"'Tonal oder Atonal?': Interval Cycles, Whole-Tone Tonality, and the Dialectics of Musical Process in Berg’s Piano Sonata, Op. 1"
Previous accounts of Berg’s Piano Sonata, Op. 1, by Dave Headlam and Janet Schmalfeldt leave one with the impression that the work is either not quite atonal, or is tonal in general, in the background sense, with deviant foreground materials. In either case, the Sonata acts as a kind of stepping-stone to Op. 2 no. 4, generally acknowledged as Berg’s first atonal composition. This paper investigates the problem of the Sonata as a transitional work, to argue that the work is neither tonal nor atonal in the universal sense, but rather is internally divided. This internal tension is realized through a staging, or critique, of tonality, rather than an application of it. Other non-tonal structures, namely, the whole-tone scale and its interaction with the chromatic scale and interval-cycles, subvert tonality at critical stages in the sonata process. Thereby tonality is itself made the object of reflection, rather than an applied musical language. What allows for this objectification is the work’s attempt to construct another “system,” defined here as a kind of “whole-tone tonality” based on interval cycles. Schoenberg’s own comments on the possibility of a whole-tone tonality — based on the interaction of the two whole-tone scales with the chromatic scale — in the Harmonielehre of 1911, as well Adorno’s paradigm concerning the non-affirmative quality of modern art figure into the argument. Some of Headlam’s more critical ideas regarding the later, more properly, atonal works are also seen to apply to Op. 1.
“Parsimonious Voice-Leading in Debussy: the “Fêtes” Movement from the Nocturnes”
In his article “Moving Beyond Neo-Riemannian Triads,” Adrian Childs proposes a transformational model for parsimonious voice-leading between seventh chords. His discussion focuses on set class 4-27 [0258], the half-diminished and dominant seventh chord. As Richard Cohn points out, set-class 4-27, along with 3-11 (the consonant triad) and 6-34 (the mystic chord) represent minimum deviations from a symmetrical division of the octave, allowing these sets to partake in parsimonious voice-leading.
Childs mentions that “Initial work applying the theories of neo-Riemannian triadic transformations has focused primarily on the late nineteenth-century chromatic repertoire, particularly the operas of Richard Wagner. While the analytical insights provided have proven rich and stimulating, a fundamental problem has also arisen: the composers whose works seem best suited for neo-Riemannian analysis [Wagner, Franck, Richard Strauss and their contemporaries] rarely limited their harmonic vocabulary to simple triads.” The same can be said for the harmonic world of Claude Debussy, a composer not particularly regarded for his skill in voice-leading between chords.
In this paper I will examine an excerpt from “Fêtes,” the second of Debussy’s Nocturnes for Orchestra. Specifically, I will show how application of recent developments in neo-Riemannian theory can illustrate parsimonious voice-leading within a specific family of seventh chords. After a brief discussion of two models of parsimonious voice-leading, I will introduce a new transformational network that efficiently illustrates the unique way in which voice-leading occurs between chords in this work.