<font color='black' size='2' face='arial'>
<div class="p1">Dear SMT list,</div>
<div class="p2"><br>
</div>
<div class="p1">I'd like to add one further perspective to this mini-discussion of the Brahms A-flat Waltz.</div>
<div class="p2"><br>
</div>
<div class="p1">Nicolas is correct when he interprets the I 6/3 chord on the downbeat of bar 7 as an "inverted cadential 6/4." I 6/3 chords often replace cadential 6/4 chords for various voice-leading reasons. Bill Rothstein discusses this extensively in his article "Transformations of CadentiaI Formulae in the Music of Corelli and His Successors" (from Essays from the Third International Schenker Symposium), and dubs this procedure as "the Schrock cadence."</div>
<div class="p2"><br>
</div>
<div class="p1">In the A-flat Waltz, if Brahms had written a cadential 6/4 at the beginning of bar 7, there would have been parallel octaves, F-G, in both the bass and top voice. In terms of the harmonic progression, Nicolas is therefore correct in interpreting the F minor harmony in bars 5-6 as a IV leading to V in bar 7 (with the 6/3 representing a cadential 6/4) that cadences in C minor. But I believe there is a more subtle reason for Brahms's employing a I6 at the beginning of bar 7.</div>
<div class="p2"><br>
</div>
<div class="p1">In the Brahms Waltz, bars 1-4 elaborate the tonic A-flat major with C in the top voice decorated in bar 3 by an upper neighbor D-flat that is expanded by a motion down a third to B-flat before returning back to C in bar 4. The D-flat is itself decorated by a upper neighbor grace-note figure.</div>
<div class="p2"><br>
</div>
<div class="p1">In bars 5-6, an F-minor chord appears with F as its top voice. In bar 7 this F is decorated by an upper neighbor G that descends to D-natural before resolving to E-flat over the C minor (III) chord in bar 8. Ultimately, the F in the top voice is expanded by a motion down a third to D-natural before resolving to the E-flat, and its decoration by the upper neighbor G in bar 7 parallels exactly the D-flat in bar 3 with its grace-note decoration E-flat. The motivic parallelism of D-flat (with its E-flat – D-flat grace note upper-neighbor figure) – C – B-flat leading to C in bars 3-4 is thus echoed by F (with its upper neighbor decoration G – F) – E-flat – D-natural leading to E-flat over bars 5-8. </div>
<div class="p2"><br>
</div>
<div class="p1">But Rick also has a valid point in hearing the top voice G in bar 7 as evoking the sound of a leading tone, which finds its fulfillment in the parallel place of the A2 part (bar 21). The G is clearly not a leading tone in bar 7, but there is something about the sonority of the III chord which supports 7 that evokes a "sense of yearning and incompletion." In fact, III is often used as a substitute for I6 precisely with this replacement of scale degree 7 for scale degree 1, and this 7 will often continue on to 1 in a subsequent harmony. The Aldwell-Schachter Harmony book explains this very well in its discussion of the III chord in major, and gives a lovely example from the beginning of Bach's Chorale 365. In this example the inner voice G-sharp is clearly a lower neighbor decoration of what would usually be a sustained A in the opening expansion I – IV6 – I6 of the tonic, but the substitution of G-sharp (7) for A (1) adds a poignant quality to the progression.</div>
<div class="p2"><br>
</div>
<div class="p1">Bach, incidentally, had a special fondness for using III as a substitute for I6. Two examples:</div>
<div class="p1">1) bar 5 in the Sarabande from the French Suite 6 in E, where III, instead of I6, follows a V4/2</div>
<div class="p1">2) bar 59 of the Fugue in G minor from Book 2 of the Well-Tempered Clavier, where in the tonicization of E-flat major, a G-minor chord (III in E-flat) substitutes for a I6</div>
<div class="p2"><br>
</div>
<div class="p1">In both cases the leading tone 7 leads up to 1 in the subsequent chord.</div>
<div class="p2"><br>
</div>
<div class="p1">Despite our different perspectives as theorists, I think our conflicting points of view are often more reconcilable than we like to think, and can add multifaceted meanings to the wonderful music we experience. I thank both Nicolas and Rick to have added something to our understanding of this passage from the Brahms A-flat Waltz. </div>
<div class="p2"><br>
</div>
<div class="p1">Eric Wen</div>
<div class="p1">Mannes College of Music</div>
<div class="p1"><br>
</div>
<br>
<div style="font-family:helvetica,arial;font-size:10pt;color:black">-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Nicolas Meeùs <nicolas.meeus@paris-sorbonne.fr><br>
To: Richard Cohn <richard.cohn@yale.edu><br>
Cc: smt-talk <smt-talk@lists.societymusictheory.org><br>
Sent: Wed, Feb 8, 2012 11:54 am<br>
