Th e lure of organicism as an organizational principle may have blinded us to
certain aspects of Romantic music, one of which is the discontinuity principle. Romanticism and organicism, yoked together like toe and toenail, emphasize interdependency, mutual growth, and the naturalness of connection. According to the conventional account, Beethoven led in the early 1800s, followed by Liszt, Brahms, and Wagner. By contrast, some of the radical discontinuities that listeners hear in twentieth-century compositions by Varèse, Webern, Stravinsky, and Stock- hausen seem so much more real that they dwarf any sense that music of the previ- ous century might manifest any but the most cursory instances of discontinuity. And yet many of us listening to Romantic opera, symphony, ballet, or program music frequently experience moments when one thing does not necessarily lead to another, when a process is interrupted or a thought abandoned, when a new com- positional idea seems to come from nowhere—in short, instances of succession as distinct from progression. Some of these moments feature what we might call
strong forms of discontinuity; others are instances of weak forms of discontinuity.
Some are apparent, belonging only to a given level of conceptualization; others are real and more deep-rooted, valid at all relevant structural levels. Between these two extremes lie a host of intermediate steps. Th e prospect that events that follow each other may or may not be continuous with each other sheds light on an aspect of a composition’s formal drama and rhetoric.
As always, the discontinuity principle has to be understood in context, for one person’s continuity may be another’s discontinuity. Unlike their counterparts work- ing with twentieth-century materials (such as Jonathan Kramer, Arnold Whittall, and Christopher Hasty), music theorists working with Romantic repertoires have so far not invested considerably in accounts of discontinuity.8 Th eir methods all
too oft en produce connections and continuities; explanations aim at promoting cohesion rather than breaks, fi ssures, or incoherence. Indeed, some may argue that aiming at demonstrating an absence of connection may be perverse. Th e ana- lyst has simply not tried hard enough—or is inadequately equipped—to uncover sources of connection. And with this commitment to their methods rather than to the peculiarities of a given work of art, analysts undervalue what may sometimes be a central principle of structure.
It should be noted that music critics who are not normally constrained by a theory-based framework for validating observations about a musical work are more likely to entertain ideas of discontinuity in Romantic music. In a discus- sion of the Todtenfeier movement of Mahler’s Second Symphony, for example,
Carolyn Abbate describes the onset of the so-called Gesang theme as an “interruption . . . a radically diff erent musical gesture.” For her, this moment marks “a deep sonic break”; indeed, “cracks fi ssure the music at the entry of the ‘Gesang. ’ ”9 Th ese char-
acterizations ring true at an immediate level. Th is otherworldly moment is clearly marked and maximally contrasted with what comes before. Diff erence embodies discontinuity. Note, however, that this characterization works in part because it refuses technical designation. If, instead of responding to the aura of the moment, we seek to understand, say, the motivic logic or the nature of succession in the realms of harmony, voice leading, or even texture, the moment will seem less radi- cally discontinuous and more equivocal. For one thing, in the bars preceding the onset of the Gesang theme, a triplet fi gure introduced in the bass continues past the ostensible break and confers an element of motivic continuity. Attending to the voice leading in the bass, too, leads one to a conjunct descent, C–C–B, the osten- sible crack occurring on C-fl at. On the other hand, texture and timbre are diff erent, as are dynamics and the overall aff ect. Th us, while the action in the primary param- eters presents a case for continuity, the action in the secondary parameters presents a case for discontinuity. Recognizing such confl icting tendencies by crediting the potential for individual parameters to embody continuity or discontinuity may help to establish a more secure set of rules for analysis. My task here, however, is a more modest one: to cite and describe a few instances of discontinuity as an invitation to students to refl ect on its explanatory potential.
Looking back at the classical style as point of reference, we can readily recall moments in which discontinuity works on certain levels of structure. A good example is the fi rst movement of Mozart’s D Major Sonata, K. 284, which I men- tioned in the previous chapter on account of its active topical surface. A change of fi gure occurs every 2 bars or so, and listeners drawn to this aspect of Mozart are more likely to infer diff erence, contrast, and discontinuity than smooth con- tinuity. Indeed, as many topical analyses reveal and as was implied in discussions of character in the eighteenth century, the dramatic surface of classic music sometimes features a rapid succession of frames. Th ere is temporal succession, but not progression. Th ings follow each other, but they are not continuous with each other.
