what Schenker had in mind when he referred to the ‘joy in recognition itself’).49 And because variations acquire their meaning, indeed their identity, by reference to a pre-existing entity rather than necessarily in relation to one another, the progression between each one can appear arbitrary, without logical motivation or a sense of global purpose. The problem for Salzer with the D887/i example above was therefore perhaps not that the episodes do not constitute development (which, I would argue, they do), but that the return to a statement of the theme each time nullifies any sense of progressive logic. The effect is, in a way, like hitting a reset button on an electronic device: doing so halts any ongoing process and disrupts its forward momentum. Thus, ultimately for Salzer, it is the will to variation in D887/i – evident across the thematic statements of the second group – that denies the improvisatory element.50 The clear juxtaposition of functionally discrete material is simply not his concern. As we shall see, this distinction between development and variation is not as strict as we might assume, especially when we consider what constitutes development in a Schubertian context: expansion, repetition and, above all, variation. 49

50

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Heinrich Schenker, Free Composition, trans. and ed. by Ernst Oster (New York: Longman, 1979), 99. I should clarify that I am not suggesting that there is no development or progressive element to the musical form built upon variation; but such development is not intrinsic to the technique itself, which requires only the variation of an identifiable theme. Chapter 5 directly takes up and overturns this reading.

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Adorno, Mak, and Lyric Parataxis: A Viable Alternative

Adorno, Mak, and Lyric Parataxis: A Viable Alternative When repetition is the fundamental principle of thematic generation the resulting structure will tend to be paratactic.51 – Barbara Herrnstein Smith

Aside from passing references in essays on other composers, Adorno engaged directly and at length with Schubert’s music on two occasions. The first was his essay ‘Schubert’, which was published in Schubert’s centenary year alongside Salzer’s; the second, from 1934, was an essay on the Rondo in A Major for piano four hands, Op. 107, directed predominantly at performers of the work and which revealed Adorno’s great admiration for the composer.52 Of the two, it is the earlier essay that has remained influential, for in it Adorno coins the much-cited metaphor of the Schubertian landscape describing a static topography across which we (the listener) experience the same musical features through shifts in perspective. Adorno’s essay sets Schubert’s sonata-form practice against Beethoven’s in two important respects: first, in the ‘negation of all thematic, dialectical development’, and second, in the ‘repeatability of unaltered truth-characters’.53 Schubert’s sonatas, he writes, are ‘forms of invocation’, the themes of which are not ‘manufactured’, but rather consist of ‘the smallest possible cells of actual objectivity’ – a Schubertian theme is ‘an apparition, an Erscheinung, a characteristic truth’.54 In their extreme singularity and self-sufficiency, these lyrical themes are apt for repetition or expansion rather than fragmentation, and Schubert’s sonata form is resultantly a ‘potpourri’ of these self-contained moments – a static, repetitive metaphorical landscape, rather than an organic process.55 Although Adorno pursues a familiar line of argument here (Schubertcontra-Beethoven), it is the affinity between his conception of a Schubertian theme and Staiger’s understanding of lyric creation which is of central importance. Here is the latter: 51

52

53 54

55

h

d i

0 0

Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Poetic Closure: A Study of How Poems End (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1968), 98. Adorno, ‘Schubert (1928)’ and Adorno, ‘Franz Schubert: Groβes Rondo A-Dur, für Klavier zu vier Händen, Op. 107’, Musikalische Schriften V (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1984). Adorno, ‘Schubert (1928)’, 11. Adorno, ‘Schubert (1928)’, 11 and 7, and Burnham, ‘Landscape as Music, Landscape as Truth: Schubert and the Burden of Repetition’, 19th-Century Music, 29 (2005), 31–41 (32). Adorno, ‘Schubert (1928)’, 9. Richard Leppert explores the C-minor Andante of the Piano Trio in E ♭, D929 as a paradigmatic example of the Adornian ‘perfect’ melody. See his ‘On Reading Adorno Hearing Schubert’, 19th-Century Music, 29/1 (2005), 56–63.

9 8 0092 09

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

35

36

Lyric Impulse: Musicological and Methodological Contexts The lyric poet does not do anything. He gives himself up – and this is to be taken literally – to inspiration. Mood, and together with it language, are given to him. He is not capable of divorcing himself from one or the other. His writing occurs spontaneously.56

A closer articulation of Schubert’s apparently ‘somnambulistic’ compositional methods could scarcely be found: his themes are ‘given to him. . . spontaneously’.57 Importantly for Staiger, such inspired lyrical ideas cannot be sustained beyond their initial statement; as a consequence, the ‘poet finds himself forced to make something of his inspiration, to enlarge upon it, to round it off, or possibly even to explain it’.58 This description of the treatment of the lyric idea could be happily applied to the continuation passages of Schubert’s expanded second-theme groups which have been described as a ‘commentary’ or ‘discussion’ on their initial theme.59 In Staiger’s estimation, as in Salzer’s and Adorno’s on Schubert, the lyric idea cannot look beyond itself nor be transformed; instead, it is made coherent through repetition: ‘lyric poetry is saved from disintegration through repetition’.60 Notwithstanding their commonalities, Adorno departs from Salzer’s criticism in his ultimate judgment of this tendency: for him, repetition is not so much a flaw as a fingerprint of Schubert’s style. Admitting that Schubert was not short on melodic inspiration and could, if he so chose, find myriad new themes in his ‘almost excessively trumpeted melodic treasure chest’, Adorno concludes that repetition – both of the inter-opus and intra-opus kind – is in fact a formal first principle in this music; it is no less than ‘the very make-up of Schubertian form’.61 How Adorno understands this kind of repetition is significant for the closeness it bears to Marx’s definition of variation form as ‘a succession of repetitions of a Liedsatz (theme) in constantly altered presentations – the consideration of the same idea from different perspectives’.62 Adorno’s metaphor of the Schubertian landscape implies that Schubert’s unique manner of recall represents neither the simple rehearing of earlier material, even less the straightforward recognition of a familiar theme or motif, but rather it is the experience of the same material in a new and foreign context. In Burnham’s memorable estimation, Schubert presents his themes ‘as if they 56 57 58 59

60 62

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Staiger, Basic Concepts of Poetics, 52. For a thoroughly penetrating critique of this, see Clark, Analyzing Schubert, chapter 1. Staiger, Basic Concepts of Poetics, 52. Dahlhaus, ‘Sonata Form in Schubert’, 2; Donald Francis Tovey, ‘Franz Schubert’, in Essays and Lectures on Music, ed. Hubert J. Foss (London, 1949), 103–33 (121). Staiger, Basic Concepts of Poetics, 57. 61 Adorno, ‘Schubert (1928)’, 10. Marx, trans. Burnham, Musical Form in the Age of Beethoven, 86.

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Adorno, Mak, and Lyric Parataxis: A Viable Alternative

were works of visual art we could inspect at our leisure, or landscapes through which we could wander’.63 It is not the object of repetition that is transformed in this process, but rather it is the mood, atmosphere, or the light surrounding the object that shifts: This is where to find the origin of the idea of atmosphere. . .atmosphere is what changes around things that remain timelessly the same, and this change makes no difference to them. . .Schubert’s atmospheric perspectives rely for their validity on the validity of the identical content they surround.64

Thus, just as the experience of variation relies on the recognition of a familiar element (a theme, bass line, contrapuntal entity, or harmonic progression) in diverse guises, so too the appreciation of Schubert’s atmospheric changes in perspective depends on ‘the return of the same in diversity’.65 In isolating repetition as a defining stylistic and formal feature of Schubert’s lyric style, Adorno (like Smith, quoted above) draws the lyric into relation with the concept of parataxis, although he refrains from making that connection explicit in this context.66 Adorno’s thoughts on parataxis were developed not in relation to music, but to poetry, in a mature essay first appearing in Die Neue Rundschau in 1964 in which he refutes Heidegger’s reading of Hölderlin’s late poetry.67 His position on the progressive nature of the lyric mode is made clear in this essay. Adorno argues that Hölderlin rejects the ‘syntactic periodicity’ of the prosaic in poetry, writing that: The logic of tightly bounded periods, each moving rigorously onto the next, is characterized by precisely that compulsive and violent quality for which poetry is to provide healing and which Hölderlin’s poetry unambiguously negates.68

Syntactic periodicity here refers to hypotactic sentence construction which utilises sub-clauses and articulates a hierarchical configuration and a clear 63 64 65

66

67

68

h

d i

0 0

Burnham, ‘The “Heavenly Length” of Schubert’s Music’, Ideas, 6/1 (1999). Adorno, ‘Schubert (1928)’, 11. Ibid., 11. Adorno’s definition of the Schubertian landscape resonates with what Kenneth Burke terms the ‘repetitive form’ in literature, which he defines as the ‘constant maintaining of a principle under new guises’. See Kenneth Burke, ‘The Nature of Form’, in Contemporary Rhetoric: A Conceptual Background with Readings, ed. Ross W. Winterowd (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc., 1975), especially 183–99. Parataxis is a literary and rhetorical device whereby phrases or clauses are placed side by side without conjunctions which would signal their relative status in relation to one another within the sentence. For a discussion of poetic paratactic structure, see Smith, Poetic Closure, 98–109. Theodor W. Adorno, ‘Parataxis: on Hölderlin’s Late Poetry’, in Notes to Literature, Vol. 2, ed. Rolf Tiedemann, trans. Shierry Weber Nicholsen (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), 109–49. The essay is a revision of a paper delivered by Adorno at the annual meeting of the Hölderlin Society in Berlin in 1963. Adorno, ‘Parataxis: on Hölderlin’s Late Poetry’, 135.

9 8 0092 09

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

37

38

Lyric Impulse: Musicological and Methodological Contexts

sense of closure. Parataxis, on the other hand, flattens the structure, juxtaposing seemingly unconnected phrases or passages. Hölderlin’s late poetry negates hypotactic construction, Adorno argues, in favour of such paratactic juxtaposition. The result is a self-reflexive usage of language which cannot be reduced to a single idea of total synthesis of the artwork’s materials. But the pursuit of synthesis is not negated. For Adorno, the ‘artificial disturbances that evade the logical hierarchy of subordinating syntax’ in Hölderlin’s late poetry are symptoms of his poetry’s articulation of ‘a synthesis of a different kind’.69 This alternative synthesis is aware of its own provisionality and stands in opposition to the notion of an allencompassing total unity. Adorno therefore equates parataxis with a certain loosening of form, allowing, as Michael Spitzer writes, ‘the artistic material. . .to become more itself’.70 Although he never relates this back to his work on Schubert, there are obvious correspondences in how Adorno views Hölderlin’s ‘musiclike’ parataxis and his description of the Schubertian landscape: both are reliant on repetition and juxtaposition, both eschew traditional synthesis and integration, and both impact the artwork’s syntactical arrangement.71 The distinction between the two comes in Adorno’s differing aesthetic judgments, which sees Schubert’s landscapes descend into landscapes of death and decay, whereas Hölderlin’s poetic forms are self-reflexive, critical, and offer a kind of reconciliation. Had Adorno returned to his youthful ‘Schubert’ essay in the 1960s, one wonders whether he would have revised his judgment and recognised the progressive nature of Schubert’s formal practice, as he does for Hölderlin. A more positive judgment is presented in Mak’s work on Schubert’s instrumental lyricism. Building on Elaine Sisman’s pioneering work on the Classical variation, Mak defines parataxis in Schubert’s music as an additive process characterised by the placement of two or more independent propositions in close succession, thereby ‘downplay[ing] the role of syntax and hierarchy in discourse’.72 Crucially, she places this is in direct opposition to a late eighteenth-century conception of sonata form which is 69 70

71

72

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Adorno, ‘Parataxis: on Hölderlin’s Late Poetry’, 131 and 135. Michael Spitzer, ‘Haydn’s Creation as Late Style: Parataxis, Pastoral, and the Retreat from Humanism’, Journal of Musicological Research, 28/2–3 (2009), 223–48 (225). For an alternative exploration of the relationship between these two Adorno essays, see Jeffrey Swinkin’s engagement with these sources focusing on Adorno’s ideas of paratactic performance. Swinkin, ‘Paratactic Performance’. Su Yin Mak, ‘Schubert’s Sonata Forms and the Poetics of the Lyric’, Journal of Musicology, 23/2 (2006), 263–306 (275). See also Elaine Sisman, Haydn and the Classical Variation, 2nd edn. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Adorno, Mak, and Lyric Parataxis: A Viable Alternative

traditionally equated with hypotaxis owing to the hierarchical construction common to both, as well as the sense of unfolding narrative which it shares with prose (the ubiquitous use of terms such as tonal plot, sonata trajectory, and the sonata’s dramatic narrative are symptoms of this). Mak locates the origin of this correlation in Heinrich Christoph Koch’s formulation of melodic phrase-expansion techniques, originating in his Versuch einer Anleitung zur Composition (in three volumes, 1782, 1787, and 1793) which, although it refrains from using the term ‘sonata form’, nonetheless fundamentally informs our understanding of Classical sonata form as inherently hypotactic. This received idea, Mak argues, is what led to Schubert’s writing being seen as aberrant, and her work confronts this by granting Schubert’s lyric practices historical, aesthetic, and theoretical grounding.73 Rather than representing unsuccessful attempts at Beethovenian hypotaxis, these works, she argues, are characterised by deliberate parataxis: Schubert’s cantabile themes signal the lyric not only because they are sentimental and beautiful, but also because they are so often deliberately set apart from the hypotactic norms of the Classical sonata style.74

Mak’s approach is valuable in at least two respects. First, it offers a theoretically informed and historically grounded explanation for the predominantly negative early reception of Schubert’s sonatas as prolix and repetitive, exemplified above by Salzer. Given the lower standing of parataxis in the musical realm, it follows that the incorporation of paratactic techniques into a hypotactic form would be perceived as tantamount to introducing structurally inferior practices into a more elevated form, to its ultimate detriment. This suggests that the suspicions surrounding Schubert’s handling of large-scale form stem in large part from an inability to perceive the correspondence between paratactic lyricism and his unique conception of sonata form. Second (although Mak herself does not explore this in detail), her approach draws out the parallels between Schubert’s sonata-form practice and variation technique – especially the permeability between the two – an idea suggested, but not made explicit, by Adorno.75 73

74 75

h

d i

0 0

Mak, ‘Schubert’s Sonata Forms’ and Schubert’s Lyricism Reconsidered. The correlation between parataxis and the lyric idiom has a long history, and parataxis’ distance from ‘the modernity of goal-driven Classical discourse’ was explored by Michael Spitzer in Music as Philosophy: Adorno and Beethoven’s Late Style (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2006), 115. Mak, ‘Schubert’s Sonata Forms’, 294. Subsequent authors have explored the close relationship between variation and sonata in Schubert’s music. See Susan Wollenberg, Schubert’s Fingerprints: Studies in the Instrumental Works (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011).

9 8 0092 09

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

39

40

Lyric Impulse: Musicological and Methodological Contexts

This relationship is key to understanding Schubert’s approach to form. Mak’s correlation of Schubert’s instrumental lyricism with parataxis and Sisman’s equation of parataxis with variation technique (which I explore in greater detail in Chapter 5) are therefore two sides of the same coin: the latter describes a form, the former an aesthetic idiom, and both are united in their reliance on patterns of repetition – not unlike those identified by Salzer and Adorno in Schubert’s instrumental music. There are, however, two respects in which Mak’s work does not go far enough. Although she rightly argues that Schubert’s paratactic structures call for a means of understanding that is divorced from the standard, Beethovenian models, yet despite this, she utilises a predominantly Schenkerian approach to this music, which misses the methodological opportunity presented by her radical rethinking of Schubert’s instrumental lyricism. In her adoption of Schenker’s techniques – even a loosening of those techniques – Mak remains firmly focused on tonality and voice leading, and only minimally explores the impact of surface features on the articulation of paratactic form. I believe that such ‘secondary’ phenomena (register, dynamics, texture, rhythm) are crucial to understanding how parataxis works in this music, especially considering that parataxis draws attention to the surface with particular emphasis. Second, her work perpetuates the understanding of parataxis as fundamentally non-teleological. While this is not necessarily problematic – especially since Mak presents parataxis as an alternative to the dynamic and hypotactic model of sonata form and seeks to celebrate its difference – to my mind, it nonetheless needlessly confines Schubert’s practices to one side of a binary opposition. An alternative way of rationalising this, and one which recognises the affinity between Schubert’s practice and Adorno’s view of lyric poetry (and offers a re-reading of Adorno’s view of Schubert via Hölderlin), is to acknowledge that, in its close juxtaposition of seemingly unconnected propositions, parataxis has the capacity to articulate a dialectical musical argument, one which may, or purposely may not, pursue synthesis. Thus imagined, it is not teleology per se which is negated by the paratactic idiom, but the specific, hypotactic understanding of it exemplified by Beethoven’s middle period. In relating by association rather than by syntax, parataxis is vital to a conception of lyric form as a self-reflexive and self-consciously critical phenomenon, one offering teleology of a different kind. This is the conclusion that the Adorno of the 1957 essay, ‘On Lyric Poetry and Society’ arrived at. In that essay, Adorno sketches his position in relation to the developments in modern poetry and poetics and presents the lyric as a fundamentally social and progressive phenomenon. He argues

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Adorno, Mak, and Lyric Parataxis: A Viable Alternative

that the lyric’s celebrated position as representing interiority, intimacy, and Innigkeit (or Innerlichkeit) combines with an ostensibly incompatible determination to respond to that which is external, and arguably anathema to it, thereby revealing its dialectical essence. Crucially, it is this very quality – the lyric’s ephemeral and inward subjectivity – that in fact guarantees its condition as a dialectical artwork:76 the substance of a poem [or musical work] is not merely an expression of individual impulses and experiences. These become a matter of art only when they are come to participate in something universal by virtue of the specificity they acquire in being given aesthetic form.77

For Adorno, the idea that paratactic propositions collapse the hierarchical construction of hypotaxis by placing potential equals side by side is representative of the lyric’s ability to set individual against society such that the former can critique the latter. If hypotaxis subjugates the individual to ‘the whole’ (and it was late Beethoven’s struggle against this, according to Adorno, which makes his forms progressive), then the lyric’s refusal to accede to the dynamic, unidirectional demands of the Beethovenian teleological process stands as a critique of that very ideology. Under these conditions, Schubert’s lyric teleology is progressive because its mode of utterance and approach to form constitute ideology critique.78 Adorno’s recognition of a degree of mediation between the two sides of this social antagonism, a degree of indebtedness of one to the other, is important here.79 Recall his comment that the individual impulses of a lyric poem or work ‘become a matter of art only when they are come to

76

77 78

79

h

d i

0 0

In fact, Adorno in his Introduction to the Sociology of Music makes the same argument for the string quartet. There, he equates chamber music’s technical sophistication directly with its generic identity; for him, the practical limitations of the string quartet (its ‘limitations of means’) facilitate technical development by granting it licence to focus on internal organisation and logic. See Adorno, Introduction to the Sociology of Music (New York: Seabury Press, 1976), 96–7. For an analytical exploration of the dialectic of private and public in Schubert’s Quartettsatz, see Hyland, ‘In What Respect Monumental? Schubert’s Quartettsatz and the Dialectics of Private and Public’, in The String Quartet from the Private to the Public Sphere, ed. Christian Speck (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016) 141–61. Adorno, ‘On Lyric Poetry and Society’, 38. Adorno’s 1957 work therefore revises the judgment of Schubert’s lyric idiom in his youthful essay of 1928. Considered in relation to his broader comments on the lyric, Adorno’s earlier remarks on Schubert require a level of contextualisation. He writes that ‘[s]ubject and object are not rigid and isolated poles but can be defined only in the process in which they distinguish themselves from one another and change.’ See Adorno, ‘On Lyric Poetry and Society’, 44.

9 8 0092 09

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

41

42

Lyric Impulse: Musicological and Methodological Contexts

participate in something universal’. 80 In the ensuing pages, that universality is represented by the formal and dynamic demands of early nineteenthcentury sonata form, and can be summed up as a sense of generic expectation, constructed at the poietic level of the work’s meaning – the pre-history of its composition or production.81 Schubert’s lyric form participates in and overcomes those demands, not by disposing of them altogether, but by engaging in their critique, by remaining paratactic at the very moment when hypotactic logic or tonal resolution should prevail; in other words, by ‘indulg[ing] in a technical illusion of universal cogency without that cogency characterizing it inherently’.82 And, importantly, that dialectical nature is, for Adorno, tied fundamentally to Romanticism. The lyric – a fundamental component of Romantic form – therefore enacts a critique of our received understanding of teleology by replacing it with another, infinitely more flexible one. It is this final, and vital step – to locate a suitable means by which to celebrate Schubert’s lyric teleology – which the ensuing analytical chapters address at their core.

Temporality, Directionality, and the Lyric Mode Lyric existence remembers, epic existence presents, dramatic existence projects. . . The lyric poet. . .can recall present and past, and even the future.83 – Emil Staiger

The affinity between variation and sonata impulses in Schubert’s music was again central to Dahlhaus’s essay on the G-Major Quartet, D887/i in which he reveals how Schubert successfully incorporates variation techniques into the quartet’s first movement. Dahlhaus classifies the second group as a ‘sonata form that tends toward variation cycle’, and the entire movement is defining of what he calls Schubert’s ‘lyric-epic’ style.84 Although Dahlhaus offers no clear definition of what he means by ‘lyric-epic’, he points his reader towards Adorno, and specifically to the latter’s work on Mahler. Benjamin Korstvedt traces Dahlhaus’s meaning to Adorno’s description of the ‘epic intension’ of Mahler’s forms which is ‘fond of the unanticipated, 80 81

82 84

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Adorno, ‘On Lyric Poetry and Society’, 38. Jean-Jacques Nattiez’s tri-partition of meaning, deriving from Jean Molino. See Nattiez, Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music, trans. by Carolyn Abbate (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, [1987] 1990). Adorno, ‘On Lyric Poetry and Society’, 45. 83 Staiger, Basic Concepts of Poetics, 187. Dahlhaus, ‘Sonata Form in Schubert’, 9.

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Temporality, Directionality, and the Lyric Mode

the unarranged, that which is subject to no compulsion, and, where compelled, it values divergence’.85 Korstvedt further links this to Staiger’s characterisation of the epic impulse as ‘a mode in which sections have a high degree of independence (‘die Selbständigkeit der Teile’)’, just as with the individual variations in variation form, or the paratactic structures discussed previously.86 One understanding of Dahlhaus’s recognition of a ‘lyric-epic’ style in Schubert, then, is that it is representative of the parataxis that underpins Schubert’s forms. Pace Salzer and foreshadowing Mak, Dahlhaus presents this as a viable alternative to Beethoven’s ‘dramatic-dialectic’ style and urges us not to engage in such hackneyed comparisons between the two composers: ‘Schubert’s lyric-epic sonata form ought not to be measured by the same standards of Beethoven’s dramatic-dialectic form.’87 Dahlhaus, however, appears not to heed his own advice and the essay reads as an enumeration of the ways in which Schubert’s style differs from Beethoven’s, particularly when it comes to motivic derivation, a key topic in the analysis. Moreover, Dahlhaus presents Schubert’s incorporation of variation elements into this sonata as having been facilitated by Beethoven’s innovations in variation form, specifically in the Op. 35 ‘Eroica’ variation set. The ‘thematic configuration’ of Schubert’s first subject group, in which there is no identifiable theme, but instead a complex of elements that are collectively, and retrospectively, understood as ‘thematic’ is only possible, he writes, in the wake of Beethoven’s similar approach to the variation ‘theme’ in Op. 35. Thus, Schubert’s departure from Beethoven in the realm of the sonata is nonetheless dependent upon the latter’s work in variation form. This bias notwithstanding, Dahlhaus brings techniques of variation and parataxis into dialogue with a new attention to directionality in Schubert’s sonata practice. And although his view of variations, as ‘a commentary “meandering” about the theme, illuminating it from different sides’, does not differ in essence from Adorno’s ‘ex-centric’ Schubertian landscape nor Marx’s definition of variation form, his interest in the aesthetic implications of Schubert’s practice is nonetheless an important extension of previous work.88 In particular, it is his attention to the temporal orientation of these techniques that marks

85

86

h

d i

0 0

Theodor W. Adorno, Mahler: A Musical Physiognomy, trans. by Edmund Jephcott (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 67 cited in Benjamin M. Korstvedt, ‘“The Prerogative of Late Style”: Thoughts on the Expressive World of Schubert’s Late Works’, in Schubert’s Late Music: History, Theory, Style, ed. Lorraine Byrne Bodley and Julian Horton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016) 404–25 (422). Ibid. 87 Dahlhaus, ‘Sonata Form in Schubert’, 1. 88 Ibid., 2.

9 8 0092 09

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

43

44

Lyric Impulse: Musicological and Methodological Contexts

a major contribution, and one of the most influential developments introduced by his reading is the idea that the music articulates a distinctly – and uniquely Schubertian – recollective perspective: ‘In Schubert, unlike in Beethoven, the most lasting impression is made by remembrance, which turns from later events back to earlier ones, and not by goal-consciousness, which presses on from earlier to later.’89 Intuitive though this idea may appear, the problem with it, as Clark rightly notes, is that Dahlhaus never sufficiently explains why Schubert’s motivic derivation works backwards, whereas Beethoven’s presses forwards.90 For example, Dahlhaus posits that the characteristic rhythm of the second theme (see again Example 1.4a) ‘emerges gradually during the principal group’, through bars 2, 34, 43, and 51. The very presentation of this statement – moving from bars 2 through to 51 – suggests a goal-directed process, as though the rhythm of bar 65 comes into being progressively, and is the logical outcome of the earlier bars. But this is evidently not how Dahlhaus wishes us to hear it; instead, bar 65 is presented as a recollection of the earlier material.91 Similarly, he writes that ‘the chromatic descending fourth, which underlies the principal idea as a basso ostinato, returns in the subsidiary theme’; this is easier to understand as a recollection, perhaps, since the descending chromatic tetrachord is maintained in full in the second group, transposed but not transformed, repeated with new atmospheric lighting. At first blush, however, it is unclear why we should interpret these examples differently from the re-use of motivic material in a new context in Beethoven’s middle-period music, for instance. Dahlhaus’s answer resides in how the music sounds. To support this, he draws the distinction between what he calls the logical and the pathetic: motivic derivation in Beethoven’s music is both logical (by which he means it consists of tightly woven motivic connections) and creates an impression of powerful emotion and passionate energy (development via constant motion – its ‘pathos’).92 Schubert, alternatively, shows us that ‘musical 89

90

91

92

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Ibid., 8. This retrospective derivation of motives sounds like Hepokoski’s reading of Sibelius’ ‘teleological genesis’. See James Hepokoski, Sibelius: Symphony No. 5 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). See Clark, Analyzing Schubert, 174. It is equally problematic, of course, to assume that there is a single temporal norm for Beethoven’s music. On this, see Benedict Taylor, The Melody of Time: Music and Temporality in the Romantic Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), chapter 1. We can assume, however, that Dahlhaus is here referring to Beethoven’s middle-period ‘heroic’ idiom. Clark places these motives side by side and asks the reader to read them from right to left and from left to right to illustrate the difference. See her Example 3.4 in Analyzing Schubert, 171. The question of how to interpret Dahlhaus’s use of ‘pathos’ here does not admit to an obvious answer since the term itself, as Elaine Sisman has shown, comprises distinct strands of meaning which changed over time. It seems to chime with the characteristics of rhetorical pathos

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Temporality, Directionality, and the Lyric Mode

logic. . .is quite reconcilable with a relaxed pace and a musical attitude that. . .remains devoid of pathos’.93 Schubert’s procedure manages to be logical, while at the same time sounding improvisatory, or ‘involuntary’ – we do not experience these motivic connections as a logical chain of events because there is no audible causal link between the derivations. On the contrary, they represent the unconscious or unbidden resurfacing of past events. Again, Dahlhaus places this at odds with the dramatic-dialectic style of Beethoven: ‘the teleological energy characteristic of Beethoven’s contrasting derivation is surely not absent from Schubert, but it is perceptibly weaker’.94 What is lacking is therefore not (or not only) dynamic energy, but causation: there is no audible large-scale agenda governing Schubert’s motivic derivations – this has passed to a subcutaneous level. This aligns with parataxis, where conjunctions are apparently temporal rather than causal.95 Dahlhaus’s distinction between Beethoven’s and Schubert’s practices is therefore concerned less with content (what is recalled), than with mode (how something is recalled): the spontaneous impression of Schubert’s motivic connections for Dahlhaus paradoxically gives rise to a temporal orientation directed towards the past. This focus on temporal modality, on how something is recalled by an imagined listening agent, is central to a number of important studies which appeared as part of a special issue on ‘Memory and Schubert’s Instrumental Music’ in The Musical Quarterly in 2000. These articles develop Dahlhaus’s work by exploring how Schubert’s music advances a novel mode of listening, and they approach memory as an aesthetic and music-historical category within which repetition and recall of material (both from earlier in a work and from earlier works) are central.96 Staiger’s association of the lyric mode with ‘a temporal orientation directed toward the past’, quoted at the head of this subsection, is summoned by John Daverio to define what he

93

94 95 96

h

d i

0 0

outlined by Sisman (following Johann Christoph Adelung): ‘The crowding together of ideas, their impetuous course, the tumult of several often very different passions’. See Sisman, ‘Pathos and the Pathétique: Rhetorical Stance in Beethoven’s C Minor Sonata, Op. 13’, in Beethoven Forum 3, ed. Glen Stanley (1994), 81–105. On Beethovenian pathos and passions, see also Leon Botstein, ‘The Search for Meaning in Beethoven: Popularity, Intimacy, and Politics in Historical Perspective’, in Beethoven and His World, ed. Scott Burnham and Michael P. Steinberg (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 332–66. Dahlhaus, ‘Sonata Form in Schubert’, 7. There are resonances here with Burstein’s work, cited above, which similarly recognises Schubert’s tendency to develop his themes through expansion as a logical strategy. Burstein, ‘Lyricism, Structure, and Gender’. Dahlhaus, ‘Sonata Form in Schubert’, 8. On the pertinence of this to the lyric see Staiger, Basic Concepts of Poetics, 62. See, in particular, Burnham, ‘Schubert and the Sound of Memory’, 657.

9 8 0092 09

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

45

46

Lyric Impulse: Musicological and Methodological Contexts

calls ‘the temporality of pastness’ in Schubert’s D935.97 In contrast, Charles Fisk and John Gingerich focus on expressive disjunction and interruption in Schubert’s C-Minor Sonata, D958 and the String Quintet, D956, respectively, and follow Dahlhaus in situating Schubert’s practice at a remove from Beethoven’s.98 Scott Burnham directly responds to Dahlhaus by shifting focus away from the content of the passages in question to the mode of attention that they elicit, arguing that Schubert’s music impels the listener inwards, drawing him/her ‘into the moment at hand’, thus replicating the attention one grants to a fleeting memory.99 This absorption in what Adorno called these schöne Stellen is closely tied to the lyric listening experience, the subject of which bears some resemblance to the Romantic ‘passive’ listener identified by Heinrich Besseler in his classifications of musical listening.100 Rather than recalling a specific past event, this listener is rooted in a present-focused state of ‘intensified absorption in the sheer materiality of the surface’ – in the attempt to summon the memory.101 This is a subtle but effective nuancing of Dahlhaus’s model of recollection: it is not simply that the music reflects backwards, but its invitation to leave us, as Thomas Kinsella might have it, ‘idling on some compulsive fantasy’ is anathema to the dynamic model of teleology.102 But if content and mode can be dissociated, then it follows that there is no inevitable association between a ‘lack of pathos’ and retrospection. In other words, although the causal links in Schubert’s music have retreated to a subcutaneous (or subthematic) level, they nonetheless maintain a teleological aptitude, even if that is not experienced in a single, directed manner on the musical surface. An instructive comparison can be made to this end with Karol Berger’s distinction between the temporal perspectives of narrative and lyrical forms in poetry.103 The former is governed by 97

98

99 100

101 102 103

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

John Daverio, ‘“One More Beautiful Memory of Schubert”: Schumann’s Critique of the Impromptus, D935’, The Musical Quarterly, 84/4 (2000), 604–18 (605). Charles Fisk, ‘Schubert Recollects Himself: The Piano Sonata in C Minor, D958’, The Musical Quarterly, 84/4 (2000), 635–54, and John M. Gingerich, ‘Remembrance and Consciousness in Schubert’s C-Major String Quintet, D956’, The Musical Quarterly, 84/4 (2000), 619–34. Burnham, ‘Schubert and the Sound of Memory’, 660. Adorno, ‘Schöne Stellen’, in Theodor W. Adorno, Gesammelte Schriften, Bd. 18, Musikalische Schriften V, ed. Rolf Tiedemann (Frankfurt, 1965), 695–718. Heinrich Besseler, Das musikalische Hören der Neuzeit, Berichts über die Verhandlungen der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Philologisch-historische Klasse, Band 104, Heft 6 (Berlin: AkademieVerlag, 1959). Burnham, ‘Schubert and the Sound of Memory’, 663. Thomas Kinsella, ‘Mirror in February’. Karol Berger, ‘Narrative and Lyric: Fundamental Poetic Forms of Composition’, in Music Humanism and Its Legacy: Essays in Honor of Claude V. Palisca, ed. Nancy Kovaleff Baker and Barbara Russano Hanning (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1992), 451–70. On mutual

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Temporality, Directionality, and the Lyric Mode

emplotment, the unfolding of a linear plot which proceeds by virtue of causation: because a, hence b, for instance. Such causation is irreversible (it presses only ever forwards), and thus Berger refers to narrative form as temporal: ‘narrative is a kind of form. . .in the constitution of which the essential role is played by time’.104 This, in musicological terms, is Beethoven’s teleological motivic derivation. In lyric form, conversely, while ‘time plays no essential role’ as it does in narrative, yet it is not wholly neglected: ‘it simply does not matter whether its parts exist simultaneously or successively’.105 Thus, time functions differently in lyric form than in narrative because its parts are reversible, and motion can exist from a to b, as above, or from b back to a: What glues the parts together in the lyric [sic] form is the reversible mutual implication (< - >; if a, then b). What glues them together in the narrative form is the irreversible causation ( - >; if a earlier, then b later). . . Thus we arrive at a positive definition of the lyrical form: what distinguishes the lyrical form from the narrative form is that its parts, whether existing simultaneously or succeeding one another, are governed by the relationship of the necessary or probable mutual implication.106

It is in this acknowledgement of the reversibility of lyric time that Berger’s concept differs from and nuances other conceptualisations of this distinction, such as Raymond Monelle’s between lyric and progressive time.107 To be sure, the latter aligns itself broadly with Berger’s narrative time (in the sense that it is irreversible and characterised by motion or action), but Monelle’s ‘lyric time’, conversely, represents the expanded present tense of a musical moment. This is usually encountered in presentational units which are harmonically and phrase-structurally stable and which make the theme itself – rather than its place or function within a larger whole – the immediate focus of attention. In that formulation, there is no progress, only static contemplation – static in a way that the examples Burnham draws upon are not. Berger’s concept of mutual implication, conversely, allows for the possibility that the connection implied by musical elements can work in a bi-directional manner, retrospectively and prospectively.

104 107

h

d i

0 0

implication as an interpretative model for Chopin’s treatment of sonata form see Andrew Davis, ‘Chopin and the Romantic Sonata: The First Movement of Op. 58’, Music Theory Spectrum, 36/2 (2014), 270–94. Berger, ‘Narrative and Lyric’, 458. 105 Ibid., 459. 106 Ibid., 460. Raymond Monelle, The Sense of Music: Semiotic Essays (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), especially 115–17. See also the description of Monelle’s categories in James Buhler, ‘Mahler and the Myth of the Total Symphony’, in Rethinking Mahler, ed. Jeremy Barham (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 141–62 (143–5).

9 8 0092 09

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

47

48

Lyric Impulse: Musicological and Methodological Contexts

This bi-directionality, moreover, can be mapped onto the contrast between hypotaxis (B subjugated to A insofar as B is derived from A) and parataxis (no such hierarchical tension; bi-directionality). Under this model, a sense of motion – and hence musical time – is not denied but heightened. The implications of this for our understanding of teleology can be illustrated with reference to Walter Frisch’s work on D887/i. Prompted by Dahlhaus’s remarks, Frisch pursues an explanation of how and why the thematic and harmonic gestures that reappear in Schubert’s quartet suggest an idea of recall which lies beyond conventional notions of return or recapitulation. For Frisch, ‘what we hear in the present seems to come from the past’: reminiscence is a memory of previously existing music.108 This is recollective memory, which he distinguishes from habitual memory, which corresponds to ‘a learned or habitual kind of memory’.109 The distinction between these two forms of memory resides in the recognisable (although distorted) sentence and period structures of the opening bars of D887/i, the allusions to older styles such as the lament bass, and slow introduction and the French overture, and the harmonic pattern of Beethoven’s ‘Waldstein’ sonata on the one hand (all of which constitute habitual memory), and the reworking of this opening material in bars 15–33, which constitutes the immediate recollection of the former. Frisch therefore identifies both inter-opus (the ‘Waldstein’/ D887/i) and intramovement recollection at work here and his conclusion is significant for understanding the role memory plays in a teleological structure: the music, he writes, ‘is actually creating its own continuation – its structure – by revisiting its immediate past’, and that past is itself a memory in the form of allusions to earlier musical styles.110 Frisch’s listening agent is a highly perceptive contemporary listener, one who is alert to such intertextual allusions and susceptible to the type of recollection presented in the opening page of this quartet. In particular, the play on expectation that Frisch reads in this movement functions only if the listener activates her habitual memory to recall what might have been expected (of a period structure, say) when the music veers from this course. Thus, both habitual and recollective memory shape the listener’s experience of an ongoing process in the music. The temporal orientation of that experience might reflect on earlier events (in the sense of being

108

109

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Walter Frisch, ‘“You Must Remember This”: Memory and Structure in Schubert’s String Quartet in G Major, D887’, The Musical Quarterly, 84/4 (2000), 582–603 (587). Frisch, ‘“You Must Remember This”’, 587. 110 Ibid., 587.

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Temporality, Directionality, and the Lyric Mode

recollective), but the perception of a continuously unfolding logical process – contra Dahlhaus – equates, I would argue (surely), to teleology. Herein lies the greater potential of Dahlhaus’s work: rather than confining Schubert’s practice to the aesthetics of retrospection, Dahlhaus (via Frisch) encourages us to explore more fully the temporal implications of Schubert’s formal practices and to rethink our inherited understanding of teleology. Thus, although certain moments in Schubert’s music shun dynamic forward motion in preference for greater attention to the ‘now’, either through recollection or a retreat inwards, yet this music – like Berger’s lyrical form – does not relinquish its temporal perspective.111 Our sense of time in this context is not negated, but vastly enriched. There is a resonance here with Michiko Theurer’s remarks on Beethoven’s Heiliger Dankgesang: ‘This sensation could be described, in contrast to the concept of timelessness, as a feeling of time-chargedness, whereby every instant is opened to the sensation of time in all its expressive potentiality’.112 This is a vital first step in appreciating the lyric teleology expressed by these forms: that teleology is, of necessity, neither linear nor unidirectional. The model of mutual implication, associated with lyric poetry, offers a fertile basis upon which to build that understanding because it facilitates the multi-directional perspective of this music. Thus, without seeking to deny the sense of retrospection that surrounds the aesthetic of the lyric more generally, nor the specific and compelling examples offered by Burnham and others of the ‘aesthetic immediacy’ of Schubert’s music, this study proposes a model of lyric form built on multi-directionality and the articulation of diverse temporalities – a model, therefore, under which the lyric’s temporal perspective is inherently more multifarious, and more dynamic. By limiting our engagement with the lyric to an experience of its rapturous immediacy, we potentially blind ourselves to its potential to be something more; in short, we revel in what it is at the expense of what it might be.

111

112

h

d i

0 0

Nor indeed is the listener asked to relinquish control of the listening experience. Although there are passages which invite such lingering, yet Schubert, especially in the later quartets, requires that the listener take an active part in shaping of the musical experience, especially in relation to harmonic relations and form-functional articulation. The thwarting of expectations is only possible with such active listening and is arguably a vital feature of this music. Michiko Theurer, ‘Playing with Time: The Heiliger Dankgesang and the Evolution of Narrative Liberation in Op. 132’, Journal of Musicological Research, 32/2–3 (2013), 248–65 (254).

9 8 0092 09

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

49

50

Lyric Impulse: Musicological and Methodological Contexts

– PART II – The Lyric as a Category of Form The lyricism that is confined to an enclave in the classical sonata became the predominant structural principle.113 – Carl Dahlhaus

Dahlhaus’s idea of the liberation of lyricism from a localised phenomenon to a global structural first principle in Beethoven’s late music requires some unpacking, especially considering its implications for lyric form. The transference of lyricism to whole movements, and the impact of that on form-functional organisation – to my mind – marks an important distinction between lyricism (as mood, topic, melodic descriptor) and the category of lyric form. Although Dahlhaus does not venture as far as a definition of the latter, it is possible to identify its central principles, at least for Schubert’s music. To that end, I posit three tendencies of lyric form – all of which are characteristic of Schubert’s instrumental practice throughout his career from early to late – and isolate the mechanisms by which these are articulated in his string-quartet first movements. My identification of these three facets of the lyric is simultaneously a response to the commonly held conventions of the lyric mode outlined so far in this chapter: that it is concerned with a self-contained idea; that it gives voice to closed, ABA structures lacking development and saturated by repetition, and that it is retrospective in orientation, shunning any sense of teleology. The following three propositions therefore seek to clarify some generalisations that have arisen owing to an assumed correlation between topical or expressive state and structural potential in discussions of Schubert’s lyric form.

Proposition 1 Schubert’s lyric form, while articulating a closed or rounded ‘ABA’ thematic structure (cf. Marx and Webster), simultaneously reveals a tendency to undermine closure at traditionally significant points of demarcation within a sonata (the medial caesura [MC], essential expositional closure [EEC], and essential structural closure [ESC]). In this music, apparently stable, self-contained themes are frequently denied conventional closure (via a PAC) by dint of identifiable form-functional techniques, chief among them parametric non-congruence, formal and 113

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Dahlhaus, Ludwig van Beethoven, 203.

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

The Lyric as a Category of Form

thematic elision, formal ambiguity, and functional transformation.114 This sets up a dialectical tension between thematic roundedness or cyclicism and tonal-harmonic openness. Chapter 3 explores these devices in the quartets D18, D94, and D703. These works articulate a decidedly processual approach to form, one which calls for constant reinterpretation through processes of transformation and retrogression. This proposition owes much to Janet Schmalfeldt’s work on the processual aspect of earlynineteenth-century musical form. Although developed as a response to Hegel’s philosophy and Beethoven’s music, Schmalfeldt’s theory has been extended to the music of Schubert (Vande Moortele and Martin) and Brahms (Horton) via the concept of functional transformation.115 Its applicability here is signaled through the continuous nature of many of Schubert’s first-movement tonal designs which actively deny or problematise local closure in the name of achieving a more overarching sense of global closure.

Proposition 2 Far from maintaining a unitary idea, the paratactic nature of lyric form is defined by a tendency to juxtapose material that is both rhetorically and functionally distinct. This leads to forms in which a given formal function can be interrupted by a contrasting one, usually without any transition, and results in a highly charged, dramatic design. Chapter 4 explores the idea that such lyric juxtaposition is fundamentally dialectical in setting in motion a critical tension which presses towards synthesis, although that synthesis may or may not be achieved. This is pursued through close readings of the quartets D36, D353, and D804 which bring these works into dialogue with Edward T. Cone’s model of stratification.116 As adumbrated in Part I, this proposition is founded on the Adornian concept of music’s immanent dialectic: the lyric is here 114

115

116

h

d i

0 0

On parametric non-congruence in Schubert’s music, see Hyland, ‘Rhetorical Closure in the First Movement of Schubert’s Quartet in C Major, D. 46: A Dialogue with Deformation’, Music Analysis, 28/1 (2009), 111–42. On functional transformation or ‘becoming’, see Janet Schmalfeldt, ‘Form as the Process of Becoming: The Beethoven-Hegelian Tradition and the “Tempest” Sonata’, Beethoven Forum, 4 (1995), 37–71, In the Process of Becoming: Analytic and Philosophical Perspectives on Form in Early Nineteenth-Century Music (New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), and Julian Horton, Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 83: Analytical and Contextual Studies, Leuven Studies in Musicology 4 (Leuven: Peeters, 2017). Nathan John Martin and Steven Vande Moortele, ‘Formal Functions and Retrospective Reinterpretation in the First Movement of Schubert’s String Quintet’, Music Analysis, 33/2 (2014), 130–55 and Horton, Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 83. Edward T. Cone, ‘Stravinsky: The Progress of a Method’, Perspectives of New Music, 1/1 (1962), 18–26, reprinted in Perspectives on Schoenberg and Stravinsky, ed. Benjamin Boretz and Edward T. Cone (New York: W.W. Norton, 1968 and 1972), 155–64. All references are to the original 1962 publication.

9 8 0092 09

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

51

52

Lyric Impulse: Musicological and Methodological Contexts

defined as encompassing two diametrically opposed concepts, and its identity is forged via the working out and ultimate transcendence of the original opposition. Thus, while the dramatic interpolations in Schubert’s music have traditionally been read as standing in opposition to the lyric, owing to their rhetorical demarcation – breaking through the serene surface as ‘volcanic temper’ – Chapter 4 proposes instead that such interpolations are not only connected to lyric form, but they are in fact defining of it.117

Proposition 3 Lyric form displays a will to variation and tendency towards inter-generic dialogue which give rise to formal designs characterised by form-functional multiplicity (FFM). Form-functional multiplicity occurs when a single musical unit articulates formal functions on more than one hierarchical level simultaneously and is brought about because the grouping structure and formal functions are productively noncongruent (or asynchronous). The idea of generic heterogeneity is first introduced in Chapter 2 in the context of the string quartets of Schubert’s lesser-known contemporaries as well as Schubert’s own early work, D8. Chapter 5 then goes on to isolate specific variational techniques employed by Schubert in his string-quartet sonata movements and explores the impact of their form-functional multiplicity on the forms’ temporality from the perspective of D94/ii, D173/i, and D887/i. It does this by exploring the association between the retrospective nature of variation (as form and as technique) and the nostalgia of the lyric mode. Schubert’s practices give rise to multilayered and -dimensional designs yielding multiply directed temporal pathways. An underlying aim of the three central analytical chapters is to show how Schubert mediates between lyricism and development in the service of a new kind of lyric teleology which enables both temporal novelty and a distinctly processual approach to form. My analytical case studies focus on Schubert’s employment of lyrical elements developmentally via identifiable and universally acknowledged techniques such as tertiary and symmetrical tonal structures, harmonically evasive or mobile theme groups, formal elisions, functional ambiguities, and parametric dislocations. Importantly, these are endemic strategies in the music of Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Liszt, and Berlioz, and therefore their development across Schubert’s quartets arguably provides an initial font of inspiration. Thus, while I set out to

117

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Hugh Macdonald, ‘Schubert’s Volcanic Temper’, Musical Times, 119/1629 (1978), 949–52.

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Methodology

explore a particular tendency in Schubert’s music, there is nonetheless potential for explanation of later nineteenth-century practice.

Methodology It is equally fatal to have a system and not to have a system. One must try to combine them.118 – Friedrich Schlegel

This study situates itself within the body of scholarship comprising the new Formenlehre: a growing literature on musical form engaging with (and often extending the remit of) either William Caplin’s theory of formal functions (1998), James Hepokoski’s and Warren Darcy’s Sonata Theory (2006), or tenets of both.119 Perhaps owing to their distinct approaches to musical form, both theories have proved influential and found application beyond the scope of their initial corpus. Sonata Theory has been successfully applied in the study of later nineteenth- and early twentieth-century repertoire; indeed, the theory’s suitability to this repertoire was demonstrated prior to its codification for the music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven in Hepokoski’s work on Sibelius in particular, but also Strauss, Elgar, and Nielsen.120 The development of Caplin’s theory has been characterised by two distinct tendencies: one focused on acquiring a more refined definition of its pre-existing concepts such as cadence, and the other on the extension of the terminology to music beyond Caplin’s corpus, chiefly that of the nineteenth century.121 Indeed, the study of musical form 118

119

120

121

h

d i

0 0

Friedrich Schlegel, Athenaeum Fragments, quoted in Charles Rosen, The Romantic Generation (Harvard College, USA: Harper Collins Publishers, 1995), xi of the Preface. Caplin, Classical Form and James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and Deformations in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). See James Hepokoski, Sibelius: Symphony No. 5 and ‘Fiery-Pulsed Libertine or Domestic Hero? Strauss’s Don Juan Reinvestigated’, in Richard Strauss: New Perspectives on the Composer and His Work, ed. Bryan Gillam (Duke University Press, 1992), 135–76, Seth Monahan, Mahler’s Symphonic Sonatas (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), Charity Lofthouse, ‘Dialogues and Dialects: Rotation and Sonata Form in Shostakovich’s Symphonies’, Theory and Practice, 41 (2016), 113–39 and Christopher Tarrant, ‘Structural Acceleration in Nielsen’s Sinfonia Espansiva’, Music Analysis, 38/3 (2019), 358–86. The former tendency is represented by Markus Neuwirth and Pieter Bergé (eds.), What Is a Cadence? Theoretical and Analytical Perspectives on Cadences in the Classical Repertoire (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2015); William Caplin, ‘The Classical Cadence: Conceptions and Misconceptions’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 57/1 (2004), 51–117; L. Poundie Burstein, ‘The Half Cadence and Other Such Slippery Events’, Music Theory

9 8 0092 09

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

53

54

Lyric Impulse: Musicological and Methodological Contexts

in nineteenth-century repertoires from form-functional and sonatatheoretical perspectives has become a rich area of research in its own right, represented in the work of, inter alia, Pieter Bergé, Horton, Mark Richards, Schmalfeldt, Peter H. Smith, Benedict Taylor, and Steven Vande Moortele. Notwithstanding both theories’ influence, a distinct trend of exclusivity has surrounded their application, and scholars have tended to focus on one or other of these theories, rarely on an amalgamation of the two. While this is not problematic in itself – especially if one’s aim is to elucidate a particular theory’s scope and applicability – yet it declines an opportunity to explore the ways by which these two approaches can be used productively in tandem, and how they can complement one another.122 This is particularly the case for concepts introduced by Hepokoski and Darcy that Caplin does not use, such as the medial caesura, which has been taken up by a small number of scholars working in the Caplinian tradition. Foremost in that regard is Horton’s work on the nineteenth-century piano concerto, and especially his monographic study of Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto, Op. 83.123 In the analytical case studies that follow, I employ the criteria for nineteenth-century sonata form theorised by Horton as a development of Caplin’s terminology alongside concepts from Sonata Theory with the aim of finding a kind of methodological rapprochement of these two approaches.124 Thus, while Caplinian/Hortonian taxonomies are foregrounded in my analytical tables, the interpretation of these syntactic elements at a background level owes much to Hepokoski’s and Darcy’s hermeneutics. These theories mingle furthermore with conceptual metaphors and models borrowed from extra-musical sources and philosophical and literary fields of enquiry employed in the service of representing the formal complexity of this music.

122

123 124

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Spectrum, 36/2 (2014), 203–27; Caplin, ‘Beyond the Classical Cadence: Thematic Closure in Early Romantic Music’, Music Theory Spectrum, 40/1 (2018), 1–26, as well as his forthcoming book-length project on the cadence. The latter can be found in the work of, among others, Steven Vande Moortele (2009), Janet Schmalfeldt (2011), Matthew BaileyShea (2004), Steven Vande Moortele, Julie Pedneault-Deslauriers, and Nathan John Martin, eds. (2015), Anne M. Hyland (2014 & 2016), Julian Horton (2011 & 2017), and Peter H. Smith (2022). See bibliography for full details. For an example of how both theoretical systems can work in tandem, see James Hepokoski, ‘Sonata Theory, Secondary Themes and Continuous Expositions: Dialogues with FormFunctional Theory’, Music Analysis, 35/1 (2016), 44–74. Horton, Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 83. See, in particular, Julian Horton, ‘Criteria for a Theory of Nineteenth-Century Sonata Form’, Music Theory and Analysis, 4/2 (2017), 147–91.

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Methodology

A fundamental premise upon which my methodology rests is that musical form is hierarchically structured. In Schubert’s quartets in particular, the different levels of form rely on or interact with one another in meaningful ways, giving rise to complex hierarchical designs. Although this is an idea with a long history, the multitude of hierarchical models for tonal form that exist suggest that how we understand this aspect of musical form is not without complication. Lawrence M. Zbikowski’s work, for instance, distinguishes between two historically grounded models of musical hierarchy. The first exerts a level of control: ‘each level in a hierarchy (with the exception of those at the extremes) controls the nextlower level and is itself controlled by the next-higher level’.125 The second model sees the relationship between the levels as resulting from the amalgamation of components: taken together, the materials on one level inform the next higher level, until all levels have been exhausted. We might profitably view these as a top-down hierarchy (higher levels dictate lower levels) and a bottom-up hierarchy (the individual components of the lower levels combine to generate the higher levels; content generates form), or indeed as representative of the conformational (general) and generative (particular) aspects of form outlined by Mark Evan Bonds.126 The approach I adopt to hierarchical organisation mirrors the bottom-up or generative approach, and seeks to define the activity of the lower levels by their formal functions. This focus on formal function distinguishes my approach from previous engagements with Schubert’s instrumental lyricism: I am less interested in profiling lyrical content as a stylistic element than with understanding the syntax of lyric form. 127 Rather than viewing the lyric as a static quality with which Classical sonata form became 125

126

127

h

d i

0 0

Lawrence M. Zbikowski, Conceptualizing Music: Cognitive Structure, Theory, and Analysis (New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). See especially chapter 7, ‘Competing Models of Music: Theories of Musical Form and Hierarchy’. Mark Evan Bonds, Wordless Rhetoric: Musical Form and the Metaphor of the Oration (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991). This locates my work within the context of existing theorisations of nineteenth-century sonata form and aligns it with a long history of Formenlehre from Schoenberg’s Fundamentals of Musical Composition, ed. Gerald Strang with the collaboration of Leonard Stein (London: Faber and Faber, 1970 [1967]), Erwin Ratz’s Einführung in die musikalische Formenlehre: Über Formprinzipien in den Inventionen und Fugen J. S. Bachs und ihre Bedeutung für die Kompositionstechnik Beethovens (Vienna: Universal Edition, 1973) especially 9 and 56, and with Adorno’s proposals for a ‘material theory of musical form’. On the latter, see Max Paddison, Adorno’s Aesthetics of Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), at 174–83 and Steven Vande Moortele, ‘The Philosopher as Theorist: Adorno’s materiale Formenlehre’, in Formal Functions in Perspective: Essays on Musical Form from Haydn to Adorno, ed. Steven Vande Moortele, Julie Pedneault-Deslauriers, and Nathan John Martin (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2015), 411–33.

9 8 0092 09

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

55

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009210911.002 Published online by Cambridge University Press

Table 1.3 Mozart, Piano Sonata in D Major, K576/i, bars 1–16, form-functional reading Bars

1–16

Full-Movement Form

First Movement Sonata Form

Large-Scale Function

Exposition, Part I

Interthematic Function

1–16 A

Intrathematic Function 1

1–8 A1 (period)

Intrathematic Function 2

1–4 Antecedent

Intrathematic Function 3

1–2 b.i.

Motivic Material

‘x’

‘x’

‘x’

‘x’

Harmony

I

II

I

II

Structural Cadence

9–16 A1 variation (period) 5–8 Consequent

3–4 c.i.

4 I: HC

5–6 b.i.

9–12 Antecedent 7–8 c.i.

7–8 I: PAC

9–10 b.i.

13–16 Consequent 11–12 c.i.

13–14 b.i.

12 I: HC

15–16 c.i.

15–16 I: PAC

Methodology

imbued, instead I propose that the lyric is itself mutable in terms of treatment and function. The hierarchical organisation of Caplin’s theory is most apparent in his grouping terminology which distinguishes between interthematic functions (between subject groups [main theme, transition, subordinate theme]) and intrathematic functions (within subject groups [presentation, continuation, cadential, post-cadential]) at the level of the complete movement.128 A visual representation of his reading of the first theme of Mozart’s Piano Sonata in D Major, K. 576/i is provided in Table 1.3, which also serves as a way of introducing how the tables in this study will be presented.129 The table shows the first subject group from the exposition of K. 576/i – its large-scale function which sits within a full-movement form of the sonata. Working from intrathematic function level 3 upwards allows for an explanation of the table’s hierarchical perspective. Within the exposition, the basic idea (b.i.) of the A1’s antecedent – which is equivalent to the motivic idea, ‘x’ – is outlined in bars 1–2. The contrasting idea (c.i.) that follows in bars 3–4 leads to a weak HC in the tonic, thus denoting the end of the antecedent, which is accounted for in the next intrathematic level (level 2); this antecedent is the first half of a period structure which I call A1 (the first theme in the first theme group – and in this instance, the only one – which exists on level 1). The full period sits within the interthematic function A, the first-theme group. Levels representing harmony and structural cadence complement the basic hierarchical outline and appear on the lowest part of the table. In the analyses that follow, my focus will predominantly be at the inter- and intrathematic levels, as I am interested in the transformation of functions within, rather than between, individual movements. Owing to my extension of Caplin’s theory beyond his initial corpus study, some terminological reimagining and adaptation has been necessary. Generally, I employ the terminology of intrathematic functions, and periodic and sentential thematic configurations or types including in 128

129

h

d i

0 0

A diagram making clear the hierarchical organisation of Caplin’s theory can be found in Musical Form, Forms and Formenlehre, ed. Bergé, Figure 1.4, 28. A similar hierarchical presentation is used by Steven Vande Moortele in his work on twodimensional sonata form, although there Caplin’s groupings are replaced by alternatives and Vande Moortele’s focus was not at the intra-movement level, as is mine, but at the intersection between intra-opus cycle and whole-movement form. See Vande Moortele, Two-Dimensional Sonata Form: Form and Cycle in Single-Movement Instrumental Works by Liszt, Strauss, Schoenberg, and Zemlinsky (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2009). This presentation is also employed by Horton in Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 83.

9 8 0092 09

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

57

58

Lyric Impulse: Musicological and Methodological Contexts

instances wherein their traditional understanding is stretched. This is most notably the case in my use of the term ‘parallel period structure’ which Caplin does not employ, but which I find useful to account for the phenomenon whereby a middle- or lower-functioning period structure is incorporated into a higher-level period design. This nesting can take place over two or three intrathematic levels and has a kind of matryoshka-doll effect. My use of the term ‘basic idea’, furthermore, extends to longer excerpts than those outlined by Caplin (usually two or four bars long) in response to Schubert’s expansion of this component of the Classical sentence structure; this thematic expansion gives rise to the possibility of the basic idea itself being sentential if it functions on a higher structural level as the basic building block of a large-scale sentence.130 In such instances, a basic idea (b.i.) may be synonymous with a lower-level sentence (A1 or B1, for instance), and thus represent both part and whole of distinct syntactic configurations at two different structural levels.131 These adapted uses of Caplin’s terms facilitate the identification of what I term form-functional multiplicity (FFM) in these works. This phenomenon is rooted in the distinction Caplin draws between grouping structures (‘the variety of discrete time spans organized hierarchically in a work’) and form functionality.132 Caplin makes a point of emphasising how previous theories conflate these categories, and highlights the interpretative possibilities presented by their strict differentiation. FFM is distinct from Caplin’s idea of ‘fusion’ whereby continuation and cadential functions are fused under ‘continuation’, for instance. It is also removed from Webster’s term ‘double functioning’, referring to instances where a single formal unit fulfils the function usually carried out by two or more separate units, such as the integration of introduction and main theme in Beethoven’s sonatas.133 In both of these, the two functions that are merged are imagined as occupying the same hierarchical level; in other words, these are instances of what Vande Moortele calls ‘horizontal double-functionality’.134 The form-functional multiplicity with which I am concerned, alternatively, is vertical: the formal functions span different hierarchical levels giving rise to an abundance of

130

131

132 133

134

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

This doesn’t simply refer to R = 2N situations, where 2 x notated bar = 1 x ‘real’ bar, but also more complex configurations. See also Matthew BaileyShea, ‘Beyond the Beethoven Model: Sentence Types and Limits’, Current Musicology, 77 (2004), 5–33. This idea is given analytical substance in chapter 5. Caplin, Classical Form, 4. See James Webster, ‘The Form of the Finale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony’, Beethoven Forum, 1 (1992), 25–62 (38). Vande Moortele, Two-Dimensional Sonata Form, 31.

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Methodology

inter-thematic functions which move up or down the hierarchy at will.135 Thus, I present lower-level intrathematic functions as operative at a higher level of structure (or vice versa), and identify hierarchical levels that go beyond Caplin’s original. FFM’s specific ability to function on different hierarchical levels and to generate larger, more complex thematic units chimes most readily with the concept of proliferation which Horton develops for the postclassical piano concerto, although Horton is unconcerned with the temporal consequences of this phenomenon that are my focus.136 My adoption of Caplin’s terms is further motivated by a desire to explore these temporal aspects via a consideration of localised matters of musical syntax in Schubert’s music; that is, harmonic progressions and small-scale phrase structures. The theory offers a remarkable suppleness in this regard since it emphasises the temporal functions of beginning-middle-end in musical syntax at different levels of structure. Thus, Caplin can claim that ‘a theory of form whose analytical methodology focuses primarily on details of formal functionality forces us to confront directly the processes that create musical time’.137 This inscribes into the very essentials of the theory a means by which to represent the temporal aspect of formal articulation – a primary concern of Schubert’s music, and a central theme of this book. Sonata-Theoretical concerns, on the other hand, are central to my analyses when the focus is broader. Chapter 2, for instance, is concerned with what I term ‘generic cross-fertilisation’ in Schubert’s earliest chamber music, and Sonata Theory’s dialogical ideology, which locates form at the point of interaction between external generic forces or influences and the musical work is central to understanding that phenomenon. Indeed, the dialogical approach, which recognises the high degree of communication between an individual work’s formal outline and a genre’s conventions and expectations, becomes especially relevant in exploring the diverse generic lineage of some of Schubert’s earliest work outlined in Chapter 2, but also in the generic capriciousness of the late quartets. Thus, the two theories are here employed jointly: the underlying principle of dialogical form is illustrated via an exploration of 135

136

137

h

d i

0 0

In this sense, the phenomenon has a similar underlying impulse to Vande Moortele’s twodimensional sonata form, although it functions only within a single movement. Horton writes, ‘I call such functional promiscuity proliferation, since it projects the impression that the core material is generating a plurality of continuations within the remit of a given interthematic or large-scale context.’ See Horton, ‘Formal Type and Formal Function in the Post-Classical Piano Concerto’, in Formal Functions in Perspective: Essays on Musical Form from Haydn to Adorno, ed. Steven Vande Moortele, Julie Pedneault-Deslauriers, and Nathan John Martin (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2015), 77–122 (85). Caplin in Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre: Three Methodological Reflections, ed. Pieter Bérge (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2009), 32–4.

9 8 0092 09

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

59

60

Lyric Impulse: Musicological and Methodological Contexts Table 1.4 List of acronyms and symbols used in this study A B C A1, A2, A3, etc. B1, B2, B3, etc. x, y, z Adev Bdev Bvar V1, V2, V3, etc. TR RT MC MCC PAC IAC InAC

First theme group Second theme group Closing group Thematic material within A group Thematic material within B group Motives Development of A material Development of B material Variation of B material Variation 1, 2, 3, etc. Transition Retransition Medial caesura Medial caesura complex Perfect Authentic Cadence Imperfect Authentic Cadence Incomplete Authentic Cadence (a V-I cadence with the dominant or dominant seventh in inversion) Half Cadence Nineteenth-Century Half Cadence (a cadential arrival on the dominant that includes its seventh: Schmalfeldt 2011) Deceptive Cadence (V-VI) Evaded Cadence ‘One more time’ technique (Schmalfeldt 1992) Becoming (Schmalfeldt 1995; 2011); Functional transformation (Horton 2017) Functional retrogression Functional transformation where both readings are equally viable (Vande Moortele and Martin 2014); Mutual implication (Berger 1992) FormFunctional Multiplicity (Hyland 2016) Elision (Schmalfeldt 2011; Horton 2017) Functional retrogression involving a change to a higher inter-thematic level Functional retrogression involving a change to a lower inter-thematic level Direction of movement between independent strata in a stratified design (Hyland 2013; 2016) The interlock in a stratified process

HC 19cHC

DC EC OMT ⇒ ⇐

⇔

↔

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Methodology

inter- and intrathematic concerns. Similarly, Chapter 3 offers a development of the concept of the MC to encompass more extended passages involving two cadences in what I term the Medial Caesura Complex (or MCC). A comprehensive list of the symbols and acronyms I employ throughout this study is provided in Table 1.4. As can be seen, I follow Caplin’s use of acronyms for perfect authentic cadence (PAC), imperfect authentic cadence (IAC), and half cadence (HC); I employ Schmalfeldt’s term, the nineteenthcentury half cadence (19cHC), and I coin the acronym InAC – incomplete authentic cadence – to account for the fact that many of Schubert’s authentic cadences are approached via a dominant or dominant-seventh chord in inversion. I distinguish between the first and second inter-thematic groups (A [first group] and B [second group], respectively) and their constituent thematic material (A1, A2, etc. for first-group themes; B1, B2 for secondgroup themes) in the manner theorised by Horton for Brahms’s music.138 I adopt this method because the letter names imply succession rather than hierarchy (which is implicit in MT, ST, or P and S). One of the central SonataTheoretical concepts that I embrace is the medial caesura (MC) because of its relevance to Schubert’s sonata forms, particularly in the form of the medial caesura complex (MCC) which is theorised in Chapter 3. The superscript indications dev and var relate to passages functioning as either the development or variation of a thematic unit. A number of these symbols suggest direction, and my focus on the conceptual direction of this music is central to my readings of the quartets, most obviously in Chapters 4 and 5. The symbol ⇒ for ‘becoming’ (Schmalfeldt) or ‘functional transformation’ (Horton) is well known. Its inverse (⇐) denotes what I term ‘functional retrogression’, which is the effective opposite of functional transformation. Functional retrogression can occur in two main ways: either a formal unit reverts to a prior, seemingly underway formal profile (A ⇐ TR: an apparent TR reverts to A [the first theme group]) or a higher-level formal unit transforms into a constituent unit at a lower level (e.g.: A group monotonal exposition [the monotonal exposition is retrodevelopment spectively reinterpreted as the A group]; a modulating TR [the development is retrospectively reinterpreted as a modulating transition]). The latter category involves not only a formal retrogression, but also a shift in the form-functional level from large-scale (exposition) to interthematic function (A group), and thus a diagonal arrow is employed for that purpose.139 138 139

h

d i

0 0

See Horton, Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 83, especially chapter 3. The discussion of the String Quartet in D Major, D94/i in Chapter 3 also touches on the related idea of tonal retrogression, whereby an apparent modulation to a new key is retrospectively reinterpreted within the context of the original (home) tonic.

