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1 Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2013 Narratives of Innocence and Experience: Plot Archetypes in Robert Schumann's Piano Quintet and Piano Quartet Emily S. Gertsch Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact

2 THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF MUSIC NARRATIVES OF INNOCENCE AND EXPERIENCE: PLOT ARCHETYPES IN ROBERT SCHUMANN S PIANO QUINTET AND PIANO QUARTET By EMILY S. GERTSCH A Dissertation submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2013

3 Emily S. Gertsch defended this dissertation on April 22, The members of the supervisory committee were: Joseph Kraus Professor Directing Dissertation Douglass Seaton University Representative Michael Buchler Committee Member James Mathes Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements. ii

4 For Oscar, my greatest supporter, and Mom and Dad, my most influential teachers. iii

5 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the help of a number of people. To my advisor, Joseph Kraus, I owe special thanks for his unending support, guidance, encouragement, and patience. His doctoral seminar during my first year at Florida State University exposed me to the world of music and meaning and this project grew from a research paper begun in that special seminar. I have learned so much from Professor Kraus, especially in the areas of music and meaning and Schenkerian analysis, and I will be forever grateful for his guidance and friendship. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to the other members of my committee Michael Buchler, Jim Mathes, and Douglass Seaton for their support, discerning editorial comments, and insightful suggestions. It has truly been a pleasure to work with each member of my committee and I look forward to continued professional relationships and friendships with these great teachers and scholars. The music theory faculty as a whole at Florida State University is special for many reasons. But it is the wonderful example of a collegial environment and the enormous amount of work and time that each faculty member personally invests in their students that has made the most impact on me. I will always be grateful that I had the opportunity to learn from and work with each music theory faculty member at Florida State. The professional and personal relationships I developed while attending Florida State are ones that will last a lifetime, and I will always cherish the times spent with fellow students (especially Sarah Sarver, Greg Decker, Sara Nodine, and Judith Ofcarcik). The support my family has given me during my doctoral studies is immeasurable. My parents, George and Mary Swift, have provided continuous encouragement to pursue this dream, and have offered both the material and intangible resources that have allowed me to achieve my musical and academic goals. The homecooked meals and endless hours of babysitting only scratch the surface of the many ways they have helped me to complete this project. My gratitude for this and for their love is inexpressible. My brother, Bill Swift, has also provided an enormous amount of support and encouragement, and I am proud to call him not only my brother, but also one of my closest friends. I would like to thank my mother-in-law and father-in-law, Alida and Bruno Gertsch, for their love, encouragement, and for the weekends of iv

6 babysitting that enabled me to work on this project with no distractions. Finally, I would like to thank my friend Katie Bray, who is like a sister to me. She has provided me with support and encouragement for more than twenty-four years. Most of all, I would like to thank my husband Oscar. He has made many sacrifices in order to support me in reaching my goals, and I am forever grateful for his patience, unconditional love, and devotion. I cannot imagine a better person with whom to share my life. He is an amazing husband to me and a wonderful father to our children, Charlotte and Owen I look forward to the many new adventures that await us as a family. v

7 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables... viii List of Figures... ix List of Examples... x Abstract... xv 1. INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY Introduction to the Topic Review of Literature on Music and Meaning Semiotic Approaches Narratological Approaches Conclusion Methodology and Significance of the Project HISTORICAL BACKGROUND : Schumann s "Chamber Music Year" Schumann s Chamber Music Models Schumann and the Musical Setting of Chamber Music Schumann s Compositional Process Schumann s Early Compositional Process Schumann s Late Compositional Process Conclusions A ROMANCE NARRATIVE: JEAN PAUL AND THE PERSONA IN THE FIRST MOVEMENT OF THE PIANO QUINTET Romance Narrative in Literature and Music Schumann and Jean Paul The Persona Theory Analysis: The First Movement of the Piano Quintet The Order-Imposing Hierarchy and Transgression The Exposition: P The Exposition: TR The Exposition: TR The Exposition: TR The Exposition: S The Exposition: S1.2 and S The Development The Recapitulation and Coda The Persona Conclusions A FAILED TRAGIC-TO-TRANSCENDENT NARRATIVE: THE SECOND MOVEMENT OF THE PIANO QUINTET Tragic Topics versus Tragic Narrative Analysis: The Second Movement of the Piano Quintet The Order-Imposing Hierarchy and Transgression Formal Problems That Complicate a Tragic Reading...80 vi

8 4.2.3 The Anxiety of Influence and Schumann s Misreading of Beethoven Structural Analysis Conclusion: A Failed Tragic-to-Transcendent Narrative COMIC IRONY IN SCHUMANN S DIALOGUE WITH BEETHOVEN S FIRST SYMPHONY: THE THIRD MOVEMENT OF THE PIANO QUINTET Schumann and the Beethovenian Tradition of the Scherzo Analysis: An Ironic Comparison of the Scherzo Movements Irony as a Narrative Archetype Introduction to the Analysis A Comparative Analysis of the Scherzo Sections An Analysis of Schumann s First Trio An Analysis of Schumann s Second Trio An Analysis of Schumann s Coda Conclusion A COMIC ARCHETYPE OF EMERGENCE: THE FINALE OF THE PIANO QUINTET Comic Narratives and Discursive Strategies Parallel Forms and its Application to the Quintet Finale Analysis: The Finale of the Piano Quintet The Order-Imposing Hierarchy versus Transgression Part I: The Parallel Sonata-Rondo Form Part II: The Coda Conclusion TWO ADDITIONAL ROMANCE NARRATIVES: THE FIRST AND THIRD MOVEMENTS OF THE PIANO QUARTET First Movement of the Quartet: Bildung in the Sostenuto assai, Allegro ma non troppo Part I: A Romance Narrative Archetype Part II: Bildung and Complications of the Romance Narrative Conclusion Third Movement of the Quartet: Andante cantabile The Order-Imposing Hierarchy versus Transgression The A Section The B Section The A' Section The Coda Conclusion CONCLUSION Summary Implications for Further Study BIBLIOGRAPHY BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH vii

9 LIST OF TABLES 1.1 The Four Narrative Archetypes Order Imposing Hierarchy versus Transgression Formal Diagram of the Exposition The Second Theme Area Order-Imposing Hierarchy versus Transgression a Form Chart. Schumann, In Modo d una Marcia b Form Chart. Beethoven, Rondo from the Pathétique Sonata Mapping the Time Aspect of Narrative onto Tonal Areas a Form Chart. Beethoven, Pathétique Rondo b Form Chart. Schumann, In Modo d una Marcia Order Imposing Hierarchy vs. Transgression in Schumann s Scherzo Form of the Menuetto from Beethoven s First Symphony Form of the Scherzo from Schumann s Piano Quintet Order-Imposing Hierarchy versus Transgression Sonata-Rondo Parallel Form of Finale Order-Imposing Hierarchy versus Transgression Order-Imposing Hierarchy versus Transgression viii

10 LIST OF FIGURES 1.1 Reproduction of Hatten s Figure 2.1 from Musical Meaning in Beethoven Reproduction of Almén s Figure 1 from Narrative Archetypes: A Critique, Theory, and Method of Narrative Analysis Reproduction of Roesner s Figure 2, Formal Diagram of the Piano Sonata in f, op. 14, I Reproduction of Roesner s Figure 3, op. 14, I. Depiction of the Symmetrical Form Based on Tonal Mirror Images Reproduction of Brown s Diagram of Parallel Form in a Sonata Movement Reproduction of Brown s Diagram of Parallel Form in a Rondo Movement Reproduction of Brown s Figure 13.3 and A Formal Overview of the Quintet Finale Form Diagram of the Exposition, mm ix

11 LIST OF EXAMPLES 3.1 P Theme ( Heroic Topic), mm Voice-Leading Sketch of P, mm TR1, mm a Voice-Leading Sketch of TR1, mm b Simplified Voice-Leading Sketch of TR1, mm TR2, mm Voice-Leading Sketch of TR2, mm TR3, mm a Voice-Leading Sketch of TR3, mm b Deep Middleground Sketch of the Exposition, mm S1.1 and S1.2, mm S1.2, mm Voice-Leading Sketch of S1.1 and S1.2, mm End of Second Theme Area, mm Development, mm Voice-Leading Sketch of the Development, mm Retransition, mm K and Coda, mm Voice-Leading Sketch of the Coda, mm Voice-Leading Sketch. Schumann, Refrain ( Funeral March ), mm Voice-Leading Sketch. Beethoven, Pathétique Rondo, Refrain, mm Opening Phrase of the Funeral March, mm a Opening of Refrain, Framing Motive, mm x

12 4.4b Closing of Refrain, Framing Motive, mm Transgression, Episode 1, Singing Style, mm. 29b Voice-Leading Sketch, Episode 1, mm. 29b a Recomposed Opening Phrase of Episode 1, mm. 29b b Actual Opening Phrase of Episode 1, mm. 29b Episode 2, Agitato, mm a Main Motive from the Refrain, Funeral March, mm b Motivic Manipulation in Episode 2, Agitato, mm Metrical Dissonance and Hypermeter in Episode 2, mm Metrical Dissonance Between Piano and Violin 1 in Episode Voice-Leading Sketch. Episode 2, Agitato, mm Episode 3, Singing Style, mm. 132b Opening of Final Refrain, Funeral March, mm End of Final Refrain, Funeral March, mm Beethoven, Menuetto from Symphony No. 1, III, mm Opening of Schumann s Scherzo, mm Reproduction of Carl Schachter s Voice-Leading Sketch of Beethoven, Symphony No. 1, Scherzo, mm a Foreground Voice-Leading Sketch of Schumann s Scherzo, mm b Middleground Voice-Leading Sketch of Schumann s Scherzo Hypermetrical Structure of Beethoven s Scherzo, mm Hypermetrical Structure of Schumann s Scherzo, mm Metrical Dissonance in the Opening of Schumann s Scherzo Notated vs. Perceived Meter in the Opening of Schumann s Scherzo Schumann, Trio I, mm xi

13 5.10 Foreground Voice-Leading Reduction of Schumann s Trio I Middleground Voice-Leading Reduction of Schumann s Trio I Opening of Schumann s Trio II, mm a Middleground Voice-Leading Reduction of Schumann s Trio II b Deep Middleground Voice-Leading Reduction of Schumann s Trio II Four-Bar Compositional Blocks and Metrical Displacement Dissonance in the Opening of Schumann s Trio II Motivic Transformations in Trio II, mm Progression of Piano Accompaniment Figuration in Trio II Coda to Schumann s Movement, mm Deep Middleground Sketch of Schumann s Scherzo Movement Voice-Leading Sketch of Schumann s Coda Refrain (A), Style Hongrois, mm Voice-Leading Reduction of the Refrain (A), mm First Episode (B), mm Voice-Leading Reduction of First Episode (B), mm Second Episode (C), mm. 43b 77a Second Return of the Refrain (A) and the Opening of the Development, mm. 77b Development, New Lyrical Melody, mm Recapitulation, Parallel Return of A, mm End of Part I, Introduction to Coda, and Closing Idea 1, mm Coda, First Fugato, mm Coda, First Fugato, mm End of First Coda and Beginning of Second Coda, mm End of Second Fugato and Introduction to Closing 1, mm xii

14 6.14 End of the Closing 1 Theme and Final Extension, mm Hymn Topic of the Introduction, mm Heroic Topic of the Principal Theme, mm First Transgression, Heroic Topic in F Minor, mm a Motive y, mm b Second Transgression, Motive y Recast in G minor, mm Second Transgression and Restatement of Principal Theme, mm Transition, Agitato Topic, mm Transition, mm End of Transition, mm Development, Motive x in D minor and A minor Development, Sequence, mm Development, Motives x and y Juxtaposed, mm Retransition, mm Recapitulation, mm Coda, mm End of Coda, mm Voice-Leading Sketch of the Introduction, mm Voice-Leading Sketch of the First Theme, mm Voice-Leading Sketch of the Development a Opposition Between Heroic and Arabesque Topics in Exposition b Recapitulation, Arabesque topic removed, mm The Cantabile Topic of the Main Theme (A), mm Voice-Leading Reduction of Main Theme, Cantabile Topic, mm xiii

15 7.22 A Section, mm B Section, mm Voice-Leading Sketch of the B Section, mm Middleground Voice-Leading Sketch of the Movement A', mm End of A', mm Coda, mm xiv

16 ABSTRACT This dissertation explores the interaction between structure and narrative in Schumann s 1842 chamber music for strings and piano. This repertoire, while somewhat neglected in the current scholarly analytical literature, reveals Schumann s success at creating an identity of his own in the chamber music genre an identity surely influenced by his love of Romantic literature, which I find makes his music especially suitable for narrative analysis. Using the narratological approach of Byron Almén as my primary methodology, I also draw upon the semiotic approaches of Robert Hatten and Kofi Agawu and the narratological approaches of Anthony Newcomb and Douglass Seaton in order to enrich the discussion. My analyses use structural support to trace musical oppositions including oppositions in topic, style, markedness, motive, and texture in order to support narrative readings. More importantly, I explore how oppositions in foreground voice leading correlate with expressive oppositions, thus enhancing narrative interpretations. In the first chapter I discuss the relevant theoretical and analytical literature associated with music and meaning, focusing on the current trends in semiotic and narratological theory as applied to instrumental music. I provide critiques of the theories discussed as well as insights into how each theory is useful for the current study. In the last subsection of this chapter I recognize the problems that one-to-one mappings between structure and meaning can create and discuss the benefits and pitfalls of this type of analysis. Chapter 2 provides historical context for the year during which Schumann wrote the pieces studied in this dissertation (1842) and explores Schumann s chamber music models Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn and his compositional process. Chapters 3 through 6 provide comprehensive analyses of the four movements from Schumann s Piano Quintet, op. 44. Primarily using Byron Almén s adaptation of Northrop Frye s theoretical model of narrative archetypes, I show how the four movements of the Piano Quintet move in clockwise motion around the circular model: the first movement as a romance archetype at the top of the circle in the realm of innocence, the second movement as a fall to the tragic archetype at the bottom of the circle in the realm of experience and tragedy, the third movement as a move to the xv

17 ironic archetype in the realm of experience, and the fourth movement as a move upward to the comic archetype with a return to innocence and happiness. Chapter 7 comprises two additional readings of romance narratives in Schumann s Piano Quartet, op. 47 that reveal new features of this archetype. The first movement not only presents a hero who is victorious over external transgressions, but a hero who is also victorious over his own internal transgressions as his character grows and matures throughout the movement, a process of Bildung. The third movement illustrates a romance archetype in the form of a duet between two characters: a male and a female that represent Robert and Clara Schumann. In the final chapter of this dissertation I suggest implications for further study, focusing on other chamber music repertoire by Robert Schumann. The research and analysis undertaken in this dissertation provides both comprehensive structural and narrative analyses of six movements from Schumann s Piano Quintet and Piano Quartet and illustrates how the existing theories of music and meaning (both narrative and semiotic) can be effectively correlated with oppositions in structural voice leading in ways that provide analytical interpretations that have a greater depth than many that currently exist. xvi

18 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY 1.1 Introduction to the Topic Relatively little attention has been paid to the 1842 chamber music of Robert Schumann in the scholarly analytical literature. Schumann s chamber music is often criticized as attempting and failing to live up to the quality found in the chamber works of Beethoven. While Schumann might differ from Beethoven, he was ultimately successful at creating an identity of his own in the genre an identity surely influenced by his love of Romantic literature, which makes his music especially suitable for narrative analysis. Anthony Newcomb has done some work in this area with the String Quartet in A Major op. 41, no. 3, 1 but Schumann s chamber music repertoire has not yet been fully explored with respect to structural and narrative analysis. In this project I will explore the interaction between structure and narrative in Schumann s 1842 chamber music. Specifically, I will focus my attention on the Piano Quintet in E-flat Major, op. 44, and the Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, op. 47. After his marriage in 1840 to Clara Wieck, Schumann turned to the symphony and chamber music in 1841 and 1842 in an attempt to cultivate a reputation for himself as a serious composer. The two pieces I have chosen exemplify this turn to the serious in Schumann s style. In addition to the chamber pieces listed above, Schumann wrote three string quartets in 1842 (op. 41), but I will focus on the chamber works for strings and piano. I will not examine his Phantasiestücke from the same year, because they are free pieces reminiscent of his earlier style that do not belong with the rest of his serious chamber music from Although Schumann s Piano Quintet and Piano Quartet have been somewhat neglected and even scorned by critics, they are worthy of study, since in them one can observe interesting links between structure and narrative. In the next subsection of this chapter I discuss the relevant theoretical and analytical literature associated with music and meaning, focusing on the current trends 1 Anthony Newcomb, Schumann and Late Eighteenth-Century Narrative Strategies, 19th-Century Music 1

19 in semiotic and narratological theory as applied to instrumental music. I provide critiques of the theories discussed as well as insight into how each theory will be useful for the current study. In the last subsection of this chapter, I address the problems that one-to-one mappings between structure and meaning can create and discuss the benefits and pitfalls of this type of analysis. I also discuss the methodologies I will use and the ways in which I will enrich them for the present analytical project. 1.2 Review of Literature on Music and Meaning The question of how meaning can be communicated by textless instrumental music, especially in the absolute music of the nineteenth century, is one that has plagued scholars for decades. Prior to the late eighteenth century the ideal type of music was mostly sung and involved a text on which semantic meaning could be based. With the rise of chamber music and symphonies in the late eighteenth century came a shift in the idea of meaning in music, as music was emancipated from language. The music of the nineteenth century is especially well suited to interpretation as musical narrative because of the self-aware individualization of the period and the sense of voice in the music that makes the musical experience romantic. In the field of music theory, three primary approaches to musical meaning have developed in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: a semiotic approach, a narratological approach, and a cognitive/psychological approach. I will focus on how meaning can be communicated by instrumental music in the nineteenth century employing the work of scholars who use semiotic and narratological approaches, because I have found these approaches to be the most useful to the study of Schumann s instrumental chamber music, as will be clarified in the subsequent discussions Semiotic Approaches Musical semiotics is based on a model in which the relation between the signifier and signified involves three levels: poetic, neutral, and esthetic. 2 The poietic level encompasses all aspects of the production of a piece of music the process of 2 The three levels of semiotic analysis encompass the central pillar of Jean-Jacques Nattiez s theory of musical semiotics. Jean-Jacques Nattiez, Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990). 2

20 creation. 3 The neutral level is a level of analysis at which one does not decide a priori whether the results generated by a specific analytical proceeding are relevant from the esthetic or poietic point of view neutral means both that the poetic and esthetic dimensions of the object have been neutralized, and that one proceeds to the end of a given procedure regardless of the results obtained. 4 The neutral level does not refer to neutral analysis; rather it is the end result of the poietic process of creation the score or the music itself. At the esthetic level receivers, when confronted by a symbolic form, assign one or many meanings to the form. 5 The esthetic level, which deals with the consumption of music, allows us to construct meaning, in the course of an active perceptual process. 6 A semiotic musical analysis involves several stages. On the neutral level, analysis consists of segmentation of the musical structure into formal units (the music s signs) and an examination of the use of these units in relation to each other. On the poietic level, the analyst can proceed either inductively or deductively. Analysts can also proceed from analysis to the esthetic level, once again either inductively or deductively. A semiotic musical analysis can be related to the poietic level, the esthetic level, or both levels. Semiotic scholars in the field of music theory include Jean-Jacques Nattiez, Robert Hatten, Kofi Agawu, Raymond Monelle, Eero Tarasti, David Lidov, and Adam Krims. In the following discussion, I will focus on the semiotic work of Robert Hatten and Kofi Agawu because their approaches are the ones that most pertain to the work in the current study. The Semiotic Approach of Robert Hatten. Hatten s work in the area of semiotics in music began in 1982 (when the field of meaning in music still received a rather chilly reception in theoretical circles) with his dissertation, Toward a Semiotic Model of Style in Music: Epistemological and Methodological Bases. 7 Hatten acknowledged that his dissertation, while it provided groundwork for the study of expressive meaning, was still unable to explain expressive meaning in a more complete sense, and he wanted to provide a semiotic model of analysis that embraces both expressive and formal 3 Ibid., Ibid., Ibid. 6 Ibid., Robert S. Hatten, Toward a Semiotic Model of Style in Music: Epistemological and Methodological Bases (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1982). 3

21 meaning. 8 This led to his 1994 book Musical Meaning in Beethoven, in which Hatten integrates perspectives from semiotics, music theory, and music history to construct a new mode of interpretation of Beethoven s late style. 9 Hatten s semiotic theory in Musical Meaning in Beethoven combines structuralist and hermeneutic approaches. Central to his theory are the concepts of correlation, interpretation, and markedness of oppositions. To begin, Hatten defines two types of competencies: stylistic competency, which is the understanding of the general principles and constraints of a musical style; and strategic competency, which is the understanding of the individual choices and exceptions illustrated by a particular musical work. Stylistic correlations involve the general mapping of expressive oppositions onto oppositions in musical structures; expressive states are mapped onto stylistic types. Strategic interpretations also map expressive oppositions onto oppositions in musical structures, but in a more specific way for a particular work of music. The dialectic between the stylistic correlations and strategic interpretations is best understood by an examination of Hatten s Figure 2.1, taken from Chapter 2 of Musical Meaning in Beethoven. Figure 1.1. Reproduction of Hatten s Figure 2.1 from Musical Meaning in Beethoven. 10 The idea of markedness is central to Hatten s theory, and he defines it as the asymmetrical valuation of an opposition. 11 In musical meaning markedness of structural oppositions correlates with markedness of expressive oppositions marked entities are distinctive and represent the exceptional, while unmarked entities are more 8 Robert S. Hatten, Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, and Interpretation (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), xiii. 9 David Lidov, Foreword to Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, and Interpretation by Robert S. Hatten (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), ix. 10 Hatten, Musical Meaning in Beethoven, Ibid.,

22 general and normative. Markedness values can grow over time in particular contexts, creating a change in markedness values. The idea of types and tokens (taken from Charles Sanders Peirce) provides another way to account for markedness in music. A type, which is understood as unmarked (i.e., the tonic triad), is a generalized category or concept. A token, which is understood as marked, is a physical manifestation of a stylistic type (i.e., a particular spacing/voicing of a tonic triad in a particular key). Another important concept in Hatten s theory is that of topics. Topics, as defined by Leonard Ratner s work in the field of stylistic references in Classic music, 12 are coded style types that carry features linked to affect, class, and social occasion. Topics, Hatten observes, are a complex musical correlation originating in a kind of music and they may acquire expressive correlations in the Classical style, and they may be further interpreted expressively. 13 His concept of expressive genres stems from the idea of topics, and expressive genres are characterized or distinguished by oppositions in the style. 14 In Hatten s words an expressive genre is a category of musical works based on their implementation of a change-of-state schema (tragic-totriumphant, tragic-to-transcendent) or their organization of expressive states in terms of an overarching topical field (pastoral, tragic). 15 Expressive genres, on the level of a piece or movement, result from the change of state from one topical field to another or from the use of a single topical field to the exclusion of others. Also at the heart of Hatten s theory is the idea of musical troping. Troping occurs when two different, formally unrelated types are brought together in the same functional location so as to spark an interpretation based on their interaction. 16 The idea of a trope stems from literary theory, and in music the musical event must produce an emergent meaning that crosses the established correlational field. In summary, Hatten s meanings emerge from a correlation of stylistic types with expressive content. His complex semiotic theory considers how oppositions of musical elements give rise to expressive oppositions and how the juxtaposition of expressive types brings about new expressive interpretations. In Musical Meaning in Beethoven Hatten applies his semiotic theory specifically to the late music of Beethoven. However, 12 Leonard G. Ratner, Music: Expression, Form, and Style (New York: Schirmer Books, 1980). 13 Hatten, Musical Meaning in Beethoven, Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,

23 the basic structure of his theory, which is built on correlation, interpretation, and markedness of oppositions, is easily applied to other instrumental music from the nineteenth century. In fact, Hatten provides an interesting comparison of his own ideas of expressive meaning with those of Robert Schumann. Schumann suggests that a program or suggestive title acts like a poetic description of creative criticism; so the music does not portray the program, rather the program suggests the music. 17 Much like Hatten, Schumann believed that music could communicate feelings or psychological states. 18 However, Hatten, unlike Schumann, uses detailed analysis to correlate each cultural unit with an opposition in the style of the work, which ties an otherwise subjective discourse to a theoretical framework. 19 Accordingly, Hatten s theory is particularly suitable for the current analytical study of Schumann s chamber music for piano and strings. The Semiotic Approach of Kofi Agawu. Kofi Agawu takes a very different semiotic approach to the analysis of Classic music with his 1991 book Playing with Signs: A Semiotic Interpretation of Classic Music. 20 Agawu s theory relies on the synthesis of topical signs and structural signs. His goal is to point out features of works by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven that might enhance an understanding and appreciation of Classic repertoire. He seeks to study works from the Classic repertoire by examining their structural and expressive attributes in order to determine meaning. Agawu s theoretical notion of playing with signs is based on a semiotic framework that insists on mutual interaction between structure and expression. According to Agawu, it is the dialectical interplay between manifest surface and structural background that should guide the analysis, and it is only within such a framework that we can appropriately acknowledge the rich and subtle meanings that underlie the deceptively simple and familiar music of the Classic era. 21 This semiotic theory depends on a dialectic between what Agawu calls extroversive semiosis and introversive semiosis. Extroversive semiosis represents the domain of expression with topical signs and deals with surface-level phenomena. Agawu discusses Ratner s idea of topics in Classic 17 Leon Plantinga, Schumann as Critic (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), Ibid., Hatten, Musical Meaning in Beethoven, Kofi Agawu, Playing with Signs: A Semiotic Interpretation of Classic Music (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991). 21 Ibid., 25. 6

24 music, which are forms of associative signification. 22 Agawu stresses two crucial facets of a topical analysis: the listener must possess stylistic competence; and natural and historical associations of topic should point to an irreducible conventional specificity. 23 He also emphasizes the idea that topics are a point of departure but are not total identities, as they help to shape our responses as listeners; they are suggestive but not exhaustive. 24 While analysis of topics is strictly identification (the first step in Agawu s method of analysis), a topic assumes its identity by the force of contextual factors, and it is by identifying the interplay of topics that one sets up the possibility of a topical discourse. Topical analysis must be combined with structural analysis in order to provide a rich interpretation of the music. Agawu next discusses introversive semiosis, which deals with the pure signs of musical structure. These pure signs provide clues to musical organization and he claims that the most powerful framework for analyzing pure signs analyzes the dynamic quality of Classic music, which Schenker s theory most clearly conveys. Agawu discusses the local dynamism within the framework of the Schenkerian Ursatz while proposing a rhetorical strategy for the Ursatz. By the rhetorical strategy of the Ursatz, Agawu is referring to the framing of Schenker s theory in terms of a work s beginning-middle-ending paradigm. 25 Essentially a beginning is a stable point of departure that establishes the generic identity and structural unit and contains a period that provides, in miniature, the structural process of the piece as a whole. 26 A middle is engaged with a process (as opposed to an exposition) that is open-ended and transitional it is often unclear and structurally unimportant where a middle begins and ends. An ending has two goals: syntactic and rhetorical closure. This paradigm is clearly reflected in Schenker s basic Ursatz (I-V-I harmonic motion supported by melodic motion). The crux of Agawu s theoretical idea is a combination of extroversive and introversive semiosis: by making explicit the functioning of both topical signs (extroversive semiosis) and pure signs (introversive semiosis) we can provide a richer expressive interpretation of the music. Agawu states, It is in the interaction between 22 Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., 58. 7

25 topical signs and structural signs, an interaction that might be described in terms of play, that the essence of my theory lies. 27 He proposes approaching analysis in three stages. First, one must produce a (Schenkerian) voice-leading reduction to show the inner workings of the music and then reinterpret it in reference to the beginningmiddle-ending paradigm. Second, one must provide a topical analysis that yields a discourse or plot. Third, one must examine the points of contact between them, as it is the dialectic between the two types of signs that offers the richest interpretation. Agawu uses a short excerpt from the opening movement of Mozart s D-Major String Quintet, k. 593 to demonstrate his theory. The remaining chapters of the book provide further sample analyses to support his theory. The final chapter of Playing with Signs provides a short Epilogue on how this theory might apply to Romantic music. Agawu addresses the issues brought up in this chapter in his 2009 book Music as Discourse: Semiotic Adventures in Romantic Music, in which he extends his semiotic theory to the Romantic repertoire. 28 In this more recent book, Agawu draws upon the theoretical work of Schenker, Ratner, Adorno, and the field of musical semiotics. At the heart of his book is the study of music as discourse, and Agawu discusses the similarities and differences between music and language. He goes on to provide six criteria for the analysis of Romantic music: topics; the beginningmiddle-ending paradigm; high points and the dynamic curve; periodicity, discontinuity, and parentheses; three modes of enunciation (speech, song, and dance); and the narrative thread. Agawu then explores Schenker s idea that links strict counterpoint to free composition, explaining that the notion that a work is understood as a layered structure, where the journey from background to foreground is one of increasing concretization of musical content. 29 Agawu concludes the theoretical portion of his book with an exploration of a paradigmatic approach to analysis. In this approach, a piece of music is understood as a succession of events that are repeated (sometimes exactly, other times inexactly) and it is the associations between events and the nature of their succession that guides the 27 Ibid., Kofi Agawu, Music as Discourse: Semiotic Adventures in Romantic Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). 29 Ibid., 11. 8

26 construction of meaning. 30 The remainder of the book provides sample analyses of works by composers including Liszt, Brahms, Mahler, Beethoven, and even Stravinsky. Agawu s semiotic approach to musical meaning provides self-contained theoretical claims that are supported by frequent analytical demonstrations in both of his books on the topic. In Playing with Signs his semiotic theory uses works from the Classic style to integrate analysis of topics (Ratner) and a beginning-middle-end paradigm (Schenker) in order to understand better the works of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven; it is in the play between these modes that semiosis occurs. It is this aspect of his theory the interaction between topical signs and structural signs that I find most pertinent to my analytical studies of Schumann s chamber music. Music as Discourse, on the other hand, provides an approach to musical meaning that extends semiotic principles to the idea of thinking of music as a discourse in itself, as applied to the Romantic repertoire through mostly paradigmatic analyses, which is also directly applicable to the analysis of the chamber music of Schumann Narratological Approaches Although music is a temporal phenomenon and therefore amenable to narrative organization, there seems to be a general disagreement among scholars as to the nature and range of application of musical narrative. For example, while the vocabulary and methodology of literary approaches are often applied to musical narrative, many arguments against the pairing of musical and literary narrative exist. Some of these arguments include the absence of referentiality in music, the absence of a narrator, and the absence of a past tense. While the study of musical narrative is a relatively new discipline, there are already many recognized scholars in the field, including Carolyn Abbate, Byron Almén, Edward T. Cone, Marion Guck, Marianne Kielian-Gilbert, Peter Kivy, Michael Klein, Joseph Kraus, Fred Everett Maus, Susan McClary, Anthony Newcomb, and Douglass Seaton. The following discussion will focus on the differing narratological approaches of Almén, Newcomb, and Seaton, as their application to Romantic repertoire is most germane to the present study. 30 Ibid.,

27 The Narratological Approach of Byron Almén. Almén s inspiration for his recent book, A Theory of Musical Narrative, stems from his 2003 article, Narrative Archetypes: A Critique, Theory, and Method of Narrative Analysis 31 and from his consideration of three books from different fields: Northrop Frye s Anatomy of Criticism, Eero Tarasti s A Theory of Musical Semiotics, and James Liszka s The Semiotic of Myth. 32 In A Theory of Musical Narrative, Almén introduces a narrative approach to music that draws on Liszka s derivation of Northrop Frye s four narrative archetypes: romance, tragedy, irony, and comedy. To understand Almén s theory of narrative a brief explanation of the theories of Frye and Liszka is necessary. Frye s theory of narrative proposes a set of four narrative categories mythoi that distinguish between possible plot schemes using a circular model. In this model, each of the narratives is situated around the circle representing the motion from a state of innocence and happiness (at the top of the circle) to the world of experience or catastrophe (at the bottom of the circle) and then back (Figure 1.2 is Almén s adaptation of Frye s circular model). The binary opposition of innocence/experience is expanded into the four categories, which, proceeding clockwise around the circle are romance (the narrative of innocence at the top), tragedy (the narrative of the fall, moving downward from innocence to experience), irony (the narrative of experience at the bottom), and comedy (the narrative of renewal moving upward from experience to recovered happiness). 33 Frye, in his 1957 book Anatomy of Criticism says, We may apply this construct to our principle that there are two fundamental movements of narrative: a cyclical movement within the order of nature, and a dialectical movement from that order into the apocalyptic world above. 34 He goes on to say: The top half of the natural cycle is the world of romance and the analogy of innocence; the lower half is the world of "realism" and the analogy of experience. There are thus four main types of mythical movement: within romance, within experience, down, and up. The downward movement is the tragic movement, 31 Byron Almén, Narrative Archetypes: A Critique, Theory, and Method of Narrative Analysis, Journal of Music Theory 47, no. 1 (2003): Byron Almén, A Theory of Musical Narrative (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), ix. 33 Ibid., Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univeresity Press, 1957),

