New publications: Parts 6 & 7 of the Mozart Form Functions Series

I have published two new essays on Texas Scholar Works. These are the final entries in the series Formal Functions in Menuets by Mozart. Part 6 is subtitled "Contemporaries, 1771-1780"; Part 7 is "Contemporaries and Successors, 1780-1828." Link to Part 6. Link to Part 7.

Here are the abstracts.

Part 6:

This essay continues the documentation of formal functions (after Caplin) in named menuets from the eighteenth century, as begun in parts 1-4 of this series. In this essay, the focus is on menuets written by other composers during the middle decade of Mozart’s life, 1771-1780. The repertoire includes music by Carl and Anton Stamitz, Franz Joseph Haydn, Luigi Boccherini, and several others, as well as menuets in collections or compilations intended for performance, dancing, or pedagogy.

Part 7:

This final essay in the Mozart series charts formal functions (after Caplin) in named menuets written by other composers during the last ten years of Mozart’s life, 1780-1791, and by three composers active in Vienna thereafter, through the death of Schubert (1828). The repertoire includes menuets by Carl and Anton Stamitz, Franz Joseph Haydn, Luigi Boccherini, Giovanni Viotti, and Adalbert Gyrowetz, and several others. The three later composers are Beethoven, Hummel, and Schubert. Concluding comments return to questions of musical form theory.

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.

New publication: Part 5 of the Mozart Form Functions Series

I have published a new essay on Texas Scholar Works. The title is Formal Functions in Menuets by Mozart, Part 5: More to Theoretical Issues: link. Here is the abstract.

This essay considers some theoretical questions raised at the end of Part 4 in this series. William Caplin’s theory of formal functions in Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven stipulates that themes are of two primary types (period, sentence) and several secondary types (“hybrids”). These need to be resorted in order to account for eighteenth-century practice more broadly, following from the results of the work in this series, Parts 1-4.

New publication: Part 4 of the Mozart Form Functions Series

I have just published a new essay on Texas Scholar Works: Formal Functions in Menuets by Mozart, Part 4: Older Contemporaries to1770. Link.

Here is the abstract:

This essay charts formal functions (after Caplin) in named menuets written during the second half of the eighteenth century. The repertoire includes menuets by Johann Stamitz, Johann Gottfried Müthel, Franz Joseph Haydn, Luigi Boccherini, Maddalena Laura Sirmen, and several other composers, as well as menuets in collections or compilations intended for performance, dancing, or pedagogy.

New publication: Part 3 of Form Functions in Mozart Menuets

I have just published a new essay on Texas Scholar Works: Formal Functions in Menuets by Mozart, Part 3: A Comparison with Johann Christian Bach. Link.

Here is the abstract:

This essay charts formal functions (after Caplin) in named menuets by Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782) and compares them with menuets by Mozart. Bach is notable for exploiting the “galant theme,” presumably because of its ability to emphasize melody and to maximize contrast, in accordance with aesthetic ideals of the galant style.

The repertoire includes, in chronological order, WC 49-54: Concertos, op. 1 (1763); WB 43-48: Trios (keyboard), op. 2 (1763 or earlier); WA 1-6: 6 Sonatas, op. 5 (1765); WB 2-7: Sonatas with violin, op. 10 ; WC 1-6: 6 Symphonies, op. 3 (1765); WC 55-60: Concertos, op. 7 (1770); WB 51-56: String quartets (1770); WB 57: Flute quartets (year?); WB 70-75: 6 Quintets, op. 11 (1772); WC 17b-18b: 3 Symphonies, op. 9 (1773); WZ_6 Trios (Bach, Abel, and Kammel) (1775-76); WC 62-67: Concertos, op. 13 (1777);WA 21: Sonata 2 pianos (1778); WB 10-15 Sonatas (c. 1780); WB 30-35: Trios (1780); WA 7-12: 6 Sonatas, op. 17 (c. 1780); WA 16-20: Sonatas, op. 18 (year?).

New publication: Part 2 of Form Functions in Mozart Menuets

I have just published Formal Functions in Menuets by Mozart, Part 2: Sonatas and Chamber Music on the Texas Scholar Works platform.

Here is the abstract:

Continuation of a study of formal functions (after Caplin) in named menuets by Mozart. A table of data and comprehensive musical examples cover the trios, string quartets, string quintets, quartets and quintets with other instrumentation, piano sonatas, and violin sonatas.

For both parts of the study, the principal results are:

(1) An older historical narrative is discredited, according to which 18th century composers used period themes but Beethoven turned toward sentences instead. The menuet designs are remarkably and consistently varied.
(2) The antecedent + continuation theme is so important to the menuet repertoire that I have named it the “galant theme.”
(3) A small but still significant number of presentation + consequent themes appear.
(4) The available theme categories do not account well for some features of an 8-bar theme’s second phrase. In particular, “continuation” is too broad to account for the difference between “development” (as in fragmentation or sequence) and “continuing melody” (as in a new basic idea).

