I have focused particularly on the foreground to middleground levels of structure in the accompanying Schenkerian graphs, as these levels seem to me to provide the most useful information for performance interpretation. It is at these levels that most of the dramatic narrative in each piece occurs, and where most of the tonal and rhythmic premises interact. It follows, then, that this is where most interpretive decisions will need to be made.
The foreground to middleground levels are also the most perceptible, and this further strengthens their relevance for interpretation and performance.
In an article entitled ‘Middle-out Analysis and its Psychological Basis’, Richard Parncutt and Robert Pascall address the concept of perceptibility and structural levels:
We first enquire about the relative salience of different hierarchical levels of analysis, from the fastest (surface) to the slowest (large-scale form). Convergent psychological evidence suggests that analytic levels vary in their perceptual importance, so a cognitively relevant analysis should first concentrate on the most perceptually relevant level or levels.1
In undertaking this research they ‘review literature that supports the psychological reality and salience of the middle level, showing how it coordinates and focuses analytic activity around a fundamental human cognitive modality, ensures hearing relevance in the analytical outcome, and relativizes divergent analytical approaches’.2 They believe that solid psychological principles should underpin any analytical approach: ‘we are talking about how analytic knowledge can enrich the hearing of a musical work, rather than misleading the ear by appealing to principles that lack a clear psychological foundation’.3 They conclude that ‘the musical surface
1 Parncutt and Pascall, ‘Middle-out Music Analysis’, p. 1.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
2
deserves to receive more attention, in both music theory and music psychology (Kreutz, 1998)’.4
My analytical approach reflects the advice given by Parncutt and Pascall that ‘a cognitively relevant analysis should first concentrate on the most perceptually relevant level or levels’, but also takes a deeper look at the surface of each work by tracing the development of musical premises to their background level and comparing the relationships between these levels.
Concentration on the foreground and middleground levels illuminates two fascinating hidden dimensions to Chopin’s works: the atypical closure of certain preludes, and subtle but important intra-opus connections.
Atypical Closure
Attention to foreground and middleground levels does not preclude discovery of fascinating information about the overall form of a piece. For example, the Prelude in E minor, Op. 28, No. 14 does not seem to close in a traditionally Schenkerian manner, in that it does not conclude with a final descent of the Urlinie. This atypical ending led me to focus on the foreground and middleground levels, revealing that the overall form of this piece is, in fact, a large-scale motivic hidden repetition of the main motivic material of the surface. This ‘open-ended’ quality reflects the nature of the genre of the prelude as an opening or introductory piece.
In his article entitled ‘Performing Expressive Closure in Structurally Open Contexts: Chopin’s Prelude in A minor and the Last Dance of Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze’, Hatten explains: ‘Schenkerian analysis gives priority to structural harmonic and voice-leading closure in tonal works, but composers have found ways to simulate (and dissimulate) structural closure for dramatically expressive purposes.’5 Hatten coins the term ‘expressive closure’, which ‘is achieved by a number of strategies that may or may not coincide with structural closure’,6 and he relates this to Beethoven’s codas, which ‘often deliver a dramatic expressive closure in which the expressive premise of a sonata-form movement is summarized by foregrounding and resolving it’.7 Hatten clarifies how:
Chopin and Schumann, just as Beethoven and others before them, have found ingenious means not merely to prolong closure, but to do so in a way that en-hances the expressive trajectory of a work (whether a prelude, a waltz, or an entire cycle). The rhetorical play with tonal and formal closure suggests that
4 Ibid., p. 3, referring to Gunter Kreutz, Musikalische Phrasierung aus historischer und kognitionspsychologischer Sicht (Frankfurt: Lang, 1998).
5 Robert S. Hatten, ‘Performing Expressive Closure in Structurally Open Contexts:
Chopin’s Prelude in A minor and the Last Dance of Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze’
(unpublished paper, 2012), abstract.