9 8 0092 09

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

61

62

Lyric Impulse: Musicological and Methodological Contexts

Retrospective reinterpretation involves functional ambiguity suggesting multiple interpretations which give rise to processual form. At times, the reinterpretation results in definitive transformation, but on occasions where both interpretations exist simultaneously as options to the listener, the symbol ⇔ is employed. This double-headed right-left arrow ⇔ expresses formfunctional multiplicity: the group supports two competing form-functional interpretations, even in retrospect; no one formal function dominates. While there are clear similarities between my usage of this symbol and that of Martin and Vande Moortele, there is also an important distinction: for those authors, this double functioning ‘freezes form-functional time’ and is ‘entirely static’.140 Form-functional multiplicitiy, in contrast, is a dynamic process suggesting multiple routes through the music and multiple temporal experiences that are basic to the large-scale formal context, as Chapter 5 demonstrates. The affinity between this symbol and Berger’s double-headed arrow indicating the lyric’s ‘mutual implication’ is closer: both refer to a process which may be read in more than one way and in more than one direction. And, just like Berger’s mutual-implication model, the formal processes in Schubert’s music can be reversible. Chapters 4 and 5 explore how form-functional ambiguities interact with and articulate specific types of temporalities. To that end, and in order to afford my engagement with temporality a solid basis, I bring this repertoire into dialogue with existing conceptual models of temporality, specifically: Edward T. Cone’s concept of stratification for the music of Stravinsky, Jonathan Kramer’s exploration of multiply directed linear time, Roland Jordan and Emma Kafalenos’s account of double trajectories in Brahms’s music, Monelle’s bichronic exposition of temporality in Western music, Berger’s poetic forms of temporality, and Benedict Taylor’s philosophical engagements with temporality in nineteenth-century music.141 The arrows and dotted slurs shown in Table 2 are relevant to processes of stratification outlined in the later analytical chapters. Uniting all the readings is an underlying urge to bring these pieces into dialogue with dialectical modes of thought and understanding, as explained in the introduction. This facilitates my desire to represent musical form in its 140 141

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Martin and Vande Moortele, ‘Formal Functions and Retrospective Reinterpretation’, 148. Cone, ‘Stravinsky: the Progress of a Method’; Jonathan Kramer, The Time of Music: New Meanings, New Temporalities, New Listening Strategies (New York: Schirmer Books, 1988); Roland Jordan and Emma Kafalenos, ‘The Double Trajectory: Ambiguity in Brahms and Henry James’, 19th-Century Music, 13/2 (1989), 129–44; Karol Berger, Bach’s Cycle, Mozart’s Arrow: An Essay on the Origins of Musical Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), and Benedict Taylor, Mendelssohn, Time and Memory: The Romantic Conception of Cyclic Form (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011) and The Melody of Time.

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Conclusion

inherent duality, as both a structure formed and understood retrospectively in the mind of the analyst (and represented graphically in table form), and as a process, unfolding (inescapably) in and through time.142 The dialectic of formas-structure and form-as-process is fundamental to the exploration of closure in Chapter 3, for example, which examines the tension between the outwardly rounded thematic construction of Schubert’s expositions and his persistent undermining of specific aspects of harmonic/contrapuntal closure which serve to punctuate the form. The working out of this critical tension imbues these movements with a sense of progress or working towards the attainment of a goal not yet achieved.

Conclusion Ultimately, although it capitalises on the unique methodological opportunities presented by the renaissance in Formenlehre, this study is not a comprehensive application of theory to a corpus of works employed in the service of illustration. Rather, the analytical approach I adopt is both multifarious and eclectic, responding directly to the questions and problematics raised by each work under discussion. As such, it proposes not a definitive theory of form for Schubert’s chamber-music sonatas, but a method(ology) for understanding and appreciating their tonal and formal designs.143 The ostensible paradox from Schlegel quoted at the head of this section therefore serves a dual purpose: it simultaneously clarifies my approach to this music, as well as highlighting the precise quality of Schubert’s sonata forms with which I am concerned. Dahlhaus, as we saw, maintains that Schubert established a logical system of motivic derivation in his late G-major string quartet. This system is not discernible on the surface of the music, nor is it experienced by Dahlhaus’s listener (ergo he appears not to have a system); but the inner workings of this logical system in fact become apparent as soon as the analytical process is set in motion (wherewith, his system). Schubert’s surface lyricism, identified via parataxis and much else, therefore has the capacity to generate an underlying formal conflict while at the same time remaining aesthetically separate from 142

143

h

d i

0 0

On the dual nature of musical form see Mark Evan Bonds, ‘Spatial Representation of Musical Form’, Journal of Musicology, 27/3 (2010), 265–303. The crossing out of ‘ology’ is intentional here, intended to mark a distinction between methodology (which implies a specific theoretical application) and method (which can be more eclectic). The importance of that distinction to my work came up in a private discussion with James Webster in Freiburg im Breisgau during the VI European Music Analysis Conference, and I thank him for that lively (and obviously influential) exchange.

9 8 0092 09

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

63

64

Lyric Impulse: Musicological and Methodological Contexts

that process. Similarly, in what follows, it is my hope that my employment of theoretical terminology facilitates a deeper understanding of Schubert’s unique expression of lyric form while not encumbering interpretation. ‘Form’, wrote Adorno, ‘is the non-repressive synthesis of diffuse particulars; it preserves them in their diffuse, divergent and contradictory condition.’144 Similarly, formal analysis of paratactic structures seeks to elucidate and celebrate their disjunctive nature – explaining them without explaining them away. Before turning to analysis, however, Chapter 2 clears the historiographical path and makes the case for bringing Schubert’s earliest quartets back into analytical and musicological consciousness. 144

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Adorno, cited in Paddison, Adorno’s Aesthetics of Music, 150.

002

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

2

Schubert’s String Quartets: Historical and Analytical Contexts

Introduction Schubert wrote several other quartets like the first ones issued here. Not everything that Schubert created in this genre has survived; not everything that has survived merits publication. Those offered here will amply suffice to show the diligence with which Schubert applied himself to this branch of his work, and how much effort and time it nonetheless cost him to rise to mastery of the form.1 – Eusebius Mandyczewski

The issues associated with posthumous dissemination for which Schubert’s instrumental music is notorious take on a special relevance for the body of work that makes up his chamber music for strings. Schubert is thought to have left fifteen quartets to posterity, a figure that includes the eleven complete quartets written between 1810 and 1816 and the three late quartets dating from 1824 to 1826 alongside the Quartettsatz in C minor of 1820. To that number can be added four early quartets lost during the course of the nineteenth century, two string-quartet overtures (D8A in C Minor of 1811 and the lost Overture in B♭ Major, D20), and the early unfinished quartet movement in C minor (D103, which exists in completions by Alfred Orel and Brian Newbould) such that the total figure is closer to twenty-two.2 Of these, only the String Quartet in A Minor, D804 (the 1

2

h

d i

0 0

Editors’ comments, Erste kritisch durchgesehene Gesammtausgabe Schuberts Werke, Series V, Streichquartette, Revisionsbericht (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1897) reprinted as Franz Schubert: Complete Works. Breitkopf & Härtel Critical Edition of 1884–1897, Editors’ Commentary on the Critical Edition, Vol. 19 (New York: Dover Publications, 1969); emphasis mine. There is little consensus in the secondary literature as to the correct figure. The NSA lists sixteen quartets, as it includes Schubert’s String-Quartet Overture in C Minor, D8A of 1811. Stephen Hefling concurs with this total while Jack Allan Westrup holds that Schubert wrote ‘more than 20 works for string quartet. Four of these have disappeared, and another five are either fragmentary or exist in an incomplete state’. See Westrup, Schubert Chamber Music (London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1969), 22 and Hefling, ‘The Austro-Germanic Quartet Tradition in the Nineteenth

9 8 0092 09

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

65

66

Schubert’s Quartets: Historical and Analytical Contexts

so-called ‘Rosamunde’ Quartet) had the privilege of being performed and published during Schubert’s lifetime, appearing as Op. 29 in 1824.3 The D-Minor Quartet, D810 (‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’) followed in 1831, and the G-Major Quartet in 1851, followed shortly afterwards by the String Quintet in C Major, D956, in 1853. The situation with the early quartets (1810–16) is even more extreme: aside from D87 and D353 which appeared as Op. 125 with Josef Czerny in 1830, their majority had to await publication until 1890, when Series V of the first collected edition (AGA) appeared with Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig. This was some 20 years later than even the Quartettsatz D703, which appeared in 1870, half a century after its composition.4 Even then, the editors of this first edition – among them Johannes Brahms – made some remarkable omissions.5 As Mandyczewski’s quoted comments suggest, the editors decided to publish just one quartet (the Quartet in G Minor/B♭ Major, D18) as a representative sample of Schubert’s earliest period, actively omitting two other contemporary quartets (D19 and D19a) which have since been presumed lost. The publication of Schubert’s chamber-music overtures (a quintet overture, D8, and its quartet sibling, D8A) and D20 (in B♭) was also rejected on that occasion because ‘they cannot logically be related to either the Overtures, nor to the Quartets, and least of all, to the Quintet’.6 D8 eventually appeared in print in 1970. Additionally, two early quartets, D32 and D68, were printed in incomplete form, the former lacking its second and fourth movements, and the latter its inner movements; the two missing movements of D32 were subsequently discovered by Maurice Brown in 1951, although those of D68 are now presumed lost.7 While such editorial intervention might not have been unusual for late-nineteenth-century practices, it remains problematic,

3

4 5

6 7

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Century’, in The Cambridge Companion to the String Quartet, ed. Robin Stowell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 228–49 (228–9). The lost string quartets are D2c (D minor/F major), D3 (B♭; incomplete fragment of an Andante), D19 and D19a. Ignaz Schuppanzigh’s quartet gave the first and only performance of the A-Minor Quartet during Schubert’s lifetime, on 14 March 1824, as well as a private reading of the Quartet in D Minor, D810. Appendix 1 offers an overview of the composition and publication dates of Schubert’s quartets. Although Joseph Hellmesberger and Mandyczewski were nominally the editors of Series V, Streichquartette, Brahms oversaw all editorial work, and would at least have been aware of these omissions. See NSA. Editors’ comments, AGA, Series V, Streichquartette, Revisionsbericht, 52. The two missing movements of D32 (an Andante [ii] and an Allegro con spirito [iv]) were discovered by Maurice Brown. See Brown, ‘Recent Schubert Discoveries’, Music and Letters, 32/4 (1951), 349–61. The inner movements of D68 have not been located, and there is no extant autograph available for the work.

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Introduction

not least because it inadequately represents the diversity evident in Schubert’s earliest works and obscures a fuller understanding of his juvenilia in this genre.8 As a result, the early quartets in particular were received at a considerable distance from the period in which they were composed, a fact that complicates their relationship to both eras and was a major factor in their subsequent marginalisation – a marginalisation that was effectively inaugurated by the manner of their presentation in the first edition. By the time they appeared in 1890, musical tastes had moved on: no longer were quartets the preserve of skilled amateurs performing at home or in a semi-private setting among friends and fellow Liebhaber. By the late nineteenth century, the string quartet had already reached the concert-hall stages of Paris, London, Berlin, Boston, and New York. The Hausmusik of Schubert’s earlier period (for it was written with the family ensemble in mind) therefore no longer had a suitable outlet of the kind that existed when it was written. Consequently, the early quartets became, in many respects, orphan works, belonging fully neither to the Viennese Biedermeier in which they were written, nor to the later century to which they were, at best, curiosities of a bygone age. This historical isolation is simultaneously an analytical one. If the early quartets were invisible for a long time, they effectively remained so, even after their appearance in print. The blind spots and extended silent periods that characterise their early reception history on the one hand, coupled with the narrow historical purview of formal theory on the other, ensures and maintains the sidelining of these works and encourages a blinkered view of their formal designs as well as a diminished understanding of the contribution they make to the development of the genre in Schubert’s hands. This is problematic because, far from representing isolated curiosities, the early quartets remain relevant and illuminating for an understanding of the later works and share a greater affinity with them than has previously been acknowledged. As Dvořák argued: ‘[Schubert’s style] was too individual from the beginning to undergo much change, for Schubert did not outgrow his early style so noticeably as did Beethoven and Wagner, for instance.’9 If Dvořák was right, and Schubert did not abandon his early 8

9

h

d i

0 0

For comparison, the Beethoven edition of the 1860s was intended not to omit anything, though some works were missed and included in a supplementary volume in the 1890s. In contrast, the first attempt at a complete Mendelssohn edition, undertaken by Julius Rietz for Breitkopf & Härtel between 1874 and 1877, was painfully incomplete, with many of Mendelssohn’s earliest and student works omitted. Antonín Dvořák, ‘Franz Schubert’, The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, 48/3 (July 1894). My reading of Dvořák’s comment goes beyond the obvious observation that

9 8 0092 09

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

67

68

Schubert’s Quartets: Historical and Analytical Contexts

style in the same way that others (especially Beethoven) did, then the early quartets are key to understanding more fully Schubert’s quartet writing in toto. To address this, the present chapter is concerned with establishing a formal context for Schubert’s quartets; that is, a historically informed framework within (or against) which their form might be understood. It does this by exploring the history and historiography of their reception and analysis, giving special focus to the quartets of the period 1810–16. Part of the difficulty in determining a formal context for this repertoire resides in issues of historical circumstance and ideology, both of which are neatly captured by Mandyczewski’s comments quoted in the chapter-opening epigraph. Thus, to identify a formal context for Schubert’s quartets, it is first necessary to probe the historiographical and ideological frameworks that maintain the early quartets’ marginalisation, and to understand the patterns of reception that continue to shape their analytical treatment. To that end, Sections 2.2 and 2.3 situate Schubert’s quartets within their originating circumstances, focussing on publication and performance as a gauge of popularity and influence via an examination of the programmes of Ignaz Schuppanzigh’s string-quartet subscription series and those of the Abendunterhaltungen of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (GdMf).10 I then bring that historical context to bear on a reading of what is possibly Schubert’s first complete chamber-music composition, the Overture for String Quintet/Quartet, D8/8A.11 The historically grounded context I seek to establish for these works is therefore not removed from the theoretical concerns of the previous chapter nor the analyses that follow, but in fact exists alongside them, developing a more historically aware approach to the analysis of this repertoire.

10

11

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Schubert didn’t live as long as either Beethoven or Wagner; it suggests that his stylistic individuality – unlike that of Beethoven of Wagner – was evident from the very start. The primary source of information on the latter is the catalogue of programmes for the Abendunterhaltungen held at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde archive, Signatur 2697/32. This was consulted in conjunction with published accounts in Otto Biba, ‘Franz Schubert in den Musikalischen Abendunterhalungen der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde’, in Schubert-Studien (1978), 7–31, Gingerich, Schubert’s Beethoven Project and November, Cultivating String Quartets. For the former – Schuppanzigh’s concert series – I wish gratefully to acknowledge John Gingerich’s sharing of his unpublished document, ‘The Programs of Schuppanzigh’s Concerts’, to fill some gaps in my own archival work. The overture autograph is undated, but both Deutsch’s Thematic Catalogue and the NSA date the work to 29 June–12 July 1811. Schubert’s first string quartet, D18, was also written around this time, although the sources do not agree on the precise dating: the GA dates it to 1812, but the NSA has re-dated it possibly to 1810 or early 1811, which would complicate the overture’s status as Schubert’s earliest chamber-music composition, although it remains an extremely early work, written when Schubert was 14 years old. See Christa Landon, ‘New Schubert Finds’, The Music Review, 31 (1970), 215–31 (217).

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Schubert’s String Quartets: A Genre of Two Halves

Schubert’s String Quartets: A Genre of Two Halves Every composer has pieces in his catalogue that do not show his best effort, and it is apt to be pedantry to exhume them merely for the sake of attracting notice.12 – J. Merrill Knapp

In a 2003 article entitled ‘The Other Beethoven’, Nicholas Cook explores possible reasons for the scholarly neglect of Beethoven’s patriotic compositions dating from shortly before the Congress of Vienna. These works, Cook writes, share a ‘rare unanimity of critical judgement’, as the all-time lowest points in Beethoven’s career and achievement, despite their popularity during his lifetime.13 He cites Edouard Herriot to this end: How shameful! Beethoven, the eternal quality of whose work had up to that time appealed only to a small elite, obtained great success as soon as he adopted that most odious of all genres: political music.14

Cook ascribes this musicological discomfort to the fact that the works do not fit with the image of Beethoven prevalent in musicological discourse and depicted most vividly in Burnham’s influential Beethoven Hero: that of the canonical composer of serious instrumental music that speaks directly to the human condition. These works, alternatively, represent ‘Beethoven Political’, a side of the composer explored to great effect by Nicholas Mathew, and one that is an effective ‘Other’ of Beethoven’s more familiar compositional persona.15 Cook’s point is that the marginalisation of music by even the most canonical composers is brought about by an adherence to an ideological framework indebted to the aesthetic of autonomy. Traditionally associated with Beethoven’s ‘heroic’, middle-period works, the autonomy principle champions concepts such as unity, coherence, and the musical work.16 Beethoven’s political compositions, he argues, do not respond to this aesthetic and are consequently ostracised. 12

13

14

15 16

h

d i

0 0

J. Merrill Knapp, ‘Beethoven’s Mass in C Major, Op. 86’, in Beethoven Essays: Studies in Honor of Elliott Forbes, ed. Lewis Lockwood and Phyllis Benjamin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 199–216 (199). Nicholas Cook, ‘The Other Beethoven: Heroism, the Canon, and the Works of 1813–14’, 19thCentury Music, 27/1 (2003), 3–24 (3). Edouard Herriot, La vie de Beethoven (Paris: Gallimard, 1929), 239, cited in Cook, ‘The Other Beethoven’, 4. Nicholas Mathew, Political Beethoven (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). The autonomy principle became important at the turn of the nineteenth century, as the idea of purely instrumental music as a vehicle for thought and a route to knowledge became increasingly influential. On this topic see Mark Evan Bonds, Music as Thought: Listening to the

9 8 0092 09

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

69

70

Schubert’s Quartets: Historical and Analytical Contexts

The reception history of Schubert’s chamber music for strings reveals a strikingly similar polarity in its treatment of the early and late chamber music.17 The three late quartets (in A minor, D minor, and G major) and the String Quintet in C are firmly established in both the musicological and performance canons and represent for many the pinnacle of Schubert’s chamber-music output. In contrast, the eleven complete quartets dating from 1810 to 1816 have been persistently neglected or downgraded. Being received in the wake, if not in the shadow, of the late quartets did little for their reputation, and a mixture of confusion and exasperation characterises their initial critical reception.18 Variously dismissed as ‘uneven . . . and hopelessly verbose’,19 ‘unworthy of the genius of Schubert’,20 ‘poorly handled’,21 ‘very strange’,22 and so ‘experimental [that] an accurate description [of them is] almost impossible’23, the works’ idiosyncratic tonal plans and absence of a clear secondary theme or key were taken as evidence of their formal immaturity. Indeed, Newbould argues that the string quartet represents a special case in Schubert’s development, writing that, ‘In no medium is the difference in technique and inspiration between his earliest effort and his last greater than it is between his first and last string quartets.’24 Admittedly, Schubert himself expressed this view when, in the summer of 1824 while in Zseliz at the court of Esterhazy, upon hearing that his family continued to play his quartets in his absence, he replied to Ferdinand that ‘it would be better if you stuck to quartets other than my own, for there is nothing in them, except that perhaps they please you, who is pleased by everything of mine’: a statement of humility that has, over time, hardened into fact.25

17

18

19

20 21

22

23

24 25

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Symphony in the Age of Beethoven (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006) and Daniel K. L. Chua, Beethoven and Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017). The concept of ‘lateness’ in relation to Schubert’s music is a complex one. Here, I refer to it in the sense of Schubert’s last music: the music he wrote in the final years of his life. For a consideration of lateness in Schubert see the contributions to Schubert’s Late Music. In contrast, the high standing of Schubert’s early Lieder was certainly one impetus for the rediscovery of Schubert’s early instrumental works, including the string quartets. Samuel L. Laciar, ‘The Chamber Music of Franz Schubert’, The Musical Quarterly, 14/4 (1928), 515–38 (516). Laciar, ‘The Chamber Music of Franz Schubert’, 517–18. Martin Chusid, ‘The Chamber Music of Schubert’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1961), XIII. Philipp Ruff, ‘Die Streichquartette Franz Schuberts’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, Vienna, 1929), 26. Hans-Martin Sachse, ‘Franz Schuberts Streichquartetts’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, Münster, 1958), 46. Brian Newbould, Schubert: The Music and the Man (London: Gollancz, 1997), 31. Schubert in a letter to Ferdinand (16 or 17 to) 18 July 1824, cited in SDB, 362; my revised translation.

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Schubert’s String Quartets: A Genre of Two Halves

This critical reception can be attributed in part to the fact that these early works sit awkwardly with the (hard-won) image of Schubert as a formally cognisant instrumental composer.26 In other words, although they might pave the way towards the later quartets, they do not stand up to comparison with them in terms of long-range tonal planning or organisation. They are easier to explain as the efforts of a schoolboy for his family ensemble and limited by that circle’s musical capabilities (in which Schubert’s father is known to have been lacking), even if that very setting might have granted the young composer the sure footing required for such formal and tonal experimentation.27 That is not to say that the earliest quartets are without their failings; they lack the confidence and formal integrity evident in the earliest chamber music written by Mendelssohn (not only the 16-year-old’s Octet, Op. 20, for instance, but also the twelve earlier complete string symphonies), and can be rigid and self-conscious in places.28 But, even while acknowledging the obvious discrepancies in how Schubert handles his material between D18 and D887, there are also continuities on either side of the divide, and some of the most idiosyncratic features which characterise the early quartets are present – and often celebrated – in the later works. One only needs to consider his use of the flattened supertonic as a means of starting the recapitulation which he employed in D94 (1811?) and again in the Quartettsatz (1820), but one could point also to more general qualities such as the paratactic juxtaposition of dramatic and lyrical passages and the use of developmental episodes within his expositions. These features seem to substantiate Dvořák’s claim regarding the continued relevance of Schubert’s early style to the later works, and justify – contra to Knapp’s position – the space dedicated to the earliest quartets in this study.29 The year 1824 has been instrumental in deepening the division between early and late. Schubert’s well-known letter to Leopold Kupelwieser from March of that year, in which he explains his intension to ‘pave [his] way 26

27

28

29

h

d i

0 0

This is in contrast to the Beethoven works explored by Cook which cannot be regarded (or excused) as juvenilia. An opposing aesthetic judgment – and one of the first to praise the early quartets – was proffered by Richard A. Coolidge, who finds a ‘conciseness and formal ingenuity’ in the first moment of D18. See his ‘Form in the String Quartets of Franz Schubert’, The Music Review, 32 (1971), 309–25 (311). The string symphonies make a better comparison than the Octet and show Mendelssohn having more of a feel for the ropes, so to speak, than Schubert, even in the first six which (although hardly characteristic) rarely show anything as experimental or peculiar as Schubert’s earliest quartets. One might even be reminded of Dvořák’s own early works here, especially quartets nos. 1–4 which are long and paratactic yet revealing of his compositional development.

9 8 0092 09

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

71

72

Schubert’s Quartets: Historical and Analytical Contexts

towards a grand symphony’ through the composition of string quartets, suggests a newfound ambition.30 Gingerich presents this document as a statement of practical and compositional intent leading to Schubert’s ‘Beethoven Project’: a compositional shift towards mastery in the genres of the piano sonata, symphony and string quartet, and the active pursuit of the public performance and dissemination of these large-scale instrumental works. Gingerich’s work is important for revealing a more professional side to Schubert, but it also has an unfortunate consequence: on the one hand, he urges us – rightly, I think – to place Schubert’s post-1824 instrumental works on a par with those of Beethoven; as a consequence, the early quartets – which cannot receive such a lofty accolade and which belong to a different tradition – are relegated to obscurity.31 They become the ‘Other Schubert’. As a result, whenever Schubert’s eleven complete quartets dating from the earliest period have been the focus of study, they have frequently been tied up with narratives of artistic progress seeking to find a developmental line to the later examples of the genre which serve as the starting point.32 A different approach, tracing the development of sonata form in Schubert’s instrumental music by affording a special emphasis on the early chamber music is found in Hinrichsen’s 1994 monograph.33 Similarly, Brian Black’s doctoral dissertation focuses on the early quartets as a period of ‘apprenticeship’ in sonata form, carefully tracing the emergence of expositional thematic and tonal contrast in their first movements, as well the use of harmonic motives as connective devices in these works.34 Detailed studies of the fifteen quartets considered as a complete oeuvre, with a sense of continuation on either side of the historical gulf, are rare. Chusid’s doctoral dissertation is exceptional in that regard: he charts four stylistic periods in Schubert’s chamber-music development and recognises some overlap between them, while maintaining a clear distinction between Schubert’s first two stages (the ‘early cycle’) and 30 31

32

33

34

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Schubert, letter to Leopold Kupelwieser, 31 March 1824, SDB, 339. Indeed, Gingerich argues that had Schubert lived long enough, he might have eventually destroyed these early works. See Gingerich, Schubert’s Beethoven Project, 31. This was the approach taken in the dissertations of Philipp Ruff and Hans-Martin Sachse, and in the article by Rainer Boestfleisch, all of which are broadly concerned with tracing Schubert’s emerging progress with sonata form through the quartets. See Ruff, ‘Die Streichquartette Franz Schuberts’; Sachse, ‘Franz Schuberts Streichquartette’; and Boestfleisch, ‘Das Frühwerk Franz Schuberts. Bemerkungen zu den Streichquartetten’, in Schubert-Jahrbuch, ed. Volkmar Hanson and Silke Hoffmann (Duisburg: Deutsche Schubert-Gesellschaft, 2009), 7–68. Hinrichsen, Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts. Black, ‘Schubert’s Apprenticeship in Sonata Form: The Early String Quartets’, unpublished PhD dissertation, McGill University (1996).

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Schubert’s String Quartets: A Genre of Two Halves

the ‘far more sophisticated’ early and full maturity.35 Detailed accounts of the early quartets in their own right began to appear only later, initiated by Carl Dahlhaus’s 1979 essay investigating monothematicism and its relationship to form in this repertoire.36 Following this, a collection of publications dealing with specific harmonic features of the early quartets appeared, which contribute to an ever-evolving understanding of Schubert’s practices in these early works.37 There is, nonetheless, a lingering tendency to view the early works as formally problematic or as deficient in large-scale formal design. This tendency is frequently a consequence of an adherence to a theoretical model of sonata form – one informed predominantly by the music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven – to which these works do not readily respond. Hans-Martin Sachse goes so far as to remark that it is ‘striking [auffällig] how unconcerned with any tradition’ Schubert was in his early quartet work, arguing that these works belong to no recognisable sonataform tradition whatsoever.38 As recently as 2018, Black asserts that ‘the overall structures of many of the first movements in these quartets show serious problems in large-scale design with respect to the norms of sonata form’.39 One wonders, therefore, whether it is time to move beyond the idea of a normative version of sonata form through which Schubert’s practices are viewed, and instead to explore different, potentially more suitable, contextual, and theoretical lenses for this music. In that respect, the lack of engagement with the historical backdrop to Schubert’s early quartets has implications for analysis: accounts of his music that confine themselves to ideas of form in the quartets of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven without due consideration of the potential influence of contemporary compositional practices and trends on the young Schubert are likely to be both historically and analytically limiting. A more relevant formal context for this music can only be achieved by engaging first and foremost with this historical context. 35 36

37

38 39

h

d i

0 0

Chusid, ‘The Chamber Music of Schubert’, xiii. Carl Dahlhaus, ‘Formprobleme in Schuberts frühen Streichquartetten’, in Bericht SchubertKongress Wien, 1978, ed. Otto Brusatti (Graz: Akademische Druck, 1979), 191–7. On which topic see Marco Jammerman, ‘Introduktion und Kontrast. Zum Tonsatz in Schuberts frühen Streichquartetten’, in Schubert-Jahrbuch, ed. Dietrich Berke, Walther Dürr, Walburga Litschauer and Christiane Schumann (Duisburg: Deutsche Schubert-Gesellschaft, 2000), 105–12, and Black, ‘Die Entwicklung der Sonatenform in Schuberts frühen Streichquartetten’, Schubert durch die Brille 9 (1992), 104–12, and ‘Schubert’s Development of Harmonic Motives in His Early String Quartets’, Music Theory Online, 24/3 (2018). Sachse, ‘Franz Schuberts Streichquartette’, 318; emphasis mine. Black, ‘Schubert’s Development of Harmonic Motives’.

9 8 0092 09

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

73

74

Schubert’s Quartets: Historical and Analytical Contexts

A framework for that context is provided by Salome Reiser’s important account of Schubert’s early quartets within the setting of early-nineteenth-century Viennese string-quartet culture.40 One of the major achievements of that work is its bringing together of social and cultural history and genre development. Reiser argues that the stringquartet genre was undergoing a process of ‘upheaval’ during the first decades of the nineteenth century, and that Schubert’s early quartets need to be understood against this shifting backdrop, rather than (or, in addition to) models of sonata form derived from the music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven which ‘evolved over time . . . [and whose] development was far from complete in Schubert’s lifetime’.41 The early quartets, in other words, belong to a distinct and often overlooked musical world, one that nonetheless made a lasting impression on the young composer of string quartets – a realisation that at once liberates the works from the responsibility of responding to the Classical tradition and suggests a possible formal context within which they might more fruitfully be understood. The challenge, then, lies in bringing together the findings of historical work in the service of analysis: Reiser’s survey of Viennese repertoires and Nancy November’s more recent contextual study of string-quartet dissemination in ‘Beethoven’s Vienna’ are vital in this regard, and the potential impact of their studies on the theory of first-movement sonata form and the implications for the analysis of Schubert’s quartets beg further examination.

String-Quartet Publication in Schubert’s Vienna The decades surrounding 1800 marked a period of transition and abundance for the Viennese string quartet, a fact that is reflected in contemporaneous publication trends. A vital primary source for this information is the catalogue published by Vienna’s leading music dealer, Johann Traeg, in

40

41

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Salome Reiser’s Franz Schuberts frühe Streichquartette: eine klassische Gattung am Beginn einer nachklassichen Zeit (Kassel: Bärenreiter Verlag, 1999) remains, to my mind, the most historically aware engagement with this repertoire; it is therefore remarkable that it has not yet had a lasting impact on English-language scholarship. Reiser’s work has recently been augmented by that of November, Cultivating String Quartets, and Marie Sumner-Lott, The Social Worlds of Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music: Composers, Consumers, Communities (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2015). Reiser, Franz Schuberts frühe Streichquartette, 19–20.

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

String-Quartet Publication in Schubert’s Vienna

1799 and supplemented in 1804, in which he recorded almost twenty years of music publishing in the city.42 November reports that in Traeg’s 1799 catalogue alone there were 1,100 string quartets by 118 composers offered to buyers – and this figure does not include collections of arrangements for string quartet, which adds a further 57.43 Furthermore, in the period after 1800 until Schubert’s death in 1828, Reiser writes that ‘there were over 400 string quartets by at least 69 composers published in Vienna’.44 These figures speak to the overwhelming popularity of the genre during this period, as well as to the wealth of composers writing for the genre. November reports a marked shift in the identity of the main composers of string quartets active in Vienna before and after 1800: while Ignaz Pleyel and Haydn were favourites in Traeg’s 1799 catalogue (Table 2.1), they were replaced by Franz Krommer and Peter Hänsel in the top positions by 1804.45 This claim is supported by Reiser’s work which broadens the Table 2.1 Johann Traeg’s 1799 catalogue, ‘Camer-Musik’, ‘Quartetti à 2 Violini, Viola, è Violoncello’, highest represented composers

Composer

Number of Opuses

Number of Quartets (If in Sets)

1. J. Haydn 2. I. Pleyel 3. G. Cambini 4. M. Gallus 5. P. Wranitzky 6. Vanhal [Wanhall] 7. F. A. Hoffmeister 8. A. Gyrowetz 9. J. G. Albrechtsberger 10. L. Boccherini 10. C. A. Fodor

13 12 9 6 9 5 3 6 5 4 4

70 69 50 36 33 30 30 27 27 24 24

42

43 44

45

h

d i

0 0

Alexander Weinmann, ed., Johann Traeg: Die Musikalienverzeichnisse von 1799 und 1804 (Vienna: Universal Edition, 1973). For an excellent appraisal of the value of Traeg’s catalogue for musicology, see David Wyn Jones, ‘Haydn’s Forgotten Quartets: Three of the “Paris” Symphonies Arranged for String Quartet’, Eighteenth-Century Music, 8/2 (2011), 287–305. See November, Cultivating String Quartets, 65–6. Rieser, Franz Schuberts frühe Streichquartette, 36; for a list of the publishing firms included in her research see 37–42. Table 2.1 is based on similar figures given in November, Cultivating String Quartets, 65. The order and numbering are slightly different here because I include all entries given by Traeg, including the so-called ‘quartet-symphony’ of Haydn, which appeared in eight published versions, each in a different key. Traeg’s catalogue is arranged by genre, and my figures are taken from section 19, ‘Camer-Musik’, subsection ‘Quartetti à 2 Violini, Viola, è Violoncello’.

9 8 0092 09

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

75

76

Schubert’s Quartets: Historical and Analytical Contexts Table 2.2 String-quartet publications in Vienna, 1800–28

Composer

No. of Opuses

No. of Quartets (If in Sets)

No. of Reprints

1. F. Krommer 2. P. Hänsel 3. A. Romberg 4. L. v Beethoven 5. G. Onslow 6. F. E. Fesca 7. F. A. Radicati 8. J. Mayseder 9. B. Tuttowitsch 10. J. N. Hummel

16 17 7 6 4 5 6 8 5 1

44 35 15 13 12 11 10 8 7 3

1 2 1 1 1 3

remit to the publishing catalogues of fourteen Viennese firms; Table 2.2 enumerates the composers with the highest number of string quartets appearing with these Viennese publishers between 1800 and 1828, ordered by number of individual works.46 Moreover, as Table 2.2 illustrates, Krommer and Hänsel routinely published groups of three quartets under a single opus number, bringing their total number of published original quartets for the period to forty-four (Krommer) and thirty-five (Hänsel), respectively. Indeed, over the course of his long career, Krommer’s output in this genre amounted to a staggering seventy quartets, putting him on a par with Haydn’s output represented in Table 2.1. This data set is remarkable given Krommer’s and Hänsel’s relative obscurity in relation to both the performance and musicological canons today, but it should be taken with a generous amount of qualification. Sheer quantity of number is no indication of quality. If these figures are to be used as an indicator of influence, they need to be understood in the context of contemporary publishing practices, taking into account data on sales figures, price, and print run, for example. Without such additional metrics, the enumerative argument could just as easily be summoned to argue the opposite: paucity of work in terms of number (such as Beethoven’s six published opuses above) can paradoxically have a strengthening effect: fewer works by Beethoven have had a more lasting impact than all the seventy quartets by Krommer.

46

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Data for this table was sourced from Reiser, 37–42. For a full listing of the sixty-nine composers, see Reiser, Franz Schuberts frühe Streichquartette, 36.

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

String-Quartet Publication in Schubert’s Vienna

More telling than sheer number, then, are the specific aesthetic qualities of these quartets, and in that respect Hänsel’s stand out. Born in the same year as Beethoven, Hänsel was also a composition pupil of Haydn’s in the 1790s (having relocated to Vienna in 1791) and wrote no fewer than fifty-eight quartets, many of which were printed and reprinted during his lifetime.47 Although he absorbed Haydn’s style, he was also heavily influenced by his time in Paris (1802–03), during which he composed his first string quartet. The French influences on his music in these quartets include ‘particularly virtuoso first violin parts, rapid alternation of high and low positions, highly varied articulation, double and triple stops in high positions, and frequent trills’.48 Thus, Hänsel was part of the generation of performer-composers writing virtuoso quartets (Quatuors brilliant or Quatuors concertants), essentially string-quartet compositions showcasing the solo violin accompanied by the lower parts, which held a subordinate role. To this lineage one can add Romberg, Fesca, Radicati, and especially Joseph Mayseder – all of whom appear in Table 2.2. The high representation of composers such as Mayseder, Hänsel, and Romberg in the publishing catalogues is therefore suggestive of the penchant for virtuoso quartets in Vienna at this time, and it is through their work that we begin to acquire a sense for the genre’s immense diversity. Equally popular with the Viennese publishers, for instance, were fugal quartets showing a ‘learned’ style: in the first decade of the century, the publishing company Bureau des arts et d’industrie published fugal quartets by Monn, Gassmann, Albrechtsberger, Spich, and Sonnleithner in new editions, some even in first print.49 Additionally, string-quartet arrangements of largescale works such as symphonies, overtures, oratorios, concertos, and particularly opera (overtures and arias) and even ballet were highly represented.50 Reiser notes that, following a slight decrease in the appearance of arrangements of operatic music around 1810, their number once again swelled in 1816, following ‘the increasing popularity of Italian opera – and with it opera arrangements for string quartet’.51 Publishers, however, were inconsistent in their categorisation of such string-quartet compositions, and designations such 47

48 49 50

51

h

d i

0 0

The figure of fifty-eight is quoted in Peter Hänsel, Three String Quartets, Opus 5, ed. Mark Alan Leach (Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, Inc., 2008), vii, and in Grove Music Online. Hänsel, Three String Quartets, Opus 5, xii. Reiser, Franz Schuberts frühe Streichquartette, 43. See Reiser, Franz Schuberts frühe Streichquartette, 48 and November, Cultivating String Quartets, 68–71. ‘Hingegen steig ihre Anzahl nach dem Jahr 1816 mit der zunehmenden Beliebtheit der italienischen Oper – und damit verbunden mit Opern-Arrangements für Streichquartett – wieder leicht an.’ Reiser, 46. It goes without saying, perhaps, that Schubert’s modeling of Cherubini’s ‘Faniska’ Overture in his D8 – to which we shall turn later in this chapter – can be

9 8 0092 09

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

77

78

Schubert’s Quartets: Historical and Analytical Contexts Table 2.3 Mayseder, publications for string quartet with Viennese publishers, 1810–28 Year

Work Details

Publisher/Plate

1810

String Quartet No. 1 in A major, Op. 5 (Quatuor)

Artaria 2090

1811

String Quartet No. 2 in G minor, Op. 6 (Quatuor) String Quartet No. 3 in A♭ major, Op. 7 (Quatuor)

Artaria 2144 Artaria 2196

1816

String Quartet No. 4 in F major, Op. 8 (Quatuor brilliant)

Steiner 2471

1816

Variations sur la romance Partant pour le Syrie, Op. 15

Artaria 2473

1817

Variations sur un thème Grec, Op. 4 String Quartet No. 5 in D major, Op. 9 (Fünftes Quartett)

Steiner 2501 Steiner 2499

1820

String Quartet No. 6 in G major, Op. 23 (Sechstes Quartett)

Steiner 3086

as Fantasie (A. Romberg and Mederitsch), Grosse Fuge (Beethoven Op. 133), Arrangements für Streichquartette, Marsch (Hänsel), and varieties of Grand Quatuor, Quatuor brilliant, and Quatuor concertant mingle freely with what was often referred to as the ‘true’ (eigentlich) quartet tradition exemplified by Haydn.52 For example, although Traeg produces separate category lists for string quartets and ‘Quartetti aus Opern und Ballets für 2 Violini, Viola è Vllo, arrangirt’, yet the former includes twenty-three entries of string quartets ‘by’ Handel (Händel), most of which are arrangements of opera overtures.53 Mayseder furnishes another useful example. As Table 2.3 illustrates, he published two sets of variations for string quartet, in addition to the six string quartets that were published between 1810 and 1820 with Viennese publishers. Four of these quartets are in the typical four-movement form, with Opp. 5 and 8 consisting of three movements each.54 While only one of these six (Op. 8) was published explicitly as a Quatuor brilliant, others, such as Op. 7 display a clear tendency towards virtuosic writing; see, for instance, bars 20–45 of Op. 7, first movement. A clear picture therefore emerges from this historical data of a host of stringquartet subgenres published alongside the more traditional four-movement quartets of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven during the period. The fact that publishers did not see fit to distinguish between these subcategories reinforces their permeability. Musically, these subgenres were interchangeable: fugal

52 53 54

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

understood as responding to this fashionable contemporary trend. For other examples, see Reiser, Franz Schuberts frühe Streichquartette, 48. For the specific issues encountered by this, see November, Cultivating String Quartets, 61–2. See Weinmann (ed.), Johann Traeg, 63–4. Interestingly, although Mayseder refrained from writing a string-quartet arrangement, he did arrange six of Bernhard Romberg’s string quartets for piano and violin, published as six Grand Duos in the 1820s.

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

String-Quartet Performance in Schubert’s Vienna

sections and virtuosic display were just as likely to find their way into firstmovement sonata forms as the generic expectations of the overture were to shape the formal articulation of a string-quartet arrangement. Moreover, this cross-fertilisation was not just one of style: as the analysis of Mayseder’s quartets will evince, aspects of form were inevitably shaped by these new influences. As a result, the concept of ‘form’ became adaptable between the various subgenres, and this flexibility arguably fed into the first movements of the more ‘serious’ quartets by some of these composers. To put that differently: if the line between these subgenres was blurred in publishing practice, that was a reflection of contemporaneous compositional practice. That being the case, this period marked the emergence of a new musical identity for the quartet, and new treatments of form, structure, and harmony followed accordingly. It is this recognition of the multifarious nature of string-quartet composition in Vienna that provides an apposite formal context for understanding Schubert’s early quartets, the specific historical circumstances of which inspired an approach to musical form that never really left the composer, even in his late works.

String-Quartet Performance in Schubert’s Vienna Schubert’s Vienna boasted an abundance of different venues for string-quartet performance, from private Hausmusik, to semi-private salons such as those of Sonnleithner, and public concerts run by musical organisations.55 Two of the main venues for the public performance of string quartets during this period were Schuppanzigh’s series of Quartett-Productionen which later became his subscription series, and the Thursday evening concerts of the GdMf known as the Musikalische Abendunterhaltungen (evening entertainments). Each of these venues serves a different end and diverse audience needs.56 Schuppanzigh’s Quartett-Productionen began in the winter of 1804–5, and ran until 1815, and again (after Schuppanzigh’s return to Vienna from his Russian tour) from 1823 to 1830.57 The membership of this ensemble remained relatively stable after 1823, when the quartet contained Schuppanzigh on first 55

56

57

h

d i

0 0

For a disambiguation of these venues, see November, Cultivating String Quartets, chapter 4 and Otto Biba, ‘Schubert’s Position in Viennese Musical Life’, 19th-Century Music, 3/2 (1979), 106–13. In contrast to Schuppanzigh’s series, the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde was set up as an amateur society, one of whose goals was to support and foster new musical talent. See John Reed, ‘Schubert and the Musikfreunde’, Musical Times, 119/1629 (1978), 940–3. November makes a distinction between these two series, arguing that there was no regular subscription series until 1823. See November, Cultivating String Quartets, 116.

9 8 0092 09

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

79

80

Schubert’s Quartets: Historical and Analytical Contexts

violin, Karl Holz on second violin, Franz Weiss on viola, and Joseph Linke on cello. This had a significant impact on the cohesion of the performances and influenced the repertoire the group could perform: this series of concerts attracted an audience interested in hearing an all-instrumental programme of, to quote a contemporary notice, ‘quartets of the most famous masters’ – Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.58 According to research carried out by Gingerich and Christopher H. Gibbs, during the five seasons between 1823 and 1828, Schuppanzigh gave 108 concerts with 313 selections of works including 223 string quartets: quartets by Haydn rank first (88), followed by Beethoven (62), and Mozart (51); the composers of the remaining 22 quartets included Franz Weiss (6), Onslow (5), Spohr (3), Andreas Romberg (3), Schubert (1), Fesca (1), Henning (1), Ries (1), and St. Lubin (1).59 (The only composers from Table 2.2 to have their quartets performed at these events were therefore Onslow and Romberg.) Two of the three Romberg selections were Op. 67, No. 1 in C major (performed on 6 March 1825) and the Opus 7 No. 1 Quartet, in D major (performed on 20 November 1825).60 The latter was billed as a Quatuor brilliant, even though it had not been published as such in Vienna, and its appearance is something of an exception: Schuppanzigh’s concerts were not the venue for showcasing virtuoso quartets (hence Hänsel and Mayseder were passed over), and certainly they did not provide a platform for the performance of string-quartet arrangements. The Abendunterhaltungen, on the other hand, were much better suited to such repertoire. They began in March 1818, and although the number of concerts initially varied from year to year, they had settled on sixteen concerts per season by 1824–5; this halved to eight from the 1836–7 season onwards.61 These events were largely popularist in nature and featured the music of local as well as more renowned composers in a mix of vocal and instrumental numbers. Their programmes followed a strict formula: each concert was headed by a ‘serious’ instrumental work, usually a string quartet or quintet (although string-quartet arrangements of symphonies by Beethoven and Fesca and a string-quartet arrangement of the overture 58

59 60 61

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Allgemeine Theaterzeitung und Unterhaltungsblatt für Freunde der Kunst, Literatur und des geselligen Lebens 16/64 (29 May 1823) 256, cited in Gingerich, 67. See Gingerich, Schubert’s Beethoven Project, 18–19. Gingerich, ‘The Programs of Schuppanzigh’s Concerts’. The first season, which ran from 12 March to 28 May 1818, was the shortest with ten concerts, whereas the next (3 September 1818 to 15 April 1819) contained a bumper twenty-eight concerts. Aside from the 1823–4 season (6 November 1823 to 25 March 1824), which contained twenty concerts, the other seasons for which programmes survive each had sixteen concerts. GdMf archive, Signatur 2697.

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

String-Quartet Performance in Schubert’s Vienna

to Cherubini’s Faniska were also performed). This was followed by a selection of vocal music (partsongs and Lieder) as well as instrumental pieces entitled grand potpourri, divertissements, rondo concertant, and rondo brilliant – genres emphasising virtuosic display. The final item was frequently a polyphonic vocal work, sometimes for small choir or vocal quintet, and often based on an operatic number. Beyond this information, the programmes are patchy and non-specific: rarely do they specify the key or number of the particular string quartet performed, especially if it was not composed by Haydn or Beethoven.62 What the programmes do emphasise (sometimes rather ostentatiously, in large and elaborate font) are the names of the performers. This again reinforces the different nature of these events in contrast to Schuppanzigh’s series: here, the personnel were as much a draw as the music being performed, and because the performers changed frequently, great care was taken to record their names. The focus was on entertainment and showmanship as well as fostering new talent, rather than necessarily canon formation. Table 2.4 lists, in descending order of appearance, the composers whose quartets or quintets opened each of the Abendunterhaltungen from their inception in 1818 to the end of the 1828–9 season. As is clear, after Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven (who together make up 42 per cent of the total), Andreas Romberg, Spohr, and Mayseder were best represented in the selection of the opening work. In stark contrast to Schuppanzigh’s concerts, where the Classical triumvirate accounted for more than 85 per cent of the total selections, we can see that there is a much greater balance between the Classical masters and contemporary talent at the GdMf’s evening entertainments. Filtering the data by string quartet alone (in Table 2.5) further reveals that Andreas Romberg and Mayseder were clear favourites after Haydn. Indeed, taken as a group, the brilliant quartets of Mayseder, Hellmesberger, St. Lubin, and Jansa (21 in total) came to be heard more often than those by either Mozart (13) or Beethoven (11); such was the desire for this repertoire. Mayseder’s Fifth and Sixth Quartets were particularly popular at the Gesellschaft, receiving at least four and five outings, respectively, during this period; the Fifth Quartet was the opening work of the entire 1825–6 season. Such repeated performances were unusual and suggest the popularity of Mayseder’s quartets. Indeed, such was his wide popular appeal that Mayseder ranked third overall in the total number of works performed at 62

h

d i

0 0

Of the 169 selections of the first instrumental works that I consulted in the programmes of the GdMf’s Abendunterhaltungen between 1818 and 1829, only 90 (roughly 53 per cent) indicate the key or number of the work.

9 8 0092 09

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

81

82

Schubert’s Quartets: Historical and Analytical Contexts Table 2.4 GdMf Abendunterhaltungen, March 1818–April 1829, composer of the opening chamber work 10 Seasons, 170 Concerts, 169 Selections63 Composer

No. of Works (All)

Haydn Mozart Beethoven Andreas Romberg Spohr Mayseder Bernhard Romberg Onslow Fesca Ries Hellmesberger Hummel Maurer St. Lubin Wassermann Contin Jansa Cherubini Hänsel Henning Krommer Franz Pecháček [Pechatschek] Reicha Rode Weiss TOTAL

28 25 19 17 15 13 9 6 6 4 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 169

these concerts during the years 1823–8, after only Rossini (100) and Schubert (36).64 Despite the frequent appearances of Schubert’s name on these programmes, it was his Lieder rather than his instrumental compositions that were a regular feature of the Abendunterhaltungen during the 1820s. In at least seven of the concerts featuring Mayseder’s quartets, a vocal work by Schubert was performed; these are documented in Table 2.6.65 63

64 65

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

There were twelve seasons in total during this period, but programmes have not survived for the 1819–20 and 1821–2 seasons. In addition, the page which ought to hold the programme for the fourteenth Abendunterhaltungen of the 1827–8 season (6 March 1828) is blank. The total number of concerts from the available programmes for this period is therefore 169: 170 minus this one concert. See Gingerich, Schubert’s Beethoven Project, 64. The data for this table was sourced from my archival work at the GdMf supplemented by Biba, ‘Schubert in den musikalische Abendunterhaltungen’ and SDB (176, 330).

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

String-Quartet Performance in Schubert’s Vienna

83

Table 2.5 GdMf Abendunterhaltungen, March 1818–April 1829, composer of the opening string quartet Composer

No. of Quartets

Haydn Andreas Romberg Mayseder Mozart Beethoven Spohr Bernhard Romberg Fesca Hellmesberger Maurer St. Lubin Wassermann Contin Onslow

28 16 13 13 11 9 9 5 3 3 3 3 2 2

Table 2.6 GdMf Abendunterhaltungen, 1820–8, performances of Mayseder’s quartets alongside a Schubert vocal work Series (No.)

Date

Mayseder

Schubert

Performed By

1820–1 (16)

29 Apr. 1821

‘Sehnsucht’, D636

Götz

1823–4 (17)

4 Mar. 1824

‘Die Nachtigall’, D724

1824–5 (11)

27 Jan. 1825

‘Sehnsucht’, D636

Barth, Tietze, Nejebse, and Rotter Frl. Fröhlich

1825–6 (1)

10 Nov. 1825

‘Geist der Liebe’, D747

Titze

1825–6 (7)

28 Dec. 1826 11 Jan. 1827

1827–8 (9)

24 Jan. 1828

‘Die junge Nonne’, D828 ‘An Schwager Kronos’, D369 ‘Ständchen’ (from manuscript)

Frl. Schindler

1825–6 (9)

Sixth Quartet in G Major, Op. 23 Sixth Quartet in G Major, Op. 23 Quartet (unspecified) Fifth Quartet in D Major, Op. 9 Sixth Quartet in G Major, Op. 23 Fourth Quartet in F Major, Op. 8 Quartet (unspecified)

Schoberlechner Frl. Fröhlich

Although no documentation survives that would confirm Schubert’s attendance at these concerts, it is tempting to speculate as to whether he was present at some of these events and therefore heard Mayseder’s quartets.66 Certainly, it is very likely that he attended the first of these 66

h

d i

0 0

Schubert, of course, could not have attended the concert on 24 January 1828.

9 8 0092 09

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

84

Schubert’s Quartets: Historical and Analytical Contexts

concerts, as he was in Vienna until autumn 1821 and attended concerts at the Kärntnertortheater (7 March), in Sonnleithner’s (30 March), and at the Gesellschaft itself (8 April).67 Given Schubert’s ill health in March 1824 connected to his treatment for syphilis, it is less likely that he would have attended the second concert, and intermittent poor health would have impacted his ability to attend the later concerts.68 Thus, we might say with some certainty that Schubert knew Mayseder’s Fifth Quartet at least, and had possibly encountered his first three quartets via publication in 1810–11. Even without this direct contact, Mayseder’s quartets are an important part of the hinterland to Schubert’s because they reflect the contemporaneous idea of the genre and are representative of the environment in which Schubert was composing. Mayseder therefore provides a neutral context for Schubert’s output in the sense that his quartets were appearing and being heard at the same time that Schubert was writing his. The next section will demonstrate how the generic interchangeability of contemporaneous string-quartet repertoire often led to formal innovation.

Joseph Mayseder’s Quartets: A New Formal Context? Like Schubert, Mayseder (1789–1863) was a Viennese native, and although he was a successful composer, he is most often remembered for his prodigious career as a virtuoso violinist: according to Louis Spohr and a number of contemporary commentators, Mayseder was the most technically brilliant violinist in Vienna, a reputation reinforced by the fact that he joined Schuppanzigh’s quartet as second violinist at the age of just 15.69 The thematic catalogue of Mayseder’s works by Vanessa Devaux indicates that he wrote twelve string quartets, eight of which appeared in print with opus numbers, with the remaining four existing only in autograph copies.70 But in fact the figure is at least fifteen, since the autographs of 67 68 69

70

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

See SDB 164–5; 169 and 173. My sincere thanks to Lorraine Byrne Bodley for her valuable input in discussion of this topic. For an account of his career, see Vanessa Devaux, ‘Joseph Mayseder (1789–1863): A Viennese Violinist and Composer’, unpublished PhD dissertation, Cardiff University (2014). According to Eduard Hanslick, Mayseder gave up performing in public only after Paganini came to Vienna in 1828. See Hanslick, Geschichte des Concertwesens in Wien, Part I (Farnborough: Gregg, 1971), 230. A thematic catalogue of Mayseder’s published and unpublished works is provided as Appendix 1 in Devaux, ‘Joseph Mayseder (1789–1863)’. The unpublished (and undated) quartets correspond to her nos. 16–18 and 20. Her sources for these quartets are Mayseder’s autographs which are housed at the Wien Stadtbibliothek, Musiksammlung (now the Wienbibliothek im Rathaus). Devaux speculates that the four unpublished quartets were composed first, before the

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Joseph Mayseder’s Quartets: A New Formal Context?

three further undated quartets in Mayseder’s hand, each complete with four movements, are housed in his catalogue at the Wienbibliothek im Rathaus.71 Mayseder’s six Viennese quartets demonstrate a striking originality towards aspects of form such as key scheme and formal design. Analysis of their first and last movements in sonata form reveals two overarching tendencies: a predilection for three-part expositions, often accompanied by three discrete keys, and the independent treatment of thematic and tonal elements at important formal junctures, such as preparing the return of the main key in the recapitulation. The employment of the former shows a steady development throughout his quartets in terms of the stability and space afforded the third key as well as its apparent remoteness from the tonic. These two features immediately beg comparison with Schubert’s sonata-form practices and are suggestive of a mutually fluid approach to form. The expositions of Mayseder’s first two quartets show a clear three-theme sonata outline and an initial engagement with a three-key-exposition model. As Table 2.7 demonstrates, Op. 5/i modulates from the tonic, A major, to the dominant, E major, for the statement of the first B theme, B1, at bar 32. Indeed, although this exposition contains a clear three-theme plan, with a double second group, Mayseder does not exploit this tonally, remaining in the dominant throughout the B group. To get from tonic to dominant, however, Mayseder’s TR takes a circuitous route, tonicising E major early in bars 21–24, then veering away from it, first moving to E minor (bar 25) and thence to C major, arriving at chord V43 of C major in bar 254. C major is then prolonged for three bars before the music returns – via A minor and major – to the dominant, in bars 29– 31, establishing a V: HC MC in bar 31. The modulation traces a familiar PL transformation, as shown in Example 2.1. The initial establishment of the dominant is here rendered ineffectual: it occurs too early in the TR and must be repeated after the tonicisation of C major, which serves to elongate the TR and provide harmonic interest. The implications of this are felt in the development, in which a new developmental theme is heard in C major, thus realising the thematic potential of the key.

71

h

d i

0 0

published examples, which seems to be supported by the autographs which I accessed in January 2020 and are each marked in Mayseder’s hand with a roman numeral, up to IV. See Devaux, ‘Joseph Mayseder (1789–1863)’, Appendix 1, 264–9. These are complete quartets in A Major (which is not the same work as Op. 5), B♭ Major and D Major.

9 8 0092 09

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

85

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Table 2.7 Mayseder, String Quartet No. 1 in A Major, Op. 5/i, exposition

Joseph Mayseder’s Quartets: A New Formal Context? Example 2.1 Mayseder, String Quartet No. 1 in A Major, Op. 5, bars 162–31, tonal overview

The tonicisation of a third key is given thematic substantiation in the first movement of Op. 6, which is most clearly in dialogue with the tri-modular block (TMB).72 Here, as Table 2.8 shows, the exposition moves from the tonic, G minor, to an elided III: IAC MC in bars 30–31, thus setting up the B group in the relative major, B♭. The first theme of this group, B1, brings about a III: PAC (bar 38), but the subsequent repetition of B1 (now in the cello part) dissolves into a TR which develops A-group material in a modulating passage which nonetheless ends, via a series of declamatory diminished sevenths chords, on a III: HC MC (bar 51). B2’s four-bar sentence, displaying a truncated and merged continuation and cadential function (bars 54–55), leads to a repeat which ends with a clear PAC in the key of F major: VII. This sets up an ostensible repetition of B2 (now with the melody in the cello as in B1), which, rather than reinforcing the move back to III via a PAC, instead veers towards the tonic, ending with an active dominant seventh of G minor in bars 78–79, setting up the expositional repeat. In both these cases, although the tonicisation of the third key is shortlived, it is nonetheless clear that Mayseder is in dialogue with a three-key model, in the second case one that could be described as a TMB. The recapitulations of both movements are firmly in the tonic, with no corresponding move to a key that would mirror the exposition’s deviation. Op. 6/i shows some development from Op. 5/i in that the tonicisation of the ‘unnecessary’ key (VII) takes place during a thematically stable passage, affording it greater stability and reinforcement, and the key itself, VII, is highly unusual, distinct from Classical precedents of the three-key exposition which tend to remain within the remit of III or V.73

72 73

h

d i

0 0

On the TMB, see Hepokoski and Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory, 170–6. Although it is not a three-key exposition, the slow movement of Beethoven’s Op. 70 No. 1 (1808) modulates from i–VII.

9 8 0092 09

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

87

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Table 2.8 Mayseder, String Quartet No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 6/i, exposition

Joseph Mayseder’s Quartets: A New Formal Context?

Example 2.2 Mayseder, String Quartet No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 6/iv, exposition

Mayseder furthers this exploration of distantly related keys in the finale of this quartet, Op. 6, the exposition of which traces the highly unusual scheme outlined in Example 2.2. Here, a first group in G minor (i) is followed by a passage ostensibly in III which appears to be a B1 candidate, but whose consequent phrase modulates and becomes transitional, therefore bypassing a cadence in the relative major in favour of a ♭V: PAC MC, the resolution of which is elided with the B2 theme entering in that key. Mayseder highlights the new key via a change of key signature from two flats to five in bar 67. B2 brings about contrapuntal closure, but in the key of A♭ major, or ♭ II (bar 80), and the exposition ends in the key of C minor, the subdominant. The exposition therefore traces: i–III–♭V–♭II–iv; surely an unprecedented expositional plot. The RT to the recapitulation begins in bar 184 on the dominant of the home key (still in the minor mode), and the recapitulation moves only fleetingly to the tonic major (for a I: PAC MC in bars 225–6) before the B2 theme (there is no return of B1) cadences into D major. The movement ends in the tragic mode it began: G minor is relentless until the end. As a result of this tonal scheme, the second themes (B1 and B2) are never heard fully in the relative major, Mayseder opting instead to give prominence to ♭V in the exposition en route to iv. The practice of ending the exposition away from the dominant (in a major key) or relative major (in minor) that the Op. 6 Finale displays is again a feature of the first movement of the Fifth String Quartet, Op. 9. This exposition, outlined in Table 2.9, modulates from tonic (D major) to dominant (A major) and thence to vi (B minor), in which key the exposition firmly concludes. In contrast to the two earlier examples, the third key in Op. 9 is afforded a more extended passage, spanning bars 65–88. Like Op. 6, it is also thematically stable, being heard in a variation of B1 as well as B2 material, with associated PACs. The dominant, on the other hand, once it is established, is confined to a short five-bar theme: the first iteration of B1

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

89

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Table 2.9 Mayseder, String Quartet No. 5 in D Major, Op. 9/i, exposition

Joseph Mayseder’s Quartets: A New Formal Context? Example 2.3 Mayseder, String Quartet No. 3 in A♭ Major, Op. 7/i, bars 99–105

(bars 58–621). It can therefore be understood as being en route to vi, unlike the more typical three-key exposition.74 A second tendency of these movements is for unusual preparation of the return of the tonic at the recapitulation. Although Mayseder writes no off-tonic recapitulations, yet the return to the tonic is often rendered unheimlich – unhomely or uncanny – either by virtue of an unorthodox preparation or by being undercut by parametric non-congruence.75 The first movement of the Quartet No. 3, Op. 7 offers the first example. The exposition, despite its initial harmonic unrest, is tonally straightforward: an A theme is heard in the tonic, A♭ major, followed by a B theme in the dominant, E♭ major, separated by a clear V: HC MC (bar 48). Its recapitulation, too, regains and retains the tonic throughout. The RT, however, ‘prepares’ A♭ by tonicising C major (III) in bars 98–102 leading, via single repeated A♭s in the cello part (bar 103), to the recapitulation in that key; Example 2.3 reproduces the score. In the context of the development, C could be interpreted as the dominant of F, but this function is reinterpreted as C becomes III/A♭. In place of harmonic preparation, Mayseder simply employs a general pause (bar 102) followed by a textural, registral, and dynamic shift to emphasise the restart. The effect here can be characterised as a shift in the harmonic context of the pitch A♭ from ♭^6 of C to ^1 of A♭, not unlike Schubert’s String Quintet where a single G is maintained between 74

75

h

d i

0 0

This idea of the dominant being heard en route to the final expositional key is something that Schubert would also experiment with in the Overture for String Quartet, D8A, to be discussed presently. On Schubert’s rendering of the tonic as uncanny within the RT of D960/i, see Nicholas Marston, ‘Schubert’s Homecoming’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 125/2 (2000), 248–70.

9 8 0092 09

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

91

92

Schubert’s Quartets: Historical and Analytical Contexts

the A and B sections, first as ^1 of the dominant chord (bar 58) and then as ^3 of E♭ major (bar 60) for the entrance of the B theme in that key. There is also something distinctly Schubertian about Mayseder’s use of the general pause to demarcate the sections: see, for instance, the first movement of Schubert’s C-Major Quartet, D46.76 The lead into the recapitulation of Mayseder’s next string quartet, Op. 8/i, shown in Example 2.4, displays the opposite effect. Here, a remarkable moment of noncongruence between the thematic material and the bass progression creates a seamless continuity between RT and recapitulation in bars 189–95. The significance of this moment is heralded in bar 187 with a sudden fortissimo statement of a B♭ major chord, the flattened submediant in the local tonic, D. This initiates an ascending chromatic bassline (B♭, B♮, C♮, C♯, D, E, F), the goal of which is the tonic chord, F major, in root position (bar 195). The thematic recapitulation commences midway through this ascent, over a 64 F-major chord in bar 191. Only the double bar line and change of key signature indicate the return of the key: the harmonic progression (moving from F major in second inversion to an F augmented chord) does not arrive on F until bars 194–5 during which a V65 –I progression establishes the tonic. This means that the thematic return and bass progression are productively out of synchrony. The dichotomous effect is of an unstable although highly teleological harmonic progression set against the initiation of a new thematic section. In this case, it is not the tonic but the theme itself that is rendered unfamiliar, owing to the harmonic progression underpinning it. The use of elision is not confined to this RT, and Mayseder’s quartets make frequent use of elided and deformational Medial Caesurae (MCs). The passage from bars 49–58 of Op. 9 offers a good example of how far from Classical practice he ventured. Here, as shown in the annotations in Example 2.5, the moment of caesura is heralded by a diminished seventh harmony. This is followed by a ‘corrective’ passage outlining a large-scale cadential 64 in A major, setting up the arrival of the dominant key with the new theme, B1. On the downbeat of this arrival, however, the bass – rather than resolving to A – steps up a tone from E to F♯ sharp, and the cadence is evaded in favour of the submediant (vi). Thus, the entire passage displays a clear caesura, followed by a caesura ‘fill’, the resolution of which is 76

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

In this respect, Mayseder’s work could also be seen as being in dialogue with a common eighteen-century practice of ending the development on either vi or V/vi followed by a general pause before the recapitulation; some of Haydn’s later symphonies employ the silent pause in this way or play on this idea.