New publication: Form functions in Mozart menuets, Part 1

I have just published Formal Functions in Menuets by Mozart, Part 1: Orchestral Works and Independent Sets on the Texas Scholar works platform: link.

Here is the abstract:

A study of formal functions (after Caplin) in named menuets by Mozart, the larger goal being to historicize more fully form-design practices in European music during the second half of the eighteenth century, especially emphasizing the importance of the “galant theme” or anticipation + continuation/contrast model. The essay includes a table of data along with comprehensive musical examples drawn from the orchestral compositions and from the independent sets of menuets, many of which are either orchestral or keyboard reductions of ensemble pieces.

Menuet survey summary

A longer-term goal of the menuet survey—which still needs entries on J. C. Bach and Mozart—has been a large documentation essay to be published eventually, like others, on the Texas Scholar Works platform. At this mid-point in the series of posts (I plan to examine a large number of menuets by Mozart), a summary of the argument might be useful:

This essay historicizes hybrid themes (after Caplin) in terms of first strains in named menuets and (secondarily) first sections in instrumental movements clearly based on the menuet. The antecedent-continuation theme is renamed "galant theme," and—for the purpose of the dance—the list of eight-bar themes is reduced to four: period, sentence, galant theme, and presentation-consequent. This last I sometimes refer to as the "6+2 theme."

Menuet series 2-10 (Georg Muffat)

The goal in this section of the menuet series is to make comparisons between J. S. Bach and his German contemporaries (in the earlier series it was French predecessors and contemporaries). To begin, here is a table with data:

The numbers for Bach are the 28 named menuets, that number identified by Jenne and Little (link to earlier post). For the others also, I used only movements named menuet in solo and chamber music. Sources will be identified in posts on the individual composers.

One obvious point to be made is the large number of periods in Georg Muffat's music (he was an older contemporary, born in 1653), but the significant drop relative to antecedent + continuation and sentence themes in Bach's close contemporaries (Gottlieb Muffat, Graupner, and Telemann).

As with all the work in this series of posts, the "data" were gathered opportunistically and I do not pretend that they are complete, especially as I firmly restricted myself to named menuets. Many other pieces, especially rondeau themes, are obviously also menuets. And of course my restriction meant that the entire eighteenth-century song repertoire was excluded.

I found four collections by Georg Muffat on IMSLP (link): orchestral—Armonico tributo, published in Salzburg in 1682; Florilegium Primum, published in Augsburg in 1695; Florilegium Secundum, published in Passau in 1698—and six keyboard partitas in an undated manuscript, for which I am using modern notation by John Phelan.

From these last, as clean an 8-bar period as one could want. Note that the antecedent is set with the familiar chaconne bass figure, but that rhythm and direction clearly separate the contrasting idea from the basic idea. (Partita no. 5, menuet II)

Here is another example. This is from the first suite in the Armonico tributo, first violin part only. Note the "Allegro è forte." Throughout its history, the menuet took on both ceremonial-processional and pastoral characters with equal ease.

From Partita No. 2, the second menuet. The addition of ornamentation in the consequent does not in any way disturb the senses of symmetry and return. It is highly likely that this little piece reflects common performance practice, especially by keyboard players but almost certainly by others, as well.

From Florilegium Primum, suite no. 6. Ornamentation can also cause problems for analysis, as here. I first identified this as a sentence, assuming that the noodling in bars 5-6 were the functional equivalent of fragmentation. The lower parts, however, clearly mark bars 5-6 as a repetition of bars 1-2, and thus I conclude that the design is presentation + consequent—reluctantly, to be sure, because, as Caplin notes, this is a rare form (so much so that he doesn't even include it in his list of hybrid themes). The presentation + consequent theme is indeed rare throughout the entire history of the menuet. (The modern notation, btw, was made originally for the Werner Icking Music Collection by an editor identified only as "kompy.")

The final example from Muffat is from Florilegium Secundum, suite no. 4. I will continue to emphasize the importance of the antecedent + continuation theme throughout this series. Indeed, in my view, to call it a hybrid fails to historicize the several 8-bar theme types completely—and not only for the menuet (though it has special importance there). As we will see later on, antecedent + continuation becomes so prevalent in J. C. Bach and Mozart that I will refer to it as the "galant theme." (Note also how often Telemann used it -- see again the table at the top of this post.)

This example is what I would call a "classic" (not "classical") antecedent + continuation theme: a clearly defined basic idea followed by a strongly contrasting idea (in both shape and rhythm), and a continuation featuring fragmentation.

