'),Lwr f TT - - ANALYSIS BY KEY Ex. 9 Bach: French Suite No.4, Allemande b) - cf. (g Ath S W r-1,¢ (rchy ovcr) (rchy over) e) 1< jA H'L J i b ;-2 L-,L J 4,htt it rC F ec f>: * BS(E) e) (5) c Ab ^ <strong>Key</strong>s fre m Grt)We, ith Edn, Ve l.S, p.8l() MUSIC ANALYSIS 6: 3, 1987 th 1< 1 VI V S S S C I[ (c:l IV - (f) 301
CARL SCHACHTER the movement.'20 Six real keys in a not very long development section! And Schenker was the one who was to complain about the 'absurd abundance of keys' in conventional analysis. But the keys are really there, <strong>at</strong> least on the surface, and it required a fundamental change in the way we think about music - a change th<strong>at</strong> Schenker himself was to bring about - before musicians could convincingly rel<strong>at</strong>e the key changes in such passages to a larger tonal context. 21 Wh<strong>at</strong> Schenker was eventually to discover was th<strong>at</strong> key successions might very well result from linear activity within a harmony (or a progression of harmonies), and th<strong>at</strong> a governing di<strong>at</strong>onic structure, ultim<strong>at</strong>ely derived from the tonic triad, could unify even such heterogeneous elements. Example 10 is a middleground sketch of this development section. R<strong>at</strong>her amazingly, its tonal core has a good deal in common with th<strong>at</strong> of the Bach Allemande shown in the previous example (compare Ex. 9a and b with Ex. lOa). In neither piece is th<strong>at</strong> core accessible to casual listening. In the Bach, it is embedded in a complex tissue of voice leading; in the Beethoven, it is obscured in simpler fashion <strong>by</strong> the unexpected and dram<strong>at</strong>ic contrasts of key. Evidently Schenker did not realize th<strong>at</strong> the first four of his 'keys' - C minor, Ab major, F minor and G minor - make a group. Indeed all ofthem are di<strong>at</strong>onic elements of C minor, and though they do not form a clear progression in the key of C minor, they do lead into a chord - the augmented sixth of b. 162 - th<strong>at</strong> is derived <strong>by</strong> chrom<strong>at</strong>icized voice-exchange from the C minor triad (Ex. lOb and c). (The appearance of G minor r<strong>at</strong>her than ma jor in b. 159 tends to weaken the impression of C minor as a key, especially since the G minor itself becomes the upper third of the augmented sixth. Of course a different continu<strong>at</strong>ion to the G minor area might have effected a reevalu<strong>at</strong>ion of the entire passage and affirmed in retrospect the inference of a C minor di<strong>at</strong>ony.) With the D chord of b. 163, we have arrived (a bit prem<strong>at</strong>urely) just one step away from our goal, EW. Nothing would be easier than to transform the D harmony into a dominant 5 of EW, more or less as actually happens <strong>at</strong> the end of the development. But the music, as though unable to see the p<strong>at</strong>h directly before it, stumbles and gets lost. Instead of reaching EW, the bass rises through its enharmonic equivalent, D#, to E. (The movement has displayed a kind of f<strong>at</strong>al weakness for E - witness the C major episode in the exposition, as well as other passages.) The A minor th<strong>at</strong> ensues is seemingly <strong>at</strong> the furthest remove tonally from the home key of EW, but it represents in fact a step in the journey back. Inflected to become a dominant chord, it leads to D minor, and this time the D is transformed into a leading note and takes us home. Thus the 'keys' th<strong>at</strong> begin and end the development - C minor and D minor - crystallize around notes of a linear progression leading up from V to I. The other 'keys' serve either to extend the C minor chord (not key) <strong>at</strong> the beginning of the development or to lead into the D minor <strong>at</strong> the end, saving the situ<strong>at</strong>ion after a 'false move' had seemingly lost the thread of tonal continuity. This interpret<strong>at</strong>ion conforms to the disposition of the development in two phases, bs 137-68, with C as the main bass note, and 169-88, centring on D. (The sense of starting again in b. 169 speaks against inferring a connection from the D major chord of b. 165 to the D minor 302 MUSIC ANALYSIS 6:3, 1987
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