New essay published

I have published a new essay titled Rising Gestures, Text Expression, and the Background as Theme on Texas Scholar Works: link. Here is the abstract:

Walter Everett's categories for tonal design features in nineteenth-century songs fit the framework of the Classic/Romantic dichotomy: eighteenth-century practice is the benchmark for progressive but conflicted alternatives. These categories are analogous to themes in literary interpretation; so understood, they suggest a broader range of options for the content of the background than the three Schenkerian Urlinien regarded as essentialized universals. The analysis of a Brahms song, "Über die See," Op. 69/7, provides a case study in one type, the rising line, and also the entry point for a critique of Everett's reliance on a self- contradictory attitude toward the Schenkerian historical narrative.

Dance collections

Here are a few links to dances or dance collections from IMSLP:

Carl Czerny, Les Etrennes, Op. 32. 24 waltzes published by Tobias Haslinger, Vienna, reissue after 1826.

Stephen Heller, Ländler und Walzer, Op. 97. 12 waltzes published by Friedrich Kistner, Leipzig, [date?]

Johannes Brahms, arr. Theodor Kirchner. Liebeslieder-Walzer, Opp. 52 & 65. Piano solo arrangement of both sets, complete. Simrock, Berlin, 1881.

Carl Maria von Weber, Allemandes, Op. 4. 10 dances with trios. From collected edition of music for piano (c. 1890).

Heinrich Marschner, 12 Dances, Op. 53. 6 waltzes and 6 ecossaises. Halberstadt: C.Brüggemann (1820s?)

Czerny's set, details: All 24 dances are in 8+8 design, except n22, which is 16+16, including a truncated reprise. Numbers 7, 12, and 22 make demands on technique in isolated passages; otherwise, any pianist who could play the published waltzes of Schubert could easily play these, as well. The sequence of keys: ns1-6: A major; ns 7-9: C major; ns 10-12: F major; ns 13-14: F minor; ns 15-16: Db major; ns 17-18: F major; ns 19-20: A major; ns 21-22: E major; ns 23-24: C major. Or, overall: A-C-F-Fm-Db-F-A-E-C.

Heller's set, details: The designs vary quite a bit; they are listed below along with keys.

n1 8+8; first strain repeat written out F major

n2 16+16 with reprise D major

n3 8+8+8 as ABA Bb major

n4 8+16, partial reprise D major

n5 8+8 A major

n6 16+8 A minor

n7 8+8+8+8+18 as ABABA with last A extended in coda fashion. No repeat signs. F major

n8 8+16+10, where 16 includes a full reprise and 10 is a separate coda. Ab Major

n9 8+16+16, where 16 includes a full reprise and the second 16 is a slightly varied version of the first 16. Both 16s are repeated as a group (error?) Db major

n10 8+8 with the second strain repeat written out. C major

n11 16+(10+16)+32. First strain no repeat sign; full reprise in the second strain; 32-bar coda is marked "ad libitum." F minor

n12 16+16+8+16+8+16+40. F major

Overall key sequence: F-D-Bb-D-A-Am-F-Ab-Db-C-Fm-F.

The set was probably published around 1860 and shows the hybrid character of Schumann's early sets, especially Papillons. The early pieces could be grouped for dancing, but progressively the set becomes more and more pianistic, more in the nature of character pieces and not social dances.

Weber's set, details: all dances and their trios 8+8. Keys: C-F; G-C; Cm-CM; Eb-Bb; D-D; Dm-F; C-F; Db-Ab; C-F; Bb-Eb. Thus, tonic-subdominant pairings predominate (6 out of 10). It's hard to imagine these dances being played in succession as a complete set. A division into two groups (1-4 or 1-5; 5-10 or 6-10) is plausible, but even then one would probably want to employ some alternativo designs (repeating the trio, then going on to the next dance without a reprise).

Marschner's set, details: The waltzes are clearly meant to be grouped, as in a "single" Strauss or Lanner set. An 8 bar introduction; 8+16 in A (with reprise); 8+12 in E (with reprise); 8+8+8, each section repeated in A; 8+16 with reprise in D; 16+44 in Bb, with second strain as 28+16 (reprise); 8+8 in F. At the end of n4 is a notation "I da capo al Fine" -- somewhat mysterious, as it could mean that n4 should be played as an independent trio to n1 OR that n1 should be reprised at this point perhaps to close the sequence 1-4: so, 1-2-3-4-1 OR it might suggest that n4 is the last in a series of trios, so: 1-2-1-3-1-4-1. Of course, in performance, any of these was possible. A similar notation at the end of n6 is easier to decipher: "V da capo al Fine," making n6 a trio to n5.

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.

Waltz-song recomposition

This is a continuation of yesterday's post on embodied shapes and schemata. If, as I wrote there, the persistent counterpoint of soprano and alto in this zärtliche Walzer is an astonishing evocation of the physicality of the standard waltz step, then we should feel comfortable representing this "sweet dancing" by means of text, as well.

Schubert as painter and poet of love is the effect that I have put into a song version of the A-major waltz (see graphic at the end of this post; first phrase only). Waltz-songs, especially for chorus, were common by mid-century (Brahms's two sets of Liebeslieder Walzer are obvious examples; but the Blue Danube is prominent among concert waltzes to which texts were also set and publicly performed). Schubert may be said to have anticipated that practice with a waltz perfectly suited to song.

Oddly enough, all this suggests a step away from the physicality of the dance – a portrait or a remembrance of the dance, not the dance. This distancing comes about because of the A-major waltz's metric peculiarities; now it seems like a pause in the dance, isolated yet again from the dances that surround it in D779.