More on Mozart K. 164

I have added a post about K. 164 on my blog Ascending Cadence Gestures: link. It can be read as a supplement to my post on this blog: link. The new post concerns rising melodic figures in n4 and its trio.

New essay published

I have published Form Functions in Menuets by Beethoven and Others, 1770-1813:
A Contribution to the History of Design for Dance Musics on the Texas Scholar Works platform: link.

Here is the abstract:

This article adds further documentation for the claim that dance musics in Europe at the end of the eighteenth century were not dominated by the classical symmetrical period but were in fact written in a variety of thematic types and frequently emphasized contrast between ideas (that is, two-bar units). In order to fine-tune descriptions, the terminology for the second phrase in a theme is expanded beyond consequent and continuation (after William Caplin) to include two new categories: contrast and complement.

In addition to two sets of menuets by Beethoven—WoO7 and WoO10—I look at the late menuets of Mozart (K. 461, K. 463, K. 568, K. 585, K. 599, K. 601, K. 604), early menuets by Schubert (D. 41, D. 89), menuets by Friedrich Schwindl (1778), Settree (an English publisher; 1770s?), and Hummel (1807).

Mozart's menuets and Caplin's theme types, part 3

Ironically, perhaps, the presentation-consequent theme class shares an important characteristic with the sentence. The presentation-consequent theme shows a dogged adherence to one idea, which is heard three times, then followed by a cadence. Here is an example from K. 164, n5:

One might even decide that bars 5-6 are "varied" enough that the second phrase could be called a continuation and the whole a sentence. In my view, however, that would be a failure to recognize obvious things in the music that tell us "bar 5 is like bar 1--hear that?"

In K. 164, the trio to n6 is one of the periods that might have been read as a presentation-consequent theme:

Here the issue is clearly not bars 5-6, where bars 1-2 are literally repeated, in entirety. The issue is in bars 3-4, where the opening of the figure (bar 3) suggests "basic idea varied" and the end (bar 4) says "contrast." In general, I favor the effect of the opening, but in this case the strong contrast effected by a different direction for the parallel thirds in the accompaniment parts renders bar 5 a clear "return to the beginning" by contrast.

Here is a similar problem with a different result: K164n3, the trio:

Does bar 5 act like the opening of a consequent, rather than, as I have it, a continuation phrase? The "dogged adherence" to a figure would certainly suggest it, but what's lacking here is a sense of returning to the beginning, which a consequent must have. Here the sequence, going down by thirds (D-B-G in the melody), erases any sense of "starting over." If anything, this theme sounds like a six-measure phrase + a cadence.

Mozart menuets and Caplin's theme types, part 2

This is a follow-up to yesterday's post that provided stats for theme types in the first strains of one early set of menuets (K. 164) and two late ones (K. 568 & 585).

Caplin's seven classes of eight-bar themes are as follows:

• c1. period 

• c2. sentence 
• 
c3. period with modulating consequent 
• 
c4. hybrid 1 (antecedent + continuation) 
• 
c5. hybrid 2 (antecedent + cadence) 
• 
c6. hybrid 3 (compound basic idea + continuation) 

• c7. hybrid 4 (compound basic idea + consequent) 


These seven classes make up his list of all the eight-bar functional units commonly found in the music of the Vienna School (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven; to which we could add Schubert). Only three from all possible combinations of the four-bar units are missing:

• 1. presentation + consequent 
• 2. presentation + cadential
• 3. compound basic idea + cadential

I would designate presentation + consequent "hybrid 5" because examples do appear occasionally in dance music (as we saw in K. 164; a number of instances occur in Beethoven's dances, as well). I will add 2 & 3 to the list if I ever find any instances of them in music.

To be honest I think that for dance music those themes whose identity depends on particular harmonic shapes do not have anything like the importance that they can have for larger-scale instrumental concert music. For that reason, I would be content with just four classes:

• c1. period
• c2. sentence
• c3. antecedent + continuation
• c4. presentation + consequent

Within these, one may find variation in clarity of definition. Evaluating such differences can be useful as an interpretive tool. Here are examples from K. 164. In the trio of n2, we see the "classic" sentence design, where a basic idea is clearly repeated, though varied by transposition, and the continuation is built on fragmentation of the head-motive of the basic idea. A formula cadence then ends.

The menuet proper for n2 lies near the other extreme for the sentence: although the presentation phrase works just as it did in the trio above, the continuation introduces a new idea that holds nearly the same rhythm (without the grace note) but is otherwise strongly contrasting in character and presentation. Again a formula cadence follows.

The design of the menuet in n5 lies somewhere in between. The variation of the basic idea is more radical but is certainly still recognizable, but in the continuation we are offered something that sounds like a new idea -- observe the changed rhythm in bar 5, a small but telling moment in such confined quarters. Yet in retrospect we can recognize bars 5-6 as an informal mirror of bars 3-4. The question of such mirrors is a vexed one -- I am inclined toward viewing these as a separate class, which seems reasonable in that Caplin's theme types are grounded in melodic shapes (to which nuances of harmony are added).

