[Letter from Stephen Blum]

[Letter from Stephen Blum]Author(s): Stephen BlumSource: Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 39, No. 1 (Spring, 1986), pp. 210-215Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the American Musicological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/831703 .

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CCOMMUNICATIONS-

To the Editor of the JOURNAL

IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION that in my article "Thomas Ravenscroft: Musical Chronicler of an Elizabethan Theater Company," this JOURNAL, XXXVIII (1985), the citation that I give on p. 244 to "the bishop of London's register of 1598" (Guildhall Library MS 9531/13) should be corrected to "the visitation book of Bishop Bancroft of 1598" (Guildhall Library MS 9537/9, fol. 5v).

LINDA PHYLLIS AUSTERN

Cornell University


IN HIS EXCELLENT STUDY "Chernomor to Kashchei: Harmonic Sorcery; or, Stravinsky's 'Angle,' " this JOURNAL, XXXVIII (1985), 72-142, Richard Taruskin discusses Schubert's interest in full circles of major thirds as "an alternate course of harmonic navigation that bypassed the circle of fifths" (p. 80). The several whole-tone scales in works written by Schubert between 1824 and 1828 are described as "a means of connecting the roots (and. . . not only the roots) in a symmetrical, descending progression by thirds" (p. 86).

The voice leading of the progressions has more in common with traditional models of the circle of fifths than Taruskin allows. Schubert's full circles of major (or of minor) thirds often involve two parallel lines a minor third or a major sixth apart, allowing for chains of suspensions that can be heard as adaptations of familiar contrapuntal models.

This is particularly clear in the progression that is heard twice in succession in the first movement of the Great C-Major Symphony, mm. 302-23, 324-47 (Ex. i). The sense of the progression depends upon a ritmo di quattro battute, present throughout the development section, in which a seventh chord or other dissonance on the first of four bars is normally resolved on the downbeat of the third bar. One whole-tone scale provides the sevenths and their resolutions, while the complementary whole-tone scale is both a chain of suspensions and a means of connecting each root in the descending progression by thirds. With the modifications shown in Example 2, paragraph 295 of Rimsky-Korsakov's harmony textbook (Taruskin's Ex. 48, p. 136) can be read as a model of this progression and of that in the final movement of the Octet, mm. 172-77 (Taruskin's Ex. 5).

A second way in which Schubert used dominant-seventh chords in a circle of major thirds corresponds to paragraph 296 of Rimsky's textbook. In the first movement of the G-Major Quartet, D. 887, mm. 168-79 and 189-200, the descending line pauses on each seventh for three beats before resolving it



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Example i

Schubert, Symphony in C Major, D. 944, I, mm. 324-47, abstraction

FI Ob. 324 328 332

C I.

ti -w -o

-3-

Vln. i h f WIN

Cl. 2

Vln.2 ______A__It___

Via., i- b -

. Bsn. I

Vic., :,,_,__________ ,_ _ Bass _

336 Cl. 340 344

310 [in.

Bsn. i

D"u A nillsICn .-

Bsn.2

7s--

i1?i

illa,,h Ilr411-

II~eAV w



2 12 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY

Example 2

Altered version of Rimsky-Korsakov's paragraph 295 (after Taruskin, Ex. 48)

1 1- - -I %j, - --

to the root (rather than the third) of the following triad. In the Sanctus of the Mass in E-flat (Taruskin's Ex. 4), bassoons or trombones emphasize the fifth of each seventh chord, heard retrospectively as a leading-tone when it resolves to the root of the following triad.

Schubert's voice leading is rendered unintelligible by Taruskin's abstraction of a different circle of major thirds in the C-Major Symphony (first movement, mm. 185-2 15; his Ex. 2). The reduction omits the A-flat-minor chord (mm. 208-i i) that connects the E-flat triad of mm. 204-207 with the dominant-seventh chord on B (mm. 2 12-I-5)-the same connection heard subsequently in mm. 328-32. The A-flat-minor chord of mm. 200-203 is a dissonant flat-six-four, resolving to E-flat at m. 204 (as shown in Taruskin's reduction). The A-flat-minor chord of mm. 208-I I is a second dissonant flat- six-four, with an extraordinary resolution: the dissonant C-flat becomes the root of the following chord even as both dissonant notes (C-flat and A-flat) resolve by descending a whole tone rather than a semitone.

