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<font face="Calibri">Rick,<br>
<br>
Languages are tricky, as you know. "Argument", in French, has no
polemic connotation, it merely refers to the pro and contra in a
scholarly discussion; and that is how I understood it. Similarly,
when I wrote "we are evaluating", I merely meant that our judgment
probably took a bias determined by our theories. I keep doubting
that our sensations could at first be totally disconnect from our
later explicit observations, because I believe that our ideas are
never totally independent of how we express them. [Concepts never
are independent from their formulation; but that is another
subject.]<br>
<br>
I haven't been trained at the Paris Conservatoire either (nor even
in France, although in French – nobody is perfect). Your point
about the Ab5 in the middle section in interesting (m. 21-22, if
your edition has a repeat bar at m. 8, probably m. 29-30 if the
repeat is fully written). I think that I could force my
Schenkerian/Salzerian distance hearing to hear the G5 of m. 7
resolving on Ab4 in m. 22; but not without effort.<br>
<br>
The question is not there, though. The initial question concerns
the leading tone. Adapted to this particular case, it wonders
whether G5 in m. 7 can be dubbed a "leading tone" when it does not
resolve there as such. I hear it loaded with contradictory
tensions, possibly partly explained by the resolution on Ab4 in m.
22 (a Schenkerian point of view, inducing a Schenkerian hearing),
but nevertheless forcefully pulled down in m. 7 itself, in a
downward movement that I cannot refrain from hearing as some kind
of resolution. Can this complex of contradictory tensions be
subsumed under the label "leading tone"? I don't think so.<br>
<br>
The question eventually is one of tonal centricity, and may be
expressed as follows: is tonal centricity given a priori,
postulating a priori attractions as described by many 19th-century
theorists (and by Yitzhak Sadaï's idea of a "tonal code"), or is
it something that each tonal work builds anew, in an ever novel
way (<i>semper idem, sed non eodem modo</i>)? Any simple answer to
this question would be naive. For sure, the tonal habit creates
expectations that may be taken for given a priori; but I believe
it wise and cautious to keep in mind that this "given" is never
compelling, that it can be (partly) contradicted by actual
circumstances, by the wit of the composer. <br>
<br>
I think that Brahms' op. 39#15 is a very good case in point.<br>
<br>
Yours,<br>
</font>Nicolas Meeùs<br>
Université Paris-Sorbonne<br>
<font face="Calibri"><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</font><br>
Le 8/02/2012 17:47, Richard Cohn a écrit :
<blockquote cite="mid:4F32A725.8070100@yale.edu" type="cite">Nicolas,
<br>
<br>
No argument is involved here; I'm just reporting an aspect of my
experience of a piece, without demanding that it be an aspect of
your experience (how could I do so?). If this report helps to
frame a distinction between modes of hearing, and in so doing
helps frame a distinction in modes of theorizing (and their impact
on modes of hearing), that's potentially constructive, and worth
exploring.
<br>
<br>
When I first made this observation about the waltz, I don't think
that I was "evaluating it from the point of view of [my] theory
of tonality," at least in the literal sense that such an
evaluation might be imagined. That is, I wasn't using the theory
of tonality (in my right hand) as a manual that would tell me how
to construct a coherent hearing of the waltz (in my left hand).
Rather, I was aware of a particular wistful sensation when I
played that G5 in measure 7, and a particular fulfillment at the
Ab5 at the end. My "theory of tonality" helped me convert those
sensations to explicit observations, and encouraged me to explore
those observations in a particular framework. What your response
suggests (and I find the possibility fascinating) is that my
training was in some sense prompting my sensations; that is, had I
been trained at the Conservatoire de Paris, I never would have
found that G5 wistful to begin with.
<br>
<br>
I don't think that my attunement to the relation between G5 in
measure 7 and Ab5 at the final cadence necessarily involves
"distance hearing," in the Schenker/Salzer sense. If it were, then
the Ab5's that occur in the middle section of the waltz would be
satisfactory. I think that associative hearing is much more at
work. My subconscious process probably goes something like this:
"I've been down this path before.....last time this music occured,
that high note wasn't quite as high or stable as I would have
liked it to be....he's going to give me that note again and I'll
have the same sensation.....ah, he gave me the higher, more stable
tone this time, what a relief." From this perspective, it's not
the shear number of measures, or the quantity of time passed,
that's at issue. What's involved is taking something that is
presented to me, and comparing it to something in my memory. Such
comparisons, in music as in life, can happen with short-term and
long-term memories alike.
<br>
<br>
--Rick
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
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