Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Schenkerian hermeneutics; Schenkerian

I did an internet search (as well as literature search) on "Schenkerian hermeneutics" a few days ago, for the sake of class notes. The result: although I had assumed the term is commonly used, it clearly is not.

In the course of the internet search, I was surprised to see how often and how early in the results this blog appears. I strongly suspect -- but certainly can't prove -- that it has something to do with the fact that the blog sits in Google's own blog space.

However that may be, a switch in the results list from links to "Images" turned out to be truly amusing:

Monday, April 19, 2010

William Drabkin on Schenker and Strauss

In the final paragraph of his survey article on Schenker, William Drabkin notes the following:
Schenker's admiration of the music of Johann Strauss and his efforts to promote it by providing voice-leading graphs of his more famous waltzes in Der freie Satz suggests that, his outright dismissal of jazz and other forms of popular music notwithstanding, he saw the difference between good and bad as greater than that between serious and popular. (838)
For this most capable historian and editor, whose guidance of the Cambridge editions of translations of Der Tonwille and two of the three volumes of Das Meisterwerk in der Musik was masterful, work for which we should all be grateful, a statement like this is, alas, a come-down. Drabkin sets Schenker up above the fray, as impartial arbiter of quality regardless of source. That's nonsense, as Drabkin certainly knows. Strauss squeaked into the pantheon because of his close friendship with Brahms, the Lion of Vienna and Schenker's idol -- and only for that reason.

How else, when Strauss represents better than anyone the post-Rossini generations that marry dance music with Italianate melody, a realm of foreground music (chains of waltzes) and larger works of spectacle (operettas) rather than Beethovenian "substance"? Schenker wrote several negative descriptions of Italian music: in brief, he thought that contemporary Italians could write melodies but couldn't build coherent compositions; that people's contribution had been historical, to find and explore counterpoint, which was then properly understood and developed only by Germans.

PS: "--and only for that reason": there is, of course, another, namely Schenker's loyalty to Vienna, his adopted home, great musical city, and seat of the monarchy.

Reference.
Drabkin, William. "Heinrich Schenker." In Thomas Christensen, ed. The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory, 812-843. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

On the Laendler in D734

Here is another passage from Litschauer and Deutsch (39; trans.):
Among Schubert's dances in triple meter are about 130 Ländler, composed between 1815 and 1826 and by and large preserved in manuscript sources. In contrast to the schottisches, german dances, and waltzes, however, the Ländler do not appear among Schubert's albumleaves or dedication compositions, and thus it is not suprising that these dances are rarely mentioned by the composer's friends and acquaintances. Furthermore, as two journal entries by Franz von Hartmann indicate, Ländler were commonly confused with German dances. (In both instances, the reference is to Schubert's "16 Ländler, opus 67" D734, which were published by Diabelli in December 1826 under the title "Hommage aux belles Viennoises: Wiener-Damen-Ländler.")
17 December 1826 (Sunday): By Spauns, where Gahy played brand-new Schubert German dances (with the title "homage to the belles of Vienna," which made Schubert quite angry).
6 January 1827: We went to Spauns, where we were invited, along with Gahy, to breakfast. . . . then Gahy played two superb sonatas by Schubert and the German dances that had enchanted us so at M on the 17th.
Hartmann probably should have known better, as few collections outside the first dozen or so numbers in D365 and D779 represent the Ländler style more consistently, but in his defense we should remember that Deutscher was not only the genre title for a particular group of dances and their musics, but also the family name for all "waltzing" dances.

Several points can be made about D734, many of them reminders of earlier posts:
(1) the boundary between Ländler and Deutscher was always fuzzy with respect to musical style in the urban dance cultures, being reduced by the 1820s to sweeter/quieter/slower (Ländler) versus formal/louder/faster (Deutscher).

(2) in dancing, the types were often intermingled to fit alternations between couple and group dancing. In D734, for instance, n2 comes as close as any Schubert dance to realizing the type of the rural Ländler in the late 18th century: D major, I and V only, violinistic melody with many third doublings. But n16 is clearly a Deutscher that would accompany the obligatory processional that ended an extended dance/cotillion.


