Grieg and the rising line

Why Grieg on a Schubert blog? Because the first movement of the Peer Gynt Suite no. 1, Morgenstimmung, is a textbook example of a simple but colorful harmonic plan combined with motivic gestures that match a Schenkerian background line (rising, in this case), all serving the obvious expressive purpose of depicting dawn (thus making for a very easily managed hermeneutic exercise).

I discuss the piece briefly in my JMT article on the ascending Urlinie (1987). Here are the musical examples:

Here is Example 9's material again in the context of the entire opening (piano reduction here, of course, done by Grieg himself):



And here is Example 10 again, in the score context:


The movement's design is three-part, each section marked by the appearance of the theme motive in E (in the last instance over E 6/4).

Here is the entire harmonic plan (thumbnail -- click on it to see the original size graphic). Timings are keyed to a version of Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic posted to YouTube.

Here are the parallel harmonic patterns aligned vertically (thumbnail -- click on it to see the original size graphic): upper system section A, lower system sections A and A'' (up to the structural cadence). The second pattern greatly expands on the I-III-V progression of section A.