28 the wheel of fortune falling from innocence toward hamartia, and from hamartia to catastrophe. The upward movement is the comic movement, from threatening complications to a happy ending and a general assumption of post-dated innocence in which everyone lives happily ever after. 35 Figure 1.2. Reproduction of Almén s Figure 1 from Narrative Archetypes: A Critique, Theory, and Method of Narrative Analysis. 36 Liszka s theory of narrative includes three levels of narrative analysis: agential, actantial, and narrative. The agential level uncovers the biophysical, social, political, and economic elements through which assignments of cultural value are manifested while the actantial level tracks the changes in markedness and rank relations. The narrative level coordinates the analytical details within a finite number of archetypal plots. It is with the narrative level that Frye and Liszka s theories intersect, and Liszka replaces Frye s cyclical metaphor with a binary one, where the narrative categories result from the intersection of two fundamental oppositions: an opposition between order/transgression and victory/defeat. 37 Almén s theory of musical narrative essentially traces the tensions between an order-imposing hierarchy and a transgression of that hierarchy, the result of which 35 Ibid., Almén, Narrative Archetypes: A Critique, Theory, and Method of Narrative Analysis, Almén, A Theory of Musical Narrative,

29 produces one of four narrative archetypes: romance (victory of an order-imposing hierarchy over its transgression), tragedy (defeat of a transgression by an orderimposing hierarchy), irony (defeat of an order-imposing hierarchy by a transgression), and comedy (victory of a transgression over an order-imposing hierarchy) (Table 1.1). One might question the distinction between a romance and tragedy, since in both archetypes the order-imposing hierarchy wins, but the difference between the two archetypes lies in the emphasis on victory versus defeat. The same distinction is true when comparing an ironic narrative with a comic narrative, even though in both archetypes transgression wins at the end of the narrative. 38 Table 1.1. The Four Narrative Archetypes. Romance: Tragedy: Irony: Comedy: the victory of an order-imposing hierarchy over its transgression (victory + order) the defeat of a transgression by an order-imposing hierarchy (defeat + transgression) the defeat of an order-imposing hierarchy by a transgression (defeat + order) the victory of a transgression over an order-imposing hierarchy (victory + transgression) Almén s theory emphasizes the importance of transvaluation in musical narrative. Liszka defines transvaluation as the process and play of tension between the two aspects of a value-imposing hierarchy. 39 Transvaluation refers to a semiotic translation process: a hierarchy set up within a system of signs is subjected to change over time; this change, filtered through an observer s design or purpose is interpreted as being isomorphic to a change applied to a cultural hierarchy. 40 Almén asserts that narrative is essentially an act of transvaluation and it is the tension caused by transvaluation that creates the dynamism of narrative. 41 Robert Hatten s idea of markedness in music plays an especially important role in Almén s approach. Hatten defines markedness as the asymmetrical valuation of an 38 In his 2003 article, Almén suggested that the way that the opposition between victory and defeat was cued musically was through reference to a listener s sympathy for either the order-imposing hierarchy or transgression. Almén explains in his more recent 2008 book that he finds this approach to be problematic, and revises his theory to allow the opposition between victory and defeat to be interpreted through emphasis rather than listener sympathy (235). 39 Almén, A Theory of Musical Narrative, Ibid., Ibid.,

30 opposition, with marked entities representing the exceptional and having a greater specificity of meaning than the normative, unmarked entities. 42 The idea of markedness characterizes the valuative weighting of musical units on the paradigmatic level, while the idea of rank characterizes the valuative weighting of musical units on the syntagmatic level. Rank assigns relative value to the distinctive features in a cultural unit; that is to say, each feature of a cultural unit exists in a particular hierarchical position with respect to the other features in that unit. 43 Almén asserts that the musical unit is characterized by the paradigmatic use (markedness) of certain features rather than others by their syntagmatic arrangement (rank) in a particular sequence or order. 44 He goes on to argue that determining markedness in the context of narrative interpretation is equivalent to determining what the narrative transgression is, and determining rank is equivalent to determining the value of a musical event in relation to other events. 45 Therefore, it is the transvaluation, or rising and falling tension caused by the markedness and rank relations, in a piece of music that articulates its narrative trajectory. I will now briefly summarize the typical profiles of transvaluation in each narrative archetype. In a romance narrative, a rough high-low-high profile of the rank of the valued elements exists, in which the low rank represents the impact of the various transgression elements. 46 Unlike a romance, where declines in rank value are ultimately reversed, a tragic archetype contains a rough high-low profile of the rank value, ending with the defeat of the valued elements. 47 The trajectory of the profile of the valued elements in an ironic archetype varies depending on the emphasis (and the narrative phase): a trajectory of an ironic narrative can expose the limitations of a hierarchy, sharply indict it, show it to be ineffectual or meaningless, or completely demolish it. 48 Because a comic archetype involves a transvaluation in which transgressive elements successfully challenge and overturn an initial hierarchy, a rough low-high temporal profile is imparted on the rank value of those elements in a 42 Hatten, Musical Meaning in Beethoven, Almén, A Theory of Musical Narrative, Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,

31 comedy the initial hierarchy is normally flawed or overly rigid, which allows the transgressive element to adapt and achieve its higher status. 49 Almén discusses Liszka s levels of narrative analysis and how they might apply to his theory of musical narrative. The agential level is where the musical-semantic units are identified and are categorized as either marked or unmarked. The actantial level is where the dynamic relationships between the musical units are defined. Taken together, the agential and actantial levels describe the details of a narrative transvaluation in which two binary oppositions (order/transgression and victory/defeat) express a conflict that traces the tensions between an order-imposing hierarchy and a transgression of that hierarchy, ultimately producing one of Frye s four narrative archetypes. 50 Additionally, Almén emphasizes the importance of topical analysis in musical narrative, citing the work of Ratner and Hatten. He suggests that the expressive genres of Hatten s semiotic approach can be successfully integrated with a theory of musical narrative because they form a subclass of possible narrative schemes in which topic plays a primary role in either articulating the overall narrative frame or the conflict that embodies the primary narrative level. 51 Almén acknowledges that the relationship between narrative and topic is complex (he brings up five issues in the integration of topic and narrative) but he concludes that topical considerations have a significant influence on narrative interpretations. 52 In sum, Almén s theory of narrative in music provides a synthesis of approaches from literary theory, semiotics, musicology, and music theory. At the heart of this theory is the Liszkian idea of transvaluation how the shifts of tension between rank and markedness relations produce one of the four narrative archetypes but he also remains adamant in his belief that methodological eclecticism is the most productive direction for analytical and interpretive explorations of narratives to take. 53 It is the methodological eclecticism and flexibility of Almén s theory that is most beneficial for the present study. 49 Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,

32 The Narratological Approach of Anthony Newcomb. Newcomb has written several important articles regarding narrative and music, focusing on nineteenthcentury composers: Schumann, Chopin, and Mahler. This discussion will concentrate on the two articles that examine the instrumental music of Robert Schumann. Newcomb examines Schumann s music in terms of narrative in his 1984 article Once More Between Absolute and Program Music : Schumann s Second Symphony. 54 He begins by pointing out that, while Schumann s Second Symphony received high praise in the nineteenth century, it fell from favor in the twentieth century, which suggests that our problems with the piece may be rooted in current analytical tools for absolute music. 55 Newcomb asserts that the idea of music as a composed novel is an important avenue to the understanding of nineteenth-century music and that we may find a plot archetype as the basis for these compositions. 56 The plot archetype, which may reference a specific work from literature or may be implicit, is communicated and elaborated by the musical form of the individual work. 57 He emphasizes that we do well to think of the thematic units partly as characters in a narrative which interact with each other, with the plot archetypes, with their own past guises, and with conventions of musical grammar and formal schemes analogously to the way the characters in a novel interact with each other. 58 Newcomb s aim in this article is to revive historically appropriate analytical tools in order to interpret Schumann s Second Symphony effectively. By thinking of the piece as a composed novel, Newcomb proposes using biographical information, ideas of thematic transformation, semiotic aspects of the musical style, and thematic allusions in order to support a reading of this symphony as an end-accented or heroic plot archetype in which the struggle in the symphony from suffering to healing and redemption seems also to have been Schumann s own. 59 In his 1987 article Schumann and Late Eighteenth-Century Narrative Strategies, Newcomb uses a deductive approach to narrative analysis, with the goal of 54 Anthony Newcomb, Once More Between Absolute and Program Music : Schumann s Second Symphony, 19 th -Century Music 7 (1984): Ibid., Ibid., Ibid. 58 Ibid., Ibid. 15

33 being able to better understand made objects. 60 His approach also depends on the intuition, education, and talent of the interpreter. After a lengthy discussion of narrative in literature versus narrative in music, Newcomb moves on to the crux of his article, which focuses on narrative in the music of Robert Schumann. Schumann, who immersed himself in the novels of German Romantics (especially E.T.A. Hoffman and Jean Paul), studied how the authors told a story and was intrigued by their poetics. He also tended to describe the music he liked in terms of novels. Newcomb says Schumann, like Jean Paul, avoids clear linear narrative through a stress on interruption, embedding, digression, and willful reinterpretation of the apparent function of an event (what one might call functional punning). 61 He notes that some narratives from late eighteenth-century fiction like to question paradigmatic plots by standing conventional situations on their heads and Schumann often delights in doing the same thing. 62 After a lengthy discussion of narrative devices found in literary works and in the music of Schumann (such as Witz), Newcomb provides a sample analysis of the final movement of Schumann s String Quartet in A Major, op. 41, no. 3. The narrative is based on the idea that the movement depends entirely on a transformation of functions of events in a paradigmatic plot. In other words, the functions of successive events turn out to be not what they seemed when first encountered, as there is a gradual realization on the part of the listener of a reversal of formal function in the movement. The paradox of the movement is that, although the movement is indisputably a rondo, the refrain is additive in structure and tonally open, which alters the normal relation between function and succession of events in a rondo. 63 Newcomb concludes that Schumann has defamiliarized narrative conventions and has forced the listener to move beyond static recognition of formal schemata to dynamic questioning of formal procedures. 64 In brief, Newcomb s approach to narrative in Schumann s music specifically is built on the idea that music for Schumann was an expressive enterprise and a form of communication, reflecting in some way the experience of its creator. 65 Thematic 60 Anthony Newcomb, Schumann and Late Eighteenth-Century Narrative Strategies, 19th-Century Music 11, no. 2 (1987): Ibid., Ibid. 63 Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,

34 metamorphosis, the implications of form and genre, and intertextual allusions, combined with historical background all provide support for Newcomb s analysis of narrative in Schumann s music, and it is for these reasons that I find Newcomb s approach to narrative to be useful for this project. The Narratological Approach of Douglass Seaton. In his and articles, Douglass Seaton clearly defines narrative as having two essential features: plot and voice. 68 Plot, which Seaton defines as an action that has (or at least proposes) some sort of recognizable beginning and end, presents characters that act within the course of the work, and traces an intelligible contour from stability through rising tension and conflict to resolution and dénouement, 69 is commonly found in music (most notably in the sonata form). Voice, on the other hand, is not as commonly found, as the presence of a narrative persona is not always evident in music. Seaton asserts that the voice of the narrator may be established either within the music or by extra-musical conditions. Within the music, he lists three devices that may be used to indicate the persona: the piece might be cast in a particular idiom or distinctive rhetorical style that suggests a certain type of speaker; 70 the voice may be established by quotation of or allusion to a specific repertoire of music; the plot of a piece may be interrupted by music that does not participate in the action and may take the form of commentary. 71 Extra-musical conditions that may establish voice include: paratextual verbal indicators (titles or programs), performance conventions, and the composer s biography. 72 However one might establish the presence of a narrative persona, the listener experiences the persona as the subjectivity underlying the action and feeling in a work. 73 Seaton emphasizes that, in order to be narrative, a musical 66 Douglass Seaton, Narrative in Music: The Case of Beethoven s Tempest Sonata," in Narrative beyond Literary Criticism: Mediality, Disciplinarity, ed. Jan Christoph Meister in cooperation with Tom Kindt and Wilhelm Schernus (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2005), Douglass Seaton, Narrativity and the Performance of Beethoven s Tempest Sonata, in Beethoven s Tempest Sonata: Perspectives of Analysis and Performance, ed. Pieter Bergé, William E. Caplin and Jeroen D Hoe (Walpole, MA: Peeters, 2009), Seaton acknowledges that this idea was not his own, rather it came from others, for example Bakhtin and Genette. Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M.M. Bakhtin, ed. Michael Holmquist (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1982). Gérard Genette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, Translated by Jane E. Lewin (New York: Cornell University Press, 1980). 69 Ibid., Hatten (Musical Meaning in Beethoven, p. 169) discusses the idea that a rhetorical gesture (such as an interruption) may achieve a reversal that provides a shift in level of discourse. 71 Seaton, Narrativity and the Performance of Beethoven s Tempest Sonata, Ibid., Ibid. 17

35 work must possess narrativity in the same way as a work of literature, and therefore must contain both a plot and a narrative voice. Seaton s idea of uniting plot and voice in musical narrative is clearly seen in his 2008 article Back from B-A-C-H: Schumann s Symphony No. 2 in C major. 74 Seaton s plot for the symphony is generally the same as Newcomb s: an end-accented or heroic symphony in which the course of the music suggests a struggle leading to victory or suffering leading to healing or redemption. 75 While Newcomb suggests that the protagonist in the plot is Schumann himself, Seaton asserts that we should be reluctant to fall into this biographical fallacy which should more correctly be called the autobiographical fallacy in this way. 76 He goes on to consider the use of allusions and citations in the work and what they suggest about the narrative voice an aspect that pertains directly to this dissertation. Seaton asserts that the persona is not Schumann, but a more general voice with an experience related to struggle and recovery, the symphony as a genre, and German musical culture and tradition. 77 He concludes that the self-identification and self-realization in the Symphony in C Major amount to Schumann s claim for incorporation into the community that the narratorsymphonist understood by the 1840s as the canon of great German composers. 78 Seaton s approach to narratology in music holds firm the idea that for music to have narrative it must have both plot and voice. Seaton says, Narratology guides an examination of passages with an eye to the ways in which every detail rhythm, melody, harmony, dynamics, articulation, register, and texture contributes to character. It demands insightful attention to harmonic and formal designs, including every nuance of structural implication, completion, and frustration. It requires multilayered understanding of the inside of plotted musical action and the outer frame that gives the music a voice. And it requires thorough study of historical contexts, including biography and 74 Douglass Seaton, Back from B-A-C-H: Schumann s Symphony No. 2 in C major, in About Bach, ed. Gregory G. Butler, George B. Stauffer, and Mary Dalton Greer (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008), Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,

36 reception history. To cultivate narrative musicality demands a wide-ranging and synthetic mind. 79 The effective way in which Seaton addresses the issue of the narrator is valuable in the current study, and I will use the conditions discussed by Seaton regarding the identification of voice to address the narrative persona where appropriate in the analysis of each movement studied Conclusion The semiotic and narratological approaches to musical meaning discussed above illustrate a small sampling of current trends in the field of music and meaning. Many of the difficulties in discussing meaning in textless instrumental music can be overcome with the semiotic theories of Robert Hatten and Kofi Agawu and in the narratological theories of Byron Almén, Anthony Newcomb, and Douglass Seaton. While each theory contains many strengths, there are also some weaknesses. For example, Hatten is reluctant to use Schenkerian analysis and claims that it would be difficult to correlate and map oppositions in voice leading onto expressive oppositions. Yet the use of Schenkerian analysis, when appropriate, allows us to pursue a more in-depth interaction between structuralist and hermeneutic approaches. Arnold Whittall, in his review of Hatten s book, brings up the same question, saying, Hatten s lack of Schenkerian fire-power leaves him unable to pursue a fuller interaction between structuralist and hermeneutic approaches. 80 Agawu s theoretical idea of playing with signs is a good one, but he does not go as far as he might in making connections between the topical signs and the structural analysis. The play never seems to contain any real expressive meaning. Agawu claims that topics reinforce structure, contradict structure, or are indifferent to structure, which is not particularly helpful for the construction of semantic meaning, as it doesn t address how structure might actually contribute to the meaning. Regarding the narratological approach of Almén, a flaw in his work is found in his failure to consistently provide strong structural support for his narrative 79 Seaton, Narrativity and the Performance of Beethoven s Tempest Sonata, Arnold Whittall, Review: Musical Meaning in Beethoven, Journal of the Royal Musical Association 121, no. 1 (1996):

37 interpretations. Another problem with the approach of Almén is the thorny issue of the presence of a narrator, and he concludes that, while the issue of a narrator is problematic in musical narrative, the presence of a narrator is not a prerequisite for narrative with respect to music. In addition, the issue of topic is discussed by Agawu in his review of A Theory of Musical Narrative. Agawu asserts that Almén s statement that topic is static while narrative is dynamic is problematic due to the complex temporal dispositions of different topics. 81 Newcomb, who tends to use more aesthetic and emotional analysis than Almén, relies heavily on historical matters of style and topic. While Newcomb s analysis of Schumann s Second Symphony provides an exhaustive summary of critical reception to the work in the 19th and 20th centuries and a well-supported musical plot, he does not effectively address the issue of the narrative voice or provide sufficient structural support for his claims. Seaton addresses the difficult issue of the narrator, which is somewhat neglected by both Almén and Newcomb, by defining musical narrative as having two essential features: plot and voice. Seaton s article on Schumann s Second Symphony provides a narratological approach that unites plot and voice, providing a more compelling interpretation of Schumann s Second Symphony than that of Newcomb. 1.3 Methodology and Significance of the Project In the analyses in the present study, I will seek to reveal significant connections between music and meaning by using the narratological approach of Byron Almén as my primary methodology. However, I will also draw upon the semiotic approaches of Robert Hatten and Kofi Agawu and the narratological approaches of Anthony Newcomb and Douglass Seaton as needed, in order to enrich the discussion. I will provide detailed analyses that use structural support to trace musical oppositions including oppositions in topic, style, markedness, motive, and texture in order to support my narrative readings. In addition, I will also explore how oppositions in foreground voice leading can be mapped onto expressive oppositions, thus enhancing narrative interpretations. Combining these approaches has ramifications for music 81 Kofi Agawu, Review: A Theory of Musical Narrative, Notes 66/2 (2009):

38 theory, for it can produce analyses that are deeper and more penetrating than many that exist in the current literature. It is important to recognize the problems that one-to-one mappings between structure especially Schenkerian voice leading and meaning can create. One pitfall of combining Schenkerian analysis (or any linear analysis that engages with the Schenkerian concepts of voice leading, prolongation, and composing out) is the perceived epistemological priority of the background. This raises a couple of questions. Just how musical are the deeper Schenkerian levels and how much meaning can one perceive from a background or even a deep middleground analysis? Lawrence Kramer addresses these questions in his article Haydn s Chaos, Schenker s Order; or Hermeneutics and Musical Analysis: Can They Mix? Kramer states, The fundamental structure supplies the underlying unity on which the expressivity of the foreground ultimately depends. 82 Schenker s own study of Haydn s Representation of Chaos from Creation generates meaning from the bottom up by constructing a parallel in which interpretative unfolding follows compositional unfolding. 83 Schenker s graphic analyses show how he first selects deep structural elements as nodes of meaning and then scans the foreground realizations for qualitative values, which he then projects onto an image of chaos. Michael Klein discusses the pitfalls of relying on structure to bolster semantic claims in Chapter 2 of his 2005 book, Intertextuality in Western Art Music. Klein claims that In music analysis, as in myth, the structure is the meaning. 84 He acknowledges that the music theorist s preoccupation with structure often comes at the expense of meaning and culture and suggests that part of a solution to this problem may come from more open acknowledgment of the intertextual nature of analysis. 85 Any credible narrative or expressive analysis must be grounded in the structural aspects of the music. So the question is not whether there are benefits to combining the approaches, rather it is how most effectively to use purely musical analysis to support meaning and vice versa. I agree with Robert Hatten, who says, musical meaning is 82 Lawrence Kramer, Haydn s Chaos, Schenker s Order; or Hermeneutics and Musical Analysis: Can They Mix? 19 th -Century Music 16, no. 1 (1992): Ibid., Michael Klein, Intertextuality in Western Art Music (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), Ibid.,

39 inherently musical. 86 It is important that the interpretation of meaning support the structural analysis and that the structural analysis support the interpretation of meaning. By that, I mean that it is potentially easy to fall into the trap of forcing a structural analysis to fit a narrative or expressive interpretation. But, it is also important not simply to attach a narrative or expressive reading onto a structural analysis. The two approaches of analysis must benefit and inform each other while always being deeply founded in the music itself. I recognize that one cannot make general correlations between types of voiceleading constructs and specific meanings; such things only hold for a particular piece and a particular set of circumstances or cluster of musical features in that particular piece. I also recognize that, as we strip away surface features to move toward the middleground level, we also strip away elements that define semantic meaning. But the potential pitfall of combining Schenkerian analysis with semiotic or narrative analysis can be avoided by taking into account the unity found on the background level and by focusing on the foreground level, which looks at surface events in the music. It is the musical surface that provides the support for interesting musical meaning. In recent years some scholars in the field of music and meaning have been criticized for the superficiality of their analyses. By combining deep structural analysis with the approaches of Almén, Hatten, Agawu, Newcomb, and Seaton, I hope to use the interesting but analytically neglected repertoire of Schumann s 1842 chamber music to show how structural musical oppositions, including those found in voice leading, can also relate to oppositions between order-imposing hierarchies and transgressions in order to communicate deeper musical meaning. 86 Hatten, Musical Meaning in Beethoven,

40 CHAPTER 2 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND : Schumann s Chamber Music Year Robert Schumann s music of the early 1840s reveals a new compositional direction for the composer. Prior to 1840 Schumann composed primarily (although not exclusively) solo works for the piano. In 1840, the year of his marriage to Clara Wieck, he turned to works for voice and piano, a year which Schumann called his song year. 87 He began to look for new solutions to large-scale form by turning to instrumental music and the symphony in 1841, a year dubbed by Frederick Niecks some eighty years later Schumann s symphonic year. 88 The large amount of chamber music produced by Schumann the following year led Niecks to call 1842 the chamber music year. 89 Schumann wrote a remarkable number of chamber music works in In the first half of the year he composed very little, but from June to December he composed chamber music exclusively, completing six works: three String Quartets, op. 41; the Piano Quintet, op. 44; the Piano Quartet, op. 47; and the piano trio later published as the Phantasiestücke, op The phrase Schumann s chamber music year has been accepted in historiography, 91 and while he did write the chamber works that would become the best known of his output during that short time period, this generalization is problematized when one takes into account the entirety of his chamber music output. While Schumann wrote a large number of his chamber works during the brief time period from June to December of 1842, it was not his first encounter with the genre. One of his earliest attempts at a piece in a larger form was the C-Minor Piano Quartet of (Schumann labeled it as his op. V), which was likely in response to 87 Frederick Niecks, Robert Schumann (London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1925), Ibid., Ibid. 90 Schumann continued his exclusive composition of chamber music into early 1843, completing the Andante and Variations for two pianos, French horn, and two cellos (op. 46) in January and February. 91 Julie Ann Hedges Brown, A Higher Echo of the Past: Schumann s 1842 Chamber Music and the Rethinking of Classical Form (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 2000), 1. 23

41 Schubert s death on November 19, John Daverio suggests that the C-Minor Piano Quartet reflects a fascination with Schubert s Piano Trio in E-flat, D. 929 and further links the C-Minor Piano Quartet to Schubert with a statement from Schumann s diary entry on November 31, My quartet Schubert is dead dismay. 92 Schumann s own chamber group performed the C-Minor Piano Quartet in early 1829, as is noted in his March 13 th diary entry. 93 This early attempt at chamber music, although not published during his lifetime, was an important step in Schumann s compositional development, especially for someone who had not yet had formal training in composition. Schumann made other attempts at chamber music in , but none were completed. Sketches exist for piano quartets in B major and in A major, both from the same time period as the C-Minor Piano Quartet. 94 His interest in chamber music did not fade, and in an 1838 letter to Clara he writes: I m playing with forms I ll write three violin quartets next. 95 While sketches of those quartets never surfaced, Schumann did sketch two string quartets (D major and E-flat major) a year later. Thus, it is evident that Schumann s turn to chamber music in 1842 was far from abrupt, as he had made quite a few efforts to compose chamber pieces prior to that year. The compositions of 1842 were not the first in the genre of chamber music for Schumann, nor were they the last. The chamber works that came later further complicate the problem of calling 1842 Schumann s chamber music year. He composed many more chamber works after 1842, including the Piano Trio in D Minor (1847), op. 63; the Piano Trio in F Major, op. 80 (1847); the Violin Sonata in A Minor, op. 105 (1851); the Piano Trio in G Minor, op. 110 (1851); the Violin Sonata in D minor, op. 121 (1851); and a number of works composed as sets of miniatures. Schumann did not compose all of his chamber works in 1842, but Brown notes that the works from that year hold a special place because a new and serious intent underlay their composition. 96 Schumann s earlier efforts produced mostly unfinished sketches, whereas the 1842 works show his desire not only to complete the works but 92 John Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a New Poetic Age (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), John Worthen, Robert Schumann: Life and Death of a Musician (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), Daverio, Robert Schumann, Robert Schumann, Letter of 11 February 1838, in The Complete Correspondence of Clara and Robert Schumann, Critical Edition, ed. Eva Weissweiler, trans. Hildegard Fritsch and Ronald L. Crawford, vol. 1 (New York: Peter Lang, 1994), Brown, A Higher Echo of the Past, 2. 24

42 also to have them published, performed, and even reviewed. 97 In his symphony year, in which Schumann composed his First Symphony (op. 38), the Ouverture, Scherzo und Finale (op. 52), the Phantasie in A Minor for piano and orchestra (later the first movement of his Piano Concerto, op. 54), and the first version of the D-Minor Symphony (op. 120), Schumann revealed an attempt to cultivate a reputation for himself as a serious composer by writing in the large-scale forms of his predecessors. In 1842 Schumann seems to have attempted to further cultivate that reputation by writing serious chamber music is the year in which Schumann s chamber music aspirations were realized, but it came with some difficulties in his marriage. In February, while on a concert tour of German cities intended to showcase Clara s virtuoso talent as a pianist, Robert became depressed after being insulted by court officials following a concert given by Clara in Oldenberg. 98 He returned to Leipzig alone, while Clara finished her concert tour, and he wrote in their marriage diary, This separation has once again made clear to me our particularly difficult situation. Should I neglect my talent in order to serve as your travelling companion? And conversely, should you let your talent go to waste simply because I happen to be chained to the journal and the piano? 99 During the weeks spent in Leipzig apart from Clara, Schumann studied the string quartets of Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn, as well as separate studies in counterpoint. 100 This led to his three op. 41 string quartets, composed in the summer of Schumann wrote the quartets in record time, finishing the first in A minor during his birthday week (June 4 11), then writing the second in F major between June 11 and July 5, and the third in A major between July 18 and July Within six short weeks he completed three quartets, and Clara s birthday (September 13) was celebrated by the first performance of the three works, which took place in their home with Ferdinand David concertmaster of the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig and friend of Robert and Clara leading the quartet. 102 Schumann thought of the quartets as among his finest 97 Ibid. 98 Daverio, Robert Schumann, Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann, and Gerd Nauhaus, The Marriage Diaries of Robert & Clara Schumann: From Their Wedding Day Through the Russia Trip, ed. Gerd Nauhaus, trans. Peter Ostwald (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1993), Eric Frederick Jensen, Schumann (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), Worthen, Robert Schumann, Ibid.,

43 years. 107 The Piano Quintet was first played privately in December in Leipzig at the home achievements, and he dedicated them all to Mendelssohn. 103 The public response to the string quartets was also favorable, and Moritz Hauptmann a music theorist at the newly founded conservatoire in Leipzig praised their artistic moderation with fresh, exuberant fancy. 104 The A-Minor Quartet was first publicly performed in January of 1843, and the score of all three works was published in February (as a birthday gift to Mendelssohn) of the same year. 105 Schumann next turned to the keyboard, writing the Piano Quintet in E-flat, op. 44, between September and October. Even before it was completed, Clara was excited about the new work, commenting in their marriage diary, but thus my Robert worked more with his mind! He has almost finished a quintet which, according to what I have overheard, again seems to me magnificent a work filled with energy and freshness! I hope very much to play it here in public yet this winter. 106 Schumann dedicated the quintet to Clara, and she made it a staple on her concert tour in later of his friends the Voigts and remains one of Schumann s most performed and popular compositions. Mendelssohn, who sight-read the piano part, filled in for Clara, who was pregnant and not feeling well. 108 The Schumanns faced financial difficulties late in 1842, and in the same month as the premiere of the Piano Quintet, Robert accepted Mendelssohn s request that he come and teach composition, score-reading, and piano at the new Leipzig Conservatory. 109 The public premiere of the Quintet, which received positive reviews, took place on January 8, 1843 on a program with the op. 41 string quartets. Franz Brendel (who bought Schumann s journal in 1844) comments, the most successful of his 103 Ibid. 104 Niecks, Robert Schumann, Brown, A Higher Echo of the Past, Schumann, Marriage Diaries, Brown, A Higher Echo of the Past, John Gardner, The Chamber Music, in Robert Schumann: The Man and His Music, ed. Alan Walker (London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1972), Worthen, Robert Schumann,

44 [Schumann s] later works are, in my opinion, the more significant songs, the Peri, and the Piano Quintet. 110 The Piano Quartet, op. 47, also in E-flat, was completed as a companion piece to the Quintet in November of Schumann first mentions the Piano Quartet in a diary entry in October 1842, writing, I ve also been industrious again; a quintet in E-flat major is at the copyist, and I ve finished something else, at least in my mind, which I may not reveal to you as yet however. 111 Schumann later revealed that the Piano Quartet, along with the trio later published as the Phantasiestücke, op. 88, was intended as a Christmas present for Clara. 112 While the trio wasn t finished by Christmas, the Piano Quartet was completed November 26 th. 113 The Piano Quartet was performed privately on programs with the Piano Quintet in early December of 1842, but a public premiere did not occur until December 8, Despite its delay, the premiere was a memorable program, as it was the farewell concert of Robert and Clara Schumann at the Leipzig Gewandhaus before their move to Dresden. 115 The last work composed during Schumann s chamber music year was a piano trio, later published as the Phantasiestücke, op. 88. Schumann began work on this piece in early December of 1842, and Daverio speculates that the trio may have been motivated by Mendelssohn s D-Minor Trio. 116 Schumann commented on the difference in nature of the piano trio and the other chamber works completed in that year, calling attention to its much more delicate nature. 117 Instead of using the sonata-style forms of the String Quartets, Piano Quintet, and Piano Quartet, Schumann turned back to the more intimate forms of the piano miniatures. For this reason the Phantasiestücke is often not included in discussions of Schumann s chamber music year. The early years of the 1840s led to Schumann s finally establishing a reputation as a composer of consequence, with works such as his D-Minor Symphony and the Piano Quintet. These years also reveal a marked change in Schumann s compositional 110 Franz Brendel, Robert Schumann with Reference to Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and the Development of Modern Music in General (1845), in Schumann and His World, ed. R. Larry Todd, trans. Jürgen Thym (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), Schumann, Marriage Diaries, Brown, A Higher Echo of the Past, Ibid. 114 Ibid., Ibid. 116 Daverio, Robert Schumann, Ibid. 27

45 style. His turn from the freer styles and forms of his piano miniatures to the more serious forms of his predecessors (namely Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven) with his symphonies and chamber music of expose Schumann s desire to achieve a reputation as a serious composer. In the years following 1842, Schumann explored the genre of the oratorio, with his secular oratorio Das Paradies und die Peri (1843); after the Schumanns Russian tour of 1844, he experienced a crisis during which he composed very little. Following their move to Dresden in 1844, Schumann became interested in musical dramas. Mostly, though, Schumann s compositional output in the years following 1843 is a mixture of all of the major genres, including musical dramas, miniatures, piano cycles, sonatas, chamber music, symphonies, concerti, and lieder. Daverio remarks that Schumann s creativity in the final phase of his career was shaped by a re-enactment and completion of the march through the genres begun years before Schumann s Chamber Music Models Schumann was quite familiar with the chamber music repertoire of his contemporaries and composers of the past. He seemed to see himself and his contemporaries as heirs of a tradition that reached back to Bach and was upheld by composers like Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven. Brown asserts that the sense of purpose he felt by composing instrumental music stemmed partly from a sense of historical self-consciousness and responsibility. 119 Plantinga remarks that Schumann did not intend for historical models to be imitated literally, rather they serve instead as a fund of ideas and techniques usable for the enrichment of contemporary style but it must always remain contemporary style. 120 By beginning his chamber music year with the creation of three string quartets, Schumann overtly aligned himself with the rigorous standards set by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. 121 Prior to 1842 Schumann regularly attended rehearsals of a quartet led by Ferdinand David, gaining exposure to repertoire of contemporaries and of the 118 Ibid., Brown, A Higher Echo of the Past, Leon B. Plantinga, Schumann as Critic (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), Brown, A Higher Echo of the Past,

