Brahms designated the second movement of the Piano trio, op. 8, the third movement of the Piano Quartet, op. 26, and the second movement of the horn trio, op. 40, as scherzos. these movements have the lively tempo, 3/4 meter, and hypermetric regularity associated with Beethoven’s symphonic scherzos. Each of these three scherzos makes use of elements characteristic of the pastoral genre, especially “horn” fifths and lengthy pedal points. Although each movement also possesses features less typical of the pastoral—most notably the minor mode in Op. 8—each includes a sufficient number of pastoral features to cue the pastoral mode.1
meter is based on multiple periodic levels of activity. metric theory gives a special place to the level of motion referred to as the tactus, the pulse level most likely indicated by a conductor’s beats or by an experienced listener’s spontaneous tapping. the immediate duple or triple groupings of the tactus create meter; higher- level periodicities, if present, generate hypermeter. In particularly fast tempos, the composer’s meter signature is often based on a level of pulse that proceeds more quickly than the tactus. This is certainly true in the scherzos of Opp. 8 and 40, where the tactus is the dotted half note rather than the quarter note. In the case of op. 26, either the quarter note or the dotted half note could serve as the tactus, depending on the choice of tempo and on the listener. thus, especially in opp. 8 and 40, the pervasive four-measure groupings are not as significant as the notation suggests. For ease of comparison with the notated score, my analyses refer to two- and four-measure metric units as hypermeasures, even though many listeners perceive these spans as metric rather than hypermetric.
What is noteworthy in these three scherzos is the relative degree of congruence between tonal and rhythmic-metric structures. Periodic four-measure, eight- measure, and even sixteen-measure hypermeters are not only operative but are strongly projected. tonal arrivals, for example, generally fall at the beginning of hypermeasures, and structural melodic pitches are often evenly paced and situated in metrically strong locations. there is a greater degree of congruence in op. 8 than in op. 40, with op. 26 occupying a middle position. For this reason, the chapter will focus on opp. 8 and 40 to highlight this range of inter-parametric congruence.
1 robert hatten discusses the pastoral mode as a nineteenth-century expansion of
the characteristic pastoral genre from the classical era in “schubert’s Pastoral: the Piano Sonata in G Major, D. 894,” in Brian Newbould (ed.), Schubert the Progressive: History, Performance Practice, Analysis (Aldershot, 2003), pp. 151–68.
Piano Trio in B Major, Op. 8
Brahms first published the Piano Trio, Op. 8, in 1854 but thoroughly revised the work in 1889. Of the four movements, only the scherzo did not undergo drastic revision. In terms of tonal, rhythmic-metric, and motivic content, only the scherzo’s coda changed significantly; nearly all of the revisions outside of the coda involve texture or performance directions rather than harmony or rhythm.2 the score
excerpts below come from the revised version, though the analytic observations apply equally to the original version (except as noted in the coda).
the scherzo of op. 8 exhibits considerable congruence between tonal and rhythmic-metric structures. eight-measure hypermeter is consistently operational, and sixteen-measure hypermeter is occasionally present. melodic groups fall within four-measure units, and tonal arrivals coincide with metric accents. only in transitional sections and in the coda does the high degree of coordination between tonal and rhythmic-metric structures dissolve. this is entirely conventional in transitions, but less usual in codas. A comparison of the first and second versions of Brahms’s coda reveals a considerable decrease in hypermetric periodicity in the final version. Analyses of later scherzo movements (especially Opp. 87 and 101) show a withholding of resolution of significant conflicts, and the second version of the coda of op. 8 betrays Brahms’s later penchant for qualifying closure. the following discussion will examine coordination of tonal and rhythmic-metric structures first in the scherzo proper, then briefly in the trio, and finally in the coda.
the scherzo’s main thematic idea, which is introduced by the unaccompanied cello in mm. 1–4, has highly coordinated tonal and rhythmic-metric structures (Example 4.1). The pitches on the notated downbeats consist of members of the implied B-minor harmony. embellishing tones are short and fall on the metrically weak third beats. The four-measure idea does not elide with subsequent material; instead, it comes to completion within its four-measure temporal frame and is separated from subsequent material by silence. this idea permeates the scherzo, and a major-mode transformation provides the basis for the trio.3 In the remainder 2 most of the revisions reduce doublings between the cello and piano parts, or change
the thickness of chords within the piano part. The revised score also contains substantially fewer performance directions.
