Proto-background 5: the fifth ^1-^5

Also see the proto-background introduction.

The fifth space ^1-^5 re-introduces a teleological element into the reading, but by no means so radically as when we hear the background as ^1-^1. Here, the upper part of the interval receives attention at the beginning, but the interval as a whole is only defined at the end of the first phrase (see the third staff below). The contrast between upper and lower voices in the right hand, thus, is more striking even than in the reading ^3-^5 (entry to be posted later this week), in that the definition or the concrete presentation of each background tone is situated at opposite ends of the phrase. And the teleological hearing of the alto voice is a good mirror of the listening experience for a string of suspensions, which constantly push forward, ahead, towards a goal, the resolution of the last suspension in the series (here, the 4-3 suspension that brings the secure arrival of ^1).

The fifth space also coordinates nicely with the C# major section (in fact, more simply and directly than any other reading): a WEDGE transformation pulls the notes apart by a half step, to G#-E#, then its inverse pushes them back together again for the reprise/ending. (WEDGE here can be understood as inversion about C/C#; it is a variant of Lewin's transformation W -- see 1987, 124 ff.; see also 2006, 332 ff.)

In a performance of the waltz, of course, the WEDGE is distorted as the G# is G#5, not G#4. We would include the registral shift in a fourth staff/level (not shown here).

References:

Lewin, David. Generalized Music Intervals and Transformations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.

Lewin, David. Studies in Music with Text. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Recomposition of the second strain

Another recomposition to show that the first strain can be combined comfortably with a new 8-measure theme. In Schubert's generation it was not common to pair two unrelated strains, but it did occasionally happen, the contrast seeming to be the point. Often these pairings are loud and soft (or the reverse) or even deutscher-Ländler styles. Examples: D365n7, 12, 16, 17, 26; D366n9; D779n4.

In this case I chose the second strain not to contrast so much as to complement: its musical material is different, but both have a "subdominant" emphasis at the beginning, the affect is quite similar, and so is the final cadence. The new strain is taken from the first of 2 German Dances, D. 769, and therefore contemporaneous with the numbers in D. 779. (The two pieces in D. 769, both 16-bar forms, are obviously meant to be a dance-trio pair.)

Note: The pairing of contrasting strains in these small waltzes is very probably the source of the paired 32-bar strains that had become the typical design by the generation of Johann Strauss, jr.

Note 2 (14 November 2009): Here is a better version of the piece, using the 8 bar version of the first strain and adding transitions.

D779 sources

This post has a bit of background information on the Valses sentimentales, D. 779. They were published in 1825, but most were written (improvised?) in 1823 or earlier. Ten of the thirty four dances come from two manuscript collections, as detailed below. I discuss the sources in some detail in my Lerdahl review-article, 216-17.

For reference, Schubert was writing dances already in his mid-teens. Those collected in D365 were probably written (improvised, repeated, reshaped, written down) in the five-year period before publication in 1821. The dances of D779 probably originated (mostly) between that time and 1825, as did the German dances of D783 (which appeared in the same year) and very likely the Wiener-Damen Ländler of D734, published a year later. The other large sets of waltzes published in Schubert's lifetime were D969, the Valses nobles, and D924 (Grazer Walzer), in 1827 and 1828, respectively.

# (key)--(key in source (date of source))

1 (C)--(B in 9 Ländler no. 1 (early 1823))
2 (C)--(B in 9 Ländler no. 2 (early 1823))
3 (G)--(G in 9 Ländler no. 3 (early 1823))
4 (G)--(G in 9 Ländler no. 4 (early 1823))
5 (Bb)
6 (Bb)
7 (g/Bb)
8 (D)--(D in 17 deutsche Tänze no. 1 (1823))
9 (D)--(D in 17 deutsche Tänze no. 2 (1823))
10 (G)
11 (G)
12 (D)--(D in 17 deutsche Tänze no. 6 (1823))
13 (A)
14 (D)--(D in 17 deutsche Tänze no. 8 (1823))
15 (F)
16 (C)
17 (C)
18 (Ab)
19 (Ab)
20 (Ab)
21 (Eb)
22 (Eb)
23 (Eb)
24 (g/Bb)
25 (G)
26 (C)
27 (Eb)
28 (Eb)
29 (Eb)
30 (C)
31 (a/C)
32 (C)
33 (Ab)--(Ab in 9 Ländler no. 7 (early 1823))
34 (Ab)--(Ab in 9 Ländler no. 8 (early 1823))