(3) the "sweeter/quieter/slower" criterion is muddied by imitations of the Schnadahüpfl episodes in rural dancing. This alternation is clearly at work in D734n1: the first eight bars of Ländler are interrupted by the same music abruptly transformed into a loud, drone-accompanied Schnadahüpfl, then the Ländler returns. Remember that this is also what happens -- down to the direct mediant key shifts -- in D779n13 and D145n7.

Reference.
Litschauer, Walburga, and Walter Deutsch. Schubert und das Tanzvergnügen. Vienna: Holzhausen, 1997.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Litschauer and Deutsch on the Ländler

Here is a free and partial translation from the section on choreography of the Ländler (48-51):
About the dance performance of the Ländler during the Biedermeier period there remains considerable ambiguity. [Like the Deutscher,] the genre title Ländler represents a category encompassing both the so-called "almeric" (alpine) couple dances ("Steirische," "Wickler" "Schuhplattler") and the "ländlerisch" (rural) group dances. We can say with certainty only that the Ländler is a figure-dance for whose performance a moderate tempo is assumed.

Ernst Hamza has noted that the Ländler originally was a couple dance in which "the individual dance couples...had a large individual space at their disposal." The rich choreography of the almeric dances was (and still is) characterized by a number of figures with embracing movements, so that this Ländler type often appears as a lovers' dance. One can infer from dance illustrations in the Biedermeier period that similar arm figures were also typical of social dance, where in fact they were integrated into not the Ländler but [the urban dance most directly derived from it,] the "Straßburger." [the figures in this blog's logo are illustrations of this dance]

[The Ländler was apparently already being danced in Viennese society as early as 1790.] Around 1818 one can trace several variants of this dance in the repertoire of middle class house balls, where it was often danced in rural costumes. Because of the decorative character of the arm figures, the "Steierische" enjoyed great popularity at these festivities.

In the dance instruction manuals of the early 19th century the Ländler is usually called a "Länderer" and its figures are labeled "Ländern."
Reference.
Litschauer, Walburga, and Walter Deutsch. Schubert und das Tanzvergnügen. Vienna: Holzhausen, 1997.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

William Drabkin on Schenker

It's always nice to see one's work mentioned in places where it's relevant. Surveying the field of post-Schenkerian studies in North America and the UK, William Drabkin notes the following (836):
Not surprisingly, the attempt to render Schenker's work accessible has also led to new developments in his theories. Although Schenker himself stressed that his work was artistic, not scientific, succeeding generations of theorists felt the need for it to be more internally consistent. One sees not only a more scientific approach, as early as Forte's seminal essay of 1959, but also numerous attempts to come to terms with ambiguities and inconsistencies in the theory. Both the sanctity of the two-voice Ursatz and the primacy of the descending 3-2-1 Urlinie have been challenged,51 and theorists now generally accept the possibility that a piece may admit more than one valid Schenkerian reading.52
Footnote 51 cites my three 1987 articles, one of David Beach's responses to them, and Geoffrey Chew's "The Spice of Music," which appeared in one of the first issues of Music Analysis (1983). Chew, blending Schenker and Kurth, argues in favor of the primacy of the leading-tone progression, something with which I can certainly sympathize, although I do not think he works it all out in the clearest possible way.

I am pleased to hear the tone of voice in the word "sanctity" -- it shows that Drabkin can retain a critical attitude and has not merely fallen into the old "Schenker's right and you're not" trap that held back serious critical work for quite a long time in the 1970s and 1980s (even later in some retrograde instances). On the other hand, he keeps his place among the (most) traditionalist Schenkerians with "although Schenker himself stressed that his work was artistic, not scientific" [the clear implication being that we should avoid criticizing that position] followed by "theorists felt the need for it to be more internally consistent" ["felt the need" suggests desires rather than objectively necessary action; that is, Schenker seems reasonable while later theorists seem to be reacting on emotion. This is the academized Schenker of the 1978 Free Composition translation, the pale shadow who would have been at home in a Friday afternoon sherry party -- more likely the real Schenker would have despised all the pale academicians at said party]. Alas, (a) Schenker apart from his ideology is an emasculated and pointless Schenker; (b) Schenker said it was a theory and no amount of dodging about art vs. science or culture vs. politics will avoid the responsibilities that come with that claim [which is why I agree with Matthew Brown's agenda -- just not his method or his results]; (c) the theory as offered was (and I think still is) shot through with "ambiguities and inconsistencies."

