IN SCHUBE T
2.1 I N T ODUCTION
Chromatic mediant relations are, of course, not exclusive to nineteenth-century music.1Their presence in Renaissance music is familiar. In Baroque style they often occur at the boundaries between large sections of pieces, as a half cadence resolving to an unexpected new tonic. Similarly in the music of Haydn and Mozart, they appear most often as major-third mediants at the boundaries between sections in a minuet or scherzo.2 Between or within phrases, though, they are exceptional. In Beethoven’s and Schubert’s music, chromatic mediants began to appear with greater regularity and to find their way into more local harmonic contexts. As their presence grew and their profile became more familiar, chromatic third relations gradually be-came an accepted and much-exploited aspect of nineteenth-century harmonic prac-tice. It is this normative practice which will be examined throughout the following chapters.
This chapter will present examples from three works of Schubert – two songs and the last piano sonata – which contain straightforward and compelling instances of direct chromatic mediant relations at varying levels of structure. The analyses will include consideration of alternative approaches and their limitations. Schubert was only one of many nineteenth-century composers who capitalized on the allure of chromatic mediants. However, more than anyone else, he was probably responsi-ble for the clear, consistent, and organized use of chromatic mediant relations that brought them into the sphere of normative tonal practice. While the musical exam-ples and analyses of later chapters are drawn from music of many other composers, it is fitting to begin withSchubert.
1 A useful historical survey of chromatic third relations along with numerous examples from all periods appears in McKinley’s taxonomic study, “Dominant-Related Chromatic Third Relations.” McKinley does not argue for separate functional status for chromatic mediants but accounts for them within the language of conventional expla-nation (e.g. alterations, borrowings, substitutions). He does, however, consider them to be “tonality-enhancing”
(p. 6).
2 An early account of these appears in Hugo Riemann’s Große Kompositionslehre (Berlin: W. Spemann, 1902), vol. I, pp. 75–76. Harald Krebs gives numerous Schenkerian readings of long-range third relations in Haydn and Mozart in “Third Relations and Dominant in Late 18th- and Early 19th-Century Music” (Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1980). Beach, “A Recurring Pattern in Mozart’s Music,” considers third relations at the moment of recapitulation in first movements of Mozart sonatas.
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2.2 D E R M U S E N S O H N
In the language of traditional harmonic analysis, the effortless connections between stanzas of Schubert’s song Der Musensohn require a labored or regularizing explana-tion (Ex. 2.1). With a concept of mediant funcexplana-tion, though, these links are easily characterized as straightforward.
Example 2.1 Schubert, Der Musensohn: direct modulations by chromatic mediant
The song contains five stanzas, of which the first, third and fifth are in the tonic key of G major. The second and fourth are squarely in B major, the key of the upper sharp mediant, which contains pitches outside of the G major/minor diatonic set.
Despite the seeming incompatibility of these two opposing keys, Schubert glides smoothly from one to the other and back.3 He does this without interposing a single chord between the two tonics in either direction of key change. Conventional analysis, having no expression for functional relationship between the two, would conclude that this cannot be a straightforward modulation, but rather a modification or incomplete realization of something different, or even a faulty and unsatisfactory event. The music itself, however, speaks otherwise: there is indeed a direct and effective modulation deserving equally direct explanation.
We could explain the modulation as involving a more distant goal – the upper sharp mediant could conceivably be part of a Schenkerian third-divider whose true goal would be D major, the key of the dominant. Or perhaps B major could be the dominant of the relative minor (that is, E minor), another conceivable target.
However, no suchgoals extending beyond B major are actually involved in these modulations. The music plays out plainly in B major until the end of the inner stanzas, at which point it returns directly to tonic G major. Nevertheless, one could claim that one or the other of the above acceptable goal keys must be implicit in the sudden progression to B major: we must imagine them as future possibilities in order to make sense of the wayward mediant. But there is nothing in the music to suggest anything like this. In the inner stanzas, all there is is plenty of I, IV, and V in B, then a move directly back to G major. We simply do not need to hear past B to understand this music. Surely it is selling its aesthetic content short to assert the true nature of this progression to be the truncation of a milder process.
