Meter and Phrasing as Performance Theory

Thomas Ingram

Department of Music Research, Music Theory Area

Schulich School of Music, McGill University, Montreal

A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfilment of the requirements of

the degree of Master of Arts, Music Theory, August 2019.

Copyright 2019, Thomas Ingram.

i

Table of contents

Abstract ................................................................................................................................... iii

Résumé .................................................................................................................................... iv

Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. vi

Preface .................................................................................................................................... vii

Chapter 1. The idea of performance theory............................................................................ 1

The ontological objection ....................................................................................................... 3

The disciplinary objection ..................................................................................................... 6

The aural image as a mediating term .................................................................................13

Chapter 2. Performed meter and the accent theory .............................................................17

Ontological preface ...............................................................................................................18

Speculative theorists: Locating the accent ..........................................................................20

Performance theorists: Rendering the accent .....................................................................29

Performed meter in the early nineteenth century ..............................................................38

A theory of phrasing? ...........................................................................................................42

Chapter 3. The continuous dynamics of Riemann’s phrasing theory ...................................47

Instructions to performers: Riemann’s phrasing edition ....................................................49

A theoretical outlook: Musikalische Dynamik und Agogik .................................................54

Meter and dynamic shading in the Beethoven sonatas ......................................................60

Displacement of the downbeat .........................................................................................61

Negation of the downbeat .................................................................................................70

Subsidiary metrical accents and the legitimacy of quadruple time ................................78

Performed stress at the beginnings of motives ................................................................85

A theory of meter without meter? ........................................................................................88

Chapter 4. Phrasing Theory and the Aural Image Today ....................................................91

ii

McGill and the number system ...........................................................................................93

Phrases that begin ............................................................................................................. 105

Perceptual and ethical imperatives ................................................................................... 114

Bibliography .......................................................................................................................... 125

Primary Sources ................................................................................................................. 125

Secondary Sources (selected) ............................................................................................. 127

Editions of Musical Scores ................................................................................................. 132

iii

Abstract

This thesis presents a revised way for music theorists to conceive of musical performance

through the lens of pedagogical writings by prominent performers from history and the

present day. In Chapter 1, I outline my theoretical approach by way of responding to

influential critiques of analysis and performance (Cook 1999, 2013; Rink 1990, 2002). In

Chapter 2, I examine instrumental treatises by prominent German musicians of the late

eighteenth century, constructing a rudimentary “phrasing theory” on the basis of their

approach to meter. Chapter 3 considers Hugo Riemann’s treatment of phrasing in his early

attempts at creating a theory of meter (Riemann 1884) and his attempts to reform musical

notation through a “phrasing edition” of the Beethoven piano sonatas. Chapter 4 investigates

two modern contributions to “phrasing theory” by prominent woodwind players (Pay 1996;

McGill, 2007) that could be understood as successors to the approaches considered in

Chapters 2 and 3.

iv

Résumé

Cette thèse présente une façon révisé pour les théoriciens de la musique à concevoir à

l’interprétation, telle que perçu à travers des œuvres pédagogiques par les interprètes connus

d’histoire et d’aujourd’hui. Dans le premier chapitre, j’expose les grands lignes de mon

approche théorique, par répondre aux critiques influents d’analyse et performance (Cook

1999, 2013; Rink 1990, 2002). Dans le deuxième chapitre, j’examine quelques traités

instrumental par des musiciens connu d’Allemagne du fin du 18e siècle, construisant une

« théorie du phrasé » rudimentaire sur la base de leurs approches au mètre. Le troisième

chapitre prend en considération le traitement du phrasé par Hugo Riemann, et ses première

théorie du mètre (Riemann 1884) et ses tentatives de réformer la notation musicale par ses

“éditions phrasées” des sonates de piano de Beethoven. Le quatrième chapitre examine deux

contributions modernes à la « théorie du phrasé » par des specialists connus des instruments

à vent (Pay 1996; McGill, 2007) qui pourrait être compris comme des successeurs aux

approches examinés dans les deuxièmes et troisièmes chapitres.

v

In case he who should act were to judge himself according to the result, he would never get

to the point of beginning. Even though the result may give joy to the whole world, it cannot

help the hero, for he would get to know the result only when the whole thing was over, and

it was not by this he became a hero, but he was such for the fact that he began.

—Kierkegaard1

1 Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, in Fear and Trembling and The Sickness Unto Death, trans.

Walter Lowrie (Princeton University Press, 1968), 73–74.

vi

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my adviser, Dr. Edward Klorman, for his guidance and encouragement

throughout my studies and the process of writing this thesis. His unwavering faith in me has

provided inspiration and a constant impetus to do the best work I possibly can. I have

received valuable advice and support at various stages of my studies from Charles Horton,

David Byrne, James Maiello, and Kurt Markstrom. My thoughts on analysis and

performance evolved significantly during a seminar at McGill with Janet Schmalfeldt, and I

am indebted to her for her enthusiasm, insights, and thorough knowledge of the repertoire.

William Rothstein fielded some bibliographical questions by email, providing useful

information and food for thought regarding the interpretation of Schenker and Riemann.

Chapters 2 and 3 of this thesis are very much indebted to William Caplin, from whose

writings and seminars I have learned a tremendous amount. In addition, conversations and

arguments with my colleagues at McGill have helped to clarify my thoughts on a number of

issues. These are too numerous to cite specifically, but I would particularly like to

acknowledge Tobias Tschiedl, Laurence Willis, Monika Zaborowski, and Reid Isaak.

Research toward this thesis was partially funded by a grant from the Social Sciences and

Humanities Research Council of Canada. The music library staff at McGill University and

the University of Manitoba consistently went above and beyond in fulfilling my numerous

requests, some of them quite unusual. It is hard to imagine completing this project without

their invaluable assistance. Many thanks to my roommate Brielle Dorais-Fleming for the

French translation of my abstract.

On a personal note, I would like to thank my family for their constant support of my studies,

and my partner, Caitlyn Maskiew, who loves me despite my noxious habits and bad opinions.

I humbly dedicate this thesis to Naoum Gomon, my “father in music.”

vii

Preface

This thesis makes reference to many authors using the problematic term “phrase” as both a

noun and a verb. In a recent article, Janet Schmalfeldt writes that “it might be incumbent on

all of us, when we write about music or perform it, to ask ourselves: What is the context in

which ‘phrase’ means something to me? How shall I adopt this term?”1 I agree, but I would

add the caveat that readers of texts about music should ask the same questions. The word

“phrase” signifies enough things to enough people that it is not safe to assume much about

its meaning unless the author explicitly defines it.

“Phrase” as a verb and “phrasing” as a gerund are not attested before the late nineteenth

century.2 The concept—in its modern sense—cannot have been much older than that. And

yet it is unthinkable that performers of an earlier era did not have some notion that elements

of musical composition systematically affect musical performance. Although using the term

“phrasing” to talk about practices earlier than the mid-nineteenth century is an

anachronism,3 I believe it can be justified on the grounds that it is useful. We regularly accept

such anachronisms in music theory when we talk about root motion, pitch classes, non-

harmonic tones, and musical form. “Phrase” and “phrasing” can be admitted into the

theoretical vocabulary on the same grounds as these terms, and with the same caveats.

For the purposes of this thesis, I will adopt the following definition of phrase:

1. A phrase (n) is a contiguous span of music that coheres as a unit at any

level of structure. In principle, a phrase could be any length; in practice it is rare

that we speak of phrases longer than a few measures. I place no restriction on the

1 Janet Schmalfeldt, “Phrase,” in The Oxford Handbook of Critical Concepts in Music Theory, ed.

Alexander Rehding and Steven Rings (Oxford University Press, 2019). 2 William Rothstein credits Hugo Riemann with coining the now widespread use of the term “phrasing”

(Phrasirung) in the 1880s: “Like Falling off a Log: Rubato in Chopin’s Prelude in Af Major (op. 28, no.

17),” Music Theory Online 11, no. 1 (March 2005), n27. The verb phraser appears occasionally in Mathis

Lussy’s writings, with which Riemann was familiar, but Lussy more usually uses “phrase” as a noun—

see Traité de l’expression musicale (Paris: Heugel, 1874), 44, 45, 65. As far as I am aware, no usage of

“to phrase” or “phrasing” in the modern sense can be found before the 1870s. 3 Frederick Neumann provides a theory of phrasing for seventeenth- and eighteenth-century music

without any concern over anachronism. See Performance Practices of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth

Centuries (New York: Schirmer, 1993), 259–290.

viii

minimum length of a phrase.4 I also make no assumptions as to its harmonic

content.5

2. To phrase (v) is to interpret a span of music as a phrase (n) and render it

audible as such.

3. Phrasing (gerund) is the practice of interpreting spans of music as phrases

(n) and rendering them audible, including the principles by which these

interpretations are made and the techniques by which they are executed. This usage

has been criticized by William Rothstein, who considers it “one of those words that,

in a more perfect world, would probably be outlawed.”6 But it is so ubiquitous in

informal discussion about music (especially by performers) that I consider it to be

indispensable in contemporary writing about music.

My contention is that the term “phrase” cannot be given a fixed definition with any precision;

its meaning hangs upon aesthetic assumptions about music that have varied tremendously

over the past few centuries. Pinning the word down to a predetermined meaning makes it

difficult to stand at a distance from our present-day assumptions about music and hampers

the spirit of historical enquiry. Adopting a general, flexible definition of the term will enable

us to see how the concept evolves as different authors attach different conditions to it.

Throughout this thesis I quote from several modern and historical sources in languages other

than English. I use existing translations whenever possible while citing the original in a

footnote to enable easy comparison. In all cases, I have examined copies or facsimiles of first

editions and modified the standard translations where appropriate, indicating the changes

in footnotes. Where no translation is cited and the original passage is included above the

English rendition or in a footnote, the translation is my own.

I use the traditional Helmholtz system of pitch notation, in which c' is just below the treble

staff, c is the lowest note on the viola, and C is the lowest note on the cello. Note names that

are not italicized refer to no particular octave. All excerpts with transposing instruments are

4 By contrast, William E. Caplin defines “phrase” as “minimally, a four-measure unit, often, but not

necessarily, containing two ideas.” Classical Form (Oxford University Press, 1998), 256, s.v. “Phrase.” 5 C.f. Rothstein’s definition in Phrase Rhythm in Tonal Music (New York: Schirmer, 1989), 3–15, which

requires a phrase to contain some kind of tonal motion, though not necessarily a cadence. Caplin

identifies various types of phrase with varying harmonic content. Some of these phrases end with a

cadence (e.g., antecedent, consequent) and some of them do not (e.g., presentation). 6 Rothstein, Phrase Rhythm in Tonal Music, 11.

ix

given in the original notated pitch, not in concert pitch. To indicate scale degrees, I use the

Schenkerian notation of a caret above an Arabic numeral, so that # in C major is the note E.

Uppercase Roman numerals refer to harmonies based on the indicated scale step, which may

encompass several chords whose voice-leading is indicated with thoroughbass figures. Arrows

from the thoroughbass figures pointing toward the Roman numerals indicate that the

indicated chord has a “tonicizing” function. My approach also assumes a working familiarity

with William E. Caplin’s theory of formal functions in Classical music.7 I cite Caplin when

introducing his more detailed and unfamiliar concepts, but I assume the reader understands

the definitions of Caplin’s basic and compound theme types, their parts, and the general way

in which they fit together in a sonata movement.

7 Caplin, Classical Form. See also Caplin’s textbook Analyzing Classical Form (Oxford University

Press, 2013), which includes many more examples and, often, updated and expanded explanations.

1

Chapter 1

The idea of performance theory

“Analysis and performance” is the subfield of music theory that considers the relationship

between our theoretical understanding and practical execution of music.1 Authors of studies

in analysis and performance are usually theorists with performing tendencies or, less often,

performers with theorizing tendencies.2 But the literary conceit of a music theorist

addressing someone else, a hypothetical performer whose presence is more or less thematized,

has historically been important in this subfield.3 According to a scheme first devised by

Wallace Berry in his 1989 book Musical Structure and Performance,4 a study in analysis and

performance follows a two-stage routine: first, the author analyzes a piece using more or less

traditional techniques, and then he derives from this analysis a list of “interventions” for the

performer to execute.5 In the past 30 years, this “page to stage”6 paradigm has come under

significant criticism, and a growing number of scholars no longer consider it a viable way for

theorists to approach performance. These scholars have developed alternative methodologies

1 Studies are far too numerous to cite each individually. The first important study of analysis and

performance in the modern sense is Janet Schmalfeldt, “On the Relation of Analysis to Performance:

Beethoven’s ‘Bagatelles’ op. 126, nos. 2 and 5,” Journal of Music Theory 29, no. 1 (Spring 1985), 1–31.

For detailed, though not exhaustive, bibliographies of this literature, see Ryan McClelland,

“Performance and Analysis Studies: An Overview and Bibliography,” Indiana Theory Review 24

(2003), 95–106, and Edward D. Latham, “Analysis and Performance Studies: A Summary of Current

Research,” Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie 2, no. 2–3 (2005), 157–162. 2 Two prominent examples of the latter are the pianists Charles Rosen and Charles Fisk. See, e.g.,

Rosen, Sonata Forms, rev. ed. (New York: Norton, 1988); Fisk, “Rehearing the Moment and Hearing

In-The-Moment: Schubert’s First Two Moments Musicaux,” College Music Symposium 30, no. 2 (Fall

1990), 1–18. 3 See especially Schmalfeldt, “On the Relation.” In later work, Schmalfeldt commented on her decision

to thematize the performer as a separate persona: In the Process of Becoming: Analytic and

Philosophical Perspectives on Form in Early Nineteenth-Century Music (Oxford University Press,

2011), 113–116. 4 Berry, Musical Structure and Performance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989). 5 Berry’s book is now much more widely denounced than read. It was the subject of several reviews

when it appeared, most of them negative: for a small selection, see reviews by John Rink, Music

Analysis 9, no. 3 (Oct. 1990), 319–339, and Steve Larson and Cynthia Folio, Journal of Music Theory

35, no. 1–2 (Spring–Autumn 1991), 298–301. The book is now almost ritually invoked in criticisms of

analysis and performance, with the emphasis inevitably falling on its opening chapters rather than

the analytical studies that form its core. 6 The phrase “page to stage” comes from performance studies, an interdisciplinary field with roots in

theatre studies. It refers (sometimes with derogatory overtones) to methodologies that study texts

rather than events. Nicholas Cook introduced the phrase into musicology—for example, in Beyond the

Score: Music as Performance (Oxford University Press, 2013), 37.

2

which we can group together as the “new musical performance studies.” Scholars in the new

musical performance studies tend to adopt a skeptical attitude toward the suggestion of any

close relationship between performance and the traditional domains of music analysis

(harmony, meter, form, etc.). One of the major goals of this thesis will be to demonstrate, by

theoretical argument and practical example, that this suspicion is misguided.

In this chapter, I will discuss two broad objections to analysis and performance that have

impelled theorists toward the new musical performance studies. The first I will call the

ontological objection. Proponents of the ontological objection argue that music theory

inappropriately over-identifies the music with the score. Traditional analysis and

performance is based on a category error. It misses the uniquely performative elements of

performance and focuses instead on performance as “an epiphenomenon of structure.”7 The

solution is to analyze something else, to develop techniques suitable for studying

performances in their live or recorded forms. The second objection I will consider is

disciplinary. Supporters of the disciplinary objection complain that theorists overstep their

proper bounds when they stray into the domain of musical action. Performance is a discipline

with its own kind of knowledge and its own way of doing things, and for theorists to butt in

with prescriptive demands would show a lack of respect for performers’ expertise. Analysis

can perhaps be useful for performers, but analysis carried out by professionals and divulged

to performers from on high cannot.

The points raised by the ontological and disciplinary objections are well taken and demand

an adequate response. These critiques of analysis and performance have driven a body of

valuable research that takes the field of musical performance studies to interesting places.

None of my arguments here are meant to impugn any of this work. But I fear that criticism

of analysis and performance has passed the point of salutary self-examination and now risks

violating C. S. Peirce’s cardinal rule: “do not block the way of inquiry.”8 I believe it would be

an error to lose sight of the subfield’s original purpose: to soften the boundaries of music

theory, giving theorists with performance tendencies (and performers with theoretical

7 Cook, “Analysing Performance and Performing Analysis,” in Rethinking Music, ed. Cook and Mark

Everist (Oxford University Press, 1999), 242. 8 Edward Klorman writes that “as the pendulum has swung away from page-to-stage methods, it risks

continuing on the upswing toward the opposite extreme.” See Mozart’s Music of Friends (Cambridge

University Press, 2016), 291. On Peirce’s first rule of logic, see Collected Papers of Charles Sanders

Peirce (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1931), 1:56.

3

tendencies) a way of uniting their two bodies of knowledge and producing research that has

some kind of validity beyond the individual person or performance. The new musical

performance studies, despite its many strengths, does not fulfil this purpose so much as

create an entirely new domain of research.

Clearly some kind of change is necessary in the subfield of analysis and performance. But

such a change must respect the subfield’s original purpose, a purpose that is if anything more

urgent today than it was in the 1980s. I believe a reconfigured version of analysis and

performance can answer the ontological and disciplinary objections without making a hard

break with traditional music theory and analysis. I call this revised perspective “performance

theory.”9 My aim in this chapter is to explain performance theory by way of responding to the

ontological and disciplinary objections.

The ontological objection

The ontological objection to analysis and performance has been raised by Nicholas Cook and

Mine Doğantan-Dack, among others.10 I call this objection ontological because it concerns the

existence of musical structure, which is traditionally considered the object of music

theoretical enquiry. For Cook especially, performance should not be considered as a

representation or instantiation of musical structure—“it does not simply ‘express,’ ‘project,’

or ‘bring out’ originary meaning”—but rather as “a source of signification in its own right.”11

From the blinkered point of view of the structural music theorist, there is no route to

performance other than finding some way to map aspects of musical structure onto a

performer’s actions. But such an approach misses the rich meanings that are immanent in

the performance qua performance. In fact, it proceeds in exactly the wrong direction: it grants

a spurious reality to musical structures that can only exist as abstractions from music as

heard, i.e., as performed.12

9 I have appropriated this term from Albert Cohen, “Performance Theory,” in The Cambridge History

of Western Music Theory, ed. Thomas Christensen (Cambridge University Press, 2002), 534–553. See

below for further discussion of my use of this term. 10 Cook, “Analysing Performance,” and Beyond the Score. Doğantan-Dack, “‘Phrasing – The Very Life

of Music’: Performing the Music and Nineteenth-Century Performance Theory,” Nineteenth-Century

Music 9 (2012): 7–30. 11 “Analysing Performance,” 247. 12 Cook, riffing on Judith Butler, writes that “‘structure’. . . is performatively constituted by the very

‘expressions’ that are said to be its result.” See “Analysing Performance,” 243.

4

If we accept the ontological objection, one consequence is that we must build a new

methodology for studying performances as events. This methodology must be empirical

inasmuch as it must study musical events while or after they happen. One such approach is

to use scientific methods to study the physiology or psychology of performers in action.13

Similarly, one can use quantitative methods to study recorded performances.14 These

approaches use empirical—often specifically quantitative—techniques to study the actions of

performers, the sounds produced by these actions, or the way these sounds are mediated

through recordings. Other possible empirical methodologies come from such fields as

anthropology, theatre studies, and literary criticism.15 These approaches stand at a distance

from the quantitative analysis of performance, but they share the same object of inquiry: the

act of performance, construed as an event.

Partisans of the ontological objection emphasize the difference between the kinds of things

performers do and the kinds of things music theorists do: in Cook’s words, they

“counterpose. . . the ‘writing’ and the ‘performing’ musician.”16 Cook stresses that “the media

of writing and those of playing have very different structural characteristics.”17 One simple

difference is that performance happens in real time before an audience. The performer must

commit to a single rendition, while the analyst is at leisure to consider many possible options.

In making this assumption, Cook overlooks the performative qualities inherent in music

analysis, which has always been a genre of dramatic pedagogical performance masquerading

as a respectable pursuit of academic humanists.18 For example, a little-acknowledged subtext

13 One well-known early example is Eric Clarke, “Expression in Performance: Generativity, Perception,

and Semiosis,” in The Practice of Performance, ed. John Rink (Cambridge University Press, 1995), 21–

54. For a more recent introduction to this literature, see Werner Goebl, Simon Dixon, and Emery

Schubert, “Quantitative Methods,” in Expressiveness in Music Performance: Empirical Approaches

Across Styles and Cultures, ed. Dorottya Fabian, Renee Timmers, and Emery Schubert (Oxford

University Press, 2014), 221–239. 14 Cook has been involved with this sort of research for many years, although the field is now quite

broad. For just two examples, see Beyond the Score, chapters 4 and 5. For a point of entry into the

literature, see Cook’s article “Methods for Analysing Recordings,” in The Cambridge Companion to

Recorded Music, ed. Cook, Clarke, Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, and Rink (Cambridge University Press,

2011), 221–245. 15 See the contributions to Musical Performance: A Guide to Understanding, ed. John Rink (Cambridge

University Press, 2002) for some examples of approaches to musical performance. 16 Cook, “Analysing Performance,” 250. 17 Ibid., 251. 18 The contradiction between academic respectability and the meat-and-potatoes musical skills

necessary for teaching music theory adequately has long been acknowledged. See Patrick McCreless,

“Rethinking Contemporary Music Theory,” in Keeping Score: Music, Disciplinarity, Culture, ed. David

5

to music theoretical writings is that printed excerpts from scores usually stand in for acts of

music-making that would actually be performed if the author were present.19 Cook is correct

to say that “it is perverse that performers should be valorised for their writing rather than

for their performing,”20 but the same could easily be said of most music analysts.

Meanwhile, discussing performance entirely as an event does not quite do justice to the

amount of preparation required of people who perform composed music. Even the busiest

musicians spend only a fraction of their time actually performing. A much larger proportion

is spent on practising and rehearsing—during which time performers are in fact free to

consider many possible options just as much as theorists are.21 John Rink says as much when

he writes that “‘performer’s analysis’ primarily takes place as an interpretation is being

formulated and subsequently re-evaluated.”22 Most performers come into a concert with a

strong conception of how the music should sound, one that is inevitably conditioned by the

contingencies of the performance event but nevertheless prepared in advance according to

the score and certain theories of how to translate the score into action. It is these theories

that above all concern the performer: theories that specify how a performance ought to go,

and that provide a yardstick by which we can say of a particular performance, it ought to

have gone otherwise. In other words, the conscientious performer of composed music is

interested not so much in performances as in rules for performances, rules which transcend

the contingencies of particular situations. Page to stage is the order in which classical

musicians actually live their lives. By happy coincidence, this is a temporal relationship to

Schwarz, Anahid Kassabian, and Lawrence Siegel (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1997),

13–53. 19 William Rothstein relays the following anecdote about the early Schenkerian theorist Ernst Oster:

“when a student, in class, would come up with a reading that Oster disagreed with, or that simply

puzzled him, he would often point to the piano and ask the student to try to make the rest of us hear

the music that way. Questions of relations between analysis and performance thus arose naturally,

without the heavy breathing that so often accompanies them today.” Rothstein, “Conservatory

Schenker vs. University Schenker,” Tijdschrift voor Muziektheorie 7, no. 3 (2002), 239. Emphasis

original. 20 Beyond the Score, 40. 21 See for example Daniel Barenboim’s musings on the purpose of rehearsal: Barenboim and

Edward W. Said, Parallels and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music and Society, ed. Ara Guzelimian

(New York: Pantheon Books, 2002), 35–36. Barenboim is of course talking about the ideal performing

conditions of a major professional orchestra, but most musicians would probably agree that the

primary goal of rehearsal should be to collaboratively explore the sound-world of the music rather than

simply align all the entrances and ensure a good balance. “Exploring a sound-world” is an accurate, if

vague, definition of what most music theorists actually do. 22 Rink, “Analysis and (or?) Performance,” in Musical Performance: A Guide to Understanding, 39. On

Rink’s conception of “performer’s analysis,” see below.

6

performance that theorists and performers share. It seems reasonable, then, that music

theorists might also be interested in such theories, and might be competent to evaluate,

synthesize, or perhaps even improve them.

If we are interested in the process that leads to the performance, then we have excluded

empirical methods from the outset. Of course, it is perfectly legitimate to investigate

performances as events, and empirical methods work well for this sort of investigation. But

if we are interested in the ways that musicians do, can, or should make decisions, we cannot

take the results of those decisions as our primary data. Instead, we must start at the

beginning, and in the traditions of composed music that account for most of the repertoire

considered by mainstream music theory, the beginning is the score.23 The score serves as a

convenient metonym for the period of planning, practice, and rehearsal that precedes a

performance, when the characteristics of the event itself are not yet determinate. In such an

environment, the performer has just as much leisure as the music analyst to try out different

options, to consider contradictory approaches, and to question basic assumptions. Rather

than focusing on the musical text as a source of tyranny and domination to the performer, I

prefer to consider it as a given fact that must be dealt with in some way. The basic form of

all questions that fall within the domain of performance theory is: given the score, and given

my (the performer’s) knowledge of performance practice, what do I do next?

The disciplinary objection

A second objection to analysis and performance takes issue with the subfield’s implied power

dynamic. I call this objection disciplinary because it concerns the issue of expertise, of who is

competent to make what sorts of statements. John Rink is most strongly associated with this

sort of criticism. He writes, “in the literature one frequently encounters an irritating

language of exigency whereby performers are told they ‘must’ adopt certain approaches

resulting from analysis.” “Notwithstanding such commands,” he continues, “a performer

‘must’ or ‘should’ accept an analyst’s conclusions vis-à-vis interpretation only to the extent

23 Klorman writes that the “opposition of score- vs. performance-centered musicologies is useful but

only up to a point, since scores surely play an integral role in any performance of composed music.”

Mozart’s Music of Friends, 291.

7

that he or she believes in them, ‘hears’ them, . . . and considers them appropriate in projecting

the work.”24

Rink proposes a method that he believes will let performers benefit from analysis while

retaining their artistic autonomy: “performer’s analysis,” which he contrasts with “rigorous

analysis” or the traditional activities of music theorists.25 Rink distinguishes the two as the

“rigorous dissection of the music according to theoretical systems” versus “considered study

of the score with particular attention to contextual functions and means of projecting them.”26

Performer’s analysis seeks to discover a piece’s “shape” rather than its “structure” and is

concerned with the temporality of music.27 Rink suggests, but does not outright state, that

theorizing is inimical to performer’s analysis. Actions that may properly be described as

analytical can be useful to performers in understanding a piece, but this analysis is of an

entirely different kind than academic analysis. It properly belongs to performers rather than

to theorists.

Rink gives a few specific examples of the kinds of techniques that might be used in

performer’s analysis: formal analysis, graphing tempo and dynamics, motivic analysis,

rhythmic reduction, and renotating the music. These methods are all more or less standard

fixtures of the music theorist’s toolbox.28 If the methods are the same, how are we to

distinguish their use in performer’s analysis from their use in rigorous analysis? Taking

formal analysis as an example: what does it mean when we say we are “in” a particular key?

How do we distinguish different themes, or different parts of a sonata movement? These

questions may or may not occur to an analytically minded performer, but once they are raised

they surely demand an answer. Adequate answers to these questions can only be provided by

“rigorous” music theory.

Rink provides a rudimentary example to establish the general way that concerns of formal

analysis are embedded in the intuitions of the performer. He quotes the beginning and ending

24 Rink, review of Musical Structure and Performance, 322. 25 See Rink, review of Musical Structure and Performance, 328, and “Analysis,” 35–58. 26 Rink, review of Musical Structure and Performance, 323. 27 Rink, “Analysis,” 36. Rink’s distinction between “shape” and “structure” is undertheorized. His only

explicitly mentioned criterion is this concern with temporality, which suggests the distinction is based

on the debatable assumption that musical structure is an atemporal concept. 28 Graphically representing tempo and dynamics is probably the least standard technique, but it has

precedents in the German music theory of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. See Lee

Rothfarb, “Energetics,” in The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory, 927–955.