Th ink also of the legendary contrasts, fi ssures, and discontinuities oft en heard in the late music of Beethoven. In the “Heiliger Dankgesang” of op. 132, for exam- ple, a slow hymn in the Lydian mode alternates with a Baroque-style dance in 3/8, setting up discontinuity as the premise and procedure for the movement. Th e very fi rst page of the fi rst movement of the same quartet is even more marked by items of textural discontinuity. An alla breve texture in learned style enveloped in an aura of fantasy is followed—interrupted, some would say—by an outburst in the form of a cadenza, then a sighing march tune in the cello, then a bit of the sensitive
9. Abbate, Unsung Voices, 150–151. See Agawu, “Does Music Th eory Need Musicology?” Current Musi- cology 53 (1993): 89–98, for the context of the remarks that follow. A discussion of discontinuity in Beethoven can also be found in Lawrence Kramer, Music as Cultural Practice (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 190–203 and in Barbara Barry, “In Beethoven’s Clockshop: Discontinuity in the Opus 18 Quartets,” Musical Quarterly 88 (2005): 320–337.
CHAPTER 3 Criteria for Analysis II
95 or Empfi ndsamer style, then a cadenza again, now complete with a conventional 6/4 chord preparation, and so on. At this level of structure, these gestures succeed each other in discontinuous fashion.10Insofar as a normative modus operandi exists for Romantic music, it is less invested in the sharply profi led and rapid shift s of texture like those that I have just cited from Mozart’s K. 284/i and Beethoven’s op. 132/i and iii. Th e shift ing of gears is a common enough occurrence, but the material images thus set into relief do not always carry the sharply stylized or conventional stances associated with classic music. Rather, they embody aff ective transformation, and this transformation is oft en enacted before our very eyes/ears, not served up as prefabricated action units with cosmopolitan mimetic values. Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto exemplifi es this mode of Romantic discourse. A compositional voice emanating from within pauses to refl ect and recall, seeming now and again to forget something, abandoning a line of argument, then forging its way forward with great introspective confi dence, paying only lip service to the trappings of external obligation. Th e protagonist’s manner (and by “protagonist,” I do not mean the solo violin but the leading voice that carries the line of narrative from beginning to end) is not that of a librarian shuffl ing cards, or of a child ordering pebbles on the beach, but of a guru speaking with the dual authority of oracular knowledge and aff ected mysticism.
Th ink, too, of opera, of the numerous discontinuous musical eff ects that seem practically unavoidable. Plot, of course, is in principle continuous, or more read- ily invites attributions of continuity. Discontinuity is thus buff ered. But although music and plot are imbricated within each other’s domains, their individual sets of capacities are not thereby erased. In one moment during the second act of Wagner’s Tannhäuser, Tannhäuser interrupts Wolfram with a hymn of praise to Venus. Th is is the fourth and, as it happens, the last time he sings this song, so there is an immediate context for establishing long-range musical connections. But the local situation (example 3.7) involves a juxtaposition that produces a striking dis- continuity. In this moment of tonal drama, two keys, Wolfram’s E-fl at major and Tannhäuser’s E major, lying on opposite sides of the tonal spectrum, are brought into direct confrontation. Wolfram’s is the interrupted voice, Tannhäuser’s the interrupting one, and it is the latter that gains temporary priority. Wolfram’s world will ultimately triumph in the opera’s key scheme.
Similar eff ects fi gured as interruptions, visits from other worlds, shift ings of dramatic gears, etc., are common in opera. Th ey suggest that discontinuity is not merely a rhetorical option for individual composers; indeed, the musical utterance specifi cally, and the musical utterance more generally, may be intrinsically discon- tinuous. If so, analytical labor is better spent exploring the dynamics of disconti- nuity than in confi rming the tautologies of continuity.
One fi nal aspect of periodicity, which is related to discontinuity, is parenthe-
sis. Musical parentheses are enclosures within musical sentences. In a strict sense,
10. For a fuller discussion of topics in op. 132/i, see Agawu, Playing with Signs, 110–126. For a study that tracks the onsets and endings of topics in the same movement, see Carol Krumhansl, “Topic in Music: An Empirical Study of Memorability, Openness, and Emotion in Mozart’s String Quintet in C Major and Beethoven’s String Quartet in A Minor,” Music Perception 16 (1998): 119–132.
they are syntactically dispensable. Both the opening and closing of a parenthesis enact a discontinuity with the events that precede and follow, respectively. In the harmonic realm, for example, a parenthesis may introduce a delay in the approach to a goal or enable a prolongation or even a sustaining extension for the sake of play; it may facilitate the achievement of temporal balance or be used in response to a dramatic need contributed by text. In the formal realm, a parenthesis may introduce an aside, an insert, a by-the-way remark. Parentheses in verbal compo- sition have a diff erent signifi cance from parentheses in musical composition. In a verbal text, where grammar and syntax are more or less fi rmly established, the status of a parenthetical insertion as a dispensable entity within a well-formed grammatical situation is easy to grasp. In a musical situation, however, although we may speak of musical grammar and forms of punctuation, an imagined excision of the material contained in a so-called parenthesis oft en seems to deprive the pas- sage in question of something essential, something basic. What is left seems hardly worthwhile; the remaining music is devoid of interest; it seems banal. Th is suggests that musical parentheses are essential rather than inessential. A grammar of music that does not recognize the essential nature of that which seems inessential is likely to be impoverished.