Taking another tack, we could define the B major chord itself as a version of a more acceptable chord, say some sort of altered dominant. An explanation along these lines would acknowledge a “dominant” with root ˆ5 (D ), third intact (F ), and sixth-for-fifth substitution (B for A). While this explanation may seem plausible for a single chord, it seems less suited to fully account for the sense of long, stable stretches of music. Calling the B major of stanzas two and four a substitute dominant would deny the clear sense of underlying tonality that it projects, and would require D, the third degree of the apparent tonic and a pitch wholly outside the framework of G major/minor, to carry the harmonic identity of these passages instead as a representative of D. More fundamentally, this interpretation also suggests that what we hear is really just a version of something else, when in fact the modulation seems direct and clear. To my mind this argument stretches the explanatory power of scale-step alteration beyond good sense. Better to allow that the composer has produced
3 The mediant relations in Der Musensohn, occurring between stanzas, somewhat recall eighteenth-century practice.
But the minimal contrast in texture, rhythm, and melody between the sections of the song regularizes the harmonic connection, whereas the greater contrast between sections in dance movements reflects a sense of disjunction.
a) m. 30 b) m. 50 Figure 2.1 Chromatic mediant progressions between stanzas in Schubert’s Der Musensohn
a convincing modulation brought about by two chords in immediate succession, by way of a functional T-USM chromatic mediant progression.4
Thus Der Musensohn provides two clear, straightforward examples of functional chromatic mediant relation (Fig. 2.1). For one thing, the progressions are very clean.
They occur on a number of levels simultaneously, happening at very deep, unambigu-ous structural boundaries mediated at all levels by the same two-chord progression between tonics found at the surface. In the first progression, at m. 30, the move from tonic to USM is abetted by the appearance of the common tone B in the melody, which contributes a great deal to the perceived smoothness of the progression, both in its appearance in an important register, and by counterbalancing the chromatic shift from D to D in an inner voice. And, as the tonic note of the new key, the prominent B legitimates the progression. Rhythm provides a further impetus. The move occurs right at the beginning of the new stanza: the old tonic is played by the piano on the upbeat, and the new tonic directly thereafter. Such strong as-sociation of the two chords in a unified, forward-directed rhythmic gesture helps project the functional force binding them, echoing on a different plane a sense of progression from the first quantity to the second. The continuation of the pervasive dotted-rhythm melodic motive of the first stanza into the new key area reinforces the effect of smooth connection.
The second chromatic mediant progression, at m. 50, accomplishes a move from the USM back to the tonic. Like the progression at m. 30, its most salient aspect is the appearance of the common tone in the melody. Here the harmonic move is less potentially abrupt – it is headed back to the tonic, after all. But the common tone, while equally important this time around, serves a different purpose. It helps to distinguish this return from its normative analogue, the dominant-to-tonic cadence, which, like the progression from upper sharp mediant to tonic, contains the resolu-tion of the leading tone to the tonic pitch. Schubert does his best to downplay the leading-tone aspect: its resolution happens in an inner voice; the notes in question are not contiguous in time; and they both occur on off-beats. On the other hand, the common tone, hallmark of the mediant progression, sails through conspicuously on
4 This type of modulation is described by several of the nineteenth-century theorists discussed in chaps. 3–4.
Example 2.2 Schubert, Die Sterne, second stanza: direct chromatic mediant relations
the melody. As before, it ties the progression to a strong upbeat–downbeat gesture, reinforcing the sense of motion from the first chord to arrival on the second.
This mediant-function explanation seems to me to be the most convincing way of dealing with the harmonic connections between the stanzas of this song. In response to G major and B major coexisting in a piece to the exclusion of any other keys, it resorts neither to external justification for nor redefinition of the unusual key relationship. Instead, it treats the relationship as normative. Conventional explanations may conclude that the harmonic scheme of Der Musensohn is colorful, even strange, for its particulars lie outside the realm of what is expressible purely in terms of the system, giving the song the aura of something unusual. The explanation
offered here, on the other hand, concludes that the harmonic scheme of the piece is expressible purely within terms of the system.
