Thursday, March 15, 2018
Wikipedia article
The Wikipedia article on William Caplin has recently been expanded; it now includes a brief summary of his form function theory and a section with suggestions for "Further reading." Link.
Friday, March 2, 2018
Krähmer, Ländler, op. 8_Note on formal design
As a postscript to yesterday's post on Ländler by Ernest Krähmer, here is the fifth number of his Op. 8, published in 1824. Score downloaded from IMSLP; modern notation by Hans-Thomas Müller-Schmidt, slightly deformed by me to condense it.
There are three strains, each closed tonally (the first and the third in Eb, the second in Bb). This design is exceedingly common in music meant for dancing; it can be found in published contredanses from the mid-18th century onward, and throughout much of the 19th century it remained the basis of the varying designs for the five numbers of the quadrille.
This design is maximally flexible yet practical. From it one can easily get nearly 2 minutes of music, assuming a bar per second and the most common ABACA realization with all strains repeated (btw, this is the version used in "Pantalon," the first number in the quadrille) . Making it seven parts--ABACABA--offers up to three minutes, plenty for an individual dance (it's used in "Poule," the third part of the quadrille).
I have written about these flexible designs in this blog post: link.
My Schubert blog has a series on forms "with refrains": link; link; link; link; link.
There are three strains, each closed tonally (the first and the third in Eb, the second in Bb). This design is exceedingly common in music meant for dancing; it can be found in published contredanses from the mid-18th century onward, and throughout much of the 19th century it remained the basis of the varying designs for the five numbers of the quadrille.
This design is maximally flexible yet practical. From it one can easily get nearly 2 minutes of music, assuming a bar per second and the most common ABACA realization with all strains repeated (btw, this is the version used in "Pantalon," the first number in the quadrille) . Making it seven parts--ABACABA--offers up to three minutes, plenty for an individual dance (it's used in "Poule," the third part of the quadrille).
I have written about these flexible designs in this blog post: link.
My Schubert blog has a series on forms "with refrains": link; link; link; link; link.
Thursday, March 1, 2018
Krähmer, 12 Ländler
Ernest Krähmer was born near Dresden, educated and began his career in that city, then moved to Vienna, where he was an oboist in the Kärthnertor-Theater and subsequently in the court orchestra. He was also very successful as the primary Csakan virtuoso, an instrument keyed in Ab that became known as the "Romantic recorder" and was very popular during Krähmer's lifetime (he died in 1841) but quickly fell out of favor thereafter. (Information here is translated from the German Wikipedia articles on Krähmer and the Stockflöte. For images of modern reproductions of the instrument, go here: link.)
In my previous post on the Ländler of František Pecháček, I wrote in connection with his 12 Ländler (1801) that they represent the "violinistic Ländler in its traditional form—as distinct from the later keyboard Ländler of Schubert and many other composers in the 1820s, who strive to make the Ländler congenial and specific to the piano, holding to the form and characteristic figures but using less common keys often with chromatic twists and exaggerated registral play, the result being to blur the distinction between music for dance and music for recital." The Csakan, keyed in Ab, obviously made its own contribution to this shift—indeed, Krähmer and his wife Caroline Schleicher "performed regularly together in Vienna, he on the oboe and the csakan, she on the violin and the clarinet" (translation from the German Wikipedia article on Krähmer).
In the spirit of clarification, however, I remind the reader that the confusion of menuet, Ländler, and Deutscher Tanz [German dance] was at its highest in the first quarter of the 19th century. The dances were still easily distinguishable but the musics for them were not. The music of menuet and German dance had begun to intersect substantively in the 1780s at the latest, as we know from the symphonies and chamber music of Haydn, Mozart, and their contemporaries. In the trios of their menuet movements—especially with Mozart—the distinctive figures of the violinistic Ländler were also sometimes heard, though these can be hard to distinguish from a general pastoral affect. After 1800, things became much worse, a key figure demonstrating that change being Schubert, who is known to have used the label Ländler, Deutscher Tanz, or Walzer in different copies of the same piece. (Publishers were no help in this regard, either.) Walzer was the generic later 18th century term for "turning dances," which included both Ländler and Deutscher Tanz even though their steps, figures, and tempi were quite different. As things stood around 1815, the music of the Ländler was usually quieter and slower than the Deutscher Tanz and preserved more of the traditional figures, where the Deutscher Tanz usually still sounded like the hybrid type of the 1780s. Only in the 1830s, when the tempo of dances generally sped up did the distinction largely disappear and pieces were almost always called Walzer.
