Schumann and 18th C Narrative Strategies

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chumann and ate Eighteenth Centu

arrative

StrategiesANTHONY NEWCOMB

After aperiodofrelativeneglect, the questionofhow musical

meaningcan be

conceived,as-

sessed, and describedhas begun to attract re-newed interest. Semiotics has been the basis ofseveralrecent approaches,'while some aspectsof philosophical aesthetics have suggestedoth-ers.2The model for the present approach s not

aesthetics, nor even semiotics save in the most

generalsense, but an area of study called narra-

tology, which inhabits both literary criticism

(RolandBarthes and JonathanCuller)and phi-losophy of history (R.G. Collingwood, Paul

Veyne, and Paul Ricoeur).3Narratology dealswith

waysof

understandingunits

largerthan

sentences, anddeals with this in a less rigorous,systematic way than semiotics. While it does

requireconfirmation of inter-subjective valid-

ity in that it must persuade,it does not claimthe objective verifiability that we associatewith science. The present approachis deduc-

tive, not inductive: its goal is better to under-stand made objects.It is subjectivein that it de-

pends on the education, intuition, andtalent ofthe individual critic-interpreter.As such it maybe seen as a branch of hermeneutics.

19th-CenturyMusic XI/2 (Fall 1987). o by the Regents ofthe University of California.

'Fora recent examinationof the field, see Jean-Jacques at-

tiez, Musicologiegne-rale et semiologie (Paris,1987).2Seemy summaryof recent essays in Anthony Newcomb,"SoundandFeeling,"CriticalInquiry10(1984),614-43.

3See Roland Barthes, S/Z (Paris, 1970); JonathanCuller,Structuralist Poetics (Ithaca, N. Y., 1975); R. G. Col-

lingwood, The Idea of History, ed. T. M. Knox (Oxford,1956); Paul Veyne, Comment on ecrit l'histoire (Paris,1971);Paul Ricoeur, "NarrativeTime," Critical Inquiry 7

(1980),169-90 andTempset recit, 3 vols. (Paris,1983-85).

164



Like the hermeneutics of Gadamerand oth-

ers,the approachoutlined here has a crucial his-torical dimension. Not only is it concernedwith conventions in their historical context; itis also concerned with evidence as to how they

were understood in their own era-not as alimit to how we should understandthe music

now, but as a source of insight into the opera-tions of acompetent listener of that time. Those

operations,in dialogue with our currentopera-tions, may enrich ourtechniquesofunderstand-

ing.

I

As an introduction to the narratologicalap-proach, let me begin with a general analogy-thatbetween paradigmaticor conventional nar-rative successions in literature and history on

the one hand, and formal types in music on theother. This analogy makes sense, I believe, fortwo reasons. First, the two represent similar

things, in that both can be thought of as a seriesof functional events in a prescribedorder. Sec-

ond, both arecritically or theoretically derivedin the same fashion: SeymourChatman pointsout that a narrativestructure s "a construct, ...a construct of features drawnby narratologistsfrom texts generally agreedto be narratives."4

Musicologists across the ages (whatever theyhave called themselves) have proceededin ex-

actly the same way in order o arriveat the theo-

retical formulations of such musical formalstructures as ritornello,sonata,roundedbinary,ternarysongform,and so on.

The kind of narrative structure(andthe kindof literary model) that seems closest to the mu-sical instance and that providesthe bestpoint of

departurefor the exploration of my analogy isthe one first proposedby the Russian Formalistcritic VladimirPropp n his now sixty-year-oldstudy of Russian folktales.5 Propp studied a

closely circumscribed andhighly conventional-ized bodyof literature,in which one finds a rela-

tively largenumber of recurrences of the same

structural relations, and in which (to quote ahistorian of the Russian formalist movement)

"the basic unit of the tale is not the characterbut his function," and "the sequence of thesefunctions is always the same."6A similarsitua-tion obtains in the more recent structuralstud-ies of Theban myths by Claude Levi-Strauss,

who reduces a diversity of myths to narrativestructures determined by a limited number of

plot functions andcharacterroles.7Important for my purposes is what such

structuralstudies ofnarrativehave in common.