46 classical masters. 122 In 1839 he began a prolonged study of Beethoven s late string quartets, and it is therefore safe to say that Schumann s study of the works of the masters began well before Schumann s choice to begin with string quartets is notable. Plantinga observes that Schumann only reviewed fourteen string quartets in his career as a critic, examining works of Spohr, Cherubini, Reissiger, Verhulst, Taubert, and Schapler. 123 Carl Dahlhaus remarks that the history of the string quartet (and the symphony and sonata) after Beethoven is problematic, being split by a rift, or perhaps we should say a gaping abyss, between their roles in reception history and in the history of composition. 124 Dahlhaus goes on to say that while Beethoven s string quartets may have previously reigned in the concert repertoire, the later development of the genre was checkered and disjoint. 125 Nonetheless, Schumann tackled the string quartet head on in the summer of As mentioned earlier, Schumann studied the string quartets of Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven in the spring of 1842, during the weeks he was alone in Leipzig while Clara finished her concert tour. In a May 1842 entry in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik Schumann wrote, The quartets of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven! Who does not know them and who dare cast a stone at them? Though it is definite evidence of the indestructible vitality of those creations that, after the lapse of half a century, they still delight all hearts, it is not to the credit of the recent artistic generation that in so long a period of time nothing comparable has been created. 126 He also turned seriously to the study of counterpoint and fugue during March and April of 1842, and the results of this contrapuntal study are obvious in all three of the string quartets of op. 41, especially in the introduction of the A-Minor Quartet, which begins with a motive presented in fugato. 127 This interest in counterpoint also carried through to the finales of both the Piano Quintet and Piano Quartet. We do not know exactly which quartets of Mozart and Haydn captured Schumann s attention in the spring of His high regard for Mozart s music in 122 Ibid. 123 Plantinga, Schumann as Critic, Carl Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-Century Music, trans. J. Bradford Robinson (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989), Ibid. 126 Konrad Wolff, ed., On Music and Musicians, trans. Paul Rosenfeld (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1946), Daverio, Robert Schumann,

47 general is seen in his 1841 statement in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik that Mozart s music becomes ever fresher with repeated hearings. 128 Haydn, widely known as the father of the string quartet, did not hold as high a place in Schumann s mind, as he goes on to say nothing new is to be found in the music of Haydn. 129 No matter how highly Schumann regarded the quartets of Mozart and Haydn, it is evident that he was familiar with their works from the many rehearsals of David s quartet group he attended. In addition, Daverio notes that after Clara returned to Leipzig she and Robert read through many of the scores of Haydn and Mozart s quartets at the piano. 130 Daverio goes on to discuss a built-in affinity between Haydn s and Schumann s styles, especially as regards their respective approaches to sonata form and Schumann s less obvious debt to Mozart which involves the handling of sonata form. 131 I love Mozart dearly, Schumann wrote in a November 1842 diary entry, but Beethoven I worship like a god who remains forever apart, who will never become one with us. 132 The works of Beethoven seem to play an influential role in Schumann s turn to chamber music. Of Beethoven s sixteen string quartets, the last five held the greatest attraction for Schumann. Schumann wrote, they [the late string quartets] seem to me to be on the extreme boundaries of human art and imagination thus far attained. 133 In 1842 Schumann said, In Beethoven s later quartets treasures may be found which the world scarcely yet knows, and amid which we may mine for years to come. 134 Jensen observes the influence of Beethoven s late quartets on Schumann s quartets in several general features: the unusual and unexpected tonal relationships, extreme chromaticism, disruptive rhythmic configurations, emphasis on fugato and imitation; and adaptations of conventional structures. 135 Beyond these broad similarities, Jensen asserts that there is a specific association between Schumann s first quartet and Beethoven s op. 132, which bear strong structural and thematic similarities in their respective slow movements. 128 Plantinga, Schumann as Critic, Ibid. Quoted from NZfM, 14 (1841), Daverio, Robert Schumann, Ibid., Schumann, Marriage Diaries, Jensen, 210. Quote taken from Rückblick auf das Leipziger Musikleben im Winter David Whitwell ed., Schumann: A Self-Portrait In His Own Words (California: Winds Press, 1986), Jensen, Schumann,

48 When it came to his contemporaries, Schumann held the highest regard for the works of his good friend Mendelssohn. While Schumann admired the chamber works of Schubert as well (recall the earlier discussion of the influence of Schubert s death on Schumann s C-Minor Piano Quartet in ), most of Schubert s quartets (except for the Death and the Maiden Quartet, which Schumann praised) would not have yet been available to him in published form in Schumann dedicated his op. 41 quartets to Mendelssohn, and he seems to have been most concerned about Mendelssohn s opinion of his work. In October 1842 Schumann, after a performance of his quartets by David s string quartet, revealed his pleasure at Mendelssohn s reaction to the music, Mendelssohn told me later while leaving that he cannot really explain to me how much he likes my music. That made me very happy; since I consider Mendelssohn the best critic; of all living musicians he has the clearest vision. 137 The three string quartets of op. 41 are the only string quartets in Schumann s output. The majority of his chamber music includes the piano, and Daverio remarks that Schumann was exposed to works for piano and strings from a young age. 138 Daverio goes on to say that in the Blätter und Blümchen aus der goldenen Aue, a book assembled during his early teenage years in Zwickau, Schumann mentions his first exposure to chamber music for piano and strings, including Mozart s Piano Quartets in G Minor (k. 478) and E-flat Major (k. 493) and the Piano Quintet (op. 1) of Prince Louis Ferdinand. 139 Near the end of 1828 Schumann formed his own piano quartet with himself as pianist, Johann Friedrich Täglichsbeck as violinist, Christoph Sörgel as violist, and Christian Glock as cellist. 140 Although there is no documentation to prove it, it is likely that Schumann s piano quartet from the late 1820s read through the two piano quartets of Mozart just mentioned and perhaps even the piano quartets of Beethoven (WoO 36, no. 1 in E-flat major; WoO 36, no. 2 in D major; and WoO 36, no. 3 in C major). It is also highly likely that Schumann became familiar with the piano quartets of his friend Mendelssohn: op. 1 in C minor, op. 2 in F minor, and op. 3 in B minor (all composed between ), although probably not until much later. 136 Daverio, Robert Schumann, Schumann, Marriage Diaries, John Daverio, Beautiful and Abstruse Conversations: The Chamber Music of Robert Schumann, in Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music, ed. Stephen E. Hefling (New York: Routledge, 2004), Ibid. 140 Ibid.,

49 Regarding piano quintets, neither Haydn, Mozart, nor Beethoven wrote for a piano and string quartet, although Mozart wrote a famous piano quintet for piano and winds. Whether Schumann was aware of Schubert s well-known Trout Quintet (D. 667) is uncertain (the Trout Quintet is scored for piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass and was composed in 1819 and published in 1829). Despite the lack of clarity on Schumann s specific models for his piano quartet and quintet, he is definitely not the first, or last, to have composed in the genre. The role of the piano in both the Quartet and Quintet of Schumann alternates between musical substance and virtuosity; the Quintet, especially, is a play of quasisymphonic and more properly chamber-like elements. 141 Critics have faulted the Quintet for what some consider an overly prominent piano part, and according to one explanation, offered by Homer Ulrich, Schumann conceived the piano as a counterbalance to the four strings and not as one part among five equals. 142 In summary, the primary models for Schumann s chamber music are Haydn, Mozart, and, especially, Beethoven. Mendelssohn s work, especially his Piano Trio in D minor (op. 49) and piano quartets (op. 1, op. 2, and op. 3), also had an influence on Schumann. Despite his familiarity with and knowledge of the works of these great composers, Schumann valued those who came before him but also wanted to forge an identity of his own. He understood that, to be a worthy successor of Beethoven s innovations, one could not imitate them, but rather transform them into something new Schumann and the Musical Setting of Chamber Music The performance contexts of chamber music, originally composed for small groups of instruments that could perform easily in a palace chamber, began to evolve in the nineteenth century. The word chamber signifies that the music was to be performed in a small room in an intimate atmosphere, and it was most often amateur musicians who performed the genre prior to the nineteenth century. Although amateur chamber music playing still thrived in the mid-nineteenth century, it was also a period 141 Daverio, Robert Schumann, Homer Ulrich, Chamber Music; The Growth & Practice of an Intimate Art (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1948), Brown, A Higher Echo of the Past,

50 of increasing professionalization of chamber music performance. Professional quartets were formed, and there were a growing number of professional and public chamber music concerts and concert series. Many changes in society and in musical tastes occurred in the middle of the nineteenth century that had an impact on chamber music composition and performance. Dahlhaus remarks that chamber music in the nineteenth century was forced by its technical difficulties to go outside the world of domestic music-making and into the bright glare of the public concert. 144 He further comments that this dilemma, neatly captured in the self-contradictory concept of a public chamber music concert has never been fully resolved. 145 The spirit of conversation between individual performers in chamber music began to dissolve with the rise of public chamber concerts, but despite this the conversation was still there in the texture, although now a sophisticated enactment of that intimate conversation staged for an audience. Schumann reached compositional maturity during a time period in which chamber music had come to occupy an intermediary position between private and public entertainment. 146 Schumann wrote that in a true quartet everyone has something to say a conversation, often truly beautiful, often oddly and turbidly woven, among four people. 147 An example of a private performance occurred on January 8, 1843, as a part of Musikalische Morgenunterhaltung ( Musical Morning- Entertaining or Conversation ), where Schumann s A-minor String Quartet and Piano Quintet were performed for only those who were invited to the event. 148 Other examples of private performances have already been discussed, such as the performance of the three string quartets in the Schumanns home to celebrate Clara s birthday (September 1842), and the performance of the Piano Quintet at the home of the Voigts, with Mendelssohn at the piano (December 1842). Schumann noted in 1838 that the four members of a string quartet, unlike the members of a symphony orchestra, constitute their own public thus supporting the 144 Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-Century Music, Ibid. 146 Daverio, Robert Schumann, Stephen Hefling, The Austro-Germanic Quartet Tradition of the Nineteenth Century, in The Cambridge Companion to the String Quartet, ed. Robin Stowell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), Ibid. 33

51 private nature of chamber performance. 149 Adorno mentions the same idea in his analysis of the changing social function of chamber music in the nineteenth century. 150 Daverio remarks that Schumann s [string] quartets, in short, may number among the last representatives of the true chamber idiom where players and listeners are one. 151 The audience for chamber music continued to grow larger, and during the Schumann s 1844 tour of Russia a private performance of the Piano Quintet drew close to forty listeners. 152 One might speculate that the more orchestral textures of both the Piano Quartet and Piano Quintet (although much more so in the Quintet) deserves, and in fact requires, a move from private venues to the public sphere. The virtuoso piano part of the Piano Quintet, Daverio notes, will only receive its due from an artist at home on the concert stage. 153 Schumann s chamber works for piano were intended for professional pianists Clara and Mendelssohn rather than amateurs. 2.4 Schumann s Compositional Process The following discussion about Schumann s compositional process is based on the pioneering work of Linda Roesner and her 1983 dissertation titled Studies in Schumann Manuscripts with Particular Reference to Sources Transmitting Instrumental Works in the Large Forms. Roesner examines the manuscripts of a number of works by Schumann from the standpoint of his creative process as a composer, his working habits and methods of preparing a work for performance and publication, and his stylistic development Schumann s Early Compositional Process Most of Schumann s manuscripts contain evidence that their contents were not written down in a single continuous act the variety of inks and pen points or pencil show the many passes he made through both the sketches and the fair copy. The use of different ink and pencils indicates where he may have broken off and begun the 149 Ibid., Theodor W. Adorno. Introduction to the Sociology of Music (New York: Seabury Press, 1976), Daverio, Robert Schumann, Ibid., Ibid., Linda Roesner, Studies in Schumann Manuscripts with Particular Reference to Sources Transmitting Instrumental Works in the Large Forms (Ph.D. diss., NYU, 1983), iv. 34

52 compositional process again. 155 Almost all the manuscripts for Schumann s early piano music (including the sonatas) are either fragmentary preliminary sketches or more finished sources ready to give to copyists. 156 There are few, if any, manuscripts that indicate middle stages of continuity drafts in his early works. Since there are no continuity drafts for early works, we can conclude that Schumann wrote his early works from the preliminary sketches at the piano and the fair copies were then subjected to numerous revisions. 157 Or, it might be that continuity drafts existed but were discarded, unlike sketches (which show the moment of inspiration) or fair copies (which one needs). One exception is the Fandango of 1832 (later the first movement of the Piano Sonata in F-sharp Minor, op. 11), which reflects an intermediate stage of composition. 158 The op. 11 Fandango sketches reveal how the composer improvised diverse ideas without any consideration of how they would be fitted together. 159 The Piano Sonata in G Minor, op. 22, manuscript ( ) sheds additional light on Schumann s early compositional procedures. He made changes by extracting, moving about, omitting, and substituting large blocks of finished material, while leaving intact the surrounding musical text, indicating a piecemeal approach to composition. 160 In addition, the idea sketch was constructed by writing down an open-ended improvisation on a basic melodic or rhythmic pattern. 161 Schumann s early approach to composition was mosaic-like, as different ideas can easily be changed around, added, abridged, or omitted with minimal effect on the overall form Schumann s Late Compositional Process For Schumann s later works, continuity drafts survived. The manuscripts of his Symphony No. 1 in B-flat Major, op. 38, show the same techniques he used in his chamber works a mixture of mosaic and improvisatory techniques but now he would leave empty bars in continuity drafts to be filled in later. An examination of the 155 Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,

53 manuscripts of his later large-scale works indicates that his approach changed, as he worked out structural changes in the sketches, as opposed to earlier works, where he made major structural changes at the fair-copy stage. 163 The sequence for the sketches of the op. 41 string quartets was predominantly regular they reflected fairly accurately the compositional order of the music, while the sketches for the later Violin Sonata, op. 105, and E-flat-Major Symphony are more complicated and difficult to follow. 164 Schumann s revisions in the op. 41 quartets reflect his growing concern with structural balance for example, shortening previously excessive transitional passages but continued his earlier practice of repeating large blocks of material in development sections. 165 While Schumann was increasingly thinking about solutions to problems of large forms with op. 41, the revisions and music reveal that his approach was still largely rooted in the additive techniques of his early style. 166 By the early 1840s Schumann s improvisational approach to large-scale composition had been brought under control even though he still composed at the piano as seen in sketches of op. 38 and op In a letter of 1838 Schumann cautioned Clara against the pitfalls of improvisation. 168 Continuity drafts that appeared in the early 1840s provide a complete sketch outline of the works, which indicates that long-term planning had replaced the moment-to-moment evolution of the earlier works; most of the structural revisions took place in the sketch or continuity draft and not in the fair copy, as it did in his earlier works. 169 Less reliance on improvisation in the early 1840s led to a change in how Schumann handled thematic material the works contain fewer thematic ideas than the early works and these ideas are more thoroughly worked out. 170 However, the mosaic-like fitting together of ideas in the early works does carry over to the later works, in that he constructed many of his themes by adding together four-bar phrases on common or related ideas. Large-scale orchestral and chamber works of his later 163 Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid. 36

54 years (the D-Minor Trio, op. 63, the E-flat-Major Symphony, op. 97, and the violin sonatas) show a complete break with additive methods in favor of ongoing thematic processes and continuity in the larger structural sense, the result of his study of counterpoint of Bach and his involvement with large forms in general Conclusions Both practical and personal reasons influenced Schumann s changes in compositional interests and style in the early 1840s. Clara s father was reluctant to let his daughter marry Schumann and one of the concerns he expressed was how Robert would support his wife. After their marriage in 1840 Schumann s journal continued to do well, but he had definitely not met with commercial success as a composer. In addition, the immensely personal piano works that dominated Schumann s output prior to 1840 separated him, at least somewhat, from the concert-going public. In a letter to Clara from the late 1830s, Schumann acknowledges this by writing, You were wise not to play my pieces they aren t suited for the public and it would be pitiful if I were to complain later that the audience hadn t understood something which wasn t intended for public acceptance; it wasn t intended for anything at all and exists only for its own sake. 172 By turning to the genres of the symphony in 1841 and chamber music in 1842, Schumann sought to provide works for the public that are both more accessible and more comprehensible than the immensely personal and complex piano works. 171 Ibid., Brown, A Higher Echo of the Past, From a letter of March 19,

55 CHAPTER 3 A ROMANCE NARRATIVE: JEAN PAUL AND THE PERSONA IN THE FIRST MOVEMENT OF THE PIANO QUINTET Northrop Frye s 1957 book Anatomy of Criticism posits a set of four narrative archetypes (romance, tragedy, irony, and comedy) that use a circular model: the narratives are conceived as moving around a circle, representing a move from a state of innocence and happiness at the top (romance), down to a state of experience or catastrophe (tragedy), moves to a different state of experience with irony, and back up to the narrative of renewal and recovered happiness (comedy). The analyses that follow in Chapters 3 through 6 will use Byron Almén s adaptation of this circular model, which maps Liszka s binary oppositions (order-imposing hierarchy/transgression and victory/defeat) onto Frye s circular model, to provide readings of each of the four movements of Schumann s Piano Quintet, op. 44. The movements of the Piano Quintet move around the entire circular model of narrative archetypes, from a state of innocence or happiness (first movement), falling to the world of experience with tragedy (second movement), to more experience with irony (third movement) and finally upward from experience to recovered happiness with comedy (fourth movement). We begin with the first movement, a heroic romance narrative that is enriched by the influence of Jean Paul on Schumann as a composer, by the idea of two characters (Florestan and Eusebius) in the movement, and by the idea of a persona who is an aspiring Romantic artist seeking a place among the great figures in the world of art. 3.1 Romance Narrative in Literature and Music The romance archetype occupies the narrative of innocence and happiness in the upper right quadrant of Almén s circular adaptation of Frye s archetypes. According to Almén, a romance is the archetype of wish fulfillment, of the valorization of the ideals 38

56 of a community. 173 The romance archetype produces a narrative in which the orderimposing hierarchy is victorious over its transgression, and a rough high-low-high profile is applied to the rank of the valued elements. This high-low-high rank profile is the result of the implication of a potentially endless series of confrontations with the elements that threaten the dominant hierarchy; the low rank represents the impact of the various elements of transgression. 174 In literature, romance frequently employs idealized, mythical, and imaginary elements that have more to do with the imagination than with current cultural conditions. This is true in musical romances as well, where extra-musical or topical references are often pastoral, mythic, transcendent, or divine. 175 A romance narrative, though, does not just embody the romantic topics listed above; rather it must involve the victory of an order-imposing hierarchy over its transgression. Emphasizing the victory of the order-imposing hierarchy is crucial with a romance narrative, which means that the analyst must view the hierarchy in a positive light. According to Almén, the romance archetype occupies uneasy ground within our current interpretative landscape, because society of the twenty-first century is the child of a demythologizing and ironic age. He goes on to say, While the other three archetypes find productive service in the modern world tragedy as a reminder of the necessary limits of human desire and achievement, irony in its awareness of the insufficiency of any system, and comedy in its subversive call to hope and redemption in the face of inequality the romance seems at the very least irrelevant, if not dangerously fatal Given society s current trend toward iconoclasm and the dangers of fundamentalisms of all kinds, what purposes are served by narratives that defend the faith or project the ideals of a community? 176 One answer to this question of purpose is Almén s idea that romance narratives point to the necessity and importance of determining a hierarchy of values through 173 Byron Almén, A Theory of Musical Narrative (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2008), Ibid. 175 Ibid. 176 Ibid.,

57 which to negotiate the world. 177 In addition, while romance narratives may not provide a specific productive service in the modern world, they do, according to Almén, provide a path between nostalgia for an imaginary past and the potential for engendering a new future. 178 In the following analysis of the opening movement to Schumann s Piano Quintet, the romance narrative contains not only romantic topics such as the pastoral, it also traces the path of a heroic protagonist who attempts and ultimately succeeds in navigating through a world full of uncertain hierarchical values and transgressions against those values. Through his journey, the hero manages to overcome these uncertainties and successfully navigate this path between nostalgia and a new future. But, the journey of the heroic protagonist is not one of a conventional succession of functional events. It is instead one that avoids clear linear narrative, much like the novels of Jean Paul, which Schumann loved and admired. A brief examination of the influence of Jean Paul on Schumann is necessary before beginning the analysis of Schumann s movement. 3.2 Schumann and Jean Paul Schumann, who was an avid reader of literature of all types, was especially fond of the works by Jean Paul Friedrich Richter ( ). In her recent book Schumann s Piano Cycles and the Novels of Jean Paul Erika Reiman makes the case that the sleight of mind required to traverse the dense, digressive prose of Jean Paul may find useful application to the fragmentary, enigmatic, harmonically, and rhythmically surprising tendencies in Schumann s piano cycles. 179 Reiman relays a large amount of evidence from Schumann s letters and diaries to show his affinity for the works of Jean Paul throughout his life; by the late 1820s his personal writings displayed the impact Jean Paul had already exerted on his life and artistic viewpoints. Below are a few of the representative examples of his fascination in his late adolescence with the works of Jean Paul, as noted by Reiman: 177 Ibid., Ibid., Erika Reiman, Schumann s Piano Cycles and the Novels of Jean Paul (New York: University of Rochester Press, 2004), 3. 40

58 I have often asked myself where I would be if I d never known Jean Paul: but he seems to be entwined with at least one side of me... I would perhaps write in just the same way, but I wouldn t flee others company as much, and I d dream less... I can t exactly imagine what I would be... I can t puzzle out the question. J. Paul has three sorts of spirit: soul, humour, wit, just as a turkey has three sorts of meat; one explains another and the three are as closely related as the three kinds of meat in the turkey. Jean Paul... and Beethoven hang beside one another in my room; they have already made some people unhappy; these people became too elated and could not be happy and yet they were happy. For me it s melancholy, a delight made of joy and pain mixed together While the above quotations are from the diaries of his late adolescence, Schumann did read and reread the works of Jean Paul throughout his life. Reiman notes that Schumann purchased a complete edition of Jean Paul s works in 1853 at the age of forty-three, and he mentions reading all five of the major novels in the summer of that same year. 181 It is evident that Jean Paul had an enormous impact on Schumann s literary and artistic formation. In her book, Reiman focuses solely on the influence of Jean Paul on Schumann s piano cycles from , and she effectively demonstrates how Jean Paul s digressive style and new ideas of form and genre permeate Schumann s solo piano music. But Reiman acknowledges that the influence of Jean Paul on Schumann s early piano cycles could also be traced through Schumann s later output, such as his songs, chamber music, and symphonies, since there is a strong continuity of style, particularly on a small-scale level, between Schumann s piano music and his other works. 182 Anthony Newcomb does just that in his article "Schumann and Late-Eighteenth Century Narrative Strategies," which culminates with an analysis of the final movement from Schumann s String Quartet in A Major, op. 41, no. 3 (1842). Anthony Newcomb 180 Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,

59 says knowledge of Schumann s love of the early German Romantics, especially Jean Paul, is well known and notes that One can in fact make a documentary case that Schumann recognized as applicable to music certain narrative strategies in novels of his time, for he constantly described the music he liked best in terms of novels, and he explicitly acknowledged the inspiration that he took for his own compositions from the technique of his favorite novelists. 183 In relation to Schumann s own compositional output, Newcomb asserts Schumann, like Jean Paul, avoids clear linear narrative through a stress on interruption, embedding, digression, and willful reinterpretation of the apparent function of an event (what one might call functional punning). He does so in such a way as to stress the process of narrative interpretation (the listener s part in what Ricoeur calls following a story ). 184 Newcomb acknowledges that literary critics have recognized another ideal of narrative in some late eighteenth-century fiction that is different from the linear or teleological, and such narratives delight in questioning paradigmatic plots by standing conventional situations on their heads. He argues that Schumann often takes pleasure in doing the same thing. 185 Newcomb and Reiman are not the only authors to acknowledge the significant influence of Jean Paul on the music of Schumann. The basic concept inherent in Jean Paul s style of prose is that of Witz ( wit ), discussed at length by John Daviero in Robert Schumann: Herald of a New Poetic Age. According to Daverio, Witz is that element which can transform a series of disconnected fragments into a constellation of mysteriously related terms. 186 Reiman discusses Witz in terms of Jean Paul, saying that Witz brings the most far-fetched comparisons to life, discovering the unknown similarities underlying immense superficial difference.... uncovering the deeper 183 Anthony Newcomb, Schumann and Late-Eighteenth Century Narrative Strategies, 19 th -Century Music 11 (1987): 168. Schumann s Papillions is the only piece in which a clear programmatic connection to Jean Paul exists, as Schumann drew parallels between Papillion and Jean Paul s novel Flegeljahre, but Newcomb points out that there are many other parallels between the two artists. 184 Ibid., Ibid. 186 John Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a New Poetic Age (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997),

60 affinities between all things. 187 Newcomb notes that the narrative device of Witz, so beloved by Jean Paul, is the faculty by which subtle underlying connections are discovered (or revealed) in a surface of apparent incoherence and extreme discontinuity. 188 Schumann s musical equivalence of Witz is found in Newcomb s analysis of the A-Major String Quartet rondo in the way the composer interconnected seemingly disparate fragments, which is the musical equivalent of Witz. 189 In his discussion of the influence of Jean Paul on Schumann, John Daverio notes that Jean Paul remained the writer to whom Schumann returned most often, and he indicates that Schumann made his own attempt at a Bildungsroman with his novel Selene, which is dated from late In Schumann s novel the heroic character, Gustav, is described by Schumann as a hoher Mensch ( high human being ). Daverio observes that Schumann departs from Jean Paul s notion of a hoher Mensch as an individual sublimely indifferent to earthly cares. 191 Instead, Schumann associates the hoher Mensch with the ability to temper Promethean energy through Olympian restraint. 192 He writes, Gustav must pass through all the schools of life; he must learn both to hate and to love; his youthful demeanor must be tender and mild in order to show that the higher being can submit to the fetters of calm, but that his Promethean sparks remain unextinguished nonetheless. 193 It is this idea of a hoher Mensch that provoked Schumann, a few years later, to split the dual personality of the superior being into the dynamic ( Florestan ) and contemplative ( Eusebius ) characters that occupy so much of Schumann s critical writings and his own music. 194 Daverio notes that the hoher Mensch emerges in retrospect as a cipher for the author-composer s idealized attempt to neutralize the conflicts in his own being, to rise above his human limitations. 195 This idea of two opposing characters, Florestan and Eusebius, will play an important role in the following narrative analysis of the opening movement of Schumann s Piano Quintet. I will map the Florestan personality onto Almén s concept of order as the heroic protagonist, and the Eusebius personality onto Almén s concept 187 Reiman, Schumann s Piano Cycles and the Novels of Jean Paul, Newcomb, Schumann and Late-Eighteenth Century Narrative Strategies, Ibid. 190 Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a "New Poetic Age," Ibid., Ibid. 193 Ibid. 194 Ibid., Ibid. 43

61 of transgression. The eventual victory of order over transgression will represent the victory of the Florestanian character over the Eusebian one at least in this movement. This discussion of Jean Paul and Schumann barely scratches the surface of the enormous influence that Jean Paul brought to bear on Schumann in both his literary and musical works. Nevertheless, it helps to put into perspective the following analysis, both in terms of the composer s use of the literary technique of Witz and in terms of the presence of the Florestan and Eusebius characters. But before beginning the analysis, a brief discussion of persona in music is necessary. 3.3 The Persona Theory The idea of a musical persona was first explored in a scholarly study by Edward T. Cone in his 1974 book The Composer s Voice. Cone suggested every composition is an utterance depending on an act of impersonation which it is the duty of the performer or performers to make clear. 196 Cone asserted that even in pure instrumental music there is a musical persona that is the experiencing subject of the entire composition, in whose thought the play, or narrative, or reverie, takes place whose inner life the music communicates by means of symbolic gesture. 197 In a recent article Robert Hatten and Jenefer Robinson claim music can sometimes be heard as containing a persona, a fictional or virtual agent whose emotions are expressed in the music. 198 They go on to say that it is often appropriate to hear or imagine a fictional or virtual persona in the music with whom we can identify or sympathize, allowing us as listeners to gain further insights into the structure and meaning of music. 199 They assert, once the listener is able to identify the complex emotional states as being expressed by a persona; it also becomes possible to identify an entire piece as enacting the psychological story of a persona...regardless of whether we identify with the composer, with the performer, or the most general case with an imagined agent in the music. 200 In his approach to narratology in music Douglass Seaton insists that for music to contain a narrative it must have two essential features: plot and voice. His idea of the 196 Edward T. Cone, The Composer s Voice (Berkley: University of California Press, 1974), Ibid., Jenefer Robinson and Robert S. Hatten, Emotions in Music, Music Theory Spectrum 34 (2012): Ibid., Ibid

62 voice, or persona, is deeply rooted in Cone s theory and is supported, in some senses, by Hatten and Robinson s more recent article. Seaton is careful to point out that while plot is commonly found in music, especially in Romantic music, not every piece of music contains a narrative persona. In my analysis of the opening movement from Schumann s Piano Quintet, I will show, using the ideas of Cone, Robinson and Hatten, and Seaton, that this movement s persona can be identified as a Romantic artist who is trying to achieve some sort of personal success, which can be mapped onto a composer who aspires to write works in large forms and his desire to rise to the compositional level of Beethoven. 3.4 Analysis: The First Movement of the Piano Quintet In the following analysis of the first movement of Schumann s Piano Quintet, I provide a narrative reading of the movement as an example of a romance narrative archetype, in which an order-imposing hierarchy is victorious over its transgression. I suggest that a reading of the movement as a romance narrative, in which a protagonist is victorious, can be enriched by three ideas: (1) that this movement portrays the profound influence of Jean Paul s literary techniques especially that of Witz on Schumann in terms of the formal structure, (2) that this movement could be interpreted as containing a protagonist who can be mapped onto Schumann s Florestan character and who in is conflict with a Eusebius character, and (3) that the persona is an aspiring Romantic artist The Order-Imposing Hierarchy and Transgression As shown in Table 3.1, the structural characteristics of the tonic major key (Eb), characteristics associated with a normative sonata form, regular four-bar hypermeter, metrical consonance, and the heroic topic of the Florestan character represent the order-imposing hierarchy in this movement. Transgression, on the other hand, is represented by keys that go against the tonic major key (especially biii), characteristics of Jean Paul s Witz that prevent the success of sonata form, irregular hypermeter, metrical dissonance, and topics that represent Eusebius ( pastoral and sensibility topics). 45

63 Table 3.1. Order Imposing Hierarchy versus Transgression. Order-Imposing Hierarchy: Transgression: Structural Characteristics of the Tonic Major Key (Eb) Keys That Go Against the Tonic Major (Especially biii) The Characteristics Associated with a Normative Sonata Form Characteristics of Jean Paul s Witz that Prevent the Success of the Sonata Form Clear Four-Bar Hypermeter Hypermeter Difficult to Determine Metrical Consonance Metrical Dissonance Heroic Topic (Representing Florestan) Pastoral and Sensibility Topics (Representing Eusebius) Table 3.2. Formal Diagram of the Exposition. Exposition Theme: P TR1 TR2 TR3 S1.1 S1.2 S1.1 S1.2 S1.1 S2 K Key: I Eb I Eb V Bb V Bb biii Gb V Bb V Bb V Bb V Bb V Bb V Bb V Bb Measure #: Topic: Heroic Lyrical Heroic Lyrical Sensibility Pastoral/ heroic Sensibility Pastoral/ heroic Sensibility Con fuoco Heroic Character: Flor. Hints at Euseb. Flor. Hints at Euseb. Euseb. Attempt to gather energy Foiled Attempt to gather energy Foiled Last attempt to gather energy Flor. (success) 46