Footnote 52 cites four items, including Carl Schachter's "Either/Or" and Drabkin's own "Consonant Passing Note." Drabkin misrepresents Schachter in that the article is concerned with locating the correct choice among alternatives, not assuming that both are intrinsically acceptable. Drabkin's essay, which is grounded in a case study -- Schenker's exchange with his student Felix-Eberhard von Cube about an analytic exercise -- does not so much acknowledge alternate readings as say the "verdict" should be left open on the problem of the subdominant that is separated from the dominant by a consonant triad.

References.
Drabkin, William. "Heinrich Schenker." In Thomas Christensen, ed. The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory, 812-843. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

more from Wilmot on dancing

Here are three more excerpts from Martha Wilmot's Letters concerning dancing. The first and second come from early in their time in Vienna.
The Spanish Ambassador's ball: The Empress did not arrive till late, that is, till half past nine. After sitting a few moments [she] rose, and followed by her Grande Maitresse and Grand Maitre, she went thro' the assembly room, talking to everybody. How those high people contrive to find something appropriate to say to so many is my astonishment, and She seems to be quite gifted in this way. When she had talked to almost everyone she proceeded to the ball room. Then begun the waltzes. There were not many dancers, except the Court, but if they were not glittering Waltzes never did I see any. . . . The Imperial party retired at eleven, and then begun the fun of the natives, who danced more freely with their equals. (46)
To her sister-in-law, January 1820:
I dare say you imagine us very frisky people, eternally gadding abroad, but you are mistaken if you do, for on an average I think we are 4 or five Evenings out of the seven quietly at home, but when we do go, tis something to make a figure in a letter, for example, the English and French Ambassadors balls, which we have attended, both of which were uncommonly brilliant, gay, and agreeable. One country dance is always danced, and then Waltzes and quadrilles only.
And, finally her account of Carneval season 1825:
All the balls that are given in the course of the year are given during the Carnival, which begins the 1st January and ends Ash Wednesday. This year the Archbishop would not allow it to begin so soon, and it lasted not quite 5 weeks. While it lasts the young people almost dance themselves to death, and then the last thing is a Ridout [Redoute], where the cram and mob is suffocating, the dancing and music maddening. Twelve O'Clock strikes! It announces the arrival of Ash Wednesday! The music makes a sudden stop, the sudden pause and quiet which follows is awful-it lasts a moment, when the buzz which succeeds is worse than the honest ball music and noise. . . .
I do not enter much into the gaietys of the Carnival. You must know that nothing would be easier than for us to go to a ball or two every night, but as our dancing days are over and our childrens dancing days are not come, the stupidity from want of interest is very great, and the expence of dressing very great likewise, added to which [my husband] William dislikes it, and in a wicked town like this I ought to be too happy that his home is his favorite ball room. . . . But my grand delight was the Opera. . . . I have been at 7 or 8 Operas this year and they are allowed to be the very best filled up opera's in Europe, as all the performers are excellent and 2 or three quite first rate. [Our daughter] Catharine begins to enjoy an Opera and a concert, so I take her to form her taste.
Reference.
Wilmot, Martha. Ed. by the Marchioness of Londonderry and H. M. Hyde. More letters from Martha Wilmot; impressions of Vienna, 1819-1829, relating her experiences in the brilliant cosmopolitan society of Vienna as the wife of the Rev. William Bradford, chaplain to the British embassy, during a period when Austria was the political and social centre of Europe, and including a journal of a tour in Italy and the Tyrol, and extracts from the diary of her elder daughter Catherine for 1829. London, Macmillan and co., limited, 1935.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Style topics in D145n7

In this entry, I wrote about the topical contrast in the first strain and contrasting middle of D145n7:
A simple diatonic mediant move (effecting the transformation R twice) is aligned with formal design in an early ternary waltz that also happens to contrast Ländler and deutscher traits (the former in the main theme, the latter in the contrasting middle) using sharp dynamic contrast to make the point unmistakably.
"Deutscher" here was a bit too confident -- I was relying on expressive and functional distinctions that often appear in and between Schubert's dances. First, recall that "deutscher" was a relatively broad category referring -- especially very early in the nineteenth century -- to all the waltzing dances. It was, in effect, the German "back-translation" of the French appellation from the 1760s, allemande (in contredanse allemande).