8

of the first movement of Mozart’s Piano Sonata in C major, K.545 (Example 1.1). “Most

pianists,” he writes, “would make much less of the C major cadence in bar 2 than the one at

the end of the movement in bars 69–71, which is far more definitive and structurally

significant.”29

Example 1.1: Mozart, Piano Sonata in C major, K.545, I. A: mm. 1–2. B: mm. 67–73. My analytical underlay.

Rink is surely correct on this point, but he misses a much larger issue. According to the terms

in which we now discuss cadence in classical music, the resolution of the 43

chord in m. 2 is

simply not a cadence at all.30 Most music theorists today would conceive of a categorical

distinction between the resolution in m. 2 and the one in mm. 69–71 on several grounds. The

29 Rink, “Analysis,” 40. Rink’s example quotes less of the final cadential progression than I have

provided here. 30 William E. Caplin has been the major proponent of establishing clear criteria for distinguishing

cadences from simple dominant-tonic resolutions. The most important criterion for an authentic

cadence is that both the dominant and tonic harmonies must be introduced in root position and remain

that way for the duration of the cadential progression. He explains his reasoning in the greatest depth

in “The Classical Cadence: Conceptions and Misconceptions,” Journal of the American Musicological

Society 57, no. 1 (Spring 2004), 51–118. Caplin first discussed his theory of the cadence in “The

‘Expanded Cadential Progression’: A Category for the Analysis of Classical Form,” Journal of

Musicological Research 7, no. 2–3 (1987), 215–257.

9

latter has a genuine dominant harmony at a relatively high level of structure, while the

former is a neighbouring chord prolonging an overall tonic harmony. I express this distinction

in Example 1.1 by providing a Roman numeral (a harmonic label) in mm. 69–70 while

labelling m. 2 only with thoroughbass figures (a chordal label). The chord in m. 2 is inverted,

while m. 70 has a root-position seventh chord. The first resolution is approached directly from

tonic harmony, while the final cadence has a complete expanded cadential progression:

initiating tonic (m. 66, not shown), pre-dominant (mm. 67–68), dominant (mm. 69–70), and

final tonic (mm. 71–73). The cadential progression beginning in m. 66 dovetails with a

descending-fifths sequence (mm. 63–66, not shown)—a conventional pre-cadential middle—

while the resolution in m. 2 is part of a compound basic idea that launches a sentential

theme—a conventional beginning.

The argument here is not just definitional: it relates to how this movement stands in dialogue

with a whole genre of instrumental music, how it channels and discharges musical energy,

and how it structures musical temporality. The distinction between cadential and non-

cadential progressions affects issues such as tempo, phrase structure, diminution, and outer-

voice counterpoint—surely all concerns that are relevant on some level to the performer. To

place these two progressions (m. 2 and mm. 67–71) on a continuum, characterizing them

simply as more or less “definitive and structurally significant,” would obscure the rich fields

of meaning that this sonata engages.

My point is not that Rink failed to consider an issue that was not yet, in 2002, a major concern

of music theory. Rather, I want to emphasize that we can only make nice categorical

distinctions such as that between cadence and non-cadence if we are willing to critically

examine our presuppositions—that is, to theorize. As performers, once we begin investigating

how a piece of music “works,” however informally, we kick off a chain of musical reasoning.

When followed far enough, this chain of reasoning will always lead into the realm of

“rigorous” music theory. There may be a point in this chain where I, as a performer, lose

interest in further speculation. At this point I may be practically justified in stopping, but

there cannot be a point where I am logically justified in stopping. Therefore no strong

distinction between performer’s analysis and rigorous analysis is viable. They are one and

the same activity, pursued to different extents, using different vocabularies, and put into

service toward different ends.

10

Still, the critique of theoretical authority embedded in the disciplinary objection should be

taken very seriously. Performance theory is a philosophy of action—it touches on such issues

as right, duty, inclination, power, authority, and coercion. We could say that performance

theory has a certain structural isomorphism with the workings of practical reason, but it

would be more accurate to say that it actually is a branch of practical reason. In invoking the

notion of a musical ought, it necessarily engages the ethical and the political—which is why

discussions about theory and performance have a tendency to get heated.31 Rather than

shying away from this aspect of performance theory in the interest of avoiding conflict, I

propose we embrace it as one of the few places where music theory appears to have any

ideological urgency. The critique of the prescriptiveness of analysis and performance

parallels—or, better, is one small part of—a broader critique of the prescriptiveness of the

ethical.

Murray Dineen has explicitly likened musical decision-making to ethics.32 Dineen

distinguishes between “moral imagination” and “moral code”: the moral code is “a fixed set of

rules—‘thou shalt not’—observed rigidly where human conduct is to be regulated,” while

moral imagination is “an imaginative ability to see the unprecedented and thus contingent

nature of every human encounter.” While a moral code “admits of no imaginative exception,”

the moral imagination “forever pleads extenuating circumstances, and thus admits no

regulation or codification.”33

Dineen’s goal is not to have one of these factors triumph over the other. To let moral code

reign would be to succumb to moralism.34 To let it fail would be to have no general rules or

principles at all. Instead, Dineen suggests that the hallmark of a musical ethics is the ability

to stand at an “ethical remove,” which he defines as “an arm’s-length stance from which the

incommensurate sides of morality [i.e., moral code and moral imagination] are examined with

as much dispassion and objectivity as can be mustered.”35 Ethical remove is “the flexible

31 For example, in a recent review Doğantan-Dack has criticized the view that analysis helps musicians

improve their skills as performers, arguing that it represents a capitulation to the demands of the

neoliberal university that education be ruthlessly instrumentalized. “Once Again: Page and Stage,”

Journal of the Royal Musical Association 142, no. 2 (2017), 460. 32 Dineen, “The ’Cellist’s Predicament, or Imagination, Ethics, and Musical Performance,”

International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 40, no. 2 (Dec. 2009), 283–297. 33 Ibid., 283. 34 On morality versus moralism, see Terry Eagleton, After Theory (New York: Basic Books, 2003), 143. 35 Dineen, “Cellist’s Predicament,” 284.

11

element in human conduct,”36 taking account of moral code but balancing it against moral

imagination and resolving to follow a particular course of action in accordance with a general

conception of the good. To think in such terms, as Terry Eagleton writes, is “to grasp morality

as a great novelist understands it.” That is,

to see it as an intricately woven texture of nuances, qualities, and fine gradations.

Novels convey moral truths, though not in any sense of the term that Oral Roberts or

Ian Paisley would recognize. A novel with a moral is not likely to be morally

interesting. “Goldilocks” is not the most profound of fables. But this. . . is not to dismiss

rules, principles, and obligations out of hand. Indeed, there are quite a few of them in

Henry James. It is rather to set them in a different context.37

When Rink writes that “performers understandably do not like being told what to do by

scholars employing a dictatorial language that threatens their musical freedom,”38 he is

objecting to a kind of musical moralism that is supposedly endemic in analysis and

performance. The “‘one-to-one’ translation from analysis to performance”39 that he warns

about is a musical moral code—a set of rigorous rules admitting of no exceptions. Performing

entirely according to a moral code would be a hard yoke to bear, and it would be too naively

rules-based to produce good results. But the solution to the dominance of the musical moral

code cannot be to do away with the musical ought altogether: this would leave performers

with no theory, and thus no basis to decide between one action and another. Instead, we

should attempt to balance the relevant rules against the specifics of the situation—that is, to

cultivate Dineen’s “ethical remove.”

Our first approach to the problem of the musical ought, then, should not be prescriptive, but

rather comparative. The first step in performance theory is to embark on a fact-finding

mission to define our musical moral codes as rigorously as possible while expanding our moral

imagination. We will focus on instrumental tutors or theory books of a more popular bent—

texts in which musicians primarily talk to each other—in order to learn from performers’

“shop talk” what sorts of considerations factor in to making performance decisions. Our aim

will be to recover, as best we can, some notion of the theory driving these performance

36 Ibid., 293. 37 Eagleton, After Theory, 144. 38 Rink, “Analysis,” 41. 39 Rink, review of Musical Structure and Performance, 328.

12

decisions—to understand the rules, but also to determine how the rules apply in difficult

situations. This is, it should be noted, what the more sophisticated scholars of historically

informed performance already do, and their work will turn out to be foundational to much of

performance theory. If our primary interest is in what is sometimes called “Western art

music” of the “common practice era,” as mine is, this mission will inevitably have a large

historical component, since the opinions of long-dead thinkers and performers loom large in

this tradition and are, ironically, better documented than those of modern virtuosos.

Historical treatises will, therefore, be a useful starting place from which to investigate more

recent performance theory.

I take the term “performance theory” from Albert Cohen’s chapter in The Cambridge History

of Western Music Theory. The title of Cohen’s essay is interesting because the texts and

practices he discusses—thoroughbass and partimento, diminution, ornamentation,

improvised counterpoint—form a coherent literature that is well known in music theory, and

yet no one today calls themselves a “performance theorist” in the sense that many modern

scholars call themselves theorists of harmony, or of form. Scholars have turned a theoretical

eye to some of the important performers of the past, but they have neglected to pay living

performers the same compliment. In the traditions that Cohen considers, performers were

largely concerned with developing a theory of “what to play,” and thus the theory of

performance dovetailed with compositional theory in an obvious way.40 But modern theorists

have largely agreed with Cohen that, in the nineteenth century, “a redefined role for

performance and the growing importance given to interpretation of musical scores reduced

the practice of performance-based theory.”41 While it is true that the importance of

improvisational performance theory declined in the nineteenth century, new genres of

writing on performance emerged in their place. Musicians never stopped writing about

performance, they simply began to write about it in different terms—not “what to play,” but

“how to play it.” Music theorists have generally ignored the extent to which such texts

represent a kind of tacit theory. Only after recovering such tacit theory as we consider

relevant are we ready to make any kind of prescriptive statement.

40 C.f. Klorman: “When the composer is also the performer, it is difficult to define precisely where one

process ends and another begins.” Mozart’s Music of Friends, 106. 41 Cohen, “Performance Theory,” 548.

13

But this is not yet possible with just the elements I have introduced thus far. One term is

missing: a general conception of the good in music. Dineen writes that “ethical remove is

found only by holding both positions [i.e., moral code and moral imagination] in the mind’s

eye and then discerning some framing principle.”42 In music, this framing principle is what I

call the “aural image.”

The aural image as a mediating term

The most plausible attempts to reconfigure the relationship between performance and

analysis posit a middle term, a place where the concerns of the two disciplines overlap and

the performer-analyst and analyst-performer can talk to each other as equals. Jonathan

Dunsby writes of analysis and performance that “there is a genuine overlap between these

poles of activity, but it cannot be a complete overlap,”43 and Tim Howell mentions analysis

“helping to shape an individual interpretation” without dictating specific actions to the

performer.44 Analysis, according to this view, is mainly useful for formulating questions. As

Schmalfeldt observes, “there is no single, one-and-only performance decision that can be

dictated by an analytic observation.”45

This conception could be called the “interpretation” model, in which the analysis is only one

of many factors that influences the performer’s interpretation of the piece, which in turn

determines how she performs. By introducing a middle term, the interpretation model allows

that analytical conceptions can influence performance without positing a one-to-one

correspondence. Example 1.2 shows the interpretation model schematically. A naive version

of the interpretation model uses unidirectional arrows to show a flow of causality from

analysis to performance. To varying extents, commentators emphasize and demonstrate that

causality can flow in the other direction as well.46

42 Dineen, “Cellist’s Predicament,” 294. 43 Dunsby, “Guest Editorial: Performance and Analysis of Music,” Music Analysis 8, no. 1–2 (Mar.–Jul.

1989), 7. 44 Howell, “Analysis and Performance: The Search for a Middleground,” in Companion to

Contemporary Musical Thought, ed. John Paynter (London: Routledge, 1992), 2:709. 45 Schmalfeldt, “On the Relation,” 28. Emphasis original. 46 For example, Schmalfeldt, In the Process of Becoming, 114.

14

Example 1.2: Interpretation model.

The interpretation model has come under criticism. Cook seems to regard it as essentially

the same as the traditional analysis and performance point of view: “it continues to look for

a one-to-one mapping of analysis and performance within the areas of their communality.”47

Whether or not one agrees, there are more basic reasons to object to the interpretation model.

The notion of interpretation is excessively focused on specific pieces of music rather than

general features of a musical style or genre.48 That is, the three terms in the model are

“analysis [of a piece],” “interpretation [of a piece],” and “performance [of a piece].” This focus

privileges analysis over theory, and works best for a circumscribed canon of well-known

pieces that serve as a means for performers to flaunt their individuality.49 The word

“interpretation” is strongly associated with the so-called “golden age” of pianism—a valid

performance tradition that certainly rewards study, but one that is over-represented in the

literature and too readily serves as a default way of thinking about performance. By its very

nature, the interpretation model struggles to account for performance traditions—some very

much alive today—in which individuality and novelty of interpretation are not the most

highly prized aesthetic values. Coming as it does from the nineteenth century, the term

47 “Analysing Performance,” 247. 48 See Stephen Davies and Stanley Sadie, “Interpretation,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music, 2nd

ed. (New York: Grove, 2001), 12:497–499. 49 Cook writes, “perhaps the canon might be defined as a set of works so familiar that they function

more as medium than message.” “Analysing Performance,” 245.

15

“interpretation” also depends on a division of labour between composer and performer that

cannot be assumed to be a permanent feature of musical life.50

Instead of the interpretation model, I propose the model of the aural image.51 More general

than an interpretation, an aural image is an overall notion of what music should sound like,

a sort of default way of approaching the elements of music in a particular milieu. Example 1.3

shows the aural image model schematically. I use double-sided arrows to show the reciprocal

flows of influence between all the terms involved.

Example 1.3: The aural image.

For the present study, theorizing and performance are the primary objects of interest within

the realm of “musical activity,” but we could just as well include listening, historical enquiry,

teaching, instrument building, and any number of other activities, with the understanding

that they are all mutually conditioning. If we wish to be as general as possible, we will have

to speak of many different aural images applying to many different musical milieus, perhaps

with multiple points of intersection between them. Although these relationships are not

illustrated in Example 1.3, we can imagine the aural image and the realm of musical activity

50 Klorman emphasizes the importance of recovering the “rhetorical model” of performance for an

understanding of the possibilities in Mozart’s chamber music. Under the rhetorical model,

performance is understood as one stage in a process contiguous with composition, rather than the

delivery of a pre-existing text. See Mozart’s Music of Friends, 105–106. 51 This somewhat paradoxical term appears in Rink, review of Musical Structure of Performance, 324–

325. Rink uses the term to describe an overall impression of how a particular passage of music sounds.

I adopt it instead to refer to the general features of a musical style. The following chapters will clarify

what an aural image is meant to be.

16

also being reciprocally influenced by the material and ideological conditions of society as a

whole, thus connecting performance theory with other fields of enquiry.52

With the aural image in place, our picture of performance theory is now complete. The

musical ought can be constructed by standing at an ethical remove, comparing the demands

of moral code (musical rules) and moral imagination (the unique demands of a particular

situation), and making a decision in accordance with overall aesthetic virtues as represented

by the aural image. In the studies that follow, I will consider the relationship of the aural

image to theory and performance. In chapter 2, I will attempt to recover something of the

aural image of instrumental music in the late eighteenth century by examining the accounts

of meter given in several performance tutors. In chapter 3, I will consider how a particular

aural image of music drove Hugo Riemann’s theoretical and performance agenda in the

1880s. In chapter 4, I will investigate the legacy of these two aural images today, discussing

how they are invoked by two prominent woodwind players in their writings on performance.

52 Without too much trouble, the diagram of the aural image could be incorporated into or connected

with Hans Wind’s model of the material grounding of music aesthetics. See Dineen, “Lexicon for a

Leftist Aesthetics of Music: Hans Wind’s Chart of the ‘Gesetze der Kunst’,” International Review of the

Aesthetics and Sociology of Music 41, no. 2 (Dec. 2010), 266.

17

Chapter 2

Performed meter and the accent theory

In the late eighteenth century, musical thinkers settled upon an explanation of rhythm and

meter that would endure, in one form or another, up to the present day. Hugo Riemann

dubbed this explanation the accent theory.1 In its mature form, first completely expressed by

Johann Philipp Kirnberger,2 the accent theory conceptually severs meter from rhythm. Meter

is defined by the accentual structure of the bar—accent being a qualitative phenomenon

(whether audibly stressed or merely cognized by a listener) with no connection to duration.

Events that fall in accented positions within the bar thereby receive a metrical accent.

Rhythm consists in the infinitely many possible patterns of time values that can be overlaid

onto the metric grid.

The precise nature of the metrical accent is somewhat mysterious, and theorists differ widely

on this issue. Some of them suggest, or appear to suggest, that accent is created by literal

dynamic stress in performance—a notion that I refer to as “performed meter”. Despite the

pitfalls of performed meter, its possibility is intriguing for performance theory because it

suggests a place where the performer’s actions stand in some kind of causal relation with a

part of musical structure—and therefore where a musical is might become a musical ought.

Current conventional wisdom balks at any strong equation of loudness and degree of metrical

stress. William E. Caplin, who has provided the most comprehensive survey in English of the

history of rhythmic and metric theory in the period under discussion, considers theorists’

invocation of performed meter to be a problem for the accent theory.3 Without denying the

1 The earliest use of the term “Akzenttheorie” or “Accenttheorie” (Riemann’s preferred spelling) known

to me is in Riemann’s book Musikalische Dynamik und Agogik (Hamburg: D. Rahter, 1884), 12, in

which Riemann attempts to distance himself from a theory he would later adopt in modified form. On

Riemann’s early account of meter, see the following chapter. 2 Primarily in the second volume of Die Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik, 2 vols (Berlin, 1771–

1779). English translation, The Art of Strict Musical Composition, trans. David W. Beach and Jürgen

Thym (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982). Hereafter I will cite only the English translation,

which has page numbers to the original. On the authorship of this work, see Beach’s introduction, xi–

xii. Kirnberger’s ideas are also expressed, with a large but not complete degree of overlap, in Johann

Georg Sulzer’s encyclopedia of aesthetics, cited and discussed below. 3 Caplin, “Theories of Musical Rhythm in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” in The

Cambridge History of Western Music Theory, 675. The other major English-language account of the

history of rhythmic and metric theory in the modern era is George Houle, Meter in Music, 1600–1800:

18

serious problems with a naive application of performed meter, I want to sidebar such

prejudices for the time being. The fact is that many historical theorists do appear to equate

meter with performed loudness. I believe by investigating how they make this equation, and

speculating as to why they do so, we can draw some conclusions about how they believed

meter works. Ultimately, I think it is possible to extract a theory of performance—or perhaps

something we might wish to call a theory of phrasing—from the accent theory.4 Such a theory

can help us identify rhythmic subtleties of late eighteenth-century music that may be

invisible to more conventional theories. I will conclude this chapter by looking for these

rhythmic subtleties in a piece by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Ontological preface

Before beginning my historical enquiry, it will be useful to ponder a more basic question:

Where is meter located? Is it something the composer prescribes, which the performer

dutifully relays to a passive listener?5 Surely the composer’s notation—and, more

importantly, the composer’s placement of events such as harmonic changes and cadences—

determines meter to a great extent. Traditional music theory seems to focus almost

exclusively on this aspect of meter.6 But surely it is a common experience to be surprised on

seeing the notation of a piece of music one had previously only heard, or to fail to understand

the meter of a complex piece after a single hearing.7 These experiences suggest that the

composer’s prescriptions underdetermine meter.

If meter is not fully specified by the composer, is it then something the performer does?

Generally speaking, theorists today do not take this possibility seriously. But at least one

important historical theorist did.8 If our interpretation of form or cadence is sensitive to

Performance, Perception, and Notation (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987). Houle is more

circumspect on the issue of performed meter. 4 On my use of the word “phrasing,” see the preface. 5 For the purposes of my argument, I will assume the existence of a composer separate from a

performer, and an act of composition separate from the act of performance. It should be noted, of

course, that this assumption holds good for only a very small number of musical traditions in world

history. 6 See Caplin, “Theories of Musical Rhythm.” 7 William Rothstein suggests one example from Bach’s Orchestral Suite no. 2 in B minor, BWV 1067:

“National Metrical Types in Music of the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries,” in

Communication in Eighteenth-Century Music, ed. Danuta Mirka and Kofi Agawu (Cambridge

University Press, 2008), 133–134. 8 See Chapter 3 on Riemann, meter, and performance.

19

performance (as some writers have suggested),9 then it does not seem totally unreasonable

to posit that meter is, too. The perspective of the new musical performance studies, which

criticizes the traditional understanding of performance as “an epiphenomenon of structure,”10

would seem to lead inexorably toward this view.

If meter is at least somewhat susceptible to performance, it should be noted that a

performance is nothing without an audience. Is meter then something the listener interprets?

Given the popularity of psychological accounts of music today, this would seem to be the most

obvious place to locate meter. Concerning the basic musical phenomenon of pitch, David

Huron has recently written that it is an auditory and not acoustical phenomenon. “Despite

appearances, pitch doesn’t exist in the external world; it isn’t ‘out there.’ Instead, pitch is

constructed in listeners’ heads.”11 It is not hard to imagine something similar being said of

meter and metrical accent.12 And yet, meter is constructed in listeners’ heads on the basis of

musical cues that are acoustical phenomena; what the performer plays (or, if applicable, what

the composer notates) and (perhaps) how she plays it is certainly not irrelevant to the

listener’s ultimate interpretation.

None of these three strong positions—meter driven by the composition, performance, or

cognition—is entirely satisfactory as an answer to the basic question of the ontology of meter.

Depending on their orientation, different authors will probably debate the extent to which

each factor contributes to musical meter, but it seems indisputable that they all contribute

something. A reasonable conclusion, then, is that musical meter is a social relation,

something that emerges from the negotiation between what the composer prescribes, what

the performer does, and what the listener interprets (to name only the three most important

factors that condition the musical experience). A significant consequence emerges from this

conclusion: meter is something that happens when music is performed. Metrical relationships

are contingent on the vagaries of the real-life musical situations in which this negotiation

9 For example, Janet Schmalfeldt, In the Process of Becoming, 113–132, and L. Poundie Burstein, “The

Half Cadence and Other Such Slippery Events,” Music Theory Spectrum 36, no. 2 (Fall 2014), 204–

205. 10 Cook, Beyond the Score, 87. C.f. “Analysing Performance and Performing Analysis,” 242. 11 David Huron, Voice Leading: The Science Behind a Musical Art (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,

2016), 38. 12 For an introduction to the psychology of musical meter, see Justin London, Hearing in Time:

Psychological Aspects of Musical Meter (Oxford University Press, 2004).

20

occurs; in other words, an investigation of meter presupposes a performance, or at least rules

for a performance.

My argument in this chapter will proceed in four stages. First, I will discuss the approach to

explaining accent taken by three speculative theorists in the eighteenth century. While

Kirnberger’s accent theory is quite literal about performed meter, philosophically oriented

theorists writing a few decades before him explained accent in more psychological terms.

Second, I will provide an overview of how performed meter is treated by the canonical

German performance theorists from Leopold Mozart to Daniel Gottlob Türk. These theorists

almost all call for some kind of performed meter, but they also caution musicians not to overdo

it and discuss several factors that can cause exceptions to the normal scheme of accentuation.

Third, I will consider the adaptation of the accent theory by the German scholarly theorists

of the early nineteenth century. These theorists are often considered pedantic and unmusical,

but I argue that their writings provide a conceptual framework useful for applying the accent

theory to performance. Finally, taking the most important points from the historical

discussion, I will construct a basic theory of performance derived from the accent theory and

test it on a brief passage from Mozart.

Speculative theorists: Locating the accent

The mature statement of the accent theory by Johann Philipp Kirnberger13 in his book Die

Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik and in articles from Johann Georg Sulzer’s

13 Scholars have long known that writings attributed to Kirnberger had some degree of contribution

from his student Johann Abraham Peter Schulz. But until relatively recently, the other complexities

of determining the authorship of the music articles in the Allgemeine Theorie der schönen Künste have

not been well understood. Beverly Jerold lays out the relevant considerations well in “Johann Philipp

Kirnberger and Authorship,” Notes 69, no. 4 (June 2013), 688–705. Although some of Jerold’s

conclusions are debatable, it is clear that Kirnberger may have had less direct responsibility for the

articles he did write than was previously thought, that an author outside Kirnberger’s circle may have

written some of the music articles in the encyclopedia, and that the extent of Sulzer’s contribution to

the music articles has been understated in the musicological literature. Much bibliographic research

on the Allgemeine Theorie remains to be done, and several important questions are still open. See also

Christensen and Baker, eds. Aesthetics and the Art of Music Composition in the German Enlightenment

(Cambridge University Press, 1995), 14; Tomas McAuley, “Rhythmic Accent and the Absolute: Sulzer,

Schelling, and the Akzenttheorie,” Eighteenth-Century Music 10, no. 2 (Sept. 2013), 279n15; and

Matthew Riley, Musical Listening in the German Enlightenment (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 63, 79n5.

For the purposes of this thesis, I will treat “Kirnberger” as a pseudonym for the Sulzer-Kirnberger-

Schulz team. I identify Kirnberger (in this sense) as the likely author of the articles cited here on the

basis of their similarity with passages of Die Kunst der reinen Satzes in der Musik. C.f. Caplin,

“Theories of Harmonic-Metric Relationships from Rameau to Riemann” (PhD diss., University of

Chicago, 1981), 76–78.

21

encyclopedia, the Allgemeine Theorie der schönen Künste,14 takes the performer’s job into

account quite concretely. In Kirnberger’s account, the performer plays a central role in

communicating the accentual structure prescribed by a composer so that a listener can clearly

understand a melody. Some of Kirnberger’s most telling remarks are offhand comments in

his explanations of the various meters and time signatures.

Wenn Tonsetzer aus Bequemlichkeit und um die vielen Taktstriche zu vermeiden, bald

zwey, bald drey, bald mehrere Takte zwischen zween Taktstrichen zusammenfassen,

so wird sein Wesen dadurch nicht verändert; sondern der Druk, der die erste Taktnote

jeder Taktart marquirt, geschieht allezeit von zwey zu zwey halben Takt- oder

Zweyviertelnoten, und bestimmt sowohl den Niederschlag des Taktschlagens, der

allezeit auf die erste Taktnote fällt, als auch die Geltung der Taktpausen, die in

solchen Fällen immer die gewöhnliche bleibt.15

When composers, for the sake of convenience and to avoid an excess of bar lines, enclose

two, three, or even more measures between two bar lines, its [the alla breve meter’s]

essence is not thereby altered. Rather, the pressure that marks the first note of each

measure always occurs on every other half-note, determining both the downbeat,

which always falls on the first note of the measure, and the values of the rests, which

in such cases always remain as usual.

Here Kirnberger is explaining why the so-called “cut time” signature is sometimes used in

pieces that have four half notes in a bar (Kirnberger deprecates the use of 4/2 or 2/1 meters,

although he admits they appear in older music). Under his explanation, such situations are

just like ordinary alla breve meter with some bar lines omitted for ease of writing. Thus one

notated measure contains more than one real measure, and the pressure (Druk) on every

other half note determines the beginnings of the real measures. The immediately following

passages clarify that this pressure is meant literally as weight applied to the violin’s bow.

14 Sulzer, ed. Allgemeine Theorie der schönen Künste (Leipzig: 1792–1794), 490–502. The first edition

of the encyclopedia was published in Leipzig, 1771–1774 in two volumes (Theile). I cite the better-

known 1792–1794 edition (published in four volumes) because it is widely available today in facsimile

from G. Olms Verlag (Hildesheim, 1967). The major textual difference across the various editions of

the Allgemeine Theorie is the inclusion (and gradual expansion) of bibliographies at the ends of certain

articles. 15 Kirnberger, “Tact [Takt] (Musik),” in Allgemeine Theorie, 4:495. C.f. the parallel passage in The Art,

390.

