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M U S I C T H E O R Y O N L I N E
A Publication of the
Society for Music Theory
Copyright (c) 1994 Society for Music Theory
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| Volume 0, Number 7 March, 1994 ISSN: 1067-3040 |
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All queries to: mto-editor@husc.harvard.edu
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AUTHOR: Alphonce, Bo, H.
TITLE: Dissonance and Schumann's Reckless Counterpoint
KEYWORDS: Schumann, piano music, counterpoint, dissonance, rhythmic shift
Bo H. Alphonce
McGill University
Faculty of Music, Department of Theory
555 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, Quebec H3A1E3
boa@sound.music.mcgill.ca
ABSTRACT: Work in progress about linearity in early romantic
music. The essay discusses non-traditional dissonance
treatment in some contrapuntal passages from Schumann's
*Kreisleriana*, opus 16, and his *Grande Sonate* F minor,
opus 14, in particular some that involve a wedge-shaped
linear motion or a rhythmic shift of one line relative to
the harmonic progression.
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[1] The present paper is the first result of a planned
project on linearity and other features of person- and
period-style in early romantic music(1). It is limited
to Schumann's piano music from the eighteen-thirties and
refers to score excerpts drawn exclusively from opus 14
and 16, the *Grande Sonate* in F minor and the
*Kreisleriana* -- the Finale of the former and the first
two pieces of the latter. It deals with dissonance in
foreground terms only and without reference to expressive
connotations. Also, Eusebius, Florestan, E.T.A. Hoffmann,
and Herr Kapellmeister Kreisler are kept gently off
stage.
=================================
1. While Schumann's dissonance treatment is not a new
topic, the response "no matches were found" from
smt-search to my request for "Schumann and dissonance"
served as an encouragement for this analytical caprice.
=================================
[2] Schumann favours friction dissonances, especially the
minor ninth and the major seventh, and he likes them raw:
with little preparation and scant resolution. The
sforzato clash of C sharp and D in mm. 131 and 261 of the
Finale of the G minor Sonata, opus 22, offers a brilliant
example, a peculiarly compressed dominant arrival just
before the return of the main theme in G minor. The
minor ninth often occurs exposed at the beginning of a
phrase as in the second piece of the *Davidsbuendler*,
opus 6: the opening chord is a V 4/2 with an appoggiatura
6; as 6 goes to 5, the minor ninth enters together with
the fundamental in, respectively, high and low peak
registers. Or it occurs at the accented culmination of a
fast melodic wave as in mm. 136 and 138 of "In der
Nacht," the fifth piece from *Fantasiestuecke*, opus 12
(an almost identical situation is found in m. 11 of
Variation VIII from the *Symphonic Etudes*, opus 13).
There is also the pivot function, as in Number 15 of the
*Davidsbuendler*, where in mm. 43ff the C minor leading
tone B is held over from the dominant seventh chord,
itself equipped with minor ninth, and is intensified as
the minor ninth Cb of the dominant chord of Eb major. Or
the use as opening melodic interval, as in the Scherzo
variant of the Clara Wieck theme in opus 14 or the
show-off imitative counterpoint in mm. 2ff of the first
*Intermezzo*, opus 4.
[3] To a great degree Schumann's dissonance treatment is
a reflection of contemporary practices. External
dissonance -- linear components entering simultaneously
with and conflicting with the chord -- occurs as metric
suspension or appoggiatura, submetric appoggiatura, or
simply as accented passing note, very often as accented
chromatic lower neighbour. Internal dissonance favours
the accented passing and neighbour notes, especially the
chromatic lower neighbour. In these situations, however,
Schumann characteristically does not work around harsh
dissonances but tends to seek them out; typically,
resolution notes clash with non-chordal notes. In most
cases tempo and textures keep the degree and intensity of
dissonance within the bounds of refined spicing that is a
distinctive feature of Schumann's piano music. But
sometimes the intensity is heightened. This paper looks
at three contrapuntal situations where this happens: the
linear wedge and two kinds of rhythmic shift.
[4] The right hand part of Example 1 (*Kreisleriana*,
opus 16, first movement, mm. 1-4) analyses into two
chords per measure, each chord built by two triplets.
The pattern is enriched by the half step motif that
begins the piece and connects each chord with the next.