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Joseph Mayseder’s Quartets: A New Formal Context?

Example 2.4 Mayseder, String Quartet No. 4 in F Major, Op. 8/i, bars 187–96

nonetheless denied; the correspondence with Schubert’s MC practice is remarkable, as will become clear in Chapter 3. These isolated features of Mayseder’s quartets – three-key expositions in dialogue with the TMB model, the noncongruence of parameters at the

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

93

94

Schubert’s Quartets: Historical and Analytical Contexts

Example 2.5 Mayseder, String Quartet No. 5 in D Major, Op. 9/i, bars 49–58

all-important moment of double return and the exceptional use of the MC – are central to the early Schubert quartets. This is not to say that Schubert was directly influenced by Mayseder’s quartets or that he was influenced to a greater extent by Mayseder than by Haydn, Mozart, or Beethoven (and the chronology of Schubert’s early works rules out any influence by Schubert on Mayseder). Such a statement cannot be made with any certainty; but nor is it necessary. This is less about decentring the Classical triumvirate and replacing them with Mayseder, than it is about adding Mayseder (and others) to the historical narrative from which they have historically been excluded. To put this differently: if Mayseder’s quartets were to be classed as providing

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Analytical Implications

the formal context for Schubert’s early chamber works (alongside Beethoven’s or Haydn’s), a much greater level of overlap and resonance with an existing tradition could be recognised. And this recognition, in turn, opens the door to a more meaningful interpretation of Schubert’s unorthodox practices. Thus, while I do not seek to reframe Schubert exclusively in terms of Mayseder’s quartets, the analysis nonetheless highlights that the fluid approach to form – and particularly to the tonal design of first-movement sonata – which is central to Mayseder’s quartets provides an apposite (and more complete) formal context for Schubert’s practices, especially his D18 and D94 (which are the focus of Chapter 3). None of this is to deny that, for Mayseder, the quartet was a vehicle for virtuosic writing. But this involved not only the obvious stylistic features such as a high tessitura for the first violin or the (frequently excessive) use of the trill as a means of displaying technical skill; it also, importantly, encompassed a rethinking of the tonal design of the Classical quartet.77 It is this utilisation of the string quartet as a vehicle for formal experimentation and innovation that aligns most closely with Schubert’s early works, as we shall now see.

Analytical Implications Form is not exclusively a property of the individual piece.78 – James Hepokoski

Schubert’s earliest chamber music for strings reveals a remarkably varied generic lineage and an approach to form influenced by what I have elsewhere termed ‘inter-generic dialogue’: the merging or interaction of features characteristic of disparate genres within a single form.79 Schubert’s Overture for String Quintet, D8, and string-quartet reworking, D8A, is a case in point. The work’s formal outline is shaped by two contemporaneous

77

78 79

h

d i

0 0

Mayseder’s String Quartet No. 4 is perhaps the clearest articulation of a violin concerto disguised as a quartet, but all these quartets display a similar impulse at base. James Hepokoski, Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre, 72. The term has a long usage in literary criticism; see Andrew Baruch Wachtel, An Obsession with History: Russian Writers Confront the Past (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014). On the dramatic effect of inter-generic dialogue in Mozart’s piano concertos, see Simon P. Keefe, Mozart’s Piano Concertos: Dramatic Dialogue in the Age of Enlightenment (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2001).

9 8 0092 09

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

95

96

Schubert’s Quartets: Historical and Analytical Contexts

influences: the orchestral overture to Cherubini’s rescue opera Faniska (a connection first proposed by Chusid) and Schubert’s own first surviving vocal composition, ‘Hagars Klage’ (Hagar’s Lament), D5, composed on 30 March 1811 and modelled on the ballad ‘Hagars Klage in der Wüste Bersaba’ by Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg.80 I have previously demonstrated that the work is motivated by a strong sense of inter-generic dialogue functioning on two levels: stylistic idiom and formal construction.81 Formally and texturally, the work is modelled on an orchestral overture, but its slow introduction and dramatic sectional design bespeak the influence of a dramatic vocal tradition through their allusion to Schubert’s own work, ‘Hagars Klage’. As such, D8 positions itself as the meeting ground of diverse generic models – those that were at the forefront of the composer’s mind in 1811 – and as a progenitor for the acknowledged technical expansion of the sonata in his mature works. Thus, the same impulse towards generic interchangeability exemplified by the string-quartet subgenres prevalent in Vienna also characterises the music Schubert wrote at an early age. It is perhaps unsurprising that Schubert’s first chamber-music exercise should be an overture for string ensemble based on a well-known opera, considering that his father regularly made string-quartet and -quintet arrangements of orchestral works by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven for use by the family ensemble.82 The young composer would also have performed arrangements of overtures for quartet by his teacher Antonio Salieri, among others, some of which were found at the family home.

80

81

82

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

See Martin Chusid, ‘Schubert’s Overture for String Quintet and Cherubini’s Overture to Faniska’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 15 (1962), 78–84. Faniska was written specifically for Vienna and was premièred at the Kärntnertortheater on 25 February 1806, receiving more than thirty performances in Vienna during its opening year alone. Although Schubert was too young to have attended these performances (at 9 years of age), the myriad textural, motivic, and tonal connections between the two works suggest that he knew it intimately. On the reception of Faniska in Vienna, see David Wyn Jones, Music in Vienna: 1700, 1800, 1900 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2016), 134–5. Hyland, ‘“Zumsteeg Ballads without Words”: Inter-generic Dialogue and Schubert’s Projection of Drama through Form’, in Drama in the Music of Franz Schubert ed. Joe Davies and James William Sobaskie (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2019), 205–32. The practice of arranging orchestral overtures for string ensemble was incredibly popular in the first half of the nineteenth century. Marie Sumner-Lott’s study of nineteenth-century chambermusic practice, for instance, found that the Berlin-based publishing firm of Adolph Martin Schlesinger published ninety-six chamber-music items between 1810 (when it was founded) and the end of the century, almost 40 per cent of which consisted of arrangements of operas and overtures for chamber ensembles. See Sumner-Lott, The Social Worlds of Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music.

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Analytical Implications

Schubert’s knowledge of the operatic overture was impressively broad. In an undated letter to one Herr von Bäutel, he writes of his esteem for Beethoven’s Prometheus, Egmont, and Coriolan overtures; he also greatly admired Gluck’s operas, making copies of selections of them and even attempting a piano duet arrangement of Gluck’s overture to Iphigénie en Aulide.83 Of these two composers, recall that it was Gluck to whom Schubert turned in his diary entry of 16 June 1816 as an example of ‘pure nature’ in contrast to the ‘eccentricities’ of Beethoven’s music.84 He also knew Cherubini’s Overtures to Démophon (1788) and Faniska (1806), and, according to Spaun, held two of Salieri’s overtures in particularly high regard: those to the operas Les Danaides (first performed in 1784) and Axur, Re d’Ormus (first performed in 1788), both of which display off-tonic recapitulations.85 Indeed, Schubert demonstrated something of an obsession with the overture in his earliest years, writing four orchestral overtures between 1811 and 1812 (D4, D11, D12, and D26), as well as the lost quartet overture, D20. All of the overtures utilise the Type-1 model characteristic of the genre: a double- or bi-rotational sonata form without development section, and with a short linking section, or RT, between exposition and recapitulation.86 Indeed, this interest in the bi-rotational design of the overture extended to the quartets: the form appears in no fewer than six early string-quartet movements.87 Both the first and last movements of the 83

84 85

86

87

h

d i

0 0

See SDB, 265. Deutsch assigns the letter to 1823. On Schubert’s knowledge of Gluck’s operas see SMF, 21 and 59. See also Chusid, ‘The Chamber Music of Schubert’, 3. The final 32 bars of a piano duet arrangement of Gluck’s overture to Iphigénie en Aulide were discovered by Landon; see Landon, ‘New Schubert Finds’. SDB, 64. See SDB, 868. On the possible influence of the opera overture on Schubert’s pre-1816 dominant and subdominant recapitulations, see Mi-Sook Han Hur, ‘Irregular Recapitulations in Schubert’s Instrumental Works’, unpublished PhD dissertation, City University of New York (1992). Hur claims that ‘the association of the recapitulation on V with the genre of the overture is crucial to understanding Schubert’s early instrumental practice’, 47. More generally, the Italian operatic style has been recognised as a source of inspiration for Schubert’s early instrumental music by Elizabeth Norman McKay, ‘Rossinis Einfluss auf Schubert’, Österreichische Musikzeitschrift, 18 (1963), 17–22, and Angela Pachovsky, ‘Zur Frage der Rossinismen bei Schubert’, Schubert-Jahrbuch, 1998: Bericht über den Internationalen Schubert-Kongress Duisburg 1997, ed. Dietrich Berke (Duisburg, 2000), 35– 55. On Schubert’s interest in Rossini’s music, see also Alfred Einstein, Schubert, trans. David Ascoli (London: Cassell, 1951), 156. This is what Steven Vande Moortele refers to as the ‘grand sonatina form’ found in Rossini’s overtures, which also stipulates a nonrepeated exposition and, often, a slow introduction. See Vande Moortele, The Romantic Overture and Musical Form from Rossini to Wagner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 51. I do not distinguish here between recapitulations on- and off-tonic (Type 1 and Type 2, respectively); I am concerned only with bi-rotation, which is clear in D8, D18/i, D94/iv, D74/i and /iv, and D173/i. I propose a Type1-2 Hybrid model for these works in Hyland, ‘Schubert’s Bi-

9 8 0092 09

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

97

98

Schubert’s Quartets: Historical and Analytical Contexts

Quartet D74, for instance, demonstrate bi-rotational form; indeed, this quartet is often understood as a training ground for Schubert’s First Symphony, D82, and demonstrates the proximity in style and form between his chamber and orchestral music at this stage of his career.88 The first movement of his Second Symphony, D125, moreover, is a birotational form with a sixty-seven-bar passage between exposition and recapitulation acting as an extended RT. The recapitulation of this movement commences in the subdominant, and it was this feature, alongside the movement’s minimal link between exposition and recapitulation, that led Einstein to speculate ‘whether it was intended originally as an overture and was only later expanded into a symphony’.89 In the same vein, Chusid recognises a blurred line between ‘bipartite and tripartite sonata form’ in the early sonata-form quartet movements, and explains it as Schubert’s ‘failure to differentiate between’ the two, although it is just as likely that Schubert didn’t wish to distinguish between them.90 Despite its generic lineage, D8 is no slavish arrangement of an orchestral work for performance by the family ensemble: Schubert completely restructures Cherubini’s tonal plot in a way that prefigures his own mature practice of reimagining sonata form’s tonal polarity. It would be superfluous to rehearse my analysis of the movement’s form here; suffice it to say that the work exhibits familiar Schubertian fingerprints such as the predilection for parallel keys, modal mixture, thematic proliferation or extension, and the expansion of sonata-form space via a three-key exposition and recapitulation. The borrowed material is therefore made to function in a distinctly Schubertian fashion in its new context, and the outward correspondences between the works are symptomatic of an underlying concern for ‘inter-generic dialogue’ that is characteristic of Schubert’s earliest instrumental music.

88

89

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Rotational Sonata Forms: Developmental Function and the Type 1–2 Hybrid’, Music Analysis, 40/3 (2021), Special Issue on Sonata Typology, 413–50. On the Type 1 Sonata, see Hepokoski and Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory, 343–52. On the preponderance of Types 1 and 2 in Schubert’s chamber-music finales, see Christopher Tarrant, ‘Schubert, Sonata Theory, Psychoanalysis: Traversing the Fantasy in Schubert’s Sonata Forms’, unpublished PhD dissertation, Royal Holloway, University of London (2015), 106–11. On which topic see Chusid, ‘Das “Orchestermässige” in Schuberts früher Streicherkammermusik’, in Zur Aufführungspraxis der Werke Franz Schuberts ed. Vera Schwarz (Munich: Emil Katzbichler, 1981), 77–86. An English-language revised version was printed as ‘Concerning Orchestral Style in Schubert’s Earliest Chamber Music for Strings’, in Music in Performance and Society: Essays in Honor of Roland Jackson, ed. Malcolm Cole and John Koegel (Warren, MI: Harmonie Park Press, 1997), 383–93. Einstein, Schubert, 84 and 86. 90 Chusid, ‘The Chamber Music of Schubert’, 46.

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Analytical Implications

Two features of the work beg analytical attention in this regard. The first is the use of the subdominant as the tonal goal of this sonata-form three-key exposition, the tonal plot of which traces i–VI–iv–IV. This is distinct from Schubert’s later three-key expositions, the majority of which end in the dominant, even those in minor keys. To my knowledge, Schubert employs this specific expositional tonal scheme in only one other work: the fourth movement of the Violin Sonata in A Minor, D385 (Op. 137, No. 2) dating from 1816, the tonal scheme of which can be summarised as i (A)–VI (B)–iv (C).91 Moreover, in a study on sources of the three-key exposition in sonata-form movements of the major composers between 1770 and 1820, Rey M. Longyear and Kate R. Covington found only one minor-mode sonata that does not move ultimately to v in the exposition (most move from i to III and finally to v).92 The one exception, the first movement of J. A. Benda’s Sonata No. 9, has an expositional close in III, having traversed the unusual path of i–III–V–♭I– III. None end in the subdominant. Equally, the otherwise comprehensive three categories of three-key exposition identified by Graham Hunt cannot account for the tonal structure of D8, moving as it does from an initial tonic minor to VI and thence to IV.93 D8 would potentially occupy an envisaged fourth category for Hunt, wherein both the second and third keys of the exposition are classed as ‘deformational’, the ‘normative’ keys in a minorkey exposition being either III or v. But this tonal scheme can easily be explained via a dualist reading. From the Riemannian perspective, the motion i – VI – iv (°T–°Sp–°S or °T–III+–V) is the dualist pair of the majormode I – III – V (T–3+–D). Thus, C min–A♭–F min is the dualist opposite of C–E–G. Both move in the direction of the Klang (major key upwards, minor key downwards), and both are extremely strong motions towards a dominant (an upper dominant or subdominant, respectively). Thus, while this progression might be rare in Schubert’s oeuvre, as a harmonic motion it is logical, and even – as a relation to that form of bass progression with III en route to the dominant that he employs so often – it is an enticing mirror. The second analytical point surrounds the failed recapitulation and subsequent use of an extended coda as a means of bringing the movement back into the tonic key. In the process of this resolution, Schubert 91 92

93

h

d i

0 0

The recapitulation of this movement traces the tragic tonal plot, i–III–i. Rey M. Longyear and Kate R. Covington, ‘Sources of the Three-Key Exposition’, Journal of Musicology, 6/4 (1988), 448–70. See Graham Hunt, ‘When Structure and Design Collide: The Three-Key Exposition Revisited’, Music Theory Spectrum, 36/2 (2014), 247–69, and Hunt, ‘The Three-Key Trimodular Block and Its Classical Precedents: Sonata Expositions in Schubert and Brahms’, Intégral, 23 (2009), 65–119.

9 8 0092 09

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

99

100

Schubert’s Quartets: Historical and Analytical Contexts

introduces a new cadential melody which intensifies the drama in the final bars of the work (bars 299–304 and bars 306–311). It is here that the music is purged of the chromatic D♭s which signalled the move to F minor earlier in the work, such as in bar 60 leading to an HC in F minor, and during the dramatic use of the Neapolitan at bar 98. As the asterisks in Example 2.6 illustrate, in the coda, this D♭ inflection is intensified dynamically and accentuated rhythmically in the lower parts until it is eventually subsumed within a cadence into C minor (bars 277–289). This renders the work teleological in its dramatic, last-minute resolution to the tonic. Schubert’s dramatic use of the coda to bring about tonal closure in the tonic is not to be found in Cherubini’s overture, but in the locus classicus of the nonresolving recapitulation: Beethoven’s Egmont overture, Op. 84 of 1810, performed in Vienna on 15 June of that year. This is a work that shares its generic title with D8 and was greatly admired by Schubert.94 Indeed, the use of a three-key exposition is also a feature of Beethoven’s Coriolan and Gluck’s Alceste, both of which we know Schubert performed. I am less concerned with presenting these works as direct influences than I am with demonstrating that Schubert’s approach to form at this stage in his work was informed by his knowledge of a generically diverse corpus. He would have seen no reason why an orchestral or operatic overture could not inform his approach to form in a chamber work. Despite its early composition date and the composer’s relative inexperience, then, D8 is not a tentative exercise in form: there is a perceptible confidence here, one that comes from working with existing models, but also one bolstered by a personal response to musical form, and particularly to the dramatic possibilities of inter-generic dialogue. The work’s complex generic constitution suggests an inter-generic web that is indicative of the fluid approach to form characteristic of much of Schubert’s instrumental work. In bringing together diverse models in the service of the string quintet (and quartet), Schubert invites the listener to experience D8 as an interactive dialogue between these traditions.

Conclusion In the young Schubert’s hands, the sonata was an adaptable form, influenced by his study of dramatic song and operatic overture, as well as his part in the school orchestra, his study of the Classical masters, and his interest in contemporaneous compositional trends. The tendency to 94

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

See SDB, 265.

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Conclusion

Example 2.6 Schubert, Overture for String Quintet in C Minor, D8, bars 276–89

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

101

102

Schubert’s Quartets: Historical and Analytical Contexts

understand his sonata-form practices in terms of a strict definition of sonata types and against an exclusively Beethovenian model to the exclusion of these other influences has stifled our engagement with Schubert’s juvenilia. In recognising the diverse, often competing influences that these works bring together, we might begin to acknowledge them as the work of a composer whose individual response to form was already quite apparent, if not yet developed. Moreover, the impulse to hybridity evident in his earliest chamber music stayed with Schubert throughout his career and is key to understanding his approach to form in the genre from early to late. The innate value (if that is the right word) in exploring the early quartets is therefore that their specific historical circumstances impart vital information about how we might approach the interpretation of Schubert’s sonata forms more generally. These works call for an analytical approach that emphasises dialogue and exchange both between parameters within a single work, and between the work and others in its contemporaneous context, encouraging us to pursue a more meaningful engagement with those aspects of form that, as Hepokoski had it, are not exclusively a property of the individual piece. This approach necessitates an understanding of musical form that emphasises intertextuality and dialogue, the foundation for which is laid out in Sonata Theory’s guiding principle that musical form is, at base, a product of a work’s dialogue with a network of ‘generic norms, guidelines, possibilities, expectations, and limits’.95 This principle holds that in order to grasp the form of a piece of music, it is necessary to understand the generic conventions with which it is most clearly in dialogue; genre is thus ‘the decoder of an otherwise unintelligible or free-floating musical message’, and form is the product of our engaged understanding of the work’s dialogue with it.96 As my reading of D8 demonstrates, however, the identification of a set of generic ‘norms’ against which to explore a given work is never a straightforward matter. Neither dialogue nor dialogic form is generically circumscribed: a work may place itself into dialogue with several genres simultaneously, and its compositional problematic is likely to be informed by this multi-way conversation to varying degrees. Moreover, some of these generic markers may take place at the level of what Caplin calls formal functions, rather than formal type, thereby complicating the identification of a single overarching generic norm, even 95

96

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Hepokoski, ‘Sonata Theory and Dialogic Form’, in Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre ed. Bergé, 71–99 (71). Hepokoski and Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory, 606.

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Conclusion

rendering it redundant.97 These reservations are not insuperable. The concept of dialogic form provides a suitable lens through which to view the formal strategies of Schubert’s early chamber music if attention to small-scale phrase structures and intra-thematic functions (those within a given subject group) remains at the fore.98 The view of Schubert’s quartets as two discrete bodies of work is inevitably overly simplistic. There is some mediation between them, and the distinction between early and late, although real, is therefore traversable: the early quartets set the stage for an engagement with form that is fluid, adaptable, and interchangeable between genres. Jeffrey Kallberg has argued that the mixing of genres is a hallmark of an early Romantic sensibility in Chopin’s music; similarly, Schubert’s tendency towards inter-generic dialogue positions this music firmly in the realm of Romantic form.99 In the analytical chapters that follow, I retain this dialogic approach to form as an underlying principle; this is most clearly in evidence in the final chapter which considers Schubert’s intermingling of sonata and variation techniques in the late G-Major Quartet, D887 as well as in the earlier Quartet in G Minor, D173. Although I do not make it a focus of my analysis, generic hybridity is also perceptible with the incorporation of Lieder into an instrumental setting, such as in D804 and D810. Even within movements which do not seem to engage immediately with inter-generic concerns, a comparable tendency to transform the function of material from one setting to another remains: within single movements, lyrical material is rendered developmental and teleological. Thus, Schubert’s continued use of material between diverse genres is only the most obvious trait of intergeneric dialogue; his music’s articulation of lyric teleology, as we shall now explore, is another. 97

98

99

h

d i

0 0

On which point, see Caplin’s response to Hepokoski in Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre, ed. Bergé, 90–95. Progress has been made on this front by analytical approaches informed by both Caplin’s theory of formal functions and Sonata Theory. See Horton, ‘Criteria for a Theory of NineteenthCentury Sonata Form’. Jeffrey Kallberg, ‘The Rhetoric of Genre: Chopin’s Nocturne in G Minor’, 19th-Century Music, 11 (1988), 238–61.

9 8 0092 09

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

103

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

003

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

part ii

Analysis

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

3

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation: Reanimating the Dynamics of the Lyric

As outlined in Chapter 1, a critical commonplace in accounts of the lyric in Schubert’s sonata forms is the idea that his themes and thematic groups compose closed, self-contained entities which often yield static forms. Originating with Marx’s idea of the Liedsatz (a closed form based on a single idea usually displaying symmetrical phrasing), it fundamentally informed Salzer’s criticism of Schubert’s conception of thematic invention which he reads as lacking developmental strategy and thus as non-teleological. The self-containment of Schubert’s themes was again central to Webster’s description of Schubert’s themes as ‘frankly lyrical, in closed binary or ABA designs’, although Webster’s judgment is not that of Salzer.1 Webster’s use of the term ‘closed’ here may refer to the sense of closure created by a return to the opening material after a B section; it does not unambiguously imply that the themes are cadentially closed with a satisfactory PAC, although that might also be the case. That association is made later, when he distinguishes between movements in which ‘the second group begins with a coherent closed theme in a single key’ (listing the Quartettsatz, the D-Minor Quartet, and the Grand Duo) and those whose opening phrases are ‘expanded transitions’ because they lack a satisfactory cadence (the first movements of the String Quintet, the E♭ Piano Trio and the late B♭ Piano Sonata).2 His distinction rests on a number of factors such as the character of the theme itself, which might be transitional in nature because it modulates to another tonal region or sequences through a number of keys (as in the Trio). But without cadential reinforcement, the initial secondary key acts as a transition; the E♭ major of the Quintet, for example, is transitional from C major to G major – he memorably calls it a ‘gigantic floating pivot chord’.3 The perceived equivalence of ‘closed’ with cadential closure in subsequent literature and discussion on this topic has gone mostly unchallenged, even in an era in which the concept of the cadence itself has undergone long

1

2

h

d i

0 0

Marx, trans. Burnham, Musical Form in the Age of Beethoven 52 and 72–3. Webster, ‘Schubert’s Sonata Form’, 19. Webster, ‘Schubert’s Sonata Form’, 29. 3 Ibid., 29.

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

107

108

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation

Example 3.1 Schubert, Quartettsatz, D703, (a) bars 36–8 and (b) bars 59–61, reduction (a)

(b)

overdue and discerning re-examination.4 This is not without its problems. To take just one of Webster’s examples: while few would disagree that the first B theme of the Quartettsatz is heard in A♭ major and would recognise its ‘strongly lyrical or independent character’, it is nonetheless noteworthy that the theme is not afforded cadential closure by means of a PAC in A♭ major.5 As Examples 3.1(a and b) demonstrate, the theme’s first phrase ends on a half cadence (bar 38), and while the upper-octave repeat sets up a cadential 64 , its disjunctive vocal line, abrupt textural shift, and jarring sforzando dramatically deny resolution into the major mode, cadencing instead into A♭ minor for the beginning of a modulating sequence (bar 61). Thus, without a linear descent to ^1 in the top voice, this first section of the B group’s ‘three-paragraph plan’ is not contrapuntally closed, and the elision and sudden modal shift undercut the potential sense of closure in the sense of a resting point. That said, A♭ major does receive cadential affirmation via a PAC in this exposition, but crucially, that PAC introduces the new tonality rather than affirming it during the cadential function at the end of the thematic complex. Schubert employs a PAC at bars 25–7 as a means of modulating into the new key, thereby dissociating cadence and end function. This is an important distinction to which I shall 4

5

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

See Caplin, ‘Beyond the Classical Cadence’, ‘The Classical Cadence: Conceptions and Misconceptions’, and ‘Harmony and Cadence in Gjerdingen’s “Prinner”’, in What Is a Cadence? Theoretical and Analytical Perspectives on Cadences in the Classical Repertoire, ed. Markus Neuwirth and Pieter Bergé (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2015), 17–58. See also Poundie Burstein, ‘The Half Cadence and Other Such Slippery Events’, and ‘The Half Cadence and Related Analytic Fictions’, in What Is a Cadence?, 85–116. Webster, ‘Schubert’s Sonata Form’, 28. Similarly, the cadences in the second key of D810/i (F major) are also undermined, there by persistent evasion and, finally, by elision (bars 82–3).

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation

return later in this chapter, where I consider the implications of the elided PAC MC for the establishment of a new tonal and thematic region and its implications for thematic closure.6 For now, it might partially explain why we tend to experience this A♭ as an unproblematically autonomous tonal area; indeed, why Hali Fieldman presciently read the movement’s structural polarity as being between C minor and A♭ major, replacing the more Classical tonic-dominant or -relative major tonal dialectic.7 There are, of course, other features of this music which allow us to hear this as an independent theme in A♭ major: the clear phrasing and periodic syntax, the melodic contour emphasising ^1 and ^5 , the harmonic progressions in A♭ major, and the dynamics all contribute to its establishment without a definitive closing PAC in the major. As this brief example reveals, while the ABA rounded structure of many of Schubert’s themes is quite apparent, their formation of a closed entity – in terms of contrapuntal closure – is not a given. At times, the two go hand in hand, such as in those second theme groups that veer towards self-contained variation form: the first movements of the G-major Quartet, D887 and the Piano Sonata in C Minor, D958 are just two mature examples. But on other occasions, Schubert actively undermines or downplays the attainment of cadential closure in these theme groups. This is particularly the case in the quartets written in Schubert’s earliest period of composition, between 1812 and 1815, and is, in part, a consequence of the more motivically driven nature of their theme groups; lyrical melodies are not yet a feature of D18/i and D36/i, for instance. Yet, even as Schubert’s lyrical idiom becomes more pronounced and his themes begin to feature fully fledged melodic lines, his

6

7

h

d i

0 0

The dual role of a PAC to act as ‘a closing gesture with regard to phrase structure . . . [and] an initiating gesture with regard to the tonal structure’ is outlined in Brian Black, ‘Schubert’s “Deflected-Cadence” Transitions and the Classical Style’; in Formal Functions in Perspective: Essays on Musical Form from Haydn to Adorno, ed. Steven Vande Moortele, Julie PedneaultDeslauriers, and Nathan John Martin (Boydell & Brewer: University of Rochester Press, 2015), 165–97 (172). See Hali Fieldman, ‘Schubert’s Quartettsatz and Sonata Form’s New Way’, Journal of Musicological Research, 21/1–2 (2002), 99–146. Fieldman’s work thus grants analytical substantiation for Einstein’s observation that the movement counters C minor not with ‘C major or E♭ major as it would be with a “classical” master, but A♭ major, the key of the “lyrical” (dolce) second subject’. Einstein, Schubert, trans. Ascoli, 182. In contrast, Black reads A♭ as subordinate to G major, writing that ‘what was potentially a competing tonality [A ♭] is absorbed into its rival [G major] as a crucial element in the latter’s grounding’. See Brian Black, ‘The Functions of Harmonic Motives in Schubert’s Sonata Forms’, Intégral, 23 (2009), 1–63 (7).

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

109

110

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation

manipulation of the parameters of closure persists.8 Webster’s work, then, raises the interpretative stakes regarding the distinction between identifying an independent theme in a given key (which may be introduced by a PAC) and a contrapuntally closed entity. For this reason, greater attention to the ways cadence is articulated in the quartets prior to and including 1820 raises important questions as to the role of closure on local and global levels of structure and permits a re-examination of the assumed correlation between lyricism and closed musical units. Staiger, in drawing a distinction between the parataxis of the epic mode and that of the lyric, writes that the lyric mode shows ‘a reluctance to insert signs of distinct division’, thus recognising that the elements of a paratactic mode are not of necessity closed off from one another by signs of division such as the cadence.9 To that end, this chapter elucidates Schubert’s treatment of the defining cadential moments in a sonata: the Medial Caesura (MC) and the Essential Expositional Closure (EEC), whose implications for the Essential Structural Closure (ESC) will further be considered. As will become clear, Schubert manipulates these important cadential junctures in multiple identifiable ways, many of which would be considered deformational against a sonata-theoretical backdrop, and all of which seem to work against those aspects of the sonata designed to punctuate the formal sections: the MC as a harbinger of S, and the EEC as the exposition’s ultimate goal. In so doing, Schubert mitigates against the stasis of his lyric themes, producing continuity and progression via processes of functional transformation (⇒) and functional retrogression (⇐), both of which articulate the concept of formal ‘becoming’. Consequently, ‘form’ in these movements is best understood as a continuous unfolding of recognisable formal functions rather than an orderly succession of clearly defined formal sections. This chapter proceeds in three parts, each centred on a particular case study, for which the first section clears the theoretical and methodological path: 3.1. 3.2. 3.3. 3.4.

8

9

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

The Parameters of Closure and Their Noncongruence; Locating the Expositional Close: D18/i and D94/i; Schubert’s MC Practice in the Quartet First Movements; The Elided PAC MC and the Dialectic of Punctuation and Continuation: Quartettsatz, D703/i.

For an excellent account of this in the Scherzo of D956, see John Koslovsky, ‘Timeless Reflections: Form, Cadence and Tonal Structure in the Scherzo and Finale of Schubert’s String Quintet’, Music Analysis, 33/2 (2014), 168–93. My point here is not that Schubert’s practice is unusual or unprecedented, but rather that the undercutting of cadential closure in this way runs contra to the idea of the lyric as a self-contained, closed entity. Staiger, Basic Concepts of Poetics, 65.

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

The Parameters of Closure and Their Noncongruence

Ultimately, in exploring the means by which Schubert undermines closure in these quartets, the chapter attempts to reanimate the processual, goal-directed procedures at work in these movements, which, in turn, facilitates a richer engagement with the mechanisms by which global closure is achieved for them.

The Parameters of Closure and Their Noncongruence Parameters . . . need not coincide to bring about closure. – Mark Anson-Cartwright10

As intimated by my reference to local and global closure(s) above, musical closure can be identified at varying levels of structure and to varying degrees. The cadence that completes a thematic complex such as a sentence or period, for instance, affects a specific level of intra-thematic closure, but cadence can also be consequential to the work on a larger scale: the implications of that intra-thematic close can influence how formal closure is articulated at later stages of the work (such as at the ESC). Moreover, it can be articulated by a range of phenomena. What we might call global closure – the feeling of having achieved satisfying completion or of having tied up loose ends – is frequently accomplished by a variety of parameters, only one of which is connected to the cadence.11 The same holds true for more localised levels, too, because musical closure incorporates both syntactic and non-syntactic (or non-semantic and semantic) elements. The distinction that Monelle draws between ‘grammatical completion’ and ‘semantic closure’ is significant here: he writes that ‘final sentences of novels are apt to indicate closure of thought or even physical closure. On the other hand, Proust may evoke a scene of nonclosure . . . with a sentence that is at last grammatically closed in the usual way.’12 Thus, grammatical completion can take place without giving the impression of semantic closure just as closure can be enacted by something other than grammatical completion.

10

11

12

h

d i

0 0

Mark Anson-Cartwright, ‘Concepts of Closure in Tonal Music: A Critical Study’, Theory and Practice, 32 (2007), 1–17 (1). For a particularly nuanced consideration of this topic, see Nicholas Marston, ‘“The Sense of an Ending”: Goal-Directedness in Beethoven’s Music’, in The Cambridge Companion to Beethoven, ed. Glenn Stanley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 84–102. Monelle, The Sense of Music, 83.

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

111

112

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation

The vast secondary literature on the topic breaks this down further into three discrete categories: syntactic closure (also referred to as tonal or structural closure, and usually represented by a cadence, Monelle’s ‘grammatical completion’); rhetorical closure (thematic, rhythmic, dynamic, textural, and other signals of finality), and formal closure (pertaining to the completion of a process set up within the work itself which may or may not relate to a pre-existing prototype or form).13 The distinction between these categories is most in evidence when they are misaligned: the fact that one might locate a work’s formal close and large-scale closure (provided, say, by the completion of the Schenkerian Ursatz) at two different junctures, even in unproblematically tonal repertoire, is indicative of their autonomy.14 In a critical study of closure in tonal music, Mark Anson-Cartwright isolates a discrepancy in how these parameters are treated in analytical practice: The only concept or type of closure with . . . strong and obvious empirical support is tonal closure; perhaps for that reason, most descriptions and models of closure privilege tonal closure. This fact may help explain why other aspects (or ‘secondary parameters’) of closure in tonal music – form, rhythm, motivic development, texture, orchestration, and dynamics, to name a few – tend to be neglected, or subordinated to tonal factors.15

The ‘secondary parameters’ listed by Anson-Cartwright relate most closely to rhetorical closure, as defined above. My use of the term ‘rhetorical’ in this manner is informed by Kofi Agawu’s work on structural highpoints (1982 and 1984) and closure (1987), in which he distinguishes between structural parameters (those possessing hierarchical authority by virtue of being functionally indispensible) and rhetorical parameters (those which ‘serve to articulate the formal process of the work in question’).16 Thus, for 13 14

15 16

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Monelle, The Sense of Music, 83. The Schenkerian and non-Schenkerian understandings of ‘coda’ are an illustration of this. For 1 of the structural line and does not Schenker, the beginning of the coda follows the arrival on ^ necessarily coincide with the work’s formal coda. The distinction between ‘structural’ and ‘formal’ codas is outlined in Esther Cavett-Dunsby, ‘Mozart’s Codas’, Music Analysis, 7/1 (1988), 31–51. See also John Rink’s analysis of Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 9. No. 2 in ‘“Structural Momentum” and Closure in Chopin’s Op. 9, No. 2’, in Schenker Studies 2, ed. Carl Schachter and Hedi Siegel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 109–26. Anson-Cartwright, ‘Concepts of Closure in Tonal Music’, 2. Kofi Agawu, ‘The Structural Highpoint as Determinant of Form in Nineteenth-Century Music’, unpublished PhD dissertation, Stanford University (1982), 5. See also ‘Structural “Highpoints” in Schumann’s “Dichterliebe”’, Music Analysis, 3/2 (1984), 159–80 and ‘Concepts of Closure and Chopin’s Opus 28’, Music Theory Spectrum, 9 (1987), 1–17.

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

The Parameters of Closure and Their Noncongruence

Agawu, rhetorical elements need not be consistent from one work to another, but they are nonetheless drawn from the same pool of secondary parameters. Following this definition, the cadence fulfils a ‘syntactic obligation’, but might not ‘carry sufficient rhetorical weight’ to provide an effective balance or sense of closure.17 Caplin might agree: like Agawu, he understands cadence as a fundamentally ‘syntactical component of music’ which provides closure only at a middle-ground level, and he distinguishes it from large-scale formal closure which is accomplished by ‘other musical forces’.18 Hepokoski and Darcy also separate the roles played by syntactical and statistical parameters in Sonata Theory: ‘Tonal form is to be distinguished from rhetorical form, which includes personalized factors of design and ad hoc expression’.19 In other words, although tonal form is ‘generally the same in all sonatas’, rhetorical form, echoing Agawu’s definition of musical parameters, constitutes the individual design of a particular movement.20 Rhetorical closure, understood in this way and for the purposes of this chapter, constitutes those signals of finality which are not tonal in nature and which form part of a work’s individual compositional dynamic. Such strict – and abstract – categorisation begins to collapse, however, when the tonal and rhetorical plots of a particular work do not, as Hepokoski and Darcy have it, ‘unfold simultaneously, intertwined with each other in mutually reinforcing ways’, but seem instead to undercut or contradict each other, as they so often do in music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.21 Most pressing in this regard are moments where one parameter is suggestive of closure, but another is (or others are) not, a practice frequently encountered in Schubert’s quartets and which holds both interpretative and structural consequences. I have explored this kind 17

18 19

20

21

h

d i

0 0

The specific example Agawu is drawing on here is a period structure. See Agawu, Playing with Signs: A Semiotic Interpretation of Classical Music (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 8. Monelle’s distinction between grammatical completion and semantic closure makes a similar point. See Monelle, The Sense of Music, 83. See William Caplin, ‘The Classical Cadence: Conceptions and Misconceptions’, 52 and 65–6. Hepokoski and Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory, 23. On the distinction between syntactical and statistical parameters, see Leonard B. Meyer, Style and Music: Theory, History, and Ideology (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989). Hepokoski and Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory, 23. There are several questions raised by this statement. First and foremost, what are we to make of instances where tonal form is itself rhetorical under this definition? In other words, where tonal form is part of the personalised factors of design of a work as much as the secondary features are? Composers often express a personal approach to form via their use of tonality, so the claim that tonal form is largely the same in all sonatas requires qualification. Hepokoski and Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory, 18.

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

113

114

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation

of parametric non-congruence in the early C-Major Quartet, D46 in a previous study which locates such non-congruence at the boundary between the RT and recapitulation and in the articulation of a B theme in the exposition.22 Here, in an extension of that work, I contextualise parametric non-congruence within Schubert’s quartet practice more broadly and explore its formal implications.23 To do so, I return to a key observation made by Chusid and Dahlhaus in their pivotal work on Schubert’s early quartets which concerns the composer’s independent treatment of tonal and thematic parameters.24 Both Chusid and Dahlhaus note that where there is contrast in a movement’s tonal arena, the thematic events tend to remain static or unchanged, thus providing continuity. This is especially the case, they observe, when the tonal shifts are unexpected or under-prepared, as is often the case in the early works which reveal a preference for tonal juxtaposition, although they rationalise it differently. For Chusid, Schubert’s early movements in bipartite or sonata form ‘tend to fall into relatively disconnected sections. As compensation, Schubert often tries . . . to relate sections thematically’ such that motivic correspondences serve as a bridge between different tonal areas.25 Thus, according to Chusid, the high number of monothematic and motivically derived first movements in the early quartets act as a means of providing continuity or consistency of material in tonally unstable environments.26 As a consequence, he writes, ‘formal clarity suffers’, and these early quartets bear the marks of Schubert’s inability to generate convincing long-range tonal schemes at this stage of his career.27 This bias against the early quartets aside, Chusid’s account of how Schubert compensates for 22

23

24

25 26

27

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

See Hyland, ‘Rhetorical Closure in the First Movement of Schubert’s Quartet in C Major, D. 46.’ On parametric non-congruence, see Peter H. Smith, ‘Liquidation, Augmentation and Brahms’s Recapitulatory Overlaps’, 19th-Century Music, 17 (1994), 237–61; Paul Wingfield and Julian Horton, ‘Norm and Deformation in Mendelssohn’s Sonata Forms’, in Mendelssohn Perspectives, ed. Nicole Grimes and Angela Mace (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 83–112, and Horton, ‘Syntax and Process in the First Movement of Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio Op. 66’, in Rethinking Mendelssohn, ed. Benedict Taylor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020). Although undoubtedly important for the perception of closure, I do not delve into the implications of parametric non-congruence for performance here. On this topic, see Eugene Narmour, ‘On the Relationship of Analytical Theory to Performance and Interpretation’, in Explorations in Music, the Arts, and Ideas: Essays in Honor of Leonard B. Meyer, ed. Leonard B. Meyer, Eugene Narmour, and Ruth A. Solie (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1989), 317–40. Chusid ‘The Chamber Music of Schubert’ and Carl Dahlhaus, ‘Formprobleme in Schuberts frühen Streichquartetten’. Chusid, ‘The Chamber Music of Schubert’, 42. He classes the first movements of D32, D36, and D46 as monothematic, and D18, D68, and D74 as motivically derived. See Chusid, ‘The Chamber Music of Schubert’, 42. Chusid, ‘The Chamber Music of Schubert’, 42.

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

The Parameters of Closure and Their Noncongruence

discontinuity in one musical arena with consistency in another is suggestive of the composer’s independent treatment of the parameters of theme/motivic material and tonality. Dahlhaus understands Schubert’s technique differently: rather than viewing thematic consistency as a form of coherence, he argues conversely that, in the early quartets, Schubert alleviated the monotony of monothematicism by introducing unusual or unexpected tonal relations: Tonal regularity, the modulation to the dominant key in the exposition and the preservation of the tonic in the recapitulation, is almost always bypassed in Schubert’s early quartets: not because he was not aware of the norm, but because he felt that it was monotonous under the condition of monothematicism.28

He draws on the example of the first movement of the B♭ Quartet, D36 as illustration. Although this movement appears to contain a second theme (beginning in bar 62, after the dolce marking), Dahlhaus argues that this is not a suitable candidate since it derives motivically from bar 26 of the first theme. His interest lies in bars 54–61 approaching that moment, which are analysed in Example 3.2. After the close of the A theme with a I: PAC (bar 41), a fortissimo passage in C minor (ii) leads to a ii: HC at bar 54. Together with the one-bar general pause (GP) in the next bar, this sounds and functions very much like an MC, but the ensuing music does not introduce a new theme, instead opting to return to the A theme’s basic idea, albeit now in C major. After just two bars, during which we move down a third through A minor, this C major is reinterpreted as V of F major (V), and the section draws to a close on a PAC in F major – a V: PAC MC – leading, via a short arpeggiated caesura fill, to a basic idea (derived from bars 26–8) expanded to a full theme (B) in the dominant. Bars 56–61 act therefore as a modulating caesura fill between two MC candidates.29 Of this double-MC effect and tonal activity, Dahlhaus writes: The impression that the thematic, tonal and technical criteria are inextricably confused . . . dissolves, however, as soon as one recognises that Schubert . . . wanted to compensate for the monotony of monothematicism through tonal colourfulness.30

28 29

30

h

d i

0 0

Dahlhaus, ‘Formprobleme in Schuberts frühen Streichquartetten’, 194; my translation. This outline suggests an early form of a Schubertian trimodular block (TMB), albeit an oddly proportioned one. The first MC precedes b.i. as TM1 (bar 56), which gives way to liquidation (bars 60–1) and transition into the dominant as TM2, before the second MC heralds the B theme as TM3. On the importance of the TMB to Schubert’s mature expositions, see Hepokoski and Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory, 171. This is Schubert’s earliest engagement with the TMB design in his quartets. ‘Der Schein, dass die thematischen, tonalen und satztechnischen Kriterien unentwirrbar durcheinandergeraten seien . . . löst sich jedoch auf, sobald man erkennt, dass Schubert . . . für die

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

115

116

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation Example 3.2 Schubert, String Quartet in B♭ Major, D36/i, bars 53–63

Thus, for Dahlhaus, the repetitiousness of returning to the A material after the apparent MC as well as the monotony of the motivic connection in the Einförmigkeit der Monothematik durch tonale Farbigkeit entschädigen wollte.’ Dahlhaus, ‘Formprobleme in Schuberts frühen Streichquartetten’, 194, my translation.

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

The Parameters of Closure and Their Noncongruence Table 3.1 Categorisation of Schubert’s expositions in the early quartets Type of Exposition

Contrast Provided By

Examples

Monothematic or motivically derived

New key(s) in exposition

D32/i, D36/i D18/i

Non-tonic key at point of recapitulation Monotonal or lack of stability of second expositional key

New thematic idea(s) in exposition Non-tonic key at point of recapitulation

D94/i, D46/i D94/i, D46/i

B theme are offset by tonal mobility.31 Again, like Chusid, Dahlhaus views this as a process of compensation in one arena for another. Chusid’s and Dahlhaus’s observations can be developed in two directions. First, because their focus is the explication of monothematic movements, neither author explores the possibility of the inverse scenario, whereby a theme or motif provides contrast against a monotonal background. As Table 3.1 illustrates, attention to Schubert’s monotonal expositions reveals that this principle of treating theme and tonality separately works in both directions: monotonal expositions are frequently counterbalanced by the introduction of new thematic material. Furthermore, the categorisation in Table 3.1 highlights the role of the off-tonic recapitulation – a vital site of parametric non-congruence – as a response to both monothematic and monotonal expositions in these works. The first movements of D94 and D46, for instance, display monotonal expositions with thematic contrast and off-tonic, first-theme recapitulations which blur the boundary between RT and recapitulation; Schubert therefore balances the tonally static expositions with tonally mobile recapitulations.32 Indeed, because the expected tonal shift to a secondary key is not forthcoming in the exposition, despite the introduction of new 31

32

h

d i

0 0

This movement is a good example of Webster’s classification of a three-key exposition in which the second key is not afforded any cadential stability: here, C major provides tonal contrast, as Dahlhaus had it, but is not cadentially confirmed. Both movements can be classed as Type 3 sonatas in that their recapitulations begin with clear A-theme material. The dating of these two quartets in the Neue Schubert Ausgabe suggests that D94 is the earlier of the two (1811–12), D46 having been composed in early 1813. While no precise date of composition is available for D94, Ernst Hilmar suggests 1811. See Hilmar, ‘Datierungsprobleme im Werk Schuberts’, in Schubert-Kongress Wien 1978: Bericht, ed. Otto Brusatti (Graz: Akademische Durck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1979), 45–60.

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

117

118

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation

thematic material, both movements present two clear instances of structurally significant parametric non-congruence, revealing the pervasiveness of the technique. Second, neither Chusid nor Dahlhaus explores the implications of this strategy for the articulation of closure, and thus of form, in these movements. What does it mean, for instance, to say that an exposition’s thematic events outline a continuous structure, while its tonal plot shows contrast? Equally, what are the closural implications of a monotonal exposition that yet displays secondary thematic material? If the tonal and thematic, or better, the tonal and rhetorical parameters of these early works frequently contradict one another, this is likely to have an impact on formal design. It is this structural impact upon which this chapter focuses, and the ensuing section begins this exploration via a consideration of the EEC in Schubert’s two earliest quartets: D.18/i and D.94/i.

Functional Retrogression: The String Quartets, D18/i and D94/i Two of the major recent theories of form – Sonata Theory and the theory of formal functions – are fundamentally divided regarding the location of the cadence which ends the second theme group in a sonata-form exposition. For Hepokoski and Darcy, the EEC is ‘the first satisfactory perfect authentic cadence that proceeds onward to differing material.’33 Any cadences which come in the wake of that EEC are part of a closing zone. For Caplin, conversely, the second theme group may contain more than one PAC, and its end is marked by the final PAC of the group. The distinction rests on the theories’ respective definition of the closing zone or closing theme. For Caplin, this is postcadential, and usually comprises a series of codettas which are not thematic in the strict sense. For Hepokoski and Darcy, the closing zone may contain thematic material which itself might be closed via a PAC.34 This question is important when considering the form of Schubert’s B groups in the early quartet expositions, many of which, as Table 3.2 illustrates, contain multiple PACs, although in keys other than the expected ones.

33 34

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Hepokoski and Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory, 120. Despite these differences, there will be occasions (usually shorter pieces) where the cadences in both – Caplin’s codetta and Hepokoski and Darcy’s modules – will coincide.

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Functional Retrogression: String Quartets, D94 and D18

119

Table 3.2 Identification of the EEC in Schubert’s quartet first movements, 1811–13 Movement

Bar Nos.

D18/i

74–75

EEC Candidate i: HC

Further Description

114–15 124–25

V: PAC V: InAC

D94/i

89–90 93–94

V: PAC I: PAC

Undermined by I: PAC in Codetta 2, bars 92–4 Followed by A theme in IV, ending on V/I

D32/i

111–12

V: PAC

Cadence only – no theme fully in V

D36/i

76–77 86–87

V: PAC V: PAC

Elided cadence Elided with repeat of A theme

D46/i

67–68 72–73

V: IAC V–I in V, but no cadence

^3 in top voice

D68/i

70–71 83–84

V: PAC V: PAC

D74/i

204–05 242–43

V: PAC V: PAC

Followed immediately by repeat marks, signalling an exposition repeat Elided PAC V6–I = incomplete authentic cadence Final cadence before recapitulation, implies a binary form

Continuous motion in top voice undermines cadential arrival

Final PAC before recapitulation, implies a binary form with no development section

As made clear in Table 3.2, Schubert’s two earliest quartet movements problematise the point of expositional closure, the first by an ostensible HC EEC(!) and the second by articulating the final expositional PAC in the tonic. One of the main curiosities of D18/i which makes locating the expositional close less than straightforward is Schubert’s placement of a repeat sign at the end of bar 75. At first blush, one might assume that this signals an expositional repeat, and therefore that the exposition, enclosed by repeat marks and preceded by a slow introduction, encompasses bars 40–75. If that were the case, we would identify a rather short (30-bar) exposition ending with a i: HC in bar 75, as shown in Example 3.3. Despite the unorthodox nature of ending the exposition on the dominant of the home key without any prior modulation, Chusid makes a case for hearing this as such given that the implied hammer blows at bars 74–75 act as sign of closure, compensating for the lack of a PAC.35 Schubert employs this same cadential gesture again at the end of the recapitulation (bars

35

h

d i

0 0

Chusid, ‘The Chamber Music of Schubert’, 54. Chusid restarts the bar numbering after the slow introduction, so he locates the end of the exposition at bars 35–6 (my bars 74–5).

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

120

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation Example 3.3 Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor/B♭ Major, D18/i, bars 72–5

203–04) and to finish the coda (bars 218–19), thus giving the same impression of finality to each of the sections. Yet, as Table 3.2 demonstrates, ending the exposition on a HC would be unusual for the young Schubert, whose expositions always reach a PAC, even though the key of that PAC might be unorthodox.36 Further problematising the reading of a i: HC EEC is the fact that a move to a secondary key – the dominant minor – is carried out after the repeat sign, during bars 76–94, thus presenting itself as a candidate for the second theme group, albeit in the dominant minor rather than relative major. If this is not the second theme group (as the repeat marks suggest), could it be considered as the development? Perhaps. But a more sensible place to locate the start of the development would be after the change of key signature and with the fugato entry in the cello at bar 95. Schubert begins other string-quartet development sections with imitative writing: see, for instance, D36/i, D46/i, and D804/i, so this seems more characteristic. But, here again, one encounters problems: tonally speaking, this is the most stable section of the entire movement – it remains in D major throughout, a key that is twice established via PAC (at bars 114–15 and 124–25) – and is therefore an unlikely development. As Example 3.4 illustrates, the sense of finality provided by this section’s final cadence, supported by a stepwise descending melodic line, mirrored two octaves lower in the bass, and with a cadential trill in the 36

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

This is not to ignore the fact that first-time or bridging bars frequently restore the home dominant before the repeat of the exposition; this, however, usually occurs after the PAC that provides expositional closure. See D94/, D36/i, and D46/i.

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Functional Retrogression: String Quartets, D94 and D18 Example 3.4 Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor/B♭ Major, D18/i, bars 123–5, reduction

Violin I part, would seem instead to mark the end of the second theme group, and thus the exposition, at least in Caplin’s terms. If these bars are taken as the expositional close, then the movement exhibits a i:HC MC followed by a double second group which begins by modulating to the dominant minor (bar 76) and ends with the PAC in the dominant major (bar 125) followed by a short bridging passage leading straight into the recapitulation at bar 132. So much for tonality. Part of what makes this exposition so difficult to explain in terms of sonata form is its lack of identifiable thematic syntax. As Chusid rightly notes, the Presto vivace is saturated by a four-bar motivic idea introduced in the movement’s slow introduction. Examples 3.5(a–d) illustrate that each section of the movement derives its thematic material from this motif: the A1 theme takes it up as its basic idea, it is heard in inversion after the repeat sign at bars 76–82 as B1, and again in its prime form in the fugato section (bars 95ff) marked B2. Chusid also notes the similarity between the introduction’s motif and the figure at bars 58–62 and 161–64. Although the stepwise ascent and interval of a third is common to both, the addition of an upbeat changes the character considerably, and thus I label it motif ‘y’ in Examples 3.6(a and b). The correspondence between each of these ideas is essentially rhythmic, with contrast being introduced via inversion, articulation, or a change in pitch level or key, such as in the D-major fugato section or the movement’s dominant ‘recapitulation’, and the motif serves an important connective role between the various sections. Nonetheless, while the sections are clearly distinguishable in their differing treatment of this motif, the material never crystallises into identifiable theme types, such as a sentence or period. What I have termed A1 is a 12-bar construct (4+4+4) ending on an

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

121

122

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation Example 3.5a Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor/B♭ Major, D18/i, motif ‘x’, bars 1–2

Example 3.5b Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor/B♭ Major, D18/i, motif ‘x’, bars 40–3

Example 3.5c Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor/B♭ Major, D18/i, motif ‘x’, bars 76–9

Example 3.5d Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor/B♭ Major, D18/i, motif ‘x’, bars 95–100

Example 3.6a Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor/B♭ Major, D18/i, motif ‘y’, bars 58–62

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Functional Retrogression: String Quartets, D94 and D18 Example 3.6b Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor/B♭ Major, D18/i, motif ‘y’, bars 161–5

elided i: PAC, and B1 is a seven-bar phrase whose final i: PAC immediately enacts a modulation to D minor. This latter cadence exhibits what Caplin terms ‘formal circularity’: the use of the melodic-motivic material of the basic idea at the cadence, with no liquidation of the material, and it is suggestive of the work’s pursuit of a Romantic orientation to cadence.37 This lack of clear thematic syntax, however ostensibly problematic it seems, also serves to offer Schubert a degree of flexibility with his material: since it is the motif, often as basic idea, that both connects the movement and drives it onwards, he is able to adopt a strikingly malleable approach to form in the recapitulation. The exposition of D94/i similarly ends with a tonally anomalous closure. On the face of it, the movement seems to exhibit Schubert’s ‘reluctance to leave the tonic’, especially when it comes to establishing a new key for new thematic material.38 As shown in the analysis of the exposition’s formal functions provided in Table 3.3, the A group encompasses bars 1–54 and contains three thematic units (A1, A2, and A3), only the third of which ends with a I:PAC. Following a brief closing section, a normative half cadence MC in the tonic at bars 81–82 sets up the second group, but two features of the ensuing music fundamentally problematise the standard expositional narrative. First, despite the introduction of contrasting material, the B group relapses into the tonic key for the presentation phrase of B1. Example 3.7 reveals that the dominant is arrived at during the continuation phrase, in which Schubert pivots on a first-inversion B-minor chord (bar 87), leading into a V64 -7 progression in A major at bars 88–9. A post-cadential vamp alternating I – V7 makes up a two-bar codetta (labelled as Codetta 1). This establishment of the dominant key is, however, immediately revoked: the codetta is repeated, this time in the tonic key, as Codetta 2, leading to the third I: PAC of the movement at bars 92–4.

37

38

h

d i

0 0

‘Whereas this technique has some precedents in the classical style, is it more frequently encountered in Romantic practice.’ See Caplin, ‘Beyond the Classical Cadence’, 9. Webster, ‘Schubert’s Sonata Form’, 31.

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

123

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Table 3.3 Schubert, String Quartet in D Major, D.94/i, exposition, form-functional reading

Functional Retrogression: String Quartets, D94 and D18

Example 3.7 Schubert, String Quartet in D Major, D94/i, bars 82–94

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

125

126

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation

Example 3.8 Schubert, String Quartet in D Major, D94/i, exposition, bass progression and tonal plot

Second, not only does the tonic key return, but the thematic material also reverts to A1 in bar 95, revealing a lyrical ‘rounded’ profile (ABA′). This time A1 is rooted on the subdominant and with a repetition on the supertonic, leading to a fourth (and the exposition’s final) PAC in the tonic key at bars 107–08. This can be understood as the movement’s tonally unorthodox EEC because it articulates a strong sense of closure, albeit on the wrong tonal plane. The exposition therefore adopts a cyclical design, essentially ending – tonally and thematically – where it began. In typical Schubertian fashion, this move away from the tonic and return to it across the exposition is mimicked on a local level in the A group’s A3. A new melody in bar 28 sounds like the opening of a sentential theme (A3), the basic idea and repetition of which occur over V of F♯ minor (the mediant), prolonged as a pedal note in the bass for nine bars. This, however, turns to A major for the continuation phrase, before setting up a I: PAC in bars 43–4. While F♯ minor is not cadentially established as a secondary key area, it is nonetheless significant both in providing tonal contrast and as a means of expanding the A group and tonic region. Similarly, the B group is internally expanded via a move from the dominant back to the tonic. Consequently, the exposition suggests a three-key tonal design, whereby the dominant (A major) is approached via F♯ minor (iii), which returns momentarily to D major, thus tracing a I–iii–I–V structure: the tonal path of bars 3–94 is illustrated in Example 3.8. Of course, all of this happens within the context of an exposition that ends firmly in the tonic key. A tonal and thematic expositional scheme such as this might summon familiar criticism of Schubert’s predilection for repetition and inability to leave the tonic. Alternatively, an Adornian reading might focus on the shift in perspective afforded by the move to D minor as part of the TR (bars 62ff) which, although it does not affect a

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Functional Retrogression: String Quartets, D94 and D18

modulation to the tonic minor, nonetheless provides contrast to the tonic. The question of which key presents itself as the tonic’s formal counterpart in this movement nonetheless remains unanswered at this point in the movement. Neither F♯ minor nor A major seem to fulfil that role, given that the moves towards both give way to the tonic. Thus, the exposition displays two instances of tonal retrogression: I ⇐ iii (an apparent move to iii reverts to I) and, on a larger scale, I ⇐ V (after a V: PAC at bars 88–9, that local tonic [A major] ‘becomes’ the dominant in D once again, thus reverting to the tonic key). The recapitulations of D18/i and D94/i answer their expositional problematics in diverse ways, but to similar ends, illustrating how both movements can be read generatively – as examples of form coming into being as the piece unfolds. Initially, the recapitulation of D18/i seems to offer no clear answer to the questions posed in the exposition: what we might imagine as the recapitulation (beginning with A material in the dominant minor at bar 132) first truncates the original thematic complex, and subsequently – after reaching the V: HC (bars 146–7, equivalent to bars 74–5 but with an additional seventh in the top voice) – abandons the rotational design of the exposition altogether. Moreover, it not only begins off-tonic, suggesting a Type 2 strategy, but also displays the greatest amount of harmonic and tonal motion in the entire movement and is harmonically open-ended, coming to a close on a I: HC in bar 204 with the same closural gesture used to end the first repeated section. In fact, although it begins by referencing A material, this section progresses by way of a series of derivations of earlier material in increasingly remote tonal contexts – thus functioning as a development. The double return of A1 and tonic key, ending in a satisfactory i: PAC, is delayed until the coda. It is important to consider in what sense bars 161–91 may be said to constitute a displaced development section, as I have indicated. First, these bars are the most harmonically adventurous of the entire movement, tonicising E♭ minor, G♭ major, and B♭ minor en route to F minor. Second, they are concerned with the treatment of motifs ‘x’ and ‘y’. In the first section, motif ‘y’ initiates a modulating transition that leads to a V42 chord in E♭ minor (bar 174). After this, a one-bar fragment common to both motifs ‘x’ and ‘y’ is transformed into a lyrical model-sequence passage beginning and ending in E♭ minor (the submediant) and moving from G♭ major to B minor in the second and third phrases of the sequence. Thus, the fragmentation and transformation of these motifs is here deemed developmental. Moreover, this chain of third-related tonicisations accomplished

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

127

128

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation Example 3.9 Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor/B♭ Major, D18/i, voice-leading transformations in the displaced development, bars 165–99

via a series of voice-leading shifts, shown in Example 3.9, is prescient both of Schubert’s use of sequence in his later development sections, as well as his mode of modulation right up to and including the C-major Quintet, D956. The apex of the development is the fortissimo chord of F minor (vii) at bar 189, which initiates a dissipation of energy and a return to D via descending stepwise motion through E ♮ and E ♭ (bars 197–98). Thus, E♭ is flanked on either side by D minor and F minor then major, and the entire progression may be understood in G minor as: v–vi–vii/VII–V, showing the greatest amount of harmonic change in the entire movement. The development (and thus, the large second part) ends, as the first, with a i: HC cadential gesture leading back to the tonic. Thus, despite initial taxonomic difficulties, the movement is nonetheless logically structured, and the ambiguity surrounding the formal boundaries is offset by the clear articulation of formal functions. By focussing on the role (or roles) carried out by each section, we can alleviate this need to categorise, and recognise the movement’s processual tendencies. The critical tension between formal boundary and formal function is summarised in Table 3.4 via the symbols for functional retrogression. The reading presented here understands the movement as a large binary form with two repeated sections – A and B, respectively – the second of which serves both recapitulatory and developmental functions, and all of which is framed by a slow introduction and coda.39 In this sense, the movement displays a tension between a two- and a three-part structure: the repetition of the first and second halves of the form emphasises its two-part nature

39

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

This type of design is also sometimes found in later nineteenth-century pieces such as some early Dvořák or Berwald. On the former see Peter H. Smith ‘Parallel Binary or Tripartite? Formal Hybridisation of Sonata Types in the Nineteenth Century’, Music Analysis, 40/3 (2021) 534–78.

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

* = implied hammer blows.

Table 3.4 Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor/ B♭ Major, D18/i, form-functional reading

130

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation

while the thematic return of part I in B’s second part draws out the parallel with the opening A section. As Table 3.4 demonstrates, the A section – analogous to an expositional A group – introduces the main thematic material in the tonic (motifs ‘x’ and ‘y’), and leads to a TR coming to a close on a i: HC (bars 74–5), which can be understood as the MC.40 The inversioninversion of the basic idea after the double barline offers motivic contrast (a new idea that is nonetheless derived from motif ‘x’) and brings about a modulation to D minor, which is then modally altered to D major for the introduction of the fugato section which initially acts as a development section, but ultimately functions as B2 (B2 ⇐ dev), leading to the V: PAC EEC in bars 124–5. A contrasting idea leads into the RT heralding the return of A1 in D minor at bar 132. The achievement of closure in the tonic is, however, withheld until the return of A1 in the coda, where the basic idea is combined with a contrapuntally strong I: PAC – a technique Schubert uses again in all the movements examined in this chapter. This reading of the movement holds that all the elements one might expect of a sonata form exist here, although they are not in the anticipated order or configuration: the development, in particular, is displaced until after the return of the A material. Moreover, rarely do sections carry out a single function; their tendency is to transform from one function into another, usually an earlier, rather than a subsequent function. Table 3.5 summarises the functional transformations in this movement. These functional transformations betray a processual approach to form, in the sense that the function of individual sections becomes clear only at a later point in the movement. This places Schubert firmly within later generations of nineteenth-century composers for whom the technique of ‘becoming’ (whereby later events retrospectively redefine earlier ones) is a staple of their compositional toolkit.41 Significantly, these transformational processes do not always yield forward motion, but instead reinterpret a given event at a lower formal level, thereby displaying functional retrogression. For example, the initial reading of a monotonal exposition retrospectively becomes the A group with TR (A + TR ⇐ monotonal exposition); what begins as a development is reinterpreted as B2 (B2 ⇐ dev), and the ostensible recapitulation of A in the dominant becomes transitional in function, with the return to motif 40

41

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

The hammer blows accompanying this HC can alternatively be read, contra Chusid, as strong markers of an MC, following Hepokoski and Darcy’s observation that a triple ‘hammer-blow effect is a common means of simultaneously bringing the energy-gain of TR to a terminal peak’. See Hepokoski and Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory, 34. Informed by the work of Smith and Horton, I think especially of Mendelssohn and Brahms in this regard, and also Berwald.

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Table 3.5 Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor/B♭ Major, D18/i, functional retrogressions

132

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation Table 3.6 Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor/B♭ Major, D18/i, large-scale functional retrogressions

‘y’ initiating a modulatory development section.42 The denial of cadential closure at bar 75 of the A section is very much key to understanding this process: although denied the cadence, the motivic correspondence between it, the end of the recapitulation, and the end of the coda again plays out Schubert’s independent treatment of tonality and rhetoric in the articulation of closure. This can be better visualised as in Table 3.6 which draws out the specifically retrospective nature of these techniques and their movement between different levels of the form. The top row indicates a suggested birotational design which is nonetheless abandoned by the second rotation. I consider the functional retrogression here as being fundamentally in dialogue with the concept of form as a process of becoming. It suggests that the retrospective nature of Schubert’s sonata forms identified by Dahlhaus was essentially correct, albeit not in the way he defined it. The recapitulation of D94/i is equally anomalous not only in respect of its initiating tonality, but also in its treatment of expositional material. Entering in the flattened subtonic, C major, it begins by revisiting the A1 and A2 material, as shown in Table 3.7. A2’s contrasting idea is extended to move back towards the tonic, and it ends (as in the exposition) on a half cadence in D major. After this point, however, the movement – like D18/i – abandons the rotational design of the exposition: there is no return of B material (bars 83–94), and the remaining sections of the A group (A3 and the closing group) are recapitulated only partially and at some distance from one other – the C group, as made clear by Table 3.7, returns only in the coda. Instead, the remainder of the recapitulation (from bar 197) is structured around three large sequences outlining a lyrical small ternary form, followed by a coda.

42

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

The capacity of processes of functional transformation to work retrospectively will be explored in greater depth in my discussion of ‘retrospective teleology’ in Chapter 4.