Subject: Re: [Smt-talk] Smt-talk Digest, Vol 37, Issue 5<br>
<br>
<div id="AOLMsgPart_2_67a28b49-7e96-460d-b485-e3a09989d19b">
<font face="Calibri">Rick,<br>
<br>
I am afraid we are evaluating these cases from the point of view
of our respective theories of tonality. Any argument that we could
have would aim at the validity of the theory, more than at the
cases themselves. It may therefore not be very wise to go any
further...<br>
<br>
I may agree that the C-minor chord in m. 7 of op. 39#15 is
Dominant-Parallel; in m. 8, it certainly transformed in
Tonic-Leittonwechsel, G remaining the common note until m. 9
(after which it does at last resolve as the leading tone). I
think to hear G5 in m. 7 as a consonant skip above Eb5 and
returning to it (probably because I already hear the Fb7 chord of
m. 6 as IV in C minor; the downbeat of m. 7 could then be
considered as an "inverted" V6/4). At any rate, I fail to hear any
tendency of G5 to climb to Ab5. (And my distance hearing is not
such that I can imagine tensions in m. 7 resolving in the next to
last measure, m. 35 in my version of the score: I can read that,
but not hear it.)<br>
<br>
Nicolas Meeùs<br>
Paris-Sorbonne<br>
<br>
</font><br>
Le 8/02/2012 04:32, Richard Cohn a écrit :
<blockquote type="cite">Nicolas,
<br>
<br>
I personally hear many non-resolving leading tones as bearing
strong expectations in the absence of realization. For me, this
issue comes into strong focus when 19th-century composers begin to
take advantage of the expressive potential vested in the direct
move move major tonics to minor mediants. Consider the Brahms
Ab-major Waltz, Op. 39 # 15 (perhaps the most familiar of these
waltzes). On the downbeat of measure 7, in the approach to the
C-minor cadence one measure later, Brahms sounds a C-minor triad
in 6/3 position with G5 on top, the highest pitch in the
composition so far. (The bass support of global ^7 by global ^5
makes it feel very much like a global dominant: in Riemannian
terms, this tonicized C minor is the Dominant-parallel, not the
Tonic-Leittonwechsel). Brahms then descends scale-wise downward
from that G5, leaving it hanging. An acute sense of yearning and
incompletion is central to my experience of this moment.
<br>
<br>
At the parallel point of the reprise, one measure before the final
cadence, Brahms ascends one semitone higher, to Ab5. I experience
all of the residual tension from the earlier G5 as discharged; an
extraordinary effect (yet so simple....).
<br>
<br>
--Rick Cohn
<br>
Yale University
<br>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Message: 1
<br>
Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:57:02 +0100
<br>
From: Nicolas Mee?s<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:nicolas.meeus@paris-sorbonne.fr"><nicolas.meeus@paris-sorbonne.fr></a>
<br>
To: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:smt-talk@lists.societymusictheory.org">smt-talk@lists.societymusictheory.org</a>
<br>
Subject: Re: [Smt-talk] Uncommon six-four chords
<br>
Message-ID:<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:4F3149CE.9020906@paris-sorbonne.fr"><4F3149CE.9020906@paris-sorbonne.fr></a>
<br>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed"
<br>
<br>
Even although I can understand a desire to consider the harmony
without
<br>
the voice leading, I think that the limit is reached when ^7 is
dubbed
<br>
"the leading-tone" (and vii? "the leading-tone triad"), while
this tone
<br>
does not lead to the tonic. In the case of IV--vii?6/4--IV, it
seems
<br>
unavoidable that the voice leading includes ^6--^7--^6. (It
might be
<br>
possible to hear ^6--^7--^8, but that probably would be an
inadequate
<br>
hearing.)
<br>
<br>
This raises the question whether a chord including ^7 can be
considered
<br>
a dominant when this tone does not resolve on the tonic -- or,
in other
<br>
terms, whether the attraction (and the accompanying tension)
exists
<br>
without being resolved, whether tonality involves expectations
even in
<br>
the absence of realization. In my opinion, attraction and
tension are
<br>
retrospective: one realizes that they existed when resolved
(and, in the
<br>
absence of resolution, that they were not there, at least in the
<br>
habitual sense).
<br>
<br>
A neighboring 6/4 decorating a subdominant is merely that, in my
<br>
opinion, a neighboring decoration, an effect of voice-leading.
Note that
<br>
in m. 11 of "La Paix", the true ^7, the major 3rd of the V
chord, does
<br>
not resolve as a leading tone either: the progression is IV -- I
-- V --
<br>
ii -- vi, a "reverse" progression, in which tonal functions are
suspended.
<br>
<br>
Nicolas Mee?s
<br>
Universit? Paris-Sorbonne
<br>
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
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