D779n13 as genre mash-up

Many posts in the past two months or so have focused on style or genre questions, especially as they relate to dancing practices. From all this, another way of thinking about D779n13 emerges: as a catalogue of common dance-music gestures piled on top of one another.

1. The simple progression using I and V7 (characteristic of the traditional Ländler) is used in the C#-major section.

2. A common way to vary the I,V7 patterns is to introduce a third chord, IV, typically generating a progression either I-IV-V7-I or IV-I-V7-I. A variant of the second of these substitutes ii (especially as ii6) for IV, as in D779n13.

3. Another common way to "enhance" the I,V7 patterns is to introduce suspensions or appoggiaturas (see the Ländler by Hummel in this post for examples). Schubert, of course, makes leisurely two-bar suspension figures the hallmark of D779n13. (If the slow pace seems to hint at the sacred style, then it would be only in jest, given the parallel fifths that underly the progression.)

4. Improbably, the Ländler style is "enforced" by the rare expression mark, "zart," and verified by the Schnadahüpfl episode in the C#-major section.

Although Schubert's friends might very well have enjoyed the piquant sweetness of this waltz's first strain, they might equally have shaken their heads over its stylistic oddities.

More on Forms with Refrains (3)

This is a follow-up to the post on the contredanse La Griel. I wrote there: "Contredanse folios published by the dancing master La Cuisse and reproduced on the Library of Congress American Memory site contain two remarkable fold-out graphics that collate music, text and graphic descriptions of figures, and drawings of the dancers."

La Griel, of course, is one: La Bionni is the other. Virtually everything said in the earlier post about La Griel applies equally to La Bionni, including the varying lengths of the figures and the grand rond or rond ordinaire danced to the first strain and its repetition. The music as performed (five strains with repeats, in an ABACA design) is reproduced below. (Click on the thumbnail for a larger image.)

From all this, three points may be made. First, it is hard to overemphasize the importance of the more or less formal (or ritualized) frame for the dance (in the rond ordinaire at the beginning and courtesies at the end). Second, it is equally hard to overemphasize the importance of the refrain. Third, although the musician is tempted to say that the refrain "structures" the music, that is only half the story, because a refrain in the music by no means signals a repetition of a figure in the dance.

Ländler moments in the coda of Hummel's dance sets

Facsimiles of eleven sets of dances by Hummel, arranged for piano by him or by the publisher's staff, may be found on IMSLP. Two of those are particularly interesting, in that they embed sections identified as "Ländler" into extended instrumental codas.

Both sets were written for balls during Carneval 1811: op. 39 for the Apollo-Saal, op. 44 for the "Ste. Catharinen Redoute." The Apollo-Tänze consist of 6 menuets (each with trio) and 4 Deutsche, each with multiple trios (n4 includes a vocal trio and its own short coda section), plus a long coda labeled "The Eruption of Vesuvius" and totaling some 450 measures. The Laendler is the penultimate section; a narrative logic for its placement is obscure, at best -- given that exactly the same placement occurs in the coda of the Catharinen-Tänze, it may simply have been a convention that Viennese audiences expected. (Click on the thumbnail for a larger image.) The characteristic violinistic key (D-major) and figuration, the design in a series of strains played en rondeau, and the Schnadahüpfl episode (section B), here generalized to a soft-loud alternation, are all present. Note, however, that the oom-pah bass shows up only in the third strain (C).

The Catharinen-Tänze consist of 12 Deutsche (each with trio) plus a coda of well over 200 measures. Here again, the Ländler is the penultimate section; plainly, it would be played more slowly than the rest -- see the "Tempo primo" that marks the beginning of the final section of the coda. The design is simpler than in op. 39: characteristic violinistic figuration and ABA form with A played softly and B loudly (Schnadahüpfl episode). In this case, the oom-pah bass is present throughout, simplified as a Leier (hurdy-gurdy) ostinato.

Another milestone: today's entry is the 175th post to this blog.

More to the trio texture

In an early blog post, I wrote this:

While thinking about improvisation, about Schubert sitting at the piano playing while his friends danced, I realized that the piano permitted the sound of the waltz that would have been most familiar to people in Vienna about 1800 -- two violins and bass -- to be transferred from tavern or restaurant to the home.

-- and added this more recently (5-19-10): Litschauer and Deutsch give an example of this texture (44); so does Rainer Gstrein (82) .

And now I add this: Alexander Weinmann's Verzeichniss for Johann Strauss, sr. & jr., shows that the elder's early compositions were published in one or more of the following formats: piano solo, piano four-hands, violin and piano, 2 violins and bass, guitar, flute solo, csakan [Hungarian flute] solo, and orchestra. Beginning with Op. 56 (1832), "2 violins and bass" was replaced by 3 violins and bass, but as 2 violins, violin 3 ad libitum, and bass. Only with a handful of Strauss's last works was the "standard" string quartet specified instead: Opp. 225 (1848), 232, 237, and 241 (1849).

References:

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

Gstrein, Rainer, "Ländliche und urbane Tanzmusik im Biedermeier in Österreich." In Boisits, Barbara, and Klaus Hubmann. Tanz im Biedermeier: Ausdruck des Lebensgefühls einer Epoche, 73-87. 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.

Weinmann, Alexander. Verzeichnis sämtlicher Werke von Johann Strauss, Vater und Sohn. Series: Beiträge zur Geschichte des Alt-Wiener Musikverlages. Reihe l: Komponisten, Folge 2.

Wien: Musikverlag L. Krenn [1956].