22

Seine geschwindesten Noten sind Achtel, die sowol als die Viertel und die übrigen

längern Noten auf der Violine mit der ganzen Schwere des Bogens ohne die geringste

Schattirung vom Piano und Forte außer dem vorzüglichen Druk auf jeder ersten

Taktnote, der in allen Taktarten nothwendig ist, vorgetragen werden.16

Its [large 4/4 meter’s] fastest notes are eighths, which, along with the quarters and the

rest of the longer notes, are executed on the violin with the whole weight of the bow

and without the slightest shading of piano and forte, aside from the principal pressure

on the first note of each measure, which is necessary in all meters.

Viertel sind seine Hauptnoten, die im Vortrag außer dem vorzüglichen Druk der ersten

Taktnote wie in dem großen Viervierteltakt gleich marquirt werden.17

Its [small 4/4 meter’s] main note [values] are quarters, which, as in large 4/4 time, are

all equally marked in execution except for the principal pressure on the first note of

each measure.

Here Kirnberger explains two different types of quadruple meter: the large 4/4 (which is

notated as such) and the small 4/4 (which is notated with the so-called “common time” C).

Aside from their different symbols, these meters are distinguished by several factors. Each

one implies a particular tempo or range of tempos: the large 4/4 is slow and solemn, and the

small 4/4 is lighter and livelier. Large 4/4 is appropriate for serious pieces, especially for the

church, while small 4/4 is more stylistically versatile. Certain note values will be more

common than others: large 4/4 rarely sees values shorter than the eighth note, while small

4/4 accepts all note values. Kirnberger is writing in a tradition, waning but still current in

his day, in which metrical notation was not yet purely proportional and each meter was

associated with a particular default tempo (the tempo giusto) and other characteristics such

as mood and prevailing note values. English writers often used the word “mood” as a synonym

for time signature,18 while Michel de Saint-Lambert at the beginning of the century described

16 Kirnberger, “Takt,” 4:496. C.f. The Art, 391. The version of the passage in Die Kunst omits the

reference to performance on the violin, a fact to which I do not attribute much importance. 17 Kirnberger, “Takt,” 4:497. C.f. The Art, 391. The version of this passage in Die Kunst omits the

reference to performance. 18 See John Holden, An Essay Toward a Rational System of Music (Glasgow, 1752), 26, and the

quotation from John Playford in Houle, Meter in Music, 30.

23

the time signature’s function as “distinguishing [the piece’s] character.”19 In connection with

tempo and note values, François Couperin observes that “the Italians write their music in

the true values in which they conceive it,” implying that there is more to correct metric

notation than simply capturing the relative durational relationships within a piece. On the

other hand, “we [i.e., the French] write differently than we execute; this is why foreigners

play our music less well than we play theirs.”20 For much of the eighteenth century, relative

note values still had a strong connection with the absolute values they had in the days of

mensural notation, while time signatures implied a whole bundle of musical characteristics

beyond the number of beats in a measure.21

Most importantly for our purposes here, among the musical characteristics implied by each

of Kirnberger’s meters is a particular manner of performance. Every meter, he says, requires

a principal stress at the beginning of each measure. Small 4/4 meter has its peculiar way of

marking all the other quarter-note beats equally, while large 4/4 is played ben marcato by

the eighth note without any shading at all. Other meters, presumably, also have their own

way of marking accents, though Kirnberger does not always specify them. Executing the

accents properly to clarify the sense of the music is one of the primary responsibilities of the

performer, as Kirnberger notes in his articles on performance (or “execution”: Vortrag) and

accent.

Zur Deutlichkeit des Vortrages gehört . . . müssen die Accente des Gesanges fühlbar

gemacht werden. Hierunter werden erstlich die Töne gerechnet, die auf die gute Zeit

des Takts fallen. Von diesen erhält die erste Note des Takts den vorzüglichsten Druk,

19 Saint-Lambert, Les principes du clavecin (Paris, 1702), 14. “. . . pour en distinguer le caractere.” My

emphasis. C.f. Principles of the Harpsichord, trans. Rebecca Harris-Warrick (Cambridge University

Press, 1984), 32. 20 Couperin, L’Art de toucher le clavecin (Paris, 1716), 39. “C’est que nous écrivons différement de ce

que nous exécutons: ce qui fait que les étrangers jouent notre musique moins bien que nous ne fesons

la leur. Au contraire les italiens écrivent leur musique dans les vrayes valeurs qu’ils l’ont pensée.”

Couperin’s immediate example is that of the notes inégales, but the following passage clarifies that he

is also discussing meter and tempo. 21 Individual theorists vary considerably on the specifics: see Houle, Meter in Music, 35–61, and

Frederick Neumann, Performance Practices of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (New York:

Schirmer. 1993), 44–56. Nevertheless, almost all theorists and writers on performance from the

eighteenth century agree in a broad sense that note values and time signatures have connotations

beyond relative duration. This tradition survives in the occasional nineteenth-century discussion, but

the connection was no longer as strong; Neumann cites Beethoven as the composer who “fully severed”

the connection between time signature and tempo.

24

damit das Gefühl des Taktes beständig unterhalten werde, ohne den kein Mensch die

Melodie verstehen würde.22

To clarity in execution belongs . . . the necessity to make perceptible the accents of the

melody. Among these are counted, first of all, the tones that fall on the good beat[s] of

the measure. Of these [accented notes], the first note of the measure receives the most

prominent pressure, whereby the feeling of the meter will be steadily maintained and

without which no one will understand the melody.

Diese Accente. . . müssen alle erst von dem Tonsetzer, hernach in dem Vortrag von

dem Sänger oder Spieler, auf das genaueste beobachtet werden. . . . Es ist aber

schlechterdings nothwendig, dass sie in Singestüken mit den Accenten der Sprache

genau übereintreffen.23

These accents. . . must be observed most exactly first of all by the composer, and after

that in execution by the singer or player. . . . In vocal music, it is absolutely necessary

that the [musical, metrical] accents exactly coincide with the linguistic accents.

According to Kirnberger’s account, a poorly declaimed melody, like a poorly declaimed speech,

will not be understood. Its meaning is irrelevant unless it can be conveyed to a listener.

Kirnberger makes the intuitively correct point that, although the performer may not be able

to create meter, he is certainly able to ruin the meter through poor declamation. At least to

that extent, the performer has control over meter in the moment of performance. Kirnberger

also observes an important responsibility of the composer: to ensure that the prosody of the

text agrees with the meter of the music. Otherwise, not even the most diligent performer can

repair the defective rhythm.

The connection of metrical accent with the accents of poetic meter raises issues that were

important to theorists earlier in the century. After abortive attempts to construct a theory of

musical rhythm and meter on the basis of classical metrics, theorists turned to the nebulous

concept of “intrinsic quantity” as a way of bridging the gap between a theory of poetic meter

based on repeating durational patterns and a reality of musical meter based on beats of equal

length. Brief notes that occupy what we would now call an accented position within the

22 Kirnberger, “Vortrag,” in Allgemeine Theorie, 4:702. 23 Kirnberger, “Accent in der Musik,” in Allgemeine Theorie, 1:18. I have omitted the passage cited by

Caplin, “Theories of Harmonic-Metric Relationships,” 97, which concerns the relation of harmonic

rather than performative factors to meter.

25

measure are said to have a greater intrinsic quantity or duration, irrespective of their actual

(external) duration.24

Giuseppe Tartini—an important Italian violinist and composer, but writing here in his

capacity as a speculative theorist in the vein of Rameau—explains metrical accent in terms

of intrinsic quantity in an especially clear fashion.25 Tartini’s account deals only with

decisions that are fixed by the composer in advance of performance: text underlay, note

values, and position within the measure. Taking the Italian word “barbara” (a dactyl, long-

short-short) and setting it with a quarter note and two eighths, he writes:

Therefore it appears that, in adapting a dactyl to three musical notes, generally, the

first of which has a value double that of the following two, the nature of quantity of the

three syllables is conserved strictly: that is, the first one long and the other two short.

It appears so, but it is not so. The reason does not depend on the value of the notes,

which, in the examples given, correspond strictly to the value of the syllables given. It

depends on the place in the bar where the three aforesaid notes are placed. Let the

meter be tempo ordinario [i.e., common time], which is the most common, and let the

three syllables be expressed by a quarter note and two eighths. The following shows

for how many places in the bar in common meter 4/4 the position is possible.

Example 2.1: Adapted from Tartini, Trattato, 115.

Other positions are not possible, because one returns to the first. Now it is a fact that

the first and the third positions [Example 2.1A and C] correspond exactly to the value

of the syllables. The second and the fourth [Example 2.1B and D] do not correspond,

because the second syllable, which is short, becomes long, and the result of the musical

enunciation, in spite of the brief note, and against the will of the musician, is really:

24 See Houle’s discussion, Meter in Music, 78–84. The earliest definition of intrinsic quantity cited by

Houle is from Wolfgang Caspar Printz, writing at the very end of the seventeenth century. See also

Caplin, “Theories of Musical Rhythm,” 662. 25 Houle comments on this passage in Meter in Music, 129–130.

26

Since the musical notes are always the same, and the dactyl is always the same, it is

clear that the reason for the change of the short syllable into a long one is place, and

nothing else. But in the first and third positions [Example 2.1A and C], the dactyl

remains in its correct form of measure, and the place of the long syllable is the

beginning and the middle of the bar—that is, the first and third quarters. Contrarily,

in the second and fourth positions [Example 2.1B and C], the dactyl does not remain

in its form, but changes into an antibacchius [i.e., long-long-short]; and the place of the

short syllable, changed into a long one, is the middle of the bar and the beginning of

the subsequent one—that is (as above), the first and third quarters of the bar.

Therefore, by the intrinsic nature of the place, there is at the beginning and in the

middle of the tempo ordinario bar the long accent (and consequently the long syllable),

independently of the word, and of human judgment. This is as true as the fact that,

putting the same dactyl under the same three notes in such a way that the last syllable

is the beginning or middle of the bar,

Example 2.2: From Tartini, Trattato, 116.

the last syllable becomes long, [as in:]

Neither the diligence of the musician in enunciating it, nor the art of the composer in

abbreviating the last note as much as possible, can remedy the fact, which inevitably

happens this way. I have no reason for this fact other than the above-mentioned one of

the cadences reduced to a bar, as composed of two notes of equal nature, and therefore

of equal force—as fulcrums of harmony, and as musical senses.26

Tartini’s discussion clearly implies that intrinsic quantity is what we would now call metrical

accent, but without any connotation of dynamic stress. Certain parts of the measure are

intrinsically long or short because of the measure’s origin in the cadential progression V–I.

Thus intrinsic quantity attaches to a musical event solely by virtue of the event’s place in the

26 Tartini, Trattato di musica secondo la vera scienza dell’armonia (Padua, 1754), 115–116. English

translation, Fredric Johnson, “Tartini’s Trattato di musica seconda la vera scienza dell’armonia: An

Annotated Translation with Commentary” (PhD diss., Indiana University, 1985), 295–297. This

translation is not wholly reliable, and I have modified it in a few places to clarify Tartini’s meaning.

27

measure, irrespective of the event’s nature. So strong is the intrinsic accentual structure of

the measure that it can even pull out of joint the natural prosody of a word. Once the event’s

place in the measure is given (by the composer), its status as accented or unaccented is given,

and nothing can change it.

Since Tartini does not discuss the role of the listener in this passage, it seems he conceives of

listening as the more or less passive reception of metrical information. Perhaps surprisingly,

given that Tartini was one of the most expert performers of his day, he also appears to have

believed that the performer’s actions are irrelevant to accentuation, which manifests itself

regardless of anything the performer does. To the extent that Tartini does discuss performers,

he suggests that “the measure is governed by a perception of notes distinguished by ‘inner’

length or brevity but enhanced by dynamic stress.”27 In this account, the flow of causality is

unidirectional: meter to performance. While Kirnberger suggests that the meter depends

upon the performer’s actions (a particular piece will not be “in” large 4/4 meter unless it is

performed as such), Tartini allows the performer only a power to clarify the meter.

Another perspective on the causal relationship between meter and performance comes to us

from John Holden, precentor of the chapel at the University of Glasgow and one of the earliest

writers on the psychology of music perception. Holden’s brief but remarkably modern-

sounding treatment of meter takes the performer’s role into account, but he places far more

emphasis than Kirnberger or Tartini upon the role of the listener in interpreting events as

accented or unaccented. Rather than from literal loudness, accents arise from our inherent

inclination as listeners to parse music in particular ways.

There is no occasion to mark the beginning, or emphatical part, of the measure, always

stronger, or louder than the rest, though it is sometimes best to do so; for, it is not so

much the superior loudness of the sound, as the superior regard which a hearer is to

bestow upon it, that distinguishes one part of the measure from another.28

27 Houle, Meter in Music, 130. Houle omits important context for the extract from Tartini he quotes on

this page: Tartini refers to a supposed prejudice by orchestral performers that every beat is to be

equally accented, which he attributes to poor conducting or an overreliance on tapping the foot. C.f.

Trattato, 117, Johnson, “Tartini’s Trattato,” 299–300. 28 Holden, Rational System, 33. C.f. Houle, Meter in Music, 78–79.

28

Holden’s notion of “superior regard” echoes many modern treatments of accent, which

describe it as primarily a cognitive phenomenon rather than an acoustical one.29 Under such

a view, the performer’s actions would be irrelevant to meter. But, in another discussion of

accent later in the treatise, Holden strikes upon an important point about the causal relation

of meter and performance. The performer is also a listener, and cognizes the music just as

much as an audience member does. Thus, she can hardly avoid performing in a way that

accords with or even enhances her accentual conception of the music.

If a drummer were to give a number of quick, but equal-timed beats, each with just an

equal force, a person attending to them would most naturally parcel them by 4 and 4

together, by giving a greater regard to every 4th beat; by which regard these beats

would to him acquire a kind of emphasis or accent, as if the drummer really did strike

them harder than the others, which indeed he could scarce avoid doing, because his

own imagination, as well as that of a hearer, would most readily lead him to this kind

of parcelling.30

We are now in a position to draw some tentative conclusions about the way eighteenth-

century theorists conceived of metrical accent and its relationship to performance. We saw

from Tartini’s treatise that metrical accent (or intrinsic quantity) inheres in particular places

in the measure, and musical events become accented by virtue of being located in those

accented positions. The metrical location of an event is prescribed by the composer in advance

of performance. Listeners will cognize certain events as accented or unaccented and thereby

“parcel” the music into higher-level units. This cognition may consist in passively receiving

accents that are immediately “there” in the musical sound (as Tartini seems to suggest);

interpreting the accents on the basis of the performer’s declamation, which in turn is based

on the accentual structure prescribed by the composer and the meter (as Kirnberger

suggests); or the listener’s instinctive “chunking” of the music on the basis of the human

mind’s natural cognitive and perceptual propensities (as Holden suggests). Notwithstanding

the significant differences between these three accounts, they all agree that meter is largely

specified in advance of any performance, but that the performer has a tendency or (perhaps)

a responsibility to perform in a way that accords with the meter. This tendency or

29 In particular, it calls to mind Grosvenor Cooper and Leonard B. Meyer’s definition of an accented

event as something “marked for consciousness.” See The Rhythmic Structure of Music (University of

Chicago Press, 1960), 8. 30 Holden, Rational System, 113.

29

responsibility either helps the listener understand the sense of the music, or even makes such

understanding possible in the first place, and it cannot be clearly disentangled from many

other aspects of music that fall under the purview of the performer such as the tempo, mode

of declamation, and overall character.

Performance theorists: Rendering the accent

Before the accent theory began to crystallize, theorists and musicians did not typically

discuss meter in terms of accent. Instead, they tended to use a variety of terms that we now

understood to be synonymous with the concept of metrical accent, but that involve

considerations that differ from those we now consider primary. One such term was intrinsic

quantity, which I have already discussed above. Another was characterizing beats as “good”

and “bad,” or “struck” and “passing.” These concepts ultimately arise out of harmony. They

relate to practical problems any thoroughbass player would be familiar with: the questions

of which bass notes are to be harmonized, and which beats are capable of supporting which

kinds of dissonance. A “struck” note is what we now might call a structural bass note, which

normally falls on a downbeat, while a “passing” note, which falls on a weak beat or offbeat,

would not be harmonized. A “good” beat is most appropriate for consonant chords or

functional dissonances—suspensions and appoggiaturas—while a “bad” beat can support

dissonances of diminution such as passing and neighbour tones.31 There are many theoretical

and historical reasons why meter was conceived in these, rather than accentual, terms at the

beginning of the eighteenth century. A more mundane reason is that the two most popular

keyboard instruments of this era—the organ and the harpsichord—are not capable of

dynamic shading and can only vary loudness through registration or voicing.32

Houle observes a shift toward conceiving of meter in accentual terms—and accent in dynamic

terms—around the middle of the century.33 Leopold Mozart is typical in this respect. He

writes:

The specially predominant notes are as follows: in every measure, the first note of the

first quarter of the measure is a struck note; the first note of the half-bar or third

quarter in four-quarter time; the first note of the first and fourth quarters in 6/4 time

31 Caplin, “Theories of Musical Rhythm,” 662–663. 32 See Neumann, Performance Practices, 160. 33 Houle, Meter in Music, 124.

30

and 6/8 time; and the first note of the first, fourth, seventh, and tenth quarters in 12/8

time. Each of these may be called struck notes, the ones on which the chief stress

always falls if the composer has indicated no other expression.34

Although Mozart uses the term “struck” (anschlagend), which needn’t imply a dynamic

stress, his accompanying illustration (Example 2.3) shows that he does intend the strong

beats of the measure to be audibly accented. In this example, the forte and piano symbols

refer to the natural ups and downs of bowing rather than the stark difference in loudness we

now associate with these terms.

Example 2.3: From Mozart, Versuch, 258.

In a similar discussion intended for singers, Johann Friedrich Agricola agrees about the

emphasis on the beats.

It is an advantage, not only for the sake of clarity but also for the steady maintenance

of an even tempo, to always give the first of four or three fast notes a slight emphasis,

which I indicate here with small marks.35

Example 2.4: From Agricola, Anleitung, 129.

Johann Joachim Quantz’s flute treatise36 has a variation on the notion of performed meter,

introducing an element of durational stress to it.

34 Leopold Mozart, Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule (Augsburg, 1756), 257–258. This passage

translated by George Houle, Meter in Music, 132–133. For an older translation including the complete

text of this treatise, see A Treatise on the Fundamental Principles of Violin-Playing, trans. Editha

Knocker (Oxford University Press, 1948), 219–220. 35 Agricola, Anleitung zur Singkunst (Berlin, 1757), 129. English translation, Introduction to the Art of

Singing, trans. Julianne C. Baird (Cambridge University Press, 1995), 155. 36 Quantz, Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte traversiere zu spielen (Berlin, 1752). English translation,

On Playing the Flute, second ed., trans. Edward R. Reilly (Boston: Northeastern University Press,

2001).

31

Here I must make a necessary observation concerning the length of time each note

must be held. You must know how to make a distinction in execution between the

principal notes, ordinarily called struck or in the Italian manner, good notes, and those

that pass, which some foreigners call bad (schlimme) notes. Where it is possible, the

principal notes always must be emphasized more than the passing. In consequence of

this rule, the quickest notes in every piece of moderate tempo, or even in the Adagio,

though they seem to have the same value, must be played a little unequally, so that

the struck notes of each figure, namely the first, third, fifth, and seventh, are held

slightly longer than the passing, namely the second, fourth, sixth, and eighth, although

this lengthening must not be as much as if the notes were dotted.37

Quantz’s discussion seems to focus on differentiating notes shorter than the beat, rather than

the beats themselves, but the principle is the same.

Even as late as the end of the century—by which time an essentially modern conception of

meter had coalesced—Daniel Gottlob Türk continued to write from a performed meter point

of view.38

Each meter has good and bad beats, although according to their external value or

duration, they are equal to each other. . . . However, more emphasis (internal value) is

given to one than to the other.39

Türk calls for a gentle emphasis on metrically strong notes varying in proportion to the

strength of the beat on which they occur. For example,

for a fine performance, aside from the first and most important note in a measure, the

second good beat is also played with emphasis, although not as noticeably as the first

[good] beat which is always more important.

37 Quantz, Versuch, 105; On Playing the Flute, 123. Emphasis original. See also Reilly’s note at 124n1.

I have adjusted Reilly’s translation to accord with my policy of rendering “anschlagend” as “struck.” 38 Türk, Klavierschule (Leipzig, 1789). English translation, School of Clavier Playing, trans.

Raymond H. Haggh (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982). Since Haggh’s translation includes

page numbers to the original edition, I will cite only from the translation. 39 School of Clavier Playing, 90. Haggh throughout translates “gut” and “schlecht” (referring to beats)

as “strong” and “weak” rather than “good” and “bad.” Ordinarily this would be unobjectionable, but

since the terminology used to explain metrical accent is relevant to my argument, I have emended his

translation to clarify this issue. Similarly, I have consistently re-translated “anschlagend” as “struck”

and “durchgehend” as “passing.”

32

Example 2.5: From Türk, Klavierschule, 335.

If the composer does not wish this kind of realization in certain places, then he must

expressly specify the opposite. For example:

Example 2.6: From Türk, Klavierschule, 336.

In general, the above rule is only valid for as long as no indication of forte and piano,

etc., appears, or until an exception becomes necessary for other reasons.40

Türk’s accentual structure of the measure extends, at least in theory, down to subdivisions

of the beat.

Beat divisions are also not regarded as having the same internal value, for in duple

figures the first, third, fifth, seventh, and tenth members are good or struck, and in

triple figures the first, fourth, seventh, and tenth members are good or struck, the

others bad or passing. The same is true for smaller note values.41

Prevailing wisdom today has it that this performed meter point of view is unmusical, at least

when taken too literally. But these authors, all acknowledged masters of their respective

instruments, all include discussions of performed meter in their treatises. One way to explain

this fact is that these authors were writing primarily aimed at instructing beginners—a

seasoned flautist would hardly need most of the advice in Quantz’s book, for example.42 Thus

40 Ibid., 325. The symbol pf means poco forte. 41 Ibid., 91. 42 On a related note, C. P. E. Bach’s keyboard treatise, which is intended for a more advanced audience,

does not include a discussion of performed meter. See Bach, Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier

zu spielen (Berlin, 1753–1762). English translation, Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard

Instruments, trans. William J. Mitchell (New York: W. W. Norton, 1949).

33

their advice will err on the side of oversimplifying to establish a default practice that can be

nuanced in various real situations. We might, then, learn something by looking at the

situations they give as exceptions to the normal schemes of accentuation.

One of the most commonly cited reasons to accentuate a note outside of the metrical structure

of the bar is the note’s harmonic character. Quantz calls for chromatically altered notes to be

stressed even when this runs counter to the more usual rule that the first note under a slur

is the strongest.43 He tells the ripieno cellist to emphasize bass notes that support dissonant

chords, suspensions, or cadential progressions.44 Türk similarly calls for melodic notes to

receive an additional stress if they prepare a suspension, form a dissonant interval against

the bass, or introduce foreign chromatic notes.45

The most common type of melodic note requiring extra stress is the appoggiatura. Agricola

writes an entire chapter on appoggiaturas (Vorschläge) in which he repeatedly states that

appoggiaturas should be stressed due to their dissonant nature. For example:

Above all, it is the dissonances which make the harmony more interesting. According

to rules of good taste, dissonant notes, in general, are produced more loudly than

consonant notes. This is in part why appoggiaturas are performed more loudly than

the main notes, which in these instances are generally consonances.46

The other part of the reason appoggiaturas are played more loudly is, of course, that they fall

by definition on strong beats. The rule that dissonances should be stressed applies most

particularly, then, to dissonant chords that occur in places other than strong beats.

One of the most extensive and striking discussions of emphasis in Quantz’s treatise concerns

the extra stress that should be given to dissonant chords by a keyboard accompanist. While

this rule is a commonplace of eighteenth-century performance instruction, Quantz adds a

unique and controversial twist: he classifies chords by their differing degrees of dissonance

and assigns a specific dynamic value to each class.47 He even provides a sample piece for flute

43 Quantz, Versuch, 195; On Playing the Flute, 225. 44 Ibid., 216; 244–245. 45 Türk, School of Clavier Playing, 326. 46 Agricola, Anleitung, 69; Introduction, 102. 47 Ibid., 228–229; 255–256. See also Reilly’s note, On Playing the Flute, 255n1. On Quantz’s theory of

dynamics, see Evan Jones, “Dynamics and Dissonance: The Implied Harmonic Theory of J. J. Quantz,”

Intégral, 30 (2016), 67–80, and Hubert Moßburger, “Harmonik und Aufführungspraxis,” Zeitschrift

der Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie 6, no. 2–3 (2009), 191–196.

34

and continuo with dynamic markings indicating approximately how loud each chord should

be played by the accompanist.48 Example 2.7 provides a representative extract from Quantz’s

piece.

Example 2.7: From Quantz, Versuch, Tab. XXIV; On Playing the Flute, 257.

Quantz classifies two particularly important passing chords as dissonances to be played forte:

the 42 chord with augmented fourth and the

65 chord with minor sixth and diminished fifth.49

These chords frequently fall in metrically weak positions and almost always, in Quantz’s

estimation, rank as stronger than the triads and sixth chords to which they resolve.

If we assume a bedrock of performed meter underlying eighteenth-century performance

practice, one of the primary reasons a performer might depart from this scheme is the

presence of dissonant chords on weak beats. Another important reason is the presence of

slurred or tied figures crossing metrical boundaries.50 For Türk, a slurred figure should be

played with an accent on the first note and a diminuendo on the remaining notes: “It should

be observed. . . that the note on which the slur begins should be very gently (and almost

imperceptibly) accented (accentuirt).”51

This gentle accent can, he points out, fall on notes in weak metric positions and cause an

exception to the rule of accentuation “which is otherwise to be followed.”52 Türk has here

picked up on a principle laid down much earlier by Leopold Mozart. In a passage on bowing,

48 Quantz, Versuch, Tab. XXIV; On Playing the Flute, 257–258. 49 In modern terms, the third and first inversions respectively of the dominant seventh. 50 See Mozart, Versuch, 259; Fundamental Principles, 221. See also the commentary on this passage

in Klorman, Mozart’s Music of Friends, 235–237. 51 Ibid., 344. 52 Ibid., 344.

35

Mozart provides several examples of the same passage with different possible bowings,

emphasizing how these bowings can affect the rhythm.

Now if in a musical composition two, three, four, and even more notes be bound

together by the half circle [Halbcirkel, i.e. the slur], so that one recognizes therefrom

that the composer wishes the notes not to be separated but played singingly in one

slur, the first of such united notes must be somewhat more strongly stressed, but the

remainder slurred on to it quite smoothly and more and more quietly.53

Mozart’s point concerning slurs is twofold. First, the slurred figure calls for a gentle accent

at its beginning, which can clash with the accentual structure of the measure: “the stress

falls now on the first, now on the second, or third crotchet, yea, frequently even on the second

half of the first, second, or third crotchet.”54 C. P. E. Bach agrees, writing that slurred figures

begin with a “slight, scarcely noticeable increase of pressure.”55 Slurs from weak beats to

strong beats, or from offbeats to downbeats, are nevertheless “slightly accented.”56 Second, a

slurred figure that clashes with the accentual structure of the measure—by crossing the

middle of a duple or quadruple measure, or by crossing from the weak part of the beat to the

following downbeat—binds together parts of the measure into a higher unity, in which such

metrical accents as do exist can only be in the listener’s cognition. The performer’s emphasis

is instead upon the continuity of the larger unit.

Such considerations are closely related to the treatment of syncopated notes. In discussing

the case of a quarter note tied across the bar line to another quarter note, Leopold Mozart

criticizes players who cannot keep time without marking the downbeat. Two quarter notes

tied across the bar should, he says, be played just like a half note within the bar. That is, the

metric downbeat after the bar line must be suppressed by the performer.

53 Mozart, Versuch, 135; Fundamental Principles, 123–124. See also Versuch, 258; Fundamental

Principles, 220. C.f. Neumann, Performance Practices, 208–210. Neumann argues that this principle

has wide validity for music of the later eighteenth century but is questionable when applied to, e.g.,

J. S. Bach. 54 Mozart, Versuch, 135; Fundamental Principles, 124. 55 Bach, Versuch, 126; Essay, 154. 56 Bach, Versuch, 127; Essay, 157.

