Analysis by Key: Another Look at Modulation

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ANALYSIS BY KEY completest literal expression of an underlying diatonic structure, but the whole structure can be inferred from the lines starting on 5 or 3. 24. The 'Erlauterungen' that Schenker published in the last two issues of Der Tonwille and in the first two volumes of Das Meisterwerk in der Musik illustrate the notion of diatony in connection with a not yet definitive explanation ofthe Urlinie. See Fig.3, which shows an ascending Fundamental Line through the octave, organized into three 'tone-spaces': 1-3, 3-5, 5-8. A glance at this diagram will help to elucidate Schenker's comments in Free Composition. See 'Erlauterungen', Der Tonwille, IV. Jahrgang, Heft 2/3 (Vienna: Tonwille, 1924), p.49. 25. In a valuable recent article, Matthew Brown has shown that Schenker's conception of tonality is fully chromatic, and that chromatic elements begin to appear at relatively high middleground levels: see 'The Diatonic and the Chromatic in Schenker's Theory of Harmonic Relations', ZournalofMusic Theory, Vol. 30, No. l (Spring 1986), pp.1-33. 26. Schoenberg, Harmonielehre, 4th edn (Vienna: Universal, 1922), pp.213-14. Schenker, of course, made it quite clear that his tonicized harmonies were not real tonics. 27. Schenker, Free Composition, p. 134. When Schenker states that the prolongation of 2 over V in an exposition 'will naturally involve chromatics', he means that it will become an 'illusory key'. 28. Klaus Korner, 'Formen musikalischer Aussage im zweiten Satz des G-Dur- Klavierkonzertes von Beethoven', Beethoven-ahrbuch, ed. Hans Schmidt and Martin Staehelin, Vol. 9 (1973177), p.208. 29. Charles Rosen, The Classical Style (New York: Viking, 1971), p.392. 30. The literature contains even more unusual examples of key treatment; one of them, Variation 21 from Brahrls's Variations on a Theme of Handel, forms the sub ject of a particularly fascinating discussion by Schenker in Der Tonwille, IV. Jahrgang, Heft 2/3 (Vienna: Tonwille, 1924), pp.25-6. This variation is in G minor and is the only one to depart from the Bb tonality of the piece as a whole. Embedded in the texture, however, is what amounts to almost a quotation of the Theme's upper line. Every one of the main notes is present in the variation, most of them occurring as gracenotes. The remarkable thing is that this 'quotation' maintains exactly the pitches of the Bb Theme; they are not transposed into their G minor equivalents. Schenker reads the variation in the key of G minor, but he shows the notes of its Fundamental Line in the Bb major from which they originate; as he says, the variation 'oscillates between two worlds'. 31. Schoenberg, Structural Functions of Harmony, p.69. Schoenberg's actual words are these: 'The difficulty of finding a second illustration of this kind coupled with some other circumstances (for instance, the long roundabout return to the tonic), suggests the following hypothesis: the page, Cherubino, accompanies himself [not so!] and is also the author of the poem. Has he not also composed the music? Did not Mozart by such extravagant features hint at Cherubino's professional imperfections?' Apropos of the difficulty of finding other instances of this 'region', the Andantino of Mozart's Piano Concerto, K.449, a movement in Bb major, contains a large-scale prolongation of Ab major (bs 52-9); the home tonic does not MUSIC ANALYSIS 6: 3, 1987 317
CARL SCHACHTER reappear until b. 80. The finale of the same concerto (in Eb major) has a brief but striking passage in Db minor (bs 258-61). And bs 59-65 of the F major song 'Abendempfindung' tonicize Eb major. Do these features also hint at 'professional imperfections' ? 32. Siegmund Levarie, Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1952; reprinted in facsimile, New York: Da Capo, 1977), p.82. 33. Schenker, Free Composition, Fig. 22b. 34. A more neutral designation of the Ab region, for example as Subtonic (or b VII), would have been far better. This reading would be perfectly compatible with Schoenberg's approach; he infers a minor Subtonic (F minor within G major) in his analysis of the development section from the first movement of Haydn's Symphony No. 94. See Structural Functions, pp.147-9. 35. Levarie's analysis of the aria contains perceptive comments about the connections between local chromaticism and modulatory plan, including an emphasis on the importance of the enharmonic pair CX /Db . See especially pp.83-5. 36. See my article 'Beethoven's Sketches for the First Movement of Op.14, No. 1: A Study in Design', 3'ournal of Music Theory, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Spring 1982), pp.1-21. 37. Because they do not relate to the treatment of modulation, I shall not discuss the many madrigalisms, for example on 'diletto', 'martir', etc. 38. Levarie, Figaro, p.81. 318 MUSIC ANALYSIS 6: 3, 1987
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Analysis by Key: Another Look at Modulation

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