Mozart, 6 Menuets, K. 164

The traditional narrative has the period theme dominating the Classical era (that is, European music roughly 1760-1820) but by the end of that time giving way to the sentence (Schoenberg's term): the preference for symmetry somehow turned to a preference for organic development. By now, we know well that this historical model misrepresents much of the music of this era. It certainly misrepresents music for dance.

My claim is that a variety of thematic types was typical of the 17th century and early 18th, as well, but gradually gave way to the symmetrical design of the period by the 1760s because of the popularity of the contredanse, which was based on music for the gavotte (duple time) and gigue (triple). Through most of the century, however, the menuet was prominent in maintaining one of the earlier theme types, the antecedent-continuation design (one of William Caplin's "hybrids"). The goal of my new research is to gain a better picture of just how thoroughly—and during which decades—this design was important.

Mozart provides a particularly good case study, as he was an avid dancer himself (and therefore knew intimately the requirements and changing fashions of dance), and he was also a prolific composer of music for dancing from an early age into the last year of his life, when he held a position as composer of dance music for the Imperial court.

The six orchestral menuets of K. 164 were composed in 1772. The scoring is for two violin parts and bass, augmented by trumpet and 2 oboes (or, sometimes, a solo flute). The designs for the first strain of each menuet and its trio are listed below.

• n1: sentence
• n1, trio: period 
• n2: sentence 
• n2, trio: sentence
• n3: period
• n3, trio: sentence
• n4: antecedent-continuation
• n4, trio: sentence
• n5: presentation-consequent
• n5, trio: sentence
• n6: sentence
• n6, trio: period

The two striking points are (1) the presence of a presentation-consequent hybrid, which Caplin regarded as too rare to even place among his set of hybrid themes; and (2) the prevalence of sentences: seven out of the twelve themes. So much for the narrative that says the sentence arises with Beethoven. In fact, it would seem to be just common sense that the sentence should be well suited to 18th century motive-driven Italianate models of composition and improvisation.

Here are the stats for K. 568, composed in 1788.

• n1: sentence
• n1, trio: period with transposed consequent
• n2: period with transposed consequent
• n2, trio: period
• n3: antecedent-continuation
• n3, trio: period
• n4: antecedent-continuation
• n4, trio: period
• n5: period
• n5, trio: period
• n6: sentence
• n6, trio: sentence* (with contrasting phrase)
• n7: antecedent-continuation
• n7, trio: period
• n8: antecedent-continuation
• n8, trio: period
• n9: sentence
• n9, trio: antecedent-continuation
• n10: antecedent-continuation
• n10, trio: period
• n11: antecedent-continuation
• n11, trio: sentence
• n12: antecedent-continuation
• n12, trio: period

Eleven of these themes are periods, only five are sentences, but eight are antecedent-continuation hybrids.

Here are the stats for K. 585, composed in 1789.

• n1: sentence
• n1, trio: period
• n2: sentence
• n2, trio: period
• n3: antecedent-continuation
• n3, trio: antecedent-continuation
• n4: antecedent-continuation
• n4, trio: antecedent-continuation or sentence with mirror variation of bi
• n5: period
• n5, trio: period
• n6: period
• n6, trio: period
• n7: antecedent-continuation
• n7, trio: sentence with continuous figure (motive)
• n8: period
• n8, trio: antecedent-continuation, but similar ci
• n9: period
• n9, trio: Period
• n10: sentence
• n10, trio: period
• n11: antecedent-continuation
• n11, trio: period
• n12: period
• n12, trio: period

For periods, n = 13; for sentences, n = 4; for antecedent-continuation hybrids, n = 7.

For the late menuets, then, periods do outnumber any other type, but constitute only about half of the total, with antecedent-continuation hybrids significantly represented and sentences by no means missing.

In the next post, I will discuss some examples of the antecedent-continuation hybrid from these three sets of menuets.

Peter Franck on Canon (Imitation)

Peter Franck, "Canon and Its Effect on Tight-Knit Organization within Classical Themes." Intégral (Eastman School of Music) vol. 26 (2012), 1-45.

A well-written, clearly organized presentation on how canonic passages can be interpreted within theme-sized units. Beethoven and Haydn do figure, but the great majority of the repertoire discussed is by Mozart. Although "canon" is in the title, the author is actually talking about "canon and imitation," as he acknowledges almost immediately (2).

The distinction between tight-knit and loose organization that is central to William Caplin's form theory is in the foreground of the argument, but as canonic passages seem to find a place in all segments of different types of themes (occasionally including entire themes), the article's strength lies not in revealing some particular "effect" of canon but rather in offering a useful style survey.