They deducefromaparticularbodyof literaturea standardseries of functional events in a pre-scribed order-what one might call a paradig-matic plot. This is not the same thing as aquasi-architectural ormalschema,such asABA,withits patterns of repetition and complementari-ties. The paradigmaticplot may be a unidirec-tionalunfolding ofevents, without overtrepeti-

tion. Nor is it the same as a series of musicalsections defined by specific thematic content.The surface content of each individual instanceof the series may differ widely. The paradig-matic plot is a series of functions, not necessar-

ily definedby patterns of sectional recurrencesor by the specific charactersfulfilling the func-tions.

Much Classical and Romantic music-mu-

sic from ca. 1720 to 1920-depends in some

way on the musical analogue to paradigmaticplots. Especially in the earlierpart of this per-iod, a limited numberof often-recurring ucces-

sions governed the structure of music (espe-cially music without text or social function-so-called absolute music) at every level, from

phrase to section to movement to cycle of

movements.8 Later n the period,althoughfor-mal-functional successions were subject to

greaterdistortions, they were still interpreted

ANTHONEWCONarrativStrategiein Schum

4SeymourChatman,"Replyto BarbaraHermstein Smith,"CriticalInquiry7(1981),804.5Vladimir I.Propp,Morfologija kaski (Voprosypoetiki,vol.

XII,Leningrad,1928).

6VictorErlich, Russian Formalism (New Haven, Conn.,1981[firstpublished 1955]),p. 250.

7See he trenchantcritiquesofLevi-Strauss's osition in Ro-bert Scholes, Structuralism in Literature (New Haven,Conn., 1974), pp. 68-74; and Harold S. Powers,"LanguageModels and MusicalAnalysis," Ethnomusicology24(1980),

16-22. Levi-Strauss's heories were originallypublished n"TheStructuralStudyofMyth," JournalofAmericanFolk-lore 68 (1955),428-44.

8See, for example, Ian Bent on Koch's (1782-93) and

Momigny's(1803-06) functionalunderstandingof the con-struction of everything from individual phrases to entire

movements, "Analysis,"TheNew GroveDictionaryofMu-sic and Musicians, ed. StanleySadie(London,1980),vol. 1,pp.344-45.

165



against the same relatively limited number ofconventional successions.9

It cannot be denied that, as the nineteenth

century evolved, the importance of thematiccharacter and transformationgrew greatly aswell. The role of theme in musical narrative-

in some ways analogous to that of character nverbalnarrative,in some ways not-is funda-mental to anydiscussion of musical narrativeasawhole, but it cannotbe included in an essay ofthis size, which focusses on matters of plot.

Pioneeringstructural studies ofparadigmaticplots in verbalnarratives,such as those of Proppor L6vi-Strauss, tended not to be concernedwith anaspectofplot that is particularlycrucialto music: the temporal aspect of the perceiver'sactivity as he proceedsthroughthe unrollingse-ries.In dealingwith this aspectof perceptionas

applied to music, the narratologicalmethodssketchedin recentyearsbyJonathanCuller and

developed especially by Paul Ricoeurseem par-ticularlypromising.'0The study andtypologyof

paradigmatic plots should concern itself, inCuller'swords, with "some explanation of the

way in which plots are built upfrom the actionsand incidents that the reader encounters.""1The individual series of events, then, becomes acoherentstoryto the extent thatwe interpret tsevents accordingto sets of relatively conven-tional narrativeparadigms.To quote Ricoeur,"astoryis made out of events to the extent thata

plotmakes events into a

story....

Followinga

story is understanding the successive actions,thoughts, and feelings in question insofar as

they present a certain directedness .... We re-

ply to [the development of] the story with ex-

pectations concerning the outcome and the

completion of the entire [implied]process."'2The aspect of understandingthat we invoke

in thus "followingastory"is what Ricoeur calls

the "configurational dimension"; to it is op-posed the "episodicdimension."