In remarking that Schubert's "circles of minor thirds. . . seem never to be complete" (p. 91), Taruskin overlooks passages in two works of 1825-26. Extraordinary resolution of a flat-six-four chord also generates the most powerful of these, in the final movement of the G-Major Quartet, mm. 652- 7 1 (Ex. 3). Delayed resolution of the fourth in the second violin and the sixth in the viola occurs as the bass moves by semitones to the minor third below, creating a new flat-six-four chord to be resolved in the same manner, and so on through the cycle. The descending lines played by second violin and viola (a major sixth apart) are motivated by the need to resolve the flat-six-four chords and the other dissonant suspensions formed by each inner part against the bass (see Ex. 4).

By Taruskin's criteria, these lines are not "octatonic scales" but the composing-out of a diminished-seventh chord. Compare the manner in which all three diminished-seventh chords are composed-out in the second movement of the same quartet, mm. 53-59, 73-79, and 132-38. The criteria are appropriate, but Taruskin's statement that "Liszt's many forerunners" had "limited the scale to a single voice" (p. 96) requires qualification. A second example of composing-out a diminished-seventh chord, with parallel minor thirds rather than major sixths, occurs in the first movement of the C- Major Piano Sonata, D. 840, mm. 132-38 (Ex. 5); cf. mm. 33-39 and 188-96. Taruskin's description of the opening of Liszt's Sonetto io4 del Petrarca applies equally well to this passage: "an intermediate stage between the mere composing out of a diminished-seventh chord and a true third-related



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Example 3

Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D. 887, IV, mm. 652-79, abstraction

658 652 654 656

" .. . . ' ?%. '

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673 675 677 679

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214 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY

Example 4

Schubert, String Quartet in G Major, D. 887, mm. 654-79, model of bass and inner parts

654 656 658 660 663

Ad I-

10 7 .

666 669 671 673 675 677 679

6 U --7--1B

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II

Example 5

Schubert, Piano Sonata in C Major, D. 840, I, mm. 126-40, abstraction

F "Octatonic" passage

126-31 132-34 135 136 137

A. 14-

• - Or •. . •• ••1 : -A A

138 e tc.

- - - - - - - - - - -- F --

- - - - - - - - - - 7 -- -- -- -- -

linkage: momentary dominant-seventh chords emerge out of the part writing at each of the octatonic nodes (o, 3, 6, 9)" (p. 92, n. 34).

Taruskin rightly describes the opening of the Sanctus in the E-flat Mass as "a dominant preparation" (p. 84). The same is true of the other full circles of major or minor thirds mentioned above. The inertia of each progression, the tendency of the motion to continue in the same direction, is checked only by



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a tonic six-four and/or a dominant chord. Compare, in addition, the approach to the dominant of the relative major in the final movement of the C-Minor Piano Sonata, D. 958, mm. 145-87, and the analogous approach to the dominant in mm. 531-73. The first dominant preparation moves through A minor/C major (mm. 145-56), C minor/E-flat major (157-68), and E-flat minor/G-flat major (169-77). The analogous passage remains within the same circle: F-sharp minor/A major (531-42), A minor/C major (543-54), C minor/E-flat major (555-63).

The minor qualifications of Taruskin's statements suggested in this postscript add further support to his major argument concerning "the early parallelism in concept and usage between the whole-tone and octatonic scales" (p. 96).

STEPHEN BLUM York University, Toronto


CONCERNING THE NOTE in this JOURNAL, XXXVIII (1985), 405, about Professor Charles Haywood's donation of research material to the University of Victoria, readers are advised that the research slips cover a wide range of Shakespeare music from the seventeenth century to the present and do not simply focus on twentieth-century incidental music. Unfortunately, the words "for example" were omitted from the note as printed.

BRYAN N. S. GoocH University of Victoria


THERE IS A DOUBLE ERROR in my review in this JOURNAL, XXXVIII (1985), 362-69, that changes the meaning of what I said to the absolutely opposite point of view. On p. 368, paragraph 3, the sentence "Much of the new evidence for the inclusion of purely instrumental phrases in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century songs (also for the mixture of instruments with voices in these repertories) came to the fore after Hanen had finished her work." This should read "on the inclusion" and "on the mixture." This was meant to be a neutral statement to avoid further stirring a still-squirming can of worms. The evidence, in fact, is against the use of instruments and against the mixing of voices and instruments in secular music of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. A convenient summary of current work on this appears in David Fallows, "Specific Information on the Ensembles for Composed Polyphony, 1400-1474," Studies in the Performance of Late Medieval Music, ed. Stanley Boorman (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 1io9-6o. The case is not quite as one-sided as Fallows would have it, but his views and those of Christopher Page on these matters are a needed corrective.

ALEJANDRO ENRIQUE PLANCHART

University of California, Santa Barbara



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[Letter from Stephen Blum]