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Table 3.7 Schubert, String Quartet in D Major, D94/i, recapitulation, form-functional analysis

134

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation

The A section (bars 197–240) of this small ternary form begins by recapitulating motif ‘x’ from the TR material first heard at bar 54, but quickly introduces a new motivic idea in the upbeat to bar 203. This passage modulates through a circle of fifths, ultimately leading to the dominant of D in bar 228, proceeding to a I: PAC in bars 239–40. The arrival on the tonic chord of that cadence is elided with the second sequence, or B section of the small ternary form, which is more loosely constructed and emphasises the key of C (major and minor). It reaches a HC in C minor at bars 270–2, but is then extended via developmental material, coming to a close on an elided I: PAC (bars 302–03).43 The B section is composed of a series of detached motivic fragments of earlier themes including the following: A3 material (bar 28) initially transposed, then moving back into the tonic at bar 256; the opening of the development section (now in C minor) at bar 273, and a variant of the development’s material on the dominant of C. The loose construction and frequent silences of this section contrast with the framing sections, A and A′, which show continuous motion. Moreover, because bars 197–347 develop material from earlier in the movement and destabilise the tonic, this section as a whole is referred to as an expanded developmental episode. Again, a comparison with the sequences in D18/i would not be out of place. This ABA′ Liedsatz, however, leads to the EEC: a PAC in the tonic at bars 346–7. It is therefore fundamentally harmonically driven and motivated: its role is actively to compose out the tonal conflict between D major and C major and to introduce an element of modal mixture into the realm of C, as had occurred for D in the exposition.44 Although each sequence ends on a PAC in the tonic, the move to C minor in the B section is important because it undermines the tonic’s stability at this point. It is this working out of the tonal conflict and its eventual resolution in A′ that makes it possible to understand this section, as in D18/i, as merging developmental and recapitulatory functions: it enacts both tonal destabilisation and resolution. A more developed formulation of the concept of formal ‘becoming’ is evident here than in D18/i. By focusing momentarily on tonal plot, it is possible to understand this movement as a series of large-scale retrogressions as outlined in Table 3.8. 43

44

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Because the B section’s HC is followed by a PAC it is anomalous with respect to Caplin’s definition of a small ternary form, the middle section of which would normally end on a HC. In Black’s reading of this movement, C major is the tonic’s ‘competing tonality’ and his ‘recapitulation’ is ‘dominated by a struggle between D major and C major, with D major winning out’. Given that C major is never established via PAC, as is the dominant, I do not see it as the fundamental tonal pole to D major in this work, although I acknowledge its centrality to the tonal drama of this section. See Black, ‘Schubert’s Development of Harmonic Motives’.

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Table 3.8 Schubert, String Quartet in D Major, D94/i, functional retrogressions

136

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation Table 3.9 Schubert, String Quartet in D Major, D94/i, large-scale functional retrogressions

Under this model, the monotonal exposition retrospectively becomes a massively enlarged A group in D major, structured as an ABA′ Liedsatz (see Table 3.3 for detail). The development section is understood as providing a modulating TR between D major and C major, and the recapitulation becomes A′ which introduces tonal contrast in C major, a lyrical (ABA′) sequential development in a small ternary form, and ultimately delivering the movement’s tonal resolution via the EEC and a post-cadential coda. This suggests a kind of two-dimensionality, whereby a higher-level, largescale function operates at a lower level of structure as an intrathematic function; this is illustrated in Table 3.9.45 Thus, while Black’s reading of this movement locates its lyrical quality in the material of its ‘characteristic motif, which consists of the contrast between tonic and submediant’, my reading extends the scope of the lyric to matters of form and specifically to the movement’s propensity for circular, ABA′ thematic groupings.46 Understood in this way, the movement gives voice to a directed, rather than conformational, tonal scheme and an undivided sonata-form structure. The off-tonic recapitulation is essential to this, as it makes the tonic serve ultimately as the goal, rather than the source of the tonal motion – a point persuasively made by Gordon Sly in relation to Schubert’s off-tonic recapitulations in the later works.47 In contrast to the directed and continuous tonal scheme, the group’s thematic and rhetorical parameters display aspects of rondo principle coupled with a distinct sense of intra-movement cyclicism. A-group material reappears not only at bar 168, but also in the coda when we return to A3 at bar 348 (after the structural cadence) and thence to A1’s basic idea, thereby creating a structural parallel between the end of the exposition and the close 45 46 47

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

See Vande Moortele, Two-Dimensional Sonata Form. Black, ‘Schubert’s Development of Harmonic Motives’. Gordon Sly, ‘Design and Structure in Schubert’s Sonata Forms: An Evolution toward Integration’, in Keys to the Drama: Nine Perspectives on Sonata Forms, ed. Gordon Sly (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 129–55.

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Schubert’s MC Practice in the Quartet First Movements

of the entire movement. Thus, on a thematic level, the movement progresses cyclically: the reiteration of A1 material at the end of the exposition and again in the movement’s final bars, coupled with the sequential treatment of ‘x’ in the recapitulation, bespeak a cyclic aesthetic (characterised by overt references to earlier material), and these features are presumably what led Dahlhaus to compare this movement to a ritornello.48 The structural ramifications of this are acutely felt: the movement articulates a dialectical tension between one continuous unfolding process of tonal actualisation, and the cyclicism of thematic recall. And, just as in D18/i, where motivic connectivity co-existed with tonal exploration, this dialectical tension gives rise to a formal process which is decidedly end-orientated.

Schubert’s MC Practice in the Quartet First Movements The relationship between theme and tonality is again vital to the articulation of the exposition’s central cadential punctuation: the MC. Although the terminological shorthand for the MC emphasises its cadential mechanisms – the I: HC MC, for instance – it is simultaneously a harmonic and textural phenomenon. Its rhetorical features play an important part not only in the articulation of the caesura itself, but also in the acceptance or denial of the harmonic proposal: how we understand cadence is fundamentally informed by parameters such as harmonic rhythm, dynamics, and texture. Recent scholarship has sought to recognise this by acknowledging the event’s tripartite structure. The three discrete states of a complete MC are outlined by Richards in the diagram provided in Figure 3.1, involving: (1) Harmonic preparation

TR

Textural gap

Acceptance by S

S

Medial Caesura

Figure 3.1 Three stages of a complete MC, after Mark Richards (2013), 168

48

h

d i

0 0

Dahlhaus, ‘Formprobleme’, 193. I use the term ‘cyclic aesthetic’ here to refer not to the more common idea of the recall of earlier material in later movements of a multi-movement work (cyclic form), but to the re-use of material within a single movement.

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

137

138

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation

Standard-key harmonic preparation

Textural gap

Acceptance/ rejection by S

Medial Caesura

TR

Non-standard harmonic preparation

‘Corrective’ caesura fill

S

Acceptance/ rejection by S

Figure 3.2 Available routes through the three stages of a complete MC Complex

harmonic preparation, (2) a textural gap (with or without fill), and (3) acceptance by the ensuing B theme.49 By disaggregating the ‘acceptance by S’ from the harmonic preparation, Richards is able to demonstrate the myriad ways by which the earlier stage can obscure or problematise that acceptance, and he categorises Beethoven’s MCs based on their degree of obscurity. Thus, in drawing attention to the degree of interaction between stages one and three of the process, Richards’s work encourages a more nuanced examination of the role played by rhetorical features in the process of MC acceptance or denial. Moreover, this approach is helpful in explaining instances where an MC is normative in respect of one stage of the process, but not of another; a feature that is vital when discussing Schubert’s quartet and quintet MCs, none of which carry out all three stages unproblematically. To account for Schubertian practice, Figure 3.2 highlights the key role adopted by the textural gap in such instances in redirecting the TR’s harmonic preparation by way of a ‘corrective’ caesura fill. This set of possibilities is what I term the MC Complex (MCC). It recognises the different paths through which an MC can proceed: the acceptance of a non-standard harmonic preparation is not the same as a rejection of a standard harmonic preparation, for instance. In other words, the upper and lower levels of Figure 3.2 are not mutually exclusive: a nonstandard harmonic preparation may be followed by a textural gap and accepted by the B theme or it might be ‘corrected’ en route to B during a caesura fill.50 49

50

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Mark Richards, ‘Beethoven and the Obscured Medial Caesura: A Study in the Transformation of Style’, Music Theory Spectrum, 35/2 (2013), 166–93. Such is the case with Schubert’s D32/i and D68/i.

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Schubert’s MC Practice in the Quartet First Movements

An overview of Schubert’s MC practice in his string-quartet and -quintet first movements is given in Table 3.10, which focuses on the expositional MC since it is this that sets up the expectations for the remainder of the exposition and impacts the recapitulation. As shown, although Schubert favours HC MCs over PAC MCs, yet his treatment of the MC, as has been noted by Christopher Tarrant, Gabriel Navia, and Horton, is notoriously uncharacteristic of the sonata-theoretical model.51 Schubert’s ‘deformational’ MCs are broken down into four categories adopted from Horton’s examination of the MC practices of Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Brahms with one exception: I retain the sonata-theoretical term ‘MC declined’ (rather than evaded) for a situation in which the theme does not satisfactorily accept the harmonic/tonal path offered by the MC’s harmonic preparation; this terminology takes into account that the acceptance is normally carried out by a suitable B (or ‘S’) candidate, as indicated in Figure 3.2.52 Although these figures are broadly aligned with the statistical data given by Horton for Schubert’s MC practice across domestic genres, there are some notable differences.53 First, in Horton’s corpus, 59.28% of Schubert’s MCs are classed as deformations, in contrast to the 71% identified here suggesting that Schubert’s practice in the quartets/quintets was on average more ‘deformational’ than in domestic genres collectively. Moreover, while the domestic genres show an equal preference for MC evaded and MC in a non-standard key (12 each), this corpus reveals a preference for the MC declined category above any other (28.6%), followed closely by MC in a non-standard key (26.2%) and elided MCs (11.9%). Schubert’s elided MCs are of the PAC or IAC type, and all engage to some degree with one of his most characteristic practices: the three-key exposition. Thus, if one were to arrange Schubert’s string-quartet and -quintet MCs into a hierarchy of ‘default’ types, as Hepokoski and Darcy do for their (admittedly much larger) corpus repertoire, it would look as outlined in Table 3.11. The three most frequent or ‘normative’ Schubertian MCs are deformational (in line with Horton’s categories), and of the standard-key MCs, Schubert shows a

51

52

53

h

d i

0 0

On which subject see Tarrant, ‘Schubert, Sonata Theory, Psychoanalysis’; Gabriel Henrique Bianco Navia, ‘The Medial Caesura in Schubert’s Sonata Forms: Formal and Rhetorical Complications’, PhD dissertation, University of Arizona (2016), and Horton, ‘Criteria for a Theory of Nineteenth-Century Form’. On the MC declined and the ‘blocked’ medial caesura see Hepokoski and Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory, 45–8. Compare Table 3.10 with Horton’s Tables 5 and 8 in his ‘Criteria for a Theory of NineteenthCentury Form’, 161 and 164.

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

139

140

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation Table 3.10a Schubert, String Quartet first movements, expositional MC totals

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Schubert’s MC Practice in the Quartet First Movements Table 3.10b

* This cadence can alternatively be read as a III: PAC into bar 61 with accompanimental overlap.

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

141

142

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation Table 3.11 Schubert, String Quartet first movements, hierarchy of MC defaults Default Level

MC Type

First-level default Second-level default Third-level default Fourth-level default

MC declined MC in non-standard key MC elided with B I: HC MC

preference for the I: HC MC (second-level default) over the V: HC MC (first-level default).53 Other discrepancies between my data and Horton’s arise from the slightly different connotations of the MC evaded and MC declined categories. To clarify my usage of the term, Table 3.12 groups Schubert’s declined MCs into six categories which broadly overlap with Horton’s, and the MCs are further separated into two categories to reveal tendencies in standard-key MCs and non-standard-key MCs, respectively.54 For example, while Horton and I both identify a I: HC MC in D94/i, yet the acceptance of that normative MC is not forthcoming, the music instead moving immediately to the tonic minor and subsequently reverting to the tonic; since the B theme takes a different harmonic course than that proposed by the MC, I therefore classify it, contra Horton, as ‘MC declined’. The same holds for our differing readings of the two MC events in D46/i and my MC1 of D74/i, all of which appear in the default categories for Horton.55 To my ears, these MCs are subsequently declined (in D46/i by remaining in the tonic key [MC1] and by denying a suitable B theme in the dominant [MC2], in D74/i by progressing to a tonally unstable TR functioning as an interpolated development), and I therefore categorise them also as instances of MC declined. Similarly, while we agree that D32/i displays a continuous exposition, I nonetheless recognise a proposed MC event at bars 38–9: a deformational IV: HC MC, which is subsequently rejected. And finally, I identify two MC events in D68/i in contrast to Horton’s single MC: the first is a V: IAC MC (bars 17–18) which elides with a B theme in the dominant (bar 20); the second, a vi: HC MC (bars 50–1), is declined by the ensuing theme which first reverts to the tonic before being ‘corrected’ into the dominant. Under this reading of D68/i, all four deformational categories coalesce in a single movement. 54

55

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

See James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy, ‘The Medial Caesura and Its Role in the EighteenthCentury Sonata Exposition’, Music Theory Spectrum, 19/2 (1997), 115–54 and Hepokoski and Darcy, Elements. See Horton, ‘Criteria for a Theory of Nineteenth-Century Form’, table 5, 161.

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

* D68/i: the modulation to the ‘correct’ V takes place during the B theme, rather than in the CF.

Table 3.12 Schubert: String Quartets and Quintets, MC-declined categories

144

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation

Example 3.10 Schubert, String Quartet in D Minor, D810/i, bars 57–61

These discrepancies highlight the fact that there can often be a (sometimes high) degree of ambiguity surrounding the MC event. Frequently, this complicates the identification of the cadence, meaning that it can be read in more than one way. This is nowhere more in evidence than when attempting to distinguish between a HC and a PAC MC showing elision, as in D810/i marked with an asterisk in Table 3.10. The expositional MC in this movement has previously been read as either a III: HC MC (Horton and Tarrant) or a III: PAC MC (Navia), as indicated by the annotations in Example 3.10. As shown, Horton and Tarrant identify a HC at bar 60, whereas Navia marks a PAC on the downbeat of bar 61. Two features suggest a III: HC reading: first, neither the leading note, E, nor the 7th of the chord (B♭) is satisfactorily resolved, owing in part to the fact that the top two voices drop out; and second, the V7 chord is followed by a clear break in the texture (the caesura), provided by a GP, after which new thematic material is introduced. The use of the seventh in the chord makes this a distinctively Romantic HC.56 Conversely, the clear root-position motion from dominant to tonic, the steady one-per-bar hypermetre between the pre-dominant, dominant, 56

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

See Schmalfeldt, In the Process of Becoming and Caplin, ‘Beyond the Classical Cadence’.

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Schubert’s MC Practice in the Quartet First Movements

and tonic chords, and a general descent in the voice parts and dynamic level support Navia’s reading of a III: PAC. Indeed, the three beats of silence in bar 59 could arguably be said to vitiate the caesural sense of the same part of bar 60 by establishing the silence as a kind of norm, rather than as a rhetorical event. Thus, it is not clear that one reading is objectively more convincing than the other; the difference will be found in the authors’ contextual interpretation of the passage. The cadence can in fact be unproblematically understood as both – as two available routes through the MCC. The same question surrounds the remarkably similar construction of the cadence in bars 23–5 of D173/i, which can fruitfully be read as both a i: HC and a i: PAC with elision between the arrival on i and the repeat of A’s basic idea.57 A more complex situation is presented in D112/i. Like D36/i discussed previously in relation to Dahlhaus’s criticism, this movement displays a double MC effect, although this time without the intervening expanded caesura fill which carries out the modulation to the new key as was the case in the earlier quartet. The exposition’s TMB design produces two separate MC events: the first, at bars 39–45 into the section developing A material, and the second at bars 97–103 leading into the B group in the dominant. In both of these cases, the double MC effect is created by the presence of two cadential candidates in close proximity, neither of which completely fulfils the role of an MC, but both of which contribute to the MCC – an example of Schubert’s ‘deflected cadence’ TR technique.58 The first occurrence, shown in Example 3.11, sets up a cadential V in G minor, only to move instead to a V65 –i motion in C minor before a clear break in the texture provided by a one-bar GP. This is followed by a successful cadential 64 in G minor during the caesura fill, the arrival on chord i of which is elided with new material. Thus, it is possible to read an MC either at bar 41, followed by a caesura and a two-bar fill offering another chance at the cadence, or at bar 45, as an elided vi: PAC MC. Alternatively, the MCC accommodates both cadences, understanding the first as a non-standard harmonic preparation which is nonetheless accepted by the material immediately following the caesura which brings about a PAC in the non-standard key.59 A similar event occurs at bars 97–103. In this case, a cadential 64 progression in G minor comes to an end on i6, although the tonic is preceded by a 57

58

59

h

d i

0 0

For further examples of cadences which yield to both a HC and a PAC reading, see Burstein, ‘The Half Cadence and Other Such Slippery Events’. See Black, ‘Schubert’s “Deflected-Cadence” Transitions and the Classical Style’. Black is not concerned with the role this technique plays in the articulation of the MC. That this harmonic acceptance is not supported by a B theme, but a modulating TR, ultimately means that the MC is declined.

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

145

146

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation Example 3.11 Schubert, String Quartet in B♭ Major, D112/i, exposition, first MC, bars 39–45

diminished seventh harmony, thus undermining a straightforward cadence. After the same one-bar GP, the caesura fill redirects the progression to the dominant, in which key there is a clear PAC – reinforced by the top-voice descent – elided with the start of the B theme. As Example 3.12 demonstrates, this MC has previously been read in two different places: either as an arrival on chord i6 in G minor, or as an elided V: PAC MC. As with the example from D810/i, there are valid reasons for reading the MC in either way, but an alternative approach might identify an MC complex that takes both cadences into account, thus: first, the music proposes a non-standard harmonic preparation (suggesting vi); this is followed by a clear rhetorical break in the musical surface articulating the caesura despite the lack of clear harmonic preparation; the subsequent redirection of the harmony towards the dominant takes place during the ‘corrective’ caesura fill, and this leads effortlessly into the B theme which is introduced via an elided PAC in the dominant key. Thus, the complete MC event spans bars 97–103 in total, and relates to the options outlined in Figure 3.2: a non-standard harmony is redirected (in an MC fill) and ultimately refused by the B theme, which proceeds in the dominant.60 The category of MC elided (TR ↔ B) usually involves an elided authentic cadence (either PAC or IAC) and is represented in 11.9% of these works, frequently in the movements leading up to and including 1820. The elided 60

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Understood in this way, the effect is not unlike that of the first movement of the Piano Sonata in C minor, D958 (bars 38–40) in which a clear III: HC MC, with textural gap, is followed immediately by a III: PAC leading into the new theme.

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Schubert’s MC Practice in the Quartet First Movements Example 3.12 Schubert, String Quartet in B♭ Major, D112/i, exposition, second MC, bars 97–103

PAC MC presents a contradiction in terms because, in effect, it contracts the MC process by omitting the central step – the caesura which gives the phenomenon its name. This raises several questions. If the function of an MC is to demarcate the end of the TR and the commencement of a new thematic space (B), the elided PAC works against this separation by merging cadential arrival with the initiation of new thematic material. The coincidence or synchronicity of the resolution to I and the new theme results in functional simultaneity: the same moment is asked to provide closure for one group (TR) and initiate another (B). Moreover, MCs resolving to I are inherently problematic because PACs (for better or worse) are traditionally ‘heard as signs of closure, not of expectancy’, and thus their role in a procedure meant to herald new material can mark them out for interpretation.61 This is presumably why an arrival on V is the most common procedure for an MC cadence in Hepokoski and Darcy’s model, with PAC and IAC MCs being confined to lower levels of their hierarchy of default cadences.62 To put this differently, the perceived equation of a PAC 61

62

h

d i

0 0

Hepokoski and Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory, 27. The opening chords of Beethoven’s first symphony would be a worthwhile critical case study of this convention. Hepokoski and Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory, 24 and 29. The V: PAC MC is the third-level default, while the ‘even rarer’ I: PAC MC is the problematic fourth-level default. For minormode movements, the usual choice of key for the cadence is the relative major or the dominant minor.

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

147

148

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation

with a full stop, and thus with closure, is complicated phenomenologically in instances of MC elision. There are two formal consequences of this practice. First, the elision undermines the sense of closure attained by the arrival on I in the new key because the motivic-thematic material articulates a beginning function rather than an ending function, thereby offsetting any sense of repose created by the cadence. Second, in employing the elided authentic cadence as a way of introducing a new stable tonal and thematic area, the PAC is amalgamated into a forward-driven process of continuation, establishing a new tonal centre en route to its associated theme, rather than reinforcing the key at the end of the thematic statement. A key established via elided PAC normally serves as the first of two keys in the ‘double second group’.63 Indeed, in some of the early quartets we shall examine, the elided cadence into the new key is the only such cadence in that key, raising questions as to the suitability of focusing on phrase endings as a determinant of tonality. In some cases, the ensuing music modulates away from the suggested key to a third tonal area which is only firmly established at the end of the group; in others, the theme remains in the suggested key but is incapable of reinstating a similarly strong authentic cadence in that group. Thus, while the positioning of these elisions at the outset of new thematic material suggests an MC, the practice is ultimately a linkage technique, flagrantly undermining the punctuation normally ascribed to the MC. There is a clear developmental trajectory in Schubert’s treatment of elision across the four movements displaying this technique, moving from a subtle overlap of accompanimental material as a connective device, to the more extreme procedure of direct elision in the Quartettsatz. There is also development evident in the degree of stability afforded the nonstandard key of the B group, and whether it is a normative or non-standard tonality.64 The first three examples of the practice may be classed as ‘accompanimental overlaps’, whereby a new figure accompanying the B theme coincides with the downbeat of chord I of the MC.65 The overlap created in the earliest of these, D68/i, is quite subtle, as can be perceived from Example 3.13. 63

64

65

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

On the double second group see Salzer, ‘Die Sonatenform bei Franz Schubert’, 101–5 and Donald Francis Tovey, ‘Schubert’, in Essays and Lectures in Music (London, 1949), 121–3, and Webster, ‘Schubert’s Sonata Form’, 26. The overlapping of sections as a linkage technique here places Schubert into relation with the idea of developmental overlap explored by Smith’s work on Brahms. See his ‘Liquidation, Augmentation, and Brahms’s Recapitulatory Overlaps’. On the accompanimental overlap see Caplin, Classical Form, 121.

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Schubert’s MC Practice in the Quartet First Movements Example 3.13 Schubert, String Quartet in B♭ Major, D68/i, bars 16–20

Here, the modulation to the dominant is accomplished via the cadential progression ii–V7–I in bars 16–18, leading to a V: IAC MC in bar 18 with a clear melodic descent in the top voice from ^5 to ^3. The two-bar filling material is both accompanimentally and motivically linked to the B theme, but the dynamics of the passage reinforce this as an accompanimental overlap, albeit one that prefigures the main voice: after the arrival on I, the dynamic level drops from forte to piano, and the top voice jumps down a sixth to the lower register for the introduction of the B theme’s accompaniment. With the commencement of the theme, in bar 20, the dynamics rise to fortissimo in all four parts to draw attention to this important moment. This arrival of the dominant key and new thematic material is premature: a single iteration of the theme comes to a V: PAC in bar 29, after which point the bass jumps down an octave, moving through E♭ to D, as the dominant of G minor (vi). A central section in G minor later gives way again to the dominant which is reaffirmed via a strong PAC in bars 59–60.66 D173/i enacts a similar overlap, this time compressed into a single bar, as shown in Example 3.14.

66

h

d i

0 0

The tonal path of this exposition (V–vi–V), which involves the establishment of the dominant, move away from it, and subsequent return, is prescient of the first movements of the G-Major Quartet, D887 (1826) and the E♭ Piano Trio, D929 (1827). In the former, the second variation modulates from the dominant, D major, to B♭ major, and returns to V for the final variation. In the Trio, the dominant is arrived at early in the exposition (bar 35) but is firmly established only at bar 156 after a series of evaded and elided cadences.

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

149

150

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation

Example 3.14 Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor, D173/i, overlap, bars 44–6

The elided cadence arrives at the end of a large-scale consequent phrase that dissolves into TR, modulating to B♭ and articulating a V64 –V7–I progression in B♭ (III) at bars 44–5. This III: PAC is the strongest – and only real – articulation of the relative major in the exposition; the theme that follows cadences into the minor dominant, D minor, at bars 56–7. Thus, the modulation to III here is en route to the dominant which is Schubert’s more normative three-key practice, marking this out from the case of D68/i. The last brief example of this practice appears in the Quartet in E Major, D353, the last quartet that Schubert completed before beginning composition of the Quartettsatz. Here, a model-sequence passage ends with a cadential progression V64 –V7– I in the dominant, B major, at bars 29–31. The arrival on chord I is elided with the beginning of the B theme carried by the violin II part: Example 3.15. The exact phrasing of this theme could be interpreted in different ways as either an accompanimental overlap or a direct elision: does the theme commence with the minim B in bar 31 or with the quavers at the end of that bar? The energy introduced by the quavers two beats after the cadential arrival on I would suggest the latter, making this an accompanimental overlap rather than strict elision, as indicated. Furthermore, the minim B completes the voice-leading descent from ^2 over the dominant chord in bar 30 just as the dotted minim B completes the ascent from A♯ in the Violin II part of bar 29. Nonetheless, the distinction between the cadence closing off the A group and the initiation of the B theme is certainly obscured to a greater degree than in the first two examples. Indeed, this is just the first in a chain of ever more tightly elided authentic cadences in the ensuing bars, the last of which arrives on the downbeat of bar 75, merged with a post-

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

The Elided PAC MC and the Dialectic of Punctuation and Continuation

Example 3.15 Schubert, String Quartet in E Major, D353/i, elision, bars 29–32

cadential codetta. The sheer volume of elided and overlapping cadences in this movement make it already more akin to the Quartettsatz than any of the earlier examples in that there are simply no caesuras in this exposition – a point that will be even clearer in the Quartettsatz to which we now turn.

The Elided PAC MC and the Dialectic of Punctuation and Continuation: Quartettsatz, D703/i An overwhelming sense of perpetual motion surrounds the Quartettsatz: the movement seems to offer no respite from the dramatic extremes that differentiate the thematic material. Each phrase runs directly into the next, and the only silences are confined to those between the three chords of the final cadence. This sense of uninterrupted motion is mirrored in the movement’s harmoniccontrapuntal structure which is continuous rather than interrupted.67 In this regard, David Beach convincingly explains the B♭ recapitulation as part of a large-scale manifestation of the descending tetrachord, heard on a local level as a motif in the opening bars, and which governs the work’s underlying 67

h

d i

0 0

An alternative reading comes from Xavier Hascher, who analyses the movement as an interrupted structure consistent with sonata form. To that end, he situates the beginning of the 5 is recapitulation at the E♭ major statement of the second theme (bar 207), at which point ^ regained in the top part (bar 208) over a stable harmony (E♭) that balances the A♭ statement of the theme in the exposition. See Hascher, Schubert, la forme sonate et son évolution (Bern, Peter Lang: 1996), 156.

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

151

152

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation

structure.68 Beach’s work has inspired two subsequent readings of the movement by Mak, the latter of which (2008) brings the movement into dialogue with the discursive structure of the poetic elegy.69 Similarly, the sense of connectivity between the work’s various sections has been explained via motivic analysis in the work of Fieldman, Smith, Susan Wollenberg, Black, and Clark; all of these readings, to varying degrees, hinge on the role played by the D♭ Neapolitan, as pitch class or harmonic motif, in the overarching tonal design of the movement.70 Smith’s reading of D♭ as a point of ‘harmonic crossreference’ between the remote tonal regions of the work emphasises its role a ‘unifying thread across otherwise contrasting sections’, providing continuity amid the striking rhetorical articulation of the expositional sections.71 As Table 3.13 illustrates, in contrast to the abundance of functional retrogression in D18/i and D94/i, this movement displays functional transformation in the A group whereby A2 ⇒ TR which adds to the overall impression of continuity. This impression is further enhanced by Schubert’s particular treatment of cadence, which relies heavily on elision. This has the effect of undermining moments of punctuation such as the MC, the EEC, and ESC, leading to an unbroken musical surface, and results in the overlapping of formal functions. The exposition’s TMB articulates two MC moments: bars 25–7 (a VI: PAC MC leading into B1) and bars 91–93 (a V: PAC MC leading into B2). In both cases, the arrival on the final chord of the cadence is elided with new thematic material, thus resulting in a TR/B elision (TR ↔ B), as shown in Examples 3.16(a and b). The first is a clear elided cadence, wherein cadential arrival coincides with the commencement of a new theme (B1) and a new hypermetrical emphasis on four-bar, rather than two-bar units. The second MC is less clear cut: on the one hand, it can be read as an example of accompanimental overlap, discussed previously in relation to the earlier quartets: the arrival of the G-major chord to complete the cadence simultaneously 68

69

70

71

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

See David Beach, ‘Harmony and Linear Progression in Schubert’s Music’, Journal of Music Theory, 38/1 (1994), 1–20. Mak, ‘Schubert’s Sonata Forms and the Poetics of the Lyric’, and ‘Et in Arcadia Ego: The Elegiac Structure of Schubert’s Quartettsatz in C Minor (D703)’, in The Unknown Schubert, ed. Barbara M. Reul and Lorraine Byrne Bodley (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 145–56. Fieldman, ‘Schubert’s Quartettsatz and Sonata Form’s New Way’, Peter H. Smith, ‘Harmonic Cross-Reference and the Dialectic of Articulation and Continuity in Sonata Expositions of Schubert and Brahms’, Journal of Music Theory, 50/2 (2006), 143–79; Wollenberg, Schubert’s Fingerprints; Black, ‘The Functions of Harmonic Motives’, and Clark, Analyzing Schubert, 249–51. Smith, ‘Harmonic Cross Reference’, 152. See also Daniel Coren, ‘Ambiguity in Schubert’s Recapitulations’, The Musical Quarterly, 60/4 (1974), 568–82, and Black, ‘Schubert’s Apprenticeship’, 71.

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

*= elided cadence.

Table 3.13 Schubert, Quartettsatz, D703, form-functional analysis

154

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation

Example 3.16a Schubert, Quartettsatz, D703, bars 23–30

Example 3.16b Schubert, Quartettsatz, D703, bars 91–6

marks the entry of the new accompanimental material, and the new theme follows on the upbeat to the next bar. On the other, the cadential g1 could be heard, at least initially, as the first note of the new theme, by analogy with the downbeat c2 two bars later. The expressive effect of these elisions is of a seamless motion from one expositional group into another, and this contributes to the overwhelming sense of continuation in this movement

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

The Elided PAC MC and the Dialectic of Punctuation and Continuation

perceived by Smith and others.72 The dynamics reinforce this reading: the modulation into A♭ is articulated pianissimo leading to a dolce theme, and the PAC into G major is even quieter, being approached by a pianissimo followed by a diminuendo. Thus, notwithstanding the striking thematic differentiation between the A and B themes, Schubert’s use of the elided PAC at the points of MC sidesteps the kind of block-like, segmented design sometimes criticised in his sonatas. A similar approach is taken in the articulation of the movement’s EEC in bars 122–5 and ESC in bars 286–9, given in Examples 3.17(a and b). Like the MCs, these are once again elided with the beginning of the next group, in this case the closing section (C). The elision here is similarly approached via diminuendo from piano, and each cadence leads to a closing group that diminishes in volume even further. Once again, the elision allows for a continuous, unbroken musical surface, such that the movement strives onwards rather than resting at these traditional points of arrival. As mentioned above, scholars have previously noted that the Neapolitan, or ♭ D harmony, plays a vital role in the effect of continuity or linkage in these cadences and in the movement more broadly. Daniel Coren writes that in the first MC, D♭ acts as a pivot chord, preparing the dominant in a cadential progression that can be read in A♭ as IV6–V–I.73 Likewise, in the lead-up to the EEC and ESC, Neapolitan inflections continue to be emphasised around the point of half cadence in G major, as Smith noted. (The transposition of this Gmajor theme to C major in the recapitulation reinstates the original D♭ harmony.) These half cadences give way to the elided PACs shown in Examples 3.17(a and b) each of which is prepared directly by the chord ♭II, albeit in root position. The Neapolitan therefore serves a dual purpose: as the initial A♭ tonality of the B group, and also, re-contextualised within its immediate cadential environment, as vital preparation for the movement’s elided cadences; what Wollenberg referred to as the ‘harmonic agent of transition’.74 It is therefore not merely its presence in the movement that signals a point of reference – although it does this – but its precise location often takes on a role in setting up one of Schubert’s elided cadences, particularly where they complicate moments of structural punctuation, such as the MC or EEC and ESC. The subtle employment of the PAC as a link into a new tonal and thematic area in this movement contrasts with the manner of preparation 72

73 74

h

d i

0 0

For a contrary interpretation of the effect of these elided cadences as stalling, rather than inciting, forward motion, see Black ‘Schubert’s Apprenticeship’, 68. Coren, ‘Ambiguity in Schubert’s Recapitulations’, 574. Wollenberg, Schubert’s Fingerprints, 52.

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

155

156

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation

Example 3.17a Schubert, Quartettsatz, D703, bars 121–6

Example 3.17b Schubert, Quartettsatz, D703, bars 285–90

for the B♭ recapitulation at bar 195. The moment bears more than a passing resemblance to the preparation of the B group in D887 in which the dominant, D major, is approached via its mediant, F♯. Here, Schubert

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Conclusion

sets up V/V (D major) in the preceding bars, suggesting a dominant recapitulation which at the last moment resolves into B♭ major, thus reinterpreting D major as III. This subtonic recapitulation may nonetheless be understood as a further means by which Schubert integrates this movement: as Beach demonstrated, it contributes to the articulation of the descending tetrachord in the tonal centres across the movement, and is therefore part of the movement’s ongoing process of formal actualisation.75 As with D94/i, here too, by beginning the recapitulation away from the tonic Schubert creates an ongoing process, deferring tonic affirmation until a later point in the movement. And again, that moment of tonal resolution is accompanied by a return to the A theme such that a cyclical thematic process coexists with a processual tonal-harmonic one. The return of the descending tetrachord is therefore simultaneously a harkening back to the opening and a statement of resolution; the movement ends where it began, although it has travelled far to get there.

Conclusion The main analytical case studies in this chapter point to two ostensibly conflicting practices: the functional retrogression of D18 and D94 against the continuous forward-driven formal unfolding in D703. Yet both speak to the same underlying impulse, that of the destabilisation of moments of punctuation in the forms. In the case of the earlier movements, the lack of modulation and thus the absence of a cadence in a ‘new’ key was one factor suggesting the retrospective functional transformations at play therein. In the earliest examples, constant reinterpretation was necessary to grasp that their 75

h

d i

0 0

In referring to this as a subtonic recapitulation, I implicitly reject a Type-2 reading for the work in favour of a reversed recapitulation interpretation. While Hepokoski and Darcy hold that the movement is ‘most fundamentally in dialogue with the Type 2 principle’, that model’s expectation of a ‘tonal resolution’ in S (secondary theme) is fundamentally problematised by this recapitulation’s tonal path. Since S returns in the subtonic and subsequently in the relative major, the ‘tonal resolution’ must occur elsewhere, either with C major in the closing group or with C minor, which is articulated by P (primary theme) in the final bars. While both readings are plausible, neither takes account of the movement’s clear tonal balance whereby A♭ is answered with E♭, nor the structural role it affords B♭. For representative literature on the debate between reversed recapitulation/ Type 2 Sonata, see Timothy L. Jackson, ‘The Tragic Reversed Recapitulation in the German Classical Tradition’, Journal of Music Theory, 40/1 (1996), 61–111; Paul Wingfield, ‘Beyond Norms and Deformations: Towards a Theory of Sonata Form as Reception History’, Music Analysis, 27/1 (2008), 137–77, and Julian Horton, ‘Form and Orbital Tonality in the Finale of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony’, Music Analysis, 37/3 (2018), 271–309.

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

157

158

Musical Closure and Functional Transformation

form can best be understood as a succession of formal functions, even without the need for clearly delineated formal boundaries. This reinforces the idea of these movements as articulations of formal retrogression: here, closure of one section was deemed unnecessary for the commencement of the next formal function, both of which amalgamate into one in the process of functional retrogression. In D703, alternatively, the same tendency to downplay moments of cadential arrival (here by elision and overlap involving harmonic ‘cross references’) led to a form which articulates a continuously unfolding formal process. Both of these tendencies are symptoms of the lyric mode’s ‘reluctance to insert signs of distinct division’, identified by Staiger. In the former, this reluctance resulted in a process directed towards the past (via functional retrogression), and in D703 the formal process was continuous and forward driven. Thus, acknowledging the rounded, ABA designs of many of the theme groups in these works is simultaneously to recognise the processual procedures initiated by the music’s treatment and manipulation of cadential closure. Furthermore, retrogression can fruitfully be assimilated into Dahlhaus’s and Schmalfeldt’s idea of processual form, even shedding light on the way in which Dahlhaus’s view of Schubert’s sonata forms as retrogressive can be accommodated in a processual reading. All of these examples reveal a charged conflict between tonal and rhetorical parameters, which often point in different interpretative directions; it is not an overstatement to say that Schubert’s sonata forms are defined by such non-congruence. As we explored at the outset, both Chusid and Dahlhaus recognised this underlying principle of Schubert’s sonata forms, even if they rationalised it differently. In D94/i, for instance, a progressive tonal plot is offset by thematic cyclicism, thus revealing a critical tension between cycle and linear progression in the work. There are two conclusions to take from this: first, it cautions against a strictly hierarchical approach to what might be called the communicators of formal design, wherein rhetorical parameters are viewed as subordinate to tonal ones. As we saw, closure can and is influenced by parameters other than tonality, and an adherence to the primacy of cadence in the articulation of closure leaves many interpretative questions unanswered. Second, it demonstrates that attention to the precise mechanisms by which cadence is complicated by these works draws out their large-scale processual formal designs, thus clarifying a relationship between the micro and macro elements of the form. This was the case with the various uses of the Neapolitan in D703, moving from rhetorical or dramatic element to independent tonality, to harmonic linkage device. Recall that the concept of form as process asks of us to suspend the need for a single interpretation of a

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Conclusion

passage of music, and instead to revel in instances of ambiguity, such as those explored in Schubert’s MC practice. What makes this practice so unique is that the transformation of functions is never fixed, but can be read/heard differently on each listening. The correlation between lyricism and closed or rounded formal units drawn at the beginning of this chapter is therefore reimagined: the lack of clear cadential closure for the lyrical theme of the Quartettsatz brought about by elision, for instance, does not impede its lyrical tendency, but nor does the theme amount to a static, block-like structure. Similarly, the nascent lyricism of D94/i co-exists with a large-scale process of functional retrogression. Lyric form, as a result, is not static, but processual, and lyricism, far from inhibiting a sense of ongoing progress in these works, in fact propels it. In disaggregating lyricism (as mood, topic, or melodic character) from these aspects of lyric form, we therefore recognise the latter’s alignment with formal processes other than stasis; we recognise that the denial and subversion of closure can lend to a lyrical surface a charged, dynamic quality.

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

004

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

159

Schubert the Progressive: Parataxis and the Dialectics of Lyric Teleology

4

Introduction: Gestural Rupture and Formal Continuity There is a subtly disquieting moment in the middle of the second movement of Schubert’s early String Quartet in B♭, D36: at bar 28, all four instruments playing in tremolo sound a sforzando chord on a diminished seventh harmony, as shown in Example 4.1. Flanked on either side by pianissimo markings and followed by rests creating an expectant silence, this chord momentarily ruptures the serene musical surface and introduces an element of instability. Though brief, the chord’s effect is powerful, heightened by the fact that it is a pun (if you like) on the equivalent to the downbeat of bar 4 (bars 25ff being a minor-mode version of the opening theme). Furthermore, it stands out as the only such moment of unrest in an otherwise supremely tranquil and lyrical movement. Hugh Macdonald has described this as a ‘momentary gathering of tension which has a distinctly volcanic feeling’ – a glimpse at what he terms Schubert’s ‘volcanic temper’.1 Certainly, the expressive impact of this disruptive chord is an undeniably Schubertian fingerprint, and the similarity Macdonald draws between it and later examples of the practice (in D803’s second movement, and the first movement of D960) is well taken. The example is just one instance of the long-recognised duality inherent in Schubert’s musical idiom, which arguably reaches its expressive pinnacle in the slow movement of the late Piano Sonata, D959.2 Yet, as my annotations in Example 4.1 demonstrate, the 1 2

160

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Macdonald, ‘Schubert’s Volcanic Temper’, 949. Since Macdonald’s 1978 article, the violent element in Schubert’s music has engaged the work of Elisabeth Norman McKay, Franz Schubert: A Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996); Gingerich, ‘Remembrance and Consciousness in Schubert’s C Major String Quintet, D956’; Fisk, ‘Schubert Recollects Himself’ and Returning Cycles: Contexts for the Interpretation of Schubert’s Impromptus and Last Sonatas (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001); Hirsch, Schubert’s Dramatic Lieder, and ‘Mythic Confrontations in the Andantino from Schubert’s Piano Sonata in A Major, D 959’ (unpublished conference paper, delivered at ‘Thanatos as Muse? Schubert and concepts of late style’, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, October 2011); Michael Spitzer, ‘Mapping the Human Heart: A Holistic Analysis of Fear in Schubert’, Music Analysis, 29/2–3 (2010), 149–213, and Wollenberg, Schubert’s Fingerprints, especially chapter 6. The possible link between this stylistic trait and Schubert’s own personality or psychology was explored by Alec Harman,

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Introduction: Gestural Rupture and Formal Continuity Example 4.1 Schubert, String Quartet in B♭ Major, D36/ii, bars 19–30

Anthony Milner, and Wilfred Mellers, Man and His Music: the Story of Musical Experience in the West (London: Barrie & Rockliff [1962] 1969).

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

161

162

Parataxis and the Dialectics of Lyric Teleology

Example 4.1 (cont.)

chord does not disrupt the steady six-bar hypermetre which has been in force since this movement’s beginning, nor deny the modulation to C♭ major, the Neapolitan, which was set up by its dominant in bar 252 and whose cadential arrival is heard in the ensuing two bars.3 Its rhetorical disruption of the musical surface therefore does not amount to a disturbance on the level of phrase structure or tonal form. In fact, the harmonic shock created by this moment is reliant on its larger tonal context, occurring as it does during a cadential phrase in a new key. Arguably, a sense of mounting tension has already begun at bar 25 with the minor-mode version of the theme and the initial move towards the Neapolitan key via its proleptic dominant chord; that being the case, the diminished chord can alternatively be understood as dramatising the approach to the cadence, permitting the cadential progression in C♭ to appear even more stable in its wake. Indeed, C♭ itself – despite its distance from the tonic – forms part of a smooth voice-leading move to the movement’s next key, G major, which is 3

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

G♭ is only retrospectively identified as a dominant; initially, it is heard as ♭VI/B♭.

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Introduction: Gestural Rupture and Formal Continuity Example 4.2 Schubert, String Quartet in B♭ Major, D36/ii, voice-leading transformations establishing V/VI

Example 4.3 Schubert, String Quartet in B♭ Major, D36/ii, tonal scheme

achieved via a series of voice-leading transformations traced in Example 4.2: a parallel move to C♭ minor is followed by an enharmonic relative transformation, wherein the third and the fifth pitches of C♭ minor are enharmonically respelled as D and F♯, respectively, functioning as the root and third of the D major seven chord that follows. Moreover, as the harmonic reduction in Example 4.3 illustrates, the Neapolitan is one of two tonal areas (the other is G major/minor) that decorate the movement’s main tonal poles of tonic and dominant, and is therefore an integral part of the large-scale tonal design of the movement. Ultimately then, the disruptive effect of this chord is offset by its incorporation into a cadential phrase tonicising C♭, and its part in an ongoing process towards the establishment of G major. Thus, just as the role of this chord within a broader structure does not negate its rhetorical effect of interruption, so too the presence of a gestural disruption does not necessarily signal a structural one. This admittedly brief example throws into sharp relief the productive tension that can exist between gestural articulation and formal continuity. Explored by Smith from the perspective of harmonic cross-referencing in the music of Schubert and Brahms (and discussed in the previous chapter in relation to the Quartettsatz), this dialectic is vital to an understanding of Schubert’s paratactic forms which exploit unexpected disjunction as a formal premise.4 As outlined in Chapter 1, parataxis is a mode of construction defined by the juxtaposition of seemingly unconnected propositions related by 4

h

d i

0 0

Smith, ‘Harmonic Cross-Reference’.

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

163

164

Parataxis and the Dialectics of Lyric Teleology

association rather than by syntax. Long associated with the lyric mode in Classical rhetoric and poetry, it produces additive or episodic structures driven in part by the tension arising from the presentation of sharply contrasting yet complementary material in close succession, and in part by the possibility (although ultimate negation) of their eventual synthesis. Recall Adorno’s description of Hölderlin’s paratactic poetry as ‘artificial disturbances that evade the logical hierarchy of subordinating syntax’.5 Movements designed in this way therefore have the potential to set up a dialectical tension that is itself form-generating. Table 4.1 provides an overview of eleven first movements from Schubert’s string quartets that contain such interpolations. These episodes are rhetorically similar to the one just outlined (and those explored by Macdonald), but they exist on a more extended scale. They are characterised by discursive strategies such as imitation, stretto, canon, and sequence, and are often accompanied by a high dynamic level, an increased harmonic rate of change (sometimes bringing about a modulation to a new key), and rhythmic diminution creating a sense of accelerated motion and increased energy. They also exhibit the manipulation of an expositional theme, which can be fragmented or varied and heard against a new countermelody often consisting of conventional passagework, or treated to expansive development within expositional space. As such, although their modulatory function and loose organisation make them appear transitional – particularly when they occur between two expositional subject groups – these episodes also exhibit characteristics normally associated with development sections and introduce an extraneous formal function into the exposition.6 When Schubert employs these passages as more than transitions – that is, when they function as more than a bridge between two expositional subject groups, or as something other than a means of preparing a new key – I refer to them as ‘developmental episodes’.7

5 6

7

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Adorno, ‘Parataxis’, 131. It should be noted that the developmental nature of these episodes does not negate their transitional function, which they retain while also being employed as development; thus, while not every transition (hereafter TR) is developmental, many of the developmental episodes I examine in this chapter also serve a transitional function. Studies of Schubert’s transitional strategies can be found in Susan Wollenberg, ‘Schubert’s Poetic Transitions’, in Le style instrumental de Schubert: Sources, analyse, évolution, ed. Xavier Hascher (Paris: Sorbonne, 2007), 261–77, and ‘Schubert’s Transitions’. Although my focus here is on the first movements, the practice is in evidence elsewhere. See, for instance, the second movement, Andante sostenuto, of the Quartet in B♭, D112 where an extended interpolation at bars 15–38 functions as both a displaced development characterised by harmonic instability and a transition to the lyrical B theme (bar 39) which it introduces via a ii: HC MC (bars 37–8).

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Introduction: Gestural Rupture and Formal Continuity

It was precisely this developmental aspect of Schubert’s expositions that formed the basis of Donald Francis Tovey’s central criticism of the composer’s handling of the second subject group. Writing that Schubert ‘did not grasp that the time for exposition of themes is not the time for discursive development of them’, Tovey made clear that his objection to such episodes was not the more familiar critique that Schubert’s expansive techniques are non-constitutive of development, but rather that precisely because they are developmental, they ought not to occur in his expositions.8 For Tovey, these episodes not only create rhetorical disruption, but also possess the potential for significant structural disintegration since their inclusion ‘inevitably tends to obliterate the vital distinction between exposition and development’.9 As with the judgements of Schubert’s sonatas explored in Chapter 1, Tovey’s criticism is that Schubert’s practice seems to destroy (‘obliterate’) an established order (hypotaxis) rather than create an alternative one (parataxis). This chapter argues the contrary, that the juxtaposition of developmental episodes with the presentation of (predominantly lyrical) material is a structural first principle of the parataxis which underlies these movements, and, moreover, that this is in turn directly linked to the lyrical nature of the music, in its broadest sense. In these movements, exposition and development do not collapse into one another; rather, the music becomes imbued with a critical tension between the two processes. It is the working out of that critical tension, and its implications for our understanding of the concepts of synthesis and teleology, that is the focus of the ensuing analyses. As shown in Table 4.1, a clear progression in the location and function of these episodes is perceptible across these movements.10 In the earlier examples, the episodes invariably equate to TR-space: they either act effectively as a greatly expanded TR between A and B (as in D112/i), or they occur within larger transitional sections (D68/i), or as one half of a two-part TR (D74/i). This is not the case in the works from D173/i onwards, where each of the episodes occurs within the second-theme group, B, or in both expositional groups (D804/i). Indeed, in two of the very last movements, D804/i and D887/i, there is a return to a statement of B1 after the intervening episode. It is therefore possible to perceive a kind of gestation period in the earlier works (1812–15) 8

9

10

h

d i

0 0

Donald Francis Tovey, ‘Unfinished Symphony in B Minor’, in Essays in Musical Analysis, Vol. I: Symphonies (I) (London: Oxford University Press, 1935), 211–14 (213). Tovey, ‘Unfinished Symphony in B Minor’, 213, and Tovey, ‘Franz Schubert’, in Essays and Lectures on Music, ed. Hubert J. Foss (London: Oxford University Press, 1949), 103–33 (122). Reprint of Tovey: ‘Franz Schubert’, in The Heritage of Music, ed. Hubert J. Foss (London: Oxford University Press, 1927), 82–122 (121). The ‘Dev?’ column heading in Table 4.1 indicates whether or not the interpolation is developmental in some way.

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

165

166

Parataxis and the Dialectics of Lyric Teleology

Table 4.1a Schubert, chamber music for strings sonata-form first movements containing an expositional dramatic interpolation

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Introduction: Gestural Rupture and Formal Continuity Table 4.1b

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

167

168

Parataxis and the Dialectics of Lyric Teleology

during which Schubert experimented with this design, and it follows that how one understands this practice depends to a large extent on which period of his career provides the focus. The three examples that follow in this chapter have been chosen for their distinctive approach to this formal practice, showing its early stages of development, from either side of the hiatus – D36/i and D353/i – as well as a mature example, D804/i. Three fundamental questions underline my engagement with these movements. First, in what sense the interpolations in Schubert’s first-movement expositions function as development (D353/i); second, whether synthesis of the formal dialectic is achieved (D36/i), and finally, what the implications of this are for the articulation of a lyrically conceived teleology (D804/i).

The Developmental Function of Dramatic Interpolations: D353/i A key feature of the dramatic interpolations in these expositions is that they are both rhetorically and functionally discrete from the presentational material. The first movement of the String Quartet in E Major, D353 furnishes a useful elucidatory example of the practice in the quartets. This first-movement exposition is in many respects the most orthodox of Schubert’s early stringquartet movements. As Table 4.2 shows, the tonic is established via a concise sentential theme (A1), and TR modulates to the dominant, eliding the V: PAC MC with the outset of B1.11 B1 itself begins with the presentation and repetition of a basic idea, and the expanded continuation transforms into its development at bar 45, thereby delaying the cadence of this group until bar 75, after which a closing section completes the exposition. The continuation of B1 (beginning at bar 39) therefore ‘becomes’ its development (bar 45), which in turn yields to the cadential obligations of the large-scale sentential structure. The status of the passage at bars 45–64 as developmental arises from three considerations. First is the fragmentation of thematic material and sequential treatment of motives ‘x’ and ‘y’ from the tail of B1 in bars 45–8, as illustrated in Examples 4.4 (a and b). Second is the shortening of the hypermetre, first to two-bar (bars 39–48) and then to one-bar units (bars 49–56), in contrast to the four-bar phrase structure of the theme, B1. This shortening begins during the continuation phase and continues into the 11

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

This MC is Hepokoski and Darcy’s third-level default for an expositional MC. See Hepokoski and Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory, 27–8.

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Developmental Function of Dramatic Interpolations Example 4.4a Schubert, String Quartet in E Major, D353/i, exposition, B1, motives ‘x’ and ‘y’

Example 4.4b Schubert, String Quartet in E Major, D353/i, exposition, bars 45–8, motives ‘x’ and ‘y’ used contrapuntally in developmental episode

developmental episode. Finally, the dominant key, B major – which remains essentially in effect throughout the passage – is momentarily displaced by C major at bars 45–8. This move to ♭VI destabilises the dominant and introduces a further level of instability, characteristic of development. The return to B major is initiated by a descending melodic sequence from e3 (bar 49) to a♯2 (bar 53) nested within a large 8–3–8–3

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

169

170

Parataxis and the Dialectics of Lyric Teleology

intervallic pattern. The original four-bar hypermetre is then hinted at in bars 57–64, accompanied by a return to B major, mirroring the original form of B1. Thus, the clear fragmentation of the theme, the destabilising of the dominant key, the hypermetrical diminution, and the dynamic and rhetorical elements imbue this exposition with developmental rhetoric and function. Those features notwithstanding, the presence of two elided V: PACs during this developmental episode (and marked in Table 4.2) hint at the possibility of a more ‘stable’ reading of the passage whereby bars 45–57 are understood as an expanded sentence, containing presentation (bars 45–6), repetition (bars 47–8), continuation (bars 49–52), and cadential function (bars 53–57). The reduction of the hypermetre mentioned previously in relation to developmental rhetoric is here marshalled as evidence of the continuation function within a stable thematic configuration. Thus, the passage presents the question of whether the continuation function of B1 dissolves into development, or whether it is interrupted by a new, although motivically derived, sentential idea which begins and ends in different keys. It is, I would argue, the tension between these two readings that propels the music towards closure in bars 63–5. This ambiguity highlights the problems caused by maintaining too strict a distinction between presentation of material via tight-knit structures (such as the sentence) and development of material in looser formal regions (such as Caplin’s subordinate theme, transition, or development). In fact, the basic configuration of the sentence (presentation – continuation – cadential) holds within itself the potential for variation (in the repetition of the basic idea) and development (fragmentation in the continuation), and therefore the potential for ambiguity. Schubert exploits this to such a degree that the exposition of his themes often transforms continuation into development, and repeated statement into variation either intrathematically (within a theme) or intersectionally (between, for example, a theme’s statement in the exposition and its repeat in the recapitulation). Because the rhetoric associated with development sections is also found in Schubert’s transitions and in his B-theme continuations, it is imperative to focus on the function of a passage – on the role it carries out – rather than (or in conjunction with) its tonal-thematic configuration. To illustrate the point by showing how a similar configuration can articulate a different formal function, we turn now to the recapitulation. D353/i’s recapitulation begins with a prototypical double return of main theme and tonic key with some variation of A1 material. The stability

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

*The final PAC in the exposition’s closing section lacks a pre-dominant.

Table 4.2 Schubert, String Quartet in E Major, D353/i, exposition, form-functional analysis

172

Parataxis and the Dialectics of Lyric Teleology

Example 4.5 Schubert, String Quartet in E Major, D353/i, harmonic reduction of recapitulation, TR to B1

offered by this is, however, challenged in the second part of the recapitulation, outlined in Table 4.3. Here, TR takes a surprising harmonic turn from E major through F♯ minor (bars 159–61) to the dominant of G major (bars 162–4) and an elided PAC in G into bar 165. B1 therefore returns in the unexpected key of G major, ♭ III of the home key. Schubert achieves this through the same model-sequence as the exposition, accompanied by an ascending sequence of V64 –V7– I progressions, as shown in the harmonic reduction in Example 4.5. The recapitulation has thus answered the conventional tonic–dominant polarity of the exposition with a tonic–lowered mediant relationship, shunning the retention of the tonic achieved at the outset of the recapitulation. The tonal function of the developmental episode – which introduced tonal instability in the exposition – now becomes apparent: its recapitulatory role is to bring the music back to the tonic and thereby to stabilise the tonality. It accomplishes this by beginning in F major (♭II) at bar 181, a minor third lower than expected (an exact transposition of the exposition would give A ♭ major), and ending with a PAC in the tonic at bar 193, which is prolonged through the cadential phrase until bar 211 when the closing section commences; thus, bar 181 is in the ‘correct’ place for this music to be. Ultimately, the developmental episode in D353/i, which held a destabilising effect in the exposition, is granted a crucial tonal function in the recapitulation. In bringing the recapitulation back around to the tonic, it serves a global purpose within the movement and is indispensable to the articulation of the sonata’s dialectic of instability and return to stability. As such, it functions simultaneously as development (exposition) and resolution (recapitulation).

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Table 4.3 Schubert, String Quartet in E Major, D353/i, recapitulation, form-functional analysis

174

Parataxis and the Dialectics of Lyric Teleology

Methodological Interlude: Stratification as Analytical Method I have proposed that the developmental function of these interpolations, and especially their functional differentiation from the thematic material, can be viewed as setting up a functional dialectic within these works. This can be theorised by bringing Schubert’s practice into dialogue with Edward T. Cone’s concept of stratification.12 Cone developed this method specifically for Igor Stravinsky’s music in response to claims of the composer’s ‘artistic inconsistency’, seemingly discernible in his music’s ‘sudden breaks affecting almost every musical dimension: instrumental and registral, rhythmic and dynamic, harmonic and modal, linear and motivic’.13 For Cone, the moments of disruption of the musical surface in Stravinsky’s output act as an indicator that there is more than a single stratum of musical action at play. The resulting musical blocks are highly characterised, and the primary subject matter of the work – its compositional dynamic, if you will – becomes the interaction between them, as well as their desire for synthesis. This model therefore offers a way of exploring and theorising Schubert’s paratactic formal designs. The technique of stratification comprises three separate phases, which Cone terms ‘stratification, interlock, and synthesis’. The first of these is defined as the ‘separation in musical space of ideas – or better, of musical areas – juxtaposed in time; the interruption is the mark of this separation’.14 The blocks of material making up the stratified process of Stravinsky’s music are highly contrasting and disjunctive, just as the developmental episodes in Schubert’s quartets result in momentary discontinuity. In Cone’s central worked example of stratification – an outline of Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments – the stratified areas are often confined to one or two bars of music and represented as chords in his graphs. My usage of this technique develops upon Cone’s model in identifying the individual strata by the material’s formal function in tandem with its thematic, gestural, or motivic profile. Consequently, the strata of music represented by my analyses are more long-range, spanning full phrases or complete subject groups. They therefore encompass a more global perspective, one which foregrounds formal function as a means of differentiation.

12

13

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Cone, ‘Stravinsky: The Progress of a Method’. I first brought the concept of parataxis into dialogue with Cone’s idea of stratification in an analysis of Schubert’s String Quintet in C, D956. See Hyland, ‘“Idling on Some Compulsive Fantasy”: Schubert’s Second Subjects and the String Quintet in C major, D956’, Musicology Review, 2 (2005–06), 143–68. Cone, ‘Stravinsky: The Progress of a Method’, 18. 14 Ibid., 19.

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Stratification as Analytical Method

Stratification is followed by the interlock involving the progressive alternation of the two strata, proceeding by opposition and with little or no linking material. Interlock is concerned with the fulfilment or completion of each individual stratum, rather than the interaction between strata. Notwithstanding their separation, the strata continue to exert their influence on the other even while silent: ‘When the action in one area is suspended, the listener looks forward to its eventual resumption and completion; meanwhile action in another has begun, which in turn will demand fulfillment [sic] after its own suspension.’15 This stage of the process therefore involves long-range listening and the ability to recall material from an earlier point in the music when it is later resumed. Where there is a high level of differentiation between the various strata this would appear to be unproblematic; on the other hand, if the strata are only subtly differentiated (as can be the case), it might prove difficult for a listener to recognise the shift from one to the other. This is especially so when two strata are brought into closer relation with one another, a practice Cone terms divergence, and this is perhaps the most nuanced aspect of his theory. He defines divergence as ‘the division of an original single layer into two or more’, but it can also arise from the transformation of one stratum into something resembling another.16 For example, a chromatic stratum might diverge towards the more diatonic idiom of another, or a given stratum could re-enter at a lower dynamic or tessitura which has hitherto been associated exclusively with another. I rename this process reciprocal divergence to emphasise the mutual exchange of material that it enacts. Ultimately, reciprocal divergence serves as a step towards synthesis and is vital for a sense of progression through the work. The importance of the third phrase – the synthesis – for Cone is clear from his assertion that ‘without it there is no cogency in the association of the component areas’.17 To emphasise, there must be a moment in the music where the strata seem to coalesce, or where their tensions are resolved or overcome; this affords the process a sense of goal-direction, not towards a specific tonal or harmonic event, but towards a sense of integration, of amalgamation of the strata and of their resolution into one another (if not into an established tonal framework). Cone’s emphasis on synthesis therefore presents a stumbling block for considering paratactic structures which might not give voice to such moments of resolution. Anthony Gritten has argued that it is the existence rather than the 15

h

d i

0 0

Cone, ‘Stravinsky: The Progress of a Method’, 19.

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

16

i

i

Ibid., 20.

17

Ibid., 20.

175

176

Parataxis and the Dialectics of Lyric Teleology

execution or magnitude of this moment of synthesis which is of vital import to Cone’s analysis, suggesting that Cone’s insistence on synthesis is ideological rather than essential. In charting the intellectual development of Cone’s ideas, Gritten posits that the concept of synthesis represents a kind of pre-ordained inevitability for Cone, rather than a product of his [Cone’s] analytical engagement with Stravinsky’s music. This, Gritten rationalises, reveals Cone’s debt to the organicist aesthetics of early-twentieth-century analytical models: Without the Schoenbergian and Schenkerian angles on analysis provided by Babbitt and Forte it is unlikely that Cone would have given the moment of synthesis within his method anything like the emphasis it receives. For synthesis sits insecurely upon the shoulders of the other two moments, stratification and interlock, and the analyses themselves attest as much.18

I tend to agree with Gritten but would argue that the concept of synthesis remains a useful one if we acknowledge that its achievement is not an inevitability in all cases. Indeed, despite Cone’s rhetoric, it is not in itself the most vital component of his theory. A radical way of applying this method (and a distinctly Adornian approach) would alternatively be to permit that the overt negation of synthesis is itself a valid outcome, with both structural and interpretative implications. In this case, the process of divergence comes into its own as a way of supporting the association between the various strata in the absence of an overarching synthesis; in particular, the presence of shared material between the strata serves as sufficient evidence and justification of their association. It is this approach to synthesis that I adopt in the ensuing analyses. Since my application of stratification serves to highlight and celebrate the inherent parataxis of Schubert’s music, it is conceivable that synthesis is actively downplayed in the works I explore; consequently, I do not insist on it as Cone does. But nor do I abandon the idea completely. Naturally, how synthesis is articulated in Stravinsky’s music is not necessarily how it is achieved for Schubert’s, and Schubert’s music, admittedly, does not feature in Cone’s exposition of stratification in this essay. This notwithstanding, Cone did in fact apply a similar concept of non-adjacent progression in his influential analysis of Schubert’s Moment Musical in A♭, Op. 94, No. 6 in a much later article from 1986, as Gritten notes. In ‘Schubert’s Promissory Note’, it is 18

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Anthony Gritten, ‘Edward T. Cone’s Stravinsky: The Progress of an Essay’, Musical Times, 139/1862 (1998), 4, 6–13 (7). Gritten’s critique of the underlying organicist perspective of Cone’s theory is further informed by other of Cone’s writings, such as his Music: A View from Delft, ed. Robert P. Morgan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Synthesis Negated: D36/i

the potential of E♮ to act as a leading tone in F minor which is suggested, suspended, and ultimately fulfilled at a later point in the piece, and the ways through which this unfolds are articulated via non-adjacent blocks of material. The affiliation with the process of stratification is clear from the following: ‘To hear the long-range connection I am trying to establish, play the following in unbroken succession: mm. 73–92, mm. 103–122, and then mm. 473–532. At last, then, the promise of E♮ as a leading tone has been kept.’19 The concept of non-adjacent progression or association was one that Cone clearly held onto during the intervening two decades, and it provides a link from Schubert’s music back to his exposition of stratification. Ultimately, what makes Cone’s method so apposite for understanding Schubert’s paratactic designs is that, at base, it seeks to retain the relative independence of the music’s blocks of material, while at the same time unveiling a process of integration and a motivation for synthesis (with or without its attainment). Without collapsing the various strata into an allencompassing totality, stratification instead highlights their alternation (via the interlock) and works through the ways by which they interact (divergence). Moreover, it explores the potential for synthesis and continuation in a paratactic musical surface without the imposition of a specifically hypotactic logic; here, paratactic organisation is the product of, as Daniel Chua remarked elsewhere, ‘non-coercive integration’.20 A vital point which permits the retro-application of this model to Schubert’s quartets is that the concept of synthesis is not limited to tonal considerations, but encompasses parameters beyond the confines of tonality such that tonal resolution and synthesis are not of necessity one and the same thing. Thus, despite the historical distance between the two composers, the applicability of Cone’s theory to Schubert’s practice reveals an aesthetic affinity, and Cone’s and my own interests resonate in a meaningful way: the music we seek to understand is characterised by block-like paratactic designs and dramatic interruptions, and our analyses seek to explain that tendency without explaining it away.

Synthesis Negated: D36/i Given that it is the earliest instance of this practice in Schubert’s quartets, D36/i is surprisingly intricate. This is in part owing to the unusual 19

20

h

d i

0 0

Edward T. Cone, ‘Schubert’s Promissory Note: An Exercise in Musical Hermeneutics’, 19thCentury Music, 5/3 (1982), 233–41 (238). Chua, Beethoven and Freedom, 180. Chua makes this comment in the context of his reading of the first movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata, Op. 110.