36

If one wished to have two notes, one would certainly write them down. Such notes must

be attacked strongly and, with a gradual dying away, be sustained without emphasis;

just as the sound of a bell, when struck sharply, by degrees dies away.57

For Mozart, the uninterrupted continuity of the displaced note is central to the effect of

syncopation, and marking the beats is a great fault.58 Agricola agrees on this point, writing

that “special attention should be paid that the second part of a syncopated note not be

emphasized in such a manner as to indicate the beat but sustained without rearticulation.”59

Türk gives advice in very similar terms—he was clearly aware of both earlier treatises, which

he cites in various places—and even mentions that “syncopated notes should be stressed

immediately upon entrance, consequently on a bad [beat or] part of the beat.”60

Legato and tied figures that cross metrical boundaries can suppress or displace the norms of

performed meter. While the listener presumably continues to hear or cognize the metrical

accents, the performer’s delivery binds individual notes into larger units that cut across

metric divisions, creating a delicate interplay between meter and rhythm. Such

considerations inevitably lead us into discussions of form and hypermeter, a fact that was

not lost on even these early writers. In a fascinating and all too brief passage, Türk discusses

the relation between performed accent and musical form:

The beginning tone of every period and the like must be given an even more marked

emphasis than an ordinary good beat. Strictly speaking, these beginning tones are

themselves stressed to a greater or lesser degree according to whether they begin a

larger or smaller part of the whole, that is, after a full cadence, the beginning tone [of

the following section] must be more strongly marked than after a half cadence, or

merely after a phrase division (Einschnitt), etc. Here is an example which serves to

illustrate these points in concise fashion.61

57 Mozart, Versuch, 44n; Fundamental Principles, 46n. Knocker idiosyncratically translates

“Nachdruck” as “after-pressure.” I have emended this to the more usual “emphasis.” 58 Versuch, 37; Fundamental Principles, 39–40. 59 Agricola, Anleitung, 136; Introduction, 161. 60 Türk, School of Clavier Playing, 326–327. See also ibid., 102. Türk goes on to write that the purpose

of syncopated figures is “to effect, as it were, a shifting of the normal placement of beats,” but unless

the presence of the beat is defined solely by performed accentuation, the effect will really be of a conflict

between the metrical accent and the performed accent. The apparent strangeness of Türk’s remark

here probably stems from the imperfect fit between the precise eighteenth-century term “Takttheil”

(part of the measure) and our all-purpose terminological warhorse “beat.” 61 Türk, School of Clavier Playing, 325. The editorial addition in square brackets is from the translator.

37

Example 2.8: From Türk, Klavierschule, 336.

Using plus signs to indicate strength of accent, Türk has parsed this example out into a

complete eight-measure theme followed by a two-measure initiating unit in mm. 9–10. The

white circle at the end of m. 6 indicates that this eighth-note a', the first of its rhythmic

group, does not receive the accent because it falls on a weak beat. The rhythmic analysis is

complete regular except in one place: the f'' of m. 10 receives plus signs despite not falling on

the beginning of the measure, as if the next metrical downbeat has been shifted backward

for harmonic reasons. While Türk’s commentary on this example is too brief to be of much

use, it nevertheless shows an awareness that the rhythmic unities rendered by the performer

group together into larger objects, first at the two-measure and then at the eight-measure

level. While this grouping has a high degree of regularity, it is not just meter kicked up to a

higher level. The performer must understand these divisions, whether or not Türk is calling

for them to be rendered literally. More generously, we can understand this passage as a call

for performers to think about the measure-by-measure rhythm of a phrase and introduce a

sense of order and proportion into their playing.

To sum up, the writers on performance practice discussed here tend to agree that performed

meter is the default, most usual way to render the accents of a musical phrase. Certain types

of musical figures can temporarily modify this default, creating a tension between rhythmic

and metric structures. The various writers I have considered show a high degree of agreement

on which figures have this capacity and how they are to be rendered on various instruments.

We are now in a position to understand the approach of two important German academic

theorists in the early nineteenth century. While these writers have considerably less practical

sophistication than the writers on performance from Leopold Mozart to Türk, they have a

tendency to state their opinions in a more systematic way.

38

Performed meter in the early nineteenth century

Caplin’s critique of performed meter focuses on its adaptation by German theorists of the

early nineteenth century, in particular Adolf Bernhard Marx. The major German theorists of

this era were not professional composers or performers. Their writings were meant to be

systematically organized texts suitable for use in music schools. Thus we may observe in their

writings a tendency toward abstraction or simplification and away from practicality or the

subtleties of real musical situations. Nevertheless, I want to suggest that Caplin’s criticism

of these theorists is unduly harsh, and that their understanding of the accent theory and

performed meter was more subtle than is traditionally understood.

Caplin cites an example from the section on accentuation in Marx’s Allgemeine Musiklehre

(Example 2.9), in which the vertical strokes correspond to the degree of accent.62

Example 2.9: From A. B. Marx, Allgemeine Musiklehre, 131.

Caplin alludes to “the manifestly unmusical results of performing such a passage in this

way,” and interprets Marx as “observ[ing] that the ‘law of accentuation’ should not be taken

too far.”63 Caplin’s interpretation suggests, first of all, that Example 2.9 is intended as a

model for performance, and secondly, that Marx’s explanation is merely approximate or

introductory. But an examination of the accompanying text does not seem to bear these

assumptions out. Marx writes:

[In Example 2.9 above], we see that six degrees of accent might be distinguished [i.e.,

every note has between zero and five vertical strokes]. To the abstract reason, such a

splitting of the accent may be comprehensible, and appear as a natural consequence of

the law of accentuation; but the performer, as well as the hearer, will obey and follow

it in all minute details only so far as sensibility of ear or mechanical dexterity extends,

or according to the necessity or demand for it. The degree of movement, especially,

must have a material influence over the minuteness with which the law of

accentuation can be practically carried out; as on it depends the time which is allowed

62 Marx, Allgemeine Musiklehre, fifth ed. (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1853). English translation,

The Universal School of Music, trans. A. H. Wehran (London: Robert Cocks, 1853). 63 Caplin, “Theories of Musical Rhythm,” 675.

39

to the performer to measure and mark the degrees of stress to be laid upon the different

notes. The faster the movement, the more impracticable will become such a minute

subdivision of the accent; and if a series of notes of small value be noted in very quick

time, there will be neither a possibility, nor a necessity for the performer to observe

any but the more important degrees of accent.64

Marx goes on to give two versions of Example 2.9 in different tempos. The first, in a slower

tempo, marks only the accents on the quarter-note beats (Example 2.10).

Example 2.10: From A. B. Marx, Allgemeine Musiklehre, 132.

The second, marked Allegro, has accents only on the half-measure (Example 2.11).

Example 2.11: From A. B. Marx, Allgemeine Musiklehre, 132.

Examples 2.10 and 2.11, which have tempo markings and appropriately adjusted patterns of

accentuation, represent real musical situations. On the other hand, Example 2.9 above has

relative durations but no tempo marking. Tempo giusto and the conventional associations of

time signatures were no longer a reliable part of musical practice by Marx’s time.

Example 2.9 thus cannot be anything more than a schematic addressed to “abstract reason,”

illustrating how the rule works when all else is equal. Examples 2.10 and 2.11 show how the

abstract scheme is modified when the performer is “partly freed from the stringency of the

rule” by the vagaries of real music. But, Marx adds, it is “necessary to know the rule and all

its consequences, in order that we may, in all cases, be able to act up to it as far as the occasion

demands, or it appears practicable.”65 The law of accentuation obtains in all cases, regardless

of specifics. But the contingencies of particular musical situations necessitate a rule for

64 Marx, Allgemeine Musiklehre, 131–132; Universal School, 113–114. The passage cited here changed

significantly over the first four editions of the book. Of particular note is the addition of the reference

to “abstract reason” (abstrakte Verstand). For a translation of an older version of the same passage,

see Marx, General Music Instruction, trans. George Macirone (London: Novello, 1854), 43. 65 Allgemeine Musiklehre, 132; Universal School, 114. Emphasis original.

40

applying the law of accentuation—a rule (or theory) of performance. This rule of performance

is potentially sensitive to tempo (which varies from performance to performance), to

instrument (since different instruments have different limitations on speed of articulation),

and even to the acoustic of a particular performance space (which has an effect on how

articulation carries).

To clarify the difference between a theory of accentuation and a theory of performance, I turn

to Gottfried Weber, who offers an account similar to Marx’s. Weber writes that the measure

divided in two has a heavy (schwer) part and a light (leicht) part, while the measure divided

into three has a heavy part followed by two light parts. This scheme continues down to

divisions within each part of the measure, and even smaller subdivisions. However, Weber

explicitly cautions that heavy and light events do not necessarily translate to louder or softer

delivery. It would seem that the theory of accentuation only indicates what dynamic is most

appropriate to each part of the measure: Weber writes that the opposite case (a heavy beat

performed softly or a light beat performed loudly) would seem unusual, producing a sensation

of surprise.

What is here said of heavy and light parts of the measure is not to be so understood as

that a so called heavy or light part of the measure must really in all cases be delivered

more heavily and strongly (more forte) than the so called light or weak part; we here

speak rather of an internal weight which our rhythmical feeling spontaneously gives

to every heavy time.—Still however, so much as this is true, that a kind of shock—a

revulsive sensation (eine Art von Stoss oder Ruck) is produced in our feelings if, on the

contrary, a lighter time is rendered more prominent by a greater external strength of

tone than a time that is internally more heavy.66

Performers sometimes have occasion to deliberately produce this sense of shock for effect.

This is especially true of certain rhythmic figures that call for an articulation that runs

counter to the meter. Weber cites two such situations: the rhythmic inversion and the

syncope. The rhythmic inversion places a short note on an internally heavy beat and a longer

note on the following two internally light beats (this obviously only works in measures or

beats that divide into three). According to Weber, the longer note in such situations “becomes

66 Gottfried Weber, Versuch einer geordneten Theorie der Tonsetzkunst (Mainz: B. Schotts Söhne, 1830–

1832), 1:107–108. English translation, Godfrey [i.e. Gottfried] Weber, Theory of Musical Composition,

trans. James F. Warner (Boston, 1842), 1:90. Emphasis original.

41

especially favored and exalted” in comparison to the short note on the strong beat.67 The

syncope is similar, the major difference being that the longer note’s duration encompasses a

stronger (internally heavier) beat than the one on which it began. In this figure, two parts of

the measure with unlike internal weight are “united (zusammengebunden) by the prolonged

continuance of one steady sound.”68 Because “the stress of voice (Anschlag des Tones) falls

upon the light portion of the measure. . . , whereas no stress occurs on the heavy portion,”69

the syncope also inverts the usual articulation of the measure and produces a sense of shock

that is desirable in some circumstances.

Weber’s persistent allusion to “internal weight” parallels the (then quite outdated) theory of

internal quantity. His American translator, James F. Warner, provides an insightful gloss

on the meaning of this strange term in a footnote to the English edition:

The appellation internal is here used to signify the properties which are appropriate

to a thing in itself considered, that which belongs to a thing according to its own nature,

&c. Thus, an internal weight of a portion of a measure is that weight which naturally

belongs to such portion of the measure, that weight which such part of the measure

possesses as a property of its natural, constitutional structure, and which it always

actually has, except when deprived of it by some foreign, extraneous circumstances.

But sometimes such extraneous causes do deprive the accented portion of the measure

of its natural and appropriate strength. Sometimes, e.g. the poetry which is set to

music is so constructed that an unaccented portion of it falls to an accented portion of

the measure, in which case the natural weight which belongs to that portion of the

measure has to yield to the rhythmical structure of the poetry and consequently to lose

its appropriate strength; and in this way a portion of the measure which is internally,

intrinsically strong, becomes weak in the mode of delivery. Thus the appellation

internal or intrinsic, as employed in this case, means the weight which is appropriate

to a portion of the measure in itself considered, in contra-distinction from that which

is actually given it in delivery; the latter being called external.70

Just as intrinsic quantity refers to the duration a note seems to or ought to have, regardless

of its actual (external) duration, intrinsic weight refers to the stress or accentuation a note

67 Weber, Versuch, 1:135; Theory, 1:115. 68 Ibid., 1:137; 1:116. 69 Ibid., 1:138; 1:118. Emphasis original. 70 Weber, Theory, 1:90n.

42

seems or ought to have, regardless of its actual loudness. Intrinsic weight is the responsibility

of the composer, and external weight that of the performer. Ordinarily, the performer will

want to ensure that the two agree with each other, but various circumstances—including

metric inversions and syncopes—can create exceptions to this rule. Far from being a literal-

minded application of the accent theory to performance, Weber’s explanation of meter leaves

much under the performer’s control, and suggests quite a complicated notion of what happens

when the listener, performer, and composer come together in the moment of performance.

A theory of phrasing?

While performance does not itself create meter, it does have a strong tendency to go with the

grain of meter, and perhaps to reinforce it. Exceptions to this tendency arise in response to

such phenomena as offbeat dissonance, syncopation, or rhythmic figures that cross metrical

boundaries—bar lines or the middles of bars. Since the norm is to follow the grain of the

meter, these exceptions stand out as particularly meaningful. We might say that a theory of

performance derived from the accent theory entails an acute sensitivity to places where

rhythmic values override the metrical structure of the bar: syncopes, rhythmic inversions,

and slurs.

This theory of performance is essentially a theory of beginnings. The measure is a beginning-

oriented structure: it has a strong beat at its beginning and, perhaps, at the beginning of its

second half. The slur is also a beginning-oriented structure, one whose beginning can perhaps

be set in competition with that of the measure. Syncopes and inversions take an event

suitable for a beginning—a long stressed note—and displace it to just after or just before the

beginning. Dissonant chords are properly subordinate to the consonant chords to which they

resolve, but this subordination is double-edged. The harmonic resolution points toward the

consonant chord, which is generally also on a downbeat. But the dissonant chord’s more

colourful sound and pent up energetic charge draws attention to itself and away from the

true metrical beginning. When thematized, this effect can be quite striking, as if the

dissonant chord simultaneously affirms and contradicts the downbeat, or affirms the

downbeat by contradicting it.

Beginning orientation seems to be an important principle for the eighteenth-century German

performance theorists I have examined. Türk’s analysis of the theme in Example 2.8 above

bears a striking similarity to the method of formal analysis Hugo Riemann would introduce

43

more than one hundred years later.71 The major difference between the two concerns their

attitude toward beginnings: where Türk hears a pattern of strong-weak operating at various

levels (so that even-numbered events always rebound from the odd-numbered ones that

precede them), Riemann is practically incapable of hearing any unit at any level of structure

as beginning with a strong accent. I am outlining a theory of beginning-oriented performance

here because I want to contrast it with its more familiar cousin, end-oriented performance,

which I will discuss in the next chapter. For now, I will give a short example to sketch what

I consider to be the most characteristic features of a beginning-oriented approach to a musical

score.

The main theme in the first movement of Mozart’s Quintet for Piano and Winds, K.452

(Example 2.12) arrives after a dramatic, thickly scored slow introduction. The entire

movement is cast in a compound meter with two real measures in each notated measure.72

The antecedent begins with piano alone, playing a phrase that is saturated with the

amphibrachic rhythm of eighth-quarter-eighth—Weber’s syncope figure. In each case, the

quarter note is slurred to the note that follows it, while the (real) measure’s downbeat is

either an isolated eighth or a slurred pair of sixteenths. The rhythm of the piano’s left hand

follows this scheme: its chordal accompaniment enters on the offbeat, with a rest on the

downbeat.

Throughout mm. 21–22, the pianist seems to search in vain for a downbeat to articulate,

bringing himself into agreement with the metrical structure of the bar. He cannot find one

until the middle of m. 22, and lands on it with a rather unsatisfying half-cadential sigh. This

phrase is tonally complete, but the persistent conflict between the metric structure and what

the pianist actually plays leaves behind some unfinished business. From a harmonic point of

view, the phrase could well be an antecedent in its own right, but it sounds more like an

“antecedent of the antecedent”—which is indeed what it turns out to be.

71 See Caplin, “Theories of Musical Rhythm,” 686–691. 72 R=1/2N, in Caplin’s notation. See Classical Form, 35; Analyzing Classical Form, 63–65.

44

Example 2.12: W. A. Mozart, Quintet in Ef major for Piano and Winds, K.452, I, mm. 21–28.

45

The winds enter in m. 23. They play many roles throughout this piece—as four individual

soloists, as mini-ripieno to a concert pianist, as a treble-bass sound mass competing equally

with the pianist. Here they serve as a military band, shouting down the pianist with a fanfare

figure, hammering out the quarter-note beats, landing on a much more emphatic half-

cadential sigh, and completing the compound antecedent phrase: this will be a grand sonata

movement of broad scope after all.

In the compound consequent, mm. 25–28, the piano falls silent and the winds take over as

collective soloist. The differences between these two phrases merit close attention. While m.

25 is exactly parallel to m. 21 in its persistent amphibrachic figures, m. 26 has an important

departure. The horn player finds a df' on the second eighth note of this bar, a dissonant

seventh that demands resolution on the next eighth: precisely the metrical boundary that the

pianist had so much trouble marking the first time around. In fact, the chord that this note

introduces—which we might as well backdate to the downbeat of the measure, on which most

of the winds are silent—is one of Quantz’s forte sonorities: the diminished fifth with minor

sixth. It’s a small detail, but this single note changes the entire harmonic rhythm of m. 26 as

compared to m. 22, creating a strong resolution into the second quarter of the (notated)

measure, which in turn creates some kind of motion on every eighth-note beat

(Example 2.13). This minuscule detail gives the theme extra drive, angling it toward a full

cadential progression.

Example 2.13. A: Measure 22, from antecedent. B: Measure 26, parallel place in consequent.

The second fanfare figure, at m. 27, is much more emphatically cadential than the parallel

place at m. 23: it begins on a I6 chord, supporting a # – $ – % progression in the bass. The

precise voicing of this progression merits closer attention. The piano proceeds in parallel

sixths (with the clarinet doubling the right hand and the bassoon doubling the left hand),

46

while the horn and oboe sustain an upper-pedal Ef.73 An analyst interested in root

progression and cadence might see this measure as an expanded cadential progression; one

interested in thoroughbass voice-leading will probably see it as a pedal point. The pivotal

chord is the one over the Bf bass in the middle of m. 27. By virtue of the way it is introduced,

the notes it contains, and its position on a metric downbeat, this chord has all the marks of a

cadential 64 suspension. But it does not behave that way, and indeed it could not: a cadential

64 at this moment would either cause a cadence one measure too early or stretch the dominant

harmony disproportionately long. The 64 chord turns out to be a passing chord en route to IV6,

which seems to serve as the “real” pre-dominant harmony. The pre-dominant resolves into

the genuine cadential 64 at m. 28. For the first time in this theme, all four eighth-note beats

can be articulated by the entire ensemble, giving audible voice to a 4/8 measure that has

heretofore only been suggested and frustrated. Rhythm and meter are suddenly brought into

agreement just in time for the perfect authentic cadence that ends the theme.

A close reading of eighteenth-century theorists and writers on performance reveals a simple

but powerful approach to rhythm and meter. Beats have a quality that makes them “want” a

certain kind of weight in delivery. Whether the events that fall on those beats actually receive

this desired weight is up to the performer, and this tension between abstract scheme and real

delivery provides much of the drama of this music. For now, all I wish to establish is that this

tension has the potential to be productive for the performer; in my final chapter I will discuss

the specifics in more detail. Before that, I want to explore a very different sound world that

gives rise to a very different approach to performance and meter.

73 In Example 2.12, m. 27, the lower line of bass figures shows the pedal note, while the upper line

shows the parallel sixths against the bass.

47

Chapter 3

The continuous dynamics of Riemann’s

phrasing theory

In the late nineteenth century, the notions of performed meter associated with the accent

theory evolved into a discourse on phrasing. The most important published account of this

evolution is by Mine Doğantan-Dack, who discusses a group of “phrasing theorists” including

Hugo Riemann, Mathis Lussy, Tobias Matthay, and Stewart Macpherson.1 With the

exception of Riemann, these writers were all better known as piano teachers than as

theorists. Phrasing theorists concern themselves with “the shaping of the musical phrase and

its sub-units in accordance with their internal dynamic structures in a goal-oriented manner

so as to make it simultaneously intelligible and expressive.”2 The achievement of phrasing

theory was not just in placing expression in the hands of the performer, or elevating it to the

level of intelligibility as an aesthetic value—it was in making the two concepts synonymous,

so that an unintelligible performance expresses nothing and an inexpressive performance

communicates nothing.

Doğantan-Dack argues that phrasing theory represents a strong counterexample to the usual

understanding of nineteenth-century music as dominated by the “work-concept” and the

inviolate musical score.3 For phrasing theorists, the score significantly underdetermines or

even contradicts what must be done in performance. Thus “the music”—which they are more

interested in than “the work”—resides in those performance actions which are imperfectly

specified in written notation. The contemporaneous practice of producing “performing

editions” is thus strongly associated with phrasing theory. In a performing edition, the

composer’s notation is supplemented or changed by an editor—usually a popular virtuoso—

in order to better reflect the musical technique required of the performer or the musical sense

1 Doğantan-Dack, “Phrasing,” 11–12. 2 Ibid., 15. 3 On which see Lydia Goehr, The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works, rev. ed. (Oxford University

Press, 2007).

48

she must communicate.4 Such editions can range from an overlay of long slurs over the

composer’s original notation to quite radical re-slurrings and re-beamings.

Hugo Riemann’s “phrasing edition” of Ludwig van Beethoven’s piano sonatas is a notorious

example of a performing edition, familiar more by reputation than by widespread

acquaintance with it. Scholars concerned with Riemann’s reading of the sonatas have more

readily turned to his book L. van Beethovens sämtliche Klavier-Sonaten, a three-volume

analytical compendium from late in his career.5 Unsurprisingly, details of Riemann’s

readings of the sonatas changed over the 34-year period separating the publication of these

two texts. But even more importantly, the two publications differ drastically in genre,

intended audience, and aim. The analyses provide single-staff reductions with Riemann’s

annotations concerning harmony and form. The lack of complete notation suggests they are

meant for readers who already know the sonatas well, or who are consulting a score alongside

analysis. The analyses mix annotated musical examples with explanatory text, and leave

little doubt which markings belong to Riemann and which to Beethoven. Most importantly,

the books would not and could not have been used by performers at the piano. The book of

analyses represents Riemann’s conception of the piano sonatas filtered through the complex

theoretical machinery he had built up through his entire career. By contrast, the phrasing

edition is all musical score aside from the occasional footnote and a one-page preface (in

English and German) explaining some of the idiosyncratic notation. Riemann’s markings are

intermingled with Beethoven’s, and one would have to consult another edition to determine

which are which. Not only was the edition usable by performing pianists, it was specifically

intended for this purpose. The edition represents Riemann’s attempt to make his conception

of the sonatas true through performers’ actions.

While it was not uncommon for editors in the nineteenth century to overlay (or impose) their

own phrasing and articulation on unsuspecting scores, few of them are as systematic and

4 Performing editions are most familiar to music theorists via a famous essay by Heinrich Schenker,

in which he denounces such editorial overreach. See “Weg mit dem Phrasierungsbogen,” in Das

Meisterwerk in der Musik 1 (1925), 41–60. English translation, “Abolish the Phrasing Slur,” trans.

William Drabkin, in The Masterwork in Music 1 (1994), 20–30. 5 Hugo Riemann, L. van Beethovens sämtliche Klavier-Solosonaten: Ästhetische und formal-technische

Analyse mit historischen Notizen, 3 vols (Berlin: Max Hesse, 1917–1919). For commentary on these

analyses see Scott Burnham, “Reading Between the Lines: Hugo Riemann and Beethoven’s op.31

Piano Sonatas,” in The Oxford Handbook of Neo-Riemannian Music Theories, ed. Edward Gollin and

Alexander Rehding, 440–461 (Oxford University Press, 2011), and Ivan F. Waldbauer, “Riemann’s

Periodization Revisited and Revised,” Journal of Music Theory 33, no. 2 (1989), 333–391.

49

imaginative as Riemann.6 Even fewer are as verbose: while the phrasing edition itself

contains almost no prose, Riemann’s contemporary writings show a tremendous

preoccupation with the relationship between phrasing, articulation, and meter. These

concerns are worked out most clearly in his book Musikalische Dynamik und Agogik,

published around the same time as the phrasing editions.7 The confluence of an important

historical theorist, a phrasing edition of an important body of music, and one of the first few

detailed treatises on phrasing makes Riemann’s project an attractive point of entry into late-

nineteenth-century phrasing theory.

Instructions to performers: Riemann’s phrasing edition

Example 3.1 shows the opening of Beethoven’s piano sonata in Ef major, op. 31, no. 3, as it

appears in Heinrich Schenker’s edition.8 I choose this edition as a foil for Riemann for two

reasons: it is generally considered to be a good edition approaching the present-day Urtext

ideal, and it was also prepared by a major music theorist who has written extensively about

notation and performance.

6 See the preface regarding my use of the words “phrase” and “phrasing.” 7 Riemann, Musikalische Dynamik und Agogik: Lehrbuch der musikalischen Phrasirung (Hamburg:

D. Rahter, 1884). No English translation of this work exists, though detailed commentary with some

translated passages can be found in Howard Elbert Smither, “Theories of Rhythm in the Nineteenth

and Twentieth Centuries” (PhD diss., Cornell University, 1960), 186–229. For a critical evaluation of

the theoretical content of this work, see William E. Caplin, “Hugo Riemann’s Theory of ‘Dynamic

Shading’: A Theory of Musical Meter?” Theoria 1 (1985), 1–24. See also Wilhelm Seidel, “Rhythmus,

Metrum, Takt,” in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1998), Sachteil 8,

302–304. 8 Ludwig van Beethoven, Klaviersonaten, ed. Heinrich Schenker (Vienna: Universal Edition, 1921–23;

reprint, New York: Dover, 1975).

50

Example 3.1: Beethoven, Piano Sonata in Ef major, op. 31, no. 3, I, mm. 1–10. From the Schenker edition. My

analytical underlay.

Example 3.2 shows the same passage in Riemann’s phrasing edition.9

9 Beethoven, Sonaten für Klavier, ed. Hugo Riemann, 3 vols (Berlin: Simrock, 1885). Due to differing

conventions regarding the numbering of first and second endings, the Riemann and Schenker editions

occasionally disagree on measure numbers. In every excerpt quoted here, the measure numbers I

provide will match the edition cited in the excerpt’s caption.

51

Example 3.2: Beethoven, Piano Sonata in Ef major, op. 31, no. 3, I, mm. 1–10. From Riemann’s phrasing edition.

The most striking difference between these two excerpts is the sheer number of markings.

This difference is a symptom of a much broader difference between Riemann and Schenker

in their conception of the role of notation. For Schenker, notation signifies the desired musical

effect, and the performer must find some way of bringing this effect to life.10 For example, a

succession of notes grouped under a legato slur should be made to sound connected “for

specific reasons of counterpoint and diminution, and also to a quite specific degree.”11

Precisely how this is done is a matter of performance technique that is, strictly speaking,

none of the composer’s business. The performer’s job is to understand the musical reasoning

behind the notation and know his instrument well enough to bring this musical sense across.

Editorial notation that tells the performer what to do thus represents a fundamental

misunderstanding of the performer’s role and an arrogant imposition of the scholar onto the

artist.

Schenker’s famous denunciation of the phrasing slur responds to the different conception of

notation in the performing editions that proliferated in the late nineteenth century.12 At least

10 See Schenker, The Art of Performance, trans. Irene Schreier Scott (Oxford University Press, 2000), 5.

C.f. “Abolish the Phrasing Slur.” 11 “Abolish the Phrasing Slur,” 28. 12 Schenker does not name specific adversaries in his essay. Riemann cites the performing editions of

piano virtuosos such as Karl Klindworth (Chopin) and Sigmund Lebert and Hans von Bülow

(Beethoven) as predecessors, and similar such editions were the likely targets of Schenker’s ire. Cook

52

in Schenker’s understanding, an editorial slur tells the performer “play this legato!”—that is,

“play this on one bow/without tonguing”—irrespective of the musical reason for doing so.13

All that is required of the performer is that she know a few basic touches or patterns on her

instrument and recognize the conventional signs for them. A specifically musical

understanding is not necessary. This diminished conception of the performer’s role perhaps

explains the shrill tone of Schenker’s criticism.

