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Schubert's Recapitulation Scripts – Part I

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Schubert's Recapitulation Scripts – Part I Abstract Schubert’s Recapitulation Scripts Jonathan Guez 2015 In recent years, much energy has been expended theorizing and analyzing eighteenth- and nineteenth-century musical forms. Despite meaningful differences in alignment, studies of sonata-like structures tend to share at least one feature in common: they devote the least amount of time to recapitulations (and reprises), preferring to focus instead on 1) the thematic similarity of these to the referential exposition, and 2) the “obligatory” tonal alterations housed therein. The current study seeks to redress this lack of attention by painting a more complete picture of the complexities of recapitulatory practice. By examining in close detail the tonal and thematic alterations that occur in recapitulations it seeks to instate the recapitulation as a subject of inquiry and to articulate a set of regulative principles for its treatment in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The study’s driving thesis is that formal alterations made in a sonata’s recapitulation impact its narrative, generic, and art-historical content. Through their subtle transformations of presented temporality, recapitulatory alterations influence a movement’s narrative by staging its cadential goal-points as “too early” or “too late.” They correlate with generic classification to the extent that musical genres may have been associated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with certain patterns of recapitulatory alterations. (The buffa overture, for instance, is known for making recapitulatory deletions.) And they bear on our understanding of art history since, by pointing to a new aspect of compositional praxis, they lead to new discussions of instruction, influence, and conscious modelings. i In defense of these claims, this study systematizes the types of tonal and thematic alterations that composers around the turn of the nineteenth century used. Part I (Chapter 1) lays out the issues in a small, controlled, and in many ways familiar context. Its central conceit is that composers of instrumental forms that feature “built-in” repeats— such as sonata and rounded binary forms—make recapitulatory alterations in the same ways as do poets who work in textual forms with refrains, and often to the same dramatic ends. By performing close readings of three poetic texts by Goethe and Müller, as well as Schubert’s musical settings of them, I show how the types of interpretive claims that can be made in the poetic realm can be imported into the abstract instrumental one. Once the main argument for moving from the texted to the abstract instrumental realm is laid out, Part II (Chapters 2-5) systematically confronts the possibilities for making recapitulatory alterations in instrumental music. Chapter 2 houses a short methodological introduction and lays the groundwork for the division of recapitulations into three categories based on the number of “time-alterations” they contain. Category 1 recapitulations are exactly the same size, but not always the same shape, as their referential expositions. Category 2 recapitulations make one thematic alteration that, by adding or deleting some number of measures, “takes time.” Category 3 recapitulations make more than one of these “time-alterations.” Chapters 3 through 5 theorize the three categories of recapitulation, one chapter per category. They are concerned both with the “technical-formal” deployments of alteration strategies and the narrative or hermeneutic scenarios these suggest. Central to my enterprise is the conviction that recapitulation strategies are suggestive of particular narratives. ii Part III (Chapter 6) builds upon the taxonomy to show directions for further research. It is an investigation into one peculiar formal structure for which Schubert had a penchant, and to which he developed an individualized response. Analysis of a handful of late finales shows that Schubert often approached certain sonata-form structures—in this case what Sonata Theory calls the “expanded Type 1 sonata”—with a particular recapitulation script in mind. Analysis of his Overture im Italienischen Stil, D. 590, shows precedents for the approach and raises questions about genre, provenance, aesthetics, and compositional instruction. iii Schubert’s Recapitulation Scripts A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Yale University in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Jonathan Guez Dissertation Directors: Patrick McCreless and James Hepokoski May 2015 © 2015 by Jonathan Charles Guez All rights reserved. TABLE OF CONTENTS Dissertation Abstract i Table of Contents vi List of Figures and Musical Examples viii Acknowledgments xii Introduction xiv I.1. A General Introduction xiv I.2. The Necessary Background xvii I.3. Trajectory, Benefits, and Goals xxi Part I: Changes of Focus 1 Chapter 1: Recapitulatory Alterations in Theory and Practice 2 1.1. Studies of Recapitulations do not Address Alterations Formally, but Analysts Do 3 1.2. Alterations are Heard Against a Ground 14 1.3. Recapitulations are Heard against the Ground of Their Expositions 35 1.4. Conclusions, Beginnings 63 Part II: Schubert’s Recapitulation Scripts 64 Chapter 2: Introduction to Recapitulation Scripts 65 2.1. A General Introduction 66 2.2. Recapitulatory TR: The Crucial Interface? 