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

177

178

Parataxis and the Dialectics of Lyric Teleology

combination of sonata and variation techniques to which the movement gives voice; Chusid, for instance, reads the movement’s structure as ‘a sonata form frame [. . .] superimposed upon a four-measure theme and seventeen variations’.21 Indeed, not only does the movement set up a critical tension between the techniques of variation and sonata-form development, but this is underpinned by a tonal dialectic existing not between the tonic and dominant keys (as might traditionally be expected), but between those tonal poles and Schubert’s alternatives: C minor (a tone away from B♭) and G minor (the same distance from the dominant). The statement and variations of the theme are rooted in the tonic and dominant tonalities; the developmental material, on the other hand, brings into play the more distantly related and minor-mode keys. The exposition displays this paratactic design with particular clarity, moving between harmonically complete variations of A1’s four-bar basic idea (labelled ‘x’), first to an interpolated lyrical passage (bars 26–31) and later to a developmental episode (bars 42–54). As the outline of the exposition’s formal functions in Table 4.4 shows, it is still possible to distinguish two thematic units comprised of A1 – an ABA′ design closed by a I: PAC (bar 20) – followed by a sentential variant (variation 5, bars 21–321). Nevertheless, the will to variation that characterises this exposition (and the entire movement) is central to the episodic design of the themes. This is heightened by the fact that, from bar 42, the music is functionally distinct: beginning as the TR, it simultaneously functions as the development of ‘x’, rather than a further variation on it. As such, the b.i. (‘x’) is vital to both the sonata and variation trajectories in the movement. My identification of bars 42–54 as an expositional development is based on three observations: first, during these bars the first two-bar unit of ‘x’ is played in stretto against itself with a new countermelody above it in the first violin part – a characteristic developmental technique used by Schubert in development sections. Second, there is considerable harmonic motion in these bars, including a tonicisation of C minor (prolonged by an internal tonicisation of its relative major, E♭ major) leading to a standing on the dominant of C minor in bars 51–4 and a ii: HC MC in bar 54. The episode thereby delays the establishment of the dominant key and is tonally unstable. Third, this passage foreshadows the development section proper in its thematic outline; the affinity between the two sections is clear from even a cursory comparison of bars 42–6 and 93–7. Variation and development are here distinguished by the varying 21

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Chusid, ‘The Chamber Music of Schubert’, 54.

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Table 4.4 Schubert: String Quartet in B♭ Major, D36/i, exposition, form-functional analysis

180

Parataxis and the Dialectics of Lyric Teleology

degrees of stability they enact: the variations of the theme are what Caplin would call tight-knit, that is, they are grounded in the tonic key and serve to prolong the tonic; their grouping structure is regular (being the repetition of four-bar phrases) and they are contrapuntally closed via a PAC. The developmental episode, conversely, is harmonically unstable, its phrase structure is asymmetrical, and it displays no thematic conventionality.22 Of course, the material being juxtaposed shares a foundational aspect, in this case a motivic link, characterised by ‘x’, which undergoes gestural and form-functional transformation throughout the movement. This provides a level of continuity and association between the two strata; indeed, it is the prevalence of this motif that led others to read this movement as monothematic.23 This shared motivic origin can be understood as a type of Grundgestalt which provides the foundational material that shapes the entire movement. This usage of the term – in the manner of an inciting event – was proposed by Fieldman in her work on the Quartettsatz, wherein she writes that ‘[i]t is in . . . the sense of “shaping force,” that I use the term. The Grundgestalt constitutes the initial manifestation of the problem of a work and thus is the link between the composer’s atemporal idea and the realisation of that idea in time, the work itself.’24 Here, the Grundgestalt presents not only the motivic material which will form both the thesis and antithesis of a functional dialectic, but also the basis of the work’s tonal conflict which is encapsulated in the B♭ – C motion of the opening phrase.25 Furthermore, elements of the developmental 22

23

24 25

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

For a diagrammatic of the difference between tight and loose knit, see Caplin in Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre: Three Methodological Reflections, ed. Bergé, 38. Recall Dahlahus’s analysis of the work, quoted in Chapter 3, as being fundamentally monothematic because what is presented as the B theme (bar 62) derives from bar 26 of the A group. See also Chusid, ‘The Chamber Music of Schubert’, and Stephen E. Hefling and David S. Tartakoff, ‘Schubert’s Chamber Music’, in Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music, ed. Stephen E. Hefling, Routledge Studies in Musical Genres, ed. R. Larry Todd (New York and London: Routledge, 2004), 39–139. Fieldman, ‘Schubert’s Quartettsatz and Sonata Form’s New Way’, 118, footnotes 4 and 119. Schubert’s propensity for generating a connection between a detail of the opening music and the large-scale tonal plot has been couched in a variety of terms by previous authors. See, for instance, Smith, ‘Harmonic Cross-Reference’; Cone, ‘Schubert’s Promissory Note’; Miriam Whaples, ‘On Structural Integration in Schubert’s Instrumental Works’, Acta Musicologica, 40/11 (1968), 186–95; Gordon Sly, ‘The Architecture of Key and Motive in a Schubert Sonata’, Intégral, 9 (1998), 67–89; and Sly ‘Schubert’s Innovations in Sonata Form: Compositional Logic and Structural Interpretation’, Journal of Music Theory, 45/1 (2001), 119–50; Beach, ‘Harmony and Linear Progression in Schubert’s Music’; and Black, ‘Schubert’s Development of Harmonic Motives’.

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Synthesis Negated: D36/i

stratum are intimated earlier in the work in A1: a melodic variant of ‘x’ (bars 9–12) replaces the theme’s opening ascending fifth with a descending second (bars 9 and 11); the harmonic variant that follows (bars 13–16) inverts this to an ascending second and begins its harmonic progression away from the tonic on VI65 –ii, thus tonicising C minor, the supertonic, en route back to B♭ for what I’ve identified as variation four or A′. The lyric structure of this group is clarified by bars 17–20 which have the effect of a conclusion to the preceding bars (as opposed to ‘just’ another variation), suggestive of an A′ section of a closed ABA′ design. The stratified design of the full movement is illustrated in Table 4.5, which separates out the strata of thematic presentation/variation and thematic development visually. Arrows between the strata show stratification, and the interlock – the continuation and fulfilment of each individual stratum – is traced via dashed slurs. Structural cadences are marked on the lowest level of Table 4.5, and the more distant emphasised harmonies are given at the top. As shown, stratification takes place at both an intrathematic level (within the A group) and interthematically (between A and B groups). But this stratified visual representation masks the various interactions between the two strata which are represented by moments of tonal and rhetorical divergence. First, the lyrical extension at bars 26–31, which is part of the presentation/variation stratum, nonetheless emphasises G minor via a passing tonicisation in bar 28 (see the F♯ to G in the bass in Example 4.6). This momentary move to the minor mode, and specifically to the key which commences the development, offers a foreshadowing of that section to come, and thus brings the lyric extension into closer relation with the development stratum whose tonality it foreshadows, thus illustrating tonal divergence. Further (and more conventional) divergence is discernible between the passages at bars 42–5 and bars 77–871. Although the latter passage (labelled as a dramatic repeat in Table 4.5) is rhetorically similar to the developmental episode, it is nonetheless devoid of any developmental function, being instead a varied repetition of the passage heard at bars 69ff. As such, it resides in the presentation/variation stratum although it is imbued with some of the gestural features of the other stratum. These instances of divergence suggest a process of integration at work in the movement’s exposition, and a possible step towards their eventual synthesis. The recapitulation, however, abandons the idea of synthesis altogether by its omission of both the transitional developmental episode and the

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

181

182

Parataxis and the Dialectics of Lyric Teleology

Table 4.5 Schubert, String Quartet in B♭ Major, D36/i, stratified design

Bars:

1–230

Large-Scale Function:

First movement: Exposition, Development, Recapitulation

Interthematic A and B (exposition); A (recapitulation) Functions: Intrathematic Functions: Emphasised Harmonies

ii/I

Thematic Development

vi (ii/V)

42–61

Structural Cadence

62–87

A1 + sentential variant + postcadential variation

B1 Period + dramatic varied repeat

(54) ii: HC MC

Dissolution of Recap 1

Development

1–41

(41) I:PAC

161–68

93–156

TR => dev. of ‘x’

Thematic Presentation/ Variation

vi

157–60 Recap 1

(86–71) V: PAC

(160) I: PAC

168–230 RT2 & Recap 2

(168–9) (229–30) vi: HC MC I:PAC

Key: Stratification

Interlock

entire B group. Instead, Schubert dramatises the conflict and heightens the work’s parataxis, first by presenting two conceivable moments of recapitulation. The return to the tonic key and to ‘x’ at bar 157 is understood, at first blush, as the double return of the recapitulation (‘recap 1’ in Table 4.5). The ensuing music, however, brings a new variation of ‘x’ which modulates

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Synthesis Negated: D36/i Example 4.6 Schubert, String Quartet in B♭ Major, D36/i, bars 26–8

away from the tonic to G minor (bars 162ff) and results in the complete collapse of the recapitulation into a vi: HC caesura at bar 168 (Example 4.7). Thus, where it was confined to a one-bar tonicisation in the exposition, G minor has here taken on a much more significant formal role, bringing about the dissolution of the recapitulation and the necessity of a further attempt. To this end, the subsequent bars act as a second retransition, reestablishing the tonic via its dominant seventh and, later, helping the music find its way thematically. From this point on (‘recap 2’, bar 178), it becomes clear that – far from amalgamating the two lines of discourse – the recapitulation is dominated by the variation impulse associated with the A group such that the entire section amounts to a paratactic juxtaposition of the expositional A group’s variations, given in a jumbled order, now with a new lyrical idea (bars 206ff) intervening. No further synthesis of the two strata is attempted, and the movement instead invites the listener to reflect on the complete absence of synthesis, indeed on the negation of order: the final bars of the recapitulation revisit the expositional variations in the sequence: bars 17–20, 13–16, and 36–9 before the final cadence.26 26

h

d i

0 0

This sequence strengthens the sense of an ABA′ form in A1. This kind of recapitulatory recomposition was not unusual, and many examples can be found in the first movements of Haydn’s string quartets, in particular his Op. 2 in which nos. 2, 3, 4, and 5 all reorder expositional themes in their recapitulations. On this see Steve Larson, ‘Recapitulation Recomposition in the Sonata-Form First Movements of Haydn’s String Quartets: Style Change and Compositional Technique’, Music Analysis, 22/1–2 (2003), 139–77.

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

183

184

Parataxis and the Dialectics of Lyric Teleology Example 4.7 Schubert, String Quartet in B♭ Major, D36/i, bars 163–8

Thus, while the work may be understood in terms of a stratified process that pits variation against development and is underpinned by tonal means, the synthesis of that process is ultimately abandoned in the recapitulation, and only one stratum – variation – brings about ultimate closure of the movement. The ambiguity of the passage from bars 157 to 178 proves central to the process of stratification: its dual identity as a ‘false’ recapitulation and the dissolution of that material encapsulate the dynamic of the entire movement. In the wake of that collapse, the music finds stability in the tonic key, but the juxtaposition of development and variation does not find synthesis. This reading suggests that it is the pursuit and not the attainment of synthesis that is the movement’s primary driving force.

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Schubert’s Lyric Teleology: D804/i

Example 4.8 Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, opening bars

Schubert’s Lyric Teleology: D804/i This reprise alters very little, save for closing in the tonic major, and resolves nothing.27 – Stephen E. Hefling and David S. Tartakoff

The question of dialectical synthesis looms large for the String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i.28 Like the two earlier movements just explored, this movement’s paratactic design is underpinned by the stark juxtaposition of thematic presentation with highly contrasting developmental interpolations, except that here the thematic material is supremely lyrical in character. The lyricism of the A1 theme is emphasised by the Lied-like characteristics of its emergence (Example 4.8): the first violin enters with a cantabile melody line after two bars of accompanimental lead-in in the manner of a song. 27 28

h

d i

0 0

Hefling and Tartakoff, ‘Schubert’s Chamber Music’, 81. Although the details of their readings differ fundamentally from mine, other scholars have previously read this quartet from a dialectical perspective, suggesting that this is something foundational to the music. See James William Sobaskie, ‘Tonal Implication and the Gestural Dialectic in Schubert’s A Minor Quartet’, in Schubert The Progressive: History, Performance Practice, Analysis, ed. Brian Newbould (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), 53–79, and Adam Cullen, ‘Dialectic Process and Sonata Form in Schubert’s A Minor String Quartet, D. 804’, Maynooth Musicology: Postgraduate Journal, 2 (2009) 40–70.

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

185

186

Parataxis and the Dialectics of Lyric Teleology

The theme itself is also lyrically expanded via the use of thematic variation and modal mixture (a point noted by earlier writers on this movement) which leads, as Table 4.6 shows, to an unusual double-antecedent period configuration which I’ve termed an expanded period structure.29 Equally, the B1 theme’s lilting melodic line, characterised by rising sixths and falling thirds, together with the overlapping of entries create the effect of vocal polyphony. Thus, not only B1 (as might be expected), but both the first movement’s expositional themes display abundant lyricism, a feature that accentuates the dramatic effect of the developmental interpolations which stand in stark contrast to the themes’ serenity. Rather than threatening to overthrow the lyric, however, here again the dramatic co-exists in a dichotomous relationship to it, engendering a paratactic form through which they traverse separate, though related, musical paths. As with D36/i, the movement’s material is both expressively differentiated and functionally discrete, setting in motion a critical tension which is explored throughout the first movement, and even beyond it. Moreover, it is underpinned by a further binary opposition articulated through modal mixture which affects surface-level detail as well as informing the large-scale tonal plot of the work, vying between minor and major versions of A, and borrowings from parallel modes of local tonics.30 Taken together, these binary oppositions propel the movement towards synthesis, the attainment of which nonetheless raises as many questions as it answers.

Stratification and Divergence in D804/i There is a discernible maturity in the handling of paratactic techniques in D804/i, signalled by four main means. First, the movement displays developmental episodes in both its first and second subject groups, and the second group in effect doubles the process by returning to a varied statement of the theme followed by one further episode. In this way, it prefigures the continuous juxtaposition of theme and developmental episode in the first movement of Schubert’s last quartet, D887. Table 4.7 offers

29

30

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

See Leo Black, ‘Oaks and Osmosis’, Musical Times, 138/1852 (1997), 4–15, and Michael Graubart, ‘Integration in Schubert: Themes and Motives I’, Musical Times, 144/1884 (2003), 37–44. Such as, for example, the move to C minor in bars 69ff. On the centrality of modal mixture in Schubert’s piano music and the String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, see David Beach, ‘Modal Mixture and Schubert’s Harmonic Practice’, Journal of Music Theory, 42/1 (1998), 73–100.

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Table 4.6 Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, A group, form-functional analysis

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Table 4.7 Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, exposition, form-functional analysis

Schubert’s Lyric Teleology: D804/i

Example 4.9a Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, Episode 1, bar 32

Example 4.9b Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, Episode 2, bar 71

an overview of the exposition showing the three developmental episodes. The placement of the first episode (bars 32–51) is reminiscent of Schubert’s practice in his early quartets: recall that at least until 1815, these developmental episodes also functioned as transitions. This episode ultimately dissolves into the TR, ending on a III: HC MC (of the nineteenth-century variety, with the 7th) in bar 57. The second episode occurs at bars 69–80, before the final cadence of the B group, and brings about a return to the minor mode. In marked contrast to Episodes 1 and 2, the third episode (bars 91–7) is rhetorically akin to the theme itself, being lyrical in nature, although it displays the functions of an episode such as motivic development and the establishment of a chromatically related key. Second, these developmental episodes are marked out from the presentation of the main themes by three central means involving rhetorical, functional, and tonal parameters. These parameters, in turn, act as connectors between the episodes, enhancing their association. For instance, Episodes 1 and 2 are remarkably similar in content, sharing two clear gestural features: the introduction of an undulating and incessant triplet countermelody (in contrast to the even quavers connecting the two themes), and an unsettling emphasis on the weak second beat of the common-time bars. Although the latter is more pronounced in Episode 1, it is also present in Episode 2; Examples 4.9(a and b) demonstrate this and show the corresponding trill figures which themselves could be understood as a diminution of

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

189

190

Parataxis and the Dialectics of Lyric Teleology

Example 4.10a Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, expositional motives, Episode 1

Example 4.10b Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, expositional motives, Episodes 2 and 3

the four-semiquaver repeated-note figure of bar 1. The episodes’ attendant cadential gestures at bars 42–4 and 79–81 are also similarly articulated, even if the former is maximally complete while the latter is evaded. These features create a similar rhetorical effect, offsetting the lyricism of the main themes. Third, all three episodes are concerned with developmental function in contrast to the thematic presentations. That is to say, each episode takes up the three-note Hauptmotive (or basic ideas) of A1 and B1, respectively, and treats them to development via fragmentation and sequence. The motives they engender are shown in Example 4.10(a and b). In A, the three-note arpeggio figure, ‘x’, is transformed through the introduction of a trill on its middle note and its syncopated presentation (‘x1’). In B, the motif’s original intervallic span of a minor third is transferred to the opening interval in ‘y1’ which then falls chromatically from B♭ to A, and a further transformation in the cello reveals two minor thirds combined: C–E♭– F♯, and G–B♭–C♯. In Episode 3, ‘y2’ is an inversion of the original motif and transforms the characteristic interval to a major third.31 This level of mediation between the two sides of the critical tension is further evidence

31

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Note that the trill of bar 59 (B1) is related to that of bar 32 (‘x1’), and the resemblance becomes even clearer at bar 71 in B’s developmental episode. This continuity between the first episode and the statement and development of B1 is indicative of the divergence of one stratum into the other; more on this in what follows.

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Schubert’s Lyric Teleology: D804/i

Example 4.11 Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, emphasis on Neapolitan chord, bars 38–40

of their dialectical nature: the statements and episodes share a fundamental motivic origin. Fourth, and most significant for the movement in toto, are the tonal correspondences that are generated by the three episodes. Throughout the course of the movement, each episode introduces a chromatic neighbour to one of the main structural keys (either the tonic, the relative major, or the dominant), thereby engendering two separate but related tonal/harmonic paths through the sonata. The middle of the first developmental episode is a case in point. As Example 4.11 demonstrates, this is marked by a brief but forceful Neapolitan interruption at bars 38–42 after which the development re-launches with ‘x1’ in the upper two parts and the triplet countermelody now acting as an ostinato in viola and cello. Although it is short-lived, the intrusive B♭ major interjection is both dynamically and gesturally emphasised, calling attention to ♭II of the tonic.32 Chromatic neighbouring relationships are again prominent in the episodes during the second part of the exposition, as illustrated by Example 4.12. Episode 2 introduces a tonicisation of F major (bars 70–71), ♮II of the dominant, which pre-empts the recapitulation’s move to the same key.33 32 33

h

d i

0 0

The parallel moment in the recapitulation emphasises F major, ♮II of the dominant minor. Although the dominant key is not established in the exposition, the potential of F major to act as the Neapolitan is realised in bars 193–7 of the recapitulation with a cadence in the dominant minor at bars 198–9.

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

191

192

Parataxis and the Dialectics of Lyric Teleology

Example 4.12 Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, chromatic tonal relationships in exposition and recapitulation

Meanwhile, Episode 3 is heralded by an evaded cadence wherein the anticipated arrival on C major of the cadence is sidestepped in favour of A♭ major (bars 90–1). This establishes a further chromatic neighbour, this time to G major, the dominant of the local tonic. Indeed, this could also be viewed in relation to the overall tonic – as I have indicated via a slur in Example 4.12 – in which case (and given the emphasis on B♭ in the first group), we could understand the tonic key as being flanked by chromatic keys on either side in the exposition. A clear pattern is therefore emerging: to varying degrees, the developmental episodes point in a separate harmonic direction to the stable thematic passages by emphasising chromatic motion around the tonic (exposition, first group: A–B♭), relative major (exposition, second group: C–C♯ and G–A♭), and dominant (recapitulation, first and second group: E–F [and exposition, by implication]) tonal centres.34 Thus, they are distinguished not only rhetorically and functionally from the main sonata discourse (as was the case in D353/i), but also harmonically, forming part of an independent, though related, musical plot which coexists with the diatonic harmonic background outlined through the work: i–III//i–I–i. We can therefore understand the movement as illustrating two distinct strata: the first defined by the exposition (or presentation) of lyrical thematic material and rooted in structural key-areas, the second characterised by passages of rhetorically distinct thematic development (or expansion), which tend towards neighbouring chromatic harmonies.35 This can be represented visually via a stratified reading of the exposition, given in Table 4.8. Here, the intrathematic functions of the A and B groups 34

35

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

The semitonal relationship between C and C♯ is explained in the next section, as an instance of diversion. This idea that a movement can articulate a double tonal dialectic involving chromatic keys surrounding the traditional tonal poles was also a feature of the second movement of D36, discussed at the beginning of this chapter; see again Example 4.3.

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Schubert’s Lyric Teleology: D804/i

193

Table 4.8 Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, exposition, stratified design

Bars:

1–100

Large-Scale Function:

Exposition

Interthematic Functions:

A, TR, and B

Intrathematic Functions:

II/i

Emphasised Harmonies Thematic Development (Episodes)

II/V & iv/i

VI/III

32 –58

69 – 80

91 – 7

A1dev

B1dev

B1dev

=> TR

Thematic Presentation

Structural Cadence

3 – 321

59 –691

81 – 911

98 –100

A1 Period

B1 Period

B1 Variant

Cadential

(90 – 1) III: PAC evaded

(99 – 100) III: PAC

(68 – 9) III: PAC elided

(31 – 2) I: PAC elided

Key: Stratification

Interlock

are partitioned into two strata of thematic presentation and development, respectively, and the tonal areas and harmonic shifts are shown above and below each level. The stratification of the musical surface is indicated via the arrows in Table 4.8 which trace the unfolding of this exposition from a listener’s perspective, travelling between the two strata linearly. The resulting strata of music can be strikingly contrasting, as in the first two dramatic episodes or they may be more subtly distinct, as is the case with the lyricism of Episode 3 at bars 91–7.

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

194

Parataxis and the Dialectics of Lyric Teleology

Recall that a necessary condition of this process for Cone is the existence of ‘at least one element of connection between successive levels’; in other words, in order for autonomous levels to interact meaningfully, they must share a common element.36 In this movement, the feature shared by the two strata is most obviously motivic material, but a further commonality is found in the interrelatedness of the tonal groupings. That is to say, the episodes’ identification as chromatic exists only in relation to the structural tonalities of the presentational stratum, such as the tonic and relative major, which are afforded cadential affirmation. This chromatic neighbour ‘shadow structure’ is therefore dependent upon the main diatonic stratum in a way that the former is not dependent upon the latter. Under this condition, the dependence of one successive stratum on another is in fact further evidence of its autonomy, or better, its potential to function as an autonomous level of discourse. The movement’s progression towards synthesis is marked by a number of instances of divergence. These serve to bring the two strata into closer relation and mitigate the severity of their juxtaposition, hinting at ways by which they can be synthesised. Episode 2 offers a good example. This is led by a progression of fifths supporting a chromatically ascending bass line, spanning bars 69–75 the goal of which is a chord of D minor (bar 75). This breaks the chromatic ascent and begins a harmonic cycle of thirds leading to the dominant of C major, on which chord the episode ends in bar 80. In the wake of this disruption, the basic idea of B1 reappears quite tentatively, entering pianissimo on low viola and cello for another statement of the period in C major, although now carrying D minor (iv/i or ii/III) inflections in the outer parts and the viola. These introduce a further chromatic relationship between D minor’s leading tone, C♯, and the governing tonality, C♮, as well as between A and B♭, as illustrated in Example 4.13. Until this point, these semitonal relationships have been confined exclusively to the developmental strand of the process, and their appearance within the repeat of B1 represents a kind of spilling over of the episode’s harmonic language into the stable presentation of the theme. The equivalent episode in the recapitulation contains an ascending chromatic line in the top voice leading to b2 supported by a rhetorically and dynamically emphasised B-minor chord (bar 238) proceeded by its dominant. B1 reemerges from this with B-minor emphases (G♮ and A♯) in its outer parts, the A♯ engendering an additional chromatic neighbour note to the governing tonality, A major. This colouring of the harmony on one stratum by 36

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Cone, ‘Stravinsky: The Progress of a Method’, 19.

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Schubert’s Lyric Teleology: D804/i

Example 4.13 Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, bars 81–5

its association with the other represents a first step towards the synthesis of the two strata by infusing the hitherto diatonic harmony of the expositional stratum with the chromatic neighbour notes associated with the episodes.37 Reciprocal divergence, wherein a developmental episode takes on features of the presentational stratum, is in evidence during the second B-group episode at bars 91–7. This material is classed as an episode insofar as it is based on motif ‘y2’, which is an inversion of B1’s basic idea, and tonicises A♭ major, thereby establishing another chromatically related tonality. It is nonetheless lyrical in character and thus akin to the presentational stratum, and as such acts as divergence on a local level. Indeed, the trill on the second note of B1 could itself be seen as indicating divergence with Episode 1. The site of greatest divergence, though, is the development section. While there is nothing exceptional about a development that renders expositional material unstable by harmonic means, nonetheless it is this development’s specific harmonic path that is of most consequence for the work’s tonal dialectic. A new presentation of A1 in D minor begins in bar 109 of the development and moves to an imitative passage (bar 119), leading to the development’s expressive apex in bar 140 on a diminished seventh chord on G♯; see Example 4.14. This chord simultaneously marks the pinnacle of the development’s 37

h

d i

0 0

A connection may be made here with the major-mode presentation of A1 at bars 23ff.

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

195

196

Parataxis and the Dialectics of Lyric Teleology

Example 4.14 Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, bars 140–5

core, and the initiation of the development’s second part, the RT: at bar 141, the music is drained of its energy and dynamic level, and a pianissimo re-entry of the A1 theme – which is lyrically extended and harmonically unstable – commences over the same diminished seventh harmony (bar 144).38 The harmonic trajectory of the bass then rises from g♯ (enharmonically, a♭) to a♮ (bar 152) which transfers down to A (bar 156), from where a chromatic ‘lamento’ descent to E begins: G♯ (bar 158), to G♮ (bar 159) to F♯ (bar 160) to F♮ (bar 162) to E supporting a V64 chord of the home key (bar 164). This G♯ diminished seventh chord not only bridges the development’s two parts, but also contributes to the narrative of chromatic related keys active in the movement. Taken in tandem with the chromatic relations surrounding the movement’s tonic pitch (illustrated in Example 4.12), the movement can now be shown to present every possible enharmonic semitonal relationship to A: B♭ and A♭ in the exposition, G♯ in the development, and A♯ in the recapitulation, thus bringing this G♯ into closer relation with 38

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

The development therefore offers a clear case for classifying lyrical thematic expansion as genuine development. As Burstein argued for D887, here too the material is developed via expansion rather than fragmentation. See Burstein, ‘Lyricism, Structure, and Gender’. Consequently, the movement displays two different, although equally effective methods of thematic development: motivic fragmentation in the exposition’s developmental episodes, and lyrical expansion in the development.

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Schubert’s Lyric Teleology: D804/i

the tonicised A♭ of bars 91–7.39 The chord is also the inciting incident in the movement’s stratified plot in that it sets up a final moment of divergence that is pivotal to the attainment of synthesis in the coda. To understand this, it is necessary first to turn to the recapitulation.

Synthesis and the Supremacy of Cadence The recapitulation that follows has the double task of meeting the generic expectations of the form by resolving the minor mode to the major, and of bringing about synthesis of the stratified process. The manner in which it achieves this is remarkable for its subtlety, and it simultaneously undermines the supremacy of tonal closure as a marker of formal resolution. Its form-functional outline is given in Table 4.9. Although this section follows a similar path to the exposition in its juxtaposition of thematic statement with developmental episodes, not all of the expositional material is brought back intact. Schubert curtails the recapitulation of A by omitting the repeat of the antecedent, originally at bars 11–22, such that now we are presented with a more standard period structure, which nonetheless retains the major-mode statement of the theme. Similarly, the developmental episodes maintain the same pattern of semitonal relationships to the main keys, emphasising first F major in the context of E minor, ♮II/V (bars 193–7), then B minor (ii), and finally F major, now functioning as the flattened submediant in the context of the major tonic (♭VI/I), and a semitone away from the dominant. The alterations to the A group result in the major mode being retrieved earlier than it would be in a literal repeat, and as the ‘structural cadence’ row in Table 4.9 attests, once established, A major is not displaced by another cadentially articulated key in the recapitulation. Nonetheless, three of the cadences in A major are weakened by elision (bars 231–2) or evasion (bars 243–4 and 253–4), meaning that only the fourth attempt – a I: PAC in bars 262–3 – is successful, and provides a candidate for the movement’s Essential Structural Closure (ESC). Even then, this cadence is problematic, coming as it does as the second half of a phrase beginning clearly in F major (bar 254): the dominant seventh of F major in bar 258 is simply juxtaposed with a I6 chord in A major in the next bar. Thus, while the major mode appears to have been established, the potential of this cadence to act as the essential moment of structural resolution for the movement is nevertheless questionable. 39

h

d i

0 0

The chromatic relations in B1 (the C♯ and A♯ of Ex. 4.12), while not as strong as the others, are nonetheless worthy of note.

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

197

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Table 4.9 Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, recapitulation, form-functional analysis

Schubert’s Lyric Teleology: D804/i

Schubert follows this I: PAC with an extended coda, which is concerned with the synthesis of the two strata. The return to the tonic minor and to A1 material in this coda at bar 275 may in itself seem unexceptional in light of Schubert’s propensity for bringing back the beginning of a work at its conclusion, but the extent and function of this repeat is remarkable: it begins as an almost exact reiteration of A1 in its original form, along with its two-bar introduction, which itself is preceded by lead-in material. The section therefore possesses a distinct air of re-beginning, not the beginning of an end. Hefling’s remark that the recapitulation ‘resolves nothing’ (quoted at the head of Section 4.4) now becomes clear: the resolution to the tonic major provided by the recapitulatory B group was an illusion, and we return to the tragic minor mode and to the beginning of the entire movement. Moreover, A1 is modified to include two bars of the repeated antecedent from the exposition – the phrase omitted in the recapitulation – thus displacing the return of this material (albeit only a two-bar reference to it, bars 281–2) until after the sonata form proper. This thematic statement of A1 arrives on a dominant seventh chord at bar 283 which leads to a dramatically articulated and sustained dominant ninth chord (V9, bars 287–90), sounded forte then fortissimo: Schubert’s volcanic temper in full force (Example 4.15). This is no simple dominant 9th chord: without its root, it gives the same diminished 7th chord from bar 140 which was of such import to the development section. That diminished 7th chord was associated not only with the apex of the development section, but also with the chromatic stratum of the stratified process. This final moment of divergence, whereby the chromaticism of the development is drawn into a statement of A1 causing the theme to stall and terminate prematurely, prepares the listener for the synthesis of the stratified process in the final bars of music (bars 293–6), shown in Example 4.16. Here, for the first time, the two levels of discourse prevalent in this movement are combined: the developmental motive, ‘x1’, is presented in the home key, and its synthesis with the presentational stratum is reinforced by a host of rhetorical features. First, ‘x1’, which until this point in the music had been syncopated, now falls forcefully on the downbeat, a modification which has a stabilising effect, and significantly, brings it into closer relation with the presentational motif from which it originally derived (‘x’). Second, although the movement ends in the ‘tragic’ minor mode – the triumphant major being reserved for the Finale – the music at this point (outlining a large i–iv–V–i cadential progression in the tonic) is nonetheless purged of the chromatic and semitonal inflections

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

199

200

Parataxis and the Dialectics of Lyric Teleology

Example 4.15 Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, bars 283–90

associated with the episodes. All but one. Even in these final bars, the juxtaposition of minor and major modes of the tonic key continues in alternating bars (see again Example 4.16): the ascending triplets of bar 294 blatantly set ascending A major against the descending A minor just heard (and about to be heard in bar 295). This alternation concentrates on the import of the semitonal step C/C♯. The passage focuses the synthesis of the two strata into the simplest chromatic neighbouring oscillation: that between major and minor on a single root. Thus, the movement ultimately concludes with material associated with the developmental process used to

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Schubert’s Lyric Teleology: D804/i

Example 4.16 Schubert, String Quartet in A Minor, D804/i, bars 293–6

stabilise the music, which is now both rhythmically and tonally secure: one stratum drawn into the other. Yet ambiguity persists. While the amalgamation of motives might provide synthesis of the stratified process, it is arguable whether it signals resolution of the work’s critical tension between lyricism and dramatic development, especially in light of the dissolution of the lyric mode at bar 290, and its subsequent rescuing by its effective other – its antithesis – the dramatic. To explain: as the lyrical A1 theme stalls on the dominant 9th chord at bar 287, unable to deliver its resolution to the tonic, it becomes embroiled in its own hapless repetition. The music flounders: the chord on D♯ in bars 291–92 (really a lower neighbour note to the bass’s dominant, E, creating an augmented sixth with the violin I’s F♮ in bar 292) drops to pianissimo followed by complete silence, thus signaling the theme’s

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

201

202

Parataxis and the Dialectics of Lyric Teleology

abandonment of its harmonic goal.40 In the wake of this collapse, it is the energy and drama of the episodes which retrieves the dominant and brings about closure. Here, the return to a fortissimo dynamic heightened by the strained high tessitura of the violin I part (recalling bar 44 of the exposition) together signal the immense effort – even violence – that must be summoned to achieve tonal release. The silence between the moment of collapse and the retrieval of energy (bars 290 and 292) seems designed further to dramatise the attempt at synthesis; there is something disquieting about a moment of resolution that sounds so ominous. Just as the Quartettsatz ends by incorporating the erstwhile destructive Neapolitan into a diatonic cadence in the home key, here too the harmonic resolution of the cadence is insufficient to curb the overwhelming impression that this resolution is but temporary and that more is yet to be said. It is this impression of simultaneous synthesis with a palpable lack of resolution that Schubert draws attention to in these final bars. And this is what, retrospectively, reinforces the parataxis of the movement, by acknowledging the two independent strata as eventually combined but ultimately unresolved.

Synthesis Reimagined: When Is a Telos Not a Telos? The preceding reading of D804/i’s recapitulation and coda opens up questions as to what constitutes a work’s telos in the sense of its ultimate goal, purpose, or culmination. On the one hand, the answer is dependent upon the type of analytical lens one adopts. In being informed by the theory of stratification, my analysis sought to trace the pursuit and eventual attainment of synthesis, but ultimately that synthesis left other important aspects of the piece unresolved. One implication of this is that the work calls for more than a single moment of culmination, or more than one telos. Recall that Cone defines the synthesis of a stratified process as ‘the necessary goal toward which the entire composition points’.41 In a remarkably similar articulation, Hepokoski and Darcy define the ‘essential structural closure’ (ESC) in Sonata Theory – a PAC in the home key during the second-group recapitulation – as ‘the goal toward which the entire sonatatrajectory has been aimed’.42 Indeed, they hold that the ‘attaining of the 40

41 42

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

This reading of the augmented sixth chord creates a chromatic engorging of the dominant: D♯/ E/F. Cone, ‘Stravinsky: The Progress of a Method’, 19–20. Hepokoski and Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory, 232.

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Synthesis Reimagined: When Is a Telos Not a Telos?

ESC is the most significant event within the sonata’.43 Thus, my stratified reading of D804/i raises potential problems for a hypothetical sonatatheoretical reading of the movement. First, to identify the final bars of music as the work’s ultimate goal undermines the status of the tonic-major PAC at bar 263 as the movement’s telos. The return to the minor mode in these bars challenges the recapitulation’s major-mode resolution, and brings with it the necessity of later re-establishing the major mode (in the Finale). Second, the moment of synthesis lies outside the boundaries of ‘sonata space’, the space in which the action of the sonata proper usually takes place. As such, it constitutes a sonata deformation in its belated realisation of its goal, in the parageneric space of the coda. For Sonata Theory then, accepting bars 293–6 as the movement’s telos would be to reflect upon the failure of the sonata’s main body to attain this synthesis, and the coda’s own failure to maintain its emancipation from the tyranny of the minor mode. Yet, there is no reason why a sonata-theoretical reading of D804/i cannot be compatible with the stratified interpretation presented here, if one allows for the possibility that a work’s goal can be defined by the inner workings of the piece in question, rather than (or as well as) by theoretical models of cadence. That is to say: in this movement, the attainment of synthesis of the stratified process does not hinge on the realisation of a PAC in the tonic major (though that vital moment is also present), but is governed by the specific details of the movement’s critical tension – both expressive and formal – and in particular by the drive towards integration of the two strata.44 The presence of a PAC in the tonic major at the end of the second recapitulatory group thus represents the work’s tonal goal, its ESC, but it does not account for the culmination of the stratified plan informing the movement, which is provided in the coda. Rhetorical synthesis and tonal resolution, then, represent the respective pinnacles of two separate trajectories (a stratified process and a sonata-theoretical essential trajectory) and are accordingly differently defined: the former in harmonic and rhetorical/motivic terms, and the latter in tonal and thematic terms. The existence of this synthesis after the ESC – as well as the insufficiencies of the synthesis itself – serves, ultimately, to reflect on the futility of any single moment to provide adequate resolution. It seems reasonable to conclude, therefore, that it is not in the gift of any one bar, one chord, or 43 44

h

d i

0 0

Ibid., 232. As I noted at the same point in the exposition, the PAC at bars 261–3 is in itself undermined by the oblique approach to it; thus, the stronger cadential progression in bars 294–6 seems necessary to close the movement.

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

203

204

Parataxis and the Dialectics of Lyric Teleology

one cadence to resolve the complex dialectical argument of a work such as this. And the same holds true much more generally, suggesting that we should proceed with caution before investing too much in concepts such as the ESC (or EEC). The tinge of modal ambiguity undermining the otherwise persuasive final cadence is akin to a cryptic clue: on the face of things, there is obvious synthesis of the material, yet the details of that moment suggest that no such synthesis is possible. This is reminiscent of what Adorno referred to as Hölderlin’s ‘paratactic revolt against synthesis’.45 For Adorno, the parataxis of Hölderlin’s lyric poetry resulted in a ‘synthesis of a different’ kind, one which was not allencompassing, but which admitted to a certain indefiniteness or formal openness, acknowledging the impossibility of total unity: ‘Hölderlin so transmutes the form of unity that not only is multiplicity reflected in it . . . but in addition the unity indicates that it knows itself to be inconclusive.’46 This aspect of critical self-reflection is also suggested in Schubert’s works wherein rhetorical synthesis and tonal resolution take different forms, or happen asynchronously. Thus in D804/i, the pursuit of synthesis remains a central concern of the work even if its articulation exists as a critique of classical notions of closure and fulfilment. To admit as much is not to collapse or reduce Schubert’s paratactic practices to the hegemony of an all-encompassing organic unity, but instead to recognise the potential they possess to subject such long-held notions of resolution to critical scrutiny without negating them altogether. Schubert thereby acknowledges and transcends the expectations of the Classical (Beethovenian) ideal. And just as Hölderlin’s poetry, for Adorno, is thereby progressive, so too Schubert’s sonata forms represent a progressive response to his inherited Classical tradition: this movement’s refusal to accede to the unidirectional demands of Classical sonata form amounts to a progressive ideology critique.

Conclusion: The Temporality of Lyric Teleology The implications of this idea of multiple moments of culmination for the temporal unfolding of these works are significant, particularly if we abandon a strictly unidirectional understanding of tonal form. Stratification is not the only way to conceptualise this. Kramer’s concept of multiply directed linear time is equally helpful in this regard, as it acknowledges the continuation of motion (or activity) in music where the musical surface 45

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Adorno, ‘Parataxis’, 136.

00

bli h d

li

b C

46

b id

Ibid., 136.

i

i

Conclusion: The Temporality of Lyric Teleology

is ‘frequently interrupted by discontinuities’, or where the music travels to ‘unexpected places’, represented in D804/i by the sudden harmonic shifts in the developmental episodes.47 Significantly, Kramer argues that in such music ‘the sense of goal-direction is acute, even if more than one goal is implied and/or more than one route to the goal(s) is suggested’.48 Similarly, our perception and understanding of D804/i’s teleological process is dependent upon our ability to follow the path of non-adjacent musical segments, the recognition of which depends largely on whether we conceptualise the movement in unidirectional terms or not. In other words, the recognition of a teleological process in all the movements discussed in this chapter relies on the reader’s (listener’s) capacity to remember: each time a theme reemerges from a developmental interruption, she must attempt to place it within its own line of musical discourse, which requires of her to revisit past material in order to understand the present.49 It is ultimately memory that permits this teleological reading: the music proceeds forward, constantly striving towards synthesis by referring backwards and recalling earlier material.50 It is the placement of this material on multiple levels – diverse strata – that distinguishes it from the kind of retrospective understanding demanded of the teleology associated with Beethoven’s ‘heroic’ trajectories where we hear ‘back’ to the stages of its evolution. The kind of ‘retrospective teleology’ described here is tied to the fundamentally lyrical nature of the music; it illustrates that the lyric mode affords this special kind of teleology. The idea that Schubert’s music brings the qualities of ‘memory, reminiscence, fatalism, wandering [and] circularity’ to the fore in unusually prominent ways is not new; a long reception history has isolated these as some of the most basic aesthetic qualities of his music, and with good reason.51 It is not the aim of this chapter to challenge this association, but rather to question the related premise that memory cannot function as part of a teleological process. The oxymoron of retrospective teleology comes close to the temporal process described by Constantin Behler as ‘nostalgic teleology’, in which a work both looks back to the past and forms part of a future-oriented trajectory, although Behler’s concept refers more

47 49

50

51

h

d i

0 0

Kramer, The Time of Music, 46. 48 Ibid., 46. My imagined reader/listener is, in this respect, similar to Frisch’s ‘competent listener . . . whose habitual memory . . . includes such learned structures as sentences, periods, sonata forms’. See Frisch, ‘“You Must Remember This”’, 590. This echoes Frisch’s reading of the opening of D887/i, but on a larger scale: see Frisch, ‘“You Must Remember This”’, 590. Taylor, The Melody of Time, 131.

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

205

206

Parataxis and the Dialectics of Lyric Teleology

specifically to historical placement (related to the anxiety of influence).52 Under that model, the progressive nature of Schubert’s strategy again comes to the fore. Similarly, Taylor makes clear that ‘the return to something past may yet be part of an onward teleological trajectory’ in his consideration of the teleological possibilities of cyclical music.53 Such concepts permit an understanding of teleology which runs counter to the idea of an inexorable linear progress towards a single moment of resolution in the future, replacing it with a more pliant concept of purposeful motion which can encompass non-linear musics; thus, while memory may play a role in teleological music, the specific manner of recall coupled with the different levels of discourse evident here suggest something more. Berger’s concept of mutual implication, discussed in Chapter 1, reveals itself to be of primary importance here: the music strives forward and reflects backwards, and both motions are constitutive of teleology understood as purposeful motion. Teleology is therefore firmly in force in these works, but the unidirectionality with which it has historically been understood is fundamentally challenged. Moreover, the reimagining of teleology as multidirectional and multilayered that this music enacts is an essential tenet of its lyrical nature. In his work on the lyric mode in poetry, Staiger equates the aesthetic qualities of the lyric with remembrance, or a sense of pastness, a point which has been taken up by Daverio, among others, who coined the epithet of ‘the temporality of pastness’ as an aesthetic descriptor for Schubert’s music. Staiger writes that ‘lyric existence remembers, epic existence presents, dramatic existence projects . . . The lyric poet . . . can recall present and past, and even the future’.54 It is this ability to recall the future – this temporal orientation directed towards the past while enabling a teleological argument – that is symptomatic of D804/i’s profoundly lyrical character. The lyrical tenor of both A1 and B1 in this movement already attests to its concentration of lyrical elements, but it is perhaps this sense of temporal reordering, evident in the work’s retrospective orientation and multidirectional teleology, which presents the closest affinity with the lyric mode. Thus, the sense of progression in this movement – its teleology – is not adversely affected by this sense of pastness but is in fact facilitated by it. Despite their strong rhetorical separation, then, the dramatic and lyrical passages in the three movements just examined are in fact reciprocal and 52

53

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

On which see Nicole Grimes, Brahms’s Elegies: The Poetics of Loss in Nineteenth-Century German Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 4 and 245. Taylor, Mendelssohn, Time and Memory, 40. 54 Staiger, Basic Concepts of Poetics, 187.

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Conclusion: The Temporality of Lyric Teleology

interdependent; taken together, they form two independent but complementary sides of a dichotomy defining paratactic syntax and logic. Such reasoning necessitates a reformulation of the received understanding of parataxis as something without the potential for syntactic continuity: while the alternation of functionally and rhetorically divergent material in the expositions under consideration is in the most obvious sense paratactic, yet it is also syntactic in its generation of a logical formal structure, one which nonetheless stands as a critique of hypotaxis. This realisation avoids imposing an extraneous hypotactic logic – whereby the diametrically opposed agents of a critical tension fold into an all-encompassing totality which is retrospectively understood as propelling their progress – onto this music. On the contrary, the unique teleological aspect of these works is shown to reveal something fundamental about the basis of their lyrical quality: the formal constructs presented in this chapter of multiple syntheses, of a multidirectional teleological journey, or of the purposeful negation of a pursued synthesis, lead not away from the lyric, but instead delve deeper into its very essence, to the implications of its existence as an entity of form.

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

207

The Temporality of Lyric Teleology: Once More between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets

5

Introduction: Music and Time Schubert’s method of structuring time allows the design of highly different temporal phenomena.1 – Dieter Schnebel

Questions of musical time or temporality have informed all of the preceding analytical chapters, even if they have been addressed at a subcutaneous level in the writing. The concept of closure that was the focus of Chapter 3, for instance, is itself predicated on bringing to completion something (a phrase, a thematic unit) that has come before it; it is impossible to achieve closure without the pre-existence of something to close. Closure therefore offers not only completion, but also a way of making sense of the past, and Chapter 3 illustrated how Schubert manipulates this in order to create progressive forms. Similarly, Chapter 4 demonstrated that the ‘temporality of pastness’ to which the lyricism of D804/i gives voice partakes of a stratified teleological process, which provides a viable alternative to the strictly linear and unidirectional demands of Classical sonata form. The present chapter brings such questions to the centre of attention in order to explore and explicate the diverse temporal modes that coexist in Schubert’s quartet movements and which are a result of his prominent amalgamation of sonata and variation impulses. To be sure, the relationship between music and time is complex and multifaceted. As a temporal art form, music not only exists in and through time, but it also has the capacity to shape, expand, and even ‘distort or destroy’ time altogether through a combination of diverse rhythmic,

1

208

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Dieter Schnebel, ‘Schubert: Auf der Suche nach der befreiten Zeit’, Denkbare Music, Schriften 1952–1972, ed. Hans Rudolf Zeller (Schauberg, Cologne: M. DuMont, 1972). Schnebel’s original text reads: ‘Schuberts Verfahren der Zeitstruckturierung ermöglicht die Gestaltung höchst unterschiedlicher Zeitphänomene’, 118. All translations of this text are my own.

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Introduction: Music and Time

melodic, harmonic, and formal means.2 There are at least two ways of understanding this relationship: the first is the commonly shared experience of music’s ability to create a sense of timelessness through a network of specific compositional devices (repetition, expressive use of silence, level of musical complexity) and performance options (tempo, speed, rubato). This is what Barbara R. Barry terms the ‘subjective experience’ of passing time, and it places the listener’s perception front and centre: ‘through close attention to and involvement in the music’s interrelated rhythmic structures, the listener may consequently be unaware of how much . . . time has elapsed’.3 The second approach, and that which forms the focus of this chapter, relates to the ways by which music can embody discrete, often diverse temporalities: the ways, in other words, by which music creates time. As Monelle puts it, ‘As in language [so too in music], there is a temporality of syntactic structure. But theorists have studied this sort of time, in its typical forms of meter, rhythm, and phrasing, with such profound attention that we forget that music can also signify time. There is a temporality of the signified as well as a temporality of the signifier.’4 Precisely how music signifies time has proven to be the more enduring question, and the resulting concept of ‘musical time’ has received detailed consideration from philosophical, cognitive, semiological, phenomenological, and analytical perspectives during at least the last fifty years.5 A recurring idea underlying that body of work is the distinction between what is variously termed ‘natural’, ‘ordinary’, or ‘scientific’ time (what I, 2 3 4

5

h

d i

0 0

Kramer, The Time of Music, 5. Barbara R. Barry, Musical Time: The Sense of Order (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1990), 8. Monelle, The Sense of Music, 83. Monelle’s ‘temporality of the signifier’ relates to music’s syntactic structure. A representative cross section of this scholarship from the musicological literature includes Susanne Langer, Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art Developed from Philosophy in a New Key (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1953); Robert P. Morgan, ‘Musical Time/Musical Space’, Critical Inquiry, 6/3 (1980), 527–38; David B. Green, Temporal Processes in Beethoven’s Music (New York: Gordon and Breach, 1982); Thomas Clifton, Music as Heard: A Study in Applied Phenomenology (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1983); Kramer, The Time of Music; Barry, Musical Time; David Epstein, Beyond Orpheus: Studies in Musical Structure (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987) and Shaping Time: Music, The Brain, and Performance (New York: Schirmer, 1995); Monelle, The Sense of Music; Thomas Reiner, Semiotics of Musical Time (New York: Peter Lang, 2000); Robert Adlington, ‘Moving Beyond Motion: Metaphors for Changing Sound’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 128/8 (2003), 297–318; Justin London, Hearing in Time: Psychological Aspects of Musical Meter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Robert Hatten, ‘The Troping of Temporality in Music’, in Approaches to Meaning in Music, ed. Byron Almén and Edward Pearsall (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006), 62–75; Berger, Bach’s Cycle, Mozart’s Arrow; Taylor, The Melody of Time; and Mariusz Kozak, Enacting Musical Time: The Bodily Experience of New Music (Oxford University Press, 2020).

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

209

210

Between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets

following Susanne Langer, call ‘clock’ time) and cultural time or temporality, the category to which musical time belongs.6 Kramer, in The Time of Music, differentiates between ‘absolute’ and ‘gestural’ time in a way that defines the former as representing a measurable ‘linear succession of nowmoments’ and the latter as a kind of retrospective manifestation of the temporal functions of musical gestures within a given work.7 Likewise, David Epstein draws a distinction between ‘chronometric’ time, referring to the ‘essentially mechanistic’ time signatures and hypermetres set up within musical bars and phrases, and ‘integral’ time, denoting unique organisations of time intrinsic to individual pieces of music.8 More recently, Monelle’s ‘biochronic’ conception of musical time distinguishes between lyric time (that which is) and progressive time (that which moves or becomes).9 Monelle’s association of lyric time with ideas of being (sein) rather than becoming (werden) is significant for how we understand the temporal aesthetic of Schubert’s music in relation to nineteenth-century ideas of progressive form. In a much earlier – and regrettably underexplored – study, Dieter Schnebel provides a means by which to align such binaries. He posits that without some form of articulation, such as the striking of a clock or the regular breaking of waves on the shore, natural time is ‘unarticulated’ (unartikulierter). When music, as an agent of articulation, fills this void with ‘time structures’ (Zeiträume), it thereby activates one’s perception of musical temporality.10 Schubert’s music, Schnebel argues, does this in unusually multiple ways, not only by organising time in a linear, regular fashion, but also by creating networks of diverse temporal phenomena. As illustration, Schnebel catalogues the ways by which Schubert’s instrumental and vocal compositions bring the passage of time into the foreground of awareness in a manner distinct from everyday lived experience. From the static nature of music that ‘eternally revolves around the same point’ in ‘Der Doppelgänger’ and ‘Der Leiermann’ to the ceaseless movement of Schubert’s finales, and the ‘retarding’ effects of fermatas and trills in the 6 7 9 10

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Langer, Feeling and Form. On the dual nature of musical time, see Barry, Musical Time, 8–14. 8 Kramer, The Time of Music, 151 and 150. Epstein, Beyond Orpheus, 57. Monelle, The Sense of Music. Schnebel, ‘Schubert’, 120 and 123. Schnebel’s formulation bears more than a passing resemblance to Thomas Mann’s famous articulation of the time element in music: ‘into a section of mortal time music pours itself, thereby inexpressibly enhancing and ennobling what it fills’. Mann, The Magic Mountain (Connecticut: Easton Press, 1999), 541. This designation of agency to music transforms it from object to subject and reveals the closeness between Schnebel’s and Monelle’s work: the signified (music), in Schnebel’s account, can also signify its own temporality.

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Introduction: Music and Time

Piano Sonata in B♭, D960, Schnebel demonstrates how Schubert persistently places the perception of musical time to the fore in his works.11 This foregrounding, he writes, has the effect of ‘almost making us forget the transience’ of ordinary ‘clock’ time and allows subjective musical temporality to break away from it, becoming, in a sense, thematic: it is time itself which is subject to fragmentation, development, and manipulation in – and by – this music.12 While the perceptive reader will recognise some familiar tropes in Schnebel’s account, particularly the idea that Schubert’s music renders the passing of time inept (calling into question whether it passes at all), there is nonetheless genuine novelty in his conclusion that Schubert’s music frees musical temporality from time’s quotidian associations and raises it to greater significance. This foregrounding of musical time as a diverse and vibrant entity is not something with which Schubert’s music has historically been associated.13 Thus, despite the apparent resonance between Schnebel’s foregoing description of ‘Der Doppelgänger’ and Adorno’s formulation of the Schubertian landscape as ‘ex-centric – radiating outwards from a fixed centre’ – Schnebel’s aesthetic formulation of this music resists the spatial metaphor.14 In fact, Adorno occupies the opposite side of the musicological fence: for him, Schubert’s music represents a ‘landscape, in which every point is equally close to the centre [and] all development is antimatter, the first step as close to death as the last’.15 Thus, Adorno ‘hears’ Schubert spatially. For Schnebel, to suggest that Schubert’s music is without a sense of temporal necessity (that it is spatial) is to ignore one of its defining characteristics: in its endeavour to liberate time, Schubert’s music ‘dilutes’ (verdünnen) and ‘perforates’ (durchlöchern) it, embedding the temporal into the very fibre of his musical idiom.16 The implications of Schnebel’s observations for the analysis of Schubert’s music merit further consideration from an analytical perspective exploring the range of multiple temporalities that (co)exist in this music and their relationship to larger considerations of form. How are these temporal phenomena manifest, and how might we perceive them? Schnebel suggests that temporal diversity is signalled in Schubert’s music through largely rhythmic means – such as the expansion or contraction of 11 12 13

14

h

d i

0 0

‘die immer um die gleiche Stelle kreist’ and ‘retardierende’. Schnebel, ‘Schubert’, 118 and 119. ‘was ihre Vergänglichkeit fast vergessen macht’. Schnebel, ‘Schubert’, 121. In this regard, and in contrast to some earlier musicological scholarship on Schubert, Schnebel’s observations are noteworthy, even if the philosophical and intellectual bases upon which they are built are underdeveloped. Adorno, ‘Schubert (1928)’, 10. 15 Ibid., 10. 16 Schnebel, ‘Schubert’, 120.

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

211

212

Between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets

phrases – and through the use of repetition. Accordingly, he reads the opening forty-eight bars of D960/i as a time loop during which four attempts are made at articulating a ‘melodically and harmonically compact theme’, but each time the attempt fails, progressive time grinds to a halt, and the music remains ‘stuck to the spot, revolving around itself’.17 For the most part, Schnebel’s observations remain at the level of the individual phrase or theme group; nowhere does he venture to explore their ramifications for matters of formal organisation. In attempting to develop Schnebel’s work, this chapter argues that the generation of distinct temporalities in this music is actually a function of discernible formal devices, foremost among which is Schubert’s amalgamation of sonata form and variation technique.

The Temporality of Variation There is no reason why variations should not form part of a sonata movement, but they should offer something more than mere repetition.18 – Jack Allan Westrup

Westrup’s criticism of Schubert’s use of theme and variation in the secondsubject group of D887/i gives expression to a critical issue, which is both ideological and methodological. Pace Westrup, conventional music theory insists that there is good reason why variations should not form part of a sonata movement, and that is precisely because they are founded upon repetition and are incompatible with the dynamic trajectory of the sonata. The two forms stand, in Rosen’s famed estimation, as ‘polar opposites’, and the manner in which repetition functions within each is emblematic of their aesthetic polarity.19 Variation form’s conditio sine qua non is the repetition of a thematic complex with alterations of texture, rhythm, mode, register, tonality, ornamentation, and so on; to ask ‘something more’ of it is to appeal to techniques not inherent to the form itself, but which nonetheless feature in a number of classical variation sets (linking material between variations, progressive rhythmic diminution, and variational pairing are just some examples).20 By contrast, sonata form conveys development and

17

18 19

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

‘In dieser Musik tritt Zeit wieder auf der Stelle, noch kreist sie um selbst.’ Schnebel, ‘Schubert’, 119. Westrup, Schubert Chamber Music, 44; my emphasis. Charles Rosen, The Frontiers of Meaning, 86. 20 Westrup, Schubert Chamber Music, 44.

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

The Temporality of Variation

teleology, underlined by a strong sense of direction. The return of material in the recapitulation, a sonata’s large-scale return, plays a transformative role and, as Berger emphasises, ‘is not simply a return; it is, rather, the necessary outcome, the final act of closing gaps and reconciling differences’.21 In short, the tendency towards embellished contiguous repetition in variation form contrasts markedly with the effect of large-scale transformation in the sonata: one form emphasises underlying similarity, the other difference.22 Viewed historically, the distinction between the two forms bas been couched in a variety of terms, many of which serve to propagate the lower aesthetic standing of the variation’s ostensibly arbitrary construction (Jan La Rue’s ‘musical link sausage’ comes to mind) against the logic of the sonata.23 Their distinction can be summarised as another branch of the hypotaxis–parataxis axis, an idea introduced in Sisman’s pioneering work: ‘Variations are inherently paratactic, based on an iteration of items in a linear series, and thus are comparable to the “choppy” as opposed to the “rounded” or periodic style of oratory (the latter is more characteristic of sonata form).’24 Because sonata form is understood as a narrative form (in the sense intended by Berger), in which causal relationships are imparted in an ordered and irreversible succession, it sets the expectation of a linear unfolding of plot.25 Conversely, the additive structures of variation are viewed as incapable of sustaining an overarching form, of creating genuine development, or of articulating a sense of predetermined, inevitable

21 22

23

24

25

h

d i

0 0

Berger, Bach’s Cycle, Mozart’s Arrow, 14. For representative literature detailing the fundamental distinction between these two forms, see Esther Cavett-Dunsby, Mozart’s Variations Reconsidered: Four Case Studies (K.613, K.501 and the Finales of K.421 [417b] and K.491) (New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1989), Sisman, Haydn and the Classical Variation, Mak, ‘Schubert’s Sonata Forms’, and Ivanovitch, ‘Recursive/ Discursive: Variation and Sonata in the Andante of Mozart’s String Quartet in F, K.590’, Music Theory Spectrum, 32/2 (2010), 145–64. Jan LaRue, Guidelines for Style Analysis (New York: W. W. Norton, 1970), 174. This bias towards hypotactic rhetorical encompassed both literary and musical concerns in the eighteenth century. See Hugh Blair’s description of the style periodique (hypotaxis) as affording ‘an air of gravity and dignity to composition’, in contrast to the style coupé (parataxis) which ‘suits gay and easy subjects’. Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (Philadelphia: T. Ellwood Zell & Co., 1866 reprint), 113. Sisman, ‘Variations’, New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., Vol. 26 (2001), 284–326 (284). Sisman’s formulation is reminiscent of Heinrich Christoph Koch’s analogy between the syntax of speech and (form-generating) melodic phrase-expansion techniques, originating in his Versuch einer Anleitung zur Composition (in three volumes, 1782, 1787, and 1793). See also Sisman, Haydn and the Classical Variation. Berger, ‘Narrative and Lyric’.

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

213

214

Between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets

closure: their paratactic nature destabilises the hypotactic syntax of the sonata and weakens its teleological drive.26 Such generalisations have been nuanced in studies which re-envision the relationship between sonata and variation as permeable and reciprocal, and that reappraise the role of variation – technique, impulse, and dynamic – as an organising force in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sonata. In a valuable study of Mozart and the ‘environment’ of variation, Roman Ivanovitch explores the relationship between sonata and variation in terms of discursive (sonata) and recursive (variation) impulses, pertaining, respectively, to discourse that works logically towards the attainment of a goal and to a regular course of events that occurs repeatedly.27 In Brahms scholarship, Julian Littlewood’s and Swinkin’s work explore the productive interaction between the two formal types, the former appealing to Kochian terminology in his description of variation form as an ‘extended’ form and sonata as ‘expanded’.28 Recognition of the two forms’ interaction has a long history in Schubert scholarship. Wollenberg, for instance, rightly claims that ‘variations are utterly integral to [Schubert’s] compositional approach in movements that are not formally designed, and would not be designated, as such’.29 Similarly, Mak’s work brilliantly illuminates the innate parataxis of Schubert’s idiom (in much the same way as Ivanovitch does for Mozart and the recursive), thereby presenting variation as an inherent component of Schubert’s musical language, permeating works not recognisably in variation form. Her readings of D46/i, D703, and D887/i focus on the descending tetrachord’s role as motivic resource, large-scale structure, and 26

27

28

29

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

These comments refer to single-movement variation form considered in isolation. Of course, a composer’s use of variation within a multimovement work might actively resist this stereotype, making the variations part of a teleological super structure. See Marston’s work on Beethoven’s Op. 109: Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in E, Op. 109 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). For a more explicit attempt to deal with the analytical issues posed by variation form, see also Marston, ‘Analysing Variations: The Finale of Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 74’, Music Analysis, 8/3 (1989), 303–24. For further discussion of parataxis in relation to D887, see Salzer’s work on the lyric (discussed in Chapter 1), in which he argues that the second-subject group is excessively long and at odds with the sonata’s ‘improvisatory element’. Salzer, ‘Die Sonatenform bei Franz Schubert’, 90. See also Dahlhaus ‘Sonata Form in Schubert’, and Mason, The Romantic Composers. Roman Ivanovitch, ‘Mozart and the Environment of Variation’, unpublished PhD dissertation, Yale University, 2004, and ‘Recursive/Discursive: Variation and Sonata in the Andante of Mozart’s String Quartet in F, K. 590’, especially 145–6. Julian Littlewood, The Variations of Johannes Brahms (London: Plumbago Press, 2004), and Jeffrey Swinkin, ‘Variation as Thematic Actualisation: The Case of Brahms’s Op. 9’, Music Analysis, 31/1 (2012), 37–89. Wollenberg, Schubert’s Fingerprints, 12–13. Wollenberg notes further that the instances of variation techniques within Schubert’s thematic material are ‘in inverse proportion to the incidence of formal variation sets in his output’, 12.

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

The Temporality of Variation

variation theme, respectively.30 Indeed, A. B. Marx’s definition of variation form as ‘a succession of repetitions of a Liedsatz (theme) in constantly altered presentations – the consideration of the same idea from different perspectives’ parallels Adorno’s reading of Schubert’s sonata-form themes as representing ‘shifts in perspective’ and is symptomatic of the deep affinity that exists between variation and sonata in Schubert’s music and which permeates his sonatas. This affinity reveals itself in at least three ways. First is the prominent use of melodic variation in expositional theme groups and, equally characteristically, the persistent variation of material at the point of recapitulation. The latter is evident in the first movements of D36, D353, D810, D898, D956, as well as D887.31 A second site of variation–sonata amalgamation is in development sections which are structured around large sequences of material resembling Fortspinnung rather than Entwicklung.32 The development sections of the late works D887/i (cf. bars 210–252), D929/i (cf. bars 195–246, bars 247–98, and bars 299–363), and D956/i (cf. bars 181–2171 and bars 217–58) offer particularly clear examples of the practice, and in the Trio especially, the specific harmonic plot and the shifting from major to minor combine to create a sense of circularity. An early and characteristic example is found in the first movement of the Quartet in B♭ Major, D112, the development section of which is structured as a single sequence through B-group material (bars 157–206). Not only that, but also the exposition displays an extended developmental interpolation between the A and B groups, which is itself a sequence in two large parts: bars 45–72 and 73–100, the second of which dissolves into TR rhetoric. Taken individually, these compositional practices could arguably be dismissed as a conventional means of offering thematic interest or emphasis (especially the

30

31

32

h

d i

0 0

See Mak, ‘Structure, Design, and Rhetoric’, especially chapter 4, ‘The Descending Tetrachord in Schubert’s Music’. Although there is a clear double return in D36/i, the variational impulse introduces an entirely new variant of A-group material at bar 161. This disrupts the movement’s steady four-bar phrasing which has been in effect since the beginning and leads to a doubling of the phrase length; see bars 161–8. Similarly, in D353/i, the variation of expositional materials results in phrase expansions in the recapitulation whereby the original basic idea is expanded from 4 to 6 bars; see bars 133–8. The distinction between Fortspinnung and Entwicklung is addressed by Blume in ‘Fortspinnung und Entwicklung’ and is discussed in more detail in Chapter 1. See also Wilhelm Fischer ‘Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des Wiener klassischen Stils’, Studien zur Musikwissenschaft, 3 (1915), 24–84, for a different treatment of Entwicklung. It has long been acknowledged that Schubert’s developments employ large sequences; see Martin Chusid, ‘Schubert’s Chamber Music: Before and after Beethoven’, in The Cambridge Companion to Schubert, ed. Gibbs, 174–92 (192).

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

215

216

Between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets

restatement of thematic material with ornamental variation at the point of recapitulation), but when considered in tandem with the third category – when variation techniques take on a more significant structural role within a sonata-form movement – they suggest a systematic usage of variation in a way that is both stylistically distinctive and formally embedded. It is worth pausing on the first and ostensibly most superficial of these categories momentarily to consider its temporal implications, for even in its simplest usage, the technique implies a shift in temporal perspective. Take the A group of the Quartet in E♭ Major, D87/i (1813), shown in Example 5.1. This begins with a 14-bar sentence in which a three-bar basic idea is stated in the tonic and repeated on the subdominant. The basic idea’s characteristic interval of a sixth (E♭– C) is then isolated and sequenced in the continuation (bars 7–10), and the cadential function leads to a PAC elided with a varied repeat of the theme beginning in bar 14. This repetition is harmonically identical to the original but varies the melodic material via the use of upper neighbour-note appoggiaturas, registral contrast, and by filling in the descending octave leaps of bars 7 and 9 with arpeggios in bars 20 and 22, as marked in Example 5.1. These variations create the impression of an idealised memory of the original theme in two ways. First, the dynamic level, which in the theme remained at pianissimo with two decrescendos, here fluctuates between forte statements of the original material and quieter (piano) melodic variations (bars 16 and 19). This makes them sound like echoes of the theme, reinforcing their status as melodic variants, or memories.33 Second, their registral displacement to a higher octave, augmenting the spatial distance between the outer instruments and creating a registral remoteness from the original material, also adds to the effect. Of course, bars 3 and 6 are themselves echoes of bars 2 and 5, respectively, within the theme. What we are hearing is therefore a recollection of a memory rather than of the original; this imbues the theme with a sense of nostalgia from the very outset and results in the variations being twice removed from the original. Although writing on the Impromptus, D935, Schumann’s belief that ‘even on their first appearance [Schubert’s musical ideas] are imbued with the quality of a reminiscence’ applies wonderfully to this theme.34 The act of varying here is simultaneously an act of temporal displacement; the melodic variations garner their meaning from their relationship with the past. 33

34

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

A similar practice of melodic variation written into the initial theme is evident in the second movement of the Piano Trio in B♭, D898. Schumann, quoted in John Daverio, ‘“One More Beautiful Memory of Schubert”’, 610.