Riemann’s notation obviously has a different motivation than Schenker’s, but it is not quite

a conventional performing edition either. It occupies a strange place in between and is best

understood as an attempted (and failed) notational reform. Certain of Riemann’s slurs and

hairpins are impossible to execute in any literal sense. Such markings must be taken as

describing some purely musical substance the performer can only suggest. The figure in

Example 3.3A (as it appears in Schenker’s edition) is notated by Riemann as in Example

3.3B. Donald Francis Tovey writes that this figure is “not a mere click; it is a two-syllable

word of affectionately quizzical import.”14 If it is indeed a two-syllable word, this figure is

certainly in a trochaic rhythm, a situation Riemann’s system—which is based on the principle

of upbeatness (Auftaktigkeit)—simply cannot allow. He therefore adds a reading mark (the

small vertical tick mark that delimits motives) between the two notes of each descending

interval.

(Beyond the Score, 210–211) writes that “Riemann was the principal target of Schenker’s attacks on

editors who substitute their own phrasing for the composer’s.” While Schenker was aware of Riemann’s

views on phrasing and criticized them in print, it is unlikely that this essay was intended specifically

as a response to Riemann, who died in 1919 and was no longer an influential rival by the mid-1920s. 13 See Schenker’s discussion of an exchange between Brahms and Joachim regarding the meaning of

a slur over a series of notes with staccato dots in “Abolish the Phrasing Slur,” 27–28. 14 Tovey, commentary to the sonata in Ef major, op.31 no.3, in Beethoven, Complete Pianoforte

Sonatas, ed. Harold Craxton, with commentary by Donald Francis Tovey, 3 vols (London: ABRSM,

1932), 2:149. Tovey’s technical commentaries in this edition are distinct from his better-known

analyses in his Companion to Beethoven’s Pianoforte Sonatas.

53

Example 3.3. A: Beethoven, Piano Sonata in Ef major, op. 31, no. 3, I, mm. 20–21, Schenker edition. B: Same

passage, Riemann’s phrasing edition.

This notation means the f' of the right hand is to be understood as a pickup to the next high

note rather than a rebound from the note immediately preceding it. But it is hard to imagine

how a literal rendition of this notation would even sound, let alone how it could be musically

satisfying. For Riemann, these lowest-level markings are not necessarily instructions for

performance.

The punctuation mark [i.e., the reading mark] indicates neither a breaking off of the

of the preceding note, nor a pause, nor the emphasis of the note following (although all

this very often might be perfectly correct and intended by the composer). The author

wishes first however to be understood as using them only as a guide to the eye so that

the smallest motive may not be misunderstood in the reading.15

In this situation, at least, Riemann’s score is not a direct instruction to the performer. It must

be intended to represent some underlying musical idea, more exactly and consistently

specified in his own notation than in Beethoven’s. The performer’s job is to render this idea

audible using his command of pianistic technique. It should be noted that this position differs

from Schenker’s only in its assessment of the adequacy of traditional notation.

However, Riemann did intend for his edition to simplify the performer’s reading of the score,

eliminating or reducing the need for sensitive interpretation and easing the job of the teacher.

This is a goal he shares with the traditional performing edition. In the preface to his edition,

Riemann writes:

This new method of notation is a continual explanation, a thorough thematic analysis

of the works; it prevents a defective or faulty rendering and gives at once, without the

necessity of reflection, the proper rendering; it facilitates the work of the teacher in a

15 From the English-language introduction to the phrasing edition, on an unnumbered page. Emphasis

original.

54

manner never before attained and also makes it possible for one who is without a

teacher to make progress without serious or glaring faults.16

The question of the status of Riemann’s scores in relation to the composer, performer, and

musical work is a complex one to which I shall return. In the meantime, two other persistent

features of Riemann’s editorial practice are worth mentioning. The first is his end-oriented

phrasing. Riemann consistently groups notes in strong metric positions with whatever came

before them, as the culmination of an end-oriented dynamic envelope. Perhaps most

unusually, in Example 3.2 he slurs the first note of the movement to a hypothetical preceding

event.17 Phrase markings of this sort occur at three levels of hierarchy, represented by large

slurs, small slurs, and reading marks. In the rare cases of exceptions to the norm of end-

oriented motives, when a strong beat stands by itself without a preceding upbeat figure,

Riemann places a diagonal reading mark on the bar line (see mm. 4 and 6 in Example 3.2

above).

The other remarkable feature of Riemann’s notation is his careful attention to harmonic

goals. His markings emphasize harmonic events on different scales. At the highest level, most

of the passage in Example 3.2 points toward the cadence at m. 8. On a lower level, the

chromaticism of m. 4 and the arrival of the dominant root in m. 6 serve as local goals. Most

interestingly, in m. 9 he places the reading mark after the ef'' and in the middle of the beat 1

triplet. From a metrical point of view this is an absurd choice, and it threatens Riemann’s

contention that meter is created through the dynamic and agogic swells of performance. But

to have the leading tone D serve as a local metrical goal in a tonic scalar run simply wouldn’t

do from a harmonic point of view. Two of Riemann’s basic principles come into conflict in this

measure, and harmony wins out. The important role of harmony in Riemann’s metrical

readings, if not always his explicit theorizing, is an issue that will resurface in the rest of this

study.

A theoretical outlook: Musikalische Dynamik und Agogik

Riemann’s intentions in Musikalische Dynamik und Agogik (hereafter Dynamik) are evident

from its complete subtitle: “textbook of musical phrasing, based on a revision of the theory of

16 Ibid. 17 In this movement, the expositional repeat provides a concrete manifestation of the missing upbeat

the second time around.

55

musical meter and rhythm.”18 The book is simultaneously a guide to performance and an

exposition of a revised theory of musical time—two topics that Riemann takes to be

inseparable. While he initially intended to write a treatise purely on rhythm and meter,

Riemann increasingly found it necessary to develop a “general theory of musical

segmentation, of phrasing.”19 The theory expounded in Dynamik, therefore, has a vastly

different orientation from any prior theory of rhythm and meter.20 Its central claim, which is

developed, nuanced, and hedged over the course of the book, is that metrical interpretation

arises in the first place from something the performer does. This claim resonates strongly

with the goals of phrasing theory, which takes intelligibility (clarity of meter) and

expressivity (musical progression and directedness) to be not just related but identical.

Before examining Riemann’s readings of specific pieces, I will introduce the basics of his

theory and his idiosyncratic terminology. Since Riemann is concerned with the limitations of

conventional notation in conveying musical meaning, he is largely uninterested in the

notated measure. Instead, he takes the metric motive (Taktmotiv) to be the basic element of

musical meter, while the bar lines are a notational convenience.21 A metric motive is a group

of notes unified by a common dynamic and agogic shape—their approach to or withdrawal

from a dynamic climax (as in Example 3.4). A complete metric motive has an increase of

energy (poco crescendo and poco stringendo) to a high point (variously called a strong point

[Schwerpunkt] or dynamic main note [dynamische Hauptnote]), followed by a decrease in

18 “Lehrbuch der musikalischen Phrasirung, auf Grund einer Revision der Lehre von der

musikalischen Metrik und Rhythmik.” 19 Riemann, Dynamik, 4. “. . . allgemeinen Theorie der musikalischen Gliederung, der Phrasirung. . .” 20 It is also different in important ways from Riemann’s later, better-known work on rhythm and meter.

The connections and disjunctions between Riemann’s early and late theories require further

discussion, but for the immediate purposes of this thesis I will ignore Riemann’s later theory aside

from a few offhand remarks. For points of entry into Riemann’s late theory of rhythm and meter, see

Caplin, “Theories of Musical Rhythm,” 686–691, and Smither, “Theories of Rhythm,” 229–248.

Riemann’s major mature treatise on rhythm and meter is his System der musikalischen Rhythmik und

Metrik (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1903), partial English translation, Bradley C. Hunnicutt, “Hugo

Riemann’s ‘System der musikalischen Rhythmik und Metrik,’ part 2: A translation preceded by

commentary” (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 2000). 21 In some publications (but not Dynamik), Riemann takes composers to task for notating their music

in a way that imperfectly reflects its true meter, perhaps suggesting the music should be rebarred. See

William Rothstein, “National Metrical Types,” 120. For Riemann, the bar lines are meant to reflect,

more or less well, the meter expressed by a composition. They do not create meter, and the actual

meter of a piece may (and very frequently does) contradict the bar lines.

56

energy (poco diminuendo and poco morendo). This basic dynamic-agogic envelope is called

the motive’s dynamic shading (dynamische Schattirung).22

Example 3.4: Uninterpreted four-note metric motives.

Not all metric motives are complete. Some have just the crescendo or just the diminuendo.

Riemann dubs these three basic shapes on-accented (anbetont, diminuendo motive), end-

accented (abbetont, crescendo motive), and mid-accented (inbetont, complete hairpin

motive).23 In every simple metric motive, regardless of its form, we conventionally draw the

bar line just before the dynamic climax (Example 3.5).

Example 3.5: Riemann’s metric motives in quadruple meter.

Riemann gives the three types for completeness, but in practice he rejects the on-accented

type as a common metric formation.

Die anbetonten Motive sind seltener als man gewöhnlich annimmt; während

Hauptmann in ihnen die positiven Bildungen der Metrik sieht, muss ich sie im

Gegentheil als negative bezeichnen, da das abnehmen, absterben doch ohne Frage das

Gegentheil eines Werdens, einer positiven Entwickelung ist. Der ästhetische Werth

der anbetonten Motive ist der der Ruhe, Leidenschaftslosigkeit. Dass die fortgesetzte

Wiederholung von Diminuendo-Motiven das Interesse nicht dauernd beschäftigen

kann, liegt wohl auf der Hand; wir werden daher finden, dass die anbetonten Motive

einander selten oder nie in grösserer Anzahl folgen, dass vielmehr so bald als möglich

zu anderen Formen übergegangen wird. Unsere Auffassung vollzieht aus innerem

22 Whenever Riemann makes a statement about dynamics, he seems to intend that a parallel

statement be made about agogics. However, his treatise focuses on the dynamic side to a much greater

extent, with the agogic paragraphs usually occurring as afterthoughts. 23 I use these terms rather than Smither’s “initially,” “terminally,” and “internally stressed motives”

(“Theories of Rhythm,” 191) in the interest of avoiding wordiness. Riemann also uses “Abbetonung,”

“Anbetonung,” and “Inbetonung” as nouns.

57

Bedürfniss diese Umdeutung selbst da, wo sie vielleicht nicht in der bewussten

Vorstellung des Komponisten gelegen hat.24

On-accented motives are rarer than is usually assumed; while Hauptmann sees in

them the positive formations of meter, I must on the contrary label them as negative,

for waning and dying off is without question the opposite of coming into being, which

is a positive development. The aesthetic value of the on-accented motive is that of calm

and dispassion. That the constant repetition of diminuendo-motives cannot sustain

lasting interest is probably obvious; we therefore find that on-accented motives rarely

or never follow each other in large numbers, and instead will change over to another

form as soon as possible. Our conception implements this reinterpretation out of inner

need, even where it perhaps has not lain in the conscious imagination of the composer.

Since the notated measure corresponds with the boundaries of the metric motive only in

simple on-accented forms, there will usually be a discrepancy between the true metric

groupings and those suggested by the bar lines.

Die Entfernung der Taktstriche von einander entspricht daher allerdings der

Entfernung der dynamischen Hauptnoten der Motive und sofern nicht die Form der

Motive wechselt, auch der Grösse der Motive; je nachdem aber die Motive anbetont,

in- oder abbetont sind, füllen sie gerade das zwischen zwei Taktstrichen liegende

Zeitintervall selbst aus, oder ragen aus einem Takt in den andern hinüber, auf beide

gleichmässig vertheilt oder dem einen oder dem andern mit dem grösseren Theile

angehörend.25

The distance of the bar lines from one another corresponds to the distance between the

motives’ dynamic main notes and, so long as the motives’ form does not change, also

the motives’ extent. Depending on whether the motives are on-, mid-, or end-accented,

they exactly fill the interval of time between two bar lines or protrude into another

measure—either equally divided between both measures, or with a larger part

belonging to one or the other.

24 Dynamik, 12. 25 Riemann, Dynamik, 13.

58

The succession of metric motives gives rise to a pattern of accentuation recognizable as meter.

Wilhelm Seidel thus writes that Riemann “hollows out meter, abolishing the conventional

metrics of intrinsic weight and putting dynamics and agogics in its place.”26

Unlike proponents of the accent theory, Riemann does not propose an abstract metric grid

into which musical content can fall.27 Instead, meter comes from the bottom up: meter

consists in the listener’s interpretation of a series of tones as metric motives. In simple

formations, this revised conception does not require us to change our perspective

significantly. However, most of Riemann’s book will discuss the various ways in which metric

motives can be perturbed by subdividing, combining, displacing, or omitting beats from their

simple forms. Heinz-Ludwig Denecke defines meter in Riemannian theory as “the theory of

the measure conceived as equal note values without rests,” while rhythm is the theory that

treats of “the transformations of metrical patterns brought about through the processes of

subdivision and combination”: “Rhythm, therefore, is the theory of more complicated metrical

formations; meter, on the other hand, is the theory of simple rhythmical formations.”28

Riemann’s theory has one other major difference in orientation from the accent theory. While

the accent theory begins by positing an infinite series of tones of identical strength and

duration, Riemann begins with something much simpler: a single unbroken tone of infinite

duration. In pseudo-Hauptmannian fashion, he posits the infinite series of tones as an

antithesis to the single unbroken tone. The synthesis of these two concepts is found in groups

of tones, at first only a few tones at a time, and then groups of groups and so on.

The exact logical status of Riemann’s quasi-dialectical argument need not concern us here.

The point is that one of Riemann’s fundamental concerns is with how music can be not just

successive but continuous. The accent theory posits a mere succession of strong and weak

events with nothing to unite them into musical objects that persist through time. Its basis is

staccato: the individual note set off by silence on each side. But the prototype of musical

26 “Er entkernt den Takt: Er setzt das herkömmliche Metrum, das innere Taktgewicht, außer Kraft.

Dynamik und Agogik treten an seine Stelle.” Seidel, “Rhythmus, Metrum, Takt,” 302. On the theory

of inner or intrinsic weight, see Chapter 2. 27 On this conception, see Roger Mathew Grant, “Epistemologies of Time and Metre in the Long

Eighteenth Century,” Eighteenth-Century Music 6, no. 1 (March 2009), 59–75, and Tomas McAuley,

“Rhythmic Accent and the Absolute: Sulzer, Schelling, and the Akzenttheorie,” Eighteenth-Century

Music 10, no. 2 (September 2013), 277–286. 28 “Die Kompositionslehre Hugo Riemanns” (PhD diss., Kiel, 1937). Qtd. and trans. in Smither,

“Theories of Rhythm,” 199.

59

motion, Riemann writes, is not staccato, but “the pause-banishing legato.”29 Musical motion,

therefore, cannot be based upon an analogy with language.

Die historische Ursache der erwähnten falschen Behandlung der musikalischen

Metrik ist die einfache Uebertragung der Theorie der poetischen Metrik auf die

musikalische. Die Sprache kennt aber das ununterbrochene Tönen, den directen

Zusammenschluss verschieden hoher Töne kaum, da die Mehrzahl der Konsonanten

die Töne der Vokale thatsächlich unterbricht (b, c, d, g, k, p, q, t, z), während einige

andere (f, v, w, h, ch, s, sch) an Stelle des Vokaltones ein tonlich indifferentes Sausen

oder Zischen setzen; der Sprache ist also gerade das versagt, was ein Haupt-

Lebenselement der Musik ist: das stetige Anwachsen und Abnehmen der Tonstärke

auch beim Wechsel der Tonhöhe. Die Sprache kennt daher nur einen Wechsel

stärkerer und schwächerer, oder wie man sagt: schwerer und leichter, accentuirter

und accentloser Vokale und Silben.30

The historical cause of the aforementioned false treatment of musical meter is the

simple transference of the theory of poetic meter to music. But language scarcely

knows uninterrupted sounds, the direct joining of tones of various pitches, since the

majority of consonants actually interrupt the tone of the vowel (b, c, d, g, k, p, q, t, s),

while a few others (f, v, w, h, ch, s, sch) put a tonally indifferent swish or hiss in its

place; language is therefore simply denied what is a main vital element of music: the

continuous growth and decay of the strength of tones along with change of pitch.

Language knows only a change of stronger and weaker or, as one says, heavy and light,

accented and unaccented vowels and syllables.

Riemann’s theory is based on an aural image of music as something continuous that admits

of no hard breaks.31 This is a radically different approach from that of most of the theorists

who followed him, and the consensus among modern commentators is that it was not

successful. But the nature of Riemann’s project means that it holds tremendous interest for

modern performance theorists. His concern is with structures that are perceivable and can

be recognized from an in-time perspective. He deals with the temporal negotiation between

29 Dynamik, 10. “. . . die Pause verbannende Legato.” 30 Dynamik, 10. 31 Riemann’s perspective here calls to mind Victor Zuckerkandl’s account of rhythm and meter, which

also emphasizes the continuous motion of musical energy through the more or less arbitrary dividing

lines of the beats. See Zuckerkandl, Sound and Symbol, trans. Willard R. Trask, 2 vols. (New York:

Pantheon Books, 1956), 1:169–180; and The Sense of Music, corr. ed. (Princeton University Press,

1971), 115–130.

60

performer and listener over matters of metrical interpretation, using the music of long-dead

composers as a medium. This point of view is therefore consonant with that of performance

theory, and it is through performance theory that its contribution will be best understood and

appreciated, if it is to be understood and appreciated at all.

Meter and dynamic shading in the Beethoven sonatas

As traditionally understood, musical meter involves articulations of varying strengths at

regular time-intervals. This model conflicts with Riemann’s aural image of music as

constituted by a continuous dynamic motion.32 Riemann has no qualms about jettisoning the

traditional understanding of meter in favour of a theoretical universe that contains nothing

but continuous metric motives. But certain musical events absolutely depend on something

like a traditional meter. This predicament leaves three possible options. The first is to

abandon the theory of dynamic shading. The second is to find some way to accommodate

these problematic musical events within the theory. The third is to redefine the theory in

some way so that it acts in parallel to a traditional theory of meter.

In his account of Riemann’s book, Caplin takes the third option. For him, Riemann’s theory

of dynamic shading is a theory of performance (or phrasing) masquerading as a theory of

meter:

To be sure, a theory of phrasing may well be based on a theory of meter and rhythm,

but the one is not necessarily identical with the other. Riemann seems to be unaware

of an important difference between the goal of a theory of meter (or rhythm)—what

one understands and explains—and the goal of a theory of phrasing—how one realizes

this understanding in the context of an actual performance. . . . A fully developed

theory of meter may well differ in some fundamental respects from a theory of phrasing

that is derived from it.33

Caplin’s distinction between “what one understands and explains” and “how one realizes this

understanding” contains an implicit assumption about musical ontology: that one can talk

about abstract structures such as the meter of a piece of music independently of how one will

realize it in performance. This assumption may be true, but it is no longer obvious. In what

32 For a discussion of this contradiction between continuous motion and discrete division in the earlier

metric theory of Simon Sechter, see Caplin, “Harmony and Meter in the Theories of Simon Sechter,”

Music Theory Spectrum 2, no. 1 (Spring 1980), 74–89. 33 Caplin, “Riemann’s Theory of Dynamic Shading,” 7.

61

remains of this chapter, I will revisit and re-evaluate Caplin’s arguments about the points of

tension in Riemann’s theory where the complexities of real musical situations appear to force

a retreat from the equation of phrasing with meter. This exercise will give us a stronger

understanding of Riemann’s project in his work on phrasing from the 1880s as a sophisticated

essay in performance theory that attempts to explain the negotiations between performer,

composer, and listener in the moment of performance.

Caplin remarks that the first task of a theory of meter must be to identify the most basic

metrical object: the downbeat of the measure. If dynamic shading, with its simple equivalence

between dynamic and metric stress, is to function as a theory of meter, then the metric

downbeat must always be the loudest note. Obviously, this is not the case in real music, which

often has cause to displace or suppress the dynamic accent on the metric downbeat. When

Riemann deals with such situations, Caplin contends, he is forced to fall back upon an

abstract musical energy that is not equivalent to literal dynamics in order to explain the

discrepancy between loudness and metrical stress. Caplin identifies several such cases, which

I will discuss in turn.

Displacement of the downbeat

While Riemann’s claims about meter in Dynamik are often murky, he never states that

dynamic climaxes and notated metrical accents (that is, beginnings of notated measures)

must always be equivalent. He only implies that this is usually the case. A time signature of

4/4 signifies that the metric motives are primarily four beats long, and the strongest beat will

usually fall at the beginning of the notated measure. It is possible for the occasional motive

to be enlarged, compressed, subdivided, or transformed in a number of other ways.

Wir begegnen solchen Widersprüchen der Taktvorzeichnung und der Motivbildung

häufig; die Vorzeichnung richtet sich nur nach der überwiegenden Form der

Motivbildung und nimmt auf veränderte Bildungen, die Erweiterungen oder

Verkleinerungen derselben sind, keine Rücksicht.34

We frequently encounter such contradictions between metrical notation and motivic

shapes; the notation focuses only on the most common form of motivic shape and takes

34 Riemann, Dynamik, 24.

62

no notice of varied shapes that are expansions or diminutions of [these most common

forms].

Based as it is on Beethoven’s piano sonatas, it is hard to imagine how Riemann’s theory could

prescribe otherwise. Any sonata movement of significant length will necessarily contain

rhythmic figures or phrase shapes that contradict the overall metrical notation. Within

Riemann’s theory, which allows no musical reality to metrical notation except insofar as it

conforms to the rhythmic figures, only statistical prevalence can serve as a criterion to

determine “the” correct meter for a piece. More precisely, every piece has places where the

notated meter could be momentarily changed to better reflect the rhythmic values, and only

convenience and parsimony prevents composers (or editors) from doing so.

This conception of meter can be clarified by examining Riemann’s treatment of syncopation.

For example, take the following passage from Beethoven’s sonata op. 31, no. 3 (Example 3.6).

The passage begins with two two-measure hairpin figures (the hairpins belong to Riemann,

not to Beethoven). These are followed by two four-beat hairpin figures, and then two two-

beat diminuendo figures. The accent theory would detect a kind of a syncopation or hemiola,

a conflict between the triple meter and the duple rhythm beginning in m. 68. For Riemann’s

theory of dynamic shading, there is no such conflict because the thing the meter inheres in—

the natural shading of the 3/4 metric motive—is absent. There is only the surface rhythmic

figure, the mid-accented quadruple motive. We could say the 3/4 meter is briefly suspended,

and no plausible candidate emerges to replace it. Syncopations, Riemann claims, “essentially

change the dynamics and bring time values, which are of subordinate significance in the

simple schemas, to the foreground.”35

35 Riemann, Dynamik, 56. “. . . die Dynamik wesentlich zu verändern und Zeitwerthe, die im einfachen

Schema von untergeordneter Bedeutung sind, in den Vordergrund zu stellen.”

63

Example 3.6: Beethoven, Piano Sonata in Ef major, op. 31, no. 3, I, mm. 64–72. From Riemann’s phrasing

edition. My analytical underlay.

Caplin argues that “the aesthetic effect of syncopation can be achieved only when the

syncopated note conflicts with the dominant metrical organization.”36 Syncopation requires

a listener to hear and understand both a metrical downbeat and a rhythmic pattern that

conflicts in some way with that downbeat. Cases where this conflict occurs between different

parts of a musical texture that are syncopated with respect to each other do not present a

problem for Riemann’s theory. But on Caplin’s view, cases like Example 3.6 are problematic

because the whole musical texture is displaced with respect to the notated measure. If the

3/4 meter has no reality in this passage, what exactly is conflicting with the duple rhythms?

We must either redefine syncopation or find some way to recover this sense of conflict within

the terms of Riemann’s theory.

If the sense of conflict can be recovered at all, it must be recovered on the basis of a listener’s

expectations. The duple phrasing of mm. 68–70 will still clash with the prevailing rhythms

that surround it, giving a downbeat earlier or later than expected. If these syncopated figures

repeated enough times that we were to accept them as the new normal, we would in fact

experience a meter change (and perhaps a change of metrical notation would be warranted).

36 Caplin, “Riemann’s Theory of Dynamic Shading,” 11.

64

Otherwise, the meter will feel as if it has come unstuck with nothing clear to replace it, a

sense of vertigo that is remedied when normal dynamic shading is restored in m. 72.

This account of simple syncopation provides a model for Riemann’s treatment of various other

kinds of displacement. He gives a few examples, all drawn from the Beethoven sonatas, of

dynamic peaks that are displaced from the notated downbeat for melodic reasons. In

Example 3.7, from the sonata in Bf major, op. 22, Beethoven notates a crescendo on the

descending arpeggio to forestall any slackening of intensity.37 The c' of m. 7 is the strongest

note heard thus far in its phrase and would seem to fulfil the metrical responsibilities of the

downbeat. But the c''' that follows on beat 2, two octaves higher, is significantly louder.

Example 3.7: Beethoven, Piano Sonata in Bf major, op. 22, II, mm. 6–9. From Riemann’s phrasing edition. My

analytical underlay.

Does this displacement conflict with the notated meter? If we interpret Riemann’s theory

strictly, the answer must be yes. A note on beat 2 with such a strong emphasis must tend to

suppress the sense that the beginning of the notated measure is a genuine downbeat. The

effect of this suppression is to attenuate the audible expression of the notated meter, creating

a long mid-accented phrase stretching from the pickup of m. 6 all the way to the downbeat of

m. 9 with seemingly no strong internal articulations.38 Of course, other strong factors express

the notated meter, such as the harmonic rhythm and the ascent in the bass. But to support

this common-sense interpretation, we must appeal to information other than dynamics and

agogics.

37 Riemann discusses this example in Dynamik, 177. 38 In Riemann’s notation, the accent mark on the downbeat of m. 8 indicates an agogic accent.

65

But more to the point, does this metrical conflict seriously disturb the sense of meter? To

answer this question, we must look at its context. Example 3.8 shows the opening measures

of the movement. This opening establishes a triple meter with a strong mid-accented shading

of a one-beat pickup to a two-beat decrescendo. The metrical emphasis is reinforced by long

appoggiaturas in mm. 2, 3, and 5. Already in m. 4, Riemann bends the meter slightly by

indicating a longer phrase with a dynamic climax on the third beat. But overall these

measures establish a stable metrical pattern that sets up expectations for what will follow.

Example 3.8: Beethoven, Piano Sonata in Bf major, op. 22, II, mm. 1–5. From Riemann’s phrasing edition. My

analytical underlay.

The measures quoted above in Example 3.7 fragment the harmony and push toward a

cadence. It is fitting that they should be tightly drawn together by phrasing, creating a

continuous forward dynamic motion rather than a stable articulation of the meter. This

seems to be a common trend in Riemann’s markings of slow-movement sentential themes—

the presentation phrase is separated into two or even four units of dynamic shading, while

the continuation is unified.39 Riemann’s theory tells us there is a sense in which these

measures temporarily cease to be in 9/8 time. But by this point the listener’s feeling for the

meter has already become entrenched, and the music continues to be countable in 9/8 time.

39 See for example Riemann’s notation of the opening of the second movement of the sonata op. 31 no. 1,

an exactly equivalent situation. This theme is also a sentence in a slow 9/8 time and a major key, with

a prominent 5–6 motion via augmented triad over IV in the continuation. Riemann’s phrasing

interpretation in such cases is the exact opposite of the harmonic rhythm: where the harmonic rhythm

is slow, he articulates the music into smaller pieces, and where the harmonies begin to move he unifies

the phrasing.