64 In addition to establishing the characteristics associated with order and transgression, it is important for the reader to have an understanding of the overall form of the movement. While this movement generally adheres to the norms associated with sonata form, there are several formal anomalies that contribute to the narrative trajectory of the movement. The most notable is the delay of the arrival of the dominant key area in the exposition through Schumann s use of Gb major (biii). 202 A summary of the form of the exposition is seen in Table The Exposition: P This movement opens with a principal theme (from here on referred to as P) that exhibits characteristics of order (Example 3.1). In E-flat major, mm. 1 2 contain a bass pedal point that stresses tonic, and P goes on to present a single phrase in a clear fourbar hypermetrical structure ending with a perfect authentic cadence in m. 9. The full chordal texture includes a doubling of the melody in the piano and the first violin, and the dynamic marking is forte. The accents in mm. 1 2 and 5 6 emphasize the heroic nature of P, which can be divided into two primary motives: (1) motive x, the large upward leap in m. 1 (and repeated in mm. 2, 5, 6 and 7); and (2) motive y, the leap down and two steps up which is found in m. 3 (and repeated in m. 4). This heroic P theme portrays the protagonist as Florestan, the more outgoing of the pair of contrasting artistic characters. In this theme Florestan is a hero who is confident, aggressive, and somewhat rambunctious in nature, supported musically by the sense of urgency imparted by the ascending leaps and the intense rhythmic drive to the cadence in m. 9. The Kopfton (3) is quickly even impetuously achieved in m. 3 by the gestures of reaching-over in mm. 1 3, and the phrase closes with a local descent to scale degree 1 in m. 9 (Example 3.2). 202 Peter Smith discusses Schumann s tonal pairing of Eb and eb/gb at length in his chapter, "Associative Harmony, Tonal Pairing, and Middleground Structure in Schumann s Sonata Expositions" in Rethinking Schumann (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011),

65 Example 3.1. P Theme ( Heroic Topic), mm Example 3.2. Voice-Leading Sketch of P, mm

66 While Florestan seems generally invincible in the opening eight measures, there is a slight hint of transgression with the use of b6 (Cb) as a member of a fully diminished seventh chord in m. 2. While the vii o7 is the result of a passing motion in the voice leading, this harmony is strikingly dissonant due to the tonic pedal. The mode mixture b6 returns in m. 5, this time supported by a supertonic half-diminished seventh chord in third inversion. The fleeting sounds of the minor mode through the use of b6 merely hint at a transgression, as they occur only briefly in inner voices and are immediately corrected both times to n6 in the following measures. Despite the references to b6, the rank value of order is high at the end of P due to the heroic nature of the theme and the strong rhythmic drive to the cadence The Exposition: TR1 The opening of the transition (what I will call TR1) provides an antithetic character to the heroic P theme beginning in m. 9, with a more lyrical and introverted version of the P material that constitutes the first hint of Eusebius (Example 3.3). This is a lyrical topic, due to the legato melody, change in texture from thick block chords to a dialogue between the piano and strings, and the piano dynamic marking. The P material is reworked it no longer prolongs tonic but rather leads to a chromatic ascending 5 6 sequence that culminates with a tonicized half cadence in Eb in m. 17. TR1 moves toward the dominant, as expected in a transition, but it reworks the musical material from P in ways that suggest the influence of Eusebius. There is a marked downturn in energy in mm due to the fp and more lyrical statement of the melody, and energy is only slowly regained through the ascending sequence that follows in mm The new texture, in which the piano presents the melody and the strings interject in dialogue with the piano, is more intimate than the homophonic opening version of P, suggesting Eusebius s more tender nature. 49

67 Example 3.3. TR1, mm The TR1 material contains a willed ascent, but it is not easily obtained as it is slow and labored due to the chromatically embellished ascending sequence. The voice leading, seen in Example 3.4a, only reaches scale degree 2 (the Kopfton 3 is never achieved). The AbM (m. 10), BbM (m. 12), Cm (m. 14), and Dm (m. 16) triads are illusory (as clarified in Example 3.4b); even though they are tonicized, they are actually only apparent chords in the ascending 5 6 sequence. This connects strongly to Eusebius s transgressive nature in this movement, distracting the Florestan character from a completely goal-oriented motion. While the overall voice leading does lead clearly from I to V, it does so in a contemplative and thus Eusebian way. 50

68 Example 3.4a. Voice-Leading Sketch of TR1, mm Example 3.4b. Simplified Voice-Leading Sketch of TR1, mm

69 The beginning of TR1 provides a more introverted form of expression. In comparison to the extroverted P of Florestan, TR1 is more lyrical, lending credence to an interpretation of TR1 as hinting at characteristics of Eusebius, or at the very least moving in that direction. Overall, the opposition between the way that the P material is presented in mm. 1 9 and its transformation in TR1 in mm reveals the first suggestion of a conflict between the hero and transgressive external forces The Exposition: TR2 The second subsection of the transition, which I call TR2, begins in m. 17 with a reassertion of the original form of the P theme (Example 3.5), using the same full chordal texture, f dynamic marking, and accents found in mm It seems that the hero obstinately refuses to relinquish his hold on P material, now standing on the dominant to create an expectation of a medial caesura (MC) 203 at the tonicized half cadence in m. 25 (V/Eb) (Example 3.6). The octave Bbs that follow in mm act as hammer strokes that seem to confirm that this is, in fact, the MC. In terms of the narrative trajectory, the return to the original form of the P material in TR2 raises the rank value of order, as the confident nature of the hero returns and the transition ends with a half cadence in the tonic key. The challenge to our protagonist has been set aside at least for now with the return of the more confident version of the P material in m. 17. However, the octave Bb hammer strokes in mm are a marked moment, as the result of the accents, the thinning of the texture to a single pitch class, and the registral expansion to four octaves. I suggest that we hear these Bb hammer strokes metaphorically as a fateful warning, as if something is about to go terribly wrong. 203 James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and Deformations in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). The medial caesura is defined by Hepokoski and Darcy as the brief, rhetorically reinforced break or gap that serves to divide an exposition into two parts, tonic and dominant (or tonic and mediant in most minor-key sonatas) ; it separates TR from S (24). 52

70 Eb: V V V 7 /V V V V 7 /V V Example 3.5. TR2, mm

71 Example 3.6. Voice-Leading Sketch of TR2, mm The Exposition: TR3 The third and final subsection of the transition, which I call TR3, confirms what the hammer strokes predicted: that something has, in fact, gone amiss. The protagonist is derailed from his journey in m. 27 with the return of the lyrical topic from TR1, only now in the lowered mediant, G-flat major (Example 3.7). The character of the lyrical topic is now more hesitant and introspective due to the texture (the piano alone has the melody), piano dynamic level, and the added embellishments (the rolled chord in m. 27 and grace note in m. 28). The transition loses energy at this point, transgressing against the established order because the arrival on the dominant in mm is now undercut by the diversion to G-flat. 54

72 Eb: biii 6 i i 6 biii 6 biii It +6 V/V 55

73 It +6 V/V V/V Example 3.7. TR3, mm TR3 lowers the rank value previously associated with order for several reasons. First, G-flat major (biii) is marked because we expect the transition to remain in the dominant key after its arrival, not to digress to the lowered mediant. As a key area, biii is also marked due to the mode mixture required to achieve it. In what appears to be a strange reversal, the tonic key returns in the minor mode with the lyrical topic presented a minor third lower (mm ). But a voice-leading sketch of TR3 (Example 3.8a) reveals that the E-flat minor triads in m. 31 and m. 35 are merely apparent tonics they are ultimately false, since they are generated structurally as part of a bass arpeggiation from Bb2 (m. 27) to Bb2 (m. 39). This use of E-flat minor is marked because of the minor mode and the use of b6 (Cb), which was foreshadowed in the opening measures of the movement. In mm (a sixteen-bar phrase) the statement of the basic idea (mm ) on eb might be an attempt to correct the digression to Gb, but when the first violin enters with the melody in m. 35, the piano accompanies with broken eighth-note chords, creating an increase in momentum for another move to Gb as the basic idea is repeated in mm (Example 3.7). 204 Measures lead to the expected goal of F major (V/Bb) through an augmented sixth chord in m. 43 (the 204 Peter Smith, in "Associative Harmony, Tonal Pairing, and Middleground Structure in Schumann s Sonata Expositions," discusses the tonicizations of Gb in the transition as participating in an overarching shift from Eb major to Eb minor, which allows an "abrupt shift from the darkness of a six-flat Eb/Gb tonal pairing to the tense sharp-side world of Bb" (238). 56

74 previous Gb triad in m. 42 has become an augmented sixth through the addition of En). This chromatic predominant ushers in the dominant of B-flat major, and the half cadence in m. 50 emerges as the true medial caesura. A deep middleground sketch of the exposition (Example 3.8b) shows that the Gb introduced in the soprano in m. 27 is actually only an apparent neighbor tone to F (2). The Gb, through a voice exchange (mm ), eventually takes its proper place in the bass as b3 in a large-scale chromatic voice exchange that encompasses mm This sketch further reveals that the F in m. 17 (TR1 and TR2) is ultimately a consonant passing tone on its way to En in m. 43; the F at m. 50 is the actual scale degree 2 in the voice-leading structure. This interpretation of the deep middleground voice leading supports the narrative: 3 (G) is now chromaticized to b3 (Gb) through modal mixture, which transforms the consonant tonic triad to the highly dissonant ni +6, thus weakening the rank value of order associated with major-mode 3 over tonic. The introduction of the augmented sixth chord in m. 43 prepares for the real medial caesura, after it was declined at m. 25. From a narrative perspective, since Gb is b6 of the dominant key, the Gb major functions as a retreat into a strange fantasy world, which is Eusebian. 205 The lowering of the rank value of order by this Eusebian Gb (b3 in Eb/b6 in Bb) prepares for the ascendancy of transgressive Eusebius in the second theme area. As can be seen in the simplified voice-leading sketch (Example 3.8b), structural b3 (Gb) is, on the surface, a discontinuity (Witz); however the Gb ultimately moves where it is supposed to go, which is to F (2) although it gets there in a roundabout way by moving into the bass for the medial caesura. TR3 thus presents the first significant transgression against the established order. The digression from the apparent dominant (Bb) to the marked chromatic mediant (Gb), combined with the more hesitant, introspective nature of the lyrical topic presents the first substantial obstacle for the order-imposing hierarchy to overcome in the movement. 205 Michael Klein discusses the use of the lowered submediant as a retreat into the realm of fantasy in his article Chopin s Fourth Ballade as Musical Narrative, Music Theory Spectrum 26/1 (2004):

75 Example 3.8a. Voice-Leading Sketch of TR3, mm Example 3.8b. Deep Middleground Sketch of the Exposition, mm The Exposition: S1.1 The second thematic area opens with what sounds like an introduction (which I call S1.1) to the proper second theme (Example 3.9). 206 This S1.1 module features an idiosyncratic emphasis on the dominant (with an added dissonant ninth) that gives it both transitional and expository qualities at the same time, contributing to a marked formal ambiguity that is indicative of the Eusebian character. Labeled as a sensibility 206 Peter Smith, in "Associative Harmony, Tonal Pairing, and Middleground Structure in Schumann s Sonata Expositions," calls the material from mm "caesura fill" that prolongs the dominant of Bb (243). 58

76 topic due to the intimate and personal nature of the music, S1.1 begins with a dynamic collapse and dolce markings. The immobile S1.1 theme (Example 3.9) is marked for several reasons. First, its V 7 chord delays the resolution to tonic (Bb) until m. 57, delaying a sense of forward progress. Second, this prolonged V 7 contains a dissonant ninth that is introduced in m. 51 and does not resolve to an octave until m. 56. Indeed the rising chromatic lines F-Fs- G in the piano (mm and 54 55) twice prevent this resolution, resulting in a marked emphasis on G5 on strong hypermetrical beats in mm. 53 and 55. Finally, the phrase structure of this theme is marked because it features an eight-bar grouping in which the tonic resolution in the seventh and eighth measures overlaps the first and second measures of S1.2 through a phrase elision. The unexpected nature of this passage in mm its tentative expansion of a very dissonant V 7 chord with added ninth and the somewhat jarring two-bar overlap in mm all support a reading of this passage as being transgressive against the established order. The music seems to get bogged down with the sensibility topic in this passage, as it directly opposes the heroic forward-moving trajectory of the first theme. In most of the recorded performances of this movement the musicians take time at the end of m. 56 to lead into the more proper S1.2 theme. The Eusebian character is without doubt in control in S1.1, supported by the introspective, pleading nature of this introduction to the second theme. Having finally reached an intermediary goal in m. 50 with the medial caesura, a relaxation occurs in mm that opens the way to Eusebian introspection. S1.1 S1.2 V 9 8 Example 3.9. S1.1 and S1.2, mm

77 The Exposition: S1.2 and S2 The arrival of the proper second theme in mm (Example 3.10) features what I call a "pastoral/heroic" topic. Identified here as S1.2, it is based on the S1.1 material, but it indexes the pastoral due to the simplicity of the harmony and slower harmonic rhythm, the balanced phrase structure, and the simple block chord accompaniment in the piano. While this theme does have a pastoral tinge, it is complemented by a sense of heroic striving due to the rising scalar motion in the cello; hence I read this theme as the hero s reaction to the Eusebian character. The strings pass the melody back and forth, while the piano takes on a strictly accompanimental role using an ascending 5 6 technique. One could argue that this rising motion in the piano builds tension, but when the music reaches D minor (iii) in m. 65 it leads to V 7 /V, which sets up the V 9 again for a return of S1.1. The circularity of the harmonic progression provokes a metaphor of the protagonist making slow progress up a hill (S1.2), rolling back down after the failed attempt to reach the top, then taking a long pause to catch his breath (return of S1.1) before trying again (return of S1.2). Theme S1.2 lacks the sense of complete relaxation found in S1.1 due to the piano accompaniment s gentle syncopation and ascending sequence almost as if it is an attempt to rebuild the energy level indicative of the heroic topic of P. A voice-leading sketch of the second theme reveals a motion from F5 (5 locally) to A5 as a pattern of reaching over (Example 3.11). The motion from an inner-voice D5 connects to the A5, and the ascending 5 6 sequence supports this line. The reachingover gesture (F5 [G5] A5 G5) is a marked feature for two reasons. First, the goalrelated descending fifth-progression from F (2 in Eb major and 5 in Bb major), so often a feature of second themes in sonata forms, is replaced here by a dramatic stepwise ascent that nevertheless is forced back down to the upper neighbor of F in m. 70 to set up a return of S1.1 in m. 73. This suggests an attempt at forward progress that encounters a huge counterforce despite the presence of several ascending gestures in the voice leading, the drag of transgression (Eusebius) prevents true motion forward in the second theme area, since the melodic structure repeatedly falls back to G5 and F5. The quality of yielding inherent in the stepwise descent of the reaching-over can be mapped onto transgression, as the theme-actor Florestan strives upward, but is continually forced back down to F5. 60

78 Example S1.2, mm S1.1 S1.2 S1.1 S1.2 Example Voice-Leading Sketch of S1.1 and S1.2, mm

79 Table 3.3. The Second Theme Area. S1.1 S1.2 S1.1 S1.2 S1.1 S2 V Bb V Bb V Bb V Bb V Bb V Bb Sensibility Pastoral/heroic Sensibility Pastoral/heroic Sensibility Con fuoco Eusebius Attempt to gather Foiled by Attempt to gather Foiled by Last attempt to energy Eusebius energy Eusebius gather energy-- successful The second thematic area contains three attempts to regain the heroic directness and energy required to break through the Eusebian obstacle in a quest for the essential expositional closure (EEC). 207 As Table 3.3 shows, each attempt contains a Eusebian start (the unsure, questioning sensibility topic of S1.1) and then a quest to refocus with the pastoral/heroic topic of S1.2, which has a forward drive due to its ascending voice leading. It takes three full starts of the pastoral/heroic topic to reach the breakthrough of the con fuoco topic (S2) in m. 99 that brings the EEC in m. 108 and completes a structural descent from 5 to 1 in the local key of B-flat major. The sense of circling created by the return of the introduction material and the stubborn refusal of the voice leading to move forward inspire a metaphor of a protagonist being pulled away from his desired goal two times by his encounter with the Eusebian character. When the con fuoco topic is reached in mm (Example 3.12), there is a marked moment with the bell-like sforzando chords that recall mm but this time arpeggiate Bb-Db-Gb. The German augmented sixth in m. 102 moves to a V 9 in first inversion in m. 103, yet another marked feature as the bass Gb is pushed upward through G to A. This harmonic move signals a reversal: in order to break the surreal, sugary Eusebian dream in S1.1, the protagonist rejects Eusebius s dream-like state by the willed hoisting of the bass upward to initiate a drive to the cadence. The hero overcomes the obstacles encountered in the second thematic area, as evidenced by the 207 Hepokoski and Darcy define the essential expositional closure (EEC) as the second main moment of structural punctuation in an exposition after S-space has begun, as the first satisfactory perfect authentic cadence that proceeds onward to differing material (120). 62

80 rapid resolution of the dominant ninth and descending fifth-progression that leads to the goal of the EEC in m. 108 (Example 3.12). The closing material (K) presents the heroic topic in the dominant key, B-flat major, creating a rounding effect as the listener prepares for the return of P and the repetition of the exposition. The use of the heroic topic as closing material also solidifies the strength of order at this point in the narrative, as the exposition ends with the rank value of order at its highest level yet due to the struggle encountered in the dream-like S1.1 theme and overcome in the final iteration of the increasingly heroic S1.2 theme. b6 (n6) Bb: I i 5 b6 Gr +6 V 4e n (3) 2 (2) 1 V 7yg 6 V 7 /vi vi V 4w ii 6 P 6r ii 6 V 8yf -[ 7td I Example End of Second Theme Area, mm

81 A summary of the narrative of the exposition reveals a conflict between the heroic protagonist, Florestan, suggested by the energetic, heroic P theme (orderimposing hierarchy), and a more introverted character, Eusebius, suggested by the lyrical S1.1 theme. After a hint of Eusebius within the lyrical TR1 theme, the heroic character (Florestan) returns with the P material in TR2, as the transition attempts to move forward toward the dominant key area. Four hammerstrokes on Bb signal what one may perceive is the medial caesura, b ut their fateful warning instead ushers in TR3, which brings back the lyrical topic from TR1, first in E-flat minor ( i ) and then in G-flat major (biii). This digression to i and biii is the first major transgression of the movement, as the hints of a Eusebian character threaten to derail the protagonist s progress. The medial caesura is finally reached in m. 50, confirming that the heroic nature of the protagonist is temporarily resurgent. Then the second thematic area is introduced with the quiet and questioning theme of the sensibility topic (S1.1), which is transgressive due to the dissonant harmonies and the irregular phrase structure these are highly Eusebian characteristics. S1.2, a pastoral topic that attempts to recapture the heroic quality of P, makes three attempts to refocus and regain some of the heroic energy, and it is only after the third try that the heroic agency completely breaks through with the con fuoco, as the music finally reaches the EEC. The closing material (K) brings back the heroic P theme, its triumphant mood confirming that despite all the struggles in the transition and second thematic area the protagonist representing order again prevails Development The development section in this romance narrative brings the conflict between order and transgression to a head. The tension heard in the development represents a full-blown assault on the heroic protagonist as he experiences the most intense challenge yet. A brief introduction to the development introduces a new theme (mm ) that ominously foreshadows the struggle that is ahead for the hero (Example 3.13). In E-flat minor, the falling gesture of this theme and the syncopated whole-note rhythmic values create a metrical displacement dissonance of D 2-1 (1= half note) Metrical dissonance, a term defined by Harald Krebs in Chapter 2 of his book Fantasy Pieces, exists when different metrical interpretive layers are not in alignment. Metrical displacement dissonance is formed by the association of layers of equivalent cardinality that do not align. They are labeled Dx+a, 64

82 This metrical dissonance is combined with a harmonic one, vii o7, whose accented Cb (b6) in m. 120 recalls the Cbs that foreshadowed transgression in the opening eight measures of the movement. An even more dissonant Eb 7 with minor ninth at m. 124 leads to the minor subdominant (ab), creating an ominous feeling that predicts the dark and serious conflict ahead. The threat felt in the introduction to the development is realized with a statement of the P theme in m. 129 in the minor subdominant (ab) that lowers the rank value of the heroic theme. P does not return in the development until 40 bars later, in m. 167, and when it does return it is in the supertonic key, F minor. The ominous Cbs found in the opening of the movement (mm. 2 and 5) return as the third scale degree in A-flat minor in m Motive y from P is then fragmented and distorted in mm with staccato eighth notes in imitation between the right and left hand of the piano. The hocket effect in these measures (broken with rests) and the open harmonic progression ending on V drastically lowers the rank value of this topic, and prepares for a dysphoric transformation of P in m Example Development, mm where D means displacement, x means the cardinality of both layers, and a is the amount of displacement measured in pulse-layer attacks. A displacement dissonance of D 4+1, 1=quarter note means that a four-pulse stream is displaced to the right by one quarter-note pulse. Harald Krebs, Fantasy Pieces: Metrical Dissonance in the Music of Robert Schumann (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999),

83 Sturm und Drang Ascending Fifths Sequence: ab eb bb f 66

84 c f N V 6 i f 67

85 Gb gb db ab 68

86 eb: V 7 The principal theme is further lowered from its position of strength in the exposition due to the entrance of a very unstable, unsettled Sturm und Drang topic in m. 134 (Example 3.13). This topic is based on a distorted version of P s motive y in rhythmic diminution. Its non legato eighth notes in the piano articulate a series of fourbar groups that gradually crescendo through a sequence by ascending fifth (ab eb bb f c). As the conflict intensifies, a more agitated dotted-rhythm accompaniment appears in mm When the topic reaches C minor in m. 154, it is pushed back down to F minor four bars later, suggesting that the hero is unable to advance further. Now in F minor, a Neapolitan sixth in m. 162 leads to V, and the full P theme returns in F minor in m The return of the P theme in m. 167 creates a sense of déjà vu, since it appears that the P theme is going to be treated in the same way as it was earlier in the development, with a distorted and fragmented statement of P s motive y (mm ). But this time motive y is pushed up a half step to Gb major (mm ). The major mode suggests a potential breakthrough for the protagonist, but the half-step shift upward merely intensifies the conflict, and the major mode does not hold for long. In m. 175 Gb major is reversed by Gb minor a strongly marked key because of its distance from the E-flat tonic through double mixture and an ascending fifths sequence begins anew: gb db ab eb. At this point in the narrative it seems that the hero will never break free from the constraints of the struggle communicated by the sequential blocks. Just 69

87 when we think there is no chance for success, A-flat minor is pushed up to a B-flat dominant ninth chord in m. 187 for the beginning of the retransition. A deep middleground voice-leading sketch of the development provides further support for my reading of the development as the central conflict of the movement (Example 3.14). The two ascending third-progressions (supported by the ascending fifth sequences) in mm and mm show a voice-leading structure that is permeated by rising gestures, which creates rising tension. Schumann s use of mode mixture in both sequences (seen in the ascending melodic lines) creates dysphoric ascents that support the conflict experienced in the development. (Notice particularly the transformation of the more normative Bb C D in mm to Bbb Cb D.) In addition, the ascending line from Cb5 (b6) to F5 (2) reveals a deeper meaning for the Cb (b6). Recall from the exposition that Cb (b6) in mm. 2 and 5 of the P theme was the first hint of transgression in the movement. The Cb (b6) was immediately suppressed each time by a resolution to Bb (5), signaling order in the exposition. But in the development the transgressive Cb in m. 134 is pulled up to Db in m. 142; the Cb in m. 183 is pulled up further to Dn in m. 187, creating a dramatic rupture in the voice leading. The rank value of the transgressive b6 is thus raised in the development, as it pulls upward away from its desired resolution to Bb (5). As seen in m. 204 of Example 3.15, it is only at the end of the retransition that the Cb resolves normally to Bb; since this resolution occurs over the structural dominant that ends the development and prepares for the return of Eb major, the order-imposing hierarchy is regaining control as the stage is set for the recapitulation. Example Voice-Leading Sketch of the Development, mm

88 Several details of the retransition (Example 3.15) signify that the conflict between transgression and order has reached its climax. First, the prolonged presence of V 7 chords with added minor ninths, which are highly dissonant, was foreshadowed in the S1.1 theme and indicates extreme tension. Second, the dysphoric eight-pitch fragments of the P theme are used obsessively in the retransition, and the string interjections (mm. 196, 198, 200, and 202) communicate the expenditure of great effort as the protagonist struggles to regain control. The piano finally recovers in mm with the falling octave-progression from Ab5 down to Ab4 (circled on Example 3.15) as the seventh of V 7. It is only in these last four bars of the development that a resolution to the conflict is at hand; the delayed arrival of the recapitulation indicates that it has, indeed, been a close call for the elements of order in this romance narrative. V b9 71

89 Example Retransition, mm The Recapitulation and Coda After the intense struggle of the development, the return of the P theme in the recapitulation is a significant moment in this romance narrative. The rank value of P is the highest it has ever been, as it prevails after having been subjected to intense distortion in the development through the diminution, fragmentation, and sequencing of its motive y. The recapitulation presents the themes of the exposition just as one would expect in a sonata form. While there is still a succession of themes that represent Florestan and Eusebius in the recapitulation, the tonal tension between the tonic and the dominant is removed, which supports the idea that this section is a dénouement. At the 72

90 end of the recapitulation, when the closing theme returns with a final statement of P in m. 314, it is obvious that the heroic topic and the major tonic key associated with the order-imposing hierarchy have indeed been victorious. The extroverted Florestan figure, with his outgoing personality, has succeeded in superseding his Eusebian counterpart. While there is not much to note in the recapitulation other than the success of the heroic Florestan character, the coda presents some fascinating aspects that reveal more about the impassioned personality of the hero. The coda of this movement is elided with the closing material of the recapitulation (Example 3.16). The heroic P theme enters in m. 314, as mentioned above, but instead of cadencing in m. 322, as one would expect, the P theme moves to the minor submediant (c) via an ascending fifth sequence. The sequence of motive y in mm is intensified, in contrast to its appearance in the original P theme: two additional copies of the model take the sequence upward by two extra fifths (Eb-Bb-f-c rather than Eb-Bb) to reveal Florestan s inability to let the sequence go. (One might even regard the hero as obsessive-compulsive at this point because of the effusion of these extra copies of the model.) This sequence sets up what follows, a last triumphant utterance in the final measures of the movement. The dysphoric version of motive y from the development returns in mm , but with an entirely different expressive effect. Although the motive articulates the same metrical displacement dissonance found in the development (D 4-1, 1=quarter note), its harmonic setting is now quite different. The omnibus-style progression in these measures sets up a chromatic voice exchange (An to Gb in the bass and Fs to An in the upper part) that transforms vii o7 /V in C minor (the fully diminished seventh chord a possibly menacing harmonic agency since it suggests movement away from the stable tonic) to a vii o4/2 /V in E-flat major, bringing the music back to the dominant in m Notice that the treble F# (m. 323) is enharmonically reinterpreted as bass Gb (m. 326) to redirect the bass line to F and V 4/3 in m Hence, motive y from the development loses its power to transgress, because it is diverted from its initial harmonic trajectory (as vii o7 /iii or common tone diminished seventh) in order to return to the tonic triad for the final gesture (the last exclamation) at the very end of the piece (mm ). Motive y, mired in conflict in the development, now becomes part of the agency that leads to the final note of triumph in the movement. As the metrical 73

91 dissonance is corrected in the final seven measures, a new eight-pitch figure replaces the diminution of y; as its neighbor motions around 1 and 4 ascend into the highest register of the piano, it is as if a jubilant Florestan is, in a sense, laughing at transgression, which has been rendered powerless by its harmonic redirection. Sequence to C minor: I (V ii) vi Chromatic voice exchange vii o7 /V V 4e V Example K and Coda, mm

92 The middleground voice leading of the coda reinforces the triumphant nature of the outcome (Example 3.17). Note that the ascending 10 5 sequence in mm (involving the motive y, not shown) is redirected by the chromatic voice exchange (mm ) to form the rising progression 3 4 n4 5 in mm a line that builds energy and momentum for the final cadence. The coda thus projects the extroverted quality of Florestan through a later-middleground line in addition to the surface features cited above. Even the final exuberant ascent in mm reinforces the high rank value of the hero, with its nested patterns that refer to the impassioned reachings-over from the opening P theme, now literally overwhelming all available registers of the piano (see mm in Example 3.16). Example Voice-Leading Sketch of the Coda, mm The Persona A few words regarding the presence of a persona are warranted at this point in the analysis. As mentioned earlier, Douglass Seaton maintains that the voice of the narrator is perceived in Romantic music as the subjective spirit from which an artistic manifestation emerges. 209 Seaton goes on to list several devices found within music 209 Douglass Seaton, Narrativity and the Performance of Beethoven s Tempest Sonata, in Beethoven s Tempest Sonata: Perspectives of Analysis and Performance, ed. Pieter Bergé, William E. Caplin and Jeroen D Hoe (Walpole, MA: Peeters, 2009),

93 voice. 210 Voice can also be indicated through extra-musical conditions. Seaton s idea that that might be used to indicate the persona of the voice, some of which pertain to the opening movement of Schumann s piano quartet. The first device found within the music involves the idea that music cast in a particular idiom or distinctive rhetorical style suggests a certain speaker. In this case, the narrative voice seems to be in a dialogue with the conventions of sonata form, but he plays with the form, making it his own. This can be heard with the unexpected turns found in the movement, namely the move to biii in the transition section of exposition, where a strong arrival on the dominant is postponed until the last possible moment. In addition, the abrupt shift in discourse that occurs when the con fuoco topic arrives in TR3 (m. 64) provides a rhetorical gesture of interruption that indicates a sense of voice may be implied by an identification of the persona with the composer, however, does not come into play in the Piano Quintet because there is no strong documented evidence such as a direct quotation of or allusion to the composer s own music or style or reception history to pin the narrative persona to Schumann. Instead, the persona in this movement is one of an artist who is trying to achieve some sort of personal success, which can be mapped onto a composer who aspires to write works in large forms and his desire to rise to the compositional level of Beethoven Conclusions As an example of a romance archetype, this movement is notable for the intense transformation of the heroic P theme through the course of the movement. P first represents the order-imposing hierarchy and has a high rank value in the exposition, but it is subjected to distortion of its motive y in the development section. When it returns in the recapitulation, the P theme (and its y motive) appears to have been returned to its heroic and orderly state; in the coda its dysphoric transformation from the development is emptied of its negative connotations to underscore the triumph of order over transgression. 210 Vera Micznik applies this principle to Mahler s music when she points out that his music contains a higher degree of narrativity than does music from the Classical style, due to its individuality the essential feature of Romanticism in general. According to Micznik, the more unexpected the music is, the greater its ability to contain narrative. Vera Micznik, Music and Narrative Revisited: Degrees of Narrativity in Beethoven and Mahler, Journal of the Royal Musical Association 126 (2001):

94 My reading of this movement as a romance archetype is enriched by an interpretation of the two characters in this movement as represented by Florestan (the P theme) and Eusebius (the S1.1 theme). The outgoing Florestan personality is repressed in the S1.1 theme area as Eusebius s theme seems to lose any sense of direction, an allusion to Jean Paul s use of Witz. After the tumultuous development section, the conflict between Florestan and Eusebius is ultimately resolved in the coda, where Florestan achieves complete dominance in a successful and victorious ending the final heroic gesture in mm It is through the listener s identification of the complex emotional states represented by the persona in this case an aspiring Romantic artist that one can support identifying this movement as enacting the psychological story of a persona. 77

95 CHAPTER 4 A FAILED TRAGIC-TO-TRANSCENDENT NARRATIVE: THE SECOND MOVEMENT OF THE PIANO QUINTET In this chapter I provide a narrative reading of the second movement of Schumann s Piano Quintet, which reveals a failed tragic-to-transcendent narrative. The fall from the innocence and happiness of the first movement s heroic romance narrative is a long and hard one, as Schumann presents a clearly tragic funeral march slow movement. In a rondo form, the movement reveals a protagonist who strives for transcendence throughout the work, with the major-mode singing style of the first and third episodes struggling to break free from the restraints of the tragic funeral march refrain, but success is never achieved in this narrative, and transgression is defeated by an order-imposing hierarchy. 4.1 Tragic Topics Versus Tragic Narrative Tragic topics in music are easy to recognize: the minor mode, slow tempo, sigh figures, descending gestures, chromaticism, expressive dissonances, slow march rhythm, low register, and exact repetition are all indicative of tragic topics. 212 Byron Almén emphasizes that one must tread carefully when analyzing tragic music, as it is easy to confuse tragic narrative with tragic topical signification. A narrative tragedy does not just embody the tragic topics listed above; rather it must involve the defeat of a transgression by an order-imposing hierarchy. Emphasizing the defeat of a transgression is essential when dealing with a tragic narrative archetype, which means that the analyst must view the transgression in a positive light. In a tragic narrative the rank of the valued elements (the transgression) unfolds via a rough high-low temporal profile that ends with the defeat of those elements. 213 It is important to acknowledge 212 The following discussion is based on Byron Almén, A Theory of Musical Narrative (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), Ibid.,

