Metric displacement dissonance and romantic longing in the German lied

Music Analysis

Volumn 25, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 251-288

  Malin, Yonatan ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 60949445852     PISSN: 02625245     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2249.2006.00243.x     Document Type: Article

References (94)

1. The term 'dissonance' applies to metre by analogy with pitch. Metric dissonances are essentially forms of metric conflict. For discussions of the consonance/ dissonance metaphor and other analogies between pitch and rhythm, see Richard Conn, 'Metric and Hypermetric Dissonance in the Menuetto of Mozart's Symphony in G Minor, K. 550', Intégral, 6 (1992), pp. 1-33
2. and 'Complex Hemiolas, Ski-Hill Graphs and Metric Spaces', Music Analysis, 20/iii (2001), pp. 295-326
3. Harald Krebs, 'Some Extensions of the Concept of Metrical Consonance and Dissonance', Journal of Music Theory, 31/i (1987), pp. 99-120
4. and Fantasy Pieces; Metrical Dissonance in the Music of Robert Schumann (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999)
5. and David Lewin, 'On Harmony and Meter in Brahms's Opus 76 #8', 19th-century Music, 4/iii (1981), pp. 261-5
6. The field is broad. Studies include: Richard Cohn, 'The Dramatization of Hypermetric Conflicts in the Scherzo of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony', 19th-century Music, 15/iii (1992), pp. 188-206
7. 'Metric and Hypermetric Dissonance', and 'Complex Hemiolas'
8. Walter Frisch, 'The Shifting Bar Line: Metrical Displacement in Brahms', in George S. Bozarth (ed.), Brahms Studies: Analytical and Historical Perspectives (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), pp. 139-64
9. Harald Krebs, 'Some Extensions', and Fantasy Pieces
10. David Lewin, 'On Harmony and Meter', and 'Vocal Meter in Schoenberg's Atonal Music, with a Note on Serial Hauptstimme', in Studies in Music with Text (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 345-66
11. John Roeder, 'Interacting Pulse Streams in Schoenberg's Atonal Polyphony', Music Theory Spectrum, 16/ii (1994), pp. 231-49
12. Carl Schachter, 'Aspects of Meter', in Unfoldings: Essays in Schenkerian Theory and Analysis, ed. Joseph N. Straus (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 79-117
13. and Keith Waters, 'Blurring the Barline: Metric Displacement in the Piano Solos of Herbie Hancock', Annual Review of Jazz Studies, 8 (1996), pp. 19-37
14. Amelia S. Kaplan, 'Two vs. Three: A Numerical Dialectic in Wagnerian Rhythmic and Harmonic Discourse' (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1998)
15. Harald Krebs, Fantasy Pieces, in particular pp. 156-73
16. and 'Dramatic Functions of Metrical Consonance and Dissonance in Das Rheingold', In Theory Only, 10/v (1988), pp. 5 - 21
17. Richard Kurth, 'On the Subject of Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony: was bedeutet die Bewegung', 19th-century Music, 23/i (1999), pp. 3.....32
18. and Deborah Adams Rohr, 'Brahms's Metrical Dramas: Rhythm, Text Expression, and Form in the Solo Lieder' (PhD diss., University of Rochester, 1997)
19. they originate in Peter M. Kaminsky, 'Aspects of Harmony, Rhythm, and Form in Schumann's Papillaris, Carnaval and Davidsbündlertänze' (PhD diss., University of Rochester, 1989), p. 27
20. Krebs uses 'type A' and 'type B' for grouping and displacement dissonances respectively in his earlier paper, 'Some Extensions'. Richard Cohn uses the terms 'syncopation-type' and 'hemiola-type' for these same categories (see Richard Cohn, 'Introduction to Meter and Metric Dissonance', unpublished paper, 1999)
21. There exists a potential for confusion between Krebs's 'metrical displacement dissonance', referring to all situations in which metric layers of the same periodicity conflict, and Walter Frisch's '(actual) metrical displacement', referring to the specific situation in which we perceive the primary metre (temporarily) as something other than the written metre. Krebs uses the term 'subliminal dissonance' to refer to situations of 'actual metrical displacement' (see Krebs, Fantasy Pieces, especially pp. 46-52)
22. The period of this study extends from 1780, the year in which Goethe is said to have written 'Wandrers Nachtlied II', to 1908/09, the years in which Schoenberg wrote the George Lieder, Op. 15. This roughly parallels the 'long nineteenth century' of European history as outlined by David Blackbourn: 'the period between the "double revolution" of the late eighteenth century (the French Revolution of 1789, the Industrial Revolution in Britain) and the First World War'. See his The Long Nineteenth Century: A History of Germany, 1780-1918 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. xiii