The function of the motif as chordal or non-chordal is
ambiguous and subject to interpretation -- no particular
reading is consistent throughout the phrase. Now imagine
the left-hand part pulled back an eighth note so that
each of its notes supports the right-hand chord at the
strong beat. Apart from the ninth on the first downbeat
and the suspension chord at the cadence, linear
dissonance is not a propelling force in this
configuration. But when the left hand trails by an
eighth, as it does in the actual music, the successive
dissonances on strong beats: the ninth in m. 1, the
seventh and diminished octave in m. 2, push forward more
strongly than the harmonic progression alone (note that
as harmonic dissonance takes over at the end of m.2,
dissonances on strong beats become less pointed). Thus,
the rhythmic shift changes an essentially homophonic
passage into a kind of two-part counterpoint, not the
classical kind but a counterpoint where one of the two
parts is a composite of chordal arpeggios and the
left-hand "suspensions" resolve by joining the new chord
without concern for interval or direction.
[5] In the consequent phrase the left-hand part too
becomes chordal and the conflicts become more complex.
It could be argued that the performer can reduce
complexity by articulating the left-hand part away from
the strong beats. But whatever the performer does, the
listener is likely to hear what auditory stream theory
predicts: two streams where dissonance conflict helps
rather than hinders segregation. As in any tonal
contrapuntal situation, the dissonances support the
independence of the lines and the quasi-imitation brought
about by the left-hand syncopation binds the two lines
together enough to allow the common harmonic progression
to remain intact. In other words, the "reckless
counterpoint" caused by the rhythmic shift strengthens
stream segregation and thus is a powerful way to
reinforce the linear dimension of the harmonic
progression.
[6] The trailing left hand technique occurs in others of
Schumann's piano works from the thirties, for instance in
mm. 5ff of opus 10:2, but apart from experimentation with
rhythmic shift and dissonance clashes in *Carnaval*, opus
9,(2) the discovery of its potential for forceful
dissonance treatment appears to have come with the
*Kreisleriana*. Striking ways of creating conflict
between elements of different chords, however, are at the
center of attention in the Finale of opus 14 which
antedates *Kreisleriana* by about two years; in the
discussion of Examples 6 and 7 we shall see chord and
dissonance conflict at the full measure level.
=================================
2. See #18, the piece called "Paganini."
=================================
[7] Example 2 (*Kreisleriana*, first movement, mm. 24-26)
is included to show in the first place the remarkable
contrast between the first section of the movement and
the second with its downward arpeggios and pedal tones
and its absence of chordal conflict even while the motion
continues to be carried by the same triplet rhythm.
Refined dissonant spice here results from the chords of
the harmonic progression shining through a veil of pedal
tones, Bb and F. But the passage also hints at a linear
relationship that is exceedingly common in Schumann's
piano music. While the upper voice (the slurred sixteenth
pairs) makes oblique motion against the pedal, a couple
of measures after those shown in the example a descending
bass motion develops below the pedal Bb, the pedal
gradually dissolves, and the upper voice maintains its
register in short contrary motions against the bass until
just before the cadence. The result is a wedge-like
motion where one voice functions as a simple or
ornamented pedal.
[8] Even more pervasive than the oblique wedge is the
contrary motion wedge. Every section of the second
movement of *Kreisleriana* offers examples of some kind
of wedge, in oblique or contrary motion or a combination
of both; one of the most striking wedges begins in m. 17
where three voices engage in contrary motion extending
from the interval of a sixth to the distance of a full
three octaves, all of this happening over a pedal. In
stepwise diatonic contrary motion there is of course
always a point where a seventh and a ninth occur in
succession (separated by a major or minor second -- and
thus belonging to interval class 2 or 1 with their
difference in dissonance quality -- depending on whether
or not the octave/unison of the pair occurs on one of the
notes of the tritone in a diatonic scale). The strength
of the respective lines takes precedence over any
resolution rules that may be embedded among the style
criteria so that the notes are heard as passing notes.