66

The expression of the 9/8 meter—the actual triple articulation of the measure—is fleetingly

suspended, but it is not replaced with a rival meter, and it is restored in due time. Riemann

is right to consider such a displacement to be insignificant vis-à-vis our overall interpretation

of the meter of mm. 1–9, though it is of course striking.

In Example 3.7, the offset dynamic climax also falls on the most interesting chord of the

passage: the augmented triad on IV. Such harmonically motivated displacements are

common. Riemann associates movement away from the tonic with positive development

(positive Entwickelung) and thus crescendo, while movement toward the tonic is a negative

development and thus diminuendo. We saw above in Example 3.2 that such considerations

often override the local divisions of meter in Riemann’s theory and notation.

Riemann’s notion of harmonic dynamics has a very restricted applicability. In order to

understand how he uses the concept, it will be useful to retrace his argument. He begins by

noting that

Eine überaus grosse Zahl Themen, besonders der klassischen Meisterwerke, beginnen

mit zwei kurzen Phrasen, deren harmonischen Schema ist:40

an overwhelming number of themes, particularly of classical masterworks, begin with

two short phrases in which the harmonic schema is:

I. II.

Tonic – Dominant Dominant – Tonic

Three of the excerpts Riemann uses to introduce this concept are given in Example 3.9.

40 Riemann, Dynamik, 186.

67

Example 3.9: Riemann's examples of harmonic dynamics. Adapted from Dynamik, 186–187.

Although Riemann describes each excerpt as consisting of two phrases, Caplin would call

them basic ideas—the two-measure musical unit that initiates a sentential or periodic

theme.41 In Example 3.9A, the quoted excerpt initiates an eight-measure sentence. Riemann’s

statement about the harmonic dynamics of this phrase amounts to no more than a

prescription that the two-measure shape should override the meter within the bar. In more

modern language, we could say that the two-measure hypermetric interpretation takes

precedence over the one-measure metrical interpretation. More provocatively, we could say

41 See Caplin, Classical Form, 9–13, and 253 s.v. “basic idea.” Caplin usually reserves the term

“phrase” for a four-measure unit containing two such ideas.

68

Riemann’s intention is to bring to the fore the expansion of tonic harmony in these two

measures, so it can be compared with the expansion of dominant harmony that follows in

mm. 3 and 4 (not shown here) and the subsequent continuation and cadential progression

that unify them. In Example 3.9B, the quoted excerpt initiates an eight-measure period.

Riemann’s commentary indicates that, despite the melody descending and then ascending,

the dynamics should follow the harmony: crescendo into m. 1, then descrescendo into m. 2.

His intention here seems to be similar to Example 3.9A. He wishes to place emphasis on the

two-measure hypermetric level and the harmonic progression rather than the melodic

contour. In Example 3.9C, Riemann’s point is that such two-measure motives may well lead

to some beginnings of measures being quiet. In such cases, the two-measure hypermetric

level is the only metric level operative.

When Riemann talks about larger structures—beyond a bar or two—and the dynamics of

modulation, he makes sure to clarify that he is not discussing literal dynamics but an abstract

musical energy.42 In short, Riemann’s statements on harmonic dynamics are largely intended

to explain how to interpret motives around the two-measure level in highly conventional

theme types. They are not, except in a very abstract sense and with many qualifications and

hedges, meant to apply to every instance of dominant harmony resolving to tonic.

Riemann goes on to list several cases where emphasis on a dissonant chord causes the

dynamic climax to shift backward from the downbeat onto the weak beat preceding it. One

particularly clear example comes from the “Appassionata” sonata, op. 57 (Example 3.10).

This situation can be explained in terms similar to those of simple syncopation, or

displacement due to melodic reasons.

42 See Riemann, Dynamik, 187.

69

Example 3.10: Beethoven, Piano Sonata in F minor, op. 57 “Appassionata,” I, mm. 201–202. From Riemann’s

phrasing edition. My analytical underlay.

In the cases discussed thus far I have invoked a notion of metric “countability,” which I have

opposed to metric “feeling” or “expression.” Before moving on, I want to deal with one

objection to this distinction that is likely to arise. Might we not say that meter just is that

which is countable in music, and give a different name to that which is felt? (Perhaps “that

which is felt” could be called phrasing.) If we are interested in building resilient theoretical

systems, then adopting a more conventional theory of meter and reconstruing dynamic

shading as a theory of phrasing is a convenient solution. But for the purposes of the

intellectual history of music theory, it is impossible to get around Riemann’s insistence that

he is seeking to explain meter and not something else. To properly understand Riemann’s

theory, we must ask: What sort of judgment does Riemann think we are making when we

make a metrical interpretation about a passage of music?

Under the accent theory, the answer would be that the music fits into one of a small number

of pre-existing metric frameworks derived from the nature of time and human cognition.

Certain kinds of events can only happen in certain places in these frameworks, and the

passage of music under consideration complies with these restrictions in all respects. Under

Riemann’s theory of dynamic shading, the answer is something quite different. When we

interpret the meter of an extended passage of music, we are making a judgment about which

metric motives are quantitatively predominant or qualitatively prototypical. We are relating

these prototypical motives to an even more generic prototype, the metric motive of equal note

values without rests. These two judgments proceed in opposite directions. The accent theory

takes the pre-existing metric form and compares it against musical content. Riemann’s

theory takes the surface musical content and proposes a background metric form in terms of

which it might be understood. While the accent theory proposes meter as an empty form to

70

be filled with musical content, Riemann proposes meter as a creation of musical content

which is inextricable from the musical surface.

How does performance fit into this perspective? Riemann’s conception is fundamentally an

in-time one in which our interpretation of the meter evolves along with the ebb and flow of

the music. This means that meter does not and cannot exist apart from some specific

performance, whether real or imagined. Thus his motivic and metrical interpretations of the

Beethoven sonatas must take the form of prescriptions for performance—which we can take

as a trace of an imaginary performance in Riemann’s head. What matters is not so much

whether this hypothetical performance is good, but what its implications are for Riemann’s

(and our) understanding of Beethoven’s music.

Negation of the downbeat

Perhaps unusually in a book focused mainly on dynamics, Riemann includes an entire

chapter discussing the role of rests.43 Early in this chapter, he hints at the possibility of a

“dynamics of the rest,” a concept which Caplin takes to be problematic for the theory of

dynamic shading. To grant musical silence a dynamic value would require a metaphorical

application of dynamics, abstracting away from the literal equation of performer-produced

loudness with metric stress.44 It is worth quoting Riemann at length on this issue:

Von einer eigentlichen Dynamik der Pause kann ja nun natürlich nicht die Rede sein,

wenigstens nicht in dem Sinne, in welchem wir das Wort bisher gebrauchten und in

welchem es gewöhnlich gebraucht wird, nämlich dem von Tonstärke; es kann sich

vielmehr nur um einen verschiedenen Werth handeln, den das Nicht- Tönen für unser

Empfinden erhält, je nachdem es als Negation eines stärkeren oder schwächeren

Tönens auftritt: mit anderen Worten, die Pause ist das Nachbild des Tones resp. des

aus einer Reihe von Tönen verschiedener Dynamik bestehenden Tonbildes. Wie man

nach kräftiger Einwirkung von hell beleuchteten Körpern auf das Auge ein negatives

Bild derselben sieht, wenn man die Augen plötzlich fest schliesst, wie eine hellere

Lichtfläche einen desto intensive dunklen Fleck giebt, so entspricht der ausfallenden

43 On rests in Riemannian theory more broadly, see Youn Kim, “‘The Voice in Silence’: Hugo Riemann’s

Pausenlehre and Its Psychological Implications,” Journal of Musicological Research 32, no. 4 (October

2013), 287–313. 44 Caplin, “Riemann’s Theory of Dynamic Shading,” 10.

71

dynamisch werthvolleren Note eine intensivere Empfindung des Nicht-Tönens, eine

stärkere Negation, eine bedeutungsvollere Pause.45

Naturally, there can be no talk of an actual dynamics of the rest, at least not in the

sense in which we have so far used the word and in which it is generally used—namely,

intensity of tone. Rather, it can only refer to a value that our sensation takes as “non-

tone,” which varies depending upon whether it serves as the negation of a stronger or

weaker tone: in other words, the rest is the afterimage of the tone or, more precisely,

of the tonal impression consisting of a series of tones of changing dynamic. Just as a

negative image appears when, after the powerful effect of brightly lit objects upon the

eyes, one suddenly closes them tightly; just as a brighter flash of light gives an all the

more intensely dark patch; so to the dynamically stronger suppressed note corresponds

a more intense sensation of non-tone, a stronger negation, a more significant rest.

One characteristically Beethovenian gesture that is relevant in this connection is the

crescendo into a subito piano, which Riemann dubs the “Beethoven piano.” Example 3.11

shows mm. 21–23 of the “Waldstein” sonata, op. 53, as it appears in Riemann’s phrasing

edition. Riemann marks this as an end-accented phrase beginning at m. 21 and ending with

the half cadence at the downbeat of m. 23. The entire phrase is united by a crescendo, doubly

notated with both a verbal indication and a hairpin symbol. The phrase begins mezzo piano

at m. 21 and grows from there, but the crescendo abruptly breaks off in m. 23 with a subito

piano.

Example 3.11: Beethoven, Piano Sonata in C major, op. 53 “Waldstein,” I, mm. 21–23. From Riemann’s phrasing

edition. My analytical underlay.

45 Riemann, Dynamik, 139.

72

The downbeat of m. 23 is both a metrically strong position and the goal of a two-measure

phrase. According to the theory of dynamic shading, it ought to be the loudest point in this

passage. But in fact, if the dynamics are observed, this moment will be the quietest in its

vicinity. A similar situation can be found in the coda of the same movement, as in Example

3.12. In both cases, the Beethoven piano occurs on a downbeat with the resolution of a

dissonant chord, along with the goal of a local phrase.

Example 3.12: Beethoven, Piano Sonata in C major, op. 53 “Waldstein,” I, mm. 259–261. From Riemann’s

phrasing edition. My analytical underlay.

In both examples, the presence of both a metric downbeat and a phrase goal (which, for

Riemann, are largely the same thing) can still be easily inferred by a listener. The resolution

of the augmented sixth chord (in Example 3.11) and the common-tone diminished chord (in

Example 3.12) will mark the beginning of a new measure firmly enough, as will the changes

in texture. In Example 3.11, lifting the pedal on the bar line between mm. 22 and 23 will also

contribute to the effect of disjunction between the two measures. In other words, the sense of

meter is not disturbed in either of these passages. But we are forced to appeal to

considerations such as harmony and articulation as the vehicles of metric organization. The

simple equation between dynamics and meter—the thesis of Riemann’s book—appears to fall

through at this point.

Riemann considers the Beethoven piano to be essentially a surface effect, since the musical

sense is not altered if the subito piano is omitted. But a more extreme situation occurs when

an actual silence replaces the downbeat and phrase goal. In such situations, which Riemann

refers to as the “Pausen-Abbetonung” or end-accented rest, the note that ought to be loudest

is in fact completely silent. For him, “a rest that occurs at the end of a crescendo motive in

73

place of the dynamic main note must bring forth the most intense effect.”46 Example 3.13

shows an excerpt from the third movement of the “Moonlight” sonata, op. 27 no. 2. The goal

of each phrase is the rest in the right hand preceded by a sforzando fourth beat. (While

Riemann places a sforzando under both chords at the end of mm. 2, 4, 6, 7, and 8, Beethoven

originally marked sforzando on only the first of each pair of chords.)

46 Riemann, Dynamik, 157. “Die intensivste Wirkung muss eine Pause hervorbringen, welche am

Schlusse eines crescendo-Motivs statt der dynamischen Hauptnote eintritt.”

74

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75

Throughout this passage, the sense of meter is basically secure. It is worth enquiring how

this is possible under Riemann’s theory. Within the terms of dynamic shading, why should

the music be interpreted as it is, and not as in Example 3.14? Of course neither interpretation

is plausible, but we should expect a theory of meter to explain why they are implausible.

Example 3.14: Hypothetical rebarrings of the opening measures of Beethoven, Piano Sonata in C-sharp minor,

op. 27, no. 2 “Moonlight,” III.

In answering this question, we discover a limit to dynamic shading and its contribution to

meter. In both excerpts quoted in Example 3.14, dynamic shading would consider the reading

plausible up to a point. Example 3.14A, where the music is renotated in 7/4 time to make the

dynamic climax fall on the downbeat, is plausible as far as it goes. However, if the music were

continued in this way, we would eventually end up with either an extra beat or a change of

meter, both events we would presumably avoid in our metrical interpretations. But nothing

within the terms of dynamic shading strictly defined excludes the reading in Example 3.14B.

Of course, both readings are impossible in conventional terms for a very simple reason: they

syncopate the harmony across the bar line and move the change of harmony onto a weak

beat. Harmonic motion is such a strong indication of the correct metric interpretation that it

is virtually impossible to hear the music as in Example 3.14A or B with even the strongest

act of will, regardless of how the music is performed.47 In Riemann’s theory, dynamics,

47 Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff consider harmonic rhythm to be one of the strongest factors

affecting metrical interpretation. See A Generative Theory of Tonal Music (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,

1983), 84. Caplin agrees that syncopation of the harmony creates a problem for theories of meter, and

he cites the possibility of a syncopated fundamental bass as a serious problem for Rameau’s theory of

supposition. See “Theories of Harmonic-Metric Relationships,” 31–33, 61–63.

76

rhythm, melody, and harmony combine to give an overall metrical interpretation of the

passage—these factors are generally aligned, not in conflict. But in some cases, they do or

can conflict, and harmony usually proves to be the strongest. As a result, we arrive at a very

important conclusion about the limits of dynamic shading as a theory of meter: dynamic

shading (i.e. the performer’s actions) cannot overturn a metrical interpretation created by

harmony.

Riemann never considers such strange interpretations in his book. He assumes the passage

will be interpreted in 4/4 time with the movement beginning on the notated downbeat, and

asks only whether the passage should be interpreted as on-accented (bar by bar) or end-

accented (in two-bar crescendo motives). In phrases with an end-accented rest, “the dynamic

of the whole motive hangs on the interpretation of the rest.”48 Starting from a minimally

marked up version of the passage (Example 3.15), which is close to Beethoven’s original

notation, he asks how we can interpret the two-measure motive metrically. If it is on-accented

and thus bounded by the bar lines, the effect of the sforzando in m. 2 would be a slight

disturbance of the metric diminuendo, confined to the single chord on which it is marked. He

seems to consider this a possible but undesirable interpretation.

Example 3.15: From Riemann, Dynamik, 157.

On the other hand, if one accepts the premise that the motive is end-accented and the

dynamic main note has been replaced with a rest, “natural dynamics and agogics demand a

constant increase until the rest at the end of the phrase.”49 The sforzando, coming on the

heels of an increase in intensity, will be much stronger and will apply to both chords. Here

we may sense echoes of Riemann in Daniel Barenboim’s famous statement that this sort of

48 Riemann, Dynamik, “Die Dynamik der ganzen Motivs hängt aber in solchem Falle von der

Auffassung der Pause ab.” 49 Riemann, Dynamik, 158. “…so fordert die natürliche Dynamik und Agogik eine durchgehende

Steigerung bis zur Schlusspause.”

77

Beethovenian rhetoric “requires a lot of courage and energy” to follow through without

hesitation at the last moment.50 The expected climax on the downbeat of m. 3 is suppressed

with a rest in the right hand, and the B-sharp in the left hand already begins the next motive.

The initial motive is left unfulfilled, its pent-up energy carrying over to the next motive until,

finally, at m. 9 we hear an accented downbeat.

Riemann comments on the cumulative effect of these opening measures:

Diese Folge dreier zweitaktigen und eines eintaktigen crescendo-Motivs mit

Erstickung der erreichten Tonstärke durch eine an Stelle der dynamischen Hauptnote

gesetzten Pause ist von fast beängstigender Wirkung, und die endlich im neunten Takt

wirklich durch einen vollen Akkord vertretene dynamische Hauptnote erscheint wie

die Summe aller der in den acht vorausgegangenen Takten aufgespeicherten Kraft.

Sie macht gleichsam diese acht Takte zu einem einzigen riesenhaften crescendo-Motiv,

das in ihr sein abbetontes Ende findet. Der ganze Satz ist äusserst belehrend für

diejenigen, welche an die Lehre von der natürlichen Dynamik der auftaktigen Formen

nicht glauben sollten. Man sehe nur zu, wie weit man da mit der Accentuationstheorie

kommt! man wird statt Beethovens zottigen Titanenhauptes einen gemüthlichen

Philister daraus herausschauen sehen.51

The succession of these three two-measure and one one-measure crescendo motives,

with the achieved intensity stifled by a rest in place of the dynamic main note, is of

nearly terrifying effect, and the eventual dynamic main note actually represented by

a full chord in the ninth measure appears as the sum of all the energy accumulated in

the eight preceding measures. It makes the eight measures into, as it were, a single

gigantic crescendo motive, which finds in [this chord] its end-accented goal. The whole

movement is extremely instructive for all those who do not believe in the theory of

upbeat forms. Just look how far one can get with the accent theory! Instead of

Beethoven’s shaggy Titan head, one will see a jovial philistine peering out of it.

Riemann observes that these two effects, the Beethoven piano and the end-accented rest,

have a certain kinship: “in both cases the aesthetic value of the dynamic main note is made

all the more intense precisely through the negation of the regular dynamic.”52 He posits these

50 See Barenboim and Said, Parallels and Paradoxes, 143. 51 Riemann, Dynamik, 158–159. 52 Riemann, Dynamik, 160. “In beiden Fällen kommt der ästhetische Werth der dynamischen

Hauptnote gerade durch die Negirung der regulären Dynamik desto intensiver zur Geltung.”

78

situations as special cases that modify the typical metric behaviour. Such modifications are

possible because typical metric behaviour—since it is typical—is so readily expected that

playing with it presents no real challenge. Abruptly breaking off the progression of a familiar

dynamic shape, creating a clash between what the listener expects and what they hear, may

suffice to create this sense of accent.

Caplin is not wrong that the cases discussed so far require Riemann to abstract somewhat

from the direct correlation between loudness and meter. But the metric definition of such

situations is still, in Riemann’s theory, a function of what the performer does. The abstraction

comes from Riemann’s underhanded introduction of a new object into his theoretical

universe: the expectations of a listener. A Beethoven piano or end-accented rest cannot

simply exist—it must be interpreted. Such events only make sense as a violation of

expectations, which means there must be someone who does not expect them. A naive theory

of dynamic shading might stop with the actions of the performer, but Riemann’s is more

sophisticated, anticipating the psychological orientation that he will increasingly develop in

his later theory. For him, the metrical interpretation is a negotiation between listener and

performer, an interaction between what the performer does and what the listener hears and

expects.

Subsidiary metrical accents and the legitimacy of quadruple time

In most versions of the accent theory, certain meters have a subsidiary accent within the

measure that receives less weight than the first beat but is still capable of supporting a

cadence or suspension. The bar is thus subdivided into parts and contains multiple dynamic

peaks. This is particularly true of the 4/4 bar. Opinions on the 4/4 bar vary widely among

theorists, but it is commonly believed that a quadruple measure has certain characteristics

that distinguish it from a compound of two duple measures.53 The most complex account of

the quadruple measure comes from Moritz Hauptmann, who sees it as uniting contradictory

aspects of the duple and triple measures into a higher unity. The third beat has a particular

importance in Hauptmann’s model: “it gives the second member back again to its first, and

53 On the complex history of quadruple versus compound duple meter, see Floyd K. Grave, “Metrical

Displacement and the Compound Measure in Eighteenth-Century Theory and Practice,” Theoria 1

(1985), 25–60.

79

causes the two to be united which at first were one and then separated.” Quadruple meter “is

undivided in the middle, is organically richer determined, and more luxuriantly twined.”54

Example 3.16: Hauptmann's model of quadruple meter. Adapted from Hauptmann, Die Natur der Harmonik

und der Metrik, 231.

Riemann disagrees with this entire approach. He spends a great deal of time translating

Hauptmann’s observations into the terms of dynamic shading and rejecting what does not

fit. For Riemann, the natural shading of the quadruple measure can only take a small number

of forms (Example 3.17). It can admit of no division or subsidiary peak because this would

break off the legato and crescendo that unify the metric motive. Hauptmann’s model of

quadruple time, and indeed any model that posits a particular stress on the third beat, is

therefore “not actually quadruple, but rather twice duple,” whatever Hauptmann might say

to the contrary.55

Example 3.17: Riemann’s possible shadings of the 4/4 measure. Adapted from Riemann, Dynamik, 26.

54 Hauptmann, Die Natur der Harmonik und der Metrik (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1853), 231.

English translation, The Nature of Harmony and Meter, trans. W. E. Heathcote (London: Swan

Sonnenschein, 1888), 195–196. 55 “Die von Hauptmann gegebene Accentuirung des viertheiligen Taktes ist nicht die dies viertheiligen,

sondern die des zweimal-zweizeitigen.” Riemann, Dynamik, 27.

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Riemann’s account of the 4/4 measure is thus essentially different from that of any preceding

theorist. For him, only one of a group of four quarter notes can be accented. This accented

note can fall in any position within the group. Wherever it falls, we understand that place to

be the downbeat of the measure and write the bar line accordingly. As Riemann himself

observes, this derivation of quadruple time is not essentially different from a higher-order

duple time with subdivided beats: “quadruple meter is to be defined simply as the

exponentiation of duple meter.”56 The only difference is the addition of more events at the

tactus level, creating the possibility of mid-accented motives (which in duple time are

indistinguishable from end-accented motives). The essential job of dynamic shading,

Riemann says, is to distinguish between divisions into two and divisions into three. The

difference between two and four is much less significant, and indeed the two frequently shade

into each other.

To understand Riemann’s account of quadruple meter, it will be useful to zoom out somewhat.

One of the defining features of the classical style is its vastly slower harmonic rhythm than

in music from earlier in the century.57 It is not unusual in the classical style to see a long

stretch of music entirely supported by a local prolongational progression, with virtually no

change of structural root. For example, a broad neighbouring progression supports an eight-

measure compound presentation phrase at the beginning of Mozart’s trio for clarinet, viola,

and piano, K.498 (Example 3.18).

56 Riemann, Dynamik, 24. “Der viertheilige Takt ist schlechterdings nur zu definiren als Potenzirung

des zweitheiligen.” 57 See Edward T. Cone, Musical Form and Performance (New York: W. W. Norton, 1968), 71–72. Cone

provides an excellent account of the role of real versus notated measures, smaller measure lengths,

and unnotated changes of pulse in the Classical style.

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Example 3.18: Mozart, Trio in Ef major for viola, clarinet, and piano, K.498 “Kegelstatt,” I, mm. 1–8. My

analytical underlay.

On the other hand, in Baroque music it is not uncommon to see a genuine change of root on

almost every beat, as in the opening measures of Bach’s flute sonata, BWV 1033 (Example

3.19).

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Example 3.19: J. S. Bach, Sonata in C major for flute and continuo, BWV 1033, I, mm. 1–6. My analytical

underlay.

A question that frequently arises in Riemann’s later theories of meter and form, and in

modern theories inspired by them, is whether a notated bar represents a genuine measure of

music, or whether the real measure is a fraction or compound of the notated measure.58 The

most compelling basis to adjudicate such disputes is harmonic rhythm and the placement of

cadences. In Example 3.19, the harmonic rhythm and motivic formations strongly suggest a

quarter-note pulse, while the presence of cadences on beat 3 in mm. 2 and 6 suggests a

compound duple meter.59 In Baroque music generally, one often has solid grounds to establish

agreement on both the length of the measure and the number and weight of beats within the

measure.

58 One of Riemann’s later innovations is his explicit recognition that a metric or formal unit is above

all defined by its containing a certain amount of musical—namely, harmonic—content. Thus there is

a real difference in construction between an eight-measure theme and its 16-measure compound, and

simply doubling or halving the note values cannot convert the one into the other. Riemann’s theory of

form influenced Caplin’s notion of the real versus the notated measure. See Caplin, Classical Form,

35, and Analyzing Classical Form, 63–65. 59 See Grave, “Metrical Displacement,” 25–27.

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By contrast, Classical music, and particularly the music of Beethoven, is more complicated

to pin down. The cues by which we determine how the bar ought to be divided are largely

absent: harmonies often change by the bar or even more slowly, and cadences virtually

always occur on the downbeat of a measure. Establishing the “real” measure length is often

uncontroversial, but it is often more difficult to determine how the measure is to be divided.

For example, take the opening of the “Waldstein” sonata, one of Beethoven’s longest and most

substantial sonata movements notated in common time (Example 3.20). How many beats are

there in a measure? The harmony, which changes every two measures, can give us no help in

answering this question. When, in m. 10, harmonic and melodic events begin to occur on

every quarter of the measure, should these be interpreted as tactus-level events, or as

subdivisions? The entire movement is similarly ambiguous with respect to the division of the

bar, and perhaps no two analysts will ever completely agree on how the meter should be

interpreted.

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Example 3.20: Beethoven, Piano Sonata in C major, op. 53 “Waldstein,” I, mm. 1–13.

Tovey clearly conceived of this passage quadruply. Although he gives a tempo marking in

half-measures, he advises the performer to be mindful of the distinctions between the varying

weights of the quarter-note beats.

The first condition for acquiring a fine pianissimo is to mark the normal accents, which,

unless they are grossly exaggerated, the listener will not notice as accents at all, but

will simply accept as sense—even including the distinction between first and third beat

as well as between these accents and the weak beats.60

On the other hand, Riemann scarcely pays any attention at all to divisions within the

measure, conceiving of the first four measures as a three-bar mid-accented phrase with a one-

60 Tovey, in Beethoven, Complete Pianoforte Sonatas, 2:196.

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bar on-accented tag. When thinking in such terms, the relative weights of different beats

hardly seem to matter. Riemann admits a simple truth about this music: there is no way to

determine whether the measure is truly duple or quadruple, and the question may not be

worth answering in any case.

To return to Riemann’s conception of quadruple meter: his demotion of quadruple meter from

an independent phenomenon to a species of duple meter is not simply arbitrary or

theoretically motivated. It reflects actual practice in the music he seeks to explain. Virtually

all of Riemann’s quotations from real music are from Beethoven sonatas, and notated

quadruple meters play a surprisingly small role in this repertoire.61 While not rare, they are

considerably less common than duple and triple meters. When Beethoven wishes to write

four quarter notes in a bar, he writes in cut time as often as not, and his movements in 4/4

time (of which there are about a dozen) often have a strong duple feel in any case.

Caplin expresses concern that “not all traditional metrical accents receive dynamic

intensification according to [Riemann’s] theory.”62 He takes this fact as evidence of a drift

between the concepts of dynamic climax and metrical accent that, for Riemann, ought to be

bound together. But it would be more accurate to say that Riemann calls into question the

metrical interpretations of the accent theory in harmonically progressive music like that of

Beethoven.63 According to dynamic shading, a 4/4 measure in itself does not require any

particular stress on the third quarter-note beat. In the (presumably rare) cases where the

musical content of the measure seems to call for this kind of stress, this is evidence that the

4/4 measure is not, for the moment at least, being treated quadruply.

Performed stress at the beginnings of motives

Much of Riemann’s book is dedicated to simplifying and tweaking Hauptmann’s theory of

meter. In his exhaustive list of metrical forms, Hauptmann gives one category that Riemann

cannot accept: the “Umbetonung” or re-accented measure. This is a motive with both its

beginning and end stressed, and a low point in the middle. Since the unity of the dynamic

61 The time signatures of 2/4 and 3/4 alone account for over half of Beethoven’s piano sonata

movements. Duple (2/4, 6/8, and alla breve) and triple (3/4, 3/8, and 9/8) meters account for over 80%

of sonata movements. Quadruple (common time and 12/8) meters are just over 10%. 62 Caplin, “Riemann’s Theory of Dynamic Shading,” 9 63 I intend “progressive” to mean “moving forward in space or time,” not “adventurous” or “left-wing.”