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

The Temporality of Variation Example 5.1 Schubert, String Quartet in E♭ Major, D87/i, melodic variation of theme

This brief example illustrates that the temporal perspective articulated by variation form is typically understood as being one of retrospection. Michael Broyles refers to the ‘retrospective’ aesthetic that surrounds the form in Beethoven’s music, for instance.35 As such, it is readily associated with the nostalgia of the lyric mode such that the form itself may be viewed as representative of ‘lyric time’.36 The impulse to variation demonstrated by the first movement of D887 (abbreviated hereafter as D887/i) in particular is widely understood as being retrospective in nature; indeed, it has become a ‘staple . . . of the Schubertian memory discourse’.37 Dahlhaus first described the distinct temporality of the movement as progressing ‘from 35

36

h

d i

0 0

Michael Broyles, Beethoven: The Emergence and Evolution of Beethoven’s Heroic Style (New York: Excelsior, 1978), 89. Broyles uses this term in two ways to describe variations more generally with their orientation towards the past and, in the Eroica variations, Beethoven’s use of earlier (eighteenth-century) variation practice. Monelle, The Sense of Music. 37 Taylor, The Melody of Time, 131.

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

217

218

Between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets

later events back to earlier ones, and not to goal-consciousness, which presses from earlier to later’.38 Taking Dahlhaus’s cue, Frisch and Burnham relate the structure of the movement to concepts of memory and reminiscence, posing the question of what the act of remembrance sounds like.39 Similarly, Mak’s reading of the quartet remarks that the ‘repetitiveness and circularity [of the second-group theme] arrest both time and tonal motion’, while Burnham comments elsewhere on the same theme’s ‘self-sufficiency [and] intense coherence’ which lends itself to repetition, revisiting past material, but not development, which strives ever forward.40 Given this temporal association, the incorporation of variation into a sonata form is tantamount to the introduction of an independent and foreign temporal state into the sonata. For Dahlhaus, Mak, and Burnham, D887/i is therefore less concerned with the tension between two different forms than with exploring the interaction of two very different temporal states: the dynamic sonata trajectory, and the static, repetitive variation. Ivanovitch presents a nuanced way of conceptualising the temporal aspect of variation form: for him, while each variation refers back to the theme in a retrospective manner, the theme or thematic complex itself also provides a temporal map for each variation through its phrasing and – in this repertoire – particularly through its harmonic components. Thus, a variation theme is ‘a series of ordered events . . . [and] provides a roadmap or course chart . . . a theme presents the primal placing of events, our first glimpse of the temporal world the variations will inhabit’.41 The variations might follow this harmonic map, providing melodic, registral, textural interest, or they might deviate from it, delaying the arrival of some elements, or changing the expected order of events. While I find this conceptualisation helpful, one should not ignore the possibility that variations can act as new maps themselves: the relationship is not always monolinearly between variation and initial theme, and the consequences of this for a temporal reading of the set are significant. It follows then that departures from the temporal blueprint laid down by the theme (or an earlier variation) in the form of deferrals, omissions, and substitutions of the original have temporal consequences: these shall be explored in my reading of D94/ii.

38 39 40

41

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Dahlhaus, ‘Sonata Form in Schubert’, 8. Frisch, ‘“You Must Remember This”’ and Burnham, ‘Schubert and the Sound of Memory’. Mak, ‘Structure, Design, and Rhetoric’, 193 and Burnham, ‘Landscape as Music’, 33. Chapter 1 discusses Clark’s variance with this Dahlhausian retrospective line of argumentation. Roman Ivanovitch, ‘What’s in a Theme? On the Nature of Variation’, Gamut, 3/1 (2010), 1–42 (9).

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

The Temporality of Variation

Moreover, in the case of D887/i, close attention to the movement’s formfunctional aspects reveals that the manipulation of time is, in fact, differently effected in each subject group, suggesting that variation techniques can partake of a teleological narrative. In the two later movements explored in this chapter, the musical syntax of the movement’s grouping structures is imbued with a degree of ambiguity that functions simultaneously on different formal levels, displaying form-functional multiplicity (FFM) in the first and second expositional groups and a double tonal/thematic trajectory in the development. As outlined in Chapter 1, FFM refers to a technique of thematic expansion or extension wherein a particular passage can be understood as articulating more than one formal function at different intra-thematic levels at a given point in time. Given that formal functions entail temporal perspectives (of beginning-middle-end), this music’s functional multiplicity engenders diverse temporal schema or multiple time structures such that musical time is differently constructed in each group, undermining thereby the notion of a single trajectory through the movement. In this way, form-functional multiplicity resonates with Kramer’s ‘multiply directed linear time’ wherein ‘linearity, though still a potent structural force [in music], seems reordered . . . There is a sense of motion, but the direction of that motion is anything but unequivocal.’42 Thus, these works suggest that variation is as concerned with the exploration of competing temporalities as it is about articulating a single, retrospective temporal perspective. The present chapter, then, pursues two related ends: first, to analyse the formal syntax of these movements afresh by bringing their variational structures into dialogue with form-functional theory (specifically, with aspects of thematic expansion and extension), and second, to demonstrate the role played by ambiguity and form-functional multiplicity in the movements’ generation of competing manifestations of musical time. To that end, this chapter assesses the degree of interaction between Schubert’s idiosyncratic formal practices and his music’s interrogation of musical time from the perspective of three case studies, each from a distinct compositional period: the quartets in D major, D94/ii, G minor, D173/i and G major, D887/i. Each of these combine sonata and variation techniques, 42

h

d i

0 0

Kramer, The Time of Music, 25 and 46. Thomas Clifton’s work complements Kramer’s in this regard, dealing with similar questions from a phenomenological perspective, addressing music fundamentally as a heard or experienced phenomenon. See Clifton, Music as Heard. My concept of form-functional multiplicity also resonates with Adlington’s work, which fundamentally challenges the notion that a single trajectory is indicative of tonal music; see Adlington, ‘Moving Beyond Motion’.

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

219

220

Between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets

giving rise to movements which complicate the traditional teleological drive of sonata form, and each brings musical time into focus in discrete ways. My analysis of D94/ii and D173/i serve as examples of (i) the subtle means by which Schubert progressivises ‘lyric time’ through techniques of expansion and extension, and (ii) the form-functional ambiguities that arise (on a local level) from the incorporation of variation techniques into a first-movement sonata form (in D173/i). The analysis of D887/i is divided into three parts, focusing, respectively, on the configuration of the first subject group, the paratactic (after Sisman and Mak) design of the second group, and the double trajectory (after Jordan and Kafalenos) of the development section.43 Since the analytical points demonstrated by the first and second subject groups hold true in both the exposition and recapitulation, the recapitulation is considered separately, focusing on its end function for the movement as a whole. In all three case studies, it is the movements’ amalgamation of sonata and variation – two ostensibly opposing formal impulses – that acts as the catalyst for these form-functional ambiguities and the temporal diversity they engender.

Progressivising Lyric Time: D94/ii The amalgamation of variation and sonata impulses in the Andante con moto of the Quartet in D, D94 furnishes an instructive example of the subtle ways by which Schubert progressivises lyric time. My reading draws on the idea of the theme as a temporal map, exploring the implications of Schubert’s deviation from this plan in the ensuing variations. As shown in Table 5.1, this monothematic movement is structured as a large parallel binary form without development in which the first part (‘Rotation 1’) modulates from tonic (G major) to dominant (D major) and the second part (‘Rotation 2’) begins in the dominant and returns to the tonic. The lack of any developmental material between the two parts suggests a Type-1 sonata strategy, although the second part (‘Rotation 2’) begins away from the tonic, making this, at best, a variant of the Type-1 model which engages with aspects of Type-2 strategy.44 43 44

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Jordan and Kafalenos, ‘The Double Trajectory’. The movement is therefore similar in construction to the first movement of D74, which also exhibits a parallel binary form tracing I–V, V–I albeit on a much grander scale and with developmental interpolations in both the exposition and recapitulation. Hepokoski and Darcy’s capricious treatment of that movement in Elements as either a Type-I variant (275) or a ‘nineteenth-century’ Type-2 variant (364) is suggestive of the fine line these works tread

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Progressivising Lyric Time: D94/ii

Coexisting within this sonata-form frame is a theme and three variations with intervening episodes containing a four-bar codetta characterised by repeated quavers and a descending fifth motif comprising an inversion of the material originally at bars 6–7 of the theme. The codettas following variations 1 and 2 seamlessly transform into transitions to the next variation, the first (bars 28–37) serving to bring about the modulation to a secondary key (V, via the flattened submediant), and the second (bars 58– 68) effecting the opposite course (from V to I via ♭III) in the manner of a RT. The movement is therefore structured around a pair of interlocking fifth relationships: I–V and ♭VI–♭III. 45 Because sonata and variation share the same thematic material here – such that each variation equates to a statement of the sonata’s main theme – it is possible to map one form directly onto the other, as in Table 5.1. The outward simplicity of this movement, displaying relatively regular and balanced phrases and stable harmonic progressions, as well as the absence of any developmental material, make it a particularly resonant example of Monelle’s concept of lyric time: the movement invites the listener to experience the same thematic material from different perspectives through subtle changes of context in a kind of suspended temporality.46 Indeed, the theme itself is never far from view. A nine-bar period structure, the theme comprises a five-bar antecedent and four-bar consequent underpinned by a simple harmonic progression: the antecedent’s first three bars prolong tonic harmony and then move via ii6 to V(64 –53 ); the consequent picks up the dominant, moving to VI64 (really, V64 /ii) before a cadential progression ii–ii6–V(64 –7)–I completes the progression with a I:PAC. This basic harmonic structure acts as a point of reference for the ensuing variations, each of which maintains this framework while introducing deviations and fresh harmonic interest. One of the ways by which Schubert progressivises lyric time in this movement is through the insertion of expanded and extended phrases which play on the temporality of cadential function. In this way, the

45

46

h

d i

0 0

between the two formal types. Given that this Andante con moto is a second movement, the Type-1 variant seems to be the more suitable classification. I consider what I call these ‘Type 1–2 Hybrid’ forms and their earlier eighteenth-century roots in ‘Schubert’s Bi-Rotational Sonata Forms’. This similarity with Cherubini’s Overture to Faniska grants additional evidence, I think, for an early compositional date for the work. On the association of lyric time with time suspended, see also Michael Klein’s semiotic analysis of Chopin’s Fourth Ballade in ‘Chopin’s Fourth Ballade as Musical Narrative’, Music Theory Spectrum, 26/1 (2004), 23–56 (37–8).

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

221

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Table 5.1 Schubert, String Quartet in D Major, D94/ii, form-functional and variational reading

Progressivising Lyric Time: D94/ii

directed nature of cadential function becomes a catalyst for the heightened sense of departure from the original theme, and return to it, enacted by the variations. Variation 1, for instance, answers the theme’s asymmetrical phrase structure (5+4) with a more balanced phrasing (5+5) created via the introduction of a diminished seventh harmony before the cadential 64 , thus expanding and balancing the phrasing. As Monelle argued for the Boureé of Bach’s Fifth French Suite, the introduction of phrase deviations and harmonic detours in this way can mean that the ‘eventual close, instead of merely a syntactic feature, feels like a point of arrival’.47 Variation 2 is a case in point. Its antecedent phrase comes to a close, as expected, on the dominant. The consequent initially follows the harmonic path laid out by the theme, but deviates from it in bar 45, instead introducing the submediant in first inversion, which leads to the movement’s first Imperfect Authentic Cadence (IAC) in bar 46, thereby shunning the closure provided by the anticipated PAC and motivating a second attempt. The poignancy of this moment is created not only by the particular harmonic colour of the submediant chord, but also by the palpable lack of closure; see Example 5.2.48 The extended cadential progression (ECP) that follows and brings about ultimate closure for Variation 2 is thematically familiar but differently harmonised (cf. bars 50–3), calling attention to the local subdominant (G major) and realising the variety of harmonic possibilities inherent in Schubert’s ostensibly simple thematic material. The emphasis on G major (the global tonic) in particular is disorientating, and it is only the promised inevitability of closure that keeps the seven-bar progression (bars 47–53) focused on its goal of bringing the second variation to completion via a PAC. This ECP therefore marks a moment apart – a stepping outside of the ‘expected’ course of events – and results in a heightened need to progress towards the definitive cadence, achieved in bars 52–3. See Example 5.3. Similarly, the consequent phrase of the third and final variation (in the tonic) is internally extended via an arrival on a deceptive cadence which leads, on the second attempt, to the concluding I: PAC in the final bars.49 This consequent phrase alone takes up nine bars – lasting as long as the original theme. Its emancipation from the phrase-structural boundaries of the original is indicative of Schubert’s expansive development techniques, and the effect is once again of a lyrical purple patch. Initially, the melody 47 48

49

h

d i

0 0

Monelle, The Sense of Music, 99. The harmony and voice leading in bars 45–6 are doubly unexpected since one might expect bar 45 to lead to a half cadence in A. On the distinction between processes of extension and expansion, see Caplin, Classical Form, 20.

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

223

224

Between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets

Example 5.2 Schubert, String Quartet in D Major, D94/ii, bars 43–6

Example 5.3 Schubert, String Quartet in D Major, D94/ii, bars 50–3

overshoots itself, moving from e1 (supported by ii6) upwards to complete the full octave ascent to b2 accompanied by a return to the tonic (I6) rather than progressing to V, as in the theme. This is ‘corrected’ in the ensuing bars which retrieve the cadential 64 , but nonetheless deny the resolution. After a

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Progressivising Lyric Time: D94/ii

Example 5.4 Schubert, String Quartet in D Major, D94/ii, bars 73–81

GP, the entire harmonic progression is given in a three-bar condensed format leading unproblematically to I. These subtle harmonic alterations and reimaginings of the theme result in a loosening of the thematic material in the second half of the movement, although never does the music venture into developmental territory. Instead, each variation allows the listener to perceive the familiar in a new light or context, the result of which is a temporal experience marked by memory and retrospection punctuated by moments of progressive time where the music seeks closure. Clark notes that Schubert’s music often applies this practice to single pitches (such as the pitch G in the first movement of D887) which ‘generates the sense of reminiscence, as an important pitch of the past is recast within the present harmonic context’.50 I agree with Clark that such harmonic variants create a sense of retrospection (as with variations) but would add that in this work the inevitability of 50

h

d i

0 0

Clark, Analyzing Schubert, 181–2.

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

225

226

Between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets

cadential arrival allows these harmonic recastings to create a heightened desire to achieve closure. These moments represent a point of particular focus: the listener is drawn into the theme’s inner workings so that the variation might assert its departure, its autonomy from it.51 Indeed, by maintaining the melody predominantly in the Violin I part, Schubert creates a textural consistency which allows these subtle harmonic variations to be more strongly felt and to resound all the more convincingly. The net effect of this is an inward-focused movement characterised by melodic lyricism and an expanded, or dilated, sense of the present. All of this seems entirely suited to an interior movement. Indeed, it is perhaps no coincidence that Ivanovitch’s central example for Mozart – the Andante of the Quartet in F, K590 – and my own for Schubert are both Andante second movements: it is arguably the slow movement’s aesthetic of introspection that makes it an apposite vehicle for the incorporation of variation’s selfreflective impulse; as in Schmalfeldt’s memorable estimation, this is ‘music that turns inward’.52 While Schubert’s deviations elongate the thematic units in the manner associated with ‘lyrical expansions’ and the music’s sensuous immediacy contributes to its impression of memory, they also play on the inevitability of cadential closure, transforming the cadences into a withheld goal towards which the music strives, becoming momentarily progressive, or teleological.

Variation as Expansion and Extension Technique: D173/i Variation form and technique are again central to the Quartet in G Minor, D173. The second movement in B♭ can be read either as a rondo form (ABABA) or a theme and two variations with intervening episodes (Theme–episode–V1–episode–V2). While the variations themselves are tonally conservative (V1 is in the subdominant, E♭, and V2 returns to the tonic), the episodes reveal characteristic Schubertian colour, moving to the distant key of A major en route to E♭, and returning to the home tonic via its mediant, D major. It is in the first movement, however, and particularly in its expositional B group, that the implications of variation’s presence in the sonata is most acutely felt. This group combines a sonata-form structural frame with the variation and sequence of a four-bar idea (made up of 51

52

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

In the sense that Schubert invites his listener to linger on these moments with particular attention, they approximate the fixation on the musical moment explored by Burnham; see in particular, ‘Schubert and the Sound of Memory’, 661–3. Schmalfeldt, In the Process of Becoming; see especially chapter 6.

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Variation as Expansion and Extension Technique: D173/i Example 5.5 Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor, D173/i, motif ‘x’, bars 454–9

two iterations of motif ‘x’), as shown in Example 5.5.53 It is therefore highly motivically driven, and, in a manner reminiscent of Dahlhaus’s estimation of D887/i, revisits the same motif repeatedly throughout the group in a paratactic fashion. The group can be split into two discrete sections based on their intrathematic functions: a twelve-bar sentence (B1) with a four-bar codetta (bars 454–61) followed by a thirty-bar compound period structure (B2, bars 614–91) made up of two variations of B1 material (each labeled B1var in Table 5.2), the latter of which exhibits developmental features. Harmonically, both B1 and B2 traverse a path from B♭ major (III) via G minor (i) to D minor (v), the latter theme culminating in the Essential Expositional Closure (EEC) in D minor via an expanded cadential progression (bars 85–91). The fact that the recapitulation begins (following a short retransitional passage) again in B♭ only heightens the circularity of the tonal plot, which returns to the tonic in the recapitulation via a descending thirds progression from D (end of exposition) through B♭ (recapitulation) to G (thus, via L and R transformations). The result is a highly repetitive theme group which is tonally circular. The movement’s amalgamation of variation and sonata techniques gives rise to a number of form-functional anomalies. Foremost among these is the not insignificant question of what constitutes the basic idea (b.i.) of the group’s B1 theme. This is complicated by the fact that the same motivic material is utilised to produce two distinct thematic configurations: a sentence (B1), and a compound period (B2), each of which are internally expanded via repetition.54 Reading B1 as a simple sentence, the b.i. would constitute bars 454–47 (motif ‘x’) followed by an exact repetition in the following bars, which seems 53 54

h

d i

0 0

The exposition of the B♭ quartet, D36/i is another instance of this amalgamation; cf. Chapter 4. According to Caplin, the main difference between a simple and a compound period resides in their internal organisation, specifically in whether they exhibit a two-bar b.i. (for a simple eightbar period) or four-bar ‘phrases, some of which are themselves composed of simple basic or contrasting ideas’. See Caplin, Classical Form, 65 (emphasis in original). In other words, a compound period normally has an eight-bar antecedent which begins with a two-bar b.i. that is part of an internal theme, such as a sentence or hybrid theme (for example [two-bar b.i. + twobar b.i. + four-bar continuation leading to a HC]). Here, there is a marked tension between a two-bar basic idea and its double presentation generating a four-bar phrase.

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

227

228

Between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets

to comprise the second part (repetition), of the presentation phrase. This presentation, however, is not followed by continuation function, but by a sequential repetition – the b.i. now heard in G minor (the home tonic), and once again repeated. Could we therefore identify a repeated (or double) presentation wherein the b.i. is heard four times in total, spanning eight bars? Such an extension is not unusual for the looser sentential configuration of Bgroup material, but it does impact the proportions of the theme in that the presentation is understood as being twice as long as the continuation/cadential function that follows (bars 534–7, see Table 5.2).55 Added to this is the absence of any clear markers of continuation in bars 534–7 (such as the destabilisation of the phrase structure, acceleration of the harmonic rhythm, or fragmentation of the b.i.), which makes it difficult to distinguish continuation function at all. Instead, the full passage seems to outline a pattern of presentation – sequence – cadential function, where cadential function occurs with the repetition of the same two-bar unit, first underpinned by an interrupted cadence, v–vi, followed by a PAC in D minor. B2 further complicates this. The apparent tonal stability offered by the codetta in the dominant is almost immediately revoked by the return to B♭ major and to the basic idea, ‘x’, heard twice in bars 614–5. Table 5.2 identifies this as the beginning of an expanded compound period structure (B2) with sentential antecedent (B1var, featuring double presentation) and consequent phrases (B1var), but the question of where B2 actually begins is not entirely straightforward. Although the sense that bar 614 marks the beginning of a new thematic unit is supported harmonically, as well as by the melodic closeness to the original basic idea, yet the strong rhetorical demarcation at bar 654 retrospectively complicates hearing it as such (see Example 5.6).56 At that point of demarcation, the dynamic level jumps 55

56

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

On the repetition of the presentation phrase in looser sentential functions, see Caplin, Classical Form, 99. Alternatively, the presence of sequential repetition might encourage a retrospective reinterpretation of the b.i. as spanning the whole of bars 454–9, in which case we would identify a four-bar b.i. and its sequential repetition. This is not impossible, of course, especially given Schubert’s propensity for writing expanded b.i.s, but it seems at odds with the clearly demarcated motivic material, ‘x’. This passage offers a good example of the tension that often occurs between material’s intrinsic and contextual functionality. On the one hand, these four bars serve as the opening gesture of B2’s sentential antecedent and thus express the intrinsic temporal role of beginning. In the context of hearing the same bars ahead of material that stands out rhetorically as a new unit, they retrospectively become detached from those bars, standing as an interpolation between the codetta material and the initiating function of bar 654. Thus read, they possess a ‘before the beginning’ contextual functionality. On the conflict that can arise from intrinsic and contextual functionality in the lament topic, see Caplin, ‘Topics and Formal Functions: The Case of the Lament’, in The Oxford Handbook of Topic Theory, ed. Danuta Mirka (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 415–52.

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Table 5.2 Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor, D173/i, B group, form-functional reading

230

Between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets

Example 5.6 Schubert, String Quartet in G Minor, D173/i, B group, B2, bars 61–73

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Variation as Expansion and Extension Technique: D173/i

from pianissimo to forte and the viola’s arco arpeggiations are replaced by the more animated and intemperate staccatos of the violin I and violin II parts.57 As a result, the passage sounds like the beginning of a dramatic episode, and the rhetoric of the passage could persuade us to recognise a more normatively proportioned sentence from bars 654–73, with a two-bar b.i. followed by its sole repetition and a four-bar continuation/cadential function. But, the return to B♭ is a decisive initiating gesture, and the passage ultimately takes on the aesthetic and harmonic characteristics of continuation: an accelerated harmonic rate of change and harmonic sequencing away from B♭ (to G minor, F major, and finally arriving on the dominant of D minor and a HC in that key at bar 73). As with B1, then, what we have in the first B1var of B2 is another front-loaded sentence, with an eight-bar presentation (with four iterations of the b.i.) followed by a four-bar continuation cadential function. Schubert expands the normative sentence creating a ‘R=2 N’ structure, in which four notated bars actually equate to two ‘real’ bars, amounting to an eight-bar presentation. In truth, the tension created by the double presentations in this group is a consequence of the two competing formal impulses – sonata and variation – and the ambiguity engendered by their interaction. As Table 5.2 illustrates, the group is underpinned by melodic and harmonic variants of a four-bar unit, with intervening passages after V1 and V4. These variations follow a four-bar hypermetre, and thus the apparent profusion of initiating functions in the group (eight bars of b.i.) can be explained with reference to the variations unfolding simultaneously along with the unorthodox sentential structures. In B1, the variation impulse overrides the sonata form’s syntactic expectations with the substitution of sequence for fragmentation: the theme and V1 together comprise the b.i., its repetition and sequence in a double presentation. As a result, the syntax is fundamentally paratactic, the material following merely temporally as opposed to logically. As the group progresses, however, sonata-form processes prevail, and variation is replaced by fragmentation and liquidation first at bars 69–71, and then more explicitly from bar 76 until the end of the group. Thus, for example, the B1var sentential consequent (bars 734–91) extends continuation function via additional units of fragmentation (bars 774–84) and an expanded cadential progression (ECP; bars 85–91), bringing about expositional closure in D minor. Although underpinned by the very same motif as B1, B2 57

h

d i

0 0

This introduction of the more energetic staccatos in the two violin parts is indicative of Schubert’s variation sets in which the first variation often enters with a new countermelody, often above the theme in descant.

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

231

232

Between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets

treats this material in such a way as to animate and reinforce its status as a dynamic, sonata-form theme. In other words, the processes underpinning the treatment of motif ‘x’ in B2 (which ultimately realises the large period structure) animate a goal-orientated temporal perspective, in contrast to the static, repetitive timescape of B1. The functionally ambiguous four bars initiating B2 therefore serve a dual purpose as the initiating bars of an apparent compound period and as the juncture between a variation environment and a sonata theme. Ultimately, the amalgamation of the two distinct temporal states in this movement creates an irreconcilable tension leading to form-functional ambiguity. As the movement progresses, variation impulses gradually give way to sonata expectation and the ambiguities dissipate. In the next example, this idea is taken even further, resulting in a movement the temporal sophistication of which is unmatched in this repertoire.

‘In Search of Liberated Time’: The Quartet in G Major, D887/i The extent of the amalgamation of variation techniques and sonata form in D887/i is exceptional, even among Schubert’s sonatas: not only does the first group present a series of variations (Veränderungen) and the second group a theme and variation with intervening episodic material – thus, displaying two distinctive variation conventions – but the variation impulse permeates the entire movement more subtly.58 Virtually every section of this movement is subject to variation on some level: the moment of recapitulation is a clear example, as is the varied treatment of the transition (TR) in the recapitulation.59 Moreover, the familiar signposts 58

59

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Although it falls outside the string-quartet repertoire, the first movement of the Piano Sonata in C Minor, D958 is also highly characteristic: its first and second subject groups contain variations on the main themes. I am not the first to be drawn to the work for these reasons: the movement’s narrative of variation has received generous attention in the analytical literature from a complex of perspectives. The voice-leading analyses of Beach and Burstein trace large-scale linear connections across the movement, and Beach’s later essay explores Schubert’s use of modal mixture on multiple levels of structure in the movement’s opening seventy-seven bars. Wollenberg has outlined the importance of texture to the variations in D887/i, and traces as theme (the chromatic fourth) and five variations across the entire movement. Collectively, these contributions challenge conventional wisdom in demonstrating that D887/i displays latent syntactic symmetry, or an implicit syntactic argument, despite its outwardly paratactic configuration. For a representative – though not comprehensive – cross section, see Dahlhaus, ‘Sonata Form in Schubert’; Beach, ‘Harmony and Linear Progression’ and ‘Modal Mixture’;

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

‘In Search of Liberated Time’: Quartet in G, D887/i

of sonata form (cadences, thematic recall, tonal polarity) are either absent or undermined by the resultant ambiguity that permeates the form. Understood in this way, the extent of the amalgamation of sonata and variation impulses in the movement goes far beyond simple hybridisation: indeed, it is conceivable that variation rather than the sonata informs the compositional process and dictates formal syntax. At the very least, these features complicate the notion of sonata as the host form and variation as the corpus alienum. The function of the opening fourteen bars of D887/i (Example 5.7) is notoriously ambiguous: on one hand, they seem integrated into the first group and part of the sonata proper because they are included in the expositional repeat and begin the recapitulation (bar 278); on the other, their fragmentary and expectant nature sounds introductory, and they are separated from bar 15 (the first music that sounds thematic) by a pause on a first-inversion dominant seventh chord in the manner of harmonic preparation of the tonic key. Example 5.7 identifies a modified sentential structure in these bars whereby the b.i. encompasses bars 1–5, its repetition on the dominant in bars 6–10, and a truncated continuation in bars 11–14, ending with a dominant arrival on chord V65 . This modified sentence is unusual in at least two respects: first, the b.i. comprises five bars rather than the more conventional two or four; and second, the standard 1:1:2 proportion, wherein the continuation/cadential function is twice as long as the b.i., is here reduced to 1:1:1 (5+5+4).60 For Frisch, Schubert’s continuation phrase ‘thus becomes not just a liquidation, but an unravelling or disintegration’, which creates the space required for a ‘recollection’ of the b.i. later in the movement.61 Frisch’s analysis develops upon those of Dahlhaus and Beach, both of whom argue that these bars set

60

61

h

d i

0 0

Hascher, ed., Schubert; Burstein, ‘Lyricism, Structure, and Gender’; Mak, ‘Schubert’s Sonata Forms’ and Schubert’s Lyricism Reconsidered; Burnham, ‘Landscape as Music, Landscape as Truth’; and Wollenberg, Schubert’s Fingerprints. A definition of what constitutes a ‘basic idea’ in Schubert’s music requires a thorough survey of Schubert’s sonata themes that is beyond the scope of this study. In general, however, one can observe Schubert’s expansion of the Classical sentence and period in ways that often give rise to atypical proportions. The second theme of the Finale of D960 may be read as either a small ternary form (with the A section returning on bar 130), or as an expanded sentence spanning bars 85–129 thus: B.I. (bars 85–94); repetition (bars 95–103); continuation (bars 104–11), and cadential function eliding with the next phrase (bars 112–29). Similarly, Schubert’s expansion of the period structure is apparent in the first theme of D804/i (bars 3–32) wherein an eight-bar antecedent (bars 3–10) is followed by a twelve-bar internally extended repeat of the antecedent ending on a Phrygian cadence (bars 11–22), before a ten-bar consequent – beginning in the parallel major – closes the period with a i: PAC, eliding with the next phrase (bars 23–32). Frisch, ‘“You Must Remember This”’, 584–5.

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

233

234

Between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets

Example 5.7 Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, bars 1–14, modified sentential structure

out ‘the basic premises – the motivic material, harmonic motion, and also the mood’ of the entire movement, and contain individual motives that will be assembled to become the ‘main theme’ at bars 15 and 33.62 While there is much to be gained from the idea that these bars contain thematic material, even if of unconventional design, their full potential remains obscured until the group’s larger formal functions are considered. 62

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Beach, ‘Modal Mixture’, 87. Dahlhaus classifies these bars as not yet a theme, but a collection of characteristics ‘which are “thematic” inasmuch as they represent starting points of a musical chain of logic’ (‘Sonata Form in Schubert’, 4), while Beach focuses on the concealed statement of the chromatic descending tetrachord therein.

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

‘In Search of Liberated Time’: Quartet in G, D887/i

To this end, Table 5.3 illustrates one reading of the various levels on which the group’s formal functions operate, beginning in bar 15. Bar 15 marks the beginning of a large sentential structure (bars 15–54) in which bars 15–24 are analogous to a b.i., the repetition of which occurs in bars 24–33, thereby creating one extended presentation phrase. Bars 33–50 constitute the continuation, with clear fragmentation of what was a ninebar b.i. into a four-bar model.63 The I: PAC in bars 53–4 marks the sentence end with cadential function, whereupon the transition commences and eventually ends with a iii: HC MC. Within this large sentential structure, the b.i. and its repetition contain further nested sentences (‘intrathematic function 2’: A1), each framed by weakly articulated IACs.64 At this lower level of syntax, bars 33–50 are themselves sentential: the first 10 bars (bars 33–42) express unusual presentation function (a four-bar b.i., heard four times at overlapping two-bar intervals), marking the beginning of a second A-group theme (A2), the motivic material for which (‘x’) is closely related to the opening bars. The continuation of A2 spans bars 43–50, with concomitant halving of the hypermetre from four- to two-bar units (bars 43–8), and then one-bar units (bars 49–53).65 The continuation and cadential functions are then elided, and, after a series of evaded cadences on the downbeats of bars 52 and 53, the arrival of a I: PAC in bars 53–4 provides the closure of this lower-level sentence and of the entire group.66 At first blush, this complex configuration does little to clarify the formal function of bars 1–15; closer attention to two details of this reading, however, proves revealing. First is the double refusal to cadence on a PAC in bars 24 and 33; Example 5.8 places the moments of cadential arrival 63

64

65

66

h

d i

0 0

Caplin offers a range of characteristics for continuation function including the acceleration of harmonic change, increased rhythmic activity, sequence and fragmentation. Importantly, not all of these elements need to be present for continuation function to be identified. Both of these passages (bars 21–4 and bars 30–3) make two attempts at cadential arrival in a manner indicative of Schmalfeldt’s ‘one more time’ technique: the penultimate cadential dominant first appears at bar 21, with a quick evaded cadence on the downbeat of the following bar; the cadential idea is then repeated and followed by an elided IAC on the downbeat of bar 24. A similar process occurs in bars 30–3. See Janet Schmalfeldt, ‘Cadential Processes: The Evaded Cadence and the “One More Time” Technique’, Journal of Musicological Research, 12/1 (1992), 1–52. My reading of the change in hypermetre from quadruple to duple in bar 43 with the V65 chord over C♯ aligns with Beach’s analysis of the passage. See Beach, ‘Modal Mixture’, 95. This reading of bars 33–50 mirrors closely the procedure in Schubert’s earlier Quartet in E Major, D353/i. There, the continuation phrase of the B theme is expanded to include fragmentation and transformation of a motif from the tail of B’s basic idea, and a shortening of the hypermetre from two-bar units (bars 45–8) to one-bar units (bars 49–56), all of which is accompanied by a descending melodic sequence from E3 in bar 49 to A♯2 in bar 53, nested within a large 8–10–8–10 intervallic pattern.

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

235

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Table 5.3 Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, A group, large sentential structure

‘In Search of Liberated Time’: Quartet in G, D887/i

Example 5.8 Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, bars 1–54, series of cadences

in the first group side by side for ease of comparison. These two IACs differ fundamentally in the degree of closure they create. The first (bars 23–4) is very weakly articulated: after an evaded cadence on the downbeat of bar 22, the cadential arrival at bar 24 maintains ^5 in the upper voice between chords V and I (thereby prohibiting the usual melodic descent to ^1 or even ^3) and lacks a V–I bass progression over the barline: the cello line simply drops out. Taken together, these considerations make the phrase repeat at bar 24 sound like a new beginning (a fresh attempt at closure) rather than a satisfactory close, and thus, the cadence may alternatively be read as having been evaded. The same basic process is repeated in bars 30–3, although here it yields a genuine IAC on the downbeat of bar 33.67 Understood in this way, the IAC at bars 32–3 is the first definitive cadence of the movement and is answered by the arrival of a strong I: PAC only in bar 54. Second, there is clear motivic correspondence between bars 1–4 and 33–6 (Example 5.9). The thematic material of bars 33–6 can be understood as a fully fledged articulation of bars 1–4, transformed from piano to fortissimo in the guise of an assured re-beginning and suggestive of a parallel construction. 67

h

d i

0 0

Although it is elided with the next section, the cadence produces a much stronger articulation of closure given the rhetorical reinforcement of the arrival of the tonic chord. The comparatively weaker articulation of the first of these IACs, as well as the shared melodic gesture between the two sections, led Dahlhaus to analyse the passage as a period structure, with bars 15–24 as an antecedent and bars 24–33 as a consequent. See Dahlhaus, ‘Sonata Form in Schubert’, 2.

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

237

238

Between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets

Example 5.9 Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, bars 1–4 and 33–6, motivic correspondence

Thus, the essential features that define antecedent and consequent functions – a weak followed by a strong cadence, and the repetition of thematic material – apply to bars 1–54, which can be reinterpreted as a large-scale parallel period structure, as illustrated by Table 5.4.68 On this reading, bars 1–33 function as the antecedent: a b.i. in bars 1–14 is followed by a longer (periodic) contrasting idea in bars 15–33, leading to an IAC. This is answered in bars 33–54 by a (sentential) consequent phrase that returns explicitly to the b.i. but proceeds differently, ending on a strong PAC in the home key at bars 53–4. The increasingly strong degree of closure achieved by each attempted sentence is crucial to this reading: it is only with the attainment of the PAC that the large-scale period structure can, in retrospect, be understood as having evolved out of these lower-level sentences. These readings of the first group are not mutually exclusive; it is possible to hear, and theoretically support, both. Their fundamental disagreement lies simply in whether the opening fifteen bars are incorporated into the larger thematic complex (in which case it is a period) or not (as with the sentence). These two available alternatives reveal the plasticity of the musical syntax to express conflicting formal functions. Thus, following Table 5.4: the b.i. of the large antecedent phrase is itself a truncated sentence; the antecedent’s contrasting idea is full period, which functions

68

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

The lower-level sentential structure beginning in bar 33 also supports this reading.

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Table 5.4 Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, A group, period structure

240

Between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets

simultaneously as the presentation (b.i. and repetition) of a large-scale sentence and comprises a complete mini-sentence consisting of a ten-bar presentation and twelve-bar continuation/cadential unit.69 The identification of these numerous levels of intra-thematic function is made possible by the fundamental distinction Caplin draws between grouping structures and formal functionality: ‘in some situations, a group may express more than one function simultaneously;[. . .] At other times, several consecutive groups may express the same formal function, such as when a number of distinct phrases with highly contrasting melodicmotivic material are supported by one expanded cadential progression.’70 The latter case is of particular relevance to this group, which expresses multiple formal functions simultaneously while being supported by a single expanded cadential progression from bar 1 to bar 54.71 In other words, the first group expresses form-functional multiplicity on various levels because its grouping structure and formal functions are productively noncongruent. There are three ramifications of this for one’s temporal experience of this group. First, given the temporal perspective of formal functions, articulating beginning – middle – end functions, the multi-layered structure of the group produces a multidimensional treatment of time. Table 5.5 attempts to make this visible by replacing the formal functions on Table 5.4 with

69

70 71

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

The design of this first group has a clear precedent in the first movement of Schubert’s previous quartet, D810, which begins in a strikingly similar fashion. The resemblance extends even to the proportions of the two groups: the opening phrase (bars 1–14) is a similarly fragmentary truncated sentence; the first thematic music – with two thematic ideas – spans bars 15–40, and at bar 41 a fortissimo version of the opening bars commences (cf. bar 33 of D887/i) and brings about a modulation to the relative major, F major. Caplin, Classical Form, 4. Matthew BaileyShea has explored this idea in the opening eight bars of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata, Op. 2, No. 1, arguing that bars 5–8 of the large sentence structure (bars 1–8) can be read as an internal sentence wherein bar 5 articulates the b.i., bar 6 its repetition (on V), and bars 7–8 fulfill continuation and cadential functions. His identification of a continuation which is simultaneously a mini-sentence, reinforces Caplin’s idea that a group may express more than one function and resonates with my reading of D887/i here. See BaileyShea, ‘Beyond the Beethoven Model’. On identifying hugely expanded sentences in Beethoven’s Op. 47/i, see Schmalfeldt, In the Process of Becoming, 96–102. Later nineteenth-century expanded sentential usage is explored in BaileyShea, ‘Wagner’s Loosely Knit Sentences and the Drama of Musical Form’, Intégral, 16/17 (2002/3), 1–34 and Steven Vande Moortele, ‘Sentences, Sentence Chains, and Sentence Replication: Intraand Interthematic Functions in Liszt’s Weimar Symphonic Poems’, Intégral, 25 (2011), 121–58. For further work on Schubert’s expanded sentences, see Caitlin G. Martinkus, ‘Schubert’s Large-Scale Sentences: Exploring the Function of Repetition in Schubert’s First-Movement Sonata Forms’, Music Theory Online, 27/3 (2021).

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Table 5.5 Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, A group, temporal functions

242

Between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets

Example 5.10 Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, hypermetre of the sonata and variation themes

their associated temporal functions.72 Bars 24 and following provide a useful example. On a lower level of structure, the b.i. in bars 24–5 entails an initiating function, while at the same time being incorporated into a mid/end-functioning consequent phrase (bars 24–33) of a later period structure (bars 15–33), which functions on an even higher level of structure as the end part of a beginning-functioning antecedent (bars 1–33) of a large parallel period structure (bars 1–54). At the same time, the unfolding of the descending tetrachord in the bass throughout the group generates its own identifiable timescape. Example 5.10 illustrates the hypermetre of the tetrachord’s three statements against that of the sonata theme. Compare the third unfolding of the descending tetrachord, from bar 33 (variation 2), wherein the notes of the tetrachord fall on the downbeat of every fourth bar, with Variation 1 and the first thematic statement, during which it proceeds in two-bar units. This augmentation of the theme effects a virtual slowing down of the harmonic tempo at this point, against which the melodic material of the sonata theme’s four-bar units overlaps energetically at two-bar intervals.73 The two temporal strata coalesce from bar 43, when the hypermetre is again halved and drives towards the MC at bar 53 with one-bar repetitions of bar 51. Third, the form-functional multiplicity of the passage is governed fundamentally by progressive time. Schmalfeldt’s formulation of the concept of ‘becoming’ (in which events retrospectively reinterpret earlier ones) 72

73

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

The correspondence is admittedly not as neat as the table suggests, especially in terms of accounting for consequent phrases which Caplin sees as holding an end function, even though in some respects they merge middle and end functions. It nonetheless clarifies the point regarding the temporal dimension of formal functions in the same way that Caplin’s similar figure does for Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1, first movement. See Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre, 26. See also Beach, ‘Modal Mixture’, 95.

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

‘In Search of Liberated Time’: Quartet in G, D887/i

Example 5.11 Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, bars 1–14 (after Beach 1998, 90)

plays a vital role in identifying the function(s) of the opening bars, which can be described simultaneously as an introduction, and as an introduction ‘becoming’ part of the main theme.74 In my second formulation (Table 5.4), it is in the process of forming the group’s large-scale structure that the identification of the opening fifteen bars as ‘thematic’ (i.e. as the b.i. of a large periodic structure’s antecedent) becomes possible; their function begins to evolve once the formal process gets underway. The same evolutionary process may be posited for the variation theme of the group, which can be traced in the ‘harmony’ stratum of Table 5.4. The descending tetrachord’s statement in bars 1–14 (Example 5.11) is fragmentary, interspersed between the four instruments and thus not identifiably thematic; it is 74

h

d i

0 0

On retrospective reinterpretation see Schmalfeldt, ‘Form as the Process of Becoming’, and In the Process of Becoming.

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

243

244

Between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets

recognisable as such only in retrospect when it becomes the theme of the series of Veränderungen and a vital part of the variation process of the opening group.75 Thus, the identification of bars 1–14 as thematic is supported by subsequent musical events in the movement; the formal processes retroactively bringing the theme’s identity into existence.76 But, despite this resonance with the concept of ‘becoming’, there is one significant difference. In a more typical representation of the phenomenon, the second formal function ultimately prevails, such that a group begins by articulating one function but ends as another, even if the latter function retains a trace of the first (this is represented by the symbol ⇒). In contrast, I suggest that this entire group (to bar 63) supports two competing interpretations of the opening bars, even in retrospect, and therefore these bars display a double function (thus ⇔).77 Multiple viable ‘presents’ coexist here such that it is possible to hear the groups differently, as sentence or period, each time we listen; both readings and their temporal implications are equally feasible.

Paratactic Stratification: D887/i Second Group The musical syntax of the first group, which presses forward towards a goal of thematic realisation, contrasts sharply with that of the second, which is notably paratactic and repetitive. This syntactic distinction is neatly captured by Michael Spitzer’s metaphoric model for sonata form, which posits that ‘the first group moves teleologically from source to goal along a conventionalised pathway . . . the second group . . . is ruled instead by the additive, chain-like logic of variation, with the course (or “prototype”) of the cadential model emerging only at the end’.78 Thus, the second group is based on the ‘variational’ impulse of distance from a fixed centre, or a preexisting musical detail.79 The musical detail around which this second 75

76

77 78

79

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

This fragmentary statement of the descending tetrachord was first noted by Beach, ‘Harmony and Linear Progression’ and ‘Modal Mixture’, and subsequently by Fieldmann, ‘Schubert’s Quartettsatz’, and Mak, Schubert’s Lyricism Reconsidered. A similar idea has been developed by Ivanovitch, ‘What’s in a Theme?’ and Swinkin, ‘Variation as Thematic Actualisation’ for variation form in Mozart and Brahms, respectively, and is supported and augmented by Schubert’s practice here. It is significant that Swinkin traces the idea of variation as thematic actualisation back to Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ Variations, Op. 35 (1802), the very same set that Dahlhaus suggests as a model for D887/i. See Martin and Vande Moortele, ‘Formal Functions and Retrospective Reinterpretation’. See Michael Spitzer, ‘A Metaphorical Model of Sonata Form: Two Expositions by Mozart’, in Communication in Eighteenth-Century Music, ed. Danuta Mirka and Kofi Agawu (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 189–229 (199). The same ‘logic of variation’ informs William Rothstein’s characterisation of the lyrical nature of the second group that typically exhibits ‘symmetrical phrase structure’; Rothstein, Phrase

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

‘In Search of Liberated Time’: Quartet in G, D887/i

group revolves is simultaneously the sentential theme, B1, that is heard in each instrument (giving rise to three variations, V1, V2, and V3), the pitch G around which its melodic material hovers, the chord of F♯ that returns repeatedly throughout, and the harmonic progression of the group (F♯–D–B♭–F♯–D) that forms a weightless, nonteleological hexatonic cycle.80 The modulation to B♭ for the second variation on the upbeat to bar 110, which might in Schenkerian terms be classed as structurally parenthetical to the sonata design, is nonetheless central to Schubert’s plan: framed by statements of D major on both sides and introduced via a HC in the home key, B♭ acts as a pivot around which the harmonic path circles.81 The manner in which the main keys of the group are prepared also contributes to an overwhelming sense of temporal disorientation. First, as Example 5.12 shows, the F♯ chord at bar 63 suggests a iii: HC MC, but is reinterpreted as III/V by the theme that follows and confirms the dominant as the new key.82 D major is not affirmed at the outset of the second group but is established only on the downbeat of the last note of the theme, in bar 77. Then, on the downbeat of bar 102, there is a genuine half cadence in the home key, which is prolonged by a post-cadential standing on the dominant through bar 109, eventually being reinterpreted, as before, as a mediant (now of B♭). This return to the home key is indicative of the movement’s

80

81

82

h

d i

0 0

Rhythm in Tonal Music (New York: Schirmer, 1989), 114. See also Caplin’s discussion of the contrasting nature of the main and subordinate themes in Classical Form, 97–101. The descending major thirds of this group have been analysed by Webster, ‘Schubert’s Sonata Form’, 20–1; Beach, ‘Harmony and Linear Progression’, 6–7, and especially ‘Schubert and Equal Division of the Octave: A Study of the First Movement of the G-Major Quartet D. 887’, in Le style instrumental de Schubert; and Clark, Analyzing Schubert. For a discussion of the prominence of the pitch G in this group, see Clark, Analyzing Schubert, 180–2. This modulatory scheme, whereby there is departure from and return to the dominant within the second group (employed to even greater heavenly length in the Piano Trio in E♭, D929) differs from the more usual Schubertian ‘three-key exposition’ defined by Webster (see ‘Schubert’s Sonata Form’), wherein the third-related key appears en route to the dominant. The debate as to whether Schubert’s tertiary key relations are structurally dispensable has been argued elsewhere (see Clark, Analyzing Schubert); the point I wish to make here is that the departure from and return to the dominant in this subject group augments the circular nature of its temporal and aesthetic effects. Schubert also employed this unusual type of MC in the first movements of the Piano Sonata in C, D279 (1815), and the B♭ Trio, D898 (1927). In D279, the MC is ‘corrected’ by the ensuing music: a B-major chord suggests a iii: HC, but after a short caesura, a descending melodic line arrives at a D7 chord, acting as V7/V. This chord is prolonged for two bars before the B theme, an eight-bar phrase in the dominant ending with a V: PAC, enters. The situation in D898 is more complex since there are two MCs: the first is a vi: HC MC (bar 22), which is ‘corrected’ to V7/I, and a return to the A theme in the piano. There is then a second attempt at an MC: this time, a iii: HC MC (bar 55), which is not corrected, but the pitch A is reinterpreted as ^ 3 of the dominant, F major; the second theme enters in F in bar 59.

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

245

246

Between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets

Example 5.12 Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, MC and B1 theme, sentential structure

reluctance to modulate to – and remain in – the new key.83 Thus, having eventually arrived at the dominant, the listener is momentarily transported back to the key of the first group by this recollection of the tonic at bar 102. An even clearer instance of key reversal occurs with the repeated iii: HC MC in bar 134, which resolves, as before, to the dominant for the fourth iteration of B1. This progression imitates exactly not only bar 102, but also the mediant-preparation of D major in bar 63, before the second group even began. Thus, the listener now seems to have returned to the world of the TR and to the opening of the second group once again.84 If this chord ‘has an almost hypnotic effect on the listener’, the effect of the entire group is one of time reversal, in that having been convinced that the second group was underway, and after a thematic statement in the dominant, we find ourselves back in the tonic key and in transitional material at the first MC.85 The listener becomes trapped in a kind of distorted time loop, the extent of which is such that one could conceivably hear bars 142ff (Variation 3) as the genuine second theme since it is only from this point that the music progresses onwards from the second group.86 This effect is heightened by the B group’s clear alternation between variations on the sentential theme (B1) and sequential episodes, demonstrated by the formal outline given in Table 5.6. My reading of these ‘Bdev’ interpolations 83 84

85 86

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

This return to the home key within the second group is a feature also of D956/i and D960/i. Added to which, the final three bars (75–7) of the variation theme recollect the close of the first theme at bars 51–4. Wollenberg, Schubert’s Fingerprints, 59. I am grateful to an anonymous reader for his/her suggestion of the term ‘time loop’ as a descriptor for this passage.

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

‘In Search of Liberated Time’: Quartet in G, D887/i

247

Table 5.6 Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, B group, stratified design 1

Bars

63–168

Large-scale Function

Exposition, Part 2

Interthematic Function

End of TR and B group

Intrathematic Functions Thematic Statement

65–77

1

78–90

B1 (sentence)

B1

Theme

V1

1

110–22 B1 V2

1

142–54 B1 V3

1

2

154 –58

(B

Episodic Elaboration

2

90 –109 B

Structural Cadence

1

2

122 –41

dev

B

h

d i

0 0

dev

dev

V:PAC

V:PAC

I:HC MC

III:PAC

iii:HC MC

V:PAC

prolonging V

(b.63)

(b.77)

(b.90)

(b.102)

(b.122)

(b.134)

(b.154)

(bb.154ff)

Donald Francis Tovey, The Forms of Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), 231. Of course, this juxtaposition of presentational and developmental material was traced to the very earliest examples of Schubert’s sonata form in the quartets in the last chapter.

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

1

+B1 fragments)

iii:HC MC

9 8 0092 09

2

158 –68

1

as episodes (rather than as thematic statements) is reinforced by the fact that each one ends with a half cadence followed by an epilogue, exhibiting a postcadential standing on the dominant, and are therefore harmonically open. As such, they serve a transitional function, preparing the key of the next variation through its mediant in the same way as the initial MC in bar 63. The statements and variations of B1, on the other hand, are tonally closed, each one ending with a PAC. The Bdev episodes are further distinguished from the thematic statements by their rhythmic vigour and activity, in contrast to the almost static B1 theme and this is further emphasised by the fact that they share motivic material (compare bars 64–6 and 90–2). The fragmentation and developmental treatment of the theme in these episodes offers a clear example of where Schubert’s expositions, as Tovey had it, ‘digress into developments’.87 This stark juxtaposition of B1 and Bdev episodes reveals two simultaneously unfolding trajectories in the B group’s circular construction: thematic presentation and variation framed by tonal closure, and intervening dramatic episodes characterised by a loud dynamic, rhythmic drive, motivic fragmentation, and ending with half cadences preparing the key of the next section via its mediant. These two trajectories create two 87

1

C

248

Between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets

independent levels or strata, pertaining, respectively, to B1 (thematic statement) and Bdev (episodic elaboration), as illustrated by the stratified design of Table 5.6. This presentation of the group highlights the motion between thematic statement on the upper intra-thematic level, and episodic material on the lower. In a typical stratified process, the unfulfilled ‘action’ of one strata is suspended while that of another begins, and the listener ‘looks forward to its eventual resumption and completion’.88 Here, conversely, each statement of the theme is complete in itself, ending with a PAC, and thus does not call for resumption or completion; any sense of necessary fulfilment a listener might perceive is perhaps confined to hearing the theme in each of the four instruments. The stratified presentation further emphasises the circular nature of the B group, whereby each onward step is in fact a step closer to the beginning, with the return to iii: HC in bar 134 mirroring bar 63. The only forward progress of the group (the third variation of the theme to the closing section at bar 154) is indicated by a direct arrow. The closing section, C, reproduced in Example 5.13, fulfils a dual function, straddling both levels of the design. Gesturally and rhetorically, these bars are the formal analogy of the developmental episodes, Bdev, but they are different in function, acting simultaneously as the closing group of the entire exposition and as TR to the development. Moreover, they fuse the loud dynamic and rushing semiquavers characteristic of Bdev with the cadential gesture of the B1 theme, thereby combining rather than alternating developmental and presentational material. These final bars of the group therefore serve several different functions and are multidirectional in perspective: at once retrospective, being the formal counterpart to the Bdev episodes, and presentorientated both harmonically (by providing the necessary immediate closure for the second group) and thematically (by combining developmental and presentational material), they also anticipate the thematic module (‘z’) central to the development section that has yet to be introduced. As such, they share the form-functional multiplicity of the first group and can be understood differently on each listening. The listener exits the group’s time loop, only to be confronted by the possibility of three different temporal realities.

D887/i Development: The Double Trajectory The development section shares with the B group the feature of being constructed on two distinct levels. This similarity was noted by Harold 88

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Cone, ‘Stravinsky: The Progress of a Method’, 19.

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

‘In Search of Liberated Time’: Quartet in G, D887/i

Example 5.13 Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, expositional closing section

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

249

250

Between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets

Truscott in 1959: ‘the ‘first group [of the development section] has all the qualities we normally associate with a Schubert second group’ and therefore ‘in spite of the fact that thematically the development is almost entirely of the first group, it would lose practically all of its significance if it were not for the second group.’89 In other words, although the development is wholly concerned with first-group thematic material,90 its construction is akin to that of the second: both sections are founded on the paratactic juxtaposition of presentational and episodic, or developmental, material at an intra-thematic level. Table 5.7 divides the development section into pre-core and core, following Caplin’s taxonomy, with a short introductory lead-in and RT. The identification of bars 168–2101 as the ‘pre-core’ arises from its dominant-key beginning (bar 168), its relatively calm, anticipatory character, enhanced by the pianissimo dynamic throughout, and the fact that it is followed by music of greater emotional intensity, projecting a character of ‘instability, restlessness, and dramatic conflict’, namely the developmental core (bar 210).91 This segmentation of the development also follows its thematic arrangement: the pre-core consists of A1 material, and the core sequences twice through A2 material. The variation theme is present here also in the bass underlying the thematic statements of A1. The two sentential statements of A1 are preceded by episodic material, the motivic content of which is derived from the closing group of the exposition. These episodes serve to transport the listener to the dominant of the new key: first, to B♭, as V/E♭, and subsequently to B major, as V/E. The pre-core’s affinity with the design of the B group is therefore already apparent: statement and episode are here juxtaposed in a paratactic structure. This juxtaposition continues in the core, but now the parallel, interpolated passages (bars 218ff. and 242ff.) interrupt the thematic statement of A2 and force it to break off midway through; its continuation is regained only at bars 228 and 252, respectively. This internal segmentation of A2 reveals a further loosening of the thematic material and highlights a fundamental distinction between the organisational design of the B group and that of the development’s core: whereas the developmental episodes in the B group occurred between full statements of the variations, in the core, A2 is internally divided by the episodes, which now occur within the statements rather than between them. 89

90 91

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Harold Truscott, ‘Schubert’s String Quartet in G’, Music Review, 20 (1959), 119–45 (132 and 123); my emphasis. Dahlhaus calls it a ‘paraphrase’ of the first group. See Dahlhaus, ‘Sonata Form in Schubert’, 3. Caplin, Classical Form, 142.

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Table 5.7 Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, development section

252

Between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets

Example 5.14 Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, bass progression, bars 210–42

This has large-scale ramifications for the variations, which, as illustrated by Table 5.7, never recuperate after the episodes but are left truncated and unrealised. The first attempt at the descending tetrachord in the core (beginning on E in bar 210), traces E–D–C, but the interruption of the episode from bar 218 reinterprets this C as V/F, and the music resolves unexpectedly upwards to F major, rather than to B, which would complete the tetrachord (or indeed to D as it had in bars 43–4). Similarly, the second attempt at a full statement of the tetrachord, beginning on A in bar 234, and spanning A–G–F♮, cuts off when this F♮ becomes V/B♭, and the intervening episode resolves (again upwards) to B♭ in bar 242. Example 5.14 traces the bass progression of bars 210–42 as illustration. Thus, the core’s episodic interpolations seem to result in the negation of the work’s variation narrative, instead functioning as the fragmentation of the sonata theme; the dictates of the host form overriding the foreign variations. At the highest level, however, the variation impulse does prevail. As Burstein has demonstrated, the development can be understood in terms of a structural, large-scale ascending fourth: an inversion, or variation, of the theme. The tonal plot of the pre-core tonicises the initial pitches (D–E♭–E) of the ascending chromatic tetrachord. In the core, a brief tonicisation of F major on the downbeat of bar 218 establishes the next pitch, after which a prolonged C♯ in the bass ascends by step to D in bar 225. The next episode resumes this bass pattern, and the prolonged F♯ to G at bars 246–9, although it occurs within the tonal realm of B♭, may be understood as the retrieval of the full ascending tetrachord in what Burstein calls ‘a backhanded manner’.92 Alternatively, Mak concludes that because there is no theme actually presented in F major at bar 218, F acts as an upper 92

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Burstein, ‘Lyricism, Structure, and Gender’, 57.

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

‘In Search of Liberated Time’: Quartet in G, D887/i

253

Table 5.8 Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, development section, stratified design Bars

168 – 277

Large-scale Function

Development

Interthematic 168 – 209 Pre – Core Function

210 – 66 Core

267–77 RT

Intrathematic Function Tonal Plot

D

E

E

e

E

210 –17 A2

Thematic Statement

E

D

234 – 41 A2

A

D

252 – 66 A2

RT

189 – 200 Episode 218–27 Episode

Tonal Plot

a

201–9 A1

180 – 8 A1

Episodic 168 – 79 Elaboration Lead-in

228 – 33 A2

E

F

242–51 Episode F#

– G

neighbour note to E, functioning within a large unfolding of the third from E to G♯ (G♯ itself being a neighbour to A [bar 234]).93 She therefore understands the passage from bar 201 as submitting to a conventional series of fifths: The structural bass line of the development is therefore not, as we had expected, D–E♭–E♮–F♮–F♯–G, but D–E♭–E♮–A–D . . . Compared with the paratactic transpositions of the development’s earlier sections, this descending-fifths progression is more goal-oriented, more decorous, more prosaic, than the harmonically-static ostinato statements of the lament tetrachord.94

By recognising, as Truscott did, the formal parallel and aesthetic affinity between the B group and development section, however, and adopting a stratified representation, the function of the ascending tetrachord begins to crystallise. To this end, Table 5.8 charts the stratified design of the development. Similar to Table 5.6, the top intra-thematic stratum of Table 5.8 follows the statement of the expositional material in the development section, and the bottom charts the elaborative episodes. Up to bar 218, thematic presentation and elaboration occur successively (as in the second 93 94

h

d i

0 0

See Mak’s bass diagram in ‘Structure, Design, and Rhetoric’, 198. Mak, ‘Structure, Design, and Rhetoric’, 197; emphasis in original.

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

254

Between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets

group), but after this they begin to coexist simultaneously, each following its own tonal path. Understood in this way, the conceptual direction of the music, which is forward-driven throughout the group, changes from a single although stratified trajectory alternating between the two levels, to a simultaneously unfolding double trajectory at bar 218. Crucial to my argument is that the passages of music paraphrasing the A material are grounded in the ‘background’ progression of descending fifths, E–A–D, while the interpolated episodes complete the ascending chromatic fourth with F–F♯–G. The interpolated episodes are indispensible to the formal design of the development in that they produce a large-scale variation of the A group’s bass theme. This reading complements Burstein’s voice-leading analysis by granting it an additional level of thematic significance and incorporating it into larger issues of form. And while Mak’s perception of a more teleological force behind the development is entirely persuasive, I believe it to be so for reasons other than those she suggests. As Table 5.8 demonstrates, the trajectory or forward motion of this development need not be reduced to an ‘either/or’ situation whereby one harmonic path maintains hegemony over the other. It is, rather, the unfolding of a double trajectory structured at the fundamental level by both the ascending tetrachord and the series of fifths in a move that grants equal importance to both thematic and tonal considerations.95 The interplay between these two paths is a central determinant of the distinct temporality of the group. In a similar way to the A group, this passage’s articulation of two competing interpretations suggests an inherent ambiguity which makes it possible to experience both at one and the same time. Jordan and Kafalenos’s model of the ‘double trajectory’ that allows for the possibility of maintaining two simultaneously viable tonal trajectories throughout a piece is constructive in elucidating the temporal ramifications of Schubert’s procedure because it offers two simultaneous ‘present tenses’.96 Jordan and Kafalenos are concerned with exploring the similarities between narrative text and music at an immanent level, that is an ‘abstract or deep’ level of structure, following Greimassian semiotics; they 95

96

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

This notion of two simultaneously unfolding trajectories sharing the same temporal space owes much to Carl Schachter’s work on the relationship between context and detail. In his chapter, ‘Either/Or’, Schachter offers a series of examples where a single passage can articulate two conflicting interpretations, and the opposite situation where two distinct passages, taken from Schubert’s ‘Auf dem Flüsse’, give voice to only one interpretation. See Schachter, ‘Either/Or’, in Unfoldings: Essays in Schenkerian Theory and Analysis, ed. Joseph N. Strauss (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). See Jordan and Kafalenos, ‘The Double Trajectory’.

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

‘In Search of Liberated Time’: Quartet in G, D887/i

turn to Henry James’s ‘Owen Wingrave’ and Brahms’s Intermezzo Op. 119, No. 1 for illustration.97 In their reading of the Brahms Intermezzo, it is the ambiguity that arises from the work’s interplay between D major and B minor that propels the work towards closure; ‘the music’, they write, ‘does not fluctuate between keys, either of which can serve as tonic, but instead proposes two tonalities, neither of which is established as a definitive tonic until the final moments.’98 Central to their concept of the double trajectory is that both readings of the music are available to the listener because no solutions are offered to resolve the ambiguities. As with the first group of D887/i, the possibility of two available temporalities in this development section is indicative of this music’s interrogation of the hegemony of the single, ‘linear’ projection of musical time. Viewed historically, this reading of a double trajectory highlights the pioneering nature of Schubert’s form: ‘the double trajectory may be seen as a transitional structure, one that allows the introduction of a high degree of instability in a form that still remains closed’.99 In this way, it illustrates an important aspect of Schubertian form, which departs from its predecessors in the minutiae of its formal syntax, while keeping the outer form relatively intact. As such, Schubert positions himself as a transitional composer, on the verge of Romantic form. This interpretation, moreover, offers a way of confronting the assumption that the paratactic nature of variation assumes a lack of development in the musical argument. There can be no doubt that this development section fulfils its generic task of the development (via fragmentation, liquidation, or expansion) of an expositional theme – indeed, it is exceptional in its simultaneous development of two themes: the sonata and variation themes. It therefore demonstrates Schubert’s attentiveness to the formal imperatives of sonata space, since genuine development of the variation theme is withheld until the development section. The question of what constitutes genuine development is, of course, difficult, especially when dealing with such an obviously paratactic formal design. Development in paratactic structures typically relies on additive techniques such as sequence, repetition, and expansion of material, techniques which, as Burstein demonstrated, are not in any sense less logical than the conventional definition of development involving ‘growth, intensification, destabilization, fragmentation, and condensation’.100 But this development exhibits simultaneous expansion 97 100

h

d i

0 0

98 99 Ibid., 133. Ibid., 139. Ibid., 143. Schoenberg, Fundamentals of Musical Composition, 58. Burstein, ‘Lyricism, Structure, and Gender’.

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

255

256

Between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets

and fragmentation of material: the descending tetrachord is inverted and expanded, while A2 is internally ruptured by the intervening episodes (bars 218ff. and 242ff.), as described earlier. Indeed, the essence of the developmental process, as captured by Temperely and discussed in Chapter 1 – that something identifiably new is created by the process – applies effortlessly to D887/i.101 Here, an entirely new version of the tetrachord is generated by Schubert’s expansive process. Moreover, it is only at this point in the movement that the autonomy of the descending tetrachord as a theme for development in its own right, independent of A material, is revealed: not only has it been further transformed through inversion, but it now acquires a structural role in that it underlies the harmonic path of the entire section, unfolding in tandem with a more orthodox progression of fifths.

