“You too may change”

Abstract

By and large, discussions on tonal pairing have been limited to works of the late nineteenth century whose competing key centers are a third apart. Even when we find tonal pairing earlier in the nineteenth century, the tonic is still most frequently in conflict with the mediant or the submediant. This chapter addresses a tonal pairing strategy found in certain songs by Fanny Hensel where the tonic is paired not with a third-related key but instead with the subdominant. In these cases, Hensel effectively transforms the tonic into V of iv, such that the subdominant key competes with, and even sometimes usurps, the tonic key. Using “Vorwurf” and “Die Äolsharfe auf dem Schlosse zu Baden” as examples, the author explores the harmonic strategies by which Hensel turns the tonic into V of iv, and the expressive implications that arise as the tonic’s function transforms is transformed in this way.