23. Victor Zuckerkandl, Sound and Symbol (New York: Pantheon Books, 1956), pp. 167-8. Zuckerkandl goes on to specify that 'since in time there can be no real going back . . . the process can be better understood and visualised as a wave' (p. 168)
24. Frank Samarotto has written: 'One meaning of metrical dissonance ... is inherent in the idea of displacement itself - that of spatial separation'. See his ' "The Body That Beats": Review of Harald Krebs, Fantasy Pieces: Metrical Dissonance in the Music of Robert Schumann', Music Theory Online, 6/iv (2000), n. 6
25. This conflict is discussed in Arnold Feil, 'Two Analyses', in Walter Frisch (ed.), Schubert: Critical and Analytical Studies (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1986), pp. 104-25
26. and David Ferris, Schumann's Eichendorff Liederkreis and the Genre of the Romantic Cycle (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 244, n. 9
27. Critics have differed on whether 'balde ruhest du auch' expresses a longing for death; biographical issues relating to Goethe's composition of the poem, and his return to it many years later are implicated in this debate. See L.P. Johnson, '"Wandrers Nachtlied'", German Life and Letters, 36/i-ii (1982-3), p. 45
28. and Wulf Segebrecht, Johann Wolfgang Goethes Gedicht 'Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh' und seine Folgen. Zum Gebrauchswert klassischer Lyrik: Text, Materialien, Kommentar (Munich and Vienna: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1978), pp. 66-72
29. See Johnson, ' "Wandrers Nachtlied" ', p. 35
30. The translation is adapted from Harry Seelig, 'The Literary Context: Goethe as Source and Catalyst', in Rufus Hallmark (ed.), German Lieder in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Sehirmer Books, 1996), p. 10
31. Johnson, 'Wandrers Nachtlied', p. 48, n. 8
32. See Carl Schaehter, 'Aspects of Meter' (in particular pp. 89-92), for a valuable analysis of the interaction between irregular groupings and the metre of the notated 4/4 bar lines in 'Wandrers Nachtlied II'
33. Schachter, 'Aspects of Meter'
34. and David Gagné and Allen Cadwallader, Analysis of Tonal Music: A Schenkerian Approach (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 207-14
35. Susan Youens, Retracing a Winter's Journey: Schubert's Winterreise (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991)
36. William Rothstein, '"Beethoven with and without Kunstgeprä g": Metrical Ambiguity Reconsidered', in Christopher Reynolds, Lewis Lockwood and James Webster (eds.), Beethoven Forum, 4 (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), pp. 165-93 (especially p. 106)
37. See also Joseph Kerman, 'An die ferne Geliebte', in Alan Tyson (ed.), Beethoven Studies, 1 (New York: W.W Norton, 1973), pp. 123-57
38. Joseph Kerman suggests that the last stanza of the first song was Beethoven's own addition. See his 'An die ferne Geliebte', pp. 126-7
39. Robert Schumann, Gesammelte Schriften über Musik und Musiker, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1891), II, p. 447
40. and On Music and Musicians, ed. Conrad Wolff, trans. Paul Rosenfeld (New York: Pantheon Books, 1946), pp. 241-2
41. See also the commentary in Reinhold Brinkmann, Schumann und Eichendorff: Studien zum Liederkreis Opus 39 (Munich: Edition Text + Kritik, 1997), pp. 5-9
42. The translation is adapted from David Ferris, Schumann's Eichendorff Liederkreis, p. 131
43. Line 123; cited in David E. Wellbery, The Specular Moment; Goethe's Early Lyric and the Beginnings of Romanticism (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), p. 207
44. Wellbery, The Specular Moment, p. 70
45. Theodor W. Adorno, 'In Memory of Eichendorff', in Notes to Literature, ed. Rolf Tiedemann, trans. Shierry Weber Nicholsen (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), p. 72
46. Frank Samarotto briefly describes the role of metric displacements in Schumann's 'Intermezzo': 'Schumann's setting, an essay in displacement on many levels, features an offbeat accompaniment that portrays both a beating heart and the distance it longs to bridge'. See Samarotto, '"The Body That Beats'", n. 6
47. The phrase is borrowed from Sybille A.M. Reichert, 'Unendliche Sehnsucht: The Concept of Longing in German Romantic Narrative and Song' (PhD diss., Yale University, 1994), p. 268
48. This analysis draws on William James's notion of the 'psychological present' as described by Candace Brower: 'As William James first noted in 1890, we do not experience the present as a point, but as a span of time, made up of those events of the past that are still part of our conscious awareness .... The psychological present is not of fixed duration, like a sliding window through which we view passing events. Instead, a continuous stream of information is broken up into a series of psychological presents'. See her 'Memory and the Perception of Rhythm', Music Theory Spectrum, 15/i (1993), p. 22