D887/i: Closure and Musical Time I suggested previously that the manner in which sonata and variation impulses interact in this movement expresses the interaction of two distinct temporalities. This is nowhere more clearly perceived than in the movement’s recapitulation, which features the persistent variation of the exposition’s material. This raises questions as to the reconciliatory role of the recapitulation, and in particular, its reconciliation of multiple temporalities. Example 5.15 reproduces the first fourteen bars of the recapitulation, corresponding to bars 1–14 in the exposition, and annotates the differences. Here, the reversal of the major-minor juxtaposition of the opening, the equal (rather than dotted) rhythm of the motif, ‘x’, its arco articulation, and the melodic elaboration in bars 288–91 are suggestive of an ongoing process of variation. Similarly, A1 (bars 15ff.) is transformed on its return, not only in a manner suggestive of recapitulatory emphasis, as might be expected, but also more fundamentally. As Examples 5.16 (a and b) illustrate, the melody returns in bar 292 in the manner of a variation: the main melodic contour from the violin I theme is retained, but its jagged figure is replaced by a legato, arc-like melody, and a version of its original rhythm (r) is transferred to the violin II and cello parts.

101

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

See Temperley, ‘Development’, 335–6. This idea has its roots in Schoenberg’s distinction between motivic variation wherein ‘the changes virtually seem to have nothing more than ornamental purpose’, and developing variation during which ‘the changes proceed more or less directly toward the goal of allowing new ideas to arise’. See Schoenberg, Coherence, Counterpoint, Instrumentation, Instruction in Form, trans. Charlotte M. Cross and Severine Neff (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, [1917] 1994), 39.

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

‘In Search of Liberated Time’: Quartet in G, D887/i

Example 5.15 Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, recapitulation, bars 278–91

Indeed, although the main formal functions identified in the exposition are retained in the recapitulation, the material is persistently rendered anew either by the usual tonal means (as in the second group that now proceeds in a more conventional progression from subdominant [C major] to tonic [G major]) or via melodic and textural transformation (see the reimagined TR, at bars 333–8). The presentation of the second group in the recapitulation is a case in point: whereas the group represented a theme and

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

257

258

Between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets

Example 5.16a Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, excerpt from A1 in exposition, bars 15–18

Example 5.16b Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, excerpt from A1 in recapitulation, bars 292–5

three variations in the exposition, the recapitulation presents instead a theme and two variations, omitting the expositional variation 2 (originally in B♭) and changing the scoring of variation 3 so that the melody is played by the second violin rather than the viola, with the cello singing a new lyrical melody beneath. The recapitulatory second group is therefore not a replica or straightforward rotation of its expositional counterpart, but a further variation on it. Consequently, the recapitulation’s role in the sonata

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

‘In Search of Liberated Time’: Quartet in G, D887/i

(that of ‘closing gaps and reconciling differences’, to recall Berger) is here replaced by a distinct reluctance merely to close, to reconcile, and is characterised instead by a wilfulness to achieve tonal resolution while at the same time reactivating thematic material via a process of variation and transformation.102 This persistent variation of expositional material during the largescale return speaks to the movement’s continued temporal vibrancy: in its inclination to variation, the recapitulation does more than recall earlier material – it presents it anew, thus giving the impression that more is still to be said, and that time presses ever onward. Temporal reconciliation is not to be found here, and the coda that follows reflects on this absence in a way that replaces resolution with a sense of temporal negation. The movement’s coda (bars 415ff.) brings issues of closure and musical time together by foregrounding the temporality of cadential function. It commences by revisiting material from the lead-in to the development section and reaches a structural dominant in bar 428. As Example 5.17 shows, the expected cadential arrival is evaded on the downbeat of bar 429 in favour of a return to the opening motif of the movement (motif ‘x’), heard in conjunction with material from the Bdev episode (bars 106–07), thus bringing together the sonata and variation narratives. Again, this is more than a recollection of earlier material; here, two discrete moments, each with independent temporal associations, are for the first time synthesised and transformed into a new cadential idea. This cadence is evaded (downbeat of bar 433, following a iv – V43 cadential progression) and repeats ‘one more time’ only to be again evaded on the downbeat of bar 437; here is music (as Schubert’s wanderer) ‘ohne Ruh und suche Ruh’. If the final bars of the coda therefore bear the duty of closure, it is only so that they may reflect on its absence: rather than complete the cadence that was twice evaded, bars 437–41 instead obsessively reiterate the opening motif – now shortened from three to two bars – and its vacillation between tonic major and minor. The final iteration of the motif overshoots itself, arriving on b2 in bar 441, thus opening up melodic space and creating a marked registral gap with the rather perfunctory final three bars, which are gesturally quieter than what has preceded them. Here, time stands still, as any sense of drive towards closure dwindles away into the obsessive, static repetition 102

h

d i

0 0

Berger, Bach’s Cycle, Mozart’s Arrow, 14.

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

259

260

Between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets

Example 5.17 Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D887/i, coda, bars 429–44

of this single two-bar unit. The movement has come full circle: it reaches an end, if not an ending, only by returning – repeatedly – to its beginning.

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Postscript: Metaphors of Musical Time and Space

Postscript: Metaphors of Musical Time and Space . . . as though Time were to consist of a series of different and parallel lines.103 – Marcel Proust

The preceding analysis demonstrated the means by which the formal syntax of D887/i fundamentally informs the creation of parallel strands of musical time, or multiple internal temporalities. The opening of this chapter contrasted this ‘temporality of the signified’ with the subjective experience of time, but that is not to say that the articulation of time in this movement is either absolute or objective; rather, our perception of Schubert’s manipulations of temporal experience rely on the subjectivisation of time. This bears a striking resemblance to Immanuel Kant’s concept of time in the ‘Transcendental Aesthetic’ as a purely subjective a priori construct: ‘Time is not something that exists for itself, or which inheres in things as an objective determination . . . time is, therefore, a purely subjective condition of our (human) intuition . . . and in itself, apart from the subject, is nothing.’104 Similarly, in his consideration of the concepts of change and alteration, Kant argues that ‘[time] is nothing but the form of our inner intuition . . . it does not inhere in the objects, but merely in the subject which intuits them.’105 Given that the temporal dimension of formal functions requires recognition from a listening subject, one might posit that musical time exists only as a manifestation of our subjective perception of the things that occupy it: in this movement, the multiple layers of formal functions, the stratified structures, and the double trajectory.106 The fact that these arise from identifiable formal and syntactic strategies attests to the logical and systematic means through which Schubert composes time and transports the listener from the external lived experience of time’s transience to the internalised, subjective realm of Romantic time. It is this conception of time that, we might argue, Schnebel had in mind when he wrote that this quartet makes audible ‘the seismography of inner life’.107 Thus, if Schubert’s music appears to ‘let go of 103 104

105 106

107

h

d i

0 0

Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, trans. C. K. Scott Moncrieff (London: Knopf, 1929), IV, 212. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Kemp Smith Norman (London: Macmillan & Co., 1963), 76 and 78. Ibid., 79. While Kant’s treatment of the subjective/objective distinction is more complex than these short excerpts necessarily suggest, ultimately he does come down on the side of subjectivisation. Schnebel, ‘Schubert’, 116.

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

261

262

Between Sonata and Variation in Schubert’s Quartets

time’, it is only so that subjective temporality ‘can thereby be unhindered’.108 That Schubert’s music challenges the orthodoxy that ‘a basically unidirectional, forward motion [is] characteristic of music’, and therefore demands a distinctly different mode of listening from that traditionally associated with linear tonal form (read: middle-period Beethoven), is axiomatic.109 As Burnham notes, ‘Schubert explores effects and worlds unknown to a Beethoven – his music puts into play a different physics.’110 But the tendency to confine Schubert’s ‘physics’ to the aesthetics of retrospection or memory (such as was explored in D804/i), especially in this movement, declines an opportunity to experience more fully its temporal extremes, and those of much of Schubert’s late music. There can be no doubt that Schubert’s music, as Schumann had it, invokes the ‘temporality of pastness’ through its particular use of repetition and variation, yet this temporal quality can, and frequently does, mingle with a more dynamic, striving sense of temporal necessity.111 For Schnebel, the emancipation of musical time from the tyranny of the absolute is exhibited in D887 by precisely these means: by making audible diverse temporal phenomena. The proposed temporal vibrancy of D887/i, therefore, nuances existing readings of this work as retrospective, concerned with memory and recollection, by drawing out the purposeful, teleological trajectories of the first expositional group and development section, which are simultaneously available to the listener alongside the self-referential circularity of the second. Similarly, the embedded variations in D94/ii and the B group of D173/i were shown to hold consequences for the temporal unfolding of those works. In the case of the former, the movement’s overarching aesthetic of lyric time was momentarily progressivised by the variations’ play on the temporality of cadential function. These deviations from the harmonic course laid down by the theme simultaneously drew the listener into closer relation with the materials of the form, and heightened the desire for cadential closure. The B group of D173/i, alternatively, was defined by a marked syntactic ambiguity arising from the blending of variation and sonata impulses and temporal states. The thematic group revealed a progression from static parataxis to dynamic hypotaxis, with the 108

109 110 111

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

‘Schuberts Musik drückt das aus, wenn we zuweilen Zeit losläßt, damit sie ungehindert dahinströme.’ Schnebel, ‘Schubert’, 128. Adlington, ‘Moving beyond Motion’, 298. Burnham, ‘The “Heavenly Length” of Schubert’s Music’ (1999). Schumann, cited in John Daverio, Crossing Paths: Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 49.

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Postscript: Metaphors of Musical Time and Space

dictates of the sonata ultimately overriding the variations. In both cases, Schubert’s will to vary became central to an appreciation of his music’s lyric teleology. This understanding also challenges the idea that Schubert’s music ought to be understood in purely spatial terms. While the Neo-Riemannian approaches developed by Cohn, Burnham, and Clark illuminate important relationships in Schubert’s harmonic excursions (in a way that is not possible using traditional harmonic analysis) and offer genuinely new ways by which to analyse and understand those relationships, the spatial metaphor yet remains problematic: without the recognition of a complex temporal relationship in these movements, their sense of direction, which remains potent, would be irretrievably lost.112 Although this music may not give expression to a sense of temporal linearity, musical time, far from being negated, is vital; indeed, it is at the very forefront of what it means to say that these movements articulate a distinctly Schubertian perspective. Moreover, the tendency towards variation is very much part of the foregrounding of musical time since it relies on the variation of an identifiable ‘thing’ at two distinct moments; without recourse to the temporal, such an understanding of variation would not be possible. What makes the procedure in D887/i so fascinating and such a pinnacle of Schubert’s late practice is the fact that a single movement is made to express this in such diverse ways. The means by which Schubert tropes temporality in these quartets, therefore, extend beyond the idea of a mere play on time. Here, competing temporal perspectives are juxtaposed, and several alternative presents (coexisting realities) are simultaneously posited in a systematic and rigorous way. At the centre of this complex – facilitating rather than impeding it – is the will to variation that is a hallmark of Schubert’s instrumental lyricism. It is in this respect that variation, in its persistent exploration of competing temporalities, retrospectively becomes the formal impetus and prevailing aesthetic of these movements, offering something that ventures far beyond ‘mere repetition’.113 112

113

h

d i

0 0

See Cohn, ‘As Wonderful as Star Clusters’ and Audacious Euphony: Chromatic Harmony and the Triad’s Second Nature (Oxford University Press, 2012); Burnham, ‘Landscape as Music, Landscape as Truth’, and Clark, Analyzing Schubert. Adorno’s ‘landscape’ metaphor and Tovey’s ‘star clusters’ are earlier instances of this use of spatial metaphors to describe Schubert’s music. Westrup, Schubert Chamber Music, 44.

9 8 0092 09

006

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

263

Epilogue

A proper formal analysis of Schubert . . . would above all follow up the dialectic that mediates between the standard sonata scheme and Schubert’s ‘second practice’ of crystalline form that yields up that form only when inspiration has to take over from the deceptive dynamic of the sonata; nothing can bolster themes more than their own inner compulsion to govern a kind of form that is in fact unpalatable to them.1 – Theodor W. Adorno

This book set out with two related aims: to define and explore the formal tendencies of Schubert’s lyric teleology, and in so doing, to revive analytical engagement with the composer’s pre-1816 string quartets. A third underlying motivation has been to reflect on analytical methodology, specifically on the interpretative opportunities presented by the reconciliation of two leading theories of form (namely, Caplin’s theory of formal functions and Hepokoski and Darcy’s Sonata Theory) with conceptual paradigms borrowed from literary criticism and idealist philosophy. Ever since Clark’s monographic study brought to attention the ways by which Schubert’s music exposes the fissures in and limitations of existing analytical systems (particularly those which configure tonal space in neat symmetrical geometries), the challenge of how best to analyse these instrumental forms on their own terms has loomed large.2 Her own approach was to analyse Schubert’s alternative harmonic symmetries (or pairings) and their structural consequences via the application of Neo-Riemannian methods; she explores the symmetries created by his subdominant recapitulations, his diatonic and chromatic mediant relationships, his use of the subtonic and supertonic as framings for the tonic, as well as the equivalence of the major and minor modes. In so doing, Clark, alongside Cohn and David Kopp, furnished us with new ways of modelling Schubert’s harmonic procedure, employing it as a means of critiquing existing theoretical models without dispensing with them completely.3 As she writes: 1 3

264

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Adorno, ‘Schubert (1928)’, 11. 2 Clark, Analyzing Schubert. On this, see Clark, Analyzing Schubert, especially Chapter 4: ‘Analyzing Music Theory: A Schubertian Critique’, 204–67. See also Cohn ‘As Wonderful as Star Clusters’ and Audacious Euphony and Kopp, Chromatic Transformations in Nineteenth-Century Music.

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Epilogue

My purpose has not been to replace existing theory with a new paradigm but rather to work towards a distinctly Schubertian paradigm, one that analyses Schubert through Schubertian rather than Beethovenian or Classical or other lenses that skew the Schubertian project.4

The significant challenge that Clark’s book presented was therefore simultaneously an invitation, not to abandon theory, but to cast the analytical net wider, to be more courageous in attending to Schubert’s idiosyncratic formal idiom via music theory, rather than vice versa. This book accepted that invitation by two central means. First, by adopting a historicist approach to the analysis of Schubert’s quartets, thereby acknowledging the necessity of history to the analytical enterprise and substantiating the idea that Schubert’s strategies, though novel, were not entirely divorced from the responses to the Classical legacy that surrounded him in Vienna, even if his contribution was ultimately a more durable one. The correspondences between Schubert’s and Mayseder’s practices uncovered in Chapter 2 speak to a contemporaneous view of the quartet as a vehicle for new formal and harmonic schemes, something that remained with Schubert throughout his career. In replacing a Beethoven-led account of that period with a more diverse (and apposite) formal context, Chapter 2 elucidated the often-competing influences that Schubert’s quartets bring together, as exemplified by his earliest chamber work, D8. In so doing, it dispensed with the usual apologias that accompany engagement with Schubert’s juvenilia, instead acknowledging the ability of his earliest works to provide a valuable context for the analysis of his mature sonatas. Second, my analyses of the quartets gave special focus to ‘rhetorical’ parameters of form – thematic and motivic material, phrasing, dynamics, register, and texture – alongside considerations of tonality. This made it possible to examine Schubert’s lyric form more holistically, as a phenomenon that resides not only (or even fundamentally) in harmony and tonality, but as the (often quite charged) communication of diverse parameters in the service of formal articulation.5 Chapter 3 explored those moments in Schubert’s expositions where the parameters of closure are non-congruent, creating an ambiguity characterised by persistent functional transformation such that ‘form’ becomes a continuous unfolding of

4 5

h

d i

0 0

Clark, Analyzing Schubert, 270. In this sense, my approach is founded on principles relevant to Webster’s multivalent method. See his ‘The Form of the Finale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony’.

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

265

266

Epilogue

recognisable formal functions, although in new configurations. Moreover, Chapter 4 drew a distinction between tonal resolution and rhetorical synthesis, the latter of which encompasses parameters outside tonality, being concerned with bringing discrete levels of musical discourse into closer relation with one another. Similarly, Chapter 5’s attention to intergeneric dialogue in the quartets – where techniques associated with one formal category permeate another – focused on surface-level variation techniques and their generation of form-functional multiplicity and associated temporal diversity. This focus on rhetorical aspects of form answers my belief that in Schubert’s music salience on the musical surface often signals a structural function at a deeper level; these rhetorical features therefore invited close scrutiny and acquired new meaning through fresh analytical attention.6 Underpinning all of this is the study’s resolutely dialectical perspective which presents lyric teleology as a fundamentally progressive entity. Under this model, lyricism and teleology are not literal opposites, but stand in a productive critical tension with one another: the second is enabled by the first, the first is a condition of the second. This dialectical argument facilitated my rethinking of the concepts of closure, synthesis and linearity in the analytical chapters. Chapter 4 adumbrated the thesis that the synthesis articulated at the end of the first movement of D804, in being inherently and unabashedly non-hypotactic, is simultaneously a critique of the concept of resolution echoing Adorno’s characterisation of the parataxis in Hölderlin’s poetry as initiating a ‘revolt against synthesis’.7 The earlier movements discussed in that chapter, D36 and D353, demonstrated alternatively that even in its very negation, the pursuit of synthesis can remain a central driving force. A similar unwillingness to be characterised solely by the unidirectional demands of sonata form was evident in the analysis of D887/i in Chapter 5 which drew out the temporal reversals of the B group in contrast to the sense of progressive time enacted by the A group. And in Chapter 3 the concept of closure was problematised by Schubert’s destabilisation of moments of formal punctuation such that form could be

6

7

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

A welcome extension of this idea is found in recent Schubert studies that grant attention to the role of sonority in his music. See Walther Dürr, ‘Compositional Strategies in Schubert’s Late Music’, and Black, ‘The Sensuous as a Constructive Force in Schubert’s Late Works’, both appearing in Rethinking Schubert, ed. Lorraine Byrne Bodley and Julian Horton, 29–40 and 77–108, respectively. Adorno, ‘Parataxis’, 135. Adorno’s essay Hölderlin’s late poetry is considered further in Chapter 1.

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Epilogue

understood as a continuous process of retrogression (D18 and D94) or transformation (D703). In this way, the response to first-movement sonata form demonstrated by Schubert’s quartets displays a consistent loosening of formal boundaries leading to progressive forms characterised by functional transformation and retrogression. The lyrical content of these movements – understood in syntactic and form-functional terms – facilitates and engenders such novel forms through their direct critique of inherited models of sonata form. As Adorno wrote, ‘nothing can bolster themes more than their own inner compulsion to govern a kind of form that is in fact unpalatable to them’.8 Schubert’s lyric teleology governs – or better, transcends – its inherited sonata-form principles by offering a viable alternative, one characterised by the lyric’s tendency towards parataxis, repetition, variation, and temporal vibrancy. Paradoxically, then, it is the lyric’s very incompatibility with the (‘unpalatable’) dynamic of sonata form that in the end permits the generation of a new form of lyric teleology. Thus, ultimately, the processes revealed by my analyses of these quartets on the one hand comprise a self-reflexive critique of a particular understanding of processual form (that developed principally by Dahlhaus and Schmalfeldt for Beethoven’s music from general Hegelian premises), and at the same time advance their own caste of teleology, one to which the concepts of mutual implication and bidirectionality are central.9 Far from negating directed process or teleology, these works stand as a critique of a limiting understanding of the concept, replacing it with something considerably more complex. * To be sure, Schubert’s quartets could have been studied in a much broader context or from any number of different perspectives than those pursued here. The historiographical evidence put forward in Chapter 2, for instance, could have been followed up in a more explicit way in the subsequent analyses by tracing possible precedents and influences from outside Schubert’s oeuvre. The strong impulse towards generic hybridity demonstrated by Mayseder’s quartets was certainly not absent in my later analyses – especially in Schubert’s propensity towards symmetrical forms 8 9

h

d i

0 0

Adorno, ‘Schubert’ (1928), 11. In saying that these musical processes offer a self-reflexive critique of processual form, I do not mean that this early nineteenth-century repertoire knowingly critiques what is a highly abstracted and intellectualised twentieth-century construct, but rather that my reading of that repertoire proposes understanding it as such.

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

267

268

Epilogue

(suggesting the overture), dramatic use of parataxis (Ballad), as well as the amalgamation of variation procedures within his sonatas. But I refrained on this occasion from developing that line of argument further, opting instead for a more thorough exposition of Schubert’s own instrumental practice. Furthermore, the quartet analyses themselves could have measured Schubert’s idiosyncratic practices against Beethoven’s middle-period quartets, or explored the aesthetic intersections between the parataxis of late Beethoven and Schubert. It would also have been possible to measure these quartets against the generic expectations of Sonata Theory’s Type 3, revealing the precise ways by which Schubert’s sonatas amount to deformations of a norm, and exploring the interpretative and hermeneutic implications of that.10 The applicability of the Type 1 and Type 2 prototypes to this repertoire – a thorny issue, even in Elements of Sonata Theory – is also ripe for clarification beyond these pages.11 Finally, a comprehensive consideration of lyricism in Schubert’s music would ideally engage with his long preoccupation with strophic and modified strophic song form, as well as the Ballad tradition considered in Chapter 2. Much could be gained, for instance, by examining the transference of lyrical qualities into an instrumental setting from the perspective of Schubert’s allusions to his own Lieder in his instrumental music. The Quartet in D Minor quoting ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’ (D531) in its second-movement variations, and the A-minor Quartet, with allusions to ‘Strophe aus Schillers Die Götter Greichenlands’ (D677) in its third movement and the B♭ Entr-acte (Andantino) from Rosamunde (D797) in its second movement (to which the quartet owes its name), are some examples.12 Schubert’s vast experience as a song composer cannot be fully divorced from his approach to instrumental composition, and an exploration of this from the perspective of the lyric, while not my focus here, would surely yield rich rewards.13 None of these approaches, however, would have served my purpose here, which has been to challenge the claim – laid down by Salzer and

10

11 12

13

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

An account of Schubert’s chamber music from a sonata-theoretical perspective can be found in Tarrant, ‘Schubert, Sonata Theory, Psychoanalysis’. See Hyland, ‘Schubert’s Bi-Rotational Sonata Forms’. Taylor has approached D804 from this perspective, looking at the differing meanings of the incorporated vocal music in the quartet. See Taylor, ‘Schubert and the Construction of Memory’. Schubert’s mixing of lyrical and dramatic elements in his Lieder tends to emphasise their difference rather than confirm any sense of relatedness. On this, see Hirsch, Schubert’s Dramatic Lieder.

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Epilogue

echoed by a generation of writers for whom analysis was simply the wrong response to this music – that Schubert’s incorporation of lyrical elements into the sonata amounted to a violation or negation of form.14 That could be achieved only by close engagement with the music. The lingering question of how impactful Schubert’s instrumental lyricism was is difficult to assess in any real measure, although traces of his practice in the music of later nineteenth-century composers is suggestive of its far-reaching influence. Salzer’s own position on whether or not Schubert ‘set a precedent’ for future composers to develop upon is unequivocal:15 These [lyrical] innovations of Schubert could bear absolutely no fruit for the future . . . We can ascertain that Schubert represents a branching off from the main line of development in the history of sonata form . . . This branching off results from the introduction of lyrical elements (with their retarding effects) that contradict the essence of sonata form, a genus of form governed primarily by the dynamic and dramatic art of [the] improvisatory element.16

It remains a considerable irony of Schubert reception that the single most comprehensive account of lyricism in his sonatas is also a cul de sac in terms of recognising the significant historical ramifications brought about by Schubert’s strategies. Contra to what Salzer believed, these works (particularly the last three quartets and the quintet) left an indelible mark on the music of later nineteenth-century composers, and Schubert’s lyrical techniques of expansion – among them formal elisions, functional transformations, formal ambiguity, recursive patterns, paratactic designs, and parametric asynchronicity at inter-thematic junctures – are strategies found in the music of, inter alia, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Dvořák, and Bruckner. Moreover, the quality of functional retrogression, discussed in Chapter 3, arguably sees its fulfilment in the music of Sibelius, the ‘teleological genesis’ of which has been understood in similarly retrospective terms.17 Going further, our understanding of Mahler’s symphonic forms would be vitally enriched by an appreciation of the bidirectionality of Schubert’s lyric form. Such implications beg further examination. 14

15 16 17

h

d i

0 0

Recall Donald N. Ferguson’s comment that in Schubert’s Quintet in C ‘there is indeed a consummate skill. But it is a skill too subtle for learning to atomize, and analysis will have no place in your conscious response. You seem just to drink in music, in draughts too big for your gullet.’ Ferguson, ‘Franz Peter Schubert, 1797–1828’, in Image and Structure in Chamber Music (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1964), 134–55 (149). Salzer, ‘Die Sonatenform bei Franz Schubert’, trans. Mak, 117. Ibid., 125, translated by Burstein, ‘Lyricism, Structure, and Gender’, 52. Hepoksoki, Sibelius: Symphony No. 5.

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

269

270

Epilogue

For instance, Brahms’s debt to Schubert is well documented, and can be encapsulated in Tovey’s remark that ‘the fruition of Schubert’s new instrumental forms is to be found in Brahms, especially in the group of works culminating in the Pianoforte Quintet, Op. 34’.18 Webster’s two-part examination of the correspondences between the two composers highlighted the harmonic and formal devices found in Brahms’s first maturity (1859–65) which the composer learned from Schubert’s music, among them ‘the juxtaposition of major and minor, the impulse towards lyrical breadth and closed forms, the double second group, the structural use of remote keys, and the transformation of these elements in the recapitulation’.19 The last of these, coupled with the fusion of developmental and recapitulatory functions in Brahms’s music, has been given further analytical substance in Smith’s work on Brahms’s ‘recapitulatory overlaps’.20 An examination of these formal tendencies as symptoms of the composer’s instrumental lyricism (as I have done for Schubert) would strengthen the case for the role of the lyric in the generation of a distinctly nineteenth-century approach to form. That Bruckner knew Schubert’s music is evident from the fact that in addition to Lieder, Bruckner’s estate also included the piano sonatas in A minor, D845, and B♭ major, D960.21 Franz Grasberger and Ernst Hilmar have traced the stylistic connections between the two composers which were identified as early as 1881 by Eduard Kremser, who wrote that ‘Bruckner is the Schubert of our Time’.22 Traces of Schubert’s influence can be discerned in the three-key expositions of the Finale of Bruckner’s Sixth and Seventh Symphonies, and the opening movement of his Ninth Symphony, for instance.23 But, of all these connections, it is perhaps Schubert’s model of parataxis resulting in a disjunctive musical surface – a veritable staple of his lyric form – which most clearly materialises in Bruckner’s symphonies.24 Bruckner’s symphonic themes appear disjunctive and self-contained for reasons reminiscent of Schubert’s practice: the establishment of locally 18 19

20 21

22

23 24

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

Tovey, ‘Franz Schubert’, 123. Webster, ‘Schubert’s Sonata Form and Brahms’s First Maturity (II)’, 19th-Century Music, 3/1 (1979), 52–71+63 (70). Smith, ‘Liquidation, Augmentation, and Brahms’s Recapitulatory Overlaps’. See Franz Grasberger, ‘Schubert und Bruckner’, in Schubert-Kongreβ Wien, 1978: Bericht, ed. Otto Brusatti (Graz: Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt, 1979), 215–28 (216). Eduard Kremser in the Catholic newspaper, Das Vaterland, Vienna, 3 March, 1881, cited in Grasberger, 227. See Hunt, ‘The Three-Key Trimodular Block and Its Classical Precedents’, 106, note 82. See, for instance, the first movements of Bruckner’s Fifth, Seventh, and Eighth symphonies and the lyricism of the Sixth.

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Epilogue

orientated tonalities often reinforced by internal modulation and marked out as discontinuous by their employment of strikingly contrasting dynamic markings, fluctuations in timbre and orchestration, and by the abrupt nature of their arrival which is often not prepared by transitionary material nor by a preparatory harmony.25 In his semiotic interpretation of the expressive role of disjunction in Bruckner’s music, Hatten refers to these self-contained tonalities in a formulation reminiscent of Adorno on Schubert as ‘shifts in perspective, creating dramatically motivated disjunctions’.26 That Bruckner’s symphonic ‘motto-like’ themes (Hatten refers to them as Leitmotifs) are subject to development and treatment, forming part of a larger dynamic process, is not in question here; indeed, Hatten demonstrates how such disjunctions ‘serve a larger dramatic scheme’.27 But like Schubert, that development frequently takes place beyond the boundaries of the development section, in the themes’ own subject areas, thereby expanding the expositional or recapitulatory subject groups. One question that these forms raise, then (again, in line with Schubert’s), is whether the symphonies may be understood as formally dynamic or static, and writers including Hatten, Ernst Kurth, and Horton have attested to the dynamic narratives that underpin Bruckner’s symphonic designs, demonstrating that their paratactic surface is often underwritten by a long-range dynamic formal process, the resolution of which is achieved only at a late stage in the multimovement work.28 Although Schubert’s music demonstrates no directly comparable long-range strategy, his paratactic structures similarly yield dynamic forms. Returning to the earlier decades of the nineteenth century, we see monotonal and monothematic expositional strategies similar to Schubert’s at work in Chopin’s early piano and chamber works, the reception of which reveals familiar criticisms regarding their imbalanced and

25

26 28

h

d i

0 0

On this see Robert Hatten, ‘The Expressive Role of Disjunction: A Semiotic Approach to Form and Meaning in the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies’, in Perspectives on Anton Bruckner, ed. Crawford Howie, Paul Hawkshaw, and Timothy Jackson (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), 145–84. The use of internal modulation is evident in the A group of the Finale of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony, where Bruckner reinforces the self-sufficiency of the group by cadentially establishing ♭IV and ♭V. See Horton, ‘Tonal Strategies in the Nineteenth-Century Symphony’, in The Cambridge Companion to the Symphony, ed. Horton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 232–67 (246). Hatten, ‘The Expressive Role of Disjunction’, 153. 27 Ibid., 179. See Ernst Kurth, Ernst Kurth: Selected Writings, ed. and trans. Lee Allen Rothfarb (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Horton, Bruckner’s Symphonies: Analysis, Reception and Cultural Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

271

272

Epilogue

irregular formal structures.29 Chopin’s remarkable Piano Trio in G Minor, Op. 8, composed between 1828 and 1829, is a case in point. Although there can be no question of a direct Schubertian influence on the work (the Trios in E♭ and B♭, though completed in 1827, were not published before Schubert’s death), yet this does not discount the clear parallels with Schubert’s practice nor Chopin’s analogous response to the incorporation of lyricism into an instrumental context in that work. Mendelssohn’s lyricism, too, has been understood as being in conflict with the dynamic of sonata form; recall that Friedhelm Krummacher argued that Mendelssohn’s ‘cantabile ideal could not be easily integrated into the kind of periodic, discontinuous construction so basic to the music of the Classical era’.30 The rich lyricism of much of his mature chamber music in particular makes it an apt case study for considering the link between lyricism and the formal techniques outlined in this study. All of this marks Schubert, Chopin, and Mendelssohn out as exponents of the same generation of post-Beethovenian composers advocating a second practice of lyrical sonata form.31 That these procedures exist in the music of these later composers is surely not in question, and the correlation with Schubert’s practice is well established at least in the case of Brahms and Bruckner. The real question remains whether they are employed to similar ends, whether Schubert’s lyric teleology can be understood as prescient of a distinct turn to Romantic form, as representative of a Romantic sensibility permeating a Classical 29

30

31

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

See his first Piano Sonata, Op. 4, which has strong similarities with early Schubert. Rosen’s provocative comment that ‘They evidently did not have very clear ideas about sonatas out there in Warsaw’ (Sonata Forms, 1988, 319) is indicative of this criticism. Rosen’s remarks were refuted in Wojciech Nowik, ‘Chopin’s Sonata Counter-Type – Error of Construction or Innovative Idea’, in Chopin and His Work in the Context of Culture, Vol. 1, ed. Irena Poniotowska (Kraków : Polska Akademia Chopinowska, 2003), 334–40. A contrasting view to Rosen’s and a valuable study of Chopin’s early works can be found in John Rink, ‘Tonal Architecture in the Early Music’, in The Cambridge Companion to Chopin, ed. Jim Samson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 78–98. Friedhelm Krummacher, ‘Mendelssohn’s Late Chamber Music: Some Autograph Sources Recovered’, in Mendelssohn and Schumann: Essays on Their Music and Its Context, ed. J. W. Finson and R. L. Todd (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1984), 71–84 (75). Although Schubert outlived Beethoven by only twenty months, he was a generation younger, and was a post-Beethovenian composer in the sense that he was aware – from early on – that his music would be received in the wake, if not the shadow, of Beethoven’s. Recall his comment to Spaun, ‘Who can do anything after Beethoven?’, SMF, 128. On Mendelssohn’s sonata-form expansion techniques, see Brian Edward Jarvis and John Peterson, ‘Alternative Paths, Phrase Expansion, and the Music of Felix Mendelssohn’, Music Theory Spectrum, 41/2 (2019), 187–217. The affinities between these three composers extend to broader aesthetic categories, also. Andrew Davis’s work on the multiple temporal streams in Chopin’s Op. 58 resonates with my own analysis of D887. See Davis, ‘Chopin and the Romantic Sonata’.

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Epilogue

genre. This study’s engagement with the lyricism of Schubert’s string quartets suggests that it can. Although the demonstration of such falls beyond the domain of the present purview, it is hoped that the preceding chapters have laid the foundation for such further contemplation and exploration. At the very least, they offer preliminary evidence – contra Salzer – that Schubert’s practices were neither isolated nor fruitless. On the contrary, Schubert’s lyric teleology is constitutive of an alternative line of progression which saw its fulfilment in the lyrical formalism of the nineteenth century. My objective here has been to redefine Schubert’s instrumental lyricism for Schubert himself and thereby to refine our understanding of Schubertian form; the implications of this beyond 1828 must await another study.

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

00

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

273

Appendix Schubert’s Compositions for String Quartet

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

008

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

008

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

D19A

D20

D94

D8A

-

2

3

D19

-

-

D18

D3

D2C

Deutsch No.

1

Appendix 2 (Band 3)

Appendix 1 (Band 3)

NSA Numbering

Overture in C Minor for String Quartet (Version for string quartet of the Overture for String Quintet, D8, 12/ 29 July 1811.)

String quartet, key(s) unknown String quartet, key(s) unknown Overture in B♭ Major for String Quartet String Quartet in D Major

Fragment of a movement in D minor/F major for string quartet Fragment of a movement in C major for string quartet String Quartet in G Minor/B♭ Major

Title/Opus No.

After 12 July 1811*

1811 or 1812

1812

1810 or 1811

1810 or 1811

1810 or early 1811

Late summer or early autumn 1812

1811, possibly early in the year

Date of Composition (NSA)

End of 1871, C. F. Peters, Leipzig (No. 5276, edition nos. 796 [score] and 798 [parts])B,C 1970, Edition Peters (No. 8052), edited by Ernst HessC

Unpublished

Unpublished

Unpublished

1890 (AGA)

Unpublished

Unpublished

Year of Publication

1

4

1?

4?

4?

4

29 bars

35 bars

No. of Completed Movements

Fragment; possibly planned as 2nd movement of D32 or used as a draft Catalogue of the Wienbibliothek im Rathaus, MHc-125 Survived until end of 19th century, then lost Survived until end of 19th century, then lost Survived until end of 19th century, then lost Catalogue of the Wienbibliothek im Rathaus, MH-1892 Catalogue of the Wienbibliothek im Rathaus, MHc-16206

Fragment; formerly D998

Source/Status of Manuscript

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

008

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

D46

D68

D74

D86

7

8

Appendix 1 (Band 4)

D40

6

-

D36

D32

4

5

Deutsch No.

NSA Numbering

(cont.)

Minuet in D major for string quartet

1813?

22 Aug.–7 Sept. 1813

8 June–18 Aug. 1813

String Quartet in B♭ Major

String Quartet in D Major

3–16 Mar. 1813

1813

19 Nov. 1812–21 Feb. 1813

Sept.–Oct. 1812

String Quartet in C Major

String Quartet in E♭Major

String Quartet in B♭Major

String Quartet in C Major

Title/Opus No.

Date of Composition (NSA)

-

1890 (AGA)

1890 (AGA)

1890 (AGA)

-

1890 (AGA)

1st and 3rd movements only: 1890 (AGA). Complete quartet published by Breitkopf und Härtel in Mar. 1955 (parts) and Sept. 1956 (score), edited by M. J. E. BrownC

Year of Publication

Undated single sheet of manuscript

1st movement and Allegro Finale extant 4

4

4

4

No. of Completed Movements

Catalogue of the Wienbibliothek im Rathaus, MHc-21. The Andante (ii) and Allegro con spirito (iv) were discovered by Maurice J. E. Brown (1951) Catalogue of the Wienbibliothek im Rathaus, MHc-128 Included in a list of unpublished Schubert compositions by Ferdinand Schubert in 1839. Probably identical to D87 Catalogue of the Wienbibliothek im Rathaus, MHc-127 Incomplete: Catalogue of the Wienbibliothek im Rathaus, MHc-192 Archive of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, A 247 Catalogue of the Wienbibliothek im Rathaus, MHc-124

Source/Status of Manuscript

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

008

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

D353

D470C / D601A

D703

D804

Appendix 4 (Band 4)

13

14

D173

12

11

D112

D103

Appendix 3 (Band 4)

10

D87

9

String Quartet in A Minor, ‘Rosamunde’, Op. 29

Quartettsatz in C minor

String Quartet in E Major (Op. post. 125, No. 2) Overture in B♭ Major (Version for string quartet of the orchestral Overture, D470, Sept. 1816)

String Quartet in G Minor

String Quartet in B♭ Major (Op. post. 168)

String Quartet in E♭Major (Op. post. 125, No. 1) Grave and Allegro in C minor for string quartet

Feb.–start Mar. 1824

Dec. 1820

1816

1816

25 Mar. 1815

5 Sept. 1814

23 Apr. 1814

Nov. 1813

7 Sept. 1824, Sauer & Leidesdorf, Op. 29

Dec. 1870, B. Senff, Leipzig (No. 939), score and partsA,C

1863, Spina, Vienna (n. 17,707); the publisher intended to dedicate the work to J. HellmesbergerA End of 1871, C. F. Peters, Leipzig (No. 5376, edition nos. 796–7, score and parts) Early 1830, Josef Czerny, Vienna (No. 2663)A,C 1994 (string-quartet version)

Early 1830, Josef Czerny, Vienna (No. 2662)A,C Score: 1939, Universal Edition, Vienna. Parts: 1941, Adolf Robitschek, ViennaA

4

1 plus 41 bars of Andante

Fragment only

4

4

4

Incomplete 1st movement (296 bars)

4

Autograph score in the archive of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, A 250C LostB,C

Catalogue of the Wienbibliothek im Rathaus, MHc-141

LostB,C

Private ownership (Christie’s, London, Auction catalogue No. 16, 24/06/92) Archive of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, A 249

Private ownership: Bottmingen in Basel Archive of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, A 248. Completed by Alfred Orel (Philharmonia-Verlag, Vienna, 1939) and Brian Newbould (SJ Music, 1996)

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

008

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

D887

D810

Deutsch No.

String Quartet in G Major, Op. post. 161

String Quartet in D Minor, ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’

Title/Opus No.

20–30 Jun. 1826

Mar. 1824

Date of Composition (NSA)

Nov. 1851, Diabelli & Co., Vienna, Op. 161

Feb. 1831, Josef Czerny, ViennaC

Year of Publication

4

4

No. of Completed Movements

Incomplete. Mary Flagler Cary Music Collection, the Morgan Library & Museum, New York Österreichische Nationalbibliothek Musiksammlung, 27.665 (accessed Aug. 2015)

Source/Status of Manuscript

Sources for Compilation and Dating A: Otto Erich Deutsch, with Donald R. Wakeling, Schubert Thematic Catalogue of all His works in Chronological Order (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1951). B: Otto Erich Deutsch, Franz Schubert: Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge, Neuausgabe in deutscher Sprache / bearbeitet und herausgegeben von der Editionsleitung der Neuen Schubert-Ausgabe (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1978). C: Franz Schubert: Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, Herausgegeben von der Internationalen Schubert-Gesellschaft, edited by Walther Dürr, Arnold Feil, Christa Landon, et al. (Kassel: Bärenreiter Verlag, 1964–). Series 6: Chamber Music, Volumes 4–6: String Quartets I–III with forewords by Martin Chusid translated into German by Walther Dürr (vol. 3) and Werner Aderhold (vols. 4 and 5).

* The NSA dates this work to ‘nach 12. Juli 1812’ (Series VI: Kammermusik, Band 3, Streichquartette I) in what must be a typographical error; D8 was composed in July 1811, and this quartet version followed shortly afterwards.

16

15

NSA Numbering

(cont.)

Bibliography

Abraham, Gerald (ed.), The New Oxford History of Music, Vol. 8: The Age of Beethoven, 1790–1830 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982). Adlington, Robert, ‘Moving Beyond Motion: Metaphors for Changing Sound’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 128/8 (2003), 297–318. Adorno, Theodor W., ‘Schöne Stellen’, in Theodor W. Adorno, Gesammelte Schriften, Bd. 18, Musikalische Schriften V, edited by Rolf Tiedemann (Frankfurt, 1965), 695–718. Introduction to the Sociology of Music (New York: Seabury Press, 1976). ‘Franz Schubert: Groβes Rondo A-Dur, für Klavier zu vier Händen, Op. 107’, Musikalische Schriften V (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1984). ‘On Lyric Poetry and Society’, in Notes to Literature, Vol. I, edited by Rolf Tiedemann, translated by Shierry Weber Nicholsen (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 37–54. ‘Parataxis: On Hölderlin’s Late Poetry’, in Notes to Literature, Vol. 2, edited by Rolf Tiedemann, translated by Shierry Weber Nicholsen (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), 109–49. Mahler: A Musical Physiognomy, translated by Edmund Jephcott (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). Aesthetic Theory, translated by Robert Hullot-Kentor (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997). ‘Schubert (1928)’, translated by Beate Perrey and Jonathan Dunsby, 19thCentury Music, 29/1 (2005), 3–14. Agawu, V. Kofi, ‘The Structural Highpoint as Determinant of Form in NineteenthCentury Music’, unpublished PhD dissertation, Stanford University (1982). ‘Structural “Highpoints” in Schumann’s “Dichterliebe”’, Music Analysis, 3/2 (1984), 159–80. ‘Concepts of Closure and Chopin’s Opus 28’, Music Theory Spectrum, 9 (1987), 1–17. Playing with Signs: A Semiotic Interpretation of Classical Music (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991). Alderhold, Werner, Walther Dürr, and Walburga Litschauer (eds.), Franz Schubert, Jahre der Krise 1818–1823: Arnold Feil zum 60. Geburtstag am 2. Oktober 1895 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1985). Aldrich, Richard, ‘The Heavenly Lengths in Schubert’, The New York Times, Section 8, Drama, Music, Art, Fashions (Sunday November 9, 1919) 3,

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

009

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

279

280

Bibliography reproduced as ‘The Heavenly Lengths in Schubert’, Concert Life in New York: 1902–1923, 2nd edn. (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1941), 605–9. Alpers, Paul, ‘Lyrical Modes’, in Time and Text: Critical Inquiries, edited by Steven Paul Scher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 59–74. Anson-Cartwright, Mark, ‘Concepts of Closure in Tonal Music: A Critical Study’, Theory and Practice, 32 (2007), 1–17. BaileyShea, Matthew, ‘Wagner’s Loosely Knit Sentences and the Drama of Musical Form’, Intégral, 16/17 (2002/3), 1–34. ‘Beyond the Beethoven Model: Sentence Types and Limits’, Current Musicology, 77 (2004), 5–33. Barry, Barbara R., Musical Time: The Sense of Order (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1990). Baruch Wachtel, Andrew, An Obsession with History: Russian Writers Confront the Past (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014). Beach, David, ‘Schubert’s Experiments with Sonata Form: Formal-Tonal Design versus Underlying Structure’, Music Theory Spectrum, 15/1 (1993), 1–18. ‘Harmony and Linear Progression in Schubert’s Music’, Journal of Music Theory, 38/1 (1994), 1–20. ‘Modal Mixture and Schubert’s Harmonic Practice’, Journal of Music Theory, 42/1 (1998), 73–100. Bergé, Pieter (ed.), Musical Form, Forms, and Formenlehre: Three Methodological Reflections (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2009). Berger, Karol, ‘Narrative and Lyric: Fundamental Poetic Forms of Composition’, in Music Humanism and Its Legacy: Essays in Honor of Claude V. Palisca, edited by Nancy Kovaleff Baker and Barbara Russano Hanning (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1992), 451–70. Bach’s Cycle, Mozart’s Arrow: An Essay on the Origins of Musical Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007). Besseler, Heinrich, ‘Das musikalische Hören der Neuzeit’, Berichts über die Verhandlungen der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Philologisch-historische Klasse, Band 104, Heft 6 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1959). Biba, Otto, ‘Franz Schubert in den Musikalischen Abendunterhalungen der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde’, in Schubert-Studien (1978), 7–31. ‘Schubert’s Position in Viennese Musical Life’, 19th-Century Music, 3/2 (1979), 106–13. ‘Franz Schubert und die Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien’, in SchubertKongreβ Wien, 1978: Bericht, edited by Otto Brusatti (Graz: Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt, 1979), 23–36. Black, Brian, ‘Die Entwicklung der Sonatenform in Schuberts frühen Streichquartetten’, Schubert durch die Brille, 9 (1992), 104–12. ‘Schubert’s Apprenticeship in Sonata Form: The Early String Quartets’, unpublished PhD dissertation, McGill University (1996).

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

009

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Bibliography ‘The Functions of Harmonic Motives in Schubert’s Sonata Forms’, Intégral, 23 (2009), 1–63. ‘Schubert’s Development of Harmonic Motives in His Early String Quartets’, Music Theory Online, 24/3 (2018). Black, Leo, ‘Oaks and Osmosis’, Musical Times, Vol. 138, No. 1852 (1997), 4–15. Blair, Hugh, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (Philadelphia: T. Ellwood Zell & Co., 1866 reprint). Blume, Friedrich, ‘Fortspinnung und Entwicklung: Ein Beitrag zur musikalischen Begriffsbildung’, Jahrbuch der Musikbibliothek Peters, 36 (1929), 51–70. Boestfleisch, Rainer, ‘Das Frühwerk Franz Schuberts. Bemerkungen zu den Streichquartetten’, in Schubert-Jahrbuch, edited by Volkmar Hanson and Silke Hoffmann (Duisburg: Deutsche Schubert-Gesellschaft, 2009), 7–68. Bonds, Mark Evan, Wordless Rhetoric: Musical Form and the Metaphor of the Oration (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991). Music as Thought: Listening to the Symphony in the Age of Beethoven (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006). ‘Spatial Representation of Musical Form’, Journal of Musicology, 27/3 (2010), 265–303. Botstein, Leon, ‘The Search for Meaning in Beethoven: Popularity, Intimacy, and Politics in Historical Perspective’, in Beethoven and His World, edited by Scott Burnham and Michael P. Steinberg (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 332–66. Brendel, Franz, Geschichte der Musik in Italien, Deutschland und Frankreich von den ersten christlichen Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart, 2 (Leipzig: Verlag von Heinrich Matthes, 1855). Brown, Maurice J. E., ‘Recent Schubert Discoveries’, Music and Letters, 32/4 (1951), 349–61. Broyles, Michael, Beethoven: The Emergence and Evolution of Beethoven’s Heroic Style (New York: Excelsior, 1978). Bruce, Robert, ‘The Lyrical Element in Schubert’s Instrumental Forms’, The Music Review, 30 (1969), 131–7. Buhler, James, ‘Mahler and the Myth of the Total Symphony’, in Rethinking Mahler, ed. Jeremy Barham (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 141–62. Burke, Kenneth, ‘The Nature of Form’, in Contemporary Rhetoric: A Conceptual Background with Readings, ed. Ross W. Winterowd (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc., 1975). Burnham, Scott, Beethoven Hero (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995). ‘The “Heavenly Length” of Schubert’s Music’, Ideas, 6/1 (1999). http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/ideasv61/burnham.htm. ‘Schubert and the Sound of Memory’, The Musical Quarterly, 84/4 (2000), 655–63. ‘Landscape as Music, Landscape as Truth: Schubert and the Burden of Repetition’, 19th-Century Music, 29 (2005), 31–41.

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

009

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

281

282

Bibliography Burstein, L. Poundie, ‘Lyricism, Structure, and Gender in Schubert’s G Major String Quartet’, The Musical Quarterly, 18/1 (1997), 51–63. ‘The Half Cadence and Other Such Slippery Events’, Music Theory Spectrum, 36/2 (2014), 203–27. Burt, Stephen, ‘What Is This Thing Called Lyric?’, Modern Philology, 113/3 (2016), 422–40. Byrne Bodley, Lorraine, and Julian Horton (eds.), Rethinking Schubert (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). (eds.), Schubert’s Late Music: History, Theory, Style (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). Caplin, William E., Classical Form: A Theory of Formal Functions for the Music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). ‘The Classical Cadence: Conceptions and Misconceptions’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 57/1 (2004), 51–117. ‘Topics and Formal Functions: The Case of the Lament’, in The Oxford Handbook of Topic Theory, edited by Danuta Mirka (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 415–52. ‘Beyond the Classical Cadence: Thematic Closure in Early Romantic Music’, Music Theory Spectrum, 40/1 (2018), 1–26. Cavett-Dunsby, Esther, ‘Mozart’s Codas’, Music Analysis, 7/1 (1988), 31–51. Mozart’s Variations Reconsidered: Four Case Studies (K.613, K.501 and the Finales of K.421 [417b] and K.491) (New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1989). Chua, Daniel K. L., Beethoven and Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017). Chusid, Martin, ‘The Chamber Music of Schubert’, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley (1961). ‘Schubert’s Overture for String Quintet and Cherubini’s Overture to Faniska’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 15 (1962), 78–84. ‘Das “Orchestermässige” in Schuberts früher Streicherkammermusik’, in Zur Aufführungspraxis der Werke Franz Schuberts, edited by Vera Schwarz (Munich: Emil Katzbichler, 1981), 77–86. ‘Concerning Orchestral Style in Schubert’s Earliest Chamber Music for Strings’, in Music in Performance and Society: Essays in Honor of Roland Jackson, edited by Malcolm Cole and John Koegel (Warren, MI: Harmonie Park Press, 1997), 383–93. (ed.), Companion to Schubert’s ‘Schwanengesang’: History, Poets, Analysis, Performance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000). Clark, Suzannah, ‘Schubert, Theory and Analysis’, Music Analysis, 21/1 (2002), 209–43. ‘On the Imagination of Tone in Schubert’s Liedesend (D. 473), Trost (D. 523), and Gretchens Bitte (D. 564)’, in The Oxford Handbook of Neo-Riemannian Music Theories, edited by Edward Gollin and Alexander Rehding (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 294–321.

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

009

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Bibliography

Analyzing Schubert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Clifton, Thomas, Music as Heard: A Study in Applied Phenomenology (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1983). Cohn, Richard, ‘“As Wonderful as Start Clusters”: Instruments for Gazing at Tonality in Schubert’, 19th-Century Music, 22/3 (1999), 213–32. Audacious Euphony: Chromatic Harmony and the Triad’s Second Nature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). Cone, Edward T., ‘Stravinsky: The Progress of a Method’, Perspectives of New Music, 1/1 (1962), 18–26, reprinted in Perspectives on Schoenberg and Stravinsky, edited by Benjamin Boretz and Edward T. Cone (New York: W. W. Norton, 1968 and 1972), 155–64. ‘Schubert’s Promissory Note: An Exercise in Musical Hermeneutics’, 19thCentury Music, 5/3 (1982), 233–41. Music: A View from Delft, edited by Robert P. Morgan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989). Cook, Nicholas, ‘The Other Beethoven: Heroism, the Canon, and the Works of 1813–14’, 19th-Century Music, 27/1 (2003), 3–24. Coolidge, Richard A., ‘Form in the String Quartets of Franz Schubert’, The Music Review, 32 (1971), 309–25. Coren, Daniel, ‘Ambiguity in Schubert’s Recapitulations’, The Musical Quarterly, 60/4 (1974), 568–82. Cullen, Adam, ‘Dialectic Process and Sonata Form in Schubert’s A Minor String Quartet, D. 804’, Maynooth Musicology: Postgraduate Journal, 2 (2009), 40–70. Culler, Jonathan, Theory of the Lyric (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014). Dahlhaus, Carl, ‘Some Models of Unity in Musical Form’, Journal of Music Theory, 19/1 (1975), 2–30. ‘Die Sonatenform bei Schubert: Der erste Satz des G-dur-Quartetts D 887’, Musica, 32 (1978), 125–30, translated as ‘Sonata Form in Schubert: The First Movement of the G-Major String Quartet, Op. 161 (D. 887)’ by Thilo Reinhard, in Schubert: Critical and Analytical Studies, edited by Walter Frisch (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1986), 1–12. ‘Formprobleme in Schuberts frühen Streichquartetten’, in Schubert-Kongreβ Wien, 1978: Bericht, edited by Otto Brusatti (Graz: Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt, 1979), 191–7. Nineteenth-Century Music, translated by J. Bradford Robinson (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989). Ludwig van Beethoven: Approaches to His Music, translated by Mary Whittall (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991). Damschroder, David, Harmony in Schubert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). Daverio, John, Crossing Paths: Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

009

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

283

284

Bibliography ‘“One More Beautiful Memory of Schubert”: Schumann’s Critique of the Impromptus, D. 935’, The Musical Quarterly, 84/4 (2000), 604–18. Davies, Joe, and James William Sobaskie (eds.), Drama in the Music of Franz Schubert (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2019). Davis, Andrew, ‘Chopin and the Romantic Sonata: The First Movement of Op. 58’, Music Theory Spectrum, 36/2 (2014), 270–94. Denny, Thomas A., ‘Articulation, Elision, and Ambiguity in Schubert’s Mature Sonata Forms: The Op. 99 Trio Finale in Its Context’, Journal of Musicology, 6/3 (1988), 340–66. Deutsch, Otto Erich, Franz Schubert: Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge. Neuausgabe in deutscher Sprache / bearbeitet und herausgegeben von der Editionsleitung der Neuen Schubert-Ausgabe (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1978). (ed.), Schubert. Die Erinnerungen seiner Freunde (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1957, repr. 1983), translated by Rosamond Ley and John Nowell as Schubert: Memoirs by His Friends (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1958). (ed.), Schubert: Die Dokumente Seines Lebens (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1964), translated by Eric Blom as Schubert: A Documentary Biography (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1946). Deutsch, Otto Erich, and Donald R. Wakeling, Schubert Thematic Catalogue of All His Works in Chronological Order (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1951). Devaux, Vanessa, ‘Joseph Mayseder (1789–1863): A Viennese Violinist and Composer’, unpublished PhD dissertation, Cardiff University (2014). Dürr, Walther, Arnold Feil, Christa Landon et al. (eds.) Franz Schubert: Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, Herausgegeben von der Internationalen SchubertGesellschaft (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1964–). Dvořák, Antonín, ‘Franz Schubert’, The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, 48/ 3 (July 1894). Einstein, Alfred, Schubert, translated by David Ascoli (London: Cassell, 1951). Eliot, Thomas Stearns, The Three Voices of Poetry (London: National Book League, 1953). Epstein, David, Beyond Orpheus: Studies in Musical Structure (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987). Shaping Time: Music, the Brain, and Performance (New York: Schirmer, 1995). Feil, Arnold, and Walther Dürr, ‘Kritisch revidierte Gesamtausgaben von Werken Franz Schuberts im 19. Jahrhundert’, in Musik und Verlag: Kurt Vötterle zum 65. Geburtstag edited by Richard Baum and Wolfgang Rehm (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1968), 268–78. Ferguson, Donald N., Image and Structure in Chamber Music (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1964). Fieldman, Hali, ‘Schubert’s Quartettsatz and Sonata Form’s New Way’, Journal of Musicological Research 21/1–2 (2002), 99–146.

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

009

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Bibliography Fischer, Wilhelm, ‘Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des Wiener klassischen Stils’, Studien zur Musikwissenschaft, 3 (1915), 24–84. Fisk, Charles, ‘Schubert Recollects Himself: The Piano Sonata in C Minor, D. 958’, The Musical Quarterly, 84/4 (2000), 635–54. Returning Cycles: Contexts for the Interpretation of Schubert’s Impromptus and Last Sonatas (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). Frisch, Walter (ed.), Schubert: Critical and Analytical Studies (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1986). ‘“You Must Remember This”: Memory and Structure in Schubert’s String Quartet in G Major, D. 887’, The Musical Quarterly, 84/4 (2000), 582–603. Frye, Northrop, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957). Gál, Hans, Franz Schubert and the Essence of Melody (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1974). Gibbs, Christopher H. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Schubert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). The Life of Schubert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Gingerich, John M., ‘Remembrance and Consciousness in Schubert’s C-Major String Quintet, D. 956’, The Musical Quarterly, 84/4 (2000), 619–34. Schubert’s Beethoven Project (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). Grasberger, Franz, ‘Schubert und Bruckner’, in Schubert-Kongreβ Wien, 1978: Bericht, edited by Otto Brusatti (Graz: Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt, 1979), 215–28. Graubart, Michael, ‘Integration in Schubert: Themes and Motives I’, Musical Times, 144/1884 (2003), 37–44. Gray, Walter. ‘Schubert the Instrumental Composer’, The Musical Quarterly 64/4 (1978), 483–94. Green, David B., Temporal Processes in Beethoven’s Music (New York: Gordon and Breach, 1982). Grimes, Nicole, Brahms’s Elegies: The Poetics of Loss in Nineteenth-Century German Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019). Gritten, Anthony, ‘Edward T. Cone’s Stravinsky: The Progress of an Essay’, Musical Times, 139/1862 (1998), 4, 6–13. Grove, George, ‘Schubert’, in Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by J. A. Fuller Maitland (London: Macmillan, 1908), 280–335. Gülke, Peter, ‘Musikalische Lyrik und instrumentale Groβform’, in SchubertKongreβ Wien, 1978: Bericht, edited by Otto Brusatti (Graz: Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt, 1979), 207–14. Hanslick, Eduard, Geschichte des Concertwesens in Wien, Part I (Farnborough: Gregg, 1971). Hänsel, Peter, Three String Quartets, Opus 5, edited by Mark Alan Leach (Middleton: Wisconsin: A-R Editions, Inc., 2008).

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

009

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

285

286

Bibliography

Harman, Alec, Anthony Milner, and Wilfred Mellers (eds.), Man and His Music: The Story of Musical Experience in the West (London: Barrie & Rockliff [1962] 1969). Hascher, Xavier, Schubert, la forme sonate et son evolution (Bern: Peter Lang, 1996). (ed.), Le style instrumental de Schubert: Sources, analyse, évolution (Paris: Sorbonne, 2007). Hatten, Robert S., ‘Schubert the Progressive: The Role of Resonance and Gesture in the Piano Sonata in A, D. 959’, Intégral, 7 (1993), 38–81. ‘The Expressive Role of Disjunction: A Semiotic Approach to Form and Meaning in the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies’, in Perspectives on Anton Bruckner, edited by Crawford Howie, Paul Hawkshaw, and Timothy Jackson (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), 145–84. ‘The Troping of Temporality in Music’, in Approaches to Meaning in Music, edited by Byron Almén and Edward Pearsall (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006), 62–75. Hefling, Stephen E. (ed.), Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music, Routledge Studies in Musical Genres, edited by R. Larry Todd (New York and London: Routledge, 2004). Hegel, George Wilhelm Friedrich, Hegel’s Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, translated by Thomas Malcolm Knox (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975). ‘Aesthetik’, in Music and Aesthetics in the Eighteenth and Early-Nineteenth Centuries, edited by Peter le Huray and James Day (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 339–53. Hellmesberger, Joseph, and Eusebius Mandyczewski (eds.), Erste kritisch durchgesehene Gesammtausgabe Schuberts Werke, Series V, Streichquartette, Revisionsbericht (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1897) reprinted as Franz Schubert Complete Works: Breitkopf und Härtel Critical Edition of 1884– 1897, Editors’ Commentary on the Critical Edition, Vol. 19 (New York: Dover Publications, 1969). Hepokoski, James, ‘Fiery-Pulsed Libertine or Domestic Hero? Strauss’s Don Juan Reinvestigated’, in Richard Strauss: New Perspectives on the Composer and His Work, ed. Bryan Gillam (Duke University Press, 1992), 135–76. Sibelius: Symphony No. 5 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). ‘Back and Forth from Egmont: Beethoven, Mozart, and the Nonresolving Recapitulation’, 19th-Century Music 25/ 2–3 (2001–02), 127–54. ‘Sonata Theory, Secondary Themes and Continuous Expositions: Dialogues with Form-Functional Theory’, Music Analysis, 35/1 (2016), 44–74. Hepokoski, James, and Warren Darcy, ‘The Medial Caesura and Its Role in the Eighteenth-Century Sonata Exposition’, Music Theory Spectrum, 19/2 (1997), 115–54.

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

009

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Bibliography

Hepokoski, James, and Warren Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and Deformations in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). Hilmar, Ernst, ‘Datierungsprobleme im Werk Schuberts’, in Schubert-Kongress Wien 1978: Bericht, edited by Otto Brusatti (Graz: Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt, 1979), 45–60. ‘Schubert und Bruckner’, Schubert durch die Brille, 27 (2001), 79–96. (ed.), Franz Schubert: Dokumente (1801–1830), Addena und Kommentar (Hans Schneider, 2003). Hilmar, Ernst, and Margaret Jestremski (eds.), Schubert Lexikon (Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1997). Hinrichsen, Hans-Joachim, ‘Die Sonatenform in Spätwerk Franz Schuberts’, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 45/1 (1988), 16–49. Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der Sonatenform in der Instrumentalmusik Franz Schuberts (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1994). Hirsch, Marjorie Wing, Schubert’s Dramatic Lieder (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Horton, Julian, Bruckner’s Symphonies: Analysis, Reception and Cultural Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). ‘John Field and the Alternative History of Concerto First-Movement Form’, Music and Letters, 92/1 (2011), 43–83. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Symphony (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). ‘Stasis and Continuity in Schubert’s String Quintet: Responses to Nathan Martin, Steven Vande Moortele, Scott Burnham and John Koslovsky’, Music Analysis, 33/2 (2014), 194–213. (ed.), Schubert (Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2015). ‘Criteria for a Theory of Nineteenth-Century Sonata Form’, Music Theory and Analysis, 4/2 (2017), 147–91. Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 83: Analytical and Contextual Studies, Leuven Studies in Musicology 4 (Leuven: Peeters, 2017). ‘Syntax and Process in the First Movement of Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio Op. 66’, in Rethinking Mendelssohn, ed. Benedict Taylor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020). Hullah, John, The History of Modern Music: A Course of Lectures Delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, 2nd edn. (London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1875). Hunt, Graham, ‘The Three-Key Trimodular Block and Its Classical Precedents: Sonata Expositions in Schubert and Brahms’, Intégral, 23 (2009), 65–119. ‘When Structure and Design Collide: the Three-Key Exposition Revisited’, Music Theory Spectrum, 36/2 (2014), 247–69. Hur, Mi-Sook Han, ‘Irregular Recapitulations in Schubert’s Instrumental Works’, unpublished PhD dissertation, City University New York (1992).

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

009

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

287

288

Bibliography Hyland, Anne M., ‘“Idling on Some Compulsive Fantasy”: Schubert’s Second Subjects and the String Quintet in C Major, D. 956’, Musicology Review, 2 (2005–06), 143–68. ‘Rhetorical Closure in the First Movement of Schubert’s Quartet in C Major, D. 46: A Dialogue with Deformation’, Music Analysis, 28/1 (2009), 111–42. ‘Tautology or Teleology? Towards an Understanding of Repetition in Franz Schubert’s Instrumental Chamber Music’, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge (2011). ‘The “tightened bow”: Analysing the Juxtaposition of Drama and Lyricism in Schubert’s Paratactic Sonata-Form Movements’, Irish Musical Analysis, Irish Musical Studies 11, edited by Julian Horton and Gareth Cox (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2014), 17–40. ‘In Search of Liberated Time, or Schubert’s Quartet in G Major, D. 887: Once More between Sonata and Variation’, Music Theory Spectrum, 38/1 (2016), 85–108. ‘Schubert’s Bi-Rotational Sonata Forms: Developmental Function and the Type 1–2 Hybrid’, Music Analysis, 40/3, Special Issue on Sonata Typology (2021), 413–50. Istel, Edgar, ‘Schubert’s Lyric Style’ translated by Frederick D. Martens, The Musical Quarterly, 14/4 (1928), 575–95. Ivanovitch, Roman, ‘Mozart and the Environment of Variation’, unpublished PhD dissertation, Yale University (2004). ‘Recursive/Discursive: Variation and Sonata in the Andante of Mozart’s String Quartet in F, K. 590’, Music Theory Spectrum, 32/2 (2010), 145–64. ‘What’s in a Theme? On the Nature of Variation’, Gamut, Online Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic, 3/1 (2010), 1–42. Jackson, Timothy L., ‘The Tragic Reversed Recapitulation in the German Classical Tradition’, Journal of Music Theory, 40/1 (1996), 61–111. Jackson, Virginia, ‘Lyric’, in the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, edited by Roland Greene, Stephen Cushman, Clare Cavanagh, Jahan Ramazani, and Paul Rouzer (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), 826–34. Jammerman, Marco, ‘Introduktion und Kontrast. Zum Tonsatz in Schuberts frühen Streichquartetten’, in Schubert-Jahrbuch, edited by Dietrich Berke, Walther Dürr, Walburga Litschauer, and Christiane Schumann (Duisburg: Deutsche Schubert-Gesellschaft, 2000), 105–12. Jarvis, Brian Edward, and John Peterson, ‘Alternative Paths, Phrase Expansion, and the Music of Felix Mendelssohn’, Music Theory Spectrum, 41/2 (2019), 187–217. Johnson, James William, ‘Lyric’, in The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, edited by Alex Preminger and T. V. F. Brogan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 713–27.

