Schubert’s Sonata Forms and the Poetics of the Lyric

Mak, Su Yin

doi:10.4324/9781315088396-18

Cited by 3 publications

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“…An attempt to explain this feature is central to Korstvedt's notion of schematic design: motivic development happens within theme groups, rather than as a technique that overrides inter‐thematic functions in Brahms's manner, with the result that themes appear self‐contained and motivically discontinuous. Viewed another way, this property evidences the relationship with Schubert stressed by Paul Bekker (): the organisation of sonata form as episodic, lyrical or paratactic, rather than as a dramatic, hypotactic Beethovenian principle, resonates strongly with Schubertian habits noted in literature from Adorno (; first published 1928) to Scott Burnham () and Su Yin Mak ().…”

Section: The Reversed Recapitulation Revisited: Functional Transformasupporting

confidence: 68%

Form and Orbital Tonality in the Finale of Bruckner's Seventh Symphony

Horton¹

2018

Music Analysis

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This article investigates questions of form in the Finale of Bruckner's Seventh Symphony, paying special attention to the reversed recapitulation as a problematic category in contemporary Formenlehre. Counterpointing Timothy Jackson's reading of the movement as a ‘tragic’ reversed sonata against James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy's critique of the concept of reversal, it seeks ways of accounting for the movement's novel form‐functional characteristics, which integrate concepts of thematic syntax with a model of chromatic tonality, drawing simultaneously on Schenkerian and neo‐Riemannian theories and the notion of the double‐tonic complex first proposed by Robert Bailey. The argument is contextualised in relation to critical debates about Bruckner's forms that originated during the composer's lifetime, especially claims of material discontinuity and harmonic illogicality, which were common in the symphonies’ pro‐Brahmsian reception and which linger in the discourse up to the present. The article's central claim is that a substantial understanding of both the Finale's form and its critical reception is attendant upon a theory of formal function, which takes seriously the difficulties of harmonic analysis that Bruckner's post‐Wagnerian idiom engenders.

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Section: The Reversed Recapitulation Revisited: Functional Transformasupporting

confidence: 68%

Form and Orbital Tonality in the Finale of Bruckner's Seventh Symphony

Horton¹

2018

Music Analysis

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“…77My discussion of musical poetry may call to mind lyric parataxis – ‘a style that omits syntactical connections and relies instead on dissimilar juxtaposition and parallelism’ – but this resonance is not intended. See Mak (2006). …”

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confidence: 99%

“…4545At first, this process seems to resonate with the concept of musical parataxis, for ‘parataxis downplays the role of syntax and hierarchy in discourse and instead relies on techniques of juxtaposition (such as repetition and parallelism)’ (Mak 2006, p. 275). For instance, Mak (2006) notes that ‘Schubert's themes often comprise symmetrical periods and closed forms that could be syntactically complete but that are subsequently extended through literal or varied repetition – a device analogous to the associative parallelisms of paratactic style’ (p. 281). Brahms's modular discourse differs fundamentally from Mak's explanation of musical parataxis because repetitions and parallelisms are kept to a minimum intra‐rotationally.…”

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confidence: 99%

Brahms's ‘Musical Prose’ Reconsidered

LIU¹

2022

Music Analysis

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In the history of Brahms reception, developing variation has emerged as a central concept. Another suggestive term, musical prose, often accompanies discussions of developing variation. Schoenberg defines musical prose as ‘the direct and straightforward presentation of ideas, without any patchwork, without mere padding and empty repetitions’ ([1947] 1975, p. 414). Current scholarship supposes that developing variation ‘provides the grammar by which musical prose is created’ (Frisch 1984, p. 9). This article restructures the relationship between developing variation and musical prose because a few prose‐like pieces by Brahms exhibit almost no developing variation. These works are representative of the hitherto unacknowledged category of ‘modular discourse’. Modular discourse presents incises that are not related by a common denominator, and many of them in quick succession. In other words, modular discourse does not rely on traditional motivic/thematic workings‐out to generate new content, unlike developing variation. To demonstrate modular procedures at intra‐rotational and inter‐rotational formal levels, I analyse the Andante sostenuto of Symphony No. 1 and the Scherzo of Symphony No. 4. Both movements are cast in multiple rotations within established forms, either sonata or ternary. In addition to discussing the logic of succession from one module to the next, I trace the formal‐functional recontextualisation of modules in later rotations to explain a perceived paradox: given the lack of development – modules often return verbatim or simply transposed – what factors are responsible for the changes in expressive meaning of later rotations?

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“…This differentiation can be mapped onto that between the paratactic and the hypotactic in linguistics. SeeMak, 2006 for an account of Schubert's paratactic strategies in sonata form examined through the lens of the Romantic lyric.…”

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confidence: 99%

Still Point of the Turning World

2021

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Schubert’s late instrumental music evokes a distinctive time-sense which not only expands the expressive potential of stylistic norms, but also invites deeper reflections on the relationship between the self and the world through his multilayered construction of temporal consciousness. The sense of now, towards which past and future gravitate, is particularly salient. In this article, I examine the formal, harmonic, topical processes through which Schubert constructs a vivid sense of the now in two movements from his late period, D. 956/ii and D. 959/ii, through the lens of phenomenology, drawing on conceptions of time as formulated by Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. I aim to bridge two fields together: first, the general theory of musical time, as has been delineated by Kramer, Barry and Clifton, which examines concepts such as linearity/nonlinearity, silence and stasis; and second, the scholarship on late Schubert, with key conceptual tools such as landscape, late style, lyricism, songfulness and interiority, formulated in the works of Adorno, Burnham, Mak and Taylor. I will also provide the cultural context of musical time in the early-nineteenth century, focusing on the wider paradigm shift from form-as-architecture to form-as-process in music. My analysis reflects a phenomenological orientation within a hermeneutic, narrative mode. I highlight the often disorienting subjective experience of time as evoked by moments that deflect from norms and expectations, specifically the tension between the transient nature of music and the sense of permanence evoked through Schubert’s cyclic, paratactic procedures. I then show how Schubert’s construal of temporal consciousness acquires a historiographical import and resonates with the broader intellectual world by framing it in terms of Schlegel’s three stages of history. I conclude by promoting phenomenological approaches in analysing Schubert’s works and nineteenth-century music at large.

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Schubert’s Sonata Forms and the Poetics of the Lyric

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Form and Orbital Tonality in the Finale of Bruckner's Seventh Symphony

Form and Orbital Tonality in the Finale of Bruckner's Seventh Symphony

Brahms's ‘Musical Prose’ Reconsidered

Still Point of the Turning World

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