This attitude may appear to run the risk of affecting one’s perception of the song and dimming its aura of special structure. But its advantages should outstrip any drawbacks. Conceiving these chromatic mediant links as functional strengthens our understanding of how this song works and deepens our aesthetic perception.
To think of the modulations as straightforward, not crooked, can only help us to hear them as straightforward as well, without feeling obliged to aurally filter them through the terms of other elements of our musical experience. Their beauty is only enhanced by hearing and conceiving them directly.
2.3 D I E S T E R N E
Schubert’s song Die Sterne reads like a deliberate experiment in creating functional chromatic mediant relations at the level of the phrase. Die Sterne contains four stanzas of four lines each, separated by an unchanging piano refrain which also begins and ends the piece. The stanzas are identical in length and in rhythmic content; the pitch content of the third line, though, is varied in the first three stanzas, while the fourth reiterates the first. What is remarkable is the way in which the third line of each stanza, always the locus of a swift quasi-modulatory excursion, differs in each case.
The excursions, which go to several remote keys, are always directed to a chromatic mediant and always lead directly back to tonic E major. The third line of stanza one contains a move to and from C major, the lower sharp mediant. In stanza two the move is to C major, the lower flat mediant. In stanza three the move is to G major, the upper sharp mediant. Stanza four revisits the C major of the first (Ex. 2.2).
Thus in Die Sterne Schubert has written a veritable manual of possible chromatic mediant moves, as shown in Figure 2.2; G major is the only chromatic mediant absent from the song. The manner in which Schubert approaches and leaves these chromatic mediants is consistent throughout. In each verse, he sets the first two lines of text witha simple, strong cadential progression in tonic E. This is followed by the direct juxtaposition of a chromatic mediant at the entrance of the first word of the third line. The mediant endures for the length of the line, its root forming a pedal point, and its dominant surfacing twice on weak beats. At the beginning of the fourth line of text comes the direct juxtaposition of tonic E in first inversion, followed by another cadential progression to the tonic, more elaborate than the previous ones.
The excursion to C major in the first stanza, at m. 31, involves the direct juxta-position of two root-juxta-position triads, the barest possible chromatic mediant move.
Common tone G forms the top voice of the piano’s ostinato and is doubled below in the left hand, guiding the listener into the progression; the next line of melody then picks up the G in the same register in which it was heard in the piano. C major lasts for seven measures, during which time it is never reinterpreted either as auxiliary to
a) first and fourth stanzas
b) second stanza
c) third stanza
Figure 2.2 Chromatic mediants in Die Sterne ( black notes= vocal part;
slurs= common tones)
or as an alteration of some other chord. The only pitches outside the triad appearing in the passage are the lower neighbors B and D, which imply C’s dominant, serving only to strengthen the impression of C as a momentarily stable harmony. The move back to tonic E at m. 38 is achieved by the direct juxtaposition of root position C major and an E major triad in first inversion. The use of first inversion here instead of root position does not result from any inherent mechanical difficulty in returning to the tonic directly from a chromatic mediant. Rather, this I6 is used for purely musical reasons: a root-position tonic triad would be far too definite an arrival so soon here at the beginning of the phrase. Schubert does not employ I in root position until the very last moment (m. 46); he deliberately avoids it not only at m. 38 but again at m. 42, preserving a measure of tension not fully resolved until the end of the phrase. This, of course, conveys the feeling of one unified musical phrase setting the fourth line of text. It also gives a sense of continuity between it and the previous phrase by keeping harmony consistently open between the C major chord of m. 38 and the E major chord of m. 46. Thus the two harmonic areas are heard in direct relation to each other both before and after the chromatic mediant
interpolation. C major can be understood as the principal secondary harmonic area of the stanza rather than simply a prolonged chromatic neighbor formation.