All this being said, the first piece in Krähmer's 12 Ländler (published in 1827) is quite obviously a Deutscher Tanz:
(The modern notation is by Hans-Thomas Müller-Schmidt; downloaded from IMSLP.) Note that the first strain is an antecedent + continuation theme, or what I call the "galant" theme because of its overwhelming importance in the second half of the 18th century: every one of the 2-bar ideas is different. The explanation, perhaps, is that this was intended as a promenade, a regular feature of any extended dance set (Beethoven included one to begin the 12 German Dances, WoO8 (1795), for instance).
The second piece in the set is much more like a Ländler, with soft dynamic, predominantly eighth-note rhythms, and characteristic phrase-ending figures. The chromaticism, however, is distinctive (Schubertian?). The theme is a period.
The third number shows a different side of the Ländler: soft dynamic and phrase-ending clichés but consistent quarter-note rhythms. The B-section would also be familiar to Krähmer's listeners as belonging to rural Ländler practices: the Schnadahüpfel (where the often delicate turning figures of the Ländler are briefly interrupted by loud stomping).
On the Schnadahüpfel, see this post on my Schubert blog: link.
Information on the confusion of waltz-family types draws especially on work by Walburga Litschauer. See these posts on my Schubert blog: link; link; link; link.
In my previous post on the Ländler of František Pecháček, I wrote in connection with his 12 Ländler (1801) that they represent the "violinistic Ländler in its traditional form—as distinct from the later keyboard Ländler of Schubert and many other composers in the 1820s, who strive to make the Ländler congenial and specific to the piano, holding to the form and characteristic figures but using less common keys often with chromatic twists and exaggerated registral play, the result being to blur the distinction between music for dance and music for recital." The Csakan, keyed in Ab, obviously made its own contribution to this shift—indeed, Krähmer and his wife Caroline Schleicher "performed regularly together in Vienna, he on the oboe and the csakan, she on the violin and the clarinet" (translation from the German Wikipedia article on Krähmer).
In the spirit of clarification, however, I remind the reader that the confusion of menuet, Ländler, and Deutscher Tanz [German dance] was at its highest in the first quarter of the 19th century. The dances were still easily distinguishable but the musics for them were not. The music of menuet and German dance had begun to intersect substantively in the 1780s at the latest, as we know from the symphonies and chamber music of Haydn, Mozart, and their contemporaries. In the trios of their menuet movements—especially with Mozart—the distinctive figures of the violinistic Ländler were also sometimes heard, though these can be hard to distinguish from a general pastoral affect. After 1800, things became much worse, a key figure demonstrating that change being Schubert, who is known to have used the label Ländler, Deutscher Tanz, or Walzer in different copies of the same piece. (Publishers were no help in this regard, either.) Walzer was the generic later 18th century term for "turning dances," which included both Ländler and Deutscher Tanz even though their steps, figures, and tempi were quite different. As things stood around 1815, the music of the Ländler was usually quieter and slower than the Deutscher Tanz and preserved more of the traditional figures, where the Deutscher Tanz usually still sounded like the hybrid type of the 1780s. Only in the 1830s, when the tempo of dances generally sped up did the distinction largely disappear and pieces were almost always called Walzer.
All this being said, the first piece in Krähmer's 12 Ländler (published in 1827) is quite obviously a Deutscher Tanz:
(The modern notation is by Hans-Thomas Müller-Schmidt; downloaded from IMSLP.) Note that the first strain is an antecedent + continuation theme, or what I call the "galant" theme because of its overwhelming importance in the second half of the 18th century: every one of the 2-bar ideas is different. The explanation, perhaps, is that this was intended as a promenade, a regular feature of any extended dance set (Beethoven included one to begin the 12 German Dances, WoO8 (1795), for instance).
The second piece in the set is much more like a Ländler, with soft dynamic, predominantly eighth-note rhythms, and characteristic phrase-ending figures. The chromaticism, however, is distinctive (Schubertian?). The theme is a period.
The third number shows a different side of the Ländler: soft dynamic and phrase-ending clichés but consistent quarter-note rhythms. The B-section would also be familiar to Krähmer's listeners as belonging to rural Ländler practices: the Schnadahüpfel (where the often delicate turning figures of the Ländler are briefly interrupted by loud stomping).
On the Schnadahüpfel, see this post on my Schubert blog: link.
Information on the confusion of waltz-family types draws especially on work by Walburga Litschauer. See these posts on my Schubert blog: link; link; link; link.
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