D779n13 in Papillons

Still another recomposition story. Given his intense interest in Schubert's music (noted in yesterday's post), we can easily reconstruct Schumann's early cycle Papillons with the A Major Waltz embedded in it. Generally understood to be an early product of that enthusiasm, Papillons is filled with pieces that come readily into view as Schubert-style dances exaggerated in tempo, dynamics, and design to create more sharply drawn "portraits" (as Schumann did more effectively in Carnaval).

Several are obviously waltzes (1, 4, 9, 10) and several others have the rough clarity of some of the gruffer German dances in Schubert's D. 783 (nos. 3, 8, and 12). The A Major Waltz might possibly find a place in Papillons as no. 7, if we were to transpose it to Ab major, use only the first strain. Schumann's no. 8 in C# minor is a very suitable substitute for the A Major Waltz's second strain (the affects are very close, Schumann's, again, being a more exaggerated version of the contrasting forte in Schubert's second strain). In the graphic at the end of this post I have called the C# minor/Db major piece a "trio" and slightly altered its ending to make the return a little smoother.

The key sequence of the numbers in Papillons is D--Eb--f#--A to F#--Bb--d--f to Ab--c# to Db--bb--C--D--D. If that sequence seems rough and abrupt, that's the method in Papillons -- Schumann luxuriates in the haphazard key relations that one often finds in dance collections in the 1820s. There is no question of extracting some perfect overreaching key scheme -- the whole point is to avoid it. With the A major waltz (in Ab) the sequence becomes D--Eb--f#--A to F#--Bb--d--(Ab--c# to Db--Ab (reprise))--bb--C--D--D.

(The graphic is a thumbnail; click on it to see the original image.)

Schumann's Schubert story

Robert Schumann's review of Opus 9 and 33 (D. 365 and D. 783), published in 1835, gives us another way to think about associations between D779n13 and dances in other collections. Schumann, by his own admission a Schubert "fanatic," imagines a meeting of the Davidsbund, a domestic musical evening that resembles an informal, small-scale Schubertiade.

Florestan is in rare form throughout. He first invokes an image of dancing, with the heavily ironic joke that "dance music makes one sad and languid while church music, on the other hand, makes one gay and active--at least myself." Then Zilia [Clara] pricks her finger on a rose and offers, mysteriously, that "Like these waltzes it has nothing to do with pain, but only with drops of blood, drawn forth by roses" (124). Burgeoning excitement caused by Zilia's playing produces a silly moment at the level of a parlor game, as they try to decide between Schubert and Chopin: "Florestan went into a corner remote from the piano, saying, 'Now if running toward the keyboard I manage to hit correctly the first chord of the last movement of the D Minor Symphony [Beethoven's Ninth], it shall be Schubert.' Of course he succeeded."

After this, "Zilia played the waltzes by heart." These waltzes were, first, Schubert's Opus 9, then the deutsche Tänze of Opus 33 (D. 783). Florestan insists that the latter is a tableau of characters and that a painter present that evening ought to sketch them quickly and project the results as magic lantern slides. Florestan leaves suddenly, and our author offers the apology that "Florestan, as I may explain, is in the habit of breaking off at the moment of highest enjoyment, perhaps to preserve its entire freshness and fulness in his memory" (126).

Here the story has an intrinsic interest for its narrative progress, its characters, their social interactions, and its description of a domestic evening among creative artists in the early 1830s. The music is certainly important as a plot element (motivation for the event and characters' behavior) and as a motif, but Schumann allows his review of the music to be nearly lost in the story. Of D. 365, he does say that they are

lovely little genii, floating above the earth at about the height of a flower--though I do not much like Le Désir [No. 2], in which hundreds of girls have drowned their sentiment, nor the last three aesthetic errors [nos. 34-36] which on the whole I cannot forgive their creator. There is much beauty in the way in which the rest circle round the Désir, entangling it more or less in their delicate threads, also in the dreamy thoughtlessness which pervades them all, so that we, too, when playing the last, believe that we are still in the first. (124)

(About Le Désir—Schumann is being disingenuous, as he himself valued it highly enough to write an (unfinished) set of variations on it.)