3 Besides imbuing the entire movement with a consistently high degree of inter-
parametric congruence, the movement’s limited number of thematic ideas may have programmatic significance. Eric Sams views the D–C–B–a–B cell as a transposition of schumann’s clara cipher. sams further connects Brahms’s placement of that cipher in B minor with schumann’s opera Genoveva. In act I of that opera, schumann uses this figure in B minor to set Siegfried’s instruction to Golo to “take care of my wife” while he is away fighting in battle; the tonalities of B minor and B major are associated with Golo throughout the opera. see eric sams, “Brahms and his clara themes,” Musical Times, 112 (May 1971): 432–4. David Brodbeck relates the meaning of a Clara cipher in the scherzo with overt allusions in the 1854 version of op. 8 to Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte (and thus to Schumann’s Fantasy, Op. 17) in the last movement and to Schubert’s “Am
of the first reprise, this idea occurs again on the tonic (mm. 5–8 and 6–9) and twice in the key of the minor dominant (mm. 13–16 and 17–20). Only in the case of mm. 5–8 is the separation of the four-measure group reduced; the canonic imitation by the piano (mm. 6–9) provides rhythmic continuity at the end of m. 8. A similar canonic imitation in the right hand of the piano part in m. 18, however, stops in its third measure to end at the same time as the leading violin line. throughout the second reprise, there are many repetitions of the main thematic idea, and strategies for minimizing the closure of four-measure groups rarely occur. Instead, Brahms does not counteract the idea’s innate stability and tendency to close definitively in its last measure.
the coordination of rhythmic-metric and tonal structures extends to higher structural levels. example 4.2 provides three levels of durational reduction for the scherzo’s first reprise (mm. 1–32a). The middle level of reduction suggests a twenty-four-measure basis for the thirty-two measures of music. the extra measures result from an antiphonal repetition of the main thematic idea at the start of each phrase. this reduction proposes that in addition to the four-measure hypermeter of the surface, there exists an underlying eight-measure hypermeter (shown by double barlines in Example 4.2). The middle level also indicates a tonal model for the last eight measures: an arrival on the minor dominant that is subsequently transformed into the home dominant. the deepest level of reduction in example 4.2 posits a sixteen-measure model as the fundamental basis of the first reprise. The sixteen-measure model responds to the I–V motion of the first eight measures with another eight-measure unit. The lack of tonal motion in the last eight measures of the first reprise (along with the scarcity of melodic motion in mm. 21–4) suggests that the basic length of the first reprise is sixteen measures.
the reductions in example 4.2 eliminate one surface detail that has consequences later in the movement. at the end of m. 20, each of the instruments anticipates the motion to the cadential (Example 4.3). The durational reductions in Example 4.2 immediately eliminate this detail since there is no doubt that the upbeats at the end of m. 20 function as foreground anticipations of the tonal motion at the downbeat of m. 21. In the new material at the end of the scherzo’s rounding, this passage is
Meer” in the slow movement; see Brodbeck, “Medium and Meaning,” pp. 123–7. John daverio, however, has recently questioned the presence of hidden encodings in Brahms’s (and Schumann’s) music; see John Daverio, Crossing Paths: Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms (New York, 2002), especially pp. 72–8 and 108–13.
rewritten in such a way that a metric displacement does develop; I will address that metric displacement later.
the start of the second reprise moves even closer to the pastoral, since it brings major-mode harmonies to the scherzo’s “horn” fifths and coordinated tonal and rhythmic-metric structures. Only after the arrival of the dividing dominant (m. 76) and the onset of the retransition (mm. 77–120) does the metric regularity diminish. example 4.2 Brahms, Piano trio, op. 8, II, durational reduction of mm. 1–32a
after m. 85, the bass line rises chromatically, and each new bass pitch arrives on the last quarter note of a measure. Further, as the ascent continues, the duration of each bass pitch decreases: four measures on G, three on G, two on a, and two (that are repeated) on A. While such Beethovenian foreshortening is a common device, it appears in this scherzo only once—in this retransitional passage.