The effect of the successive dissonances then is a sense
of momentary friction that adds to the vigour of the
passage. With three voices engaged, Schumann takes
advantage of this effect in characteristic ways -- and
since this example was an afterthought and has not been
included as a GIF, I must ask the scoreless reader to
imagine the texture. In m. 17 the upper and the lower of
the three moving voices make an exchange in stepwise
eighth-note motion, the upper voice running from Bb4 to
G5, the lower from G3 to Bb2 within the harmonic
framework of a dominant seventh chord built on the pedal
tone C. The middle voice runs essentially in parallel
tenths with the lower voice but changes register twice:
between the first two notes, Bb3 to A4, and the last two
notes, E4 to D5. At the moment the third and fourth step
of the outer scale segments have gone from minor seventh
to major ninth, the middle and upper voices reach their
seventh and go on to the ninth -- in this case the major
seventh and the minor ninth. The leap in the inner voice
after the ninth weakens the line and makes the dissonance
stand out. Despite the brevity of the impression, this
clustering of passing dissonances on the way to the
culmination of the wedge (added to the vertical
coincidence for a short moment of the pedal C3 with D3,
E5, and F4) creates an exquisitely calculated contrast to
the consonance and mild dissonance of the section as a
whole.
[9] A chromatic wedge either has two unison/octave points
a tritone apart, surrounded by intervals of interval
class 2, or has no unison/octave points but instead has
successive intervals of interval class 1 at points a
tritone apart. The first kind typically occurs in the
omnibus progression -- and there are numerous examples of
omnibus fragments in Schumann's music (the section
beginning in m. 119 of the second movement of
Kreisleriana uses the same kind of chromatic contraction
and expansion as one finds in the omnibus progression).
In fact, Schumann avoids the second kind and often also
manipulates the diatonic wedge by some chromatic motion
so as to avoid the seventh-ninth succession. Example 4
(Kreisleriana, first movement, mm. 15-17) shows a wedge
with mixed diatonic and chromatic motion in both outer
voices where the outer voices avoid interval class 2
dissonance; this, however, finds its way into the
progression by a different technique -- see below.
Clearly, if the upper voice in m. 16 had continued
chromatically down over the chromatic bass, the minor
tenth would have been followed by a minor ninth and a
major seventh, but then one purpose of the wedge would
have been lost: to retrieve D minor after a brief
excursion into the Neapolitan region. The bass is
chromatic for harmonic purposes: it includes the leading
tones of IV and V in D minor; the right hand completes
the harmonies. The effect is a clarification of harmonic
direction as if coming from "somewhere out there" and
gradually focusing on the goal. The use of this
technique in chromatic harmony would be worth its own
investigation; Max Reger, for instance, uses it
frequently.
[10] Even though the wedge construction in Example 4
itself bypasses sharp dissonances, they are there anyway.
In contributing to the harmonic progression, the
right-hand part is at odds with the left-hand part in a
way that reveals another type of rhythmic shift; for want
of a better term let me call it "chordal anticipation."
This technique places a chord, or the better portion of a
chord, rhythmically before the beat to which it belongs
harmonically. A simple version consists of anticipating
the entire chord immediately before playing it on the
beat, as at the opening of the first piece of the
*Davidsbuendler*. Rhythmically more elaborate versions
tie the right-hand anticipation to the beat and mark the
beat by the left hand as in the C major *Fantasy*, opus
17, second movement, mm. 92ff, or tie both hands into
chordal syncopation as in mm. 84ff of the last movement
of the same piece. Variants of chordal anticipation are
numerous in Schumann's work, but the most intriguing
version from the point of view of dissonance treatment is
the one shown in Example 4: one linear strand arpeggiates
before the beat and completes the chord on the beat while
the other line joins the same chord on the beat. As a
consequence, chordal elements are again out of sync so
that the arpeggio towards the next beat creates a chordal
conflict with the chord established on the current beat.
Imagine the right-hand part pushed forward by two
sixteenths so that each arpeggio begins on the beat and
fills the duration of the beat; then the progression is
just a normal harmonic wedge approaching the tonic.
Instead, the chordal anticipation technique fills each
beat -- traditionally the space for the chord supported
by the bass line -- with chords that more or less
contradict both the progression and the expected
voice-leading. Obviously, careful articulation and
weighting of the arpeggios in performance will guide the
listener's understanding of the harmonic progression, but
even so, the diminished octave E-Eb in m. 15 and the
minor second G sharp-A in m. 16 will lend a distinctive
character of linear dissonance to the whole passage.
[11] What goes before the passage shown in Example 4 uses
the same triplet rhythm but does not involve chordal
anticipation; what follows immediately after it is a
recapitulation of the opening material shown in Example
1. Thus, with its chordal anticipation shift the wedge
passage mediates between a section without rhythmic shift
and the recapitulation of the trailing left hand shift.
The two types of shift are closely related and tend to
have similar effects on dissonance treatment. As we
shall see, things get more intricate when more than one
level of harmonic progression is involved. But first let
us have a look at a wedge with a different formal
function.