96 that there is, of course, a correlation between tragic narrative and tragic topics. Tragic narrative is reinforced by the presence of tragic topics, and tragic topics are strengthened when combined with a tragic narrative design. Almén asserts that, while one can easily recognize the presence of tragedy in the mood-establishing elements of setting and design, these factors are separate conceptually from the narrative structure of tragedy the catastrophic fall of the hero, whose desires and wishes are frustrated by opposing forces and enabled by the hero s weakness, ignorance, overreach, or flaw. 214 He stresses that tragic topics in music, as in literature, are powerful clues that suggest the presence of tragedy and they enable a certain perspective on it, but they are ancillary to the structural core of the tragic narrative, the defeat of a transgression by an order-imposing hierarchy Analysis: The Second Movement of the Piano Quintet The musical analysis that follows concerning the second movement (In Modo d una Marcia) of Schumann s Piano Quintet in E-flat Major presents an example of a tragic narrative that is complicated by formal and structural problems. While this movement contains many of the topical features one associates with tragedy the most prominent being the refrain s minor-key funeral march my analysis will reveal a failed tragic-to-transcendent narrative trajectory. The first part of the analysis will focus on the formal problems that complicate the narrative. In addition, I will adduce Harold Bloom s theory of the anxiety of influence to speculate that Schumann s movement may be a willful misreading of the rondo from Beethoven s Pathétique sonata. The remainder of the analysis will provide detailed structural support that traces musical oppositions in topic, style, key, motive, hypermeter, texture, and foreground voice leading to support a reading of this movement as a failed tragic-to-transcendent narrative The Order-Imposing Hierarchy and Transgression It will be helpful to summarize the characteristics of the order-imposing hierarchy and transgression in this movement before beginning the analysis. As seen in Table 4.1, order is characterized by the tonic minor key (C minor), regular hypermeter, 214 Ibid., Ibid. 79

97 metrical consonance, and the sense of restraint and sorrow created by the funeral-march topic. Transgression, on the other hand, is characterized by musical events that go against the key of C minor, irregular hypermeter, metrical dissonance, and topics that oppose the funeral march, as the transgression attempts to break free of the restraints of order. The protagonist of this movement is associated with transgression, since a tragic narrative involves the defeat of transgression by an order-imposing hierarchy, and the analyst must view the transgression in a positive light. Table 4.1. Order-Imposing Hierarchy versus Transgression Order-Imposing Hierarchy Transgression Tonic Minor Key (c) Keys that Oppose the Tonic Minor (C, f, F) Regular Hypermeter Metrical Consonance Restrained Funeral March Topic Irregular Hypermeter Metrical Dissonance More Overtly Expressive Topics (Singing Style and Agitato) Formal Problems That Complicate a Tragic Reading An examination of this movement reveals that, while it contains many of the topical features one associates with tragedy, Schumann presents a formal problem that complicates a tragic narrative reading. Table 4.2a shows an unusual aspect of the sevenpart rondo form that has a profound effect on the final outcome of the movement. A move from the tragic state of the refrain s funeral march (order) to the desired transcendent state of episodes 1 and 3 s singing style (transgression) is prevented by a premature arrival of the tonic major key in episode 1. Schumann s presentation of the first episode in the tonic major key and the third episode in the subdominant major key creates a formal problem that affects the narrative trajectory and goes against the Beethovenian model of a minor-key rondo. 80

98 Table 4.2a. Form Chart. Schumann, In Modo d una Marcia. Refrain Episode 1 Refrain Episode 2 Refrain Episode 3 Refrain A B A C A' B' A'' Order Transgression Order Transgression Order Transgression Order Funeral March Singing Style Funeral March Agitato Funeral March Singing Style Funeral March i (c) I (C) i (c) iv (f) i (c) IV (F) iv i (f c) Table 4.2b. Form Chart. Beethoven, Rondo from the Pathétique Sonata. Refrain Episode 1 Refrain Episode 2 Refrain Episode 3 Refrain A B A C A' B' A'' i (c) III (Eb) i (c) VI (Ab) i (c) I (C) i (c) Schumann, who idolized Beethoven, was surely familiar with his rondos, including the finale from the Pathétique Piano Sonata (also in C minor). Beethoven s use of the mediant for episode 1 and the major tonic for episode 3 follows a more typical key scheme (Table 4.2b). Schumann s reversal of the ordering of tonic and non-tonic keys subverts the Beethovenian model of a minor-key rondo and prevents the protagonist from achieving transcendence: when the singing style theme returns in episode 3, the attempt at transcendence fails, because, while it is now in a more appropriate location near the conclusion of the rondo form, it is in the wrong key the major subdominant instead of the expected major tonic The Anxiety of Influence and Schumann s Misreading of Beethoven There is an even closer relationship between the two rondos in Table 4.2a and 4.2b. Despite surface dissimilarities, a comparison of Schumann s funeral-march refrain with the refrain of Beethoven s Pathétique movement in the same key reveals some striking similarities in the voice-leading structures. Example 4.1 provides a voiceleading reduction of the opening of the funeral march and exposes two important 81

99 musical features that support order and communicate a sense of resignation regarding the tragic fate of the protagonist: a distinct emphasis on closure (order), as seen with the two descents in mm. 5 6 and 9 10; and the pianto-related b6-5-1 gestures (resignation), bracketed in mm. 3 4 and 7 8. A foreground sketch of the opening of Beethoven s Pathétique rondo (Example 4.2) shows the same fatalistic gestures, but in reverse order: the closural gesture in mm. 1 2 is followed by the pianto gesture in mm Example 4.1. Voice-Leading Sketch. Schumann, Refrain ( Funeral March ), mm Example 4.2. Voice-Leading Sketch. Beethoven, Pathétique Rondo, Refrain, mm Schumann s reversal of Beethoven s tonal scheme and motivic succession led me to speculate that Schumann s funeral march may in fact be a willful (but subtle) 82

100 misreading of Beethoven s Pathétique finale. The central principle to Harold Bloom s theory of the anxiety of influence is: Poetic influence when it involves two strong, authentic poets always proceeds by a misreading of the prior poet, an act of creative correction that is actually and necessarily a misinterpretation. The history of fruitful poetic influence, which is to say the main tradition of Western poetry since the Renaissance, is a history of anxiety and self-saving caricature, of distortion, of perverse, willful revisionism without which modern poetry as such could not exist. 216 Bloom s idea of creative misprision operates through six techniques, or revisionary ratios, which form the foundation for Bloom s theory. The first revisionary ratio, clinamen, is most fitting for this analysis. Clinamen is poetic misreading or misprision proper A poet swerves away from his precursor, by so reading his precursor s poem as to execute a clinamen in relation to it. This appears as a corrective movement in his own poem, which implies that the precursor poem went accurately up to a certain point, but then should have swerved, precisely in the direction that the new poem moves. 217 While there is no historical evidence that Schumann intended to misread or misinterpret the rondo of Beethoven s Pathétique sonata, Schumann s affinity for musical allusion, his great respect for the music of Beethoven, and his idea that we ought not to repeat the same thing for centuries, but should also think about creating something new 218 lends support to my assertion of a willful misreading. At any rate, Bloom rarely offered such historical evidence; if the reader (or in this case, the listener) could perceive such a misreading, credence was granted to it. 216 Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), Ibid., Robert Schumann, Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 10 (1839),

101 A comparison of the time aspect of each of these movements provides additional support for my reading of the Schumann as a failed tragic-to-transcendent narrative. As seen in Table 4.3, Michael Klein 219 expands Charles Rosen s 220 correlation between a dominant/subdominant opposition and an active/passive one to a second mapping in which the dominant is correlated with movement toward the future and the subdominant is correlated with looking back to the past. 221 I suggest that this idea could be taken further to include a tonic/subdominant opposition in which the tonic is correlated with the present with the idea of reality and the subdominant is correlated with the past with the idea of a nostalgic state. Table 4.3. Mapping the Time Aspect of Narrative onto Tonal Areas Mapping 1: Rosen (1971) Dominant Active Subdominant Passive Mapping 2: Klein (2004) Dominant Movement Toward the Future Subdominant Looking Back to the Past Mapping 3: Tonic Present (Reality) Subdominant Past (Nostalgic State) Mapping this opposition onto the key areas of the Beethoven movement reveals a conventional forward-moving narrative trajectory that leads to the desired and 219 Michael Klein, Chopin s Fourth Ballade as Musical Narrative, Music Theory Spectrum 26, no. 1 (2004): Charles Rosen, The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven (New York: W.W. Norton, 1971), Michael Klein, on pages of his 2004 article, supports the idea of the subdominant as looking back to the past by citing Rosen s characterization of the subdominant in the early Romanic period as representing a diminishing tension and a less complex state of feeling, and not the greater tension and imperative need for resolution implied by all of Beethoven s secondary tonalities. (Rosen, 383) 84

102 ultimately accomplished state of reality (Table 4.4a). Mapping this opposition onto the key areas of Schumann s movement, on the other hand, reveals a backward-moving narrative trajectory that undercuts the idea of success: the narrative moves from the present state of reality to the past, nostalgic state (Table 4.4b). Anthony Newcomb wrote that Schumann often likes to play with conventional linear narrative: Schumann, like Jean Paul, avoids clear linear narrative through a stress on interruption, embedding, digression, and willful reinterpretation of the apparent function of an event. 222 He noted that some narratives from late eighteenth-century fiction like to question paradigmatic plots by standing conventional situations on their heads, and Schumann often delights in doing the same thing, and the slow movement from his Piano Quintet is a good example of him playing with conventional linear narrative. 223 Table 4.4a. Form Chart. Beethoven, Pathétique Rondo. Present (Reality) Refrain Episode 1 Refrain Episode 2 Refrain Episode 3 Refrain A B A C A' B' A'' i (c) III (Eb) i (c) VI (Ab) i (c) I (C) i (c) Table 4.4b. Form Chart. Schumann, In Modo d una Marcia. Present (Reality) Past (Nostalgia) Refrain Episode 1 Refrain Episode 2 Refrain Episode 3 Refrain A B A C A' B' A'' i (c) I (C) i (c) iv (f) i (c) IV (F) iv i (f c) 222 Anthony Newcomb, Schumann and Late Eighteenth-Century Narrative Strategies, 19th-Century Music 11, no. 2 (1987): Ibid. 85

103 Structural Analysis I will now turn to a closer examination of structural aspects of Schumann s movement that support my narrative reading. Seen in Example 4.3, the funeral march which features minor mode, a slow tempo, simple duple meter, sigh figures, a low register, dotted rhythms, and soft dynamics embodies the order-imposing hierarchy and has a high rank value, as it displays a normal funeral march. Example 4.3. Opening Phrase of the Funeral March, mm This funeral march is normative when compared to other contemporary examples of funeral marches, most notably the second movement of Beethoven s Eroica Symphony, also in the key of C minor. Schumann, in a review of his own Six Etudes de Concert after Caprices by Paganini, op. 10, acknowledges his familiarity with the funeral march from the Eroica: In the working out of [Etude] No. 4 the Funeral March from Beethoven s Eroica Symphony floated before me. 224 The slow movement of Beethoven s Piano Sonata in A-flat Major, op. 26 is also a funeral march in the key of A-flat minor. Beethoven wrote a set of variations based on a march by Dressler (WoO 63), the theme of which is a funeral march in C minor. Chopin s Piano Sonata in B-flat Minor, which 224 Robert Schumann, On Music and Musicians, ed. Konrad Wolff, trans. Paul Rosenfeld (New York: Pantheon, 1946), 257. Schumann s comment is not a condemnation of the funeral march per se, but rather a critique of following one minor-mode movement with another that is still more gloomy. 86

104 uses a funeral march as the slow movement, was composed in 1837, just five years before Schumann wrote the Piano Quintet. Schumann regularly provided commentary on Chopin in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, and commented specifically on the funeral march from Chopin s Sonata in B-flat Minor: There follows a still more gloomy Marcia funebre which is repellent; in its place an adagio, perhaps in D-flat, would certainly have been more effective. 225 The piano provides a short introduction in mm. 1 2 (Example 4.4a), which creates a framing effect that establishes the role of the piano as the narrator. The piano enters quietly with an arpeggiated minor tonic triad this descent suggests a closing gesture that functions as an opening, since it initiates the tonic triad. The introduction serves as a two-measure hypermetrical upbeat and sets the somber stage for the funeral march that follows. 226 The octave leap from Eb4/Eb3 up to Eb5/Eb4 and the immediate collapse back to Eb4/Eb3 and on to C4/C3, along with the dotted rhythm of the motive, foreshadows the impending funeral march and implies a metaphor for a narrator saying I will now tell a sad story. This framing motive returns at the end of the refrain in the codetta (Example 4.4b), only now it is extended and the gesture of the motive takes on its appropriate closural function. Whereas the framing motive provides a hypermetrical upbeat in the introduction, it now sets up a surface quadruple hypermeter in the codetta. This new hypermetrical context adds to its fatalistic effect, since complete hypermeasures sound more definitive than upbeats. The falling gesture of the motive sounds, at this point in the narrative, unquestionably fatalistic. A defining mark of narration is a sense of the speaker s detachment, and Schumann achieves this sense of detachment with the framing effect of the piano s opening motive. In the refrain this establishes narrative distance, and while musical narrative cannot have a past tense in the same way as literary narrative music is inherently experienced in the present the framing effect created by the piano introduction and codetta allows the listener to construct a musical counterpart for a narrative voice that is speaking in the past tense Ibid., The listener expects a tonic chord rather than a subdominant chord on the hypermetrical downbeat at m. 3 to harmonize the C4. Instead, Schumann provides the opening tonic in two hypermetrical upbeats (mm. 1 2). 227 In Unsung Voices, Carolyn Abbate cites Ricoeur s argument that much narrative discourse is set off from other discourse in part through its ways of manipulating time, of using tense to achieve a kind of 87

105 Example 4.4a. Opening of Refrain, Framing Motive, mm Example 4.4b. Closing of Refrain, Framing Motive, mm moral distance in recasting the referential object. She discusses the idea of a framing narrator (as there is in Erlkönig) and that the presence of a framing narrator is often kept to a minimum. Carolyn Abbate, Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991),

106 Example 4.1 provided a reduction of the opening of the funeral march, which exposed two important musical features that support order and communicate a sense of resignation regarding the tragic fate of the protagonist: a distinct emphasis on closure seen with the gestures (order) in mm. 5 6 and 9 10 (order), and the pianto-related gestures (resignation) bracketed in mm. 3 4 and 7 8. When the first episode enters in C major (Example 4.5) a powerful transgression reveals a vision of transcendence that drastically reverses the mood created by the funeral march. Example 4.5. Transgression, Episode 1, Singing Style, mm. 29b 37. Example 4.6. Voice-Leading Sketch, Episode 1, mm. 29b

107 In the singing style, this major-mode episode presents all five instruments in a higher register, and the new, much fuller texture created by the marked polyrhythms between instruments creates a shimmering effect that further supports the idea of transcendence the textural plenitude of the first episode opposes the sparseness of the funeral march. A voice-leading sketch (Example 4.6) reveals that the emphasis on the more pessimistic closural gestures in the funeral march is reversed in the first episode with a marked emphasis on the more forward-leading, open progression from 3 to 2. The transgressive nature of the first episode is reinforced by its irregular internal phrase structure. While the refrain contains a strict 4-bar phrase structure, episode 1 has an irregular internal phrase organization, which, when combined with the polyrhythms, results in a somewhat jarring effect. Schumann begins with a twomeasure basic idea, and the listener might expect a repetition and continuation, creating a sentence structure, (Example 4.7a). Instead the repetition of the basic idea is left out and the continuation is extended by harmonic elongation of the cadential dominant, creating a 2+4(+1+1) grouping (Example 4.7b). The rank value of transgression is raised in this first episode, but its valiant attempt at transcendence comes too early in the movement hence, it is unearned, since there are no musical markers that prepare for it in the previous refrain, and a move to the parallel major in a conventional rondo structure usually occurs in the second or third episode rather than the first. Example 4.7a. Recomposed Opening Phrase of Episode 1, mm. 29b 37. Example 4.7b. Actual Opening Phrase of Episode 1, mm. 29b

108 After the first return of the refrain, the second episode (Example 4.8) erupts with an F-minor agitato that transforms transgression into a blatant resistance against order that elevates its rank value. The transgressive agitato contains the typical characteristics of Sturm und Drang, such as louder dynamics, diminished seventh chords used in sequence, and sforzando markings. Example 4.8. Episode 2, Agitato, mm The second episode is, without a doubt, transgression s response to the refrain the emotional outburst of this Sturm und Drang passage rages against the controlled sorrow of the refrain s funeral march. The main surface motive from the funeral march, with its ascending minor third and descending perfect fifth (Example 4.9a) is now transformed into a dysphoric version of the refrain in the agitato (Example 4.9b). Agogic accents on b6 (Db) in mm. 92 and 93 and the expansions and contractions of the falling interval at the end of the motive both contribute to the sense of turmoil and instability that saturates this episode. 91

109 Example 4.9a. Main Motive from the Refrain, Funeral March, mm Example 4.9b. Motivic Manipulation in Episode 2, Agitato, mm As expected in a rondo form, the second episode is the location of the central conflict of the movement. Agogic and dynamic accents on beat 2 create a metrical displacement dissonance of D 4+1 (1=quarter note) (Example 4.10). This displacement dissonance is corrected every fourth measure, which can be mapped onto a struggle between transgression (metrical displacement dissonance) and order (metrical consonance). The transgressive nature of this episode is further emphasized beginning in m. 96 with a conflict between the piano s D 4+1 displacement dissonance and the strings D 4+2 displacement dissonance (Example 4.11). 92

110 Example Metrical Dissonance and Hypermeter in Episode 2, mm

111 Example Metrical Dissonance Between Piano and Violin 1 in Episode 2. 94

112 A voice-leading sketch of the agitato provides additional structural support for my claim that the second episode embodies the central conflict of the movement (Example 4.12). First, the rank value of transgression is raised in the agitato, because the roles of Ab and G are reversed from the refrain: in the refrain the Ab, as 6 of C minor, gives way to G in the pianto gesture (a characteristic of order), while in the agitato the Ab is a stable tone as 3 of F minor (associated with transgression). Second, the sketch reveals a dysphoric transformation of the voice leading from both the refrain and episode 1. The b6 5 gesture from the refrain is foregrounded in the agitato, as seen by the upward pointing arrows. Example Voice-Leading Sketch. Episode 2, Agitato, mm The open 3 2 progression from episode 1 also plays an important role in the voice-leading structure of the agitato, as seen by the downward pointing arrows, but its reiterated Ab G now emphasizes the mournful pianto. The reachings-over seen, for example, at the end of m. 92 to m. 93 with the Ab G, and at the end of m. 93 to m. 94 with the Bb Ab are yet another source of tension that intensifies the sense of conflict in 95

113 this section. Allusions to the opposition of voice-leading aspects of the refrain s order and episode 1 s transgression, when combined with the registral discontinuities created by the agitato topic, can be mapped onto the central conflict of the movement. The rank value of transgression is raised at this point in the narrative, and episode 2 s agitato topic presents the intense struggle that the protagonist needed to have gone through in order to earn the transcendence presented prematurely in episode 1. After the second return of the refrain, the third episode reverses the F minor key of the agitato to F major for a second attempt at transcendence (Example 4.13). The singing-style theme returns, but transcendence once again fails because, while it is now earned after the intense struggle of the agitato and is in a more appropriate location near the conclusion of the rondo form, it is in the wrong key the major subdominant instead of the expected major tonic. Example Episode 3, Singing Style, mm. 132b

114 Conclusion: A Failed Tragic-to-Transcendent Narrative The final statement of the refrain ends with an interesting twist that further complicates this tragic narrative. It begins in the marked key of F minor, which is a direct reversal of the F major from episode 3. The use of the minor subdominant here signals a look to the past, but we are quickly returned to the present, as Schumann restores the C-minor tonic in m. 171 (Example 4.14). The narrator s framing motive returns in mm and functions as an agent that ushers in C minor, seeming to close off any remaining possibility of achieving transcendence for the protagonist, especially since it is elided with the beginning of the next phrase in the strings. In a way, the function of the motive here is similar to its function at the end of the first refrain, when it also sounded quite fatalistic. The return of the funeral march in the tonic minor key indicates that order has prevailed and transgression has been defeated. Or has it? The final eight bars of the movement bring the outcome of this narrative into question. Does it end tragically, or is transcendence which was attempted and denied twice before in Episodes 1 and 3 finally achieved? Example Opening of Final Refrain, Funeral March, mm The final phrase of the funeral march theme begins in m. 184 (Example 4.15), but a truncated repetition of the pianto gesture a measure later in the first violin delays the final cadence the protagonist becomes mired in the plagal realm with the pianto, and 97

115 doesn t seem to want to abandon the b6 5 motion. Schumann adamantly continues to avoid a strong authentic cadence at the end of the movement. There is no sense of a dominant harmony until beat 2 of m. 188, one beat after the final tonic arrival in the cello. This misalignment causes the perfect authentic cadence to fail and undercuts the sense that a goal has been achieved. Transgression, which fought so courageously in episode 2 s agitato, makes its last feeble attempt at victory with repeated efforts to move toward transcendence in the final phrase. A hint of transcendence occurs with the major tonic arrival in m. 188, but the En in the second violin is immediately dragged down to a strikingly dissonant Bn/Dn against a tonic pedal in the cello, and then moves from C4 down to Ab3 and G3, to confirm the nagging pianto gestures in the piano. Example End of Final Refrain, Funeral March, mm The final pianto gesture in the piano in mm is shortened to just the falling fifth from G to C in m. 192, an indication that order has prevailed the fatalistic falling fifth signals resignation and defeat. The protagonist has indeed encountered a tragic outcome. The strings pianissimo C-major chord in the final measure is a last response of transgression to this resignation. This final triad in the high register represents a 98

116 heavenly vision of a longed-for grace that is not immediately within the grasp of the protagonist, but is still desired as the movement comes to a close. The attempts of C major to move toward transcendence in the final refrain are unsuccessful because they are once again unearned there is no hint of C major earlier in the final refrain and the juxtaposition of the tragic pianto gestures against the C-major harmony indicates that it is too little too late in this failed tragic-to-transcendent narrative There are different ways that the ending of this piece can be perceived. An alternate reading of this ending could reveal a miracle plot, where transcendence is not won but granted. The miracle could be heard in the unearned arrival of C major at the end of a piece. 99

117 CHAPTER 5 COMIC IRONY IN SCHUMANN S DIALOGUE WITH BEETHOVEN S FIRST SYMPHONY: THE THIRD MOVEMENT OF THE PIANO QUINTET The analysis in Chapter 4 presented a reading of the slow second movement of Schumann s Piano Quintet as a tragic archetype, the narrative that represents the fall from innocence down to experience in Frye s circular model. My narrative analysis of the third movement, Scherzo, from the Piano Quintet reveals a clockwise move to the other narrative of experience: irony. With my reading of this movement, I reveal a comic ironic narrative archetype, in which an order-imposing hierarchy is defeated by transgressions against it. I suggest that the order-imposing hierarchy is mapped onto the expectations of a Beethovenian scherzo movement, using Beethoven s First Symphony as a point of comparison, and that the transgressive characteristics of the movement correlate with the ways that Schumann s scherzo differs from Beethoven with the ways that Schumann enters into a dialogue with the Beethoven tradition of the scherzo as a genre. 5.1 Schumann and the Beethovenian Tradition of the Scherzo Schumann was quite aware of the Beethoven tradition of the symphony in general and the scherzo in particular, as is evident by many comments made in his writings. Every German orchestra played the music of Beethoven, especially his symphonies, and Schumann did much to champion Beethoven s symphonic works. In a survey Schumann wrote just two years before he began to compose symphonies himself, he comments on how the symphonic works of Beethoven might have influenced the symphonic writing of composers during the period following Beethoven, lamenting the fact that we find many too close imitations, but very, very, seldom, with few exceptions, any true maintenance or mastery of this sublime form in which, bound 100

118 in a spiritual union, continually changing ideas succeed one another. 229 In the same survey Schumann complains that scherzos following Beethoven have nothing of the scherzo about them save the name. 230 Schumann s own writings that discuss the Beethovenian scherzo tend to focus on the famous scherzi from Beethoven s Fifth and Ninth Symphonies, but there is no doubt that Schumann was familiar with the scherzi in the other symphonies as well. The following narrative analysis of the scherzo from Schumann s Piano Quintet will relate Schumann s scherzo to the one from Beethoven s First Symphony, focusing on allusions to the Beethoven movement as well as the ways that Schumann plays with the scherzo as a genre. Before analyzing Schumann s movement, a brief discussion of the Beethovenian tradition of the scherzo is necessary. While many scherzi were written before the year 1800, Beethoven s First Symphony is noted as having dealt the death-blow to the minuet. 231 The perception that Beethoven transformed the minuet into the scherzo is well known, despite the fact that each of Haydn s op. 33 quartets (1781) contains a movement that is specifically given the title Scherzo. Michael Luxner speculates that Haydn is denied the honorary title of father of the scherzo because of a prejudice in favor of the symphony as a genre; since Haydn s scherzi tend to be found in his chamber music, he is not credited with the establishment of the scherzo. 232 In any case, while the scherzo developed from the minuet it retains the composite ternary form of the minuet as well as the typical triple meter time signature the tempo of a scherzo is considerably quicker than that of the more stately minuet, and its character is quite different: the Beethovenian scherzo introduced into the music the element of banter, mischief, and whimsy. 233 Beethoven is credited with establishing the scherzo as a regular alternative to the minuet in four-movement works, and he often took the term scherzo literally by giving his scherzo movements light and even humorous tones. His first true scherzo is found in the wind octet of 1792 (published posthumously as op. 103) and scherzo movements can be found in his op. 1 piano trios as well as in string quartets (op. 18 no. 2, for 229 Robert Schumann, On Music and Musicians, ed. Konrad Wolff, trans. Paul Rosenfeld, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1946), Ibid. 231 Michael D. Luxner, The Evolution of the Minuet/Scherzo in the Music of Beethoven (PhD diss., The University of Rochester, Eastman School of Music, 1978), Ibid. 233 Daniel Gregory Mason, Beethoven and His Forerunners (New York: Macmillan, 1904),

119 example) and sonatas. But the most far-reaching effect is found with Beethoven s introduction of the scherzo into the symphony. In his symphonic scherzos Beethoven produced forward momentum with a combination of pace and quickly alternating textures, while still maintaining the Classical tradition of giving a different speed or character, or both, in his trio section. 234 Beethoven retained simple triple meter in all of his symphonic scherzos except for one (the central section of the Ninth) and he preserved the overall ternary form, through he sometimes expanded the form to A-B-A-B-A-coda by repeating the first two sections as a pair. It is noteworthy that Beethoven s symphonies contain no scherzi that have two contrasting trios. The third movement of Beethoven s first symphony is actually labeled Menuetto, but the tempo is marked Allegro molto e vivace, making it essentially a scherzo. The remaining symphonies all contain a scherzo, with the one exception of the Eighth, which is marked Tempo di menuetto. While only the Second and Third contain the title Scherzo, all the fast inner movements (except for the Eighth) have the characteristics of a scherzo. 5.2 Analysis: An Ironic Comparison of the Scherzo Movements In the following analysis of Schumann s scherzo, I provide a narrative reading of the movement as an example of a comic ironic narrative archetype, in which an orderimposing hierarchy is defeated by transgressions against it. I use Beethoven s First Symphony as a model of the scherzo s characteristics, to propose that the orderimposing hierarchy of Schumann s movement is correlated with the expectations of a Beethovenian scherzo movement. The transgressive characteristics of the movement will correlate with the ways that Schumann s scherzo contrasts with Beethoven s with the ways that Schumann enters into a dialogue with the Beethoven tradition of the scherzo as a genre. 235 It is in this respect that I sense a narrative voice in this movement. 234 Hugh Macdonald, Scherzo (Oxford Music Online, accessed March 21, 2012). 235 It is my idea to relate Schumann s scherzo to that from Beethoven s First Symphony. Schumann did not refer to the scherzo from Beethoven s First Symphony in any of his writings regarding the Piano Quintet. 102

120 Irony as a Narrative Archetype In Northrop Frye s cyclical model of narrative, in which all narratives are conceived as moving clockwise around a circle, irony (like tragedy) is a narrative of experience at the bottom of the circle. Frye s theory of narrative further divides the four narrative archetypes romance, tragedy, irony, and comedy into a spectrum of narrative phases. Almén, using his Liszkian reformulation of Frye s theory, decreases the large number of phases in Frye s model to a smaller number of rough divisions, dividing the ironic archetype into just two distinct phases: comic irony and tragic irony. Almén summarizes the two phases of irony below: In music, comic irony applies to pieces in which the transgressive elements function to call attention, often humorously, to weaknesses or inequities within the prevailing hierarchy. The transgression thus prevails in that the initial hierarchy is rendered more flexible and inclusive as a result of the transgressive activity. The more seriously the initial hierarchy is undermined, however, the farther away from the comic pole one progresses. Tragic irony, on the other hand, features disintegration or an overturning of the initial hierarchy, leaving nothing or something of lesser value in its place. 236 In his discussion of ironic narrative in music Almén says that irony is a narrative of denial and subversion; it resists the comfortable convictions and illusions of the other archetypal forms. 237 In an ironic narrative, where an initial hierarchy is defeated by transgressive elements, the very integrity of that hierarchy... is the focus of attention. 238 Almén stresses that irony often invokes a complex way of listening that is divided into two parts: listening within the frame of expectation and listening without the frame of expectation. In irony, Almén says, narrative conflict generally revolves around and ultimately rejects certain ideals and conventions that form part of our filtered experience of reality. This idea of ironic narrative provides the foundation for my analysis of Schumann s scherzo movement as comic irony. 236 Almén, A Theory of Musical Narrative, Ibid., Ibid.,

121 Introduction to the Analysis Order-Imposing Hierarchy vs. Transgression. The scherzo movement from Beethoven s First Symphony represents the order-imposing hierarchy. This analysis considers the Beethoven movement as regulatory: order is embodied by the formal considerations associated with a Beethovenian scherzo (such as the presence of a single trio and retaining tonic as the primary key area throughout the movement), clear fourbar hypermeter, metrical consonance, and by the heroic topic. Transgression, on the other hand, is represented by Schumann s exaggerations of the musical characteristics found in the Beethoven, such as the addition of a second trio, the move to Gb major and Ab minor in the two trios respectively, irregular hypermeter, the pronounced use of metrical dissonance, and the hyper-heroic topic. See Table 5.1 for a summary of these characteristics. Table 5.1. Order Imposing Hierarchy vs. Transgression in Schumann s Scherzo. Order-Imposing Hierarchy: Beethovenian Scherzo (As Represented by the First Symphony) The Form of a Beethovenian Scherzo: Scherzo Trio Scherzo The Tonal Structure of a Beethoven Scherzo: Remains in the Tonic Key Clear Four-Bar Hypermeter Transgression: Schumann s Take on the Beethovenian Scherzo Schumann s Expanded Form: Scherzo Trio 1 Scherzo Trio 2 Scherzo Schumann s Use of biii and iv for the Trios. Hypermeter Difficult to Determine Metrical Consonance Metrical Dissonance Heroic Topic Hyper-Heroic Topic Overall Form. The form of Beethoven s scherzo movement follows a typical scherzo form with one trio, as seen in Table 5.2. As mentioned earlier, Beethoven s scherzi normally contain only one trio section. Schumann, on the other hand, expands the form significantly to include two contrasting trio sections, as seen in Table 5.3. In addition to the expanded form, Schumann also uses remote key areas for the two trios, modulating to Gb major (biii) for the first and to Ab minor (iv) for the second, instead of following the Beethovenian tradition of maintaining tonic throughout the 104

122 movement. Schumann s expansion of the form and his use of biii and iv as key areas in the trios is transgressive in nature he is going against the Beethovenian norm of a scherzo form. 239 Table 5.2. Form of the Menuetto from Beethoven s First Symphony. Menuetto Trio Menuetto mm mm Men. D.C. I (C) I (C) I (C) Table 5.3. Form of the Scherzo from Schumann s Piano Quintet. Scherzo Trio I Scherzo Trio II Scherzo Coda mm mm mm mm mm mm I (Eb) biii (Gb) I (Eb) iv (ab) I (Eb) I (Eb) A Comparative Analysis of the Scherzo Sections A comparison of the scherzo section from Schumann s Piano Quintet to that of Beethoven s First Symphony reveals ways in which Schumann followed Beethoven s tradition and ways in which he broke with it. Although the third movement of Beethoven s First Symphony bears the title Menuetto, it is, as previously mentioned, recognized as the first appearance of a scherzo in a Beethoven symphony. William Kinderman comments: the dynamic tension is evident from the very first phrase, in which a rising scale pattern in iambic rhythm drives with a crescendo to an emphatic cadence in the dominant. 240 The energetic rhythmic character associated with a scherzo is established with this opening phrase; the rising heroic gesture that spans an octave 239 The only scherzo movement from Beethoven s symphonies that does not maintain tonic throughout is the one found in the Seventh Symphony which contains a chromatic submediant relationship the scherzo is in F major and the trio is in D major. 240 William Kinderman, Beethoven (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009),