Foreshortening generally culminates in a significant moment of arrival; in a retransition, it might build to a climactic thematic return. In op. 8, the foreshortening instead leads to the second part of the retransition, a passage with a much slower rate of presentation of musical content. the eight-measure surface hypermeter disintegrates as the second part of the retransition consists of twenty, rather than sixteen or twenty-four, measures (mm. 101–20 in Example 4.4a). Yet the slow rate of musical events and the amount of repetition suggest an expansion. examples 4.4b–e offer four possible prototypes. example 4.4b reads the exact repetition of mm. 101–4 in mm. 105–8 as the source of a four-measure expansion. although literal repetition may create a phrase expansion, the suspiratio in mm. 113–20 strongly suggests a composed-out deceleration, as shown in example 4.4c. example 4.4d assumes multiple expansions and posits an eight- measure prototype. example 4.4e has the same tonal content as example 4.4c, but reads a composed-out deceleration throughout the entire passage. example 4.4e thus responds to the fact that the violin’s melody is a loose augmentation of the movement’s opening cell, a temporal relation made explicit by the piano’s imitations (in mm. 101–2, 105–6, 109–10). It is not my intent to argue that one of these prototypes is the proper conceptual basis for mm. 101–20. rather, the close similarity between each of these prototypes and Brahms’s original suggests that the irregular hypermeter in mm. 101–20 directly relates to a periodic underlying one. the expansion arises from literal repetition, composed-out deceleration, or some combination of the two. each of the four prototypes interprets the expansion differently in its origin and/or degree of expansion, but the underlying regularity is immediately accessible.
When the scherzo’s opening melody returns in the cello at m. 121, a submediant chord in the piano displaces the expected B-minor harmony (shown in example 4.4a). The tonal accent thus does not coincide with the metric accent, but is instead shifted to the end of the four-measure group. avoiding simultaneous strong tonal and metric arrivals at the start of a major formal section is typical of Brahms; in the context of his works, the undercutting of the thematic return in Op. 8 is minimal. even among the pastoral scherzos, op. 26 and especially op. 40 exhibit considerably more intricate reworking of the thematic return.
the most metrically unstable passage in op. 8 occurs in the new material at the end of the thematic rounding (Example 4.5). In a typical scherzo, the new material at the end of the thematic rounding leads to a conclusive cadence in the tonic; this scherzo remains fixed on the dominant. Recall that the first reprise undercut the arrival on its tonal goal (F minor) by sustaining a ninth chord above F during its last eight measures. the new material at the end of the second reprise leads to the same sonority, which functions as a link into the trio. The approach to this
problematic tonal event has an equally unsettling metric component. although the new material in m. 145 begins with clear harmonic changes every two measures (reinforced by its sequential construction), a metric displacement occurs in mm. 153–8. While the violin reinforces the notated downbeats through agogic example 4.4 Brahms, Piano trio, op. 8, II, second part of retransition and
accents, the cello imitates the violin at the time interval of two quarter notes. as a result, the cello’s agogic accents fall on the last beat of each measure and reinforce the metric displacement initiated by the harmonic changes in the piano. the return to F as a foreground harmony at m. 159 reorients the perceived downbeats to the notated ones.
the trio of op. 8 features an even fuller coordination of tonal and rhythmic- metric structures than the movement’s outer sections. major harmonic arrivals example 4.5 Brahms, Piano trio, op. 8, II, mm. 145–64
occur at hyperdownbeats, normative accelerations in harmonic rhythm take place during each phrase, long melodic durations begin in metrically strong locations, and sixteen-measure hypermeter is directly accessible. the impact of these features is especially palpable since the trio’s opening melody is a major- mode transformation of the violin’s shadowy melody from the second part of the scherzo’s retransition (mm. 101–20).
A short bridge (mm. 248–60) connects the end of the trio with the return of the scherzo, and this transitional passage introduces momentary hypermetric ambiguity (Example 4.6). The sixteen-measure hypermeter breaks down; more significantly, aspects of the music cause some uncertainty over the alignment of the four-measure (and two-measure) hypermeter. The bridge begins with two repetitions of the piano’s cadential gesture from the end of the trio. each of these repetitions is two measures long and begins on a hypermetrically weak downbeat; in the terminology of Lerdahl and Jackendoff, grouping is significantly out-of- phase with respect to the hypermeter.4 With their strict separation of rhythm and
meter, Lerdahl and Jackendoff do not infer a weakening of meter or hypermeter when grouping remains consistently out-of-phase from meter. In this bridge, though, the two-measure groups that cut across the established duple hypermeter seem to project their own competing hypermeter, especially in a performance that includes any pause between the end of the trio and the start of the bridge. In other words, the bridge sets up a shadow hypermeter, which is shown by the dotted lines and parenthetical hypermetric scansion in example 4.6.5 the sforzando at m. 252
furthers the establishment of the shadow hypermeter, but the shadow hypermeter ultimately resolves into the main hypermeter at the return of the dominant (m. 257). This bridge thus provides hypermetric uncertainty entirely absent from most of the movement.