[12] Using a linear wedge to close a section or prepare a
recapitulation is not unusual in Schumann's oeuvre. As
an early example, consider the second *Intermezzo*, opus
4, where the second repeat section prepares both its own
return and the return of the initial material in a new
key by means of an omnibus-type chromatic wedge
prolonging a dominant seventh chord. In the first
movement of the Piano Concerto practically every return
of the main theme is preceded by some kind of wedge;
likewise, in the Finale of the F minor Sonata both
returns of the main theme are prepared by a
contrary-motion wedge. But wedges are used in a number
of different functions, on a smaller scale for voice
exchange within a prolonged harmony anywhere in a formal
section, on a larger scale for theme construction, as for
instance in the Finale of the F sharp minor Sonata, opus
11, where the wedge is one of the main voice-leading
techniques throughout.
[13] From the dissonance point of view an especially
intriguing wedge is shown in Example 5 (*Kreisleriana*,
second movement, mm. 100-106 -- beginning of the second
section). Rather than closing a section, it comprises
the contrasting middle section of a small ternary form
and achieves the unlikely combination of decreasing space
and increasing energy. Based on Litzmann's book about
Clara Schumann(3), Peter Ostwald quotes Robert Schumann's
word to Clara that "there is a thoroughly wild love in
some of the movements" of the *Kreisleriana*(4). Without
speculation on expressive connotations (I promised!), in
terms of counterpoint this certainly is one of the wilder
moments. Its basic material is given in Example 3 (mm.
92f -- the beginning of the first section of the same
movement). This has some of the character of the
trailing left hand but not unambiguously; the harmonies
work either way, and the bass appoggiatura in m. 93 of
course represents a dissonance treatment Schumann shares
with most other romantic composers. The left hand
imitates the upper line at the lower fifth in a stepwise
descending sequence up to m. 96 but skips every other
dotted rhythm. The only real argument in favour of
understanding this passage as an example of trailing left
hand shift comes on the downbeat of m. 96 where the bass
line has reached a C over which the right hand plays a D
major arpeggio. Even though the harmonic context
suggests the function of the harmony as V 4/2, the bass C
is simply abandoned for a D and the phrase ends on an
emphatically tonicized D major harmony. Abandoning an
exposed harmonic dissonance is unproblematic if the
left-hand part is understood as trailing the harmonic
progression by a beat, but this reading is ambiguous at
best.
=================================
3. Litzmann, Berthold. 1925. *Clara Schumann, Ein
Kuenstlerleben*. 7th ed. 3 vols. Leipzig: Breitkopf &
Haertel.
4. Ostwald Peter. 1985. *Schumann, Music and Madness*.
London: Victor Gollancz Ltd. The quotation is from vol.
1, p. 224 of Litzmann's book.
=================================
[14] In Example 5 questions of rhythmic shift become
entirely irrelevant since here linear progression
supersedes harmonic progression during the ascent until D
minor is retrieved at the climax in m. 106. The linear
framework exhibits rhythmic imitation and
quasi-inversional melodic imitation. But the upper line
moves up by step from measure to measure so, remarkably,
the wedge is shaped by two ascending lines: the upper
line moving mostly by whole steps while the lower line
catches up by minor thirds (filled in by chromatic
motion) and the interval between the two lines becomes
gradually narrower. From one accented second beat to the
next the interval shrinks from diminished twelfth over
diminished eleventh and minor tenth to major ninth; at
this point the approach is halted and an exchange of
major ninth and minor seventh moves up by whole step to
the climax. This indeed is dissonance with little
preparation and scant resolution and would be passed off
in any traditional text as reckless counterpoint.
Dissonance here seems to function at a new and different
level: it is not a moment-to-moment event but a gradually
increasing intensity over the length of the phrase
followed by a gradual decrease (mm. 107 and 108 echo the
minor ninth appoggiatura from m. 93). Resolution at this
level occurs only in m. 110 where the two lines move in
parallel octaves down to a recapitulation of the first
section.