49. Adorno, 'In Memory of Eichendorff, p. 65
50. See Brinkmann, Schumann und Eichendorff, p. 9
51. Ferris discusses aspects of voice-leading, harmony and rhythm that give this cadence a feeling of conclusiveness. See his Schumann's Eichendorff Liederkreis, pp. 138-9
52. I identify hierarchically aligned displacements in response to a critique of Krebs's theory by Robert Hatten. Hatten asks whether consistently grouped rhythmic layers that do not coincide with the notated or primary functioning metre always amount to metrical dissonance. 'The question is', Hatten writes, 'whether the displaced antimetrical layers . . . possess an internal hierarchy independent of the prevailing metric layer'. See Robert S. Hatten, review of Harald Krebs, Fantasy Pieces, Music Theory Spectrum, 24/ii (2002), pp. 274 and 276. In Schumann's 'Intermezzo', we find that the syncopated chords do possess precisely such an internal hierarchy, independent of the prevailing metre
53. See also Ferris, Schumann's Eichendorff Liederkreis, p. 139
54. The following discussion summarises a more extended analysis in Yonatan Malin, 'Metric Dissonance and Music-Text Relations in the German Lied' (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2003), pp. 68-82
55. This and other motivic connections in the cycle are discussed in John Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a 'New Poetic Age' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 215-16
56. David Ferris, Schumann's Eichendorff Liederkreis
57. Herwig Knaus, Musiksprache und Werkstruktur in Robert Schumanns 'Liederkreis' mit dem Faksimile Des Autographs (München: Musikverlag Emil Katzbichler, 1974), pp. 5-12
58. Patrick McCreless, 'Song Order in the Song Cycle: Schumann's Liederkreis, Op. 39', Music Analysis, 5/i (1986), pp. 5-28
59. and Jürgen Thym, 'The Solo Song Settings of Eichendorff's Poetry by Schumann and Wolf (PhD diss., Case Western Reserve University, 1974), pp. 215-17
60. As Alfred North Whitehead observed, 'The earlier half of the century . . . was a peculiar period of hope, in the sense in which, sixty or seventy years later, we can now detect a note of disillusionment, or at least of anxiety'. See his Science and the Modern World (New York: The Free Press, 1967), p. 96
61. The term Brahmsnebel comes from Max Reger, as discussed in Walter Frisch, The Early Works of Arnold Schoenberg, 1893-1908 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993), p. 3
62. Frisch quotes from Max Reger, Briefe eines deutschen Meisters, ed. Else von Hase Koehler (Leipzig: Koehler & Amelang, 1928), pp. 39-40
63. Reichert, 'Unendliche Sehnsucht', p. 268
64. See Reinhold Brinkmann, 'Die "heitre Sinfonie" und der "schwer melancholische Mensch". Johannes Brahms antwortetVincenz Lachner', Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, 46 (1989), pp. 301-2
65. and Late Idyll: The Second Symphony of Johannes Brahms, trans. Peter Palmer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), p. 128
66. Brinkmann, Late Idyll, pp. 133-4
67. As Heather Platt describes this passage, 'The piano has two-measure segments, but. . . the bass line does not coincide with the melody's segments, which are doubled in the upper lines of the piano .... Carl Schachter has suggested that this lack of synchronization echoes the girl's dream: the man arrives but too late, the girl has already died'. See her 'Text-Music Relationships in Lieder of Johannes Brahms' (PhD diss., City University of New York, 1992), p. 172
68. This phenomenon is discussed by Hugo Riemann in 'Die Taktfreiheiten in Brahms' Liedern', Die Musik, 12/i (1912), pp. 10-21
69. For discussion of the minor thirds sequence in this song, see Stein and Spillman, Poetry into Music, pp. 129-31
70. and Pieter C. Van den Toorn, 'Taruskin's Angle', In Theory Only, 10/iii (1987), p. 40
71. For the problems associated with so called 'equal divisions of the octave', see Richard Cohn, 'Maximally Smooth Cycles, Hexatonic Systems and the Analysis of Late-Romantic Triadic Progressions', Music Analysis, 15/i (1996), pp. 9-11
72. Heather Platt considers the shift from C# minor to Deflat major in this song in relation to Brahms's general use of key associations, as well as comparing it with a similar shift in the last song of Schumann's Dichterliebe. See Platt, 'Text-Music Relationships in lieder of Johannes Brahms', p. 190
73. 2 of bar 47 as the song's Kopfton. See 'Text-Music Relationships in Lieder of Johannes Brahms', p. 192