6 Ibid., para. 1.
7 Ibid., with reference to Robert Hatten, ‘Aspects of Dramatic Closure in Beethoven:
A Semiotic Perspective on Music Analysis via Strategies of Dramatic Conflict’, Semiotica 66, nos. 1–3 (1987), pp. 197–210.
foreground emphasis 27
harmony and voice-leading are not the sole determinants of closure, but that they can be manipulated to serve more complex expressive ends.8
Indeed, this process is clearly evident through the two nocturnes of Op. 27 and the Barcarolle.
Intra-opus Connections
Focus on the foreground and middleground levels of the nocturnes of Op. 27 and Op. 48 reveals significant compositional relationships between pairs of works. In Op. 48 it is as if Chopin worked on two different approaches to the same compositional premises, as both works address the same rhythmic and metric issues from different viewpoints. These connections can then be seen as far as the background form of both works. In Op. 27 focus on the foreground levels reveals that premises introduced in the first nocturne are only really concluded in the second nocturne (this may help explain the lack of agreement among analysts as to where the Urlinie of the first nocturne concludes). I suggest that the background form of the first nocturne does not finally conclude, but is left at least partially open (as in some of the preludes) in order to develop and finally conclude its premises in the second nocturne.
Even with this emphasis on the foreground, the following analyses often refer to background levels (as seen, for example, in the preludes). Indeed, Charles Burkhart views the background as having the most significant effect on a performance. On this subject Schenker stated that ‘it is improper to expressly pursue the Urlinie in performance and to single out its tones … for the purpose of communicating the Urlinie to the listener’. Rather, ‘for the performer, the Urlinie provides, first of all, a sense of direction. It seems a somewhat equivalent function to that which a road map serves for a mountain climber’.9 As Burkhart explains:
Only when he is aware of the ‘main’ tones can he perceive the diminution and perform them in the light of the main tones. When he does so, the surface will benefit, but not only the surface, because proportioning the small with respect to the large has a way of projecting an impression of the large as well. In this sense the background also is ‘performed’ – the ‘long line’ conveyed.
… A responsible theory does not seek to substitute principle for intuition, but to confirm intuition with the help of principle – to ‘improve opinion with knowledge,’ in Samuel Johnson’s phrase. But some principles can take us further: they can make the mind aware of dimensions that have not hitherto been perceived – not even intuitively. Such is Schenker’s theory. It can provide
8 Ibid., para. 22.
9 Charles Burkhart, ‘Schenker’s Theory of Levels and Musical Performance’, in David Beach (ed.), Aspects of Schenkerian Theory (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), p. 107, with reference to Das Meisterwerk in der Musik, vol. 1, p. 196, trans. Sylvan Kalib, ‘Thirteen Essays from the Three Yearbooks Das Meisterwerk in der Musik by Heinrich Schenker: An Annotated Translation’ (PhD thesis: Northwestern University, 1973), vol. 2, p. 147.
the performer with insights not available by other means. It offers no magic formulas, but it can help a good performer become even better.10
A lot of important interpretive information can be gleaned not only from focusing on each level in turn but also from examining the relationships between analytical levels. Larson highlights the relevance of relationships between levels in addressing the idea of levels and dynamics in his article ‘On Analysis and Performance: the Contribution of Durational Reduction to the Performance of J.S. Bach’s Two-part Invention in C major’. He explains:
Choosing dynamics on the basis of a reductive analysis demonstrates the com-plex way in which analysis influences performance. The emphasis given to a note is not greater merely because that note appears on more background levels of structure. While meter will often function this way (more background attack points have greater metric significance in the foreground), melody may not
… One does not try merely to bring out more background levels, but decides what emphasis to give certain notes by feeling the dynamic way in which they shape the tonal space defined by more background levels. It is in feeling the relationship between levels (rather than merely identifying the levels) that the performer learns something of value from analysis.11
To summarize, I focus on the foreground of Chopin’s works but also place this analysis in the context of their background levels, while also examining the relationships between these levels. This seems to reveal the most information about Chopin’s compositional techniques and is particularly relevant to performers.
10 Burkhart, ‘Schenker’s Theory of Levels and Musical Performance’, p. 112.
11 Larson, ‘On Analysis and Performance’, pp. 44–5 n. 8.