Analytical Problems of Aesthetics, Genre, and Large-Scale Form In
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Analytical Problems of Aesthetics, Genre, and Large-Scale Form in Germanic Music, 1905–15 by Sam Reenan Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Supervised by Professor Jonathan Dunsby Department of Music Theory Eastman School of Music University of Rochester Rochester, New York 2021 ii DEDICATION For Kari, Bailey, and Oscar—our little family. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Biographical Sketch vi Acknowledgments vii Abstract ix Contributors and Funding Sources xi List of Figures xii Volume 1: Text Chapter 1 Maximalism, Genre, and Form: Three Methodological Concerns 1 1.1 The Maximalist Aesthetic and the Modernist Novel 4 1.2 Theories of Genre and Generic Mixture 24 1.3 Adapting Literary Genre Theory to the Study of Musical Form 37 1.4 Formal Methodology and Forms-as-Genres 41 1.5 Music as Discourse and a Rhetorical Approach to Form 51 Chapter 2 Generic Hybridity in Gustav Mahler’s Late Symphonies 61 2.1 Mahler’s Late Style in Context 61 2.2 Theorizing Generic Hybridity 68 2.3 Rotational Form and the Rondo-Sonata Hybrid in Late Mahler: 70 A Theory of Functional Rotations 2.4 Two Model Analyses: The Adagio from the Tenth Symphony and 94 the Finale of Das Lied von der Erde iv 2.4.1 Symphony No. 10, i: Adagio 95 2.4.2 Das Lied von der Erde, vi: “Der Abschied” 99 2.5 Generic Analysis of the “Rondo” and “Burlesque” in Mahler’s 106 Rondo-Burleske 2.6 Problems of Maximalism and the “New” 122 Chapter 3 Eine Alpensinfonie: Tone Poem as Music Drama 127 3.1 On Genre, Program, and Narrative 131 3.1.1 Genre and compositional genesis in Eine Alpensinfonie 131 3.1.2 Program—narrative—story—drama 137 3.2 Eine Alpensinfonie as Drama 155 3.2.1 Strauss’s one-act operas as a context for Eine Alpensinfonie 155 3.2.2 Gustav Freytag’s theory of the dramatic 161 3.3 Prior Analyses of Eine Alpensinfonie 166 3.4 Eine Alpensinfonie as a Double-Developmental Sonata Form 173 with Dramatic Climax 3.4.1 Introduction–Coda frame 177 3.4.2 Exposition (strong) 181 3.4.3 First development (weak) 193 3.4.4 “At the Summit” 195 3.4.5 Second development (strong) 200 3.4.6 Recapitulation (weak) 204 v 3.5 A Sublime, Areligious Music Drama 206 Chapter 4 Integration and Multi-Dimensionality in Schoenberg’s First Quartet 211 4.1 Circles and Cities: Metaphors of Form and Historical Progression 211 4.2 2D Sonata Form and the Concept of Embedded Forms 220 4.3 Schoenberg’s First Quartet, Op. 7—Its Program and Prior Analyses 239 4.4 The Large-Scale Form of Schoenberg’s First Quartet: A Transfer of Power 249 4.4.1 The discontinuous, proleptic sonata 250 4.4.2 The embedded, analeptic rondo 264 4.5 Schoenberg’s Maximalism as an Integrated Network 268 Chapter 5 Conclusions and Extensions 273 Bibliography 295 Volume 2: Figures Chapter 2 Figures 322 Chapter 3 Figures 351 Chapter 4 Figures 367 Chapter 5 Figures 389 Appendix 1 391 vi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Sam Reenan was born in Wisconsin and raised in Connecticut. He attended the University of Connecticut, graduating in 2014 with a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Theory and a Bachelor of Science degree in Biological Sciences. He began his doctoral studies at the Eastman School of Music in 2015, where he received a Master of Arts in Music Theory in 2018. He has pursued an interest in methodologies of large-scale formal analysis at Eastman under the direction of Professor Jonathan Dunsby. Sam was appointed to the faculty of Hamilton College for the Fall 2020 semester. vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I owe enormous gratitude to the members of my dissertation committee and other mentors who have contributed to my growth as a scholar. Throughout the development of this project, Jonathan Dunsby has offered me unrelenting positivity, support, and empowerment, and the dissertation has benefited from his perpetual erudition. My research has improved substantially as a result of Zachary Bernstein’s guidance and deep readings, which have helped refine the research ideas as well as their delivery. Julian Horton’s meticulous reading helped polish the dissertation throughout. Beyond my committee members, several mentors have reliably supported my doctoral studies. Seth Monahan sparked and cultivated the profound fascination with large-scale symphonic analysis that culminated in this project. Elizabeth West Marvin and William Marvin encouraged my pedagogical efforts and exemplified expert models of scholar-teachers; their contributions continue to influence my academic persona across numerous intersecting axes. Colleagues, peers, and friends near and far have provided invaluable motivation, feedback, comfort, and intellectual engagement. The friends I have made at the Eastman School of Music and Hamilton College challenge me to think more creatively, read more critically, and teach with more empathy. Ben Baker regularly spurs me toward deeper questions hidden just beneath the surface of my research and teaching, genuinely making me a better theorist on a daily basis. My graduate student colleagues at Eastman foster an intellectual and social environment that, thanks to their brilliance, creativity, and kindness, is unmatched. More than any other peer, Alyssa Barna’s impact on my professional life can viii hardly be overstated. She is the quintessential model of a music theorist and educator and the epitome of a friend. I would achieve little without her boundless support, knowledge, and humor. With immeasurable patience and generosity, my family has always reinforced my personal and professional endeavors. My parents never fail to celebrate my successes and offer compassion when challenges arise. My in-laws embraced a music theorist against better judgment and with unrelenting warmth and cheer. For me, the greatest source of inspiration, optimism, courage, and joy is my wife, Kari. Writing this dissertation in the circumstances of 2020 would have been simply inconceivable without her love. Our life together brings comfort, laughter, vitality, and an endless delight in exploration. ix ABSTRACT In the first decades of the twentieth century, a flurry of composers in the German-speaking world were engaged in an arms race of sorts, creating musical monuments of extreme size and overt philosophical circumstance. As a discipline, music theory has struggled to address the large-scale formal dimension of these “maximalist” works, despite the persistent attention paid to formal theory in recent years. I adopt a pluralist approach to form-functional methodology in order to describe the maximalizing techniques these composers employed— techniques that inevitably warp the received models of large-scale form and challenge the very notion of long-range musical coherence. The corpus of works under scrutiny includes Gustav Mahler’s late symphonies, the tone poems of Richard Strauss, and Arnold Schoenberg’s First String Quartet. In the first chapter, I focus on the aesthetic and structural consequences of “maximalist” music, exploring issues of genre, symphonic and sonata forms, and coherence. I present a notion of musical form-as- genre, which enables formally meaningful moments to summon the full rhetorical weight of their constitutive large-scale form. Each of the next three chapters addresses a single approach to maximalist composition. Chapter 2 considers Mahler’s generic mixture in the sonata- dialogic movements of his last three symphonic works. The chapter culminates with an analysis of the Rondo-Burleske from the Ninth symphony, adapting Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the carnivalesque to understand the movement as a parodic rondo-sonata hybrid. Chapter 3 centers around a detailed study of Strauss’s Eine Alpensinfonie, investigating issues of narrative, program, and especially drama. I view the movement as a unique manifestation x of sonata form, which I address by borrowing Gustav Freytag’s theory of dramatic structure. Chapter 4 critiques the notion of cyclic form, and in particular Steven Vande Moortele’s model of “two-dimensional sonata form.” I draw on the work of Mieke Bal in the realm of embedded narrative and mise en abyme to present Schoenberg’s First Quartet as a large-scale process of conversion from sonata to rondo. The final chapter zooms out to address issues of maximalism outside of the Germanic world, while also speculating on the challenges posed by detailed analyses of maximalist works. xi CONTRIBUTORS AND FUNDING SOURCES This work was supported by a dissertation committee consisting of Professor Jonathan Dunsby (advisor) and Professor Zachary Bernstein of the Eastman School of Music, Department of Music Theory, and Professor Julian Horton of Durham University, Department of Music. Doctoral study was financially supported by teaching and research assistantships from the Eastman School of Music. xii LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 2.1. A reproduction of Table 18.1 from Elements of Sonata Theory 323 (Hepokoski and Darcy 2006, 391). FIGURE 2.2. Form charts of two hybrid precedents in Mahler’s symphonic oeuvre. 324 FIGURE 2.3. Models of functional rotations in Mahler’s late symphonies. 325 FIGURE 2.4. A reproduction of Figure 1.5 from “What are Formal Functions?” 326 (Caplin 2009a, 38). FIGURE 2.5. A hybrid interpretation of the first movement Adagio of Mahler’s 327 Tenth Symphony. FIGURE 2.6. A reproduction of Stephen Hefling’s form chart of “Der Abschied,” 328 Figure 4 (2000, 106). FIGURE 2.7. A hybrid form chart of “Der Abschied,” the finale of Mahler’s 329 Das Lied von der Erde. FIGURE 2.8. The three P1 recitatives that begin rotations in “Der Abschied.” 330 FIGURE 2.9. A hybrid formal interpretation of Mahler’s Rondo-Burleske, the 333 third movement of the Ninth Symphony. FIGURE 2.10. A motivic analysis of the first theme in the rondo-theme complex, A1.