Second, "deutscher" was used more narrowly for music that had the processional (that is, somewhat formal) character of the menuet; by 1810, it was often impossible to tell the two apart -- to a composer, the deutscher was often just a menuet with few of that genre's long-since-clichéd gestures. It was the contrast between the processional "waltz" (deutscher) and the romantic couple dance of the Ländler that was clearly meaningful to Schubert and that I was relying on.

But, third, the foot-stamping segments of a folk dance could also be represented along with the drone instrument (bagpipe, Dudelsack, etc.) that accompanied folk (rural) dancing well into the nineteenth century (Petermayr, 83-84).

In other words, here Schubert is offering us two very different sides of his tune: as sweet Ländler in the first strain, but probably as accompaniment to rural stampfen thereafter, not to a more refined urban processional dance.

In the course of this, he might even have been duplicating the contrasting segments of rural or lower-class group dancing. Petermayr quotes a description of such dancing from later in the century (NB: the segments are marked by numbers in square brackets):
The string players have tuned their instruments and begun to play dance music in three-quarter time with their characteristically piercing tones, while they stamp their feet in duple time. [1] The dancers don't hold back: pair on pair they step into the line of dance and go some steps forward, following the beat, man and woman side by side (specifically, with the woman on the outside). [2] Then they grasp hands and make several turns [or figures [the word is Schwenkungen]], so that the woman appears briefly on the inside then again on the outside of the line. Then both raise their arms high above their heads and the woman turns herself once under the man's arm. [3] Then both settle back [to side-by-side position] and execute several figures, as before. [4] Again the arms go up and the woman turns quickly twice, so that her skirts swirl upward and out. [5] Each couple then embraces [that is, takes a clasping hold] and turns waltzing in a circle. [6] Again the couples settle back, but now the dancers move forward stomping on the floor so vigorously that the windows shake and the dust rises. While doing this they clap hands in time, call out, and sing in chorus the powerful, not easily forgotten "Schnadahüpfl" [also known as "Vierzeiler" -- commonly known bits of verse, sometimes nonsense]. [When all this is done,] the couples change, as each woman moves forward up the line to the next man, and the whole sequence begins again. This is repeated as often as there are dancing couples, so that at the end each man has his original partner. (94-95; trans.)
Reference.
Petermayr, Claus. "Nieder- und oberösterreiche Quellen zum Volkstanz im Biedermeier." In Harrandt, Andrea, and Erich Wolfgang Partsch. Tanzkultur im Biedermeier: wissenschaftliche Tagung 1. bis 2. Oktober 2004, Ruprechtshofen, N. Ö, 75-96. Series: Publikationen des Instituts für Österreichische Musikdokumentation, vol. 31. Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 2006.

Friday, April 9, 2010

The Sound of Dancing: update

The answer to the question posed in the previous post (Did Schubert's friends change shoes for dancing?) appears to be: No. Lightweight shoes, often without heels, were the fashion. (Whether they were always of cloth, or could be of leather, is unclear.) Sturdy covering boots and shoes were worn when going outdoors. Buxman: "fashion [in shoes] changed -- throughout the first half of the nineteenth century one used flat footwear, shoes with cross straps, cloth shoes or boots" (185; translated).

Here are two details from Viennese drawings, the first from 1816, and other from 1827.



We can assume a consistent style of dress in Vienna through the period of Schubert's adulthood, as Parisian fashions were dropped in 1815 (Congress of Vienna; end of the Napoleonic Wars) and then almost as quickly adopted again in 1830 (July Revolution).