4 Lerdahl and Jackendoff, A Generative Theory, p. 30.
5 The term shadow meter comes from Frank Samarotto, “Strange Dimensions:
regularity and Irregularity in deep levels of rhythmic reduction,” in carl schachter and Hedi Siegel (eds), Schenker Studies II (Cambridge, 1999), p. 235.
When the scherzo returns, a coda is added to make the tonal motion from dominant to tonic. this new material turns away from the scherzo’s clear tonal and rhythmic-metric structures; its initial four-measure idea is immediately repeated with a sizable expansion from a cadenza-like passage for piano (Example 4.7a). this expansion gives additional prominence to the idea’s unusual motion from subtonic to leading tone. example 4.7b suggests a sixteen-measure prototype; this prototype slows the harmonic motion just enough to place the final tonic arrival on a hyperdownbeat, gives that tonic harmony a length commensurate with the preceding music, and more directly presents the passage’s underlying voice leading. In Brahms’s expansion of the final tonic harmony (mm. 445–60), four- measure hypermeter does settle in, but the juxtaposition of very long and short durations is unsettling.
the 1854 coda begins similarly to the 1889 version, and it also exhibits an attenuation of rhythmic activity. the rhythmic attenuation, however, preserves the integrity of four-measure hypermeter and does not juxtapose long and short durations. Looking back on his original coda, Brahms surely found the amount of new material inappropriate. neither its barren parallel major-minor-seventh sonorities nor its hemiolas were prepared earlier in the movement. measures 431–50 do develop the a–a motion from the coda’s first measures, but largely through sequence. In the revised version, the a–a motion spans the entire expansion, and this chromatic detail is not obscured by additional chromaticism. the revised coda’s emphasis on a–a motion rather than generic half-step motion solidifies the connection to the a–a motion generated by the F ninth chord that supplants the expected example 4.7 Brahms, Piano trio, op. 8, II, coda and sixteen-measure prototype
F-minor triad at the end of the scherzo’s first reprise. The revised coda’s lesser rhythmic-metric stability and heightened motivic cogency point towards Brahms’s later style.
Piano Quartet in A Major, Op. 26
compared to op. 8, subtler interplay of tonal and rhythmic-metric structures emerges already in the first measures of the scherzo from the Piano Quartet, Op. 26. Like the earlier scherzo, the one from Op. 26 begins with an unharmonized melodic line (reproduced at (a) in Example 4.8), but in Op. 26 the implied harmonies and structural melodic pitches are less clear (compare Example 4.8 with Example 4.1). Brahms lightly harmonizes mm. 1–4 in mm. 9–12 and 127–30; these passages are reproduced at (b) and (c) in Example 4.8. These later passages confirm the harmonies seemingly implied by the unharmonized melody: a lengthy span of subdominant harmony followed by brief dominant and tonic harmonies. emphasis on the subdominant is a disruptive agent at several junctures in the scherzo (e.g., mm. 5–9, 123–7, 169–72, 207–8).
since the harmonies are only implicit in mm. 1–4, the structural melodic pitches are not immediately clear. One likely hears the F–e–d–c motion that spans mm. 1–4 as the structural melodic framework (shown at (a) in Example 4.9). Since Brahms’s subsequent harmonizations emphasize the last beat of the third measure with the motion to the dominant, this lends some weight to the e, suggesting the second hearing. In addition, Brahms soon develops mm. 1–4 into an ascending gesture (mm. 13–16 and 17–20), and this transformation incorporates the ascending step between the first and last beats of the melody’s third measure into a broader overall ascent.
example 4.8 Brahms, Piano Quartet, op. 26, III, mm. 1–4, 9–12 and 127–30 (reduced score)
the pre-rounding component of the second reprise develops the ideas from the scherzo’s beginning. The melody from mm. 1–4 is stated in distant keys (e.g., C major, F major), fragmented to its last measure (e.g., mm. 66–9), fragmented to its first two notes (e.g., mm. 73–9), fragmented to its first measure with intervallic alterations (e.g., mm. 81, 83, 89, 91, 93, 95), and contrapuntally combined with the eighth-note motive from mm. 25–32. despite these developmental ploys, the hypermeter remains periodic and tonal and metric accents coincide, largely due to the sequential basis of most of this section.
This parametric congruence breaks down at the point of highest tension in the second reprise—the retransition (mm. 100–18 in Example 4.10). After the arrival on the dominant of F minor at m. 100, fragments of the opening theme return and at first continue the four-measure hypermeter. When the cello initiates a fuller statement of the theme, it fails to complete the expected four-measure