123 from 5 to 5 (mm. 1 4) is extended into the next octave but is cut off mid-statement as the gesture falls back to 5 (Example 5.1). Example 5.1. Beethoven, Menuetto from Symphony No. 1, III, mm The theme of the Schumann scherzo reveals an opening gesture similar to that of the Beethoven: a surge of energy upward in the form of a rising scale that begins on scale degree 5. While Beethoven s opening gesture encompasses the interval of a rising octave, Schumann s opening gesture encompasses a rising octave plus a fourth and the gesture is repeated three times a fourth higher each time before falling back to scale degree 5 at the end of the first section in m. 16 (Example 5.2). It is almost as if Schumann is trying to outdo Beethoven by taking the opening heroic motive (a rising octave) and making it hyper-heroic by expanding it to an eleventh and sequencing the motive upward by fourth several times. The transgressive character of the protagonist in the Schumann movement can be described as extroverted in terms of Schumann s alter egos, it is Florestan-like with the hyper-heroic topic, the texture of unison scales, and the marcato and forte expressive markings. A comparison of voice-leading structures of the openings of each movement leads me once again to apply Bloom s theory of the anxiety of influence to the Schumann scherzo. This movement falls into Bloom s second revisionary ratio, tessera, which is one of completion and antithesis: A poet antithetically completes his precursor, by so reading the parent poem as to retain its terms but to mean them in another sense, as though the precursor had failed to go far enough Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973),

124 Example 5.2. Opening of Schumann s Scherzo, mm

125 Carl Schachter s reduction of the Beethoven movement (reproduced in Example 5.3) reveals an opening gesture of an octave up to the Kopfton (G5) that is divided into a fourth (G4 to C5) plus a fifth (C5 to G5). 242 My reduction of the opening of the Schumann movement (Example 5.4a) reveals an opening gesture of an eleventh (Bb2 to Eb4). Example 5.4b shows that Schumann s opening gesture is then sequenced up a fourth three times in order to achieve the Kopfton (G5). The four-fold representation of Schumann s opening gesture results in a Kopfton of 3 instead of 5, which is a significant departure from the Beethoven. Schumann completes Beethoven s opening gesture by expanding it both on a small scale (from an octave to an eleventh) and on a larger scale as he repeats it three times in order to create a more expansive structure Beethoven failed to go far enough, and therefore Schumann completes Beethoven s initial idea. Another voice-leading distinction between the two movements pertains to the importance of a motivic fourth versus a motivic octave. In Schachter s reduction, it is clear that the fourth is a foreground detail while the octave is the ultimate goal. My reduction of Schumann s scherzo reveals that it is the fourth (or eleventh) that is the important interval of the main motive, while the octave is inferior (this is seen most clearly in Example 5.4b, mm. 2 8). Thus, a voice-leading conflict at a motivic level is also established within the opening of each movement. The voice-leading reductions in examples 5.3 and 5.4 reveal additional ways in which Schumann s scherzo is in dialogue with Beethoven s. At the end of the A section, Beethoven s melody falls back to scale degree 5 (G5) in m. 8, while Schumann delays the arrival of the dominant by expanding his A section with a brief tonicization of G minor (iii) before arriving on the dominant (Bb) in m This move to G minor undercuts the transgressive heroic protagonist of the theme it is a self-correction that moderates the excited nature of the protagonist. The falling gestures in mm (seen with the descending fifths from D to G in mm and from F to Bb in mm in Example 242 Carl Schachter, Playing What the Composer Didn t Write: Analysis and Rhythmic Aspects of Performance, in Pianist, Scholar, Connoisseur: Essays in Honor of Jacob Lateiner, ed. Bruce Brubaker and Jane Gottlieb (New York: Pendragon, 2000), Schumann s use of the mediant to delay the structural dominant is found in the first movements of both his Piano Quartet and Piano Quintet, and is one way that Schumann establishes his own voice. Peter H. Smith comments on this feature in Associative Harmony, Tonal Pairing, and Middleground Structure in Schumann s Sonata Expositions: The Role of the Mediant in the First Movements of the Piano Quintet, Piano Quartet, and Rhenish Symphony in Rethinking Schumann, ed. by Roe-Min Kok and Laura Tunbridge (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011),

126 5.4b) resist the protagonist s overly eager character, balancing it so that, despite the exaggeration of the opening gesture and the diversion through the mediant, the music does ultimately achieve scale degree 5 (Bb3) in m. 16, although the Bb (scale degree 5) is sublimated by scale degree 2 in the overall structure. Example 5.3. Reproduction of Carl Schachter s Voice-Leading Sketch of Beethoven, Symphony No. 1, Scherzo, mm Example 5.4a. Foreground Voice-Leading Sketch of Schumann s Scherzo, mm Example 5.4b. Middleground Voice-Leading Sketch of Schumann s Scherzo Ibid. 245 The G5 in m. 34 of Example 5.4b creates a complete neighbor motion (G-Ab-G) that reestablishes the Kopfton at the restatement of A. This is the result of the G5 in the first violin marked tenuto. 109

127 An examination of the hypermetrical organization of the Scherzo from each movement reveals both similarities and differences. The Beethoven opens with an extremely clear four-bar hypermeter, where the dotted half note gets the beat in a compound quadruple perceived meter (Example 5.5). Schumann s movement also opens with a clearly perceived quadruple meter, though this is constructed by combining two of the notated 6/8 bars; hence, Schumann retains the notated beat value of the dotted quarter note (Example 5.6). Both composers place a phenomenal accent on the fourth beat, but Schumann s emphasis is so strong (supported by a crescendo to that beat, a thicker texture, and a tenuto marking) that the listener most likely will reinterpret beat 4 as the downbeat, shifting the meter one beat, as can be seen in m. 2 beat 2 of Example 5.6. This shift creates a metrical displacement dissonance of D 4 1 (1 = dotted quarter note) in Schumann s movement (Example 5.7) another transgressive aspect of the narrative analysis as opposed to the ordered metrical consonance found at the opening of the Beethoven movement. This is another example of tessera, where Schumann "completes" Beethoven s utterance: Beethoven s phenomenal accent on the fourth beat did not go far enough, so Schumann gave the fourth beat such a strong emphasis that the listener likely reinterprets beat 4 as the downbeat, creating the marked and transgressive metrical displacement dissonance. Example 5.5. Hypermetrical Structure of Beethoven s Scherzo, mm

128 Example 5.6. Hypermetrical Structure of Schumann s Scherzo, mm

129 D 4 1 (1 = dotted quarter) Example 5.7. Metrical Dissonance in the Opening of Schumann s Scherzo. In addition to having a less clear hypermetrical structure than the Beethoven, Schumann s scherzo also contains a conflict between the notated meter and the perceived meter that further supports transgression. Beginning with the large hypermetrical downbeat on beat 2 of m. 2, it is possible to perceive the meter as either compound duple/quadruple (with the dotted quarter as the perceived beat) or simple triple (with the half note as the perceived beat) depending on how the listener hears the grouping of the eighth notes in mm (Example 5.8). It is not until m. 18 that the perceived meter is unequivocally established as compound duple/quadruple. The conflict between the notated and perceived meter is transgressive due to the way that Schumann s movement presents confusion between a perception of simple triple and compound duple/quadruple meter. 112

130 ;: cv vvv vvv vvv c D: cv vvv vvv vvv c : c vv vvvv vvvv c ;: c v c v c v c v c D: c v c v c v c v c Example 5.8. Notated vs. Perceived Meter in the Opening of Schumann s Scherzo. The B section of the Scherzo opens with a tonicization of IV, which is then sequenced upward by step to tonicize V. The dominant harmony is then expanded from root position V (m. 24) to V 6 (m. 32) through a circle of fifths progression (refer to Example 5.4b). The descending fifths sequence in mm has a temporary calming effect after the exaggeration of the hyper-heroic topic within the A section. But this brief respite is immediately reversed in m. 34b, with an even greater expression of the idiosyncratic transgression when A' returns. As the first statement of the Scherzo comes to a close in m. 44, the rank value of transgression is raised at this point in the narrative trajectory. The hyper-heroic character of the protagonist, represented by the overly eager ascending eleventh 113

131 gestures and the brief detour through iii (g), resists the constraints of order by its continuous metrical dissonance and by the excessive and uncontrolled energy represented by the rising eleventh motive An Analysis of Schumann s First Trio Trio I, which provides a striking contrast to the extroverted, hyper-heroic nature of the scherzo, is also transgressive (and thus still represents the transgressive protagonist), but it transgresses in different ways from the scherzo. Schumann s first trio (mm ) brings the character and strength of the protagonist into question, as he wanders into unfamiliar territory and seems to lose his sense of direction. The first trio provides a striking contrast to the extroverted, hyper-heroic scherzo in several ways. First, the move to the foreign key of Gb major (biii) is transgressive in the sense that it goes against the Beethovenian norm of remaining in tonic for the trio section. But Schumann makes this section even more transgressive with an off-tonic beginning (IV I) that creates a sense of tonal ambiguity it is unclear whether tonic is Cb or Gb until the cadence in m. 48 that confirms Gb as tonic (Example 5.9). 246 This is in direct opposition to the opening of the Scherzo, which immediately confirmed Eb as tonic in m. 2. Cb: I V or Gb: IV I V 7 I Example 5.9. Schumann, Trio I, mm Robert Bailey discusses this type of tonal ambiguity as reciprocal function, which is a way of defining ambiguity between fifth-related elements. Robert Bailey, An Analytical Study of the Sketches and Drafts in Prelude and Transfiguration from Tristan und Isolde (New York: Norton, 1985),

132 The protagonist s character in the scherzo was unquestionably extroverted, with the hyper-heroic topic, the texture of unison scales, and the marcato and forte expressive markings. In the first trio, his character enters a more introverted, questioning state due to the lyrical topic, the change in texture (the piano now has an arpeggiated accompaniment, while the strings have the singing melody) and the piano dynamic markings. While thus far the analysis has focused on the conflict between Beethovenian order and Schumann s transgression against it, it is noteworthy that there is also a conflict within the transgressive protagonist of the movement that can be mapped onto a conflict between Schumann s alter-egos: Florestan (the extroverted Scherzo character) and Eusebius (the introverted Trio I character). The lyrical topic found in Trio I, with its quiet disjunct melody and simple harmonic accompaniment (IV-I-V 7 -I), can be described, perhaps, as a Eusebian pastoral an unconventional type of pastoral (with the plagal beginning that implies a sense of the past) that is dysphoric in nature (due to the move to bb see Example 5.10, mm ) instead of the more typically euphoric pastoral that remains in the major mode. Or, perhaps the tonal ambiguity is more pertinent here, as it is unclear whether Cb or Gb is the tonic; tonal ambiguity is not characteristic of the typical pastoral topic, but is certainly characteristic of Schumann s Eusebian character. A voice-leading reduction of Trio I reveals a motivic opposition with the Scherzo (Example 5.10). In the Scherzo, the prominent motive is an ascending eleventh (the overly-eager hero), as seen in Example 5.4a. In Trio I, the prominent motive is a falling third-progression (Db-Cb-Bb). The fact that this line (locally 5 4 3) never falls the remainder of the way down to Gb, completing the local voice-leading progression to 1, imparts a more subdued, introverted nature to the protagonist at this point in the narrative. Completion is never quite achieved in the trio, and the listener is left to wonder about the uncertain outcome of this Eusebian-side of the protagonist. In addition, the emphasis in the voice leading on bare fifths and octaves due to the 5 8 linear intervallic patterns (seen most clearly in Example 5.11) is also quite dysphoric. 115

133 Example Foreground Voice-Leading Reduction of Schumann s Trio I. Example Middleground Voice-Leading Reduction of Schumann s Trio I. The roles of the mediant and the dominant are also worthy of note at this point in the narrative. In the scherzo I (Eb) represents the order-imposing hierarchy and iii (g) provided a brief delay (transgression) in the move toward the dominant (Bb) (see Example 5.4b, mm. 1 16). In Trio I biii (Gb) is in control (Example 5.10), but a move to its mediant (bb) in mm (Example 5.10) is accompanied by a reluctant and indecisivesounding melody in the strings: its rising tonic arpeggiations mimic repeatedly the speech-like inflection of a question, and its half cadences show an inability to reach tonal closure. Moreover, the role of Bb has now been reversed: in the Scherzo it was important as the major dominant, while in the Trio I it is undercut as the minor mediant, serving locally as iii in Gb major. 116

134 Trio I, in summary, reveals transgression of a different kind than that found in the Scherzo. The Scherzo s transgression involved a hyper-heroic character, whose overly eager nature was represented by the rising eleventh motive and a detour through iii (g) before reaching the dominant at the end of the A section. The transgression in Trio I offers stark contrast to the hyper-heroic character of the Scherzo with the change in topic to a lyrical Eusebian pastoral, and is thus transgressive against the Scherzo itself. In addition, the reversal of the role of Bb confirms Trio I s transgression against the Scherzo. But, on a different level, Trio I is also transgressive against the Beethovenian norm in the sense that it is in the foreign key of G-flat major (biii) instead of the expected major tonic (I) An Analysis of Schumann s Second Trio The second trio is transgressive in terms of the Beethovenian order in several ways. First, Beethoven never used a second contrasting trio in the scherzo movements of his symphonies or chamber music. 247 Second, Schumann s use of A-flat minor yet another foreign key is transgressive, because Beethoven usually maintained tonic throughout his scherzo movements. Third, the blatant use of duple meter is striking, as consistent use of duple meter is found in only one Beethoven example the Ninth Symphony. In terms of the overall narrative of the movement, the second trio presents the main conflict within the movement, as it provides a change in character due to the agitato topic in minor mode that is frantic and restless (Example 5.12). Example Opening of Schumann s Trio II, mm While Beethoven used a second trio in the same scherzo movements of his symphonies or chamber music, his String Quintet in E-flat Major, op. 4 is the only work with two contrasting trios in the minuet. 117

135 The use of the minor subdominant for the second trio creates a sense of retrenchment of holding back, or receding that negates the linear discourse of the movement. The plagal domain is static, and Schumann goes further into the flat side (as can be seen in the middleground reductions in Example 5.13) with a move to F-flat minor (mm ) and D-flat minor (mm ). The plagal motion is further emphasized at the end of the trio (A-flat minor in mm to D-flat minor in mm back to A-flat minor in mm ). In addition, the ascending 5ths sequence in mm (Cb-Gb-Db-Ab) is antithetic to forward progress, as it culminates in a plagal progression (iv i) in mm The soprano structure of Trio II as a whole is controlled by a middleground falling fourth-progression (Ab-Gb-Fb-Eb in mm ). Its descent through the Phrygian tetrachord and its harmonization (i iii iv i) are quite dysphoric in terms of its effect on the listener; the shift from A-flat minor to C-flat minor in mm is particularly striking and transgressive, especially in terms of what would be normative for Beethoven. Schumann stretches the tonal system here in a harmonic transgression that goes farther that his predecessor, Beethoven again invoking Bloom s concept of tessera. Example 5.13a. Middleground Voice-Leading Reduction of Schumann s Trio II. Example 5.13b. Deep Middleground Voice-Leading Reduction of Schumann s Trio II. 118

136 Conflict between transgression and order is also present on the surface level of the second trio. Four-bar compositional blocks are repeated and sequenced throughout this passage (Example 5.14). These four-bar blocks in isolation may be heard as supporting the order-imposing hierarchy, due to their hypermetrical clarity, but Schumann s consistent metrical displacement throughout the second trio produces a subliminal metrical dissonance that is quite transgressive (D 2-1, 1 = quarter note). Another transgressive aspect of this section is the obsessive repetition of the four-bar unit, which takes on a sense of the uncanny, or at the very least contributes to the sense of strangeness in this section. Thus, the rank value of transgression is raised in the second trio. Example Four-Bar Compositional Blocks and Metrical Displacement Dissonance in the Opening of Schumann s Trio II. Further details add to the strange, idiosyncratic nature of Trio II (Example 5.15). The passage in mm (and the subsequent restatements of this passage later in the trio) is striking due to the way in which the rising scale motive from the scherzo reappears here but takes on new meaning: it is now chromatic rather than diatonic (piano, violin II) and leads to a series of fleeting auxiliary cadences in A-flat minor and B minor that begin with Neapolitan sixth harmony. The original motive in the opening 119

137 of the scherzo spanned an eleventh (Bb to Eb); now, in the second trio this same motive (Bb to Eb) spans a fourth with a chromatic lower neighbor to start in mm This creates a dysphoric transformation of the original motive in this passage. In addition, a further transformation is heard motivically in mm and mm (the subsequent repetitions): the motive in the first violin part is expanded in mm from a perfect fifth to a minor ninth, which imparts a greater sense of tension (Example 5.15). Example Motivic Transformations in Trio II, mm

138 The rising conflict in Trio II is also supported by the transformations of the piano accompaniment figuration, as it becomes more and more agitated rhythmically throughout. The heightened sense of agitation is the result of repeated chords with accents in the piano left hand and the doubling of the melody in the right hand (m. 138). Tension is ratcheted up again with the introduction of dotted rhythms in the left hand in m. 182 (Example 5.16). Example Progression of Piano Accompaniment Figuration in Trio II. Trio II provides the main conflict of the movement with a major change in topic due to the sudden and jarring agitato and to a simple duple meter. The order-imposing hierarchy, represented by the clear four-bar phrases, is suppressed by transgression s metrical displacement dissonance, by the static plagal domain, and by the unique middleground structure that explores dark regions in the plagal domain. The character of the protagonist, which was hyper-heroic in the Scherzo, Eusebian pastoral in Trio I, and clearly agitated and frantic in Trio II, has been through the emotional gamut at this point in the movement. The return of the hyper-heroic character in the Scherzo following Trio II brings a continuation of the struggle to transgress a struggle that culminates in the Coda An Analysis of Schumann s Coda The coda, which provides a triumphant look back at the protagonist s journey, more importantly provides the final stage in the differentiation process from Beethoven, as Schumann transforms the eleventh motive into a twelfth. As seen in Example 5.17, the rising eleventh motive from the Scherzo now ascends a perfect twelfth from Eb to Bb, although it does pause on the eleventh (Ab), before being pulled up to An where the music pauses for even longer until reaching Bb in m This new form of the hyperheroic motive is repeated and displays the exuberant triumph of the protagonist his excessive energy, which could have been a detriment, ends up gaining him victory over 121

139 the order-imposing hierarchy. In fact, the Bb is pulled up further to Cb (b6) (m. 250b) before falling back to Ab (4) and then on to the final G (3). Example Coda to Schumann s Movement, mm

140 In addition, the rising gesture now involves eight dotted-quarter beats that end on the dominant, instead of the four dotted-quarter beats established earlier. Beginning with a tonic pedal in broken octaves in the piano, a grouping dissonance (G3/2) is created that engenders an immediate opposition: the stability of the tonic pedal versus the grouping dissonance (Example 5.17). The metrical displacement dissonance established in the Scherzo (D 4 1) is still present in the coda, but it is finally resolved at the end of the coda in mm , where the downbeat is emphasized clearly with accented dotted-quarters in the first violin and viola. A deep middleground sketch of the entire movement reveals that the voice leading of this movement, according to Schenker s theory, "works" the fundamental line descends as expected at the end of the final return of the Scherzo (Example 5.18). However, a voice-leading sketch of the coda reveals an inner voice motion that adds further support for a reading of this movement as comic irony (Example 5.19). As seen in the sketch, an inner voice is superimposed over the structural 1 (Eb5) that states the original eleventh motive from the scherzo expanded to a twelfth. This expansion to a twelfth introduces a climatic Bb5 (5) that is approached with a chromatic ascent (G5-Ab5- An5-Bb5), intensifying the arrival at Bb and perhaps alluding to the opening of the Beethoven (refer to Example 5.3), which achieves the Kofpton (5) also through a chromatic ascent (C-D-E-Fs-G). We find, however, that this climatic Bb5 as 5 is ultimately "false" since it is in fact a reaching over that resolves down by step to Ab5, an upper neighbor to the inner-voice 3 (G5). This feature enhances the reading of an ironic narrative, since the attaining of Bb5 as 5 is shown here to be structurally subordinate rather than the Kopfton. Once again, an allusion to the Beethoven scherzo in terms of the treatment of 5 is shown to be irrelevant just at the point where Schumann is at his most joyful and triumphant in the coda Schumann has indeed overthrown his precursor. 123

141 b Example Deep Middleground Sketch of Schumann s Scherzo Movement. Example Voice-Leading Sketch of Schumann s Coda Conclusion My analysis of the plot of Schumann s scherzo movement as an exemplar of the ironic narrative archetype that falls in the comic phase of irony is rooted in the idea that irony is a narrative of denial and subversion, it reminds us of the unreality of our ideals, shatters our convictions, and throws aside our conventions. 248 To recall Almén s quote regarding comic irony: 248 Almén, A Theory of Musical Narrative,

142 In music, comic irony applies to pieces in which the transgressive elements function to call attention, often humorously, to weaknesses or inequities within the prevailing hierarchy. The transgression thus prevails in that the initial hierarchy is rendered more flexible and inclusive as a result of the transgressive activity. 249 In this sense, Schumann s movement takes many of the conventions and ideals associated with the scherzo, as developed by Beethoven, and subverts them. The irony occurs in this narrative as we the listeners anticipate what will happen within the Beethovenian frame of expectation, and when those conventions are thwarted (such as with the duple meter agitato for the second trio in a foreign key), we are surprised or even disoriented. But ultimately, Schumann effectively changes the hierarchical order: because this is a successful piece with a positive outcome, he has widened the listener s narrow expectations for the Scherzo. Ultimately, in my reading of this Schumann movement the narrative trajectory reveals the limitations of the Beethovenian scherzo limitations that Schumann effectively overcomes with his strategy of tessera. 249 Ibid.,

143 CHAPTER 6 A COMIC ARCHETYPE OF EMERGENCE: THE FINALE OF THE PIANO QUINTET My analyses of the previous three movements of Schumann s Piano Quintet reveal a clockwise motion around the circular model of narrative archetypes created by Northrop Frye: the narrative for the work as a whole has moved from the state of innocence at the top with a romance (the first movement), down to the analogy of experience with a tragedy (the second movement), and over to irony (the third movement). The final movement falls in the comic category, completing the circular model with the narrative of renewal moving upward from experience to recovered happiness. In the following analysis of the Piano Quintet finale I will highlight tonal, formal, and topical anomalies to support a reading of this movement as a comic narrative archetype, in which a transgression is victorious over an order-imposing hierarchy. Specifically, I will interpret the movement as an example of the discursive strategy of emergence, where the transgressive elements gradually acquire a higher rank value until they successfully defeat the order-imposing hierarchy. As preparation for this topic, we begin with a brief overview of Almén s comic archetype and the discursive strategies used to achieve such a transvaluative result. 6.1 Comic Narratives and Discursive Strategies Just as Almén warns us to tread carefully when analyzing tragic music, as it is easy to confuse tragic narrative with tragic topical signification, he cautions us to do the same with a comedy. Comedy, according to Almén, has many varied associations, including a generally humorous tone or light-hearted character of a work, cultural types or genres such as farce, comedy of manners, or parody, or techniques such as hyperbole, sarcasm, or even irony. 250 A comedy can express conventions of storytelling such as a happy ending, or can reveal an experience of reality, such as an awareness of 250 Almén, A Theory of Musical Narrative,

144 the absurdity of life and human eccentricity. 251 Comic topics such as these can be inserted into music through techniques like exaggeration or incongruity of expectation and reality. But for a piece of music to fall into the comic archetype, two things must be present: (1) the victory of a desired transgression over an order-imposing hierarchy, and (2) a transvaluative structure in which transgressive elements challenge and overturn an initial hierarchy. Almén further describes the necessary conditions for a comedy in music: In order to make the transgressive element acceptable to the reader or listener, the initial hierarchy is generally presented as flawed, limiting, or overly rigid. By contrast, then, the critical feature of the transgressive element is its adaptability, by means of which it is able to achieve its higher status. Comic narratives thus frequently inscribe a rejection of arbitrary limits; since this dynamic is a stereotypical component of generational conflict, comic narratives are often presented rhetorically as involving a conflict between the old and the young, whether familial or social. 252 One element that is essential to the nature of a comic narrative is an increased freedom or flexibility and the possibility of transgression achieving success; comedy is the only archetype that inscribes adaptability and change as valued elements in the narrative design. 253 It is because of this that comedies are more likely to feature freer discursive trajectories. Almén goes on to say that, while the definition of a comic archetype is the successful overthrowing of an old order, there are several ways to attain that result in music. He lists three discursive strategies epiphany, emergence, and synthesis that are templates for achieving a particular transvaluative result in a comic archetype. The first strategy, epiphany, occurs when an impasse in the narrative conflict gives way to a sudden, unexpected new development, or epiphany, that enacts this transvaluation the victory of the transgressive elements at a stroke. 254 The second strategy, emergence, occurs when the transgressive element gradually and steadily 251 Ibid. 252 Ibid., Ibid. 254 Ibid.,

145 acquires a higher rank value until the transvaluative result has been achieved. 255 The third and final strategy is synthesis, where the transgressive element merges or combines with valued elements of the initial hierarchy from which it had been excluded or devalued. 256 When synthesis is found, the transgression achieves narrative victory through reconciliation with the initial hierarchy, resulting in a newly constituted synthesis. 257 The discursive strategy found in the comic narrative of the quintet finale is that of emergence, where the transgressive element begins with a low rank value and gradually increases in value through time. Almén points out that the strategy of emergence suggests most often a transgressive element whose power is undervalued or even completely overlooked, and the transgressive element appears to effect its own victory by building in strength until it is unstoppable. 258 Almén uses Debussy s L isle joyeuse to illustrate this discursive strategy in a comic archetype, with an analysis in which the three primary themes found in the piece dictate the narrative trajectory. His reading reveals that the third theme, presented first in a subdued state and then with great confidence, initiates a process of reversal that transvalues the hierarchical relations in the work as a whole. 259 My analysis of the quintet finale will reveal a similar process of emergence, in which a flawed order-imposing hierarchy represented by the minor mediant key, a parallel form that fails, and a low-style peasant topic that creates the listener s expectation for a normative folk-like finale is ultimately defeated by a positively viewed transgression represented by the major tonic key, and a substantial coda that corrects the failed parallel form and features high-style learned topics. Before turning to my narrative analysis of the movement, I will summarize the essential features of a parallel form, and discuss the irregularities of this specific movement. 6.2 Parallel Forms and its Application to the Quintet Finale Linda Roesner, in her 1991 article Schumann s Parallel Forms, identified the use of these forms in Schumann s early large-scale piano works parallel forms are binary structures with each half containing equal or at least similar content, found most 255 Ibid. 256 Ibid. 257 Ibid. 258 Ibid., Ibid.,

146 often in outer movements of his piano works. 260 The article uses Schumann s Presto passionato in G minor, op. Posth., and the outer movements of the Concert sans orchestra (F-Minor Sonata), op. 14, and Fantasie, op. 17 all composed in the 1830s to propose that, with those pieces, Schumann rethinks sonata structure by replacing the customary sonata procedures with a more flexible type of parallel form that permits a unique overall design to each work. 261 Rosener s Figures 2 and 3 (my Figures 6.1. and 6.2) reveal a structure of the opening movement of op. 14 that is parallel both tonally and thematically: the exposition in F minor, development in Ab major, a retransition that leads to the recapitulation in F minor, and a restatement of the development in Db major before returning to F minor for a coda. Figure 6.1. Reproduction of Roesner s Figure 2; Formal Diagram of the Piano Sonata in f, op. 14, I. Figure 6.2. Reproduction of Roesner s Figure 3; op. 14, I, Depiction of the Symmetrical Form Based on Tonal Mirror Images. 260 Linda Correll Roesner, Schumann s Parallel Forms, 19 th Century Music 14 (1991): Ibid.,

147 Julie Hedges Brown, in her dissertation, provides a diagram that shows how the binary form of traditional sonata form is reconfigured with a parallel sonata form. Reproduced in my Figure 6.3 below, it is evident that in such a form the recapitulation restates the development section as well as the exposition, causing a large-scale sequential repeat, or tonal parallel, for most of the second half of the form. Brown points out that near the end of the parallel repeat a tonal shift prepares for the return of the tonic key, and thus a coda becomes functionally analogous to the recapitulation. 262 Figure 6.3. Reproduction of Brown s Diagram of Parallel Form in a Sonata Movement. 263 Roesner, whose article deals exclusively with parallel forms in terms of sonata form, asserts that after the late 1830s Schumann did not take parallel form any further, but she acknowledges that these early large-scale works set tonal precedents for his later achievements in the large forms. 264 Brown disputes that statement in her dissertation, saying, Yet in 1842, Schumann re-adopted the [parallel] form, using it in the finales of three chamber works: the String Quartet in A major, op. 41, no. 3, the Piano Quintet in Eb major, op. 44, and the Piano Quartet in Eb major, op Brown goes on to show how the principle of a parallel form could be extended to a rondo form (such as the ones found at the end of the A-major String Quartet and the Piano Quintet) by giving an example of a five-part rondo in which the entire structure is repeated in full, with the central refrain serving as a dovetail (Figure 6.4 reproduces Brown s diagram). Brown notes that in the finales of both the String Quartet and the Piano Quintet tonic returns are either delayed or absent altogether, creating an unusual approach to tonal organization. 262 Julie Hedges Brown, A Higher Echo of the Past: Schumann s 1842 Chamber Music and the Rethinking of Classical Form (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 2000), Ibid. 264 Roesner, Brown, A Higher Echo of of the Past,

148 Figure 6.4. Reproduction of Brown s Diagram of Parallel Form in a Rondo Movement 266 Schumann s instrumental works of the early 1840s have been criticized for failing to show successful treatment of traditional forms and procedures. 267 As noted by Brown, the finale of Schumann s Piano Quintet is viewed by most critics as a sonatarondo form with a coda, but many fail to recognized the departures from traditional sonata-rondo form Brown asserts that it is these departures that make the movement particularly interesting. 268 Parallel Form in the Finale of the Piano Quintet. In the beginning of her discussion of the Piano Quintet finale, Brown notes two major formal principles that are also found in the finale of the A-major String Quartet: 1) a refrain-based, parallel form that avoids tonic statements of the theme except at the beginning and end of the form; and 2) a tonal journey through numerous keys both closely- and distantly-related that ultimately returns to the tonic via a large-scale tonal parallel. 269 In addition to the parallel sonata-rondo form found within the first part of the movement, Schumann closes the movement with two codas that recall music from earlier in the piece through the use of fugatos: the first fugato closes the finale movement using the thematic material from the opening of the finale, and the second closes the sonata cycle of the entire piece using thematic material from the opening movement in combination with the refrain theme from the finale. 270 In this movement 266 Ibid. 267 In her dissertation Julie Hedges Brown discusses two contrasting views of nineteenth-century reviewers of Schumann s turn to instrumental works and classical models of form: (1) critics of a traditional mindset saw progress in these works of Schumann; (2) critics of the New German School believed that Schumann s best works were the early piano works, and that this style became stifled within the confines of traditional forms (54). 268 Brown, Ibid., In her 2011 essay, Brown notes that Kohlhase first descried the second part of the movement as twofold: a coda to the finale and a coda to the entire quintet (284). Julie Hedges Brown, Schumann and the Style Hongrois, in Rethinking Schumann (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011),