I return to this issue below with a definition of progressiveness in Beethoven’s treatment of harmony.

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process leading toward and away from the dynamic climax is Riemann’s central metrical

principle, he cannot allow a motive that includes two strong points that it shares with

adjacent motives. Within the terms of dynamic shading, there can be no basis for

distinguishing Example 3.21A (mid-accented motives) from Example 3.21B (re-accented

motives).

Example 3.21. A: Mid-accented motives. B: Re-accented motives.

However, Riemann argues that something resembling the re-accented form can be recovered

by resorting to a “performance nuance” that has “nothing directly to do with the natural

dynamics” of the motive.64 This nuance is the slight performed accentuation at the beginning

of a motive, which is “added to the continuous shading as something essentially different.”65

The performed stress at the beginnings of motives poses a special problem when used in duple

meter. In meters with more than two beats, there can be at least one event between the

rhythmic accent and the genuine strong point of the metric motive (Example 3.22B). This

additional attack clarifies the overall shape of the motive, giving the listener time to

understand that the initial accent was simply a nuance of pronunciation and not a metrical

phenomenon. However, in duple meter, there is no such additional event (Example 3.22A).

On an instrument like the piano, which cannot vary the dynamic quality of a sustained note,

the metrically weak note may turn out to be equal to or even louder than the genuine metric

strong point. Because accentuating the beginnings of motives creates situations where the

motive’s metrically strongest note is not its loudest, Caplin identifies this practice as another

problem for Riemann’s theory.

64 Riemann, Dynamik, 20. “. . . einer Vortragsnüance. . . , die zwar mit der hier aufgewiesenen

natürlichen Dynamik der Motive direkt nichts zu thun.” 65 Riemann, Dynamik, 20. “. . . zu den durchgehenden Schattirungen als etwas wesentlich anderes

hinzutritt.”

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Example 3.22: Motives with accentuated beginnings.

For wind or string instruments, or even the human voice, such nuances pose no problem. But

Riemann’s book is oriented almost entirely toward piano playing, in which these issues are

seemingly insurmountable.

One possible criterion of judgment is the fact that this performed stress, like the Beethoven

piano, is a surface decoration that can be omitted without harming the musical sense. “It

only serves the purpose of letting the already given contour of the musical pattern emerge

more sharply, but it does not itself create [this contour] in the first place.”66 Riemann’s theory

thus engages the listener’s expectations and faculty of musical comprehension at this point.

But it also engages another layer of the performance situation.

This thorny problem represents one of Riemann’s few acknowledgements that the instrument

itself brings something to the business of phrasing. The instrument is, at times, physically

incapable of reaching the demands of the music. In such situations, it is the musician’s job to

make the instrument seem capable. Schenker discusses such musical paradoxes under the

heading of “dissembling,” and Tovey writes that “the classical art of pianoforte playing was

always an art of suggestion.”67 In Dynamik, Riemann never fully works out the issue of

dissembling, but in discussing the accentuation of the beginnings of motives he shows an

awareness of its necessity—as indeed must any sophisticated writer on piano music.

66 “Er. . . dient nur dem Zwecke, die ohnehin gegebene Contour der musikalischen Zeichnung schärfer

hervortreten zu lassen, nicht aber sie selbst erst mit zu schaffen.” 67 Schenker, The Art of Performance, 25–26. Tovey, in Beethoven, Complete Pianoforte Sonatas, 2:7.

See also Barenboim’s comments on piano performance as “the art of illusion, and the art of defying

physical laws,” Paralells and Paradoxes, 31.

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A theory of meter without meter?

Historians of music theory tend to adopt a dismissive attitude toward Riemann’s early work

on phrasing and meter—in the few cases where they have acknowledged it at all.68 In the

foregoing discussion I have attempted to provide a sympathetic reading of Riemann’s project,

which we may take to encompass Dynamik, the phrasing edition, and various minor

contemporary writings. I have attempted to clarify Riemann’s goals without denying the

serious problems with his theory. By way of conclusion, I would like to explain why this seems

to me to be a necessary task.

Riemann’s metrical interpretations in his book and his phrasing edition are more dependent

on the peculiarities of Beethoven’s music than has previously been recognized. One of the

most characteristic features of Beethoven’s music is its harmonically progressive character—

its establishment and development of harmonic relationships that project expectations

forward in time. Tovey wrote that “Beethoven’s contribution to harmony is a long-range

power of handling tonality.”69 The opening of the “Waldstein” sonata, given in Example 3.20

above, is the classic example of this progressive treatment of harmony. The piece opens on

an undetermined chord, simultaneously tonic and not-tonic, that is explored from all sides

over the course of the first thirteen measures—as subdominant of G major, as dominant of

F major, and finally as tonic relative to a G dominant. In the quasi-dialectical harmonic logic

that Riemann explored early in his career, this passage determines the tonic more strongly

and over a longer range by immediately casting doubt upon it and then reconciling the

contradiction through a temporal process of musical reasoning. These are the sorts of

Beethovenian passages that Riemann was interested in: dynamic, abstract, far-reaching

relations that unfold in real time. Riemann was interested in Beethoven’s music as a play of

harmonic energy, surging toward goals and subsiding away from them.

The trouble is that harmonic energy is not a real thing, at least not in the sense in which

pitch and loudness are real things.70 Uniting meter (the criterion of musical intelligibility)

68 Aside from the commentary by Caplin and Smither, Riemann’s book merits a brief discussion by Lee

Rothfarb, “Energetics,” 935–936. Rothfarb correctly considers Riemann’s book to be an early precursor

to theories of musical energetics. Cook discusses Riemann’s phrasing project in general in Beyond the

Score, 176–223 passim. William Rothstein discusses Riemann’s book in “Like Falling Off a Log,” 7–13. 69 Tovey, Beethoven (Oxford University Press, 1944), 5. 70 Rothfarb explains the difficult aesthetic issues involved in characterizing musical motion and forces:

“Energetics,” 928–929.

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with phrasing (the criterion of musical expressivity) in the nexus of performance, Riemann

attempts to create a place where harmonic energy can be given some kind of concrete reality.

But in the process, he runs into numerous problems. There can be no doubt that Riemann’s

presentation of his theory leaves much to be desired. In a generally positive review of

Riemann’s book, a writer for an English periodical gave a clear account of its flaws: “The

book, however, suffers from two serious faults: diffuseness and vacillation, which spring from

a common source, overhaste. . . . The author took pen in hand before he had quite excogitated

his system.”71 Riemann seems to discover new problems with his theory as he works it out,

positing ad hoc solutions and coming to a full understanding of his own thoughts only by the

end of the book. If we are interested in system-building and wish to evaluate Riemann on his

architectonics, we must consider him a failure. But, as is often the case with Riemann, a little

generosity in interpretation goes a long way. The interesting thing about Riemann’s project

is not so much in what he achieved as what he set out to accomplish.

Riemann begins his exposition with nothing in his theoretical universe other than sounding

pitches of varying loudness. He asks how groupings can arise from these materials—in other

words: how a melody can be recognized as a musical object persisting through time. His

answer is that the energetic waves created by continuous changes in dynamics and agogics

unite the separate temporal moments of a melody into a group, a higher-order unit with a

duration beyond the present instant. These groups, in turn, can be grouped together on

similar principles, until finally the entire piece is understood as a unity. Spans of musical

time can be recognized as such (rather than as a succession of unrelated instants) because of

the temporal patterns of loudness and rapidity of tone-succession. These two parameters are

significant because, except in very general terms, they cannot be defined on paper. They have

reality only in performance.

Riemann thus creates a universe in which meter is entirely immanent in the performer’s

actions. A metrically sound performance is simultaneously an expressive one and, as a

corollary, an inexpressive performance is no performance at all. This theory works

remarkably well in unpitched note values, but as Riemann encounters the many complexities

of real music, he is gradually forced to introduce new objects into his universe. Displacements

71 Frederick Niecks, review of Musikalische Dynamik und Agogik by Hugo Riemann, Monthly Musical

Record 15, no. 170 (February 1885), 25–28.

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and negations of the downbeat require an active listener with expectations rather than a

passive receptor. What had been a simple equation between phrasing and meter is now

mediated by the metrical interpretation of a listener. The stress at the beginnings of motives,

in order to be clearly distinguished from a metrical accent, requires an understanding that

instruments are limited in particular ways and that artful phrasing always requires some

amount of dissembling. Instead of being transparently converted into sound, the performer’s

actions are now mediated by the tendencies of the instrument.

Finally, Riemann discovers a strict limit to his theory in the contribution of harmony to

meter, a contribution that is too powerful to be overridden by any action of the performer.

The complex negotiation between performer, instrument, and listener is now severely

constrained by the composer’s prescription to play certain notes. Once we concede a

relationship between harmonic syntax and meter, the whole project of constructing a theory

of meter wholly immanent in performance becomes moot. Partway through his book,

Riemann begins building a somewhat conventional theory of meter that covertly underlies

dynamic shading, reducing the latter to what Caplin calls “exclusively a theory of

performance practice”72—that is, a theory of the artful presentation of a given content, or a

theory of expression that is agnostic with regard to intelligibility.

Despite its unique features, Riemann’s theory of dynamic shading is no more than a historical

curiosity when considered in itself. But Riemannian thought on meter and phrasing was

influential far beyond the Hamburg Conservatory and the public for Riemann’s phrasing

editions in the 1880s. In Chapter 4, I will discuss the ways in which Riemann’s conception

found its way to the United States and became a major influence on mainstream orchestral

playing.

72 Caplin, “Riemann’s Theory of Dynamic Shading,” 19.

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Chapter 4

Phrasing Theory and the Aural Image Today

Riemann’s influence as a pedagogue in the early days of the twentieth century is hard to

overstate. His work found particularly strong purchase in France, where many of his ideas

were taken up by his friend Vincent D’Indy and later by Olivier Messiaen.1 This French

connection is intriguing. While it is not clear whether French musicians of the turn of the

century would have had any direct acquaintance with Riemann’s writing, it seems likely they

would have some familiarity with the Riemannian aural image—the continuous energetic

swells of the musical phrase.2 And France was an important exporter of skilled orchestral

musicians to the United States.

Among these was the Paris Conservatoire-trained oboist Marcel Tabuteau, who came to

America in 1905 to play in various orchestras in New York.3 In 1915 he became principal

oboe of the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski, and in 1924 he joined the

faculty at the Curtis Institute. He earned high praise from such Curtis luminaries as Samuel

Barber and Gary Graffman.4 Tabuteau would remain in the position until 1954, and virtually

every student of any instrument who passed through Curtis in that period had some contact

with him, either through his lessons or his famous ensemble classes.5 Through this position,

Tabuteau made his mark on a generation of American orchestral musicians. A 1981 article

in the New York Times noted that the woodwind principals of Stokowski’s Philadelphia

1 See references to Riemann in D’Indy’s Cours de composition musicale (Paris: A. Durand, 1903),

passim. Messiaen includes a chapter on analyzing Mozart in a generally Riemannian fashion in his

Traité de rythme, de couleur, et d’ornithologie (Paris: Leduc, 1997), 4:131–157. On the interchange of

ideas between Riemann, D’Indy, and the monk and chant scholar Dom André Mocquereau, see Daniel

K. S. Walden, “Dom Mocquereau’s Theories of Rhythm and Romantic Musical Aesthetics,” Études

grégoriennes 42 (2015), 125–150. 2 On my use of the controversial terms “phrase” and “phrasing,” see the preface. 3 For basic details on Tabuteau, see Laila Storch, “Tabuteau, Marcel,” in The New Grove Dictionary of

Music and Musicians, 2nd ed. (New York: Grove, 2001), 24:915–916. For further details, see Storch’s

biography of Tabuteau, entitled Marcel Tabuteau: How Do You Expect to Play the Oboe If You Can’t

Peel a Mushroom? (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008). Storch was one of Tabuteau’s last

oboe students at Curtis. 4 Qtd. in Storch, Marcel Tabuteau, 517; David McGill, Sound in Motion: A Performer’s Guide to Greater

Musical Expression (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007), 6–7. 5 For a list of string players influenced by Tabuteau, see Sarah Maude Wetherbee, “Marcel Tabuteau’s

Influence on String Playing at the Curtis Institute of Music” (DMA diss., Peabody Conservatory, 2002),

159–164.

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Orchestra, including Tabuteau, “became distinguished teachers, producing generations of

musical ‘heirs’ who succeeded them in Philadelphia and in the country’s other major

orchestras.”6

It is difficult to overstate the influence of Tabuteau’s technical approach in North America.7

Laila Storch writes that “by now, many elements of Tabuteau’s teaching have filtered into

generally accepted concepts of how to play the oboe.”8 But his influence extends far beyond

the woodwind world.9 Tabuteau’s most famous contribution is his system of numbering the

parts of a musical phrase in order to show directionality, proportion, and intensity, which

has been adopted as a pedagogical technique by musicians of all stripes throughout North

America. It is now possible to speak of a distinctly “Tabuteauvian” school of phrasing

promulgated mostly by people who had no direct contact with him. The most recent, detailed,

and widely known work in performance pedagogy claiming a debt to Tabuteau is Sound in

Motion: A Performer’s Guide to Greater Musical Expression by David McGill, former principal

bassoon of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and current professor of music at Northwestern

University.10 While McGill’s book has been coldly received by music theorists,11 it is now a

staple among wind players.

6 Judith Karp, “Curtis Institute and its Tradition,” New York Times, May 3, 1981, D17. 7 Though Tabuteau did not leave behind much writing, his students have done an excellent job

documenting what is known about his approach. On the technical aspects of Tabuteau’s approach to

music, see Storch, Marcel Tabuteau, 534–544, and Donald L. Hefner, “The Tradition of the Paris

Conservatory School of Oboe Playing With Special Attention to the Influence of Marcel Tabuteau”

(PhD diss., Catholic University of America, 1984). For a work that explicitly connects Tabuteau’s ideas

about phrasing to the Riemann-D’Indy-Mocquereau tradition, see James Morgan Thurmond, Note

Grouping: A Method For Achieving Expression and Style in Musical Performance (Camp Hill, PA: JMT

Publications, 1982). Hefner, like Storch, was a Curtis-trained oboist who studied under Tabuteau,

while Thurmond was a horn player who played in ensembles coached by Tabuteau. 8 Storch, Marcel Tabuteau, 519. 9 For example, the influential viola teacher Karen Tuttle was a strong devotee of Tabuteau. See

Matthew Dane, “Coordinated Effort: A Study of Karen Tuttle’s Influence on Modern Viola Teaching”

(DMA diss., Rice University, 2002), 17–18. I am grateful to Edward Klorman for bringing this source

to my attention. Tabuteau was also a major influence on the tubist and brass pedagogue Arnold Jacobs:

see Brian Frederiksen, Arnold Jacobs: Song and Wind, ed. John Taylor (Gurnee, IL: Windsong Press,

1996), 9–11. 10 McGill studied at the Curtis Institute with Sol Schoenbach, John De Lancie, and John Minsker.

Schoenbach was principal bassoon of the Philadelphia Orchestra during Tabuteau’s tenure, and De

Lancie and Minsker were oboe students of Tabuteau. 11 See reviews by Jonathan Dunsby, Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy 23 (2009), 123–132, and

Raymond Monelle, Music and Letters 90, no. 3 (Aug. 2009), 526–527.

93

My contention is that music theorists interested in performance ought to pay careful

attention to such texts, which are one of the primary ways that quasi-theoretical ideas get

passed on to young musicians. They often represent the instrumentalization of music theory

in the service of an aural image. While McGill does not explicitly refer to Riemann, enough

circumstantial evidence exists to place him within a tradition of Riemannian commentary on

performance. McGill’s book is sufficiently well known that we can take it as the twenty-first-

century evolution of the Riemannian aural image.

McGill and the number system

McGill’s book touches on many different topics of little interest to music theorists—breath

technique, audition preparation, and orchestral etiquette are just a few. However, the main

body of the book deals with the notion of “note grouping”12 through an adaptation of

Tabuteau’s famous “number system.” McGill states Tabuteau’s principle of “basic grouping”

as follows: “Use the inner notes of each beat to lead to the next beat or use the inner beats of a

bar of music to lead to the next downbeat.”13 Obviously, this principle is quite similar to

Riemann’s principle of “upbeatness,” and there is some historical evidence to suggest that

Tabuteau imbibed Riemannian ideas, if not Riemannian texts.14 Like in Riemann’s theory

(discussed in the previous chapter), the nature of Tabuteau’s numbers is somewhat

mysterious—at times they appear to represent loudness, at times an inner intensity or

direction. McGill has helpfully separated the various ways the number system can be

employed so they can be discussed separately: scaling numbers, motion numbers, rhythmic

numbers, and phrasing numbers.

Scaling numbers aid in the precise control of loudness during crescendos and decrescendos.

While this is an interesting topic for further discussion, scaling does not directly concern us

here. Motion numbers and rhythmic numbers both relate to the control and direction of the

subdivisions of rhythmic units. Rhythmic numbers are used to keep unusual subdivisions

12 McGill acknowledges a debt to Thurmond’s book Note Grouping, cited above. 13 McGill, Sound in Motion, 40. Emphasis original. 14 Melissa Stevens identifies Riemann and Lussy as possible influences on Tabuteau on the basis of

comments made by his former students in interviews. Stevens, “Marcel Tabuteau: Pedagogical

Concepts and Practices for Teaching Musical Expressiveness: An Oral History” (DMA diss., Ohio State

University, 1999), 149–151. Combined with the circumstantial evidence and the account by Thurmond,

this suggests that Tabuteau was strongly influenced by at least one Riemannian work, probably the

Vademecum der Phrasierung (Leipzig: Max Hesse, 1900).

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precisely in time (Example 4.1A), while motion numbers are used to “create forward impetus”

(Example 4.1B).15

Example 4.1. A: Illustration of rhythmic numbers, from McGill, Sound in Motion, 74. B: Illustration of motion

numbers, from McGill, Sound in Motion, 73.

Phrasing numbers combine the analyses generated using the previous three types of numbers

and “put [them] to the service of intelligent, architecturally coherent phrasing.”16

Like Caplin, McGill considers the beginning-oriented metrical structure of the bar proposed

by the accent theory to be “unmusical” when translated into performance.17 He basically

conceives of music in terms of upbeats progressing to downbeats, and thus he groups almost

every unaccented event with the following strong beat. “In Tabuteau’s number system, the

last grouping is not complete until a final arrival note has been stated or, at least, implied.”18

McGill illustrates this principle with the music shown in Example 4.2, with motion numbers

indicating the directedness of the notes. The principle of basic grouping holds good both at

the submetrical and the metrical level (Example 4.2A and B, respectively).

15 McGill, Sound in Motion, 75. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid., 39. C.f. Caplin, “Theories of Rhythm,” 675. See Chapter 2 for further discussion. 18 McGill, Sound in Motion, 40.

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Example 4.2: From McGill, Sound in Motion, 40.

What about rhythmic numbers? At first glance, McGill’s rhythmic and motion numbers

appear indistinguishable—the primary difference is that the rhythmic numbers apply to an

irregular subdivision of the beat (such as quintuplets, in Example 4.1A above), while motion

numbers apply to more usual subdivisions (e.g., sets of four sixteenths, in Example 4.1B

above). But McGill seems to suggest the rhythmic numbers are dynamically inert: “they only

help to keep the subdivision of the beat accurate.”19 This principle seems plausible enough,

but it clashes with McGill’s curious insistence on a numbering scheme in which the first note

of a series always stands alone, and the remaining notes always count toward the next

metrical strong point.20 If counting in this fashion helps to keep rhythms accurate (and McGill

plausibly argues that it does), we must ask why it should do so.

The disposition of the numbers in rhythmic numbering highlights two features of the

rhythmic figure. One is the sense of disjunction after each metrically strong attack, which we

show by restarting the count after the beat. In modern terms, following Fred Lerdahl and

Ray Jackendoff, we would call this disjunction a “grouping boundary,” but Riemann would

more evocatively call it a “dead interval.”21 Numbering notes to highlight the presence of

“dead intervals” calls attention to a pattern of grouping that McGill takes to be prevalent in

the vast majority of music. The other feature highlighted by McGill’s rhythmic counting is an

inner direction toward the strong beat, an unavoidable result of counting in ascending

integers with the highest number falling on the metrically accented note. If this is not the

desired effect, why increase the count toward the accented note? Why not start the count on

19 McGill, Sound in Motion, 52. 20 In this numbering scheme, the initial, isolated “1” appears to have no significance. 21 See Hunnicutt, “Hugo Riemann’s System,” 34. Hunnicutt explicitly connects Riemann’s concept with

Lerdahl and Jackendoff’s.

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the beat, count down, or even use an entirely random pattern of numbers (Example 4.3)? If

the numbers themselves have no meaning beyond being one-syllable words, it shouldn’t

matter in what order we invoke them.

Example 4.3: Rhythmic numbering. A: Counting from 1 on the beat. B: Counting down. C: “Counting” with a

repeating pattern of random numbers.

The only reason to count in the way that McGill recommends (or, indeed, in any particular

way) is to indicate a musical vector—to unite all the notes of the rhythmic figure into a single

energetic envelope, whether represented literally by loudness or through an imagined

connectedness. The result may well be evenly spaced notes, but only as a byproduct of the

energetic shape.

The signal feature of McGill’s rhythmic groups is not that they lack dynamic direction, but

rather that they are neutral with respect to pitch, or to any other factor that might alter the

shape of a phrase. We might say that the rhythmic numbers indicate the “intrinsic” dynamic

of a rhythmic figure, abstracting away from all other features: a rhythmic substrate that

combines with pitch contour and other features to produce an overall impression of a phrase’s

shape. Accent theorists in the nineteenth century would speak of an inner weight, a concept

which musicians and theorists in the Riemannian tradition have generally rejected as

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unmusical. Instead, a rhythmic figure abstracted away from pitch has an inner directedness.

We will return to this point in a moment.

McGill also touches on the harmonic aspect of note grouping. “Note grouping links chords

together, emphasizes their functions, and creates forward motion.”22 He conceives of harmony

in terms of two-chord progressions with an upbeat rhythm. These progressions can be linked

together to create harmonic progressions of any length (as in Example 4.4). The up-down

rhythm of a pair of chords runs in parallel to the subject-predicate structure of a sentence.

McGill thus links harmonic function, metrical accent, and prosody.

Example 4.4: Adapted from McGill, Sound in Motion, 45.

McGill touches on many other details, most of which are too specific to warrant discussing

here. Most interesting in light of the discussion of Riemann in Chapter 3 is his treatment of

offbeat notes. It is better, McGill writes, to think of a series of notes like Example 4.5 as

upbeats rather than offbeats, even if the downbeat is sounded in another voice (or not at all).

The magnetic attraction of the upbeat notes to the following downbeat will keep them in time,

even if the downbeat is silent.

Example 4.5: From McGill, Sound in Motion, 52.

When discussing rhythmic numbers, McGill provides an annotated excerpt from Stravinsky’s

The Rite of Spring (Example 4.6A)—a solo that is notoriously difficult to keep in rhythm. The

22 McGill, Sound in Motion, 43.

98

numbers in Example 4.6A “do not refer to phrasing or dynamics,” McGill writes. “Numbers

signifying phrasing would be quite different.”23 Later in the book, he provides a version of

this excerpt that is marked up with phrasing numbers (Example 4.6B). Comparing these two

examples will help to establish the function of phrasing numbers.

Example 4.6: Bassoon solo from Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, mm. 1–3. A: Rhythmic subdivisions indicated as

in McGill, Sound in Motion, 52. B: Phrasing indicated as in McGill, Sound in Motion, 224.

McGill points out that the effect of this passage is that the same melodic figure (c'' – b' – g' –

e' – b' – a') is played capriciously at a variety of speeds rather than genuine changes of rhythm

or meter. Seen from this point of view, McGill’s phrasing numbers make a great deal of sense.

The phrase is always directed toward and then away from the b' with the grace notes attached

to it. The descending b' – g' – e' tapers away, while the two-note b' – a' tag is slightly stronger.

If we combined McGill’s phrasing numbers in Example 4.6B with his re-barred version of the

excerpt (Example 4.7), we find that the phrases always move toward the b' on the downbeat

of the measure, and the slight pulse of the b' – a' figure always falls on the next beat.

23 McGill, Sound in Motion, 52.

99

Example 4.7: McGill’s renotated version of the Stravinsky excerpt: Sound in Motion, 224. My hairpins and

grouping brackets.

In such a situation, the purpose of the phrasing numbers is to indicate the energetic feel of

the passage once all factors are taken into account. The effect of this energetic feel, McGill

argues, is to create the sense that the same figure is being played at various different

speeds—thus it creates its own effective meter that overrides the actual notated meter.

Presumably the performer is meant to phrase in accordance with the phrasing numbers as

well, but overdoing it would be likely to make a listener seasick. For his part, McGill writes

that “the phrasing numbers signify intensity; they do not literally indicate volume.”24 In this

excerpt, the rhythmic numbers (Example 4.6A above) essentially show the triple or quintuple

tempo relationships between the various statements of the melodic figure. A version of this

Stravinsky melody with identical rhythms but no pitch would have to follow the dynamics of

the rhythmic numbers. But the actual shape of the melody creates its own overriding

demands.

To clarify McGill’s approach, it will be helpful to see how he handles a passage we have

already discussed in Chapter 2. Example 4.8 shows McGill’s annotation to mm. 21–22 in the

first movement of Mozart’s Quintet for Piano and Winds.

24 McGill, Sound in Motion, 224.

100

Example 4.8: Mozart, Quintet in Ef major for Piano and Winds, K.452, I, mm. 21–22. Bracketed hairpins added

by McGill, Sound in Motion, 291.

“Here, the first eighth functions as an upbeat, the second as an arrival, and the third as a

resolution.”25 The lack of any articulation on the downbeats in the left hand causes the even-

numbered beats to increase in importance, and an inflection toward these points emphasizes

the complementary rhythm between right and left hands. However, in m. 22 the entire

measure is directed toward its second half, where “the third figure finally finds its wayward

downbeat.”26

My reading does not entirely disagree with McGill’s notion that the pianist is searching for a

strong downbeat—I used similar language in Chapter 2—but I tend to place more emphasis

on the syncopated figure in the right hand. The left hand enters along with the strong note

of the syncopation—I consider it essentially to follow along with the melody. The idea is not

to highlight the articulation of the second quarter-note beat in the left hand, but to highlight

its absence in the right hand—in other words, to play up the tension between the melodic

rhythm and the meter.

To expand on this point, it will be useful to look at a longer passage from the same

movement—the first transition (Example 4.8), a loose sentence that follows the main theme

by way of a false closing section.27 McGill’s approach to phrasing is quite tempting here: the

wind chords seem to push across the bar lines into the following downbeat (recall from

Chapter 2 that each notated measure contains two “real” measures in this movement). In

mm. 29 and 31, the winds resolve into a dissonant chord that seems to ask to crescendo into

its chord of resolution. The beaming and slurring of the eighth notes in the piano left hand

in mm. 31 and 32 also suggest crescendo, reinforced by the wind chords that are slurred over

25 McGill, Sound in Motion, 291. 26 Ibid., 292. 27 See Caplin, Classical Form, 129; Analyzing Classical Form, 320.

101

the bar line. Partway through m. 32, the harmonic rhythm doubles, the grouping halves, and

the whole texture seems to drive inexorably to the dominant.

102

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103

As far as it goes, there’s nothing wrong with this interpretation. But its main contribution to

performance is a series of crescendos—more power, more energy, and more weight. I would

like to suggest that playing in this way suppresses or overlooks the more delicate aspects of

the dynamics and rhythm of this passage. I want to suggest—and McGill might agree on this

point28—that such a large-scale crescendo is far more interesting when it has an internal

articulated structure. The rush to equate an increase in energy with an increase in air or

loudness can create a soupy, opaque texture that is inappropriate to the sort of rhythmic

poise we look for in Mozart. Toward the end of this chapter, I want to characterize this

disagreement in broader terms, but for now I will focus on the technical issues.