Consider a simple chordal example. In the white-note progression shown in example 3.8, we can distinguish between structural chords and prolonging chords.
Th e sense of the underlying syntax—the progression’s harmonic meaning—can be
conveyed using the structural chords as framework. In that sense, the intervening chords may be said to be parenthetical insofar as the structure still makes sense without them. And yet the prolongational means are so organically attached to the structural pillars that the “deparenthesized” progression, while able to convey something of the big picture by displaying the structural origins of the original passage, seems to sacrifi ce rather a lot. Indeed, what is sacrifi ced in this musical
383
Strahlt dein Stern!
( )
Dir, Göt tin- -der
Lie-be, soll meinLied er-tö - nen
CHAPTER 3 Criteria for Analysis II
97 context may be more than what is sacrifi ced in an analogous linguistic situation. Once again, we note an important diff erence between musical meaning and lin- guistic meaning. If there is no meaningful musical structure apart from its prolon- gational means, then parentheses should be understood as indispensable.11) (
)
(
fromExample 3.8. Harmonic progression incorporating two parentheses.
11. In some generative theories of tonal structure, the idea of parenthesis is implicit in the assignment of hierarchical values to various members of a musical progression. Th us, the left or right branches in a tree diagram distinguish controlling elements from controlled elements, making it possible to describe some as essential to the structure and others as dispensable. See Alan Keiler, “Th e Syntax of Prolongation: Part 1,” In Th eory Only 3 (1977): 3–27; and Lerdahl and Jackendoff , A Generative Th eory of Tonal Music.
Th e work of parentheses may be readily observed in the shaping of musical
forms, but the transforming eff ect of erasing the contents of a parenthesis—even as a thought experiment—is a sign that making a fi rm distinction between events that lie inside and those that lie outside a given parenthesis is phenomenologi- cally problematic. In the large opening movement of Beethoven’s F Major String Quartet, op. 59, no. 1, the development contains a huge insertion that Ratner has characterized as a parenthesis. Occupying bars 152–222 within the larger span 98–241, the parenthesis constitutes 42.36% of the development section. According to Ratner, the smaller form has an integrity of its own in the shape of a fantasia- like prelude (bars 152–184) followed by a fugato (bars 185–210) and fi nally an epilogue or postlude (211–222), also in fantasia style. He calls this a parenthesis because the development section can be imagined as coherent from a structural point of view without bars 152–222, a few adjustments at beginning and ending notwithstanding. But the resulting coherence carries a sizable phenomenal defi cit. All of the secondary relationships and intertextual resonances made possible by the parenthesis disappear, and we are left with an almost naked syntactic structure, one with minimum temporal content and none of the gestural qualities necessi- tated by an exposition conceived on the grandest possible scale.
Th e third movement of this same quartet—a movement that is also in sonata
form—contains a parenthesis in the latter part of the development section, bars
70–80. Th e exposition occupies bars 1–45 and ends in the dominant minor, C
minor, from an F minor tonic. Th e development begins in A-fl at major (bar 46), passes through D-fl at/C-sharp (bars 50ff .) to D minor (bar 57), and eventually reaches the dominant of F minor in bar 67. But aft er 3 bars of waiting on the domi- nant in anticipation of a return to tonic, the music veers off into a diff erent key, D-fl at major (bar 70). Th is is the beginning of the parenthesis, which will be closed in bar 80, where the dominant of F minor returns to prepare the cadence onto F
minor for an actual recapitulation (bar 84). Th e parenthetical passage is the only sustained major-mode passage in the movement. Its expressive manner is intense. I hear a foreshadowing of a passage from one of Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs, “September,” in bars 72–75 of the Beethoven. Locally, the parenthetical material continues the process of textural intensifi cation begun earlier in the movement. If the achievement of tonal goals is accorded priority, then interpreting bars 70–80 as a parenthesis is defensible. But the material inside the parenthesis is dispensable only in this limited sense.
Periodicity, then, embraces the whole of music. As a quality, it is distributed across several dimensions. I have talked about cadences and cadential action, clo- sure, high points, discontinuity, and parenthesis. Th e overarching quality is clo- sure, including its enabling recessional processes. A theory of musical meaning is essentially a theory of closure.