149 the tonic key, E-flat major, is not emphasized in the first part (the parallel form) of the movement; rather it is G minor (the mediant of the Quintet as a whole) that dominates. It is only in the codas that Schumann emphasizes the tonic key, yet another way in which this movement strays from the norms of traditional sonata-rondo form. Reproduced in Figure 6.5 is Brown s formal overview of the Piano Quintet finale (Figures 13.3 and 13.5 from her 2011 essay). 271 Several aspects of the parallel form of the quintet finale (seen in Figure 6.5 below) are remarkable. First, the Piano Quintet as a whole is in the key of E-flat major, and one would expect the finale to begin in the tonic key (Eb). Instead, Schumann begins the finale in the minor mediant key (g). Second, unlike a traditional sonata-rondo form, the refrain of this movement appears in mostly non-tonic keys (d, b, g#, d# and bb). The recapitulation, moreover, begins in the remote key of g# and does not return to g until the very end of the parallel form. Third, within the exposition of part I there is a tonal pairing between the A and B sections: first with g/d# (Eb) and then with d/bb; creating a local-level parallelism that foreshadows the large-scale parallel form. 272 The development strongly prepares the distant key of gs for the recapitulation. In part II of Brown s formal diagram we see that the first coda of the finale begins with a closing idea in Eb major, but quickly returns to G minor with a move to a fugato based on the refrain theme (A) of the movement. However, the end of the first fugato undercuts the control of G minor with a plagal move to V/c minor (the relative minor of Eb major). 273 Thus the coda to the finale ultimately undermines the control of G minor in favor of Eb major. The second coda of the quintet contains a new fugato that transforms the main theme (P) from the first movement into a fugal subject, and the main theme of the finale (A) is the countersubject. This second coda appropriately reveals the tonal authority of Eb major as the quintet as a whole comes to a close. 271 Ibid., 280 and Ibid., Ibid.,

150 Figure 6.5. Reproduction of Brown s Figure 13.3 and A Formal Overview of the Piano Quintet Finale Analysis: The Finale of the Piano Quintet My analysis of the Piano Quintet finale will reveal a process of comic emergence, in which transgression grows in rank value through the course of the movement and is ultimately victorious over a flawed order-imposing hierarchy. This process of 274 Ibid., 280 and

151 emergence is represented by the gradual subversion of the opening minor mediant key (g) in favor of the major tonic key (Eb), by a failed parallel form that requires a substantial coda in order to close the movement effectively, and by a low-style peasant topic (style hongrois) in the refrain that is transformed into a high-style topic (fugato) in the coda. This flawed hierarchy requires the substantial coda in order to close the movement and the work as a whole bringing the themes and tonal center together in a more successful way The Order-Imposing Hierarchy versus Transgression Recall that the victory of a desired transgression over an undesired orderimposing hierarchy is essential for a comic narrative. The transvaluative structure must be one in which transgressive elements successfully challenge and overturn the initial hierarchy. When the discursive strategy of emergence is present, the transgressive elements begin with a low rank value that gradually increases through the movement. The transgressive elements are undervalued at the outset of the movement, and they build in strength until victory over the hierarchy is inevitable. Table 6.1 provides a summary of the characteristics embodied by the orderimposing hierarchy and transgression in the finale of the Piano Quintet. The minor mediant key (g), a parallel sonata-rondo form, and a low-style peasant topic (style hongrois) represent the order-imposing hierarchy. Transgressive elements in the movement include the tonic major key (Eb), flaws in the parallel sonata-rondo form that result in the large-scale coda, and the high-style fugato topic found in the second part of the movement. The resultant narrative proceeds with the idea that the transgressive elements are at first overlooked or undervalued, but they build in strength throughout the course of the movement until they succeed in defeating the hierarchy. 134

152 Table 6.1. Order-Imposing Hierarchy versus Transgression. A Flawed Order-Imposing Hierarchy Transgression Opening Minor Mediant Key (g) Parallel Sonata-Rondo Form Major Tonic Key (Eb) Flaws in the Parallel Sonata-Rondo Form that Lead to a Coda The Folk-Like Finale : Low-Style Peasant Topic (Style Hongrois) High-Style Learned Topic (Fugato) Part I: The Parallel Sonata-Rondo Form The Refrain (A). The finale opens with a refrain theme that establishes a flawed order from the outset. We expect the movement to open strongly in the tonic key (Eb), but our expectation is thwarted by a theme in the minor mediant (g). The order is flawed not only because of the use of the minor mediant to begin the final movement of the quintet but also because of an ambiguity of tonal center at the beginning of the theme itself (Example 6.1): the listener is not sure whether C minor or G minor is in control in the first two measures; 275 it is not until the perfect authentic cadence in m. 5 that we realize the theme is firmly in G minor. 276 The refrain embodies a low-style peasant topic, one aptly described by Brown as style hongrois. 277 Schumann uses a sempre marcato style to accent each beat of the theme with a sense of stomping (found first in the piano alone, mm. 1 5a, and later in unison with the piano and viola, mm. 5b 9a). The beginning and ending of each phrase is marked by a sforzando accent that depicts the sense of a stronger stomp, reinforcing the low-style peasant character of the theme. In addition, the theme contains a heavy texture that features double stops in the violins and a tremolo accompaniment in the upper strings that is evocative of a cimbalom. 278 The Hungarian, peasant-like features 275 Robert Bailey, An Analytical Study of the Sketches and Drafts in Prelude and Transfiguration from Tristan und Isolde (New York: Norton, 1985), Recall the discussion of the scherzo movement (Chapter 5) in which tonal ambiguity existed in the opening measures of Trio I (it was unclear whether Cb Major or Gb major was tonic in that case). 277 Ibid., Ibid. 135

153 embodied by this theme are further supported by four-bar phrases and the exact repetition of a very simple theme. c minor: i v i v g minor: iv i iv i ii o6t V 6r [ 5e i iv i iv i ii o6t V 6r [ 5e i V/VI VI V/iv iv i iv i ii o6t V 6r [ 5e i iv i iv i ii o6t V 6r [ 5e i Example 6.1. Refrain (A), Style Hongrois, mm A voice-leading reduction of the refrain reveals a prominent motive that reinforces the order-imposing hierarchy: motive x shows Eb (b6 of g) as an incomplete neighbor to D (5 of g), which is the Kopfton of the refrain (Example 6.2). This incomplete neighbor motion (G-Eb-D) is heard both on the surface (mm. 2 3 and 14 15) and as an 136

154 enlargement (mm ), and it establishes the status of Eb as a subservient upper neighbor tone to D (5). The D5 descends to scale degree 1 of G minor in m. 5/9 and in m. 17/21, solidifying the status of G minor as tonic. Despite the rather ambiguous beginning, the rank value of order is high for the refrain as a whole, since the Eb5 is heard merely as a neighbor to the D5 Kopfton, confirming that the G-minor style hongrois theme is in control of the movement at this point in the narrative. Example 6.2. Voice-Leading Reduction of the Refrain (A), mm The First Episode (B). When the first episode (B) enters in m. 21b, the status of the order-imposing hierarchy is questioned by two musical features (Example 6.3). First, B presents a new theme that is in the Quintet s tonic key, strongly established by the E- flat pedal in the piano and cello. Eb, which was transgressive in motive x of the refrain, emerges as a clear tonic in m. 22, and there is no ambiguity as to the tonal center of this theme Eb is in control during this brief, eight-measure passage. Thus, the transgressive Eb from the refrain gains some rank value in the first episode. Second, the B theme (mm. 21b 29) progresses to a marginally higher style. The removal of the sempre marcato markings results in a smoother, more sophisticated gesture, and the stomping, which in the refrain occurred with accents on every note, is now only heard every fourth quarternote beat, hinting at progress to a slightly higher style. The tonic pedal and conjunct motion allude to the pastoral, and the rising four-note gesture that is sequenced up in 137

155 the piano suggests a metaphor for a protagonist who is striving to break through a barrier. A voice-leading reduction of the first episode (B) further clarifies the reversal in the role of Eb (Example 6.4). Whereas Eb was an incomplete upper neighbor in the refrain, it becomes the structural tonic in the first episode. Moreover, Eb4 is the goal of the first four-note gesture in m. 22, and this gesture is sequenced up to end on F4 in m. 23, then expanded to a reaching-over that culminates with G4 in m. 25. The sequencing of this rising gesture suggests a local Anstieg (1 2 3 in E-flat) that reveals the first glimpse of the potential for the ascendency of E-flat major. The first episode exposes a nascent state of the actual Anstieg for the entire piece, as the true Kopfton of the movement, G (3 of E-flat major), is not achieved until the coda Eb: Tonic Pedal Example 6.3. First Episode (B), mm Example 6.4. Voice-Leading Reduction of First Episode (B), mm

156 The conflict between the G-minor style hongrois refrain and the E-flat-major marginally higher-style first episode is the first the protagonist faces in the movement. The order of the G minor refrain presents a high rank value in the opening of the piece, but the first episode immediately introduces transgression (Eb) and ever so slightly raises its own low rank value. The subsequent statement of the refrain, in mm. 29b 37a, is truncated and is in the key of D minor, which once again emphasizes the D5 associated with order, although this time as the goal of the descent rather than the Kopfton. The second episode presents the B theme again in mm. 37b 41, only this time truncated and in Bb major, which also emphasizes D5, now as the Kopfton goal of an Anstieg motion from Bb4 to D5. At the end of the second episode, in m. 43, the rank value of order is high, as the D5 maintains its place of prominence over Eb5, even in the higher-style B theme. The Third Episode (C). The third episode, C, begins in m. 43b in the key of G major and is strongly based on the B material of the first two episodes (Example 6.5). Derived from B s four-note rising gesture, this theme is transformed into faster surface rhythms (now eighth notes instead of quarter notes), with staccato articulation of the eighth notes in the piano (as opposed to the more peasant-like heavily detached quarter notes in B), and a piano dynamic level (as opposed to the sempre forte of B). The third episode (C) is the most substantial section yet, at 34 measures long, and despite many sequences that seem to modulate, it does cadence strongly in G major on the downbeat of m. 77. The C section represents a struggle between order and transgression, where order is weakened and transgression is strengthened. The presence of the major mode here shows progress for transgression, despite the fact that the tonic pitch is G, the same tonic as the A theme. The order-imposing hierarchy attacks the B idea by disfiguring it through rhythmic diminution (staccato eighth notes). A counterattack by transgression occurs in the form of a new eight-note scalar idea (indicated by arrows in Example 6.5) that is extended at the end of the section as the music cadences in G major. This scalar idea is in a higher singing style, and it articulates a descending third-progression (5 4 3) thus partially supplanting the complete descending fifth-progression of the A theme. The completion of the descent, 2 1 in G, comes at the end of the section hence, the 139

157 voice leading of the A section ( ) has been appropriated by the transgressive scalar singing theme. Example 6.5. Second Episode (C), mm. 43b 77a. 140

158 While transgression does acquire a higher rank value at the end of this section, it is the order-imposing hierarchy that comes out ahead in m. 77b, as the refrain returns with the style hongrois in the key of B minor, indicating that the transgressive Eb from B has not only been lowered in rank value but has even been completely removed at this point in the narrative, as there is no neighboring Eb in the B-minor statement of the refrain (Example 6.6). 141

159 Example 6.6. Second Return of the Refrain (A) and The Opening of the Development, mm. 77b 93. The Development. The development opens with a completely new topic: what Brown interestingly calls a brief, pastoral fanfare in B major in mm. 85b 93 (Example 6.6). 279 The texture then thins dramatically in m. 94 with the piano playing a rocking figuration taken from m. 45 in C (refer back to Example 6.5, the right hand of the piano part in m ) and the material from C is further developed with a scalar melody beginning in the viola in m. 98b. The thinner texture, the drop in dynamic level to piano, and the espressivo marking all support a development section that contains relaxation rather than the typical tension created in a development. In m. 115 (Example 6.7) a new lyrical melody is introduced in the first violin. Marked piano and dolce, this new melody is in the key of E major (a distant key from both G minor and E-flat major), and is set 279 Julie Hedges Brown, A Higher Echo of the Past: Schumann s 1842 Chamber Music and the Rethinking of Classical Form (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 2000),

160 against a falling four-note gesture in the viola, derived from C. The melody and countermelody are sequenced and passed imitatively through the strings in mm a, while the piano takes a completely accompanimental role with half-note block chords followed by half-rests. A brief retransition begins in m. 130b that emphasizes V of G# minor and sets up the return of the refrain for the recapitulation in m. 136b (Example 6.8). Example 6.7. Development, New Lyrical Melody, mm The development section of this sonata-rondo form presents an anomaly in terms of its narrative function. As we saw in the first movement of the Piano Quintet (and will see in the next chapter with my analysis of the first movement of the Piano Quartet), development sections in a narrative structure normally present the most significant 143

161 conflict in the movement. The development section of this parallel sonata-rondo form, however, seems to remove much of the tension by introducing the new and quiet pastoral fanfare (mm. 85b 93), and the new lyrical melody juxtaposed against the scalar idea that was developed in C (mm ). The combination of the new, expansive lyrical melody with the C scalar melody as a counterline represents yet another step up for transgression against the folk finale tradition of order. The Recapitulation. When the refrain returns in m. 136b for the recapitulation, the order-imposing hierarchy is reintroduced more forcefully than ever, with a fortissimo dynamic marking and wrenched up a half step to G# minor (Example 6.8). In order to create a parallel return that is entirely sequential yet ends ultimately in G minor, Schumann immediately restates the refrain in D# minor in m. 148b. This move to D# minor strengthens the hand of transgression in the recapitulation for two reasons. First, it is enharmonically equivalent to Eb minor; which exposes another attempt of transgression to rise in rank value, by transposing the style hongrois refrain to the transgressive key. Second, because of the shift to D# minor in A, the lengthy C section is also transposed to the transgressive key of Eb major. Recall that C is derived from the B material s four-note rising striving gesture that hints at a higher style. The fact that this longer section returns in Eb major indicates that transgression has gained a higher rank value; especially since the C section cadences strongly in Eb in m Although the initial move from G# to D# minor in the recapitulation sets up the final statement of the refrain in G minor in m. 212 (see Table 6.2), the final return of the refrain theme is weakened, again suggesting a transvaluation of order. First, the final statement of A is truncated from twenty-one bars to eight; this severe compression undercuts the power of the order-imposing hierarchy at the end of the parallel repeat. Second, this truncated restatement features a diminuendo in its final four bars, again diminishing the rank value of the peasant theme. All of the events in the recapitulation described above starting the parallel repeat in D# minor, bringing back C in Eb major, understating the final peasant refrain contribute to the lowering of the rank value of order in favor of transgression. The final steps in this process are heard in the lengthy and unusual coda. 144

162 Example 6.8. Recapitulation, Parallel Return of A, mm Table 6.2. Sonata-Rondo Parallel Form of Finale. Exposition Development A B A* B* C A* D C m. 1 m. 22 m. 30 m. 38 m. 43 m. 78 m. 86 m. 115 g M3 to Eb m2 to d M3 to Bb m3 to G M3 to b B V/E to V/gs Recapitulation A B A* B* C A* m. 137 m. 157 m. 165 m. 173 m. 178 m. 213 gs P5 to ds M3 to B m2 to bb M3 to Gb m3 to Eb M3 to g 145

163 Part II: The Coda As mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, Brown notes Kohlhase s description of the second part of the Piano Quintet finale as doubly oriented: measures provide a coda to the finale, measures a coda to the entire quintet. 280 In her essay Brown argues that this second part of the movement continues a pattern introduced in the parallel form that evokes the Gypsy wanderer trope of continuously shifting perspectives. 281 My analysis will build on her idea of a fugal transformation of the style hongrois main theme of the movement, but I will focus on the transformation in terms of its narrative function. The coda will reveal a process of strengthening for E-flat major and the higher-style topic associated with transgression and a weakening of G minor and the low-style topic (style hongrois) associated with order. The Coda to the Finale. At the end of the parallel repeat of the sonata-rondo form Schumann restored the key of G minor with one final statement of the refrain in mm. 212b 220, but the tonic key of G minor was diminished due to the truncated return and the diminuendo leading to the cadence in m The entire first part of the movement, mm , therefore ended with the valued elements of the hierarchy in control but significantly weakened. Transgression, on the other hand, has gradually gained rank value through the course of the first part of the movement. The opening of the coda to the finale reveals a transformation of the transgressive element of Eb major (Example 6.9). The introduction to the coda combines the rhythm of the peasant theme (A) with a transformation of the rising-fourth gesture from B: instead of a stepwise rising fourth from Bb to Eb, the gesture is now a third leap followed by a step, Bb D Eb. At the beginning of the movement the A theme ascended by thirds to the G tonic, C Eb G; but its transformation here now ends on Eb, and it is stated in three different registers (Eb4 in m. 221, Eb5 in m. 223, and Eb6 in m. 224). Thus this head motive from A reforged in the manner of B leads the listener to hear the Eb strongly as 1. Note that we may also interpret this repeated Bb D Eb as a melodic inversion of motive x from the original peasant theme (G Eb D), again signaling a reversal of the original order. 280 Brown, Schumann and the style hongrois, Ibid. 146

164 A new closing idea is introduced in mm. 224b 32a in a sentence structure that drives to Eb major through an auxiliary cadence that underscores the discursive strategy of emergence (Example 6.9). 282 This closing idea is restated in mm. 232b 40a and then pushes forward to a third strong cadence in Eb in m With the powerful confirmation of Eb as tonic in m. 248 the rank value of transgression is raised to its highest level yet. We no longer hear G as tonic; rather we begin to hear it as 3 of E-flat major. Example 6.9. End of Part I, Introduction to Coda, and Closing Idea 1, mm Auxiliary cadences lack an initial strong tonic triad in the root position; they point forward to their final strong tonic using the formula X V I. See Allen Cadwallader and David Gagné, Analysis of Tonal Music: A Schenkerian Approach, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford),

165 In a striking reversal, Schumann brings back the G-minor theme of the refrain in m. 248b, now transformed from a low-style peasant topic (style hongrois) to a high-style learned topic due to its fugato treatment (Example 6.10). This suggests that the value order of the low-style topic may have been mistaken: the peasant-like style hongrois should have been a learned topic from the very beginning. This treatment of the peasant theme elevates it, making its initial presentation now seem inadequate in comparison. The strict four-bar phrase structure of the refrain is gone in the fugato, as the irregular phrase structure of a fugato takes over. While the transformation of the topic from the low style to a high style suppresses order and therefore raises the rank value of transgression, order does not entirely let go of its hold on the music, because the fugato begins firmly in the mediant key of G minor with a tonic-dominant statement of the subject (mm ). The tonal center at the very opening of the movement (mm. 1 3) was ambiguous: it was unclear whether G minor or C minor was in control. This ambiguity returns in the first fugato, as the opening tonic-dominant statement (mm ) is balanced by subdominant-tonic statements (in stretto in mm ) (Example 6.10). Brown notes that the emphatic G chord in m. 274 now functions not as tonic but as V of C minor, the subdominant of G minor and the relative key of E-flat major. 283 This paves the way for E-flat major to assume control, as an episode that is based on the lyrical melody from the development confirms Eb as tonic (Example 6.11) and leads to a second closing idea in m. 286b. 283 Brown, Schumann and the style hongrois,

166 Example Coda, First Fugato, mm

167 Example Coda, First Fugato, mm The transformation of the style hongrois theme into a fugato that begins in G minor but ends in E-flat major reveals much about the narrative structure of the movement. Though hinted at in the first episode of the exposition, the transgressive nature of a higher style and E-flat major was undervalued in the exposition of the first part of the movement, but then grew in importance in the development and recapitulation. These elements build in strength significantly in the first fugato of the coda to the finale. The style hongrois topic was meant to be used as the subject of a fugato all along, and G, in retrospect, is meant to be the Kopfton as scale degree 3 of the movement, rather than tonic. The discursive strategy of emergence continues in mm (Example 6.12). As E-flat major continues to grow in strength, hints of the P theme from the first movement of the quintet emerge through the ascending octave leaps in the first violin part in mm The music in mm. 311ff. grows in intensity with the rising gesture that culminates in a half cadence in m. 318, setting up the beginning of the second coda, the coda that successfully closes the sonata cycle. 150

168 Example End of First Coda and Beginning of Second Coda, mm

169 The Coda to the Sonata Cycle. A second fugato begins in m. 319 that completes the transformation of the transgressive elements as they take over and fully overpower the flawed hierarchy. This fugato transforms the main theme from the first movement (P) into a fugal subject, with the main theme of the finale (A) as an accompanying and therefore subordinate countersubject. Brown notes that, unlike the first fugato, which stressed both tonic-dominant entries and tonic-subdominant entries, the second fugato stresses only tonic-dominant entries, clinching E-flat major by reviving the theme that is first associated with that key (P from the first movement). 285 When the Closing 1 material returns in m. 378b, it is the final stage in the process: G as the true Kopfton now descends to the true tonic, Eb (Example 6.13). Since G5 is the goal of the imperfect authentic cadence ending the second fugato at m. 371, it takes the return of the closing material to lead to a final descent to 1 at the perfect authentic cadence in m. 402 (Example 6.14). An extension follows in m that confirms the victory of transgression, with a tonic pedal in mm and a perfect authentic cadence in m. 421 that is then expanded by a tonic arpeggiation in the last seven measures. The transformation process is complete: transgression has, throughout the course of the movement, successfully challenged and overturned the initial hierarchy with the ascendancy of E-flat major and the high-style fugatos found in the coda. Example End of Second Fugato and Introduction to Closing 1, mm Ibid.,

170 3 (2 1) 2 1 Example End of the Closing 1 Theme and Final Extension, mm Conclusion It is largely the many irregularities in the form of the Piano Quintet finale that sets the stage for a comic narrative archetype in which the transgressive elements gradually emerge as successful throughout the course of the movement. The form of this movement is one that is often discussed by scholars and critics for its anomalies. The parallel sonata-rondo of the first part of the finale introduces the minor mediant key (g) as tonic, but then proceeds to present many non-tonic returns of the refrain that undermine it. Schumann s blurring of the tonic identity in the first part of the finale delays the crystallization of E-flat major, the key in which the quintet as a sonata cycle must ultimately end, until nearly halfway through the extensive coda. In addition, the flaws in the parallel form, most notably the many statements of the refrain in non-tonic keys (the only statements in G minor are the first, mm. 1 21, and the last, mm ) help to open the way for transgression to be successful. The style hongrois topic of the refrain is transformed from a low style in the refrain to a high style in the coda, first as the subject of a fugato that begins in G minor but ends in E-flat major, then later as the countersubject to a second fugato that uses the P theme of the first movement as a subject that is firmly in Eb throughout. The gradual yielding of tonal control from G minor to E-flat major is a process foreshadowed in the first statement of the refrain (G minor) and first episode (E-flat major) but not realized wholly until the first fugato. The second fugato, then, provides the ultimate closure with its tonal restoration of Eb and cyclic recalling of the first theme 153

171 of the opening movement. Through this process of transformation a comic narrative is revealed, and the sonata cycle as a whole completes a journey around Frye s circular model of archetypes. After a long journey through a heroic romance (movement 1), disillusionment is experienced during a tragic funeral march in which transcendence is never achieved (movement 2). The scherzo (movement 3) reveals an ironic archetype from the realm of experience, and the finale shows the culmination of it all, returning to the realm of innocence quite literally when the P theme from the opening movement returns in the fugato with a comic archetype that is achieved through emergence. 154

172 CHAPTER 7 TWO ADDITIONAL ROMANCE NARRATIVES: THE FIRST AND THIRD MOVEMENTS OF THE PIANO QUARTET In Chapters 3 through 6 I provided analyses of each movement of Schumann s Piano Quintet that proceed in a clockwise fashion around Northrop Frye s circular model of narrative archetypes: romance (first movement), tragedy (second movement), irony (third movement), and comedy (fourth movement). While it worked quite well to read the narrative of the quintet in this clockwise fashion, as Frye suggests, this does not apply to every sonata-cycle work. In fact, the narrative trajectory of Schumann s Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, op. 47 is quite different from that of the Piano Quintet. The quartet does not follow Frye s circular model because of the arrangement of the inner movements. Like the quintet, the quartet begins with a romance archetype represented by a sonata form. But the second movement of the quartet is a scherzo that is an ironic archetype and the third movement of the quartet is a slow movement that falls once again into the romance category. The last movement is another comic archetype of emergence, which, like the quintet, culminates with fugal passages. Because the scherzo and finale movements of the quartet share similar qualities with the analyses of the same movements of the quintet, I will not provide a discussion of these movements in this dissertation. However, the romance narratives of the first and third movements reveal new features of this archetype that merit a more in-depth discussion. The following two analyses will reveal additional readings of romance archetypes in Schumann s 1842 chamber music for piano and strings. The first movement of the Piano Quartet is in sonata-allegro form and exposes a heroic romance that features an order-imposing hierarchy that is victorious over transgression. This movement differs from the same movement of the quintet in that it presents a hero who is not only victorious over external transgressions but is also victorious over his own internal transgressions as his character grows and matures throughout the movement, a 155

173 process of Bildung. The third movement of the Piano Quartet is a ternary form that reveals a romance archetype, where a desired order is victorious over transgression, in the form of a duet between two characters: a male and female voice that can be mapped onto Robert and Clara Schumann. 7.1 First Movement of the Quartet: Bildung in the Sostenuto assai, Allegro ma non troppo In this analysis I will examine the opening movement of Robert Schumann s Piano Quartet. I will argue that the narrative structure of the movement supports a Romance archetype in which the protagonist faces both external challenges and an internal struggle that reveals the Bildung, or psychological and moral growth. The first part of the analysis will deal with the Romance archetype as supported by the victory of an order-imposing hierarchy over its transgression. The second part of the analysis will explore the complications created by an internal conflict as the protagonist undergoes physical, psychological, and moral maturation Part I: A Romance Narrative Archetype The Sostenuto assai introduction of the Piano Quartet establishes the orderimposing hierarchy of the movement. Presented in the tonic key of E-flat major, a hymn topic emerges in mm. 2 7 (Example 7.1) that embodies a slow tempo, slow harmonic rhythm, simple tonic and dominant harmonies, a homophonic chordal texture, and a piano dynamic marking. In addition to establishing a sense of order, the opening texture of the movement correlates with a state of expectancy, suggesting a profound utterance. 286 The chordal texture also suggests the high stylistic register of a hymn, with its spiritual and solemn connotations. 287 The hymn topic of the introduction establishes order as ideal and suggests a sense of the divine or of a mythical and utopian world. 286 Robert S. Hatten, Musical Meaning in Beethoven (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), Ibid. 156

174 Example 7.1. Hymn Topic of the Introduction, mm At this point it may be helpful to clarify the musical characteristics that support the order-imposing hierarchy and transgression (Table 7.1). These include structural characteristics associated with the major tonic key (Eb), the hymn and heroic topics and the characteristics associated with them, metrical consonance, and sonata-form conventions such as a move to the dominant in the exposition. The musical characteristics that support transgression are those that go against the characteristics of order, such as the minor mode and tonal digressions, dysphoric transformations of the hymn and heroic topics, metrical dissonance, and the postponement of the arrival of the dominant in the exposition. Table 7.1. Order-Imposing Hierarchy versus Transgression Order-Imposing Hierarchy Transgression Tonic Major Key (Eb) Hymn and Heroic Topics Metrical Consonance Sonata Form Conventions Keys that Oppose the Tonic Major Dysphoric Transformations of the Hymn and Heroic Topics Metrical Dissonance The Postponement of the Arrival of the Dominant in the Exposition 157

175 The principal theme that follows the slow introduction (Example 7.2) strongly resembles the hymn topic of the introduction but is transformed into a new state, which I will label as a heroic topic (mm and mm ). 288 While it retains the homophonic texture, the melody, and the harmonies of the hymn topic, the stylistic register is lowered as a result of a faster tempo, the staccato rolled chords in the piano, and the mezzo forte, crescendo, and sforzando dynamic markings. The rank value of the order-imposing hierarchy established in the hymn topic of the introduction is raised in the heroic topic of the principal theme, as the theme takes on a new, more confident state. The forward- and upward-pointing gesture of the heroic topic, labeled motive x, begins on beat 2 and leads strongly to the downbeat of the next measure, suggesting a metaphor of a protagonist who is setting out on a quest. Example 7.2. Heroic Topic of the Principal Theme, mm The order-imposing hierarchy encounters a series of increasingly powerful transgressions that challenge it. The first challenge occurs in mm with a statement of the heroic topic in the marked supertonic key of F minor (Example 7.3). This key is marked because of what precedes it. The dominant harmony in E-flat major (m. 25) is chromatically inflected to become a German augmented sixth chord in F minor, evading the half cadence that was about to arrive at the end of the previous phrase. This brief tonal digression to the supertonic constitutes a reversal that brings the abilities of the hero into question, as the heroic character becomes independent of the 288 The arabesque-like figures found in mm. 14b 17a and mm. 18b 21a will be discussed in the second part of the analysis. 158

176 order imposed by tonic. The statement of the heroic theme in F minor invokes a metaphor for a brief anticipation of the more powerful obstacles that will follow. This transgression is quickly reversed with the return of the tonic key in m. 31, although the lack of the expected tonic resolution at m. 33 and the following one more time technique 289 that extends the phrase indicate that the reestablishment of order is not obtained, rather it has been earned. Example 7.3. First Transgression, Heroic Topic in F Minor, mm The second transgression occurs in mm , after a brief counterstatement of the first theme that presents the heroic topic in a singing style (mm ). The rising gesture of motive x (mm and mm ) in the heroic topic (Example 7.2), was countered by a falling gesture that I call motive y in mm (Example 7.4a). 290 It is 289 Janet Schmalfeldt, Cadential Processes: The Evaded Cadence and the One More Time Technique, Journal of Musicological Research 12 (1992): The contour of motive y is taken from the bass line of the heroic topic, as can be seen in a comparison of Example 7.2 (bass line) and Example 7.4a (motive y). 159

177 motive y recast in the marked minor mediant key (g), which embodies the second transgression (mm ) against the order-imposing hierarchy (Example 7.4b). Example 7.4a. Motive y, mm Example 7.4b. Second Transgression, Motive y Recast in G minor, mm In this transgression the rank value of the y motive is temporarily lowered in mm due to the minor mode, since the y motive in the tonic major key (mm ) originally supported order. While the move to minor is the primary reason the rank value is lowered, the marked minor mediant key, the dotted rhythms (which retard the forward motion) and the detached articulation also contribute to the lowered rank value. The deceptive cadence in G minor (m. 47) leads briefly to the key of B-flat major (mm ), and then the music returns to E-flat major for a restatement of the original version of the heroic theme in m. 52 (Example 7.5). This reversal of G minor constitutes 160

178 a successful fending off of the transgression. The restatement of the original theme in mm presents the order-imposing hierarchy in a more powerful state with a higher rank value, as the dynamic level is now forte instead of mezzo forte and the first violin doubles the piano melody. This second transgression, with its brief foray into the key of G minor, has been turned aside in favor of a more powerful restatement of the principal theme in the tonic key. Example 7.5. Second Transgression and Restatement of Principal Theme, mm The most powerful transgression in the exposition of the movement occurs with the arrival of the transition theme in m. 64 (Example 7.6). In this passage Schumann presents an agitato topic that functions as a rhetorical gesture. According to Hatten, a rhetorical gesture is any event that disrupts the unmarked flow of a musical discourse. 291 Here the agitato topic abruptly interrupts the discourse with a dominant harmony in G minor, immediately following the perfect authentic cadence in the tonic 291 Robert S. Hatten, Interpreting Musical Gestures, Topics, and Tropes (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004),

179 key on the downbeat of m. 64. The agitato topic, marked forte, is supported by a sforzando unison entry with an agogic accent on beat 2 and is followed by a marcato ascending scale and falling accented arpeggiations that lead to a cadence in G minor. 292 Example 7.6. Transition, Agitato Topic, mm The marked features of this theme include the minor mediant key (which moves the music away from the expected dominant goal), the syncopated entry of the theme, and the imitative overlap between the piano unisons and string unisons. All of these features of the agitato topic support a reading of the transition material as a transgression against established order. The marked key of G minor, already found briefly in the second transgression (Example 7.4b, mm ), opposes the expected 292 The perfect authentic cadence in G minor (m. 76) employs a Picardy third and the G major chord is immediately reinterpreted as the dominant of C minor. 162

180 discourse of the movement because the minor mediant postpones the arrival of the structural dominant. 293 The agitato topic, which begins in m. 64 on D (V of G minor), is repeated a half step higher in m. 68 beginning on Eb (V of A-flat major) and then falls back to D in m. 72 (V of G minor) (Example 7.6). The neighboring motion of the pitches D Eb D reverses the status of these pitches, as compared to their relationship at the opening of the movement. The higher rank was previously assigned to Eb (the tonic, which supports the established order) in the introduction and principal theme, while in the transition the higher rank is assigned to the D (the dominant of the minor mediant key, which supports the transgression). The rank value of the transgressive material is raised at this point in the narrative, as the transgression overpowers the musical characteristics associated with the established order. The key of G minor with its transgressive qualities continues to assert itself in the transition. For example, after a failed attempt at a medial caesura in m. 88 (Example 7.7), a rising half-step sequence occurs in mm (Bb b c) 294 that is immediately reversed in mm (Bb g). Once again, the transgressive traits of G minor move the transition away from the expected dominant goal, B-flat major. In mm the agitato topic is truncated and transformed with the addition of a dotted rhythm in the key of B- flat major, as an attempt is made to establish the dominant key. The transgression regains control in mm , however, as the same truncated agitato topic is presented in D minor rather than B-flat major. 293 Peter H. Smith comments on this feature in Associative Harmony, Tonal Pairing, and Middleground Structure in Schumann s Sonata Expositions: The Role of the Mediant in the First Movements of the Piano Quintet, Piano Quartet, and Rhenish Symphony in Rethinking Schumann, ed. Roe-Min Kok and Laura Tunbridge (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), This sequence contains the marked quality of the reinterpretation of dominant seventh chords as German augmented sixth chords, which is rather surprising in mm