[15] Now, what happens when chordal anticipation in
oblique motion is imitated, so that two compound lines
create a counterpoint that moves in sequence over a
pedal? One of my earliest acquaintances with Schumann
was his *Grande Sonate* in F minor, opus 14, which I
stumbled through as a teenager and whose last movement I
found terribly boring and in part ugly. A little bit of
the "ugly" stuff is shown in Example 6 (*Grande Sonate* F
minor, opus 14, last movement, mm. 46-50). The material
on which this passage is based comes from mm. 9-10 where
it follows immediately after the main theme. It is
identical to the arpeggio figures in mm. 46-47, except
that the last two arpeggios in the second measure are C3
G3 E4 and F3 Ab3 with F4 on the downbeat of the third
measure ending the phrase. In performance it should be
articulated as chordal anticipation so as to avoid
harmonic confusion at the major seventh leap E4 F3. Yet,
the dissonant leap will make its impression and will
foreshadow the character of those later sections where
this material is used. Taken separately, the two entries
in mm. 46 and 48 seem to move in Eb major and C minor,
respectively, each ending on a half-measure suspension,
although it is only when the third entry comes in on Ab
that the second ending is made dissonant. The effect of
the second entry is to change the Eb harmony into first
inversion C minor -- unless one is capable of hearing the
two strands separately as a bitonal or bichordal
progression. The voice-leading B to C in the first two
right-hand arpeggios in m. 48 against the left-hand
suspension F to Eb promises a resolution to C minor so
strongly that I hear the G-major chord as a large
suspension chord rather than as an independent harmony.
In either case there is a chordal conflict due to the
late arrival of the C minor triad in the right-hand part.
It seems then that two rhythmic shifts are at work
simultaneously, but at different levels: chordal
anticipation at the beat level and the displacement of
the expected harmony in the right-hand part at the
measure level. The effect of the third entry is to alter
the expected F minor harmony so that it functions as part
of a Bb major ninth chord, supported by the large-scale
pedal note, Bb2.
[16] When the two compound parts -- the left hand and the
right hand -- sound together, the amount of dissonance is
considerable, but dissonance treatment here stays well
within traditional practice. The double-entry
progression is sequenced a third up as indicated by the
entry on Ab in m. 50 and again another third up in m. 54
while the pedal Bb is refreshed regularly. By starting on
successively higher scale steps the six entries together
unfold a major sixth from F to D, i.e. the fifth and
third of the overall prolonged Bb harmony. When the
upper line reaches D6 over the pedal note, the third
sequence is curtailed and the line descends, supported by
parallel sixth chords, through the dominant seventh note
Ab to resolve by suspension Ab to G over Eb at the point
where Example 7 begins.
[17] In Example 7 (*Grande Sonate* F minor, last
movement, mm. 60-63) the chordal conflict extends over
not just one but two measures. While the triplet motion
now is fragmented and repeated, creating shorter units,
the two measures are held together by the eighth-note
arpeggio figures that spell out a C minor chord with
downbeat appoggiatura dissonance (craftily supported by
the "wrong" harmony in the chordal anticipation part).
Again the expected Eb harmony is transformed into first
inversion C minor; imitation now takes place in
invertible counterpoint a fifth down, spelling out a root
position F minor chord; thus, the underlying structure is
a 6 5 linear intervallic pattern -- not the figured-bass
motion where the upper line descends but the "inverted"
kind where the bass ascends. This is again sequenced
upward and is curtailed when it has reached the Eb major
sixth chord.
[18] While in these two passages the counterpoint is
perfectly passable as far as dissonance treatment is
concerned, it is the harmonic conflicts that make them
sound like reckless counterpoint. At this level, then,
the sense of heightened dissonance intensity is not so
much a question of dissonant intervals as of conflicting
chords. By techniques that are bold and advanced for his
time, Schumann has achieved a sound that is not only
uncharacteristic of early Romantic music but even
un-Schumannesque. While I no longer find these
progressions ugly but instead exciting and refreshing,
their particular sound seems more akin to that of some
works in the 20th-century neoclassicist and "neue
Sachlichkeit" tradition, the environment where the phrase
"reckless counterpoint" was originally coined.
[19] This essay has discussed a few style features from
Schumann's early piano music and, in particular,
different combinations of features. The fact that some
combinations occur in a work that stands out as the
quintessence of Schumannesque sound, the *Kreisleriana*,
while others contribute to a sound that strikes the
listener as peripheral to Schumann's style, brings up a
central question that the ongoing project must address:
the question of what features a given composer shares
with what groups of other composers over what spans of
time and within what regions of space, and what features
are exclusive to that composer. It also serves as a
reminder that questions of style delimitation are highly
complex and probably have to do with intricately combined
and continuously recombined features of both distant
heritage and spontaneous creation.
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