D. 783 is described in terms that clearly evoke Schumann's own character-piece cycles, as Florestan declares that No. 1 announces a masked ball and then calls out characters from the ball as each dance goes by: "No.2. A comic figure, scratching its ear, and whispering "Pst! pst!" Disappears. No.3. Harlequin with his hand on his hips; exit with a somersault. No.4. Two stiff, polite masks, dancing and conversing little with each other" (125). Etc.

These descriptions might provoke us to consider how the A Major Waltz might replace one of the dances in D. 783. Florestan describes only the first ten dances, not all sixteen, but from those he does describe, No. 7 would seem to fit well: "Two reapers waltzing together in a happy trance. He says softly, 'Are you she?' They recognize each other." (Schumann's original for "Are you she?" is "Bist du es?" which is easily mapped onto the dotted rhythms that open phrases or–more likely perhaps–onto the half-quarter pairs at the ends (as "Bist du's?") (Gesammelte Schriften 1:200).)

The Bb-major Deutscher in this position bears a number of similarities to the A Major Waltz: its first strain is the only one in D. 783 that does not end with a hypermetrically weak tonic, its overt chromaticisms are restricted to the opening of the second strain, and it relies on expressive suspension figures.

The first strain is the "happy trance" of the two dancers, the chromaticism a question, and the descent to the final cadence the mutual recognition. Each of these traits is easily transferred to the A Major Waltz: the soprano/alto pairs of the first strain and the more exuberant C#-major section; the question in the mysterious chromatic measures measures 29-30; and the moment of recognition in the sixth-octave registral climax.

As a final comment, I should add that David Gramit is only half-right when he claims that "Schumann's one extended discussion of Schubert's dances . . . effectively neutralizes the physical and potentially popular not by dismissing it, à la Hanslick, but by transferring it to the realm of the imaginary" (232). The physical--that is, the functional quality of dance--is certainly gone, as Zilia is seated at the piano throughout the evening; through her, the dances become domestic salon music: as Gramit puts it, they are "no longer functional music but rather evocative character pieces." The physical is transferred to Florestan, who is a vital, even hyperactive, presence throughout the story, but it by no means follows that "Schumann creates high art out of dance" (232).

The domestic musical evening, the salon, itself is a principal emblem of middle-class entertainment in the 1820s and 1830s, and often included dancing and parlor games. There is, furthermore, nothing "high-art" about the magic lantern (indeed, quite the reverse, if one recalls that magic lanterns and similar machines were later associated with photography, not painting). Gramit anachronistically imposes socially exclusionary high/popular art distinctions onto an era when such distinctions were far from fully formed, and thus he falsely turns Schumann the creative critic into Schumann the snob, the progressive Romantic into the reactionary Romantic that Schumann did indeed become after the democratic revolutions in 1848-49.

References:

Schumann, Robert. "The Literature of Dancing: First Waltzes, Opus 9, Book 1, German Dances, Opus 33." In Robert Schumann, ed. Konrad Wolff, tr. Paul Rosenfeld, On Music and Musicians, 123-6. New York: Pantheon, 1946.

Schumann, Robert. Gesammelte Schriften über Musik und Musiker. 3d ed. 2 vols. Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1883.

Gramit, David. "Between Täuschung and Seligkeit: Situating Schubert's Dances." Musical Quarterly 84/2 (2000): 221-37.

Recomposition as a polka

As a postscript to Wednesday and Thursday's entries, I have followed a habit common in American sheet music of the mid-nineteenth century, according to which a waltz or other 3/4 meter dance is recast as a polka in the form of an appendix. In the graphic below, I have changed the meter from triple to duple, converting the A Major Waltz into a polka. This waltz works surprisingly well because its eighth-note groups switching between the hands allow one to make very characteristic polka rhythms in the melody (the two eighths plus four sixteenths in bar 3; the two eighths and a quarter in bar 4).

The model for this recomposition is the "Adelaide" polka by D. T. Haraden, published in Boston in 1848. A facsimile of Haraden's polka is available on the Library of Congress American Memory website in the 1820-1860 section: Adelaide.