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

009

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Bibliography Jones, David Wyn, ‘Haydn’s Forgotten Quartets: Three of the “Paris” Symphonies Arranged for String Quartet’, Eighteenth-Century Music, 8/2 (2011), 287–305. Music in Vienna: 1700, 1800, 1900 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2016). Jordan, Roland, and Emma Kafalenos, ‘The Double Trajectory: Ambiguity in Brahms and Henry James’, 19th-Century Music, 13/2 (1989), 129–44. Kalisch, Volker, ‘Wie “männlich” ist Schuberts Es-Dur Klaviertrio (D. 929)?’, Schubert Jahrbuch (1998), 113–23. Kallberg, Jeffrey, ‘The Rhetoric of Genre: Chopin’s Nocturne in G minor’, 19thCentury Music, 11 (1988), 238–61. Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Pure Reason, translated by Kemp Smith Norman (London: Macmillan & Co., 1963). Keefe, Simon P., Mozart’s Piano Concertos: Dramatic Dialogue in the Age of Enlightenment (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2001). Klein, Michael, ‘Chopin’s Fourth Ballade as Musical Narrative’, Music Theory Spectrum, 26/1 (2004), 23–56. Knapp, J. Merrill, ‘Beethoven’s Mass in C Major, Op. 86’, in Beethoven Essays: Studies in Honor of Elliott Forbes, edited by Lewis Lockwood and Phyllis Benjamin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 199–216. Kopp, David, Chromatic Transformations in Nineteenth-Century Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Koslovsky, John Charles, ‘From Sinn und Wesen to Structural Hearing: The Development of Felix Salzer’s Ideas in Interwar Vienna and their Transmission in Postwar United States’, unpublished PhD dissertation, Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester (2009). ‘Timeless Reflections: Form, Cadence and Tonal Structure in the Scherzo and Finale of Schubert’s String Quintet’, Music Analysis, 33/2 (2014), 168–93. Kozak, Mariusz, Enacting Musical Time: The Bodily Experience of New Music (Oxford University Press, 2020). Kramer, Jonathan, The Time of Music: New Meanings, New Temporalities, New Listening Strategies (New York: Schirmer Books, 1988). Kramer, Lawrence, Classical Music and Postmodern Knowledge (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995). Franz Schubert: Sexuality, Subjectivity, Song, Cambridge Studies in Music Theory and Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Krummacher, Friedhelm, ‘Mendelssohn’s Late Chamber Music: Some Autograph Sources Recovered’, in Mendelssohn and Schumann: Essays on Their Music and Its Context, edited by J. W. Finson and R. L. Todd (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1984), 71–84. Kurth, Ernst, Ernst Kurth: Selected Writings, edited and translated by Lee Allen Rothfarb (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). Kurth, Richard, ‘On the Subject of Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony: Was bedeutet die Bewegung?’, 19th-Century Music, 23/1 (1999), 3–32.

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

009

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

289

290

Bibliography Laciar, Samuel L., ‘The Chamber Music of Franz Schubert’, The Musical Quarterly 14/4 (1928), 515–38. Landon, Christa, ‘New Schubert Finds’, The Music Review, 31 (1970), 215–31. Langer, Susanne, Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art Developed from Philosophy in a New Key (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1953). Larson, Steve, ‘Recapitulation Recomposition in the Sonata-Form First Movements of Haydn’s String Quartets: Style Change and Compositional Technique’, Music Analysis, 22/1–2 (2003), 139–77. LaRue, Jan, Guidelines for Style Analysis (New York: W. W. Norton, 1970). Leppert, Richard, ‘On Reading Adorno Hearing Schubert’, 19th-Century Music, 29/1 (2005), 56–63. Levy, Janet, ‘Casual and Covert Values in Recent Writings about Music’, Journal of Musicology, 5/1 (1987), 3–27. Lewis, C. Day, The Lyric Impulse (London: Chatto and Windus Ltd., 1965). Littlewood, Julian, The Variations of Johannes Brahms (London: Plumbago Press, 2004). Lofthouse, Charity, ‘Dialogues and Dialects: Rotation and Sonata Form in Shostakovich’s Symphonies’, Theory and Practice, 41 (2016), 113–39. London, Justin, Hearing in Time: Psychological Aspects of Musical Meter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Longyear, Rey M., and Kate R. Covington, ‘Sources of the Three-Key Exposition’, Journal of Musicology, 6/4 (1988), 448–70. Macdonald, Hugh, ‘Schubert’s Volcanic Temper’, Musical Times, 119/1629 (1978), 949–52. Mak, Su Yin, ‘Structure, Design, and Rhetoric: Schubert’s Lyricism Reconsidered’, PhD dissertation, Eastman School of Music (2004), published as Schubert’s Lyricism Reconsidered: Structure, Design, and Rhetoric (Saarbrücken: Lambert, 2010). ‘Schubert’s Sonata Forms and the Poetics of the Lyric’, Journal of Musicology, 23/2 (2006), 263–306. ‘Et in Arcadia ego: The Elegiac Structure of Schubert’s Quartettsatz in C Minor (D. 703)’, in The Unknown Schubert, edited by Barbara M. Reul and Lorraine Byrne Bodley (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 145–56. ‘Felix Salzer’s “Sonata Form in Franz Schubert” (1928): An English Translation and Edition with Critical Commentary’, Theory and Practice, 40 (2015), 1–121. Marston, Nicholas, ‘Analysing Variations: The Finale of Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 74’, Music Analysis, 8/3 (1989), 303–24. Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in E, Op. 109, Studies in Musical Genesis, Structure and Interpretation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). ‘Schubert’s Homecoming’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 125/2 (2000), 248–70.

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

009

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Bibliography ‘“The Sense of an Ending”: Goal-Directedness in Beethoven’s Music’, in The Cambridge Companion to Beethoven, edited by Glenn Stanley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 84–102. Martin, Nathan John, and Steven Vande Moortele, ‘Formal Functions and Retrospective Reinterpretation in the First Movement of Schubert’s String Quintet’, Music Analysis, 33/2 (2014), 130–55. Martinkus, Caitlin G., ‘Schubert’s Large-Scale Sentences: Exploring the Function of Repetition in Schubert’s First-Movement Sonata Forms’, Music Theory Online, 27/3 (2021). Marx, Adolf Bernhard, Musical Form in the Age of Beethoven: Selected Writings on Theory and Method, edited and translated by Scott Burnham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Mason, Daniel Gregory, ‘Franz Schubert: Romanticist’, New Outlook, 82/11 (1906), 311–15. The Romantic Composers (New York and London: Macmillan, 1906). Mathew, Nicholas, Political Beethoven (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). Mathew, Nicholas, and Benjamin Walton (eds.), The Invention of Beethoven and Rossini: Historiography, Analysis, Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). McKay, Elizabeth Norman, ‘Rossinis Einfluss auf Schubert’, Österreichische Musikzeitschrift, 18 (1963), 17–22. Franz Schubert: A Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). Meyer, Leonard B., Style and Music: Theory, History, and Ideology (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989). Meyer, Leonard B., Eugene Narmour, and Ruth A. Solie (eds.), Explorations in Music, the Arts, and Ideas: Essays in Honor of Leonard B. Meyer (Stuyvesant: Pendragon Press, 1989). Mirka, Danuta, and Kofi Agawu (eds.), Communication in Eighteenth-Century Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). Monahan, Seth, Mahler’s Symphonic Sonatas (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). Monelle, Raymond, The Sense of Music: Semiotic Essays (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000). Morgan, Robert P., ‘Musical Time/Musical Space’, Critical Inquiry, 6/3 (1980), 527–38. Nattiez, Jean-Jacques, Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music, translated by Carolyn Abbate (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, [1987] 1990). Navia, Gabriel Henrique Bianco, ‘The Medial Caesura in Schubert’s Sonata Forms: Formal and Rhetorical Complications’, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Arizona (2016).

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

009

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

291

292

Bibliography

Neuwirth, Markus, and Pieter Bergé (eds.), What Is a Cadence? Theoretical and Analytical Perspectives on Cadences in the Classical Repertoire (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2015). Newbould, Brian, Schubert: The Music and the Man (London: Gollancz, 1997). Schubert the Progressive: History, Performance Practice, Analysis (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003). November, Nancy, Cultivating String Quartets in Beethoven’s Vienna (Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press, 2017). Nowak, Stefan, ‘Chopin’s Sonata Counter-Type – Error of Construction or Innovative Idea’, in Chopin and His Work in the Context of Culture, Vol. 1, ed. Irena Poniotowska (Kraków : Polska Akademia Chopinowska, 2003), 334–40. Nowik, Wojciech, ‘Chopin’s Sonata Counter-Type - Error of Construction or Innovative Idea’, in Chopin and His Work in the Context of Culture, Vol. 1, ed. Irena Poniotowska (Kraków : Polska Akademia Chopinowska, 2003), 334–40. Pachovsky, Angela, ‘Zur Frage der Rossinismen bei Schubert’, Schubert-Jahrbuch, 1998: Bericht über den Internationalen Schubert-Kongress Duisburg 1997, edited by Dietrich Berke (Duisburg, 2000), 35–55. Paddison, Max, Adorno’s Aesthetics of Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Perry, Jeffrey, ‘The Wanderer’s Many Returns: Schubert’s Variations Reconsidered’, Journal of Musicology, 19/2 (2002), 374–416. Petiscus, Johann Conrad Wilhelm [‘P’.], ‘Ueber Quartettmusik’, Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 12/33 (1810), 513–23. Proust, Marcel, Cities of the Plain, translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff (London: Knopf, 1929). Ratz, Erwin, Einführung in die musikalische Formenlehre: Über Formprinzipien in den Inventionen und Fugen J.S. Bachs und ihre Bedeutung für die Kompositionstechnik Beethovens (Vienna: Universal Edition, 1973). Reed, John, ‘Schubert and the Musikfreunde’, Musical Times, 119/1629 (1978), 940–3. The Schubert Song Companion (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997 [1985]). Reid, Charles, The Music Monster: A Biography of James William Davison, Music Critic of The Times of London, 1846–78 (London: Quartet Books, 1984). Reiner, Thomas, Semiotics of Musical Time (New York: Peter Lang, 2000). Reiser, Salome, Franz Schuberts frühe Streichquartette: eine klassische Gattung am Beginn einer nachklassischen Zeit (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1999). Richards, Mark, ‘Beethoven and the Obscured Medial Caesura: A Study in the Transformation of Style’, Music Theory Spectrum, 35/2 (2013), 166–93. ‘Sonata Form and the Problem of Second-Theme Beginnings’, Music Analysis, 32/1 (2013), 3–45. Rink, John, ‘Tonal Architecture in the Early Music’, in The Cambridge Companion to Chopin, edited by Jim Samson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 78–98.

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

009

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Bibliography ‘“Structural Momentum” and Closure in Chopin’s Op. 9, No. 2’, in Schenker Studies 2, ed. Carl Schachter and Hedi Siegel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 109–26. Rosen, Charles, Sonata Forms, rev. edn. (New York: Norton, 1988). The Frontiers of Meaning: Three Informal Lectures on Music (New York: Hill and Wang, 1994). The Romantic Generation (Harvard College, USA: Harper Collins Publishers, 1995). Rothstein, William, Phrase Rhythm in Tonal Music (New York: Schirmer, 1989). Rubinstein, Anton, A Conversation on Music, translated by Mrs. John P. Morgan (New York: C. F. Tretbar, 1892; reprint, New York: Da Capo Press, 1982). Ruff, Philipp, ‘Die Streichquartette Franz Schuberts’, unpublished PhD dissertation, Vienna (1929). Sachse, Hans-Martin, ‘Franz Schuberts Streichquartetts’, unpublished PhD dissertation, Münster (1958). Salzer, Felix, ‘Die Sonatenform bei Franz Schubert’, Studien zur Musikwissenschaft, 15 (1928), 86–125. Schachter, Carl, ‘Either/Or’, in Unfoldings: Essays in Schenkerian Theory and Analysis, edited by Joseph N. Strauss (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). Schenker, Heinrich, ‘Beethovens Dritte Sinfonie zum erstenmal in ihrem wahren Inhalt dargestellt’, Das Meisterwerk in der Musik, Jahrbuch III (Munich: Drei Musik Verlag, 1930). Harmonielehre (Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta’sche Buchhandlung Nachfolger, 1906). Free Composition, translated and edited by Ernst Oster (New York: Longman, 1979). ‘On Organicism in Sonata Form’, translated by William Drabkin in Heinrich Schenker, The Masterwork in Music: A Yearbook, Vol. 2 (1926), edited by William Drabkin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 23–30. Schmalfeldt, Janet, ‘Cadential Processes: The Evaded Cadence and the “One More Time” Technique’, Journal of Musicological Research, 12/1 (1992), 1–52. ‘Form as the Process of Becoming: The Beethoven-Hegelian Tradition and the “Tempest” Sonata’, Beethoven Forum, 4 (1995), 37–71. In the Process of Becoming: Analytic and Philosophical Perspectives on Form in Early Nineteenth-Century Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). Schnebel, Dieter, ‘Schubert: Auf der Suche nach der befreiten Zeit’, in Denkbare Music, Schriften 1952–1972, edited by Hans Rudolf Zeller (Schauberg, Cologne: M. DuMont, 1972). ‘Klangräume – Zeitklänge: Zweiter Versuch über Schubert’, in Musik-Konzepte Sonderband Franz Schubert, edited by Heinz-Klaus Metzger and Rainer Riehn (Munich: Edition Text+Kritik, 1979), 89–106. Schoenberg, Arnold, Coherence, Counterpoint, Instrumentation, Instruction in Form, translated by Charlotte M. Cross and Severine Neff (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, [1917] 1994).

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

009

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

293

294

Bibliography

Fundamentals of Musical Composition, edited by Gerald Strang with the collaboration of Leonard Stein (London: Faber and Faber, 1970 [1967]). Sisman, Elaine, Haydn and the Classical Variation, 2nd edn. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993). ‘Pathos and the Pathétique: Rhetorical Stance in Beethoven’s C Minor Sonata, Op. 13’, in Beethoven Forum, 3, edited by Glen Stanley (1994), 81–105. ‘Variations’, New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd edn., Vol. 26 (2001), 284–326. Six, Dolf, Liederfürst Franz Schubert und Wien 1828–1928 (Vienna: KommissionsVerlag Wolfram 1928). Sly, Gordon, ‘The Architecture of Key and Motive in a Schubert Sonata’, Intégral, 9 (1998), 67–89. ‘Schubert’s Innovations in Sonata Form: Compositional Logic and Structural Interpretation’, Journal of Music Theory, 45/1 (2001), 119–50. (ed.), Keys to the Drama: Nine Perspectives on Sonata Forms (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009). Smith, Barbara Herrnstein, Poetic Closure: A Study of How Poems End (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1968). Smith, Peter H., ‘Liquidation, Augmentation and Brahms’s Recapitulatory Overlaps’, 19th-Century Music, 17 (1994), 237–61. ‘Harmonic Cross-Reference and the Dialectic of Articulation and Continuity in Sonata Expositions of Schubert and Brahms’, Journal of Music Theory, 50/2 (2006), 143–79. ‘Parallel Binary or Tripartite? Formal Hybridisation of Sonata Types in the Nineteenth Century’, Music Analysis, 40/3, Special Issue on Sonata Typology (2021), 534–78. ‘Dvořák’s Violin Concerto Reconsidered: Joachim’s Influence, Bruch’s Model and Romantic Innovations in Sonata Practice’, Music Analysis, 41/1 (2022). Speck, Christian (ed.), The String Quartet from the Private to the Public Sphere (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016). Spitzer, Michael, Music as Philosophy: Adorno and Beethoven’s Late Style (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2006). ‘Haydn’s Creation as Late Style: Parataxis, Pastoral, and the Retreat from Humanism’, Journal of Musicological Research, 28/2–3 (2009), 223–48. ‘Mapping the Human Heart: A Holistic Analysis of Fear in Schubert’, Music Analysis, 29/2–3 (2010), 149–213. Staiger, Emil, Basic Concepts of Poetics (Grundbegriffe der Poetik), translated by Janette C. Hudson and Luanne T. Frank, edited by Marianne Burkhard and Luanne T. Frank (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991). Statham, Henry Heathcote, ‘Schubert – Chopin – Liszt’, Edinburgh Review, 158 (1883), 475–509. Stowell, Robin (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the String Quartet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

009

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Bibliography

Sumner-Lott, Marie, The Social Worlds of Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music: Composers, Consumers, Communities (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015). Swinkin, Jeffrey, ‘Variation as Thematic Actualisation: The Case of Brahms’s Op. 9’, Music Analysis, 31/1 (2012), 37–89. ‘Paratactic Performance: Toward an Adornian Theory of Musical Interpretation’, IRASM, 50 (2019), 221–53. Tarrant, Christopher, ‘Schubert, Sonata Theory, Psychoanalysis: Traversing the Fantasy in Schubert’s Sonata Forms’, unpublished PhD dissertation, Royal Holloway, University of London (2015). ‘Structural Acceleration in Nielsen’s Sinfonia Espansiva’, Music Analysis, 38/3 (2019), 358–86. Taylor, Benedict, Mendelssohn, Time and Memory: The Romantic Conception of Cyclic Form (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). ‘Schubert and the Construction of Memory: The String Quartet in A Minor, D. 804 (“Rosamunde”)’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 139/1 (2014), 41–88. The Melody of Time: Music and Temporality in the Romantic Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). Temperley, Nicholas, ‘Development’, in The Oxford Companion to Music, edited by Alison Latham (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). Theurer, Michiko, ‘Playing with Time: The Heiliger Dankgesang and the Evolution of Narrative Liberation in Op. 132’, Journal of Musicological Research, 32/ 2–3 (2013), 248–65. Toller, Nicholas, ‘Gesture and Expressive Purpose in Schubert’s Instrumental Music of 1822–28’, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Hull (1987). Tovey, Donald Francis, ‘Tonality’, Music & Letters 9/4, Schubert Number (1928), 341–63. ‘Unfinished Symphony in B Minor’, in Essays in Musical Analysis, Vol. I: Symphonies (I) (London: Oxford University Press, 1935), 211–14. ‘Franz Schubert’, in Essays and Lectures on Music, edited by Hubert J. Foss (London, 1949), 103–33. Reprint of Tovey: ‘Franz Schubert’, in The Heritage of Music, edited by Hubert J. Foss (London: Oxford University Press, 1927), 82–122. ‘Schubert’, in Essays and Lectures in Music (London, 1949). The Forms of Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967). Treitler, Leo, ‘The Historiography of Music: Issues of Past and Present’, in Rethinking Music, edited by Nicholas Cook and Mark Everist (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 356–77. Truscott, Harold, ‘Schubert’s String Quartet in G’, Music Review, 20 (1959), 119–45. Vande Moortele, Steven, Two-Dimensional Sonata Form: Form and Cycle in SingleMovement Instrumental Works by Liszt, Strauss, Schoenberg, and Zemlinsky (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2009). ‘Sentences, Sentence Chains, and Sentence Replication: Intra- and Interthematic Functions in Liszt’s Weimar Symphonic Poems’, Intégral, 25 (2011), 121–58.

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

009

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

295

296

Bibliography

The Romantic Overture and Musical Form from Rossini to Wagner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). Vande Moortele, Steven, Julie Pedneault-Deslauriers, and Nathan John Martin (eds.), Formal Functions in Perspective: Essays on Musical Form from Haydn to Adorno (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2015). Waidelich, Till Gerrit (ed.), Franz Schubert: Dokumente 1817–1830, prepared by Renate Hilmar-Voit and Andreas Mayer (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1993). Webster, James, ‘Schubert’s Sonata Form and Brahms’s First Maturity’, 19thCentury Music, 2/1 (1978), 18–35. ‘Schubert’s Sonata Form and Brahms’s First Maturity (II)’, 19th-Century Music, 3/1 (1979), 52–71, 63. ‘The Form of the Finale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony’, Beethoven Forum, 1 (1992), 25–62. ‘Music, Pathology, Sexuality, Beethoven, Schubert’, 19th-Century Music, 17/1 (1993), 89–93. Weinmann, Alexander (ed.), Johann Traeg: Die Musikalienverzeichnisse von 1799 und 1804 (Vienna: Universal Edition, 1973). Westrup, Jack Allan, Schubert Chamber Music (London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1969). Whaples, Miriam, ‘On Structural Integration in Schubert’s Instrumental Works’, Acta Musicologica, 40/11 (1968), 186–95. Whittall, Arnold, ‘The Sonata Crisis: Schubert in 1828’, Music Review (1969), 124–30. Wingfield, Paul, ‘Beyond Norms and Deformations: Towards a Theory of Sonata Form as Reception History’, Music Analysis, 27/1 (2008), 137–77. Wingfield, Paul and Julian, Horton, ‘Norm and Deformation in Mendelssohn’s Sonata Forms’, in Mendelssohn Perspectives, ed. Nicole Grimes and Angela Mace (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 83–112. Wintle, Christopher, ‘Webern’s Lyric Character’, in Webern Studies, edited by Kathryn Bailey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 229–63. ‘“Ihr Bild” (1828): A Response to Schenker’s Essay in “Der Tonwille”, Vol. 1’, Music Analysis, 19/1 (2000), 10–28. Wollenberg, Susan, ‘Schubert’s Transitions’, in Schubert Studies, edited by Brian Newbould (Farnham: Ashgate, 1998), 16–61. Schubert’s Fingerprints: Studies in the Instrumental Works (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011). Yust, Jason, ‘Schubert’s Harmonic Language and Fourier Phase Space’, Journal of Music Theory, 59/1 (2015) 121–81. ‘Ganymede’s Heavenly Descent’, Music Analysis, 39/1 (2020), 50–84. Zbikowski, Lawrence M., Conceptualizing Music: Cognitive Structure, Theory, and Analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

009

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Index

Adorno, Theodor W., 5, 9, 35–43, 46, 55, 64, 126, 164, 176, 204, 211, 263, 264, 266–7, 271 ‘On Lyric Poetry and Society’, 13, 40 and immanent dialecticism, 51 and parataxis, 37 on Hölderlin, 40, 204 on lyric mode, 37 on Schubert, 35–43, 215 theory of lyric parataxis, 21 aesthetics, 6–7, 14, 32, 38–40, 41, 45, 49, 69, 77, 137, 176, 205, 206, 210, 211–13, 226, 231, 262 Agawu, Kofi, 112 Albrechtsberger, Johann Georg, 75, 77 alterity, 5, 7, 11 ambiguity, 143, 170, 182, 201, 202, 219–20, 231, 254, 262 formal, 220, 232, 269 analysis, 5, 64, 68, 73, 74, 98, 103, 152, 200, 211 form functional, 118, 133, 153, 171, 173, 186–8, 229 models of, 2, 7, 40, 46, 48, 49, 51, 55, 62, 147, 174, 175 Neo-Riemannian, 2, 261, 264 Schenkerian, 2, 40, 112, 245 theories of, 1, 4, 21, 53, 73, 102, 118 theory of, 53–61 Anson-Cartwright, Mark, 111–12 aria, 77 arrangement, 75, 77–81, 96, 97 of instrumental works, 80 of operatic works, 77, 78 of orchestral works, 77, 96, 98 of overtures, 78, 80 autonomy, 16, 30, 69, 112, 194, 226 Bach, Johann Sebastian French Suite no. 5 (BWV816), 223 BaileyShea, Matthew, 240 Ballad, 268 ballet, 77 Barry, Barbara R., 209

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

0 0

bli h d

li

b C

b id

basic idea (b.i.), 56–8, 115, 121–6, 133, 136, 143, 145, 168, 170, 178–9, 216, 227–31, 233, 235, 238–43 Bauernfeld, Eduard von, 3 Bäutel, Herr von, 97 Beach, David, 151, 157, 232, 233 becoming (Schmalfeldt), 134. See also functional transformation Beethoven, Ludwig van ‘heroic’ style, 11, 44, 69, 205 ‘Beethoven Political’, 69 ‘dramatic-dialectic’ style, 43 and dynamism, 8, 13 and patriotism, 69 and retrospection, 217 and teleological motivic derivation, 43–7 and thematic fragmentation, 32 and variation, 42–3, 217 de-centring of, 8, 265 late period, 15, 41, 268 middle period, 4, 15, 40, 44, 69, 268 piano sonatas, 4, 15 symphonies, 80 Beethoven, Ludwig van, works, 4–5, 11–12, 13–78, 80, Coriolan Overture, Op. 63, 97, 100 Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus Overture, Op. 43, 97 Egmont Overture, Op. 84, 97, 100 Grosse Fuge in B♭ Major, Op. 133, 78 Missa Solemnis, 15 Piano Sonata in C Major, Op. 53 (‘Waldstein’), 48 Piano Sonata in E Minor, Op. 90, 15 Piano Sonata in F♯ Major, Op. 78, 15 Piano Sonata in A♭ Major, Op. 110, 177 Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 2, No. 1, 240 Piano Trio in B♭ Major, Op. 97, 15 Piano Trio in D Major, Op. 70, No. 1 (‘Ghost’), 30, 87 String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 132, iii, Heiliger Dankgesang, 15, 49

i

i

297

298

Index

Beethoven, Ludwig van, works (cont.) String Quartet in E♭ Major, Op. 127, 15 String Quartet in E♭ Major, Op. 74 (‘Harp’), 15 Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21, 147, 242 Variations and Fugue for Piano in E♭ Major, Op. 35 (‘Eroica’), 43, 217, 244 Benda, Jiří Antonín Sonata No. 9, 99 Bergé, Pieter, 54 Berger, Karol, 46–9, 213, 259 mutual implication model, 47, 49, 62, 206, 267 poetic forms of temporality, 62 Berlin, 67 Berlioz, Hector, 52 Berwald, Franz, 128, 130 Besseler, Heinrich, 46 Biedermeier era, 9 binary opposition, 186 Black, Brian, 72–3, 134, 152 Blume, Friedrich Entwicklung, 33, 215 Boccherini, Luigi, 75 Bonds, Mark Evan, 55 Boston, 67 Brahms, Johannes, 8, 51, 52, 66, 130, 139, 163, 214, 269, 272 Intermezzo Op. 119 No. 1, 255 Pianoforte Quintet, Op. 34, 270 Second Piano Concerto, Op. 83, 54 Breitkopf und Härtel, 66, 67 Brown, Maurice, 66 Broyles, Michael, 217 Bruce, Robert, 27 Bruckner, Anton, 270–2 and Schubert’s music, 270 disjunction in the music of, 271 Symphony No. 6 in A Major, WAB 106, 270 Symphony No. 7 in E Major, WAB 107, 270 Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, WAB 109, 270 Bureau des arts et d’industrie, 77 Burnham, Scott, 4, 36, 46, 47, 49, 69, 218, 262–3 Burstein, Poundie, 8, 32, 232, 252–4 Byrne Bodley, Lorraine, 2 cadence, 13, 22, 25, 53, 56–61, 89, 92, 100, 107–13, 118–21, 133, 137, 144, 145, 162, 168, 172, 183, 190, 202, 203–4, 233, 248, 259 closure, 30, 63, 107–8, 109, 118–21, 132, 158, 226, 262

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

0 0

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

deceptive cadence (DC), 60, 198, 223 elided, 109, 110, 119, 123, 134, 142, 145, 149, 152–5, 186–8, 193, 216, 237 evaded cadence (EC), 60, 92, 149, 186–8, 192, 193, 236–8, 259 expanded cadential progression (ECP), 164, 223, 229, 231, 240 half cadence (HC), 30, 31, 56, 61, 86–91, 100, 108, 115–21, 127–30, 137, 155, 178, 181, 183–6, 229–30, 235, 238, 245–8 imperfect authentic cadence (IAC), 31, 61, 86–91, 140–3, 146–7, 149, 223, 236–8 incomplete authentic cadence (InAC), 60, 119 nineteenth-century half cadence (19cHC), 61, 198 perfect authentic cadence (PAC), 31, 32, 50, 56, 61, 86–91, 107–10, 115–21, 132–9, 146–51, 153, structural, 15, 57, 85, 87–9, 130, 133, 136, 153, 168, 173, 179, 181, 185, 193, 229, 236, 239, 247 Cambini, Giuseppe Maria, 75 canon formation, 81 musico-analytic, 1 musicological, 70, 76 performance, 70, 76 canon (technique), 32, 164 Caplin, William E., 113, 118, 170, 180, 225, 235, 240, 242, 250 ‘formal circularity’, 123 small ternary form, 134 theory of formal function, 53–61, 103, 264 Cherubini, Luigi, 80–2, 98, 100 Démophon overture, 97 Faniska overture, 77, 81, 96, 97, 221 Chopin, Frédéric, 47, 103, 269 Ballade No. 4 in F Minor (Op.52), 221 Nocturne Op. 9. No. 2, 112 Piano Trio in G Minor, Op. 8, 272 chromaticism, 190–6, 199 Chua, Daniel, 177 Chusid, Martin, 23, 72, 96, 98, 114, 117–19, 121, 130, 158, 178 Clark, Suzannah, 2, 44, 152, 225, 263, 264–5 Clifton, Thomas, 219 closure, 30, 38, 50, 51, 63, 89, 100, 107–14, 118, 130, 147, 158, 180, 202, 204, 208, 214, 223, 225, 231, 235–8, 255, 259, 265, 266 cadential, 30, 107, 132, 158, 159, 226, 262 contrapuntal, 109 formal, 112

Index

global, 111 intra-thematic, 111 local, 111 rhetorical, 112–13 syntactic, 112 tonal, 112, 197, 247 Cohn, Richard L., 261, 264 concert, 79–84 programme, 80–1, 82 series, 79–84 concerto, 95, 77 piano, 59 postclassical, 59 Cone, Edward T., 51, 62, 174–7, 194 theory of stratification, 51, 177, 190, 202. See also stratification context cultural, 13 historical, 73 social, 74 socio-historical, 20 Contin, Franz von, 81–2 Cook, Nicholas, 69 Coren, Daniel, 155 counterpoint, 30, 37, 63, 89, 109, 130, 180 Covington, Kate R., 99 criticism/critical studies, 1–4, 13, 27, 33, 41, 70, 107, 145, 165, 264 Culler, Jonathan, 20 cyclicism, 136, 158 Czerny, Josef, 66 Dahlhaus, Carl, 8, 15, 42–50, 63, 73, 114–18, 132, 137, 145, 158, 180, 218, 227, 233, 237, 244, 267 Stildualismus, 4, 16 Daverio, John, 45, 206 Davison, James William, 1–2 development (musical), 7, 11–12, 26, 28, 30–5, 44, 52, 60, 85, 87, 112, 148, 164–74, 178–82, 211, 212, 218, 220, 223–5, 227, 270, 271 developmental episode, 134, 164–165, 168, 172, 174, 178, 180, 181, 186–95, 197, 205, 248, 250 dialectical, 5, 35 motivic, 6, 29 strategy, 6, 31, 107 thematic, 12, 29, 30–5, 181, 192, 196 dialectics, 12–14, 40, 41, 51–2, 62, 109, 110, 137, 163, 168, 172, 178, 185, 191, 192, 195, 204, 264, 266 dialectical synthesis, 5

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

0 0

bli h d

li

b C

b id

dialogue, 11, 43, 52, 62, 87, 93, 102, 132, 152, 157, 174, 219 inter-generic, 95, 96, 103, 266 divertissement, 81 double trajectory, 254, 261 dualism, 16, 99, 160 Dvořák, Antonín, 67, 71, 128, 269 early, 71 quartets, 71 dynamics, 40, 91, 112, 137, 149, 155, 160, 164, 168, 174, 175, 196, 202, 216, 228, 237, 247, 250, 265, 271 dynamism, 5, 62, 271 Einstein, Alfred, 98, 109 Elgar, Edward, 53 Eliot, T. S., 19 elision, 51, 52, 89, 92, 108, 110, 119, 130, 132–4, 139, 146–8, 149, 152, 158, 171, 172, 179, 186–8, 216, 235, 269 emotion, 19, 21, 24, 26, 29, 33, 44, 250 theory of, 1 epic mode, 110 episode, 164–165, 168, 172, 178, 186–95, 197, 200, 205, 226, 231, 246–56 Epstein, David, 210 Esterházy, court of, 70 expanded period structure (EPS), 186 experimentation, 9, 71 exposition, 32, 56–7, 61, 63, 71, 85–91, 97–9, 108, 114, 115, 117–21, 123–7, 145, monotonal, 115–18, 130, 136 three-key, 87, 91, 93, 98–9, 100, 117, 126, 245, 270 three-part, 85 expression, 11, 24, 26, 46, 212, 263 fantasie, 23 Fesca, Friedrich Ernst, 77, 80 Fieldman, Hali, 109, 152, 180 Fisk, Charles, 46 form, 4–14, 15, 16, 26–7, 32, 49, 68, 70, 73, 78, 79, 208 adaptability of, 103 ambiguity of, 51, 128, 159, 232 articulation of, 59, 79, 265 as process, 62, 63, 112, 137, 158, 159, 243, 271 as structure, 55, 63 binary, 22, 107, 119, 128, 220 bipartite, 114 conformational vs generative, 55 continuity of, 163, 166–168

i

i

299

300

Index

form (cont.) dialogic, 59, 102 duality of, 63 dynamic, 27 elision of, 51, 52 experimentation, 9, 71, 95 fluidity, 85, 95, 100 formal design, 10, 12, 22, 26, 52, 63, 67, 73, 85, 118, 158, 174, 255 function of, 9, 32, 33, 50–9, 102, 110, 118, 124, 128, 152, 158, 164, 174, 180, 185, 197, 219, 235, 238–44, 257, 261, 266, 267 generic interchangeability of, 103 hypotactic, 39 innovation of, 9, 84 intrathematic, 103 logic of, 7 lyric. 49 See lyric form. lyrical conception of, 8 narrative, 47, 213 negation of, 5, 7, 8 paratactic, 12, 37, 40, 163, 174, 186 progressive, 208, 210, 267 rhetorical, 113 Romantic, 272 rondo, 226 sonata. See sonata form. song, 268 ternary, 22, 107, 132–6, 158 tonal, 55, 113, 162, 204, 262 transformation of, 159 variation, 36, 212, 214, 217, 226 Formenlehre (the new), 1, 11, 53, 55, 63 form-functional multiplicity (FFM), 52, 58, 62, 219, 240, 242, 248, 266 Fortspinnung, 215 Frisch, Walter, 48–9, 205, 218, 233 fugato, 120–1, 130 function, 29–33, 91, 103, 110, 130, 134, 147, 164, 165–74, 181, 186–8, 199, 207, 212, 231, 270 ambiguous, 52, 62 cadential, 57, 58, 87, 108, 170, 216, 221, 228, 231, 233, 235, 240, 259, 262 continuation, 235 developmental, 11 double, 244 formal, 234, 235, 238–44, 257, 261, 266, 267 interthematic, 56–61, 85, 87–9, 124, 129, 133, 153, 171, 173, 179, 181, 193, 198, 227–8, 236, 239, 241, 247, 250, 253

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

0 0

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

intrathematic, 56, 57, 85, 87–9, 124, 129, 133, 153, 171, 173, 179, 181, 193, 198, 227–8, 236, 239, 241, 247, 250, 253 large-scale, 124, 129, 130, 132–3, 153, 168, 173, 179, 186–8, 193, 198, 227–8, 236, 239, 241, 247, 250, 253 teleological, 11 temporal, 210, 242 thematic, 238 tonal, 29, 172 transitional, 30, 247 functional retrogression, 60–1, 110, 118, 128, 130, 152, 157–9, 267, 269 functional transformation, 57, 60–2, 110, 130, 152, 157, 267, 269. See also becoming Gál, Hans, 27 Gallus, 75. See Mederitsch, M. Gassmann, Florian Leopold, 77 gender categorisation, 5 theory, 1 general pause (GP), 115, 144–6, 225 genre, 74, 95, 100 and convention, 102 Classical, 273 cross-fertilisation of, 59, 79 expectations of, 42, 79, 102, 268 heterogeneity of, 52 hybridity of, 103, 267 instrumental, 19 interchangeability of, 96 inter-generic dialogue, 52, 98, 100, 103, 266 lineage of, 95, 98 poetic, 7, 19–21 vocal, 19 Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (GdMf), 81 musikalische Abendunterhaltungen, 68, 79, 80 Gibbs, Christopher H., 80 Gingerich, John M., 46, 68, 72, 80 Gluck, Christoph Willibald (Ritter von) Alceste, 100 Iphigénie en Aulide, 97 goal-direction, 6–7, 44, 111, 175, 203, 205, 214, 226, 253. See also teleology Grasberger, Franz, 270 Gritten, Anthony, 173–4 Grundgestalt, 180 Gyrowetz, Adalbert, 75 Handel, George Frideric, 78 Hänsel, Peter, 75–8, 80, 82

Index

harmony, 5, 22, 25, 47, 49, 52, 56–7, 63, 73, 79, 85, 91, 99, 127, 128, 134, 137, 142, 143, 152, 155–8, 160–4, 172, 174, 175, 178–81, 192, 203, 208, 218, 221, 223, 226, 227–33, 242, 264 emphasised, 181, 193 harmonic geometry, 2 harmonic plot, 185, 215 harmonic preparation, 91, 137–9, 145, 146, 233 harmonic progression, 37, 59, 92, 109, 181, 221, 225, 245 harmonic resolution, 202 Neapolitan, 100, 152, 155, 158, 162–3, 191, 202 structural, 124 Hascher, Xavier, 151 Hatten, Robert, 8, 271 Hausmusik, 9, 67, 79 Haydn, Joseph, 33, 53, 73–83, 94, 96 later symphonies of, 92 String Quartet in C Major, Op. 76, No. 2 ‘Emperor’, 30 String Quartets, Op. 2, 183 Hefling, Stephen E., 65, 185, 199 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 20–1, 24, 51, 267 Aesthetics, 20–1 Heidegger, Martin, 37 Heine, Heinrich ‘Ihr Bild’, 21–6 Hellmesberger, Joseph, 66, 81–2 Henning, Christiansen, 80, 82 Hepokoski, James, 14, 95 Hepokoski, James, and Warren Darcy (Elements of Sonata Theory), 113, 118, 130, 139, 220, 268 essential expositional closure (EEC), 50, 110, 118–20, 130, 134, 136, 152, 155, 204, 227 essential structural closure (ESC), 50, 110–11, 130, 133, 152, 155, 197, 202–4 on the medial caesura (MC), 50, 54, 147. See also Medial Caesura Sonata Theory, 53, 54, 264 tri-modular block (TMB), 87, 93, 115, 139, 145, 152 hermeneutics, 54, 268 hierarchy bottom-up, 55 top-down, 55 Hilmar, Ernst, 270 Hinrichsen, Hans-Joachim, 8, 72 historiography, 7, 14, 64, 68, 267

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

0 0

bli h d

li

b C

b id

Hoffmeister, Franz Anton, 75 Hölderlin, Friedrich, 37–8, 40, 164, 204, 266 Holz, Karl, 80 Horton, Julian, 8, 10, 51, 54, 59, 130, 139–44, 271 Hullah, John, 3 Hummel, Johann Nepomuk, 76, 82 Hunt, Graham, 99 hypermetre, 144, 152, 162, 168–70, 210, 231, 235, 242 hypotaxis, 11, 13, 38–42, 48, 165, 177, 207, 213, 262, 266 imitation, 164, 195 improvisation, 6, 11, 31 influence, 68, 73, 76, 79, 94, 97, 100, 265, 270, 272 anxiety of, 206 Innigkeit (Innerlichkeit), 41 interpolation, 30, 164, 174, 178, 246, 250, 254 developmental, 185, 215 dramatic, 166–168 interpretation, 5, 8, 10, 51, 58, 62, 64, 102, 110, 113, 145, 147, 155, 157, 158, 203, 244, 255, 264, 268, 271 intertextuality, 102 inversion, 61, 92, 121–3, 130, 190, 223, 252, 256 Istel, Edgar, 22, 29 Ivanovitch, Roman, 214, 218, 226 Jansa, Leopold, 81–82 Jordan, Roland, 62, 220, 254 Kafalenos, Emma, 62, 220, 254 Kallberg, Jeffrey, 103 Kant, Immanuel, 261 Kärntnertortheater (Vienna), 84, 96 Kinsella, Thomas, 46 Klein, Michael, 221 Knapp, J. Merrill, 69, 71 Koch, Heinrich Christoph, 213 Versuch einer Anleitung zur Composition, 39 Kopp, David, 264 Korstvedt, Benjamin, 42 Kramer, Jonathan, 62, 204, 210 and multiply directed linear time, 219 Kramer, Lawrence, 5 Krommer, Franz, 75–76, 82 Krummacher, Friedhelm, 272 Kupelwieser, Leopold, 9, 71 Kurth, Ernst, 271

i

i

301

302

Index

La Rue, Jan, 213 Langer, Susanne, 210 Levy, Janet, 14 Liebhaber, 67 Lieder, 81, 103, 185, 268 lyrical, 21–6 Linke, Joseph, 80 listening, 45–6, 48, 205, 209 classifications of, 46 experience, 46 Romantic passive, 46 Liszt, Franz, 52, 269 Littlewood, Julian, 214 logic, 5, 13, 42, 207, 213, 244 formal, 7 of alterity, 5 London, 67 Longyear, Rey M., 99 lyric, 107, 126, 132, 136, 160, 165, 168, 181, 183, 204–7, 223, 258 characteristics of, 9, 21, 24 developmental, 26 dialectical nature of, 9, 12–14 juxtaposition of, 51 techniques, 52 lyric form, 8, 11–13, 16, 26–7, 40, 42, 47, 49–52, 55, 64, 159, 263, 267–8 lyric mode, 19–21, 27–32, 49–50, 52, 56, 110, 127, 158, 164, 201, 217 and parataxis, 39, 51 and repetition, 24, 27–32 and stasis, 24, 55 and teleology, 9–16, 49, 52, 103, 185–97, 264, 266, 267 subjectivity of, 20–1, 23, 24 lyricism, 4, 12–15, 26, 50, 52, 61–4, 110, 159, 185, 190, 193, 208, 226, 266, 268 instrumental, 7, 9, 14, 28, 38, 40, 55, 263, 269, 270, 272, 273 vocal, 6 Macdonald, Hugh, 160, 164 Mahler, Gustav, 42, 269 Mak, Su Yin, 8, 38–40, 43, 152, 214, 218, 220, 252 Mandyczewski, Eusebius, 65–6, 68 Mann, Thomas, 210 Marston, Nicholas, 91, 111, 214 Martin, Nathan John, 51, 62 Marx, Adolf Bernhard, 22, 36, 43, 50 Liedsatz, 22, 107, 132–6, 215 theory of musical form, 4 Mason, Daniel Gregory, 5, 27

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

0 0

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Mathew, Nicholas, 69 Maurer, Ludwig Wilhelm, 81–2 Mayseder, Joseph, 77–9, 80, 81–95, 265, 267 autograph scores, 84 String Quartet No. 1 in A Major, Op. 5, 78, 85–7 String Quartet No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 6, 78, 88–9 String Quartet No. 3 in A♭ Major, Op. 7, 78, 91–2 String Quartet No. 4 in F Major, Op. 8, 78, 83, 92, 93 String Quartet No. 5 in D Major, Op. 9, 78, 81, 83, 90–2, 95 String Quartet No. 6 in G Major, Op. 23, 78, 81, 83 Variations sur la romance Partant pour le Syrie, Op. 15, 78 Variations sur un thème Grec, Op. 4, 78 McClary, Susan, 5 Mederitsch (Gallus), Johann Fantasie Nr.3 für 2 Violinen und Violoncello, 78 Medial Caesura (MC), 61, 86–91, 92–4, 109, 110, 115–17, 123, 130–7, 168–71, 172, 178, 181, 186–8, 235, 242, 245–7 declined, 139–42, 143 default categories of, 139–42, 147, 168 elided, 139, 151 elision, 148 evaded, 139 non-standard-key, 142 standard-key, 142 Medial Caesura Complex (MCC), 61, 138, 145 melody, 3, 6, 12, 15, 19, 23, 25, 32, 39, 100, 109, 128, 149, 186, 208, 213, 216, 218, 224, 226, 228, 237, 240, 242, 245, 256 variation of, 215 memory, 46, 205–6, 225, 262 as an aesthetic and music-historical category, 45 habitual, 48–9 recollective, 45, 46, 48–9 Mendelssohn, Felix, 15, 52, 67, 71, 130, 139, 269, 272 conducting Schubert’s overture to Fierrabras (D796), 2 early chamber music of, 71 Octet in E♭ Major, Op. 20, 71 string symphonies, 71 metaphor, 5, 35, 36, 54 Mill, John Stuart, 20 Monelle, Raymond, 47, 111, 209–10

Index ‘grammatical completion’, 111–12 and lyric time, 47, 208, 215, 218–19 bichronic exposition of temporality, 62 Monn, Matthias Georg, 77 motif, 22, 23–5, 29, 30–2, 36, 56, 60, 72, 112, 114, 115, 116, 117, 121–3, 132 correspondence, 132, 237 derivation of, 6, 43–7, 63 development of, 29 fragmentation of, 31, 127 transformation of, 31 motion, 23, 136, 144, 151, 154, 164, 178, 204–6, 219, 234, 262 multi-directional, 206 uni-directional, 206 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 33, 53, 73–4, 78, 80–3, 94, 96, 214 piano concertos, 95 Piano Sonata in D Major, K. 576, 57 String Quartet in F Major, K. 590, 226 narrative, 20, 39, 46, 72, 94, 196, 252, 254, 259, 271 form, 47 teleological, 219 Navia, Gabriel, 139, 144 Neue Zeitschrift fur Müsik, 3 New York, 67 Newbould, Brian, 65, 70 Nielsen, Carl, 53 nostalgia, 52, 216, 217 November, Nancy, 74–5 objectivity, 21, 35 Onslow, George, 76, 80, 82–3 opera, 77, 78, 81, 96–7 arrangements of, 77 Italian, 77 oratorio, 77 oratory, 213 orchestration, 2, 112, 271 Orel, Alfred, 65 ornamentation, 212, 216 overlap, 148–51, 152, 158, 270 accompanimental, 24, 148–51, 152, 154, 185 overture, 48, 65–6, 68, 77, 78, 80, 101 operatic, 96, 100 orchestral, 2, 95–8, 100 string quartet, 65 parameter, 109–15, 118, 136, 158, 177, 189, 265 parametric dislocation, 52 parametric non-congruence, 114, 117

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

0 0

bli h d

li

b C

b id

statistical, 113 syntactical, 113 parataxis, 10–11, 13, 14, 37–43, 45, 48, 51, 63, 71, 110, 163, 175–8, 182, 202, 204, 207, 213–14, 220, 227, 231, 232, 244, 250, 255, 262, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271 Paris, 67, 77 pathos, 44, 46 Pecháček, Franz, 82 performance, 10, 68, 72, 79, 80, 98, 209 paratactic, 11, 38 practice, 1 studies, 11 phenomenology, 148, 209, 219 philosophy, 51, 54, 209, 264 phrase asymmetrical, 223 contraction, 212 expansion, 39, 212, 213 structure, 59, 103, 162, 168, 180, 223, 228 symmetrical, 22, 23, 107, 244 Pleyel, Ignaz, 75 poetry, 9, 37, 40, 164, 204, 266 lyric, 19–21, 41, 46, 49, 204, 206 première, 2 progression (musical), 12, 23, 33, 37, 41, 59, 92, 99, 109, 137, 165, 175, 194, 199, 203, 206, 208, 210, 220, 221, 226, 248, 262, 267, 273 cycle, 158 linear, 158, 206 non-adjacent, 176 proliferation, 59, 98 Proust, Marcel, 111, 261 publication, 66, 68, 75, 76, 78, 84 Radicati, Felice Alessandro, 76–7 range vocal, 23 recapitulation, 71, 85, 87–92, 97–100, 114, 115, 117–21, 151–3, 170–2, 181–4, 213, 215, 220, 227, 232, 233, 256–9, 270 reception, 2, 9, 16, 39, 67–8, 70–1, 269, 271 historical, 2, 5 history, 12, 67, 70, 205 register, 91, 174, 212, 216, 218, 265 Reicha, Anton, 82 Reiser, Salome, 74–6 repetition, 6, 11, 24, 27–32, 38, 45, 50, 74, 87, 108, 116, 119, 123–30, 168, 172, 180, 181, 194, 197, 201, 209, 212–13, 215–16, 218, 229, 231, 244, 250, 259, 262 retrogression, 51, 127, 134, 158, 267. See also functional retrogression

i

i

303

304

Index

retrospective reinterpretation, 62 rhetoric, 112–13, 132, 136, 137, 138, 145, 146, 152, 158, 162–165, 168, 176, 181, 189, 192, 199, 203, 206, 213, 215, 228, 237, 248, 265, 266 Classical, 164 rhythm, 23, 30–2, 40, 44, 112, 121, 137, 174, 201, 208, 211–12, 228, 235, 247, 256 Richards, Mark, 54, 137–8 Ries, Franz, 80, 82 Rietz, Julius, 67 Rode, Pierre, 82 Romanticism, 7, 42, 103, 123, 144 Romberg, Andreas Jakob, 76–8, 80, 81–3 Fantasie for String Quartet (Op.40), 78 Romberg, Bernhard string quartets for piano and violin, 78 rondo, 136 brilliant, 81 concertant, 81 Rosen, Charles, 4, 5, 212 Rossini, Gioachino, 4, 82 overtures of, 97 Rothstein, William, 244 Royal Philharmonic Society concert, 2 Rubinstein, Anton, 27 Sachse, Hans-Martin, 73 Salieri, Antonio, 96 Axur, Re d’Ormus, 97 Les Danaides, 97 Salzer, Felix, 5–7, 9, 22, 27–36, 40, 43, 107, 268, 273 der äußeren Form (outer form), 27 der Formung (inner form), 27–8 Schachter, Carl, 254 Schenker, Heinrich, 6, 28, 31, 34, 122 theory of voice-leading and underlying structure, 4 Schiller, Friedrich Die Götter Greichenlands, 7, 268 Schlegel, Friedrich, 53, 63 Schlesinger, Adolph Martin, 96 Schmalfeldt, Janet, 51, 54, 61, 158, 226, 235, 267 ‘One more time’ technique (OMT), 60, 233 and ‘becoming’, 60–1, 110, 130–2, 134, 242 Schnebel, Dieter, 208, 210–12, 261 Schoenberg, Arnold, 26, 256 Schubert, Franz and ‘otherness’, 4–5, 12 and his ‘Beethoven Project’, 72. See also Gingerich, John M.

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

0 0

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

and lyric form, 8, 9, 11–13, 15, 16, 26, 40, 42, 47, 49–52, 64, 158, 263, 267–8 and lyric mode, 23, 24, 27–32, 49–50, 52, 103, 127, 185–97, 201, 264, 265 and lyricism, 4, 6, 8, 12, 14, 28, 38, 52, 55, 63, 71, 159, 178, 183, 185, 186, 190, 193, 195, 201, 204–7, 208, 226, 263, 269, 273 and Medial Caesurae (MCs), 137–55, 159 and motivic derivation, 43, 45 and parataxis, 10–11, 38, 63, 163–165, 174, 175–8, 204, 214, 268, 270 and Rossini, 6 and the early/late divide, 9–10, 70–3, 102–3 and variation, 34, 39, 42–3, 52, 103, 212–33, 242, 243, 244, 246–52, 255–9, 262–3, 267 bias towards the songs, 3 chamber music of, 9, 59, 63, 65, 68, 70, 72, 95, 98, 100, 103, 265 early, 9, 64–8, 70–4, 79, 95, 98, 100, instrumental works, 1–7, 11, 12, 27, 32, 40, 65, 71, 72, 100, 210, 268 late, 65, 67, 70–2, 103, 109, 160, 262 Lieder of, 2, 21–6, 70, 82, 103, 210, 268 lyric style of, 5, 11, 22, 27, 37, 109, 110 marginalisation of, 7, 68–9, 70, 72 overtures of, 2, 65–6, 95–8 piano sonatas, 1 posthumous reception of instrumental works, 1–4, 16 reframing of, 8 thematic invention, 6 Schubert, Franz, works ‘An Schwager Kronos’ (D369), 83 ‘Auf der Donau’ (D553), 26 ‘Der Kreuzzug’ (D932), 26 ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’ (D531), 268 ‘Die junge Nonne’ (D828), 83 ‘Die Liebe hat gelogen’ (D751), 26 ‘Die Nachtigall’ (D724), 83 ‘Geist der Liebe’ (D747), 83 ‘Hagars Klage’ (D5), 96 ‘Ihr Bild’, No. 9 of Schwanengesang (D957), 21–6 ‘Sehnsucht’ (D636), 83 ‘Ständchen’ (D920), 83 ‘Strophe aus Schillers Die Götter Greichenlands’ (D677), 7, 268 Der Spiegelritter (Overture) (D11), 97 Fierrabras (D796), 2 Fantasie in G Minor for Piano Duet (D9), 23 Impromptu in C Minor, Op. 90, No. 1 (D899), 23 Impromptus (D935), 216

Index Moment Musical in A♭, Op. 94, No. 6, 176 Octet in F Major (D803), 9, 160 Overture for String Quartet in B♭ Major (D20), 65–6, 97 Overture for String Quartet in C Minor (D8A), 65–6, 68, 91, 95 Overture for String Quintet in C Minor (D8), 23, 52, 65–6, 77, 95–6, 98–102, 263 Overture in D Major (D12), 97 Overture in D Major (D26), 97 Overture in D Major (for Der Teufel als Hydraulicus) (D4), 97 Piano Sonata in A Major (D959), 160 Piano Sonata in B♭ Major (D960), 23, 91, 107, 160, 209–10, 231, 244, 268 Piano Sonata in C Major (D279), 245 Piano Sonata in C Minor (D958), 46, 109, 146, 232 Piano Trio in B♭ Major (D898), 215, 216, 245 Piano Trio in E♭ Major (D929), 35, 107, 149, 215, 245 Quartet movement in C Minor (D103), 65, 140, 143 Quartettsatz in C Minor (D703), 51, 65–6, 71, 107–9, 110, 140, 148, 150–9, 166, 180, 202, 214, 267 Rondo in A Major for Piano Four Hands (D951), 35 Rosamunde (D797), 268 Schwanengesang (D957), 21–6 Sonata in C Major for Piano Four Hands, ‘Grand Duo’ (D812), 107 String Quartet [lost] (D19), 66 String Quartet [lost] (D19a), 66 String Quartet in A Minor, ‘Rosamunde Quartet’ (D804), 9, 51, 65, 70, 103, 140, 166–168, 185–208, 231, 260, 264 String Quartet in B♭ Major (D36), 51, 115–17, 119, 140, 143, 145, 163, 166–168, 177–86, 192, 215, 227, 266 String Quartet in B♭ Major (D68), 66, 119, 140, 142, 143, 148–50, 166 String Quartet in B♭ Major (D112), 140, 143, 145–6, 164, 166–165, 215 String Quartet in C Major (D32), 66, 117, 119, 140, 142, 143 String Quartet in C Major (D46), 114, 119, 140, 142, 143, 214 String Quartet in D Major (D74), 98, 119, 140, 142, 143, 166–165, 220

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

0 0

bli h d

li

b C

b id

String Quartet in D Major (D94), 51, 52, 61, 71, 95, 110, 117–19, 123–7, 140, 142, 143, 152, 157–9, 219–26, 267 String Quartet in D Minor, ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’ (D810), 9, 66, 70, 107, 108, 140, 144, 146, 166, 215, 240 String Quartet in E Major (D353), 51, 66, 140, 150–1, 166–172, 192, 215, 235, 266 String Quartet in E♭ Major (D87), 66, 140, 216 String Quartet in G Major (D887), 9, 29–33, 34, 42, 48, 52, 63, 66, 70, 71, 103, 109, 140, 143, 149, 156, 166–165, 186, 196, 212, 214, 225, String Quartet in G Minor (D173), 52, 103, 140, 149, 166–165, 219, 226–32, 262 String Quartet in G Minor/B♭ Major (D18), 51, 66, 68, 71, 95, 110, 117–23, 134, String Quintet in C Major (D956), 9, 11, 32, 46, 66, 70, 91, 107, 128, 140, 143, 166, 174, 215, 246 Symphony No. 1 in D Major (D82), 98 Symphony No. 2 in B♭ Major (D125), 98 Symphony No.5 in B♭ Major (D485), 10 Symphony No.6 in C Major (D589), 2–3 Symphony No.8 in B Minor, ‘Unfinished’ (D759), 6, 10 Symphony No. 9 in C Major, ‘Great’ (D944), 10, 33 Violin Sonata in A Minor (D385), 99 Schumann, Robert, 52, 269 on Schubert, 3, 216, 262 Schuppanzigh, Ignaz quartet, 66, 84 string-quartet subscription series (QuartettProductionen), 68, 79 semantics, 111 semiology, 209 semiotics, 254, 271 sentence (thematic), 58, 170, 172, 216, 227, 233, 235, 238–40, 244, 247, 250 and hypotaxis, 37 and parataxis, 38 structure, 37, 58 sequence, 28, 108, 128, 132, 134, 136, 137, 150, 164, 168, 172, 183, 190, 215, 216, 226, 228, 229, 231, 235, 236, 246, 250 Sibelius, Jean, 44, 53, 269 silence, 134, 145, 151, 160, 201, 202, 209 Sisman, Elaine, 38, 213, 220 sketch studies, 1

i

i

305

306

Index

Smith, Barbara Herrnstein, 35 Smith, Peter H., 54, 152, 155, 163, 270 sociology, 13 sonata, 13, 96 piano, 10, 72 sonata form ‘Type 1–2 Hybrid’, 221 and drama, 7, 39, 71, 100, 151, 166, 168, 177, 179, 181, 186, 193, 199, 201, 206, 247 and dynamism, 7 and lyricism, 71, 107, 165–168, 178, 181, 183, 195, 201, 204–7 and parataxis, 37–43, 163–165, 174, 175–8 and variation, 177–88, 212–33, 242, 243, 244, 246–52, 255–9, 262–3, 267 Beethovenian, 35, 40, 102 bipartite, 98 bi-rotational, 97–8 Classical, 5–6, 39, 55, 204 coda, 15, 99, 112, 128, 130, 132, 136, 153, 198, 202–3, 259 codetta, 118, 123, 151, 171, 172, 179, 198, 227, 228 continuation, 168–72 development (section), 15, 32, 85, 91, 97, 119, 127–32, 153, 164–74, 178, 181, 195–6, 199–201, 215, 219, 220, 248, 259, 262, 271 exposition, 7, 32, 61, 63, 71, 85–91, 97–9, 108, 114, 115, 117–21, 123–7, 145, exposition of, 56–7 finale, 199, 203 improvisatory, 6, 28, 31, 34 introduction, 58, 119, 121, 128 recapitulation, 71, 85, 87–92, 97–100, 114, 115, 117–21, 128, retransition (RT), 60, 87–92, 97–8, 114, 117, 130, 183, 196, 221, 227, 250, 253 transition (TR), 60–1, 86–9, 124, 126, 127, 130–2, 133, 138, 142, 143, 145, 146, 150, 152, 164, 165–72, 178–9, 181, 193, 215, 232, 236, 246, 248, 257 tripartite, 98 two-dimensional, 57, 59 Type 1, 97, 220, 268 Type 2, 127, 157, 220, 268 Type 3, 117, 268 song, 6, 81, 185 dichotomy with instrumental music, 4 dramatic, 100. See also Lieder strophic, 268 Sonnleithner, Christoph, 77, 79, 84 Spaun, Joseph von, 3, 97 Spech, Johannes (János), 77

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

0 0

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Spitzer, Michael, 38, 244 Spohr, Louis, 80, 81–2, 84 St. Lubin, Léon de, 80, 81–2 Staiger, Emil, 21, 27, 35, 42–3, 45, 110, 158, 206 stasis, 22, 28, 32, 47, 62, 110, 114, 117, 159, 210, 218, 232, 247, 259, 262, 271 Stildualismus, 4, 16. See also Dahlhaus, Carl stratification (Edward T. Cone), 51, 60, 62, 177, 180–1, 184, 200, 253, 261 divergence, 173–5, 190, 194–7 interlock, 175, 177, 181 reciprocal divergence, 175, 195 synthesis, 173–5 Strauss, Richard, 53 Stravinsky, Igor, 62, 174–6 Symphonies of Wind Instruments, 174 stretto, 164, 178 string quartet fugal, 77, 79 Quatuor brilliant, 77, 78, 80 Quatuor concertant, 77 subgenre of, 78, 96 virtuosic, 77, 79, 80, 95 structure, 27, 48, 50, 64, 73, 79, 109–13, 118, 128, 152, 155, 163, 165, 168, 175, 178, 194, 197, 209, 213, 216, 219, 221, 226, 231, 240, 261 additive, 164 asymmetrical, 180, 223 contrapuntal, 151 episodic, 12, 164 formal, 207, 272 harmonic, 151 large-scale, 214 lyric, 181 parallel period, 58, 238, 242 paratactic, 12, 250, 255, 271 period, 227, 228, 232, 237, 242, 243 phrase, 223, 244 sentential, 48, 233, 236 symmetrical, 24, 52, 244, 267 ternary, 109 tertiary, 52 time, 219 transitional, 255 tripartite, 137 subjectivity, 5, 20–1, 23, 24, 41, 209, 211 Swinkin, Jeffrey, 11, 214, 244 symphony, 9, 10, 15, 72, 77, 98 syncopation, 32, 190, 199 syntax, 10, 11, 38, 40, 54, 58–9, 109, 111, 113, 121, 123, 164, 207, 209, 214, 219, 223, 231, 233, 235, 238, 244, 255, 261, 262, 267

Index

synthesis, 5, 14, 38, 51, 165, 168, 174, 175, 183–6, 194, 200, 259, 266 pursuit of, 12–14, 38, 40, 207, 266 Tarrant, Christopher, 139, 144 Tartakoff, David S., 185 tautology, 11 taxonomy, 128, 250 Taylor, Benedict, 54, 206 philosophical engagements with temporality, 62 teleology, 5, 9–16, 28, 32, 40–2, 46–50, 92, 100, 103, 107, 165, 168, 204–8, 244, 254, 262, 266, 267, 269. See also goal-direction nostalgic, 205 retrospective, 205 telos, 7, 202–3 Temperley, Nicholas, 33–4, 256 tempo, 23, 209, 242 temporality, 11, 16, 43, 45, 46, 48–9, 52, 59, 62, 204–26, 240–2, 244, 254, 256, 259, 261–3, 266 and retrospection, 217, 219, 225 temporal displacement, 216 temporal perspective, 216, 217, 219, 240 tension, 22, 26, 28, 51, 63, 128, 158, 160, 162, 164, 165, 175, 178, 186, 190, 201, 203, 207, 218, 266 tessitura, 95, 175, 202 tetrachord, 44, 151, 157, 214, 234, 242–4, 252–6 texture, 40, 91, 96, 108, 112, 144, theme (melodic) and tonal-harmonic openness, 51 and variation, 212–33, 243, 247, 252, 255–9, 262–3, 267 augmentation of, 32, 242 continuation of, 239, 240, 250 development of, 12, 29, 33, 181, 192, 196, 247 diminution of, 32 expansion of, 7, 32, 58, 192, 196, 219, 235 extension of, 98, 219, 223, 235 fragmentation of, 31–2, 168–70, 190, 196, 211, 228, 235, 247, 252 liquidation of, 32 manipulation of, 211 monothematicism, 73, 115, 180, 220, 271 presentation of, 239, 240, 247 proliferation of, 98 transitional, 107 Theurer, Michiko, 49 timbre, 271 time, 208–12, 217–20, 240, 259, 261, 262 chronometric, 210

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

0 0

bli h d

li

b C

b id

integral, 210 linear, 204, 210, 255, 263, 266 lyric, 210, 217, 220, 221, 262 multiply directed, 219 progressive, 47, 210, 225, 242, 266 subjectivity of, 261 tonality, 30, 40, 72, 85–95, 99–100, 120, 121, 123, 130–9, 142, 152, 155, monotony, 61, 115–18, 130, 271 parallel keys, 98 tonal design, 51, 70, 126, 152, 163 tonal form, 55, 113, 162, 204, 262 tonal path, 254 tonal plot, 39, 98, 113, 118, 126, 130, 133, 134, 153, 158, 180, 186–8, 198, 227, 252, 253 tonal polarity, 98, 163, 172, 178, 192, 233 tonal resolution, 13, 42, 136, 157, 177, 201–4, 259, 266 tonal scheme, 89, 99, 114, 136, 166 tonal structure, 99, 109 Tovey, Donald Francis, 6, 165, 167, 247, 263, 270 Traeg, Johann, 74–5, 78 transformation (musical), 51, 85, 128, 130, 180, 190, 213, 227, 235, 257, 259, 265, 267, 270 functional, 51 voice-leading, 163 Truscott, Harold, 250 Tuttowitsch, Benoit, 76 uni-directionality, 14. See motion Vande Moortele, Steven, 51, 54, 57, 62, 97 ‘horizontal double-functionality’, 58 Vanhal, John Baptist, 75 variation, 29, 31, 34, 36, 38, 39, 42–3, 52, 56, 60, 89, 103, 109, 134, 149, 170, 177–88, 212–33, 242, 243, 244, 246–52, 255–9, 262–3, 267 function of, 185, 228 impulse, 214, 226, 232, 244, 256, 262 technique, 52, 216, 220, 226, 232, 266 theme, 215, 218, 242, 246, 250, 255 Vienna, 74–80, 84, 96, 100, 265 Biedermeier period, 67 Vienna, Congress of, 69 voice leading, 40, 128, 150, 162, 223 Wagner, Richard, 67 Wassermann, Heinrich Joseph, 81–2 Webern, Anton variations, 26

i

i

307

308

Index

Webster, James, 8, 15, 50, 63, 107, 110, 117, 265, 270 ‘double functioning’, 58 Weiss, Franz, 80, 82 Weisse, Hans, 6 Westrup, Jack Allan, 65, 212 Whittall, Arnold, 15, 33 Wintle, Christopher, 24–6

h

d i

0 0

9 8 0092 09

0 0

bli h d

li

b C

b id

i

i

Wollenberg, Susan, 152, 155, 214, 232 Wranitzky, Paul, 75 Zbikowski, Lawrence M., 55 Zseliz, 70 Zumsteeg, Johann Rudolf, 96