I call the transition a loose sentence because its presentation phrase lasts only six real

measures instead of eight. Each statement of the basic idea seems to be missing a chunk. By

itself, this feature gives the theme a sort of breathless quality—increasing in energy, perhaps,

but in fits and starts. Rather than driving forward at the end of m. 28, I would suggest that

the winds taper slightly, letting their articulation of the next downbeat be somewhat weak.

This attenuates the articulation of the meter (which is still strongly hammered out by the

piano’s left hand) and heightens the surprise of the fp chord in m. 29.

Similarly, the figures slurred across metrical boundaries in mm. 31–32 seem to call for a

stress on the weak-beat dissonant chords in a sort of countermetrical appoggiatura. This

weakening of the downbeat heightens the sense that something is not quite right

rhythmically. Other than the dissonant 742 chords in mm. 29 and 31, nowhere in the texture is

the downbeat highlighted with a stressed arrival in one of the instrumental parts—and

therefore nowhere in the texture does the rhythm agree with the meter. In the second half of

m. 32 the pianist takes over from the ensemble, trying to stabilize the rhythm with a sequence

that will lead to a half cadence at m. 34. This will leave us with a minimally acceptable 12-

measure transition, however irregular its internal boundaries are. But in his haste the

pianist errs, repeating the sequence one too many times and landing on a bass D, harmonized

as V6.

28 See McGill’s discussion of stepped crescendos as a way of giving off the effect of a continuous

crescendo without exceeding the bassoon’s dynamic capacity: Sound in Motion, 69.

104

This obviously won’t do for a half cadence, and he is forced to backtrack quickly in the three

eighth notes left to him: the 6 chord becomes a 65 at the start of the slur at the end of m. 33,

then the bass steps up to ef and leaps down a tritone before the right hand has a chance to

resolve its suspended notes.29 On the last eighth of the measure, the pianist achieves an

acceptable approach to a root-position dominant—but only just, and at the cost of a rather

jerky syncopated figure. This mumbled resolution into our requisite Ef major half-cadence

fulfils the formal purpose of a non-modulating transition. But the haphazard way in which it

is achieved motivates a second transition led by the winds (mm. 37–42, not shown), which

effects a modulation to the dominant.

Such seemingly innocuous moments in Mozart’s music often carry the potential for rhythmic

drama or comedy—which can only really come out in performance.30 But in order to notice

these moments, our musical senses must be attuned to the right wavelength. We must be

able to look for the unusual in the seemingly ordinary, which in turn means having concepts

that generate questions rather than providing answers. For such purposes, having categories

that are slightly too well-defined can actually be beneficial. The categories will never capture

the full reality of the concrete situation, and it is in the excess that we live our musical lives.31

In Chapter 1, I promised eventually to take a frankly prescriptive ethical point of view toward

performance, and at this point I would like to begin constructing that point of view. In what

follows I will argue against the Riemannian approach taken up by McGill, on the grounds

that it potentially closes off avenues of interpretation and forces its scheme onto music that

it does not naturally fit. But before ascending to the level of ethical principles, I must provide

more detail on the technical principles that have animated much of the analysis in this thesis.

This means introducing one final character who has been lurking in the background for the

last three chapters.

29 This sort of resolution, in which the bass moves on before the suspension has resolved, is quite

common in Baroque thoroughbass practice. In Mozart it is much less so, and the moment in m. 33

where the I harmony is represented entirely by a dissonant chord of suspension gives the effect of a

precisely timed pratfall. 30 Such considerations are the major focus of Edward Klorman’s book Mozart’s Music of Friends. 31 My logic in this argument follows Caplin, Classical Form, 4. Caplin has often drawn criticism for his

strict definitions of formal categories. But in practice these strict categories enable the analyst to draw

complex distinctions that more precisely and meaningfully reflect the situation at hand.

105

Phrases that begin

Antony Pay began his career as the principal clarinet of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

in 1968.32 He was also a founding member of the London Sinfonietta, a prominent new music

ensemble. In this position and as a soloist, he worked directly with composers such as Hans

Werner Henze, Luciano Berio, Harrison Birtwistle, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Pierre

Boulez.33 In recent years he has been better known for his work as a period clarinetist with

the Academy of Ancient Music and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. Since 1986, he

has been the principal clarinet of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, a well-known

period ensemble based in London. Pay is one of several musicians of his generation who

became involved simultaneously in new music and period instruments in the 1970s and 80s.34

While primarily known as a performer, Pay has also written a handful of articles on clarinet

playing.35 The most important of these is “Phrasing in Contention,”36 a 1996 manifesto

explaining his approach to the Classical music on which he has spent most of his recording

career. For the theorist interested in this music, Pay’s article is well worth a read, as

summarizing the full thrust of his argument is too daunting a task for the present chapter. I

will content myself with presenting Pay’s main idea and discussing some of his musical

examples.

Pay gives his major thesis at the beginning of the essay:

The basic idea could be put in a nutshell by saying: “A classical phrase must begin!”—

though it is more complex than that. A fuller version might be: “a classical phrase must

have the power to contend both with the meter and with harmony, as a rhythmic

structure in its own right.” Hence the title of this article.37

32 For basic biographical details on Pay, see Pamela Weston, “Pay, Antony,” in The New Grove

Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 19:255–256. 33 Ben Watson, Derek Bailey and the Story of Free Improvisation (London: Verso, 2004), 236. 34 See Roger Heaton, “Instrumental Performance in the Twentieth Century and Beyond,” in The

Cambridge History of Musical Performance, ed. Colin Lawson and Robin Stowell (Cambridge

University Press, 2012), 785, and “Contemporary Performance Practice and Tradition,” Music

Performance Research 5 (2012), 99. 35 “The Mechanics of Playing the Clarinet,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Clarinet, ed. Colin

Lawson (Cambridge University Press, 1995), 107–122; “Playing the Mozart Clarinet Concerto,”

Clarinet & Saxophone 27, no. 1 (Spring 2002), 20–21; “On Playing New Music,” The Composer no. 69

(Spring 1980), 15–18. 36 Pay, “Phrasing in Contention,” Early Music 24, no. 2 (May 1996), 290–321. 37 Pay, “Phrasing,” 291. Emphasis original.

106

Pay’s use of the term “phrasing” (verb, gerund) accords with the minimal definition I gave in

the preface to this thesis: he writes that “phrasing deals with groups of notes, and how they

are shown to belong to a group.” His use of the term “phrase” (noun), however, is quite

specific: “by a phrase I shall mean a group of notes that lies under a slur written by the

composer.”38 Pay contrasts his use of the term with what is commonly identified as a phrase

by performers, who have a tendency either to group together several slurred phrases into

larger units, or to break up the composer’s slurs to make bowing or breathing easier. Many

conventional performers “believe, and play in the belief, that the most important character

of what they call the phrasing is its association with structures that are different from the

composer’s slurs, and that have an end-oriented character—that is, they want to go

somewhere—and, moreover, that this is the natural character of music.” As a result, many

performers will pencil over the slurs in their parts, creating “paraphrases of phrases” as “the

main business of arriving at an interpretation.”39

Such paraphrases have an overwhelming tendency to follow the harmony, as we have already

observed in connection with Riemann and McGill. When this happens, harmony and phrasing

become one and the same object—very frequently, meter can be lumped in as well. The union

of these three dimensions may well be perfectly desirable at times, but it reduces the number

of expressive possibilities available to the performer.

It is tempting to do this [i.e., to replace phrases with paraphrases in conformance with

harmony] in classical music because affect and harmony are more strongly related in

romantic music, and we read the harmony in a less detached way because we also play

romantic music. But classical harmony can look after itself better than we think.

Harmony is a very strong rhythmic structure, and though we must be sensitive to the

context, mostly it is the phrase marks that need our support.40

Pay thus arrives at a succinct statement of the principle of phrasing: “phrases in classical

music, by default, were intended to begin more or less clearly, or weightily; and to lighten,

more or less, towards their end.”41 The prototype of Pay’s principle of phrasing is the

appoggiatura, a beginning-oriented structure that relaxes in tension from beginning to end,

38 Pay, “Phrasing,” 293. Emphasis original. 39 Ibid., 294. 40 Ibid., 300. 41 Ibid., 300.

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dissonant note to consonant note, and strong beat to weak beat. However, this does not mean

that other shapes are impossible. We just have to rethink how we achieve them.

Pay’s conception of phrasing is nested: he builds in a notion of grouping units at higher levels

of structure than the phrase or measure. One of the reasons he argues for a strong bias

toward beginning-oriented units in Classical music is the clear architectonic structure of

music in this style. “The trouble with phrasing that depends on crescendo at too low a level

is that ‘it doesn’t build.’ Contrast this with the fact that we may easily build a higher-level

crescendo from a sequence of beginning-oriented phrases.”42 One place we might apply this

idea is shown in Example 4.10.

Example 4.10: Mozart, Clarinet Concerto in A major, K.622, I, mm. 220–227.

This passage obviously calls for an increase in energy toward the cadence in m. 227—the

question is, at what level does this increase take place? The bracketed figure in m. 220

repeats nine times. One obvious solution is to play it at nine different dynamic levels, each

one louder than the last. This is quite a lot of distinct gradations to express on a woodwind

42 Pay, “Phrasing,” 306.

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instrument, and it’s easy to imagine the sense of rhythm being lost in such a performance—

the clarinet is the only instrument playing at this moment, and its rhythms are the only

rhythms. This conception gets us a long-range dynamic process, but no sense of segmentation

or structure. A more interesting way to think of the passage would be to group the motives

into three-beat units, each louder than the last. These three-beat units will come out even

better if we clarify their internal structure: retain the three-beat grouping but observe one

level of phrasing beneath it. Within each three-beat unit, each repetition of the motive will

slacken slightly in intensity. The effect will be a very slight decrescendo, since the natural

tendency of the higher notes is to want to be louder.

Finally, we’ve reached the level of the three-note slur. Pay’s principle suggests that we should

think of a unit at this lowest level as “lighten[ing], more or less, towards [its] end.”43 But such

a conception of this obviously upbeat figure would seem to destroy our sense of meter rather

than create an interesting tension with it. How do we solve this conundrum? The answer lies

in our understanding of “more or less.” Pay suggests that much of the rhythmic interest of a

performance arises from how much the performer chooses to lighten up toward the end of a

phrase. “We may range across the spectrum from separation, through contiguity and into

sostenuto,44 while still retaining the autonomy of the individual phrases, just as we can with

words when we speak.”45 The bracketed figure in Example 4.10 is one case where an

uninflected sostenuto might make the most sense at the lowest level. Each repetition of the

motive will slacken, creating a slight stepped decrescendo. Finally, the succession of three

groups of motives will show a large-scale stepped crescendo. Thinking of phrasing in these

terms (as shown in Example 4.11) is not difficult to do, and yet it helps us to hold the

simultaneous, seemingly contradictory dynamic processes in mind and to communicate them

to an audience. In this way, we can breathe life into this passage without making it mawkish

and over-dramatic.

43 Pay, “Phrasing,” 300. 44 Pay uses the term “sostenuto” to refer to a dynamic shape with no significant decay toward its end. 45 Ibid., 303.

109

Example 4.11: Schematic representation of nested phrasing.

One of Pay’s major concerns is how historical assumptions about phrasing might have

interacted with notation. The most interesting features of a historical style, he writes, are

those that were so widely assumed that it was never necessary to notate or discuss them. A

useful working assumption is that notated directions often represent something that runs

contrary to usual practice. If the composer writes a crescendo, this fact “is some degree of

evidence that he might not have expected his performers to provide one as a matter of

course.”46

Phrasing may often usefully be thought of as an adjustment, or, more forcefully, as a

correction of how we might normally play. The latter situation can arise particularly

if the composer wishes to indicate that the patterning differs from that created by the

rhythmic structure of the bar and its time-signature. In these cases, the phrasing takes

precedence over the normal accents of the bar, often suppressing even the accentuation

of the first beat. It is as though a new bar-line is created by the phrasing.47

For example, at the clarinet’s entrance in m. 7 of Mozart’s Quintet for Clarinet and Strings

(Example 4.12), no articulation markings are given. A staccato or detached stroke is clearly

out of the question, so the performer must make a decision as to how to group the eighth and

sixteenth notes. To make this decision (or, rather, to explain why the correct decision is so

obvious), Pay points to the phrasing process begun in the first measure: “the phrases

46 Pay, “Phrasing,” 306. 47 Ibid., 307.

110

consistently halve their period as the music proceeds.”48 Measure 5 is a special case: the first

violin has a slur over the whole measure, but the other strings have isolated quarter-note

chords on the odd-numbered beats. Pay points this out as an example of phrasing as

correction: the contour of the first violin’s melody and the presence of the chords sufficiently

establish the division of the measure. “Further slurs would exaggerate the effect.”49 After this

process of decomposition, the clarinet articulation that seems to make the most sense is to

phrase along with the beams: m. 7 in two halves, and m. 8 in four quarters.

In this case, as often in Mozart, the music itself enforces the beginning-oriented phrasing.

Pay observes that “the layout of the first two chords is striking enough to cause severe

difficulty to any string quartet attempting to float in and crescendo.”50 As the phrases

progress, the four parts move toward a more natural voicing. The top two lines of the texture

persistently descend. As the texture becomes lighter and clearer, the note values become

faster. It’s as if the clarinet emerges from a thick soup or jelly and shakes itself off.

48 Pay, “Phrasing,” 315. 49 Ibid., 316. 50 Ibid., 316.

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Example 4.12: Mozart, Quintet in A major for Clarinet and String Quartet, K.581, I, mm. 1–9.

Pay quotes a passage from later in the movement with a more complex texture. In m. 83 just

after the double bar (not shown), the ensemble plays a re-scored version of the opening theme

of the movement, transposed to C major and with the first violin rather than the clarinet

taking on the arpeggio pattern in m. 89 (shown in Example 4.13). These two measures turn

out to be a developmental core.51 Each imitative entrance is sounded against a countermelody

of sustained, syncopated figures. In such a passage, Pay writes,

it is important for the players to maintain the rhythmic formula by “speaking” the

phrases. Only in this way is the juxtaposition of the syncopated accompaniment and

the period-halving solo line rendered clear. Many players have a tendency to begin

51 See Caplin, Classical Form, 141–147; Analyzing Classical Form, 429–431.

112

with a sostenuto crescendo on the upward arpeggio, obliterating both main and half-

bar rhythm.52

To keep the contrapuntal texture clear, players should “resist the temptation to phrase

towards the bar line, even where the harmony seems to ask it.”53 Such places include the

resolutions of the applied dominants, indicated with arrows in my analytical underlay. This

passage is basically structured around an ascending 5-6 exchange, a strongly forward-

directed harmonic-contrapuntal progression. But Pay argues the flow of harmonic energy

through such a progression will be palpable regardless of how the performers play. From the

point of view of phrasing, the real imperative is to make the clashing rhythms clear between

the melody and countermelody in each entry. “When this is done the subsequent entry of the

clarinet and the effect of the whole group phrasing with the bar becomes more dramatic,

insistent, and meaningful.”54

52 Pay, “Phrasing,” 319. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid.

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Example 4.13: Mozart, Quintet in A major for Clarinet and String Quartet, K.581, I, mm. 89–98. My analytical

underlay. Dashed slurs and hairpins are editorial additions in the Neue Mozart Ausgabe.

114

Pay makes an important observation here about the mysterious nature of harmonic energy.

Because it arises from the notes we play as specified by the composer, harmonic energy will

be present as long as we play the correct notes, in tune, at more or less the right time. Its

power arises from acoustics, perception, composition, and the relationship between the piece

and its musical milieu. The performer’s choice is rather to play in accordance with this

feature of the music, or to play against it. Riemann (like McGill) generally suggests that

performers should do the former, but to elevate this suggestion to the level of a rule severely

constrains the performer. Instead, Pay gives situations where both options are appropriate,

and provides us some principles by which we might decide between them.

Perceptual and ethical imperatives

McGill and Pay obviously have very different notions of what music should sound like, even

after we adjust for their different referential repertoires.55 Both authors invoke perceptual

principles in service of their ways of hearing and playing. For example, McGill argues for the

Tabuteauvian basic grouping on solid phenomenological grounds.

When a string of eighth notes evolves into triplets, the player should first realize that

the first triplet note [i.e., the onset of the note indicated by the arrow in Example 4.14]

is sounded in exactly the same metrical time as the previous eighths.

Example 4.14: From McGill, Sound in Motion, 48.

The difference between this first triplet note and the previous eighths is that it is

prematurely interrupted during its expected eighth-note length by the early arrival of

the second triplet note. The first triplet note is only then defined as having had a triplet

note value, instead of having been an eighth note. However, in music we do not look

back to what has been. Music moves forward in time.

55 Pay is oriented almost exclusively to Mozart, although his ideas have a more general applicability.

McGill’s examples mainly come from the standard orchestral repertoire—which includes Mozart, but

also Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky.

115

Therefore, the first note of a change of rhythm strikes the listener the same as

whatever the previous rhythmic pattern was, because that rhythm has been

established in the mind.56

Rhythms progress forward to downbeats for the same reason that a farmer building a fence

needs one more fencepost than length of wire, which is also the reason that Schenker and

Riemann place measure numbers at the right-hand edge of the measure in their Beethoven

editions. In order to bound n units of time, we need n+1 time points: a single beat encloses

no time, just as on a two-dimensional plane two lines enclose no space, just as a single

fencepost supports no wire. The first quarter of the measure is not complete until we hear

beat 2, and the measure itself is not complete until we hear the downbeat of the following

measure. As listeners, we are always projecting expectations forward in time and comparing

what actually happens with what we had expected.57

This is how Riemann approached rhythm, meter, and phrasing as well. In both cases, the

weakness of the theory comes from its retreat from the literal. Both authors, McGill and

Riemann, first posit a theory of performance. As the theory runs into trouble or becomes

vulnerable to accusations of being monotone or procrustean, McGill and Riemann both

retreat into psychology and the notion of abstract, inner energy (recalling McGill’s statement

that phrasing numbers do not indicate loudness). The aural image is one of “ultra-

expressivity,”58 where expressivity is conceived in terms of intensity. More intense is more

expressive.

Pay’s perceptual principle is a little more mundane. He calls it “the ‘cocktail party’ theory of

classical music.”59 This theory is based on an analogy of music with speech—not in terms of

rhetoric or grammatical structure, but simply of their outward audible character.

The fundamental character of speech is its responsibility to be intelligible, which

presupposes that it be clearly audible, even against background noise. For this to be

the case, it is important that the constantly changing vowels and consonants at the

56 McGill, Sound in Motion, 48. Emphasis original. 57 Historians of theory will recognize this as a Hauptmannian principle: Die Natur, 225–226; The

Nature, 189–190. For a sophisticated modern exposition of this way of thinking about meter, with an

enquiry into its origins in phenomenology and idealism, see Christopher F. Hasty, Meter as Rhythm

(Oxford University Press, 1997). 58 Caplin, “Theories of Musical Rhythm,” 684. 59 Pay, “Playing the Mozart Clarinet Concerto,” 20.

116

beginnings of syllables be clearly differentiated from the sounds that immediately

precede them. In other words, the beginnings have more energy. This is a natural

character of everyday spoken language. It is one reason why we can understand a

conversation even in a crowded party, where there is not only background noise but

also the conversation of others to distract and confuse us. It is also why we can switch

our attention from one conversation to another, if we hear something gripping in it

(like our name, for example).60

Rather than helping the phrase along, or conforming to the listener’s expectations of what

might happen in the future, Pay has a much simpler imperative: lighten the texture and

make sure every voice is audible. A strong beginning with a taper makes this happen with

minimal effort. The aural image appealed to here is also concerned with expression, but

expression is conceived more abstractly as something that differs in a meaningful way from

a background norm. This notion of expression frees the performer to consider many more

possible options, and it prevents the listener from feeling pandered to. In its attempt to

reckon with the compositional and performance assumptions of the composer, it also pays

more respect to the chain of decisions that led to the creation of the score. When combined,

these features make Pay’s approach to phrasing strongly preferable to an attempt to generate

surface interest through constant crescendo and decrescendo.

It’s well known that the attempt to be interesting in ordinary social life can actually

be quite boring, as though whoever is doing it is somehow ‘trying too hard.’ You do

better by being interested in something. So perhaps that carries over into music. From

that point of view, as long as we are asking what the music requires in order to be

alive, we’re on the right lines.61

As artists, our primary responsibility is to ask what the music requires of us in order to come

to life in sound. One of the best ways I know of to ask this question is to analyze the music.

Such analysis will inevitably change or sharpen our conception of the piece, and we wouldn’t

be responsible artists if this changed conception did not translate into different actions and

presumably different sound. Of course, the performance is conditioned by many other extra-

artistic factors too numerous to specify, but such contingencies are precisely why I recoil from

60 Pay, “Phrasing,” 300. See Klorman, Mozart’s Music of Friends, 24 for an amusing historical

perspective on music as beginning-oriented speech. 61 Pay, “Playing the Mozart Clarinet Concerto,” 20.

117

a consequentialist ethics of performance. The important thing is not what physically comes

out the end of the instrument, but how we decide how to play.

In the interest of closing with music, I want to seize upon Pay’s notion of “trying too hard” in

a Mozart analysis.62 The Quintet for Piano and Winds is a seemingly inexhaustible source of

moments worthy of analytical attention. But as this study draws to a close, I would like to

zoom in on what is certainly the most remarkable section of the piece: the 46-measure

ensemble cadenza that leads into the coda of the third movement. Example 4.15 shows the

beginning of the cadenza. For the upbeat enthusiast, this moment is irresistible. The

composite rhythm of the five parts has continuous motion in quarter notes from the beginning

of the cadenza up to m. 177 (not shown). The oboe’s entrance with a quarter-note pickup to

the middle of m. 159 seems to set the stage for the rest of the cadenza. The quarter notes in

the clarinet part of the next two measures certainly seem like upbeats, and in some editions

they are notated as such, with editorial slurs connecting them to the following downbeat.63

62 It hardly needs to be said that this analysis is very much inspired by Klorman’s approach to multiple

agency in Mozart’s chamber music. See especially Mozart’s Music of Friends, 20–72 for an overview of

this theoretical and historical perspective. 63 My example here follows the Neue Mozart Ausgabe.

118

Example 4.15: Mozart, Quintet in Ef major for Piano and Winds, K.452, III, mm. 159–177. Continued on next page.

119

120

But aside from the upbeat to the initial entrance of each part, every standalone quarter note

is slurred to the previous long note. Moreover, in m. 169, the quarter notes in the oboe part

are slurred to the following long note. Enquiring after this difference in notation can lead us

to some performance decisions. While the first section of the cadenza partakes of the nature

of a fugal exposition, there is a clear lack of equality between the parts. I propose a reading

in which the oboist and clarinetist vie for supremacy, alternately gaining or losing influence

over their colleagues. At the beginning of the cadenza, the oboe and its allies seem to propose

a structure oriented to the middle of the bar—insisting, perhaps too hard, on their

idiosyncratic, across-the-bar, interpretation as the most interesting thing to do. On the other

hand, the clarinet is firm in maintaining the notated downbeat—perhaps too firm. The horn

player defects to the clarinetist’s cause in m. 163, creating a strong articulation of the

downbeat of m. 164 that seems to confuse the oboe into landing on the downbeat of the

following measure. The texture becomes muddled as the piano and upper winds descend in

syncopated notes for four measures, leaping off a dominant pedal onto a tonic pedal, and

finally onto the subdominant in m. 169.

Here the terms of the argument change. The oboe tries now to assert the second quarter note

as the beginning of each rhythmic unit. The clarinet, now allied with the bassoon, persists in

trying to maintain the established meter. Frustration mounts as the harmony continues to

climb for four measures without the two lead winds coming to an agreement. When the

ensemble reaches tonic in m. 173, the clarinetist attempts to predict the oboe’s move and turn

the second-quarter motive into a quasi-cadential figure that will resolve on the downbeat of

m. 174. Her ally, the horn, connives with her in this attempt, providing a nice cadential bass

line.

But the clarinetist’s attempt to bring the cadenza to a close is too clever by half. She confuses

herself, inadvertently repeating the syncopated figure again and destroying the downbeat of

m. 174. Meanwhile, the piano and bassoon have other plans for what will follow: at great

effort, they’ve just built up a reserve of harmonic energy through the ascending sequence

(mm. 169–172), and now they want to discharge it with a descending sequence. The pianist,

hoping to make his concerto debut some day, wants to show off in another passage of triplet

arpeggios. Rather than accepting a boring old I–V–I progression, he starts an elaborated

romanesca sequence. Over the course of m. 175 the clarinet/horn axis regain their bearings

121

and make another attempt: it’s not possible to land on a tonic cadence, but they can at least

recuperate a downbeat by m. 177.

Example 4.16: Mozart, Quintet in Ef major for Piano and Winds, K.452, III, mm. 177–184.

In the passage that follows (Example 4.15), the clarinet and oboe argue with each other in

parliamentary fashion, hurling blame according to strict procedure as the other instruments

fall silent to listen to their remarks.64 Each four-measure volley falls by a fifth, with the oboe’s

final statement landing on tonic. At this point the two instruments seem to come to an

accommodation just in time for the final drop to the subdominant in m. 189. They’re both

woodwinds, after all. It is the pianist—ostentatious, arrogant, oblivious diva—who needs to

be set straight. Every time he has taken the lead (at mm. 164, 169, 173, and 177), he has

kicked off a new process that has prolonged the cadenza and confused the rest of the players.

In m. 164, his entrance extends the dominant pedal that had seemed to be drawing to a close.

In m. 169 his chromatic notes gave a countermetrical impulse to which the oboe responded,

intensifying disagreement between the lead winds. And in m. 173, he insisted on a

descending sequence to balance the ascent that had just occurred—ultimately leading to the

climactic argument at m. 177.

64 On this notion of instruments playing “against” each other, see Klorman, Mozart’s Music of Friends,

32–37.

122

Example 4.17: Mozart, Quintet in Ef major for Piano and Winds, K.452, III, mm. 185–206. Continued on next page.

123

The oboe, clarinet, and bassoon scold the piano with their staccato notes in m. 189, as if to

say “downbeat’s here,” while the piano’s ascending on-the-beat legato figures seem contrite.

(Incidentally, the sets of three separated notes in the winds work nicely if we consider each

single note to be what Pay calls a “degenerate phrase”65 that tapers away after its attack,

and make the crescendo on the next level up: the group of three “degenerate phrases.”) The

pianist joins in with the separated notes in the winds—accepting, for now, that the winds

will be the ones to drive to the end of the cadenza, while he merely participates. Once the

pianist establishes the dominant root in m. 196, the oboe and clarinet try another figure that

asserts the second quarter of the bar as a rhythmic beginning—a rising chromatic figure.

This time, the ensemble recognizes a plan and responds in an organized fashion: the idea is

to avoid a strongly articulated downbeat as much as possible until the cadence.

The last note of the final rising chromatic figure, in the oboe, becomes the cadential trill.

Through this lengthy trill, no instrument articulates a downbeat or half-measure without a

slurred pickup or tied note in at least one part. In the last measure of the cadenza, the clarinet

joins the trill from below, and the pianist dovetails the final return of the main theme with

65 Pay, “Phrasing,” 304.

124

the cadenza-ending cadence. The remainder of the movement consists of a celebratory buffo

coda—led by the piano.66

The entire piece is a fascinating study in trying too hard. The players try to display their

virtuosity, to be the one to declaim the most dramatic part of a melody (in the second

movement, mm. 19–26, when the winds shove each other aside like rock stars on stage at

Live Aid), or to assert their own crackpot theories about where the downbeat falls. The five

players form and break alliances, make mistakes, and correct each other too insistently. As

befits a musical comedy, trying too hard usually leads to ridiculous results, but everything is

reconciled in the end. These personified actions can be characterized primarily in rhythmic

terms—in terms of whether an instrument’s melody agrees with or contradicts the harmony

or meter, or the melodies of the other instruments. As a performer, noticing such moments

and asking what they might mean is endlessly productive. There’s always something there

in the music, if you pay attention—and in music, another name for paying attention is

analysis.

66 I’m indebted to Janet Schmalfeldt (personal communication) for characterizing the coda in these

terms.

125

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