70 2.3. A Narrative Emphasis 73 2.4. Scripts, Plots, and Mythoi 76 2.5. Introduction to Part II 78 2.6. A Note on Parageneric Zones and “CRI” 80 2.7. A Note on Repertory Chosen 83 Chapter 3: Category 1 Recapitulations 86 3.1. Prelude: Resuscitation of Salzer’s Transpositionsreprise 87 3.2. The Three Types of Transpositionsreprise 94 3.3. Interlude: A Study in Tonal-Alteration Types 110 3.4. The Transpositionsreprise First Movement of D. 537 129 3.5. Tonal Crux/Thematic Crux 134 3.6. Referential Measures and the Transpositionsreprise 136 3.7. The Rhythmos-preserving Non-Transpositionsreprise 139 3.8. Postlude: Conclusions 147 vi Chapter 4: Category 2 Recapitulations 151 4.1. Introduction 152 4.2. Mozart, Monahan, and the Crux 154 4.3. Beethoven and the Minimally Recomposed Category 2 162 4.4. Beethoven and Schubert: Labor and Grace 166 4.5. Decelerations by Multiple Repetitions of a Single Referential Bar 195 4.6. A Summary Analysis: The Finale of D. 537 199 4.7. Conclusion 207 Chapter 5: Category 3 Recapitulations 210 5.1. Introduction 211 5.2. Compensations, Quests, and Pendulum Aesthetics 215 5.3. Two-Alteration Recapitulations: Three Possible Scripts 217 5.4. Three-or-More-Alteration Recapitulations 256 5.5. The “Mono-Operational” Recapitulation 272 5.6. Conclusions to Part II 289 Part III: Directions for Further Research 291 Chapter 6: Compensation Scripts in Schubert’s Finales 292 6.1. Compensation Scripts in Schubert’s Expanded Type 1 Sonatas 293 6.2. Conclusions to Part III 311 6.3. Larger Conclusions 313 Works Consulted 316 vii LIST OF FIGURES AND MUSICAL EXAMPLES Example 1.1 Terminological Difficulties and a Suggested Emendation 9 Example 1.2 Schubert’s “Erster Verlust,” Excerpts with Light Overlay 20 Example 1.3 Comparative Example of Schubert’s “Erster Verlust” 22 Example 1.4 Comparative Examples of “Täuschung” and “Die 29 Nebensonnen” Example 1.5 Comparative Example of Schubert, Second Symphony, 49 Finale, 1 Example 1.6 Comparative Example of Schubert, Second Symphony, 57 Finale, 2 Figure 2.1 Chart of Recapitulation Scripts 68 Figure 3.1 Category 1 Strategies 86 Figure 3.2 Thematic Deletions in the First Movement of the “Trout” 98 Example 3.1 Tonal Alterations in the MC Gap in the Finale of Schubert’s Piano Sonata, D. 557 102 Example 3.2 “Audible” Tonal Alterations in the CF of Schubert’s Piano Sonata in D Major, D. 850 106 Example 3.3 “Immediate” Tonal Alterations in Schubert’s Overture in D Major, D. 556 108 Example 3.4 “Immediate” Tonal Alterations in the Scherzo of Schubert’s Fünf Klavierstücke, D. 459 109 Example 3.5 “Immediate” Tonal Alterations in the First Movement of Schubert’s Piano Sonata D. 664 109 Example 3.6 Tonal Alterations in Schubert’s Piano Sonata in A Major, D. 959 111 Example 3.7 Tonal Alterations in the Finale of Schubert’s Octet, D. 803 113 Example 3.8 “Thick” Tonal Alterations in the First Movement of Schubert’s Piano Sonata, D. 157 114 Example 3.9 An Early Tonal Alteration in the First Movement of D. 157 116 Example 3.10 Tonal Alterations in the First Movement of Schubert’s Piano Sonata in E Minor, D. 566 119 Example 3.11 “Impotent” Tonal Alterations in the First Movement of Schubert, D. 958 123 Example 3.12 Bass Line Sketch of the Finale of Schubert’s Violin Sonata in A Major, D. 574 127 Example 3.13 A Curious Tonal Behavior during MC Preparation in the First Movement of Schubert’s D. 537 130 viii Example 3.14 A Tonal Reminiscence in Srep in D. 537 131 Example 3.15 Tonal Alterations in the First Movement of D. 537 132 Example 3.16 Non-Correspondence in Rossini’s Overture to Il Signor Bruschino 141 Example 3.17 “Shadow Correspondence” in Rossini’s Overture to Il Signor Bruschino 142 Example 3.18 Non-Correspondence in the Finale of Schubert’s D. 408 143 Example 3.19 “Red Herring” Correspondence Measures in the First Movement of D. 173 145 Figure 4.1 Category 2 Strategies 151 Example 4.1 Thematic-tonal Alterations in the First Movement of Mozart’s “Hunt” Quartet, K. 458 155 Example 4.2 Thematic-tonal Alterations and Crux Issues in the First Movement of Mozart, K. 545 161 Example 4.3 Recapitulatory Alterations in the First Movement of Beethoven, Op. 2 No. 1 163 Example 4.4 Recapitulatory Alterations in the Finale of Beethoven, Op. 2 No. 1 164 Example 4.5 Alterations in the Minuet of Schubert, D. 279 166 Example 4.6 Alterations in the Trio of Schubert, D. 279 167 Example 4.7 Thematic Alterations in the First Movement of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony 169 Example 4.8 The First Set of Tonal-Thematic Alterations in the First Movement of D.
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