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].

Schubert's soprano-alto pairs

Dances with consistent soprano/alto pairings comprise a distinct subcategory in Schubert's dances. D779n13, of course, represents it well. Here are some others.

D969n10 is a simple case where the source of the soprano/alto pair in the 2v/bass trio texture is especially obvious (see my rewritten version below the score).

Rewritten in trio texture:

D924n11 is more elaborate (I wonder if it's an imitation of improvised variation by violinists) but at the same time holds more closely to the thirds/sixths pairings typical of the violin pair.

Two examples from the early dances:

Among the Laendler of D145, no. 9 is another simple case. Obviously, the key of Db major is another expressive alteration of a typical violin key (D), like the Ab (from A) that dominates D365.

The same for D365n15:

Closed-position textures

Although the "trio" texture associated with the oom-pah left hand figures is by far the most common in Schubert's dances, occasionally (and beginning quite early in his career), he uses a closed voicing in the left hand. In these cases, the stabilizing role comes very much to the fore. Here are a few examples, to be discussed in more detail at another time. The first two appear in a manuscript from 1815, D146n15 in a manuscript from 1823.

D146n3, trio, contrasting middle (the reprise begins in the final two bars of the example):

D146n4, trio. A similar example, D820n2, could not be reproduced here for copyright reasons.

D146n15. This and the next example combine closed position and oom-pah texture:

D365n16: