Frank Lehman Schubert’s SLIDEs: Tonal (Non-)Integration of a Paradoxical Transformation Abstract SLIDE, the transformation that exchanges triads sharing the same third, is a pervasive feature of Schubert’s mature works. Blending indicators of distance and proximity, com- plexity and direct intelligibility, SLIDE is the chromatic progression par excellence for evoking liminal states. Schubert’s use of the transformation poses a challenge to our abil- ity to reconcile prolongational and transformational modes of tonal hearing. Following an evaluation of historical and group-theoretical conceptions of SLIDE, this article pro- poses a set of functional paradigms through which the relation may be understood in Romantic harmony. Extrapolating patterns of SLIDE usage from Schubert’s oeuvre illu- minates the procedures through which the progression may be integrated into tonal fabrics. Special attention is given to the four-hand piano duets, D. 812, 940, and 947 in particular; in these works, the presence of sonata form forces SLIDE’s incorporation into exposition structures. The D. 812 Grand Duo is used as a concluding case study. To fully appreciate its complex game of semitonal relations, the Duo requires overlapping trans- formational narratives and a revival of Karg-Elert’s idiosyncratic Terzgleicher function. In studying Schubert’s SLIDing chromaticism, we stand to understand how compos- ers ensconced within the tonal common practice nevertheless found ways to selectively incorporate tonally paradoxical materials into diatonic forms. Keywords nineteenth century, Neo-Riemannian theory, Franz Schubert music theory & analysis International Journal of the Dutch-Flemish Society for Music Theory volume 1, # i & ii, october 2014, 61–100 research article © Frank Lehman and Leuven University Press http://dx.doi.org/10.11116/MTA.1.4 Schubert’s SLIDEs: Tonal (Non-)Integration of a Paradoxical Transformation Frank Lehman The push and pull between diatonic and chromatic harmony is a hallmark of nine- teenth-century tonal practice. As a consequence, the question of integration forms a central concern for theorists of this repertoire: how ought the increasingly bold infu- sion of chromaticism be reconciled with the putative diatonic understructure that still girds much extended common-practice music? Answers, unsurprisingly, range widely. Up until a certain point, Schenkerian theory can rationalize chromaticism as a product of linear processes that do not fundamentally tamper with diatonic prolongation.1 The strategy of expanding and revising what is meant by harmonic functionality may also be used to grant chromatic relations similar capabilities to diatonic ones.2 Some theorists invoke interpretive qualities such as ambiguity, paradox, and multiplicity—notions that still rely on the assumption of underlying diatonic expectations.3 This idea of tonal Thanks to Suzannah Clark, Richard Cohn, Noam Elkies, Alexander Rehding, and the anonymous reviewers of Music Theory & Analysis for suggesting examples and contributing insightful feedback. 1 For just a few examples in Schubert analysis, see Heinrich Schenker, ed., Oktaven und Quinten u.a., (Vienna: Universal Edition, 1933), 4; and Felix Salzer, Structural Hearing: Tonal Coherence in Music (New York: Dover Publications, 1962), 180. For an effort to bring harmonic thinking more into play with linear analyses of Schubert, see David Beach, “Harmo- ny and Linear Progression in Schubert’s Music,” Journal of Music Theory 38/1 (1994), 1–20. 2 Despite their differences, Daniel Harrison’s dualistic and David Kopp’s chromatic-mediant theories of nine- teenth-century tonality are both committed to the expansion of functionality beyond simple diatonicity: Harrison, Harmonic Function in Chromatic Music: A Renewed Dualist Theory and an Account of Its Precedents (Chicago: University of Chi- cago Press, 1994); Kopp, Chromatic Transformations in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). A similar widening of function to incorporate ambiguous or chromatic chords is endorsed by Charles Smith, who refers some romantic-era chromaticism ultimately back to diatonic models: Smith, “The Functional Extrava- gance of Chromatic Chords,” Music Theory Spectrum 8 (1986), 94–139. A pertinent strategy is found in Richard Cohn’s merger of hexatonic and diatonic spaces in his analysis of Schubert’s Piano Sonata in BH major, D. 960: Cohn, “As Wonderful as Star Clusters: Instruments for Gazing at Tonality in Schubert,” 19th-Century Music 22/3 (1999), 213–32. 3 Candace Brower, in “Paradoxes of Pitch Space,” Music Analysis 27/1 (2008), 51–106, views paradox as a compositional resource made possible by listeners’ tendency to hear tonal relationships vis-à-vis spatial schemas, schemas that are subject to Escher-like tiling illusions. On the collision and fusion of subdominant and dominant functions in Ro- mantic chords, see Kevin Swinden, “When Functions Collide: Aspects of Plural Function in Chromatic Music,” Music Theory Spectrum 27/2 (2005), 249–82. For the Voglerian idea of Mehrdeutigkeit and multiple interpretability, see David Damschroder, Thinking About Harmony: Historical Essays on Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). music theory & analysis | volume 1, # i & ii, october 2014 | 61–100 61 © Frank Lehman and Leuven University Press | http://dx.doi.org/10.11116/MTA.1.4 Frank Lehman schubert’s slides multiple determination may lead to a more radical outlook of under- or non-determina- tion: “triadic atonality,” to use a provocative term.4 If chromaticism poses a genuinely independent mode of composition and tonal perception in the nineteenth century, it ought to garner its own categories and methods; this attitude informs attempts to artic- ulate a parallel but distinct tonal “Second Practice.” It has also contributed to the rise of neo-Riemannian theories, which shift attention from function to voice leading, trans- formation, and absolute progression.5 With so many options at the analyst’s disposal, one must not only ask how chromatic elements it into Romantic music, but also how one’s theoretical apparatuses should interact in analysis—and whether these apparatuses relect non-coextensive ways of hearing. Suzannah Clark compares the act of choosing an analytic system to the selec- tion of a speciic visual “lens.”6 Though lenses focus perception of certain musical fea- tures, Clark cautions that they may also distort some objects and be blind to others. Of the theoretical systems available to study chromaticism, triadic transformation the- ory (or neo-Riemannian theory/NRT) is perhaps the most suitably wide-angled. NRT’s advantage lies not solely in the symmetrical pitch spaces or algebraic groups it offers. Of special value is its interest in the dynamic ways in which listeners perceive harmonic relationships, not as ixed properties of an a priori tonal system, but as subjective and mutable qualities of a particular listening experience. This means, among other things, that NRT can intersect and even integrate with diatonic theories. My choice to employ this lens (with some Schenkerian and Roman numeral ilters here and there) is therefore 4 Cohn considers, and ultimately dismisses, this phrase (from Edward Lowinsky) for describing this repertoire: Cohn, “Introduction to Neo-Riemannian Theory: A Survey and Historical Perspective,” Journal of Music Theory 42/2 (1998), 167 –80, http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/843871. Though more recent applications of neo-Riemannian the- ory have taken steps towards accommodating tonality (see Steven Rings, Tonality and Transformation, [New York: Oxford University Press, 2011], http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195384277.001.0001), early applications frequently pointed towards symmetrical processes as governing triadic chromaticism in the place of prolongational processes. This can be observed in David Lewin’s claim regarding non-isomorphism between diatonic-Stufen and Riemannian-transformational space. See Lewin, “Amfortas’s Prayer to Titurel and the Role of D in ‘Parsifal’: The Tonal Spaces of the Drama and the Enharmonic CH/B,” 19th-Century Music 7/3 (1984), 336–49. It also manifests in Bri- an Hyer’s attribution of harmonic intelligibility of Die Walküre’s magic sleep chords purely to “algebraic structure.” See Hyer, “Reimag(in)ing Riemann,” Journal of Music Theory 39/1 (1995), 101–38, http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/843900. 5 The idea that non-monotonality and pervasive chromaticism in the nineteenth century constitute a tonal mode of composition (and hearing) that is genuinely distinct from common-practice tonality is explored in The Second Prac- tice of Nineteenth-Century Tonality, ed. William Kinderman and Harald Krebs (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996). This notion is critiqued and reined by Dmitri Tymoczko in “Dualism and the Beholder’s Eye,” in The Oxford Handbook of Neo-Riemannian Music Theories, ed. Edward Gollin and Alexander Rehding (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 246–67; and by Cohn in Audacious Euphony: Chromaticism and the Triad’s Second Nature (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). 6 Suzannah Clark, Analyzing Schubert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 4–5, http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/ CBO9780511842764. music theory & analysis | volume 1, # i & ii, october 2014 62 Frank Lehman schubert’s slides made with the goal of maximizing my analytic ield of view while remaining methodo- logically consistent. I will be turning this transformational lens on only one star in the European Roman- tic sky: the oeuvre