Basic Motivic Analysis

Chapter 5 establishes the rules and guidelines for basic motivic analysis (BMA), the more elementary mode of analysis limited to examining the pitch and rhythmic content of music. The first part of the chapter establishes a standard procedure for reduction, or extracting motives from ornamented melodies; this includes rules for motives spanning multiple phrases. The second part of the chapter establishes rules for associating shapes within a work. Such associations are required to be literal, in stark contrast to Schoenberg’s philosophy of Developing Variation. The allowable transformations in pitch are transposition, inversion, and retrograde, and in rhythm are the duration scaling operations, augmentation and diminution. A single, informal associative relation, “sensed connection,” may be used to indicate an analyst’s artistic intuitions about motivic relationships that are unprovable. A last set of rules delineates a proper format for BMA. An analysis must be structured around a single source event called a Focal Point, that occurs near the beginning and furnishes all or nearly all relevant shapes in the piece. Motives must be derived from the Focal Point in forward order (propagative). Discussion is supported by analyses of excerpts by Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Rossini, and Pierre Leemans.

Handel’s Transformative Compositional Practices

In recent decades singers of Handel’s music have made great strides in recapturing the art of embellishing his music, thus breathing new life into forms such as the da capo aria. Yet Handel’s own “variations”—his development and transformation of musical material in his vocal music, important for understanding his compositional practice with borrowed as well as (presumably) original music—are not yet fully explored or appreciated. Admittedly, scholars have discussed musical procedures such as inserting, deleting, and reordering musical materials, as well as other Baroque combinatorial practices in Handel’s arias, but the musical transformations I discuss here are closer to a specifically Handelian brand of developing variation. To my knowledge, the concept of developing variation has never before been applied to early eighteenth-century music. I explore the relation of developing variation to drama (also rarely done) in two of Handel’s arias, providing a close examination of “Ombre, piante” from the opera Rodelinda and new thoughts about “Lament not thus,” originally intended for the oratorio Belshazzar. Although these arias belong to different genres and different stages of Handel’s career, they both exhibit material that undergoes a kind of progressive variation process that has tangible musical and dramatic ramifications, of interest to opera specialists and performers. Furthermore, both arias have a complicated compositional history; I offer fresh insights into the aesthetic qualities of each version, thereby throwing light on Handel’s possible compositional intentions. This article also discloses for the first time some recurring musical passages shared between “Lament not thus” and other pieces that could influence the listener’s interpretation of certain musico-dramatic gestures.

Johannes Brahms’s Horn Trio and Its Unique Place in the Chamber Music Repertoire

The purpose of this research is to explore the elements in Brahms’s Trio for Piano, Violin, and Horn in E-flat Major, op. 40, that contribute to its unique position in the vast and revered library of chamber music. These include Brahms's use of folksong, five-measure phrases, a variation on sonata form, developing variation, emotional elements, and unique instrumentation. The German folk song, Es soll sich ja keiner mit der Liebe abgeben is almost identical to the opening fourth movement theme of the horn trio. Brahms incorporates portions of this melody throughout all four movements of his horn trio which demonstrates an internal unity and cohesive use of folksong that contribute to his work’s individuality. This is one of many examples of Brahms’s attention to detail and use of surprising elements that allow his horn trio to stand out among thousands of other works. Through studying portions of Brahms’s Trio for Piano, Violin, and Horn in E-flat Major, op. 40., analyzing distinctive qualities of this work, and comparing these elements to those of other chamber works of the time, one can conclude that this piece has a unique place in the chamber music repertoire.

It Sounds like Brahms

Chapter 1 discusses the balance of classicism and romanticism as artistic and expressive underpinnings of Brahms’s style. Brahms was in many ways a composer for whom the past—even the distant past—was still very much alive. Yet he was remarkably innovative. He often used Classical-Era forms, but he adapted them to his expressive ends. He used harmonic progressions identical to those used in similar circumstances by composers of the Classical Era, but also used harmonies as adventurously as Wagner or Liszt. In terms of texture and of rhythm and meter, he was, if anything, more adventurous than many of his contemporaries. The chapter offers a detailed analysis of harmony, dissonance, melody, melodic evolution, texture, rhythm and meter, counterpoint, and developing variation in a single Brahms phrase (from the second theme of the first movement of the A-major Violin Sonata, op. 100). Brahms’s phrase is compared to and differentiated from a similar phrase opening the second theme in Beethoven’s Violin Sonata in A, op. 30, no. 2.

Shaping Brahmsian Themes

This chapter studies six themes from Brahms’s violin sonatas, exploring many different ways that he crafts musical expression. Each theme demonstrates different aspects of Brahmsian compositional techniques, illustrating the infinitely varied ways he used harmony, texture, motivic evolution, and continuity in what has been described as “developing variation.” These discussions repeatedly show how a musical event that seems to be new (such as a surprising turn of harmony) quite frequently develops from something already heard, imparting the sensation that Brahms’s music is simultaneously drawing upon what has been heard and becoming something new. Awareness of these techniques prepares us for the later chapters, which focus on musical narratives that span entire movements or entire sonatas.

Variation and Developing Variation under a Transformational Perspective

The present article introduces the current version of an analytical model, which proposes a transformational conception for musical variation. According to this perspective, an archetypical variation is considered as a generic function capable to transform a referential musical idea into another one to which is related by some degree of similarity. The study addresses a number of co-related concepts, classifications, and assumptions whose interaction aims at consolidating this new theoretical formulation. The last section presents a typology for Schoenberg's principle of developing variation under the transformational point of view.

On Duration and Developing Variation

This article takes a close look at the concept of duration (durée), an idea that is central to Henri Bergson’s philosophy of subjective time. It argues that Schoenberg’s early concept of developing variation resonates with Bergson’s duration in a way that enables us to shift the locus of developing variation from a musical object to a participant subject. It presents analytical readings of three pieces from Schoenberg’sSechs kleine Klavierstücke, op. 19, a collection of miniatures written when German translations of Bergson’s works were published for the first time and when Bergson’s popularity was especially high.

Brahms, Kierkegaard and Repetition: Three Intermezzi

Schoenberg's ideas about ‘Brahms the progressive’ involve the close study of the composer's use of ‘developing variation’ technique, yet Brahms's music also contains a high incidence of repetition. In 1843, the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard published a book called Repetition under the pseudonym, ‘Constantin Constantius’. As an encryption of his underlying philosophy, this pseudonym encapsulates both the constant nature of repetition – and its more subtle element of change. Thus stasis and dynamism, similarity and difference, are equally (and visibly) represented here. Kierkegaard's ideas find resonance within the late Brahms piano miniatures (for instance in the Drei Intermezzi, op. 117) where highly compressed formal structures exhibit differing kinds of repetitive processes. The temporal quality of repetition – the fact that experiencing the ‘same’ thing can only occur later on in time – makes this device more dynamic than it may at first appear. Such a view of repetition sits alongside Schoenberg's notion of ‘developing variation’ – the endless reshaping of a basic shape – but although they may have underlying connections, each is articulated in a different way. Studies of developing variation in Brahms are confined to pitch structures, interval patterns and rhythmic shapes, whereas considerations of repetition need to embrace issues of temporality, narrative and motion. Drawing upon Kierkegaard's philosophical distinction between re-experiencing something, rather than experiencing it again, allows repetition to become a catalyst for change. It may help to explain the expressive expansiveness of Brahms's structurally controlled late piano works.