"What Beethoven might have learned from J. S. Bach”
Beethoven was the first major composer to have grown up knowing the music of J. S. Bach. To what extent might we find the influence of Bach’s music on Beethoven’s musical style? Such influence is evident in three areas: (1) in the vigorous rhythmic energy Beethoven’s music frequently displays, (2) in Beethoven’s predilection for working with a limited amount of musical material often stated at the very opening of a movement, and (3) in the way Beethoven uses later sections of a movement (recapitulations and especially codas in sonata-form movements, for instance) to bring a rhetorical process to a consummation. In each of these areas, Beethoven’s music offers features that are closer to comparable aspects of Bach’s music than aspects in the music of Beethoven’s immediate predecessors.
“On intertextuality, anxiety, and music analysis: can they mix?”
The mysterious opening of Brahms’ Sonata in F minor for Piano and Clarinet, Op. 120 No. 1, bears a remarkable resemblance to the Bach chorale “Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden” from the Matthew Passion. Using an intertextual, neo-Schoenbergian Grundgestalt analysis, I will demonstrate that the Brahms sonata movement is a paraphrase of the Bach chorale and that the two works share important motives and techniques of motivic development. I will then characterize the nature of Brahms’ engagement with the Bach chorale using Harold Bloom’s anxiety of influence theory as a point of departure. This Bloomian reading of the relationship between these two works suggests a hermeneutic interpretation of the sonata as an expression of both the Brahms’ Todesangst and of his relationship with Bach. In sum, this paper is an exploration of the extent to which traditional, structuralist approaches to analysis may be used in tandem with literary and humanistic ones to develop a more complete understanding of a musical work.
“Drama in a Prelude of J. S. Bach”
Certain brief compositions of J.S. Bach draw us back repeatedly because of their thematic detail, structural depth, and engaging drama. Bach’s Prelude in G# minor, from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Vol. I, represents an intriguing instance. The Prelude’s primary melodic subject proliferates over the musical surface via intensive motivic development, and its voice-leading structure reveals unusual richness and depth. However these aspects, in and by themselves, do not offer a convincing account of the impression of dynamic musical drama perceptible in the short, yet complex work.
Schoenberg’s concept of “musical problem” offers illumination of the dramatic effect projected by this fascinating work. A component of what Schoenberg called the grundgestalt, or “basic musical idea,” the musical problem is a truly motivic notion, representing an imbalance or unrest that demands and seemingly elicits an appropriate response within the unfolding composition. The grundgestalt of the Prelude appears immediately, and its “problem” appears within in the form of a diminished-seventh sonority distinguished by the contextually-dissonant dyad F##3/E5. Variants of that dyad reappear to remind of the problem’s presence and obligation. Motivic development at the musical surface features the recombination of the musical idea’s components, simulating the search for a solution, and the voice-leading structure at the middleground stimulates expectation, leading to a climax in m. 25. There, the effect of a gradual rhythmic acceleration, expressed by a grandly-expanded descending sixth span in the bass, leads to a final, dynamic statement of the “problem” and yields a satisfactory “solution,” as well as satisfactory closure.