Several small-scale factors contribute to the stability of this chromatic mediant progression. In the approach to the first progression at m. 28, the vocal line arrives at the tonic by a stepwise ascent to E; the sense of the moment is very much that of a melodic end, a closing off (appropriate, since E does not belong to the upcoming C major). At the point of juxtaposition, common tone G is given prominence as the highest note in the piano, guiding the ear smoothly through to C major. It first appears in m. 28, staying put through the mediant move into the new phrase, where it is taken up very audibly by the voice. This sung G at m. 31 consequently sounds bothfresh– being a minor sixthaway from the last sung note, E – and stable, with strong links to the piano’s G which preceded it, as well as to an earlier G, the first note of the vocal line in m. 17. The common tone in the piano also provides continuity for the move back to the tonic at m. 38 – in fact, it does not budge between mm. 28 and 44. The vocal part, on the other hand, stresses the chromatic motion inherent in the progression. It ends the third phrase with an imitation of the previous phrase – stepwise motion upward to some sort of E – but arrives, naturally, at E, not E .
Schubert eases into the final line by chromatic semitone motion back to E, which along withthe common tone produces a particularly smoothtransition back to the tonic while stressing the sound of the mediant progression.
In the second stanza, which moves to C major, the lower flat mediant, the harmonic mechanism is similar. M. 76 contains a juxtaposition of root-position tonic and LFM triads, while m. 83 has a juxtaposition of root-position LFM and first-inversion tonic. However, the common tone in this progression is different – tonic E – which affects some compositional details. E ends the second vocal phrase and begins the third one at m. 76; it also ends the third phrase and begins the fourth at m. 83. The shape of the third phrase is correspondingly changed. From the high common E, the melody must go down, tracing a sixth and bouncing back up (on the word Liebe) with an arpeggio that reaches above to G, the highest note in the piece so far, before settling back to E. Schubert was not content to leave this G, a chromatic pitch, unanswered. He varied the fourth phrase slightly so that the melodic shape, instead of peaking at F as it did in the first stanza, continues up to G, resolving the G of the previous phrase up a semitone to its diatonic counterpart. The arrival at G is emphasized by the piano’s crescendo, extended an extra measure here in comparison with the first stanza in order to peak at the high note. The isolation of the G–G progression in the highest register also prepares, in a way, the change from a flat mediant in this stanza to a sharp mediant in the next.
In the third stanza, which goes to G major, the upper sharp mediant, the pitch G is the common tone for the mediant progression, as it was in the first stanza.
Thus even though the goal of this harmonic excursion is different here than it was at the outset, the mechanism and the voicing are much the same. At m. 121, as at m. 31, the common tone is carried in the upper voice of the piano, while the vocal line abandons E for the G a minor sixth lower. However, this progression
sounds the most distant of all so far, since the upper sharp mediant, as explained in section 1.6, does not preserve any form of the tonic pitch, while it introduces another pitch outside of the tonic major/minor collection. But this progression also sounds very muchin place, due in part to an aural association withthe first stanza sparked by the very similar voicings at the moments of juxtaposition, and also by its earlier preparation through the striking arrival at G in m. 90 just described. At m. 128, the common tone endures in the piano as before, but the way in which the vocal line regains E is changed. Earlier at m. 38, E gave way to E . Here Schubert takes advantage of the upper sharp mediant’s strength: it contains the leading tone.
He ends the third vocal phrase on D, laying the path for a resolution to the ensuing E which is more powerful than the downward chromatic semitone at the parallel point in the first stanza.
Finally, the fourth stanza is identical to the first through its first three phrases. The fourth phrase, though, is borrowed from the second stanza, and reaches G once again – emphasized this time by a forte marking – descending for the final cadence.5
Finally, the fourth stanza is identical to the first through its first three phrases. The fourth phrase, though, is borrowed from the second stanza, and reaches G once again – emphasized this time by a forte marking – descending for the final cadence.5