Everynarrativeombineswodimensionsnvariousproportions,ne chronological,nd the other non-chronological.he irstmaybe called heepisodic i-

mension,whichcharacterizeshestoryas madeoutof events.The second s the configurationalimen-sion, accordingo which the plot construes igni-ficantwholesoutofscattered vents.

The basic aesthetic activity of "following a

story" variously confronts and combines both

sequence and pattern in a temporal dialecticthat not only reckons with time but recollectsit. This dialectic is "implied in the basic opera-tion of eliciting a configurationfrom a succes-sion."13

Inwhat Ricoeur calls following a story, then,the readerorlistener shifts frequentlyback andforthbetween, on the one hand, the actions, in-

cidents, or events that he perceives as hereckons with passing time and, on the other, afund of patterns or configurationsinto whichthese events could fit. This second part of the

activity is aversion of ErnstGombrich's match-

ing of perceived visual image to a pre-existentrepertoire of visual schemas present in theviewer's mind, as developed in Art and Illu-sion.14 It also seems to be what Barthes is de-

scribingin his discussion, in S/Z,of how a lexieis identified andplacedas a unit of code,whichis a

catalogof these

units.'5The units them-

selves are fragments of past experience, thatwhich has been alreadyread,seen, done, lived.In Barthes'sview the codesgrouptogetherthese

units, or lexies. The groupingof units into suc-cessions of events happens underwhat Barthescalls the proairetic code. Barthes, too, com-ments that the typologywithin this code is nei-therverydetailed norvery systematic: "Itsonlylogic is that of the 'already-done'or 'already-read'.,"16

The stress that Bartheslays on the reader's

appealto the already-read r already-heard or-

responds to the activity of the listener to music,as he isolates the lexie (which corresponds, in

9See bid.,p. 351 on A. B. Marx's dea (1837-47) of "certainprincipal forms" from which are derived "certain com-

poundor composite forms which are madeup of these orvariationsof them"(Marx'swords).Fora fullerexpositionof

the explicit tension in early nineteenth-century theorybe-tween conventional formal successions andtheirdeflectionfor thepurposeof achievingdepthof emotionalcontent, seeThomas Grey, Aesthetic Premises of Music Criticism, ca.1825-1855 (Ph.D.diss., University of California,Berkeley,1987),ch. 2.

'1See n. 3 above."Structuralist Poetics, p. 219.'2"NarrativeTime," 171 and 174.

13Ibid., 78.

14(Princeton, 1960).'"Seeespecially pp. 16-21 of the English translation:Ro-landBarthes,S/Z, trans.RichardMiller (New York,1974).16S/Z, ections VII,X,XI.

166



all its vagueness, to the musical motive or

phrase)and matches the successions of these le-xies with what he has heardbefore,in ordertosee where they may fit in various patterns or

paradigmsof his proaireticcode. It correspondsto this activity, that is, save that the proairetic

code of the listener includes farfewerterms andis far less difficult to typify than that ofBarthes'sreader.This is trueeven of the best lis-tenerand even in the nineteenth century,whenthe large-scalestructures of music begin to be-come looser and more varied.Nonetheless, es-

tablishing the typology of musical plots andmusical lexies is a task that remainsto be done.

The two general questions that arise are:

first, what are the codes, or conventions, bywhich we isolate musical events as discrete

identities; and, second, what are the codes orconventions bywhich we locate them in apara-digmatic series of events, pre-existent in ourminds and drawn from past experience? Thissecond question leads to many more specificones. How many paradigmaticplot structuresdo we classify-how many under "sonata

form," for example? How do we identify ordefine (deductively)the events fulfilling the rel-evant functions in the various paradigmaticplot structures?Forexample, is there, in isola-tion (butwithin a given style), a difference be-tween a first theme, a transitional passage, asecond