Karol Szymanowski’s Dominant Drive Model and the Excess of the Cycle
The chapter explores several songs by Karol Szymanowski that demonstrate the explicit rotation of a T→S→D substitution model in relatively strict terms. These songs also reflect on the theme of desire as a circular driving force. The chapter then examines Szymanowski’s symphonic music, specifically the third symphony, “Song of the Night” Op. 29, whose sonorities spread their tensions out in many directions. To visually re-create this, the chapter employs a method called “drive analysis,” which represents triads as triangles and tetrads as squares, each with tailored corners to represent the raising or lowering of pitches. When placed on a graph whose y-axis unfolds the circle of descending fifths and whose x-axis represents the flow of time, various patterns emerge that unlock new hearings of a work whose harmonic “momentum” could otherwise be considered static.