74. See Platt, 'Text-Music Relationships in lieder of Johannes Brahms', p. 190: 'Although Lingg's poem does not specify that the girl dies, I would like to suggest that Brahms's change of mode and the quiet dynamic level of the final measures signify that her tight is over'
75. For more extended discussions of 'Wie Melodien zieht es mir', see Austin Clarkson, 'Brahms, Song Op. 105 No. 1: A Literary-Historical Approach', in Maury Yeston (ed.), Readings in Schenker Analysis and Other Approaches (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977), pp. 230-53
76. Edward Laufer, 'Brahms, Song Op. 105 o. 1: A Schenkerian Approach', in Maury Yeston (ed.), Readings in Schenker Analysis and Other Approaches, pp. 254-72
77. Malin, 'Metric Dissonance and Music-Text Relations in the German Lied', pp. 101-6
78. and Thomas Keith Nelson, 'The Fantasy of Absolute Music' (PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 1998), pp. 755-82
79. For a discussion of this poem in relation to similar themes in Eichendorff's 'Zwielicht', see Reinhold Brinkmann, Schumann und Eichendorff, pp. 56-7
80. Brahms took the vocal line for bars 46-49 from a setting by Hermann Levi. See Max Kalbeck, Johannes Brahms, vol. II (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1976), pp. 150-1
81. and Lucien Stark, A Guide to the Solo Songs of Johannes Brahms (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995), p. 174
82. Carl E. Schorske, Fin-De-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture (New York: Vintage Books, 1981), p. 350
83. Arnold Schoenberg, Harmonielehre (Vienna: Universal Edition, 1949), pp. 460-1
84. and Theory of Harmony, trans. Roy E. Carter (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1978), pp. 383-4
85. Roeder, 'Interacting Pulse Streams'
86. Charles D. Morrison, 'Syncopation as Motive in Schoenberg's Op. 19, Nos. 2, 3 and 4', Music Analysis, 11/i (1992), pp. 75.....93
87. I follow Stefan George's punctuation, including his practice of capitalising only the first word of each line. The translation is adapted from Robert Erich Wolf, CD booklet to Elektra Nonesuch 9 79237-2
88. For a discussion of the influence of Symbolism on George, see David Michael Hertz, The Tuning of the Word: The Musico-Literary Poetics of the Symbolist Movement (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987)
89. Schoenberg adds commas after lines 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7, and there is a rest in the vocal part following each of these lines
90. The term 'vocality' refers here to an actual or implied use of voice in the poem. Thus vocality is explicit in the 'soft voices' which 'announce their pains', while water resembles a voice when it 'spouts' from 'throats', and when 'small streams rush, complaining'. My analysis also refers to the 'vocality' (the use of voice) of a spoken utterance within the poem, as well as in its musical setting. Moreover, 'vocality' in linguistics may denote the use of voice in individual consonants (for example, the s in 'sachte' is 'vocalised', whereas the s in 'Stimmen' is not). This technical usage does not concern me here. For further discussion of vocality in song, see Jonathan Dunsby, Making Words Sing: Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Song (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)
91. The effect evokes Freud's notion of the uncanny (das Unheimliche): 'the name for everything that ought to have remained secret and hidden but has come to light'. See Sigmund Freud, 'The Uncanny', in James Strachey (ed.), The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (London: Hogarth Press and Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1974), p. 224
92. It is significant that Ernst Kurth uses the term 'potential energy' to refer to the tendencies of chromatically inflected harmony (especially in Wagner), which he contrasts with the 'kinetic energy' of melodic phenomena. See Ernst Kurth, Selected Writings, trans. Lee A. Rothfarb (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 135. Unlike Kurth, I use the term to capture the sense in which tension grows with each additional deferral of metric alignment. Schoenberg's syncopation here is also notable because it resolves onto beat two, a weak beat in the notated metre. Nothing at this point suggests hearing the notated second beat as a weak beat. Nonetheless, Schoenberg may have wanted the listener to perform and perceive this not as a complete metric resolution, but as a transference of the metric displacement: 2+1 becomes 4+2 (unit = quaver)
93. Schorske, Fin-De-Siècle Vienna, p. 349
94. See his 'Vocal Meter in Schoenberg's Atonal Music', and 'A Way into Schoenberg's Opus 15, Number 7', in Studies in Music with Text, pp. 321-66