181 Example 7.7. Transition, mm

182 Example 7.8. End of Transition, mm The authority of order is not reasserted until a striking statement of the agitato topic in rhythmic augmentation occurs in mm (Example 7.8). The transformation of the agitato in these measures contains two musical factors that rob the agitato of its ability to transgress. First, the local harmonic underpinning of the topic is now major and supports the Neapolitan harmony of the anticipated key of B-flat major; and second, the longer note values and doubling of the gesture in the piano and viola effect a more controlled ascent of the topic. Now the transgression associated with the 165

183 agitato topic has been sublimated. The arrival six-four chord 296 in m. 115 marks the arrival of V of the structural dominant and confirms that the agitato topic no longer transgresses against order but gives way to order as the music cadences decisively on B- flat major. The rank value of the agitato topic is therefore lowered, and the more controlled ascent to the arrival six-four marks the defeat of transgression as the exposition comes to a close in the expected dominant key. Perhaps the most notable formal aspect of the Piano Quartet movement is the lack of establishment of the second tonal area (V) until the last phrase of the exposition. Joel Lester comments on this, saying that the failure to strongly establish the second key is a novel tonal plan that supports the thematic narrative, as Schumann s creative genius convincingly combines sonata form s thematic narrative with his novel tonal drama. 297 A tonally imbalanced exposition such as this, where the secondary key fails to establish autonomy, is called a continuous exposition. Hepokoski and Darcy describe the continuous exposition as one in which a clearly articulated medial caesura and successfully launched secondary theme do not occur. 298 The opening movement of Schumann s Piano Quartet falls into Hepokoski and Darcy s Expansion-Section subtype of the continuous exposition. In this subtype, following a P-idea, the composer enters TR and continues to spin it out in a succession of thematic or sequential modules for most of the rest of the exposition, never pausing for the MC breath and the subsequent launch of S. 299 Often a medial caesura is suggested but abandoned, as the composer creates the expectation of an imminent MC only to veer away from it for more Fortspinnung or other elaboration. 300 This idea of a failed medial caesura occurs twice in the Piano Quartet, as can be seen in Figure 7.1. Despite the lack of secondary and closing material in this exposition, the idea that order prevails at the end of the exposition is supported by the decisive cadence on B-flat major in mm The sense of victory of order is even greater than it might have been had the music moved to the secondary key area earlier as expected the more arduous and drawn-out the struggle to reach the secondary key, the greater the sense of victory when it is finally reached. 296 Hatten, Musical Meaning in Beethoven, Joel Lester, Robert Schumann and Sonata Forms, 19th-Century Music 18, no. 3 (Spring 1995), Hepokoski and Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory, Ibid., Ibid.,

184 O 1P 2P 1P 1 T Eb Eb f Eb Eb f g Bb Eb g c F Bb b c Bb g Bb d Eb/eb Bb MC MC EEC Attempt Attempt Fails Fails Figure 7.1. Form Diagram of the Exposition, mm The development, as expected, presents the central conflict of the movement. Schumann primarily develops the x and y motives from the principal thematic area, and the transformations of these motives are symptoms of the most powerful transgressions faced by the protagonist. As seen in Example 7.9, the development opens with the x motive presented in D minor (mm and mm ) and later in A minor (mm and mm ). The rank value of the x motive is lowered by the change of mode from major to minor, since the x motive was originally associated with the order of the tonic major key in the principal theme. Example 7.9. Development, Motive x in D minor and A minor. A sequence in C major (mm ) shows the strengthening of transgression due to several factors (see Example 7.10). Schumann constricts the motive to all half steps (the smallest possible interval of motion) and creates tension with a half step ascent (C Cs D Ds E in cello and piano) and the pungent dissonances produced by a constant G pedal point (V/C). When the sequence is moved up a half step to C-sharp 167

185 minor (mm ), this tension is intensified. At this point in the development a sense of conflict, anxiety, and doubt is associated with motive x that lowers its rank value. Example Development, Sequence, mm The y motive is juxtaposed against the x motive in mm (Example 7.11), providing a striking alteration to the context of the motives, as they are now in dialogue with each other. The development comes to a climax at this point, and the expansion of the y motive to an octave in this section is analogous to the widening of the conflict. This reflects the intensity and energy experienced in the height of a conflict or struggle against an obstacle. The rank value of the y motive, which was already lowered in the exposition when it was presented in G minor (mm ), is now even lower due to several factors: its minor mode; its competition with the x motive for the listener s attention; the dysphoric exaggeration of the intervals; the descending voice leading; the dissonant D-flat augmented sixth chord in m. 193; and the extra note that descends by 168

186 step added to the end of each y motive, three of which create the lamenting pianto halfstep descent. Example Development, Motives x and y Juxtaposed, mm Both intervallic and metrical dissonances are used in the retransition (mm ) to enhance the anticipation of the recapitulation (Example 7.12). The y motive is consistently expanded to an octave leap in the strings in this section, emphasizing Ab (4) 169

187 and Cb (b6) as dissonant seventh and ninth of a V b9 chord. Against the piano, the rhythmic diminution in mm in the strings creates metrical displacement dissonance: groupings of four eighth notes are displaced by a quarter note value (D 4+2, 1= quarter note). 301 The transgression is at its highest state at this point in the narrative due to the competition between the x and y motives, the stretching of the y motive to an octave, the intervallic dissonance (minor 7th and minor 9th) between the y motive and x motive, and the metrical displacement dissonance between the piano and strings. Example Retransition, mm A triumphant recomposed statement of the heroic first theme marks the beginning of the recapitulation in m. 213 (Example 7.13). This statement constitutes an apotheosis, which is described by Edward T. Cone as a special kind of recapitulation that reveals unexpected harmonic richness and textural excitement in a theme previously presented with a deliberately restricted harmonization and a relatively drab 301 Harald Krebs, Fantasy Pieces: Metrical Dissonance in the Music of Robert Schumann (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999),

188 accompaniment. 302 The heroic theme is now transformed into a victorious outburst, as the chords are now accented, marked fortissimo, and doubled in the violin with repeated-eighth-note accompaniment in the viola and cello parts. A rapid ascending scale that could be described gesturally as a victorious flourish is added in the strings in m. 222 in place of the exposition s digression to F minor. This scale is a diminution of the transition theme (agitato topic) and reinforces the idea of victory, because the agitato has been sublimated. Example Recapitulation, mm Hence, the first transgression from the exposition is removed in the recapitulation and, moreover, the second transgression originally the y motive recast in the marked mediant, G minor is transposed to the submediant, C minor, and is then undercut by a direct return to E-flat major. As a result, there is no longer a need for a restatement of the heroic theme in E-flat major as there was in m. 52 of the exposition. 302 Edward T. Cone, Musical Form and Musical Performance (New York: W.W. Norton, 1968),

189 The agitato topic of the transition is rewritten in C minor, the minor submediant, which is a more conventional diatonic third relation that leads to its relative, the tonic E- flat major. Thus the transgression embodied by the marked mediant key of G minor is removed in the recapitulation. The augmentation of the agitato topic at the end of the recapitulation once again represents the transgression being brought under control, only this time in the tonic key. The coda of the movement offers a reflection upon the adventures of the protagonist and confirms the defeat of transgression. It opens with a passage that is reminiscent of the serious, profound tone of the hymn topic in the introduction (Example 7.14). In this opening passage of the coda (mm ) the subdominant is outlined (mm ), which invokes a sense of the past. 303 An ascending 5 6 sequence (mm ) leads to G minor in m. 315, but now G minor moves directly to a first inversion E-flat triad and is subsumed within a prolongation of the tonic triad. Since the E-flat major triad retains control of the passage, the ability of G minor to transgress has been lost, affirming that its rank value has been lowered. The più agitato that follows in m. 321 introduces a new theme that contains contrary motion between the cello and piano, producing several voice exchanges (see Example 7.14). The theme contains upward thrusts that emphasize triumph and raise the rank value of the order due to the harmonic emphasis on closure (V 7 /V V in m. 321, V 7 I in m. 323). 303 Michael L. Klein, Chopin s Fourth Ballade as Musical Narrative, Music Theory Spectrum 26, no. 1 (2004),

190 V 6t /V V V 6t I Example Coda, mm Motive x occurs in a new context in m. 338 (Example 7.15), with a change in pitch level, slower tempo, piano dynamic level, and tonic pedal in the piano part. Another tonicization of the subdominant in m. 341 again invokes a sense of the past, but the reflective quality of this passage is even more pronounced, given the slackening of the tempo. The coda comes to a close with an a tempo section that begins with three consecutive statements of the heroic topic, which indicates that the order of the heroic topic now has a much higher rank it is in fact triple charged. When the agitato topic returns in mm , it is in major (just as when it was supported by the Neapolitan harmony at the end of both transition sections), confirming that transgression has indeed been defeated. The fact that this final statement of the agitato topic originally in the transgressive minor mode is truncated and is now in the tonic major confirms the removal of the transgression, since it now serves the order-imposing hierarchy. As the movement comes to a conclusion, there is no question that order is victorious over transgression. 173

191 Example End of Coda, mm

192 7.1.2 Part II: Bildung and Complications of the Romance Narrative The victory of order over transgression supports the Romance narrative archetype, but the protagonist also faces internal struggles that complicate the narrative. The remainder of the analysis explores the complications of the Romance narrative created by internal conflicts that reveal the Bildung, or psychological and moral growth, of the protagonist. The idea of a narrative voice in this movement as a composer who aspires to rise to the compositional level of the Beethovenian Heroic is explored at the end of this section. Bildung and the Protagonist. The idea of Bildung was conceived by the lateeighteenth-century Weimar classicists, who focused attention on the cultivation of the individual. The two German Romanticists who are most often associated with the idea of Bildung are Schiller and Goethe. Both authors agreed that Bildung is a total growth process, a Werden, or becoming it is the self-realization of the individual in his wholeness. 304 Schumann s love of German Romantic novels is well known, and he was familiar with the works of Goethe and specifically with Wilhelm Meister s Apprenticeship, which is perhaps the most famous Bildungsroman of the German tradition. Schumann mentions Wilhelm Meister in his diary as early as 1828, and some twenty years later composed his op. 98 Lieder based on Goethe s novel. Musicologist John Daverio goes so far as to say that, on reflection, we realize that Schumann s works are all artistic documents of just such a battle between inner and outer worlds and that they are all animated by the formative power of Bildung. 305 The fact that Schumann was very familiar with Goethe s Wilhelm Meister and consequently with the idea of the German Bildung provides support for a deeper reading of the protagonist in the opening movement of the Piano Quartet as undergoing the growth and maturation associated with Bildung. Edward T. Cone discusses the protagonist in terms of vocal music: What he [the composer] deals with is not the poem but his reading of it. He appropriates that reading and makes it a component in another work, entirely his own a larger form created by the musical setting. 306 With 304 Martin Swales, The German Bildungsroman from Wieland to Hesse (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), John Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a New Poetic Age (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), Edward T. Cone, The Composer s Voice (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974),

193 regard to chamber music, Cone goes on to say that chamber music depends on permanent characterization, although it is rarely desirable or even possible to single out any instrument as the protagonist. 307 Cone asserts, Sometimes, however, as in chamber music, the persona can only be inferred from the interaction of equal agents. 308 This is the case in Schumann s Piano Quartet. The Analysis. The Sostenuto assai introduction, which presents the hymn topic, contains issues of voice leading that lend insight into the nature of the protagonist and support a hearing of Bildung as a process in this movement (Example 7.16). In the introduction the dissonant seventh of the V 7 chord, Ab (4), is twice pushed upward against its natural tendency: first, as part of an ascending third-progression in mm. 1 6 (where the normal resolution downward is transferred to the bass); second, when Ab moves through An (n4) to Bb (5) in mm instead of resolving down to G (3) as expected. The nonchalant and idiosyncratic way in which the dissonant seventh is pulled up with broken octaves invokes a metaphor of uncontrolled energy. This effect of pushing above the boundary of the Kopfton (G5) invokes an energeticist metaphor. Schenker s Harmonielehre recognizes the biological urges of tones, and the force of the scale-step. 309 Here, Ab is pushed upward to Bb instead of resolving down to G. This treatment of the dissonant seventh can be mapped onto the idea of a protagonist whose youthful exuberance strives upward, preventing a controlled resolution of the dissonance. Moreover, this lack of control could be interpreted as a character flaw on the part of the protagonist one that will require correction through the process of Bildung as the movement progresses. 307 Ibid., Ibid., Lee Rothfarb, Energetics, in The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory, ed. Thomas Christensen (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002),

194 Example Voice-Leading Sketch of the Introduction, mm The heroic principal theme contains the same ascending third-progression found in the introduction (Example 7.16, mm. 1 6) in mm (Example 7.17). The two rising third-progressions (G-Ab-Bb) within the principal theme (mm and mm ) again communicate the unbridled energy of the protagonist that inhibits his sense of control. While the dissonant seventh Ab does resolve to G in the bass voice, the rising melodic line shows a protagonist who displays excessive energy. It is only when the local descents from 2 to 1 appear in mm. 31, 33, and 35 that the protagonist regains a sense of self-control. The primary opposition within the principal theme is that between the ascending third-progression (excessive energy) and the local descents of that thirdprogression (control). Example 7.17: Voice-Leading Sketch of the First Theme, mm

195 Further complications occur in the development section of the movement, as the unrestrained energy of the protagonist reaches its limits and is ultimately brought under control. Overall, the development shows a large-scale motion from V b7 n7 b7 (quasineighboring motion of Ab An Ab), which reverses the V b7 n7 8 motion from the introduction (Examples 7.18a and b). The unexpected reinterpretation of the Bb7 chord as a German augmented sixth in D minor supports the quasi-neighboring motion. Example 7.18c portrays the rising energy of the protagonist, suggested by both the composing out of the half step between F and Fs (mm ) and the large-scale rising third-progression from F to An in mm Example 7.18c also reveals that the Ab (mm ) resolves conventionally to G at the point of recapitulation in m. 213, representing the growth and maturation of the protagonist. (a) (b) (c) Example Voice-Leading Sketch of the Development. 178

196 In addition to the voice-leading oppositions found within the principal thematic area, there is also a contrast between the heroic topic and what I refer to as the arabesque gesture (Example 7.19a). In dance, an arabesque is created when the body leaves its perpendicular position and inclines in an oblique line, moving the weight of the body onto one leg. According to Blasis, arabesques, like attitudes and other poses, may conclude a series of pirouettes, steps, entrechats, or enchaînements that enhances the stop and pauses that are the culminating moments of the virtuosic dancer s technique. 310 Desrat, in his Dictionnaire de la Danse (1895) discusses the strong expressive connotation of arabesques, saying that they interpret sentiments of joy and fear, and even more so those of envy, anger, and pride. 311 Arabesques can also express more placid sentiments, such as desire, attentiveness, attachment to something... indicating a sensitive and delicate soul; gently swaying movements of the body. 312 The arabesque whether it expresses joy, fear, envy, anger, pride, or desire is a gesture that prevents forward motion. The arabesque gesture in mm contains the rapid, virtuosic, circular pitch contours that portray a musical arabesque. In addition, this material is decorative in nature, and is added only at the stop of the musical activity. The forward and upward-pointing gesture of the heroic topic discussed in the first part of the chapter contrasts starkly with the excessive arabesque-like figuration in the piano, which takes away from the impact of the heroic gesture. The arabesques create internal phrase expansions of the principal theme, thereby delaying a sense of progress. In the recapitulation, the removal of the arabesques creates a sense of focus and direction toward success within the protagonist s character, contributing to the Bildung that results from this sense of purpose (Example 7.19b). The protagonist has reined in his excessive energy by the end of the movement, as he retains more energy and loses the distraction of the arabesques in the recapitulation. With the achievement of conventionality comes the completion of the process of Bildung. 310 Francesca Falcone, The Evolution of the Arabesque in Dance, Dance Chronicle 22, no. 1 (1999), Ibid. 312 Ibid.,

197 Beat: 1 2 (expansion ) 3 4 Example 7.19a. Opposition Between Heroic and Arabesque Topics in Exposition. Beat: Example 7.19b. Recapitulation, Arabesque topic removed, mm Narrative Voice. A strikingly similar narrative voice to the one that was found in the opening movement of Schumann s Piano Quintet is also evident in the opening movement of his Piano Quartet. Once again using Seaton s devices found in music for determining the persona, I have found the idea that music cast in a particular idiom or distinctive rhetorical style suggests a certain speaker to be helpful in determining the persona. In the case of this movement, the narrative voice seems again to be in a dialogue with the conventions of sonata form by playing with the form and making it his own. This can be heard with the continuous exposition, where a strong arrival on the dominant is postponed until the last possible moment. In addition, the abrupt shift 180

198 in discourse that occurs when the agitato topic arrives at the beginning of the transition (m. 64) provides a rhetorical gesture of interruption that indicates a sense of voice. 313 Another device found within the music is that of interruption by music that does not participate in the action and often takes the form of commentary. This is evident in the Piano Quartet with the exceptional return of the slow introduction at the beginning of the development section. Voice can also be indicated through extra-musical conditions. But Seaton s idea that voice may be implied by an identification of the persona with the composer does not come into play in the Piano Quartet because there is no strong documented evidence to pin the narrative persona to Schumann. Rather, the narrative voice in this movement is, as it was in the first movement of the Piano Quintet, the voice of a composer with ambitions to undertake the chamber genres and the looming model of the Beethovenian Heroic Conclusion The journey of the protagonist in this movement is one in which he faces obstacles on both external and internal levels but ultimately experiences triumph and success. In a narrative reading of the movement as a Romance, the order-imposing hierarchy and the musical characteristics associated with it are victorious over the various transgressions experienced throughout the movement. The protagonist, having begun the movement possessing tendencies that inhibit his progress, makes a journey that reveals his growth and maturation. These two readings are complementary the second reading of Bildung enriches the first reading of the movement as a Romance narrative. The analysis is further enhanced by an understanding of narrative voice in this movement as that of a composer who aspires to master the chamber genres and rise above the intimidating model of the Beethovenian Heroic. Thus the movement can be understood as supporting musical meaning on two different levels: that of a Romance narrative and that of the Bildung of the protagonist and the persona. 313 Vera Micznik applies this principle to Mahler s music when she points out that it contains a higher degree of narrativity than does music from the Classical style due to its individuality the essential feature of Romanticism in general. According to Micznik, the more unexpected the music is, the greater its ability to contain narrative. Vera Micznik, Music and Narrative Revisited: Degrees of Narrativity in Beethoven and Mahler, Journal of the Royal Musical Association 126 (2001):

199 7.2 Third Movement of the Quartet: Andante Cantabile The other romance narrative archetypes analyzed in this dissertation (the first movement of the Piano Quintet and the first movement of the Piano Quartet) are in a clear sonata-allegro form, and the development sections of both movements build to an expressive climax as the transgressive elements attempt and fail to defeat the orderimposing hierarchy. The slow movement from Schumann s Piano Quartet is another example of a romance narrative archetype, but it differs from those others in that it is cast in ternary form. On the surface this movement, which is famous for its sentimental lyricism in the first and third sections (A and A'), may not seem to contain any conflict in the hymn-like middle section (B). However, I will show that despite the lack of surface tension, there is a conflict in the B section (transgression) that is ultimately overcome by the lyricism of the A sections (order) The Order-Imposing Hierarchy versus Transgression As shown in Table 7.2 below, the order-imposing hierarchy embodies the characteristics of the tonic major key (I), the sentimentality of the lyrical topic, metrical consonance, and a healthy dialogue between distinct individual voices. Transgression, on the other hand, embodies the characteristics of the lowered submediant major key (bvi), the more restrictive hymn topic, metrical dissonance, and a homophonic texture (the voices lose their individual identity and come together as one). The analysis that follows will trace these characteristics through the movement, and will show how the desired order-imposing hierarchy is ultimately victorious over transgression. Table 7.2. Order-Imposing Hierarchy versus Transgression. Order-Imposing Hierarchy: The Tonic Major Key (Bb) Sentimental Cantabile Topic Metrical Consonance Dialogue Between Voices Transgression: The Lowered Submediant Major Key (bvi) Hymn Topic Metrical Dissonance Homophonic Texture 182

200 The A Section The Cantabile Topic of the Main Theme. After a brief introduction, in which the violin presents a melody that foreshadows the main theme of the movement (mm. 1 4a), the cello enters with what John Daverio calls a sumptuous cello solo. 314 Seen in Example 7.20, this theme, which I call a cantabile topic, is elided with the violin introduction and features a disjunct melody that embodies large ascending and descending leaps (major and minor sevenths). The cello s melody in mm presents a single sixteen-bar phrase that is not quite balanced as it wanders freely before arriving at a perfect authentic cadence in m. 18. The piano supplies a soft and simple block-chord accompaniment, the third beat of which is emphasized by the first violin and viola s piano quarter notes in each measure. A voice-leading reduction of the main theme (mm. 3 18) reveals two characteristics that support order (Example 7.21). The first three-quarters of the phrase (4+4+4) can be clearly heard in mm as an expansion of the tonic harmony (signaling stability) through a 5 6 motion, with the Kopfton (scale degree 3, D4) being prolonged through an equally stable double neighbor motion (D-Eb-C-D). The D4 from m. 10 moves to C4 (scale degree 2) in m. 14, which is prolonged until the ultimate resolution to Bb3 (scale degree 1) in m. 18. Second, the order is further reinforced by the lyrical melody, featuring the vocal leaps of a seventh in the top voice (see m. 4, 6, 8 10, etc.) that portray a freely sentimental expression in the A section. The cantabile topic, first presented in the cello, embodies order but contains a couple of brief hints at transgression. The fifteen-bar phrase strongly confirms the tonic key of Bb, a characteristic of order, but the asymmetry ( ) is slightly transgressive. While the theme itself is metrically consonant, transgression is hinted at with the emphasis of beat 3 of each measure in the upper strings. In a simple triple meter, it is beat 1 that is naturally accented and the first beat is indeed accented here by the contour of the principal cello melody not beat 3. The theme, which becomes a clear and healthy dialogue between two distinct voices in m. 17, is first represented by the cello (the male voice) and then by the violin (the female voice), another characteristic of order. However, the elision between the violin s introduction and the 314 John Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a New Poetic Age, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 260. Daverio notes that this cello solo was not lost on Brahms, who began the slow movement of his Piano Quartet in C Minor, op. 60 with a similar sumptuous cello solo (260). 183

201 cello s theme in mm. 3-4 does indicate a hint of transgression, as the cello interrupts the violin. Example The Cantabile Topic of the Main Theme (A), mm

202 Example Voice-Leading Reduction of Main Theme, Cantabile Topic, mm In m. 17, the cello theme is interrupted before it can complete its cadence as the first violin sounds the same lyrical theme (only now two octaves higher). Marked mezzo forte and cantabile a poco a poco crescendo, the violin s singing melody grows in intensity until it cadences in m. 32. In retrospect, we realize that the violin s introduction in mm. 1 4 was interrupted by the cello in m. 3; after the violin allows the cello to state its lyrical melody, the violin in turn cannot resist interrupting the cello in m. 17, before it is quite finished. These interruptions by the entrance of the cello in m. 3 and the violin in m. 17 are mapped onto transgression, since they indicate that the two voices have no respect for one another. A Dialogue Between a Male and Female Voice. This dialogue between two voices is significant in this movement, and quite an obvious feature of the A sections. The conversation between the voices can be mapped onto a male voice (the cello) and a female voice (the first violin). While we must be careful to avoid the biographical fallacy, it is not unreasonable to take this one step further and map the male and female voices onto two characters that represent Robert and Clara. In some of his music, Carnaval for example, Robert does explicitly depict Clara musically. While he does not do that explicitly in the quartet, it is difficult to ignore the facts of Robert s biography that suggest that he might have been doing so implicitly, invoking a kind of love duet in this movement. In Chapter 2 I discussed the difficulties that Robert and Clara were experiencing in their marriage in While 1842 was the year that Schumann s chamber music aspirations were realized, this achievement came at a price. In February, while on a 185

203 concert tour of German cities intended to showcase Clara s virtuoso talent as a pianist, Robert became depressed after being insulted by court officials following a concert given by Clara. He returned to Leipzig alone to compose while Clara finished her concert tour; he wrote in their marriage diary, This separation has once again made clear to me our particularly difficult situation. Should I neglect my talent in order to serve as your travelling companion? And conversely, should you let you talent go to waste simply because I happen to be chained to the journal and the piano? 315 Thus, while I cannot explicitly say that the cello s male voice is Robert and the violin s female voice is Clara, I do assert that it is reasonable to map the characters of a male and female voice onto the cello and violin respectively, since this strained relationship was much on Robert s mind during this particular time and the low range of a male would logically be suited to the lower sounding instrument. The opening three bars of the movement, with the lyrical theme in the violin interrupted by the cello, seem to begin in media res as if the listener walks into the middle of a conversation. The dialogue between the cello and violin is once again interrupted in m. 31, but this time by the piano (Example 7.22). The piano transforms the lyrical melody to the point where it is nearly unrecognizable. With syncopation at the eighth-note level, the right and left hand of the piano are out of sync with each other and are unable to come together successfully until the end of the phrase in m. 47. The phrase is now balanced ( ), a characteristic of order, but this is overshadowed by the transgressive syncopation of the melody. The rank value of transgression is thus raised at this point in the narrative. The male and female characters represented by the cello and violin are removed from the narrative, and the viola tries to reason with the piano with interjections of its own (mm , 37 39, 41 43, 45 47) that try unsuccessfully to smooth out the syncopations in the piano. This passage (mm ) is the third phrase of A, and represents an experience of conflict in the movement. The transgressive syncopations in the piano and the frequent interjections by the viola seem to comment on the imperfect dialogue of the first two phrases between the cello and violin: the piano and viola, 315 Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann, and Gerd Nauhaus, The Marriage Diaries of Robert & Clara Schumann: From Their Wedding Day Through the Russia Trip, ed. Gerd Nauhaus, trans. Peter Ostwald (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1993),

204 which are not a specific gender, reveal an inherent tension between the male and female characters that lies beneath the more tranquil surface of the first two phrases. Example A Section, mm

205 The B Section Though quiet and subdued, the middle section (B) of this ternary movement actually embodies its central conflict (Example 7.23). The B section is transgressive against the order-imposing hierarchy in several ways. First, B contains a homophonic texture and a hymn topic whose homorhythm rejects the freer dialogue and lyrical topic of A. Second, there is an abrupt meter change from simple triple in the A section to simple quadruple in the B section, and this new meter is undermined by a metrical displacement dissonance D 4+1 (1 = quarter note) throughout this section due to the consistent agogic accents on beat 2 of the bar. Third, B is in the key of Gb major (bvi), which creates an inflection of the Kopfton from 3 to b3 on a deep middleground level contributing to the disruptive effect of B. In addition, a change in meter from simple triple to simple quadruple combined with a metrical displacement dissonance of D 4+1 (1 = quarter note) obscures the sense of a downbeat, further solidifying my reading of this section as transgressive. The transgressive metrical dissonance does not merit much further comment, as we have learned throughout the earlier analyses in this dissertation that metrical dissonance maps strongly onto the idea of transgression. A voice-leading sketch of the B section (Example 7.24) reveals further elements of transgression. A local 3-line exists in Gb; 2 (Ab) is covered by Db (5) and embellished by an ascending fourth-progression in mm ; the fourth-progression then reverses itself in mm , and 2 falls to 1 in m. 70. The voice leading is transgressive due to its disjunct nature: there are many instances of reaching over on the sketch (mm. 50, 52, 53, and 66). As shown by my deep middleground sketch of the movement in Example 7.25, bvi as a key area in the B section supports the large-scale inflection of the Kopfton to b3 that generates the central section of the form. Schumann s employment of modal mixture on the deep middleground contributes to the disruptive effect of B. The Bb3 at the end of A (m. 48) is an inner voice that is superimposed over b3 at m. 48. The sudden shift to F4 at the end of B (m. 71) sounds like a brutal intrusion of B-flat major s reality to break off the fantasy invoked by the middle section. 188

206 Example B Section, mm

207 Example Voice-Leading Sketch of the B Section, mm Example Middleground Voice-Leading Sketch of the Movement. In terms of the romance narrative of the movement, the B section is seen as a significant threat to order: the cello completely loses its identity as the male voice due to the homophonic texture; and the violin s identity (which begins as the melodic voice but is then suppressed by the piano in m. 56b) is likewise diminished by the homophonic texture. The serious religious hymn topic of this section can be interpreted as a threat to the freedom found in the lyrical melody of the A section. In addition, the metrical displacement dissonance obscures the sense of a downbeat, further solidifying my reading of this section as transgressive. Thus, the rank value of transgression is raised to its highest status yet at this point in the narrative. The B section, with its strict hymn topic and bvi key area may appear on the surface to be positive but actually reveals a constrained time in the narrative, where the male and female characters lose their individual senses of identity. 190

208 The A' Section The return of the A' section in m. 73 brings back the tonic major key (Bb) and the sentimental lyrical theme in the viola (Example 7.26). Order reasserts itself here and is more powerful than ever with the addition of a prominent countermelody in the violin. The individual voices of the male and female characters return together instead of in dialogue, although now it is the viola that represents the male voice instead of the cello. The first statement of the theme in mm extends the phrase to the more normal sixteen bars ( ) with the extension of the violin countermelody in m , thus eliminating the transgressive and imbalanced compression of the theme from the A section. The way that the male and female voices unite in the A' section represents a coming together of the two characters. Things are now more complicated, with the addition of the countermelody, but also sound more complete this passage conveys a sense of textural plenitude. 316 The accent on beat 3 from the A section is removed in the A' section and replaced by a piano upbeat that leads quite naturally to the following downbeat, actually reinforcing the natural accents on beat 1 of every measure. This third section of the ternary form movement represents integration of the separate voices, and the transgressive third phrase (originally mm of the A section) that contained syncopation in the piano and a distortion of the melody is now completely removed. 316 Robert Hatten describes plenitude as a desired goal achieved by processes that lead to the ultimate saturation of texture, and fulfillment perhaps even apotheosis in the case of a theme (43). Robert Hatten, Interpreting Musical Gestures, Topics, And Tropes (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004). 191

209 Example A', mm The structural ending of the piece is in m. 103, and what follows is an extension in which the cello states the lyrical theme one final time (mm. 102b 117) over a stable tonic pedal in the piano (Example 7.27). The violin is also stationary, playing long note 192

210 values that support the changing harmony over the pedal. Perhaps the final statement of the lyrical theme in the cello with long supportive tones in the violin and viola voices represents a compromise between the two characters: whatever the subject of the dialogue, the two voices have come into agreement, or, at the very least the female voice has given in. The male voice (cello) has the last say, and it is noteworthy that Schumann has the cellist change the tuning on his instrument so that the C string actually plays a contra Bb, which creates a different timbre, since the Bb is played on an open string. This sets up the Bb pedal in the cello for the coda that follows. Example End of A', mm The Coda The final fourteen bars of the movement (Example 7.28) present what John Daverio says is among the most evocative passages in all of Schumann s chamber music. 317 Daverio goes on to explain the passage; since it is devoid of any ostensible connection with the sentimental lyricism of the movement s principal themes, the coda conjures up a psychological state in which time and space seem to have been 317 Daverio,

211 abrogated. 318 The effects of the pianissimo dynamic level, the tied notes in the upper strings, and the cello s tonic pedal (recall that Schumann asked the cellist at the beginning of the final section to tune the C string down a step, so the Bb pedal is on an open string) all contribute to a quality of temporal suspension and elimination of all conflict. Example Coda, mm A mysterious sounding ascending line is spun out of sequential elaborations of a three-note motive that has religious overtones, almost sounding like bells ringing in the distance. This three-note motive comprises a falling fifth and a rising sixth (a contraction of the rising and falling seventh leaps in the cantabile topic) and, when sequenced up with each iteration, results in a line that rises by the interval of a fourth (F4 (m. 117) Bb4 (m. 118) Eb5 (m. 119) Ab5 (m. 120)) before it falls to G5 and F5 in m Ibid. 319 This three-note motive is the head motive for the fugal subject in the finale that follows. This means that the motive has a cyclical purpose here as well though its expressive quality in the final movement 194