Writing about Carneval 1826, Martha Wilmot (Mrs. William Bradford) describes in great detail a rather unusual costume ball that consisted of 12 very elaborate walking tableaux (she does not mention dancing but as she labels some of the tableaux "quadrilles" it is likely they danced as well as marched). In the paragraph about her own dress, she mentions "white satin shoes and broad flat pink saddle bows" (239). After the final tableau, however, general dancing started, and all characters, classes, and ages intermingled, in the most informal manner of the contredanse. At 2:00am a supper was served. The party was given by the British ambassador; Wilmot was the spouse of the embassy chaplain. (She reports that by request of the Emperor the entire series of tableaux was repeated in the palace the following evening and "the quadrilles for want of dancing Masters as Heralds to guide them, got into . . . glorious confusion" (240); also that "after the Imperial family had seen the quadrilles there was a little dancing in the Crown Prince's Apartment" (241).

Wilmot also mentions dancing in the context of a typical day for the children and their governess. (Wilmot, Blanche, and Catharine are the Bradfords' three children. ) Note particularly the promenade (the polonaise) that offers the characteristic formal close to a session of dancing (equivalent to the procession of couples waltzing about the room to a deutscher Tanz).
The governess "makes both Wilmot and Blanche say lessons twice a day, in french, then she can practice them in dancing, teach work, and superintend . . . their [dancing and] other Masters. She dresses them for dessert, and comes in with them. After sitting about half an hour, I get up and announce a ball; [the governess] then waltzes with Catharine while I play some excellent waltzes that I have got. Then she waltzes with Blanche, (in fun) who will be an exquisite dancer, the little manner of her in setting about it is so admirable. The Squire has his turn [and] when this is ended [he] leads out one in a polonaise, the others follow, and so they proceed to the nursery--after which they sup, tell stories, and the two youngest go to bed. (83)
Alas, this report is from September 1820, before Schubert's D365 was published, but as the Bradfords remained in Vienna till 1829, it is entirely possible that she "got" music of his and played it at some later time -- she reports that the family always had a (rented) pianoforte in the house.

[note added 5-19-10: the longevity of the polonaise as a formal or processional dance is attested by Barbara Boisit's reproduction of the sequence of dances (Tanzordnung) for the first ball of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (1830): the evening was divided into two halves with an hour's rest inbetween -- the first was polonaise, waltz, waltz, cotillon and galop, waltz; the second shuffled the dances but kept the formal dance at the head: polonaise, waltz, cotillon and galop, waltz, cotillon and galop (158, illustration). The same organization's ball for 1847 was considerably more complex, but still placed the polonaise at the beginning of the first part: polonaise, waltz, waltz, quadrille, waltz, quadrille, waltz, quadrille, mazurka, quadrille, waltz. The second part consisted of waltz and polka, quadrille, waltz, quadrille, waltz, menuet (!), quadrille, waltz and polka (Legler and Kubik, 94 illustration).]

References.
Wilmot, Martha. Ed. by the Marchioness of Londonderry and H. M. Hyde. More letters from Martha Wilmot; impressions of Vienna, 1819-1829, relating her experiences in the brilliant cosmopolitan society of Vienna as the wife of the Rev. William Bradford, chaplain to the British embassy, during a period when Austria was the political and social centre of Europe, and including a journal of a tour in Italy and the Tyrol, and extracts from the diary of her elder daughter Catherine for 1829. London, Macmillan and co., limited, 1935.

Buxbaum, Gerda. Mode aus Wien, 1815-1938. Salzburg: Residenz Verlag, for the Hochschule für Angewandte Kunst in Wien, c1986.
Boisits, Barbara. "Der erste Ball der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien im Jahre 1830." In Boisits, Barbara, and Klaus Hubmann. Tanz im Biedermeier: Ausdruck des Lebensgefühls einer Epoche, 151-166. Proceedings from the Symposium Musizierpraxis im Biedermeier: Tanzmusik im ländlichen und städtischen Bereich, Graz, Austria, 26.-27. März 2004. Series: Neue Beiträge zur Aufführungspraxis, vol. 6. Vienna : Mille Tre Verlag Robert Schächter, 2006.
Legler, Margit, and Reinhold Kubik, "Anmutige Verschlingungen. Tänze des Vormärz: Quellen – Notation – Ausführung." In Boisits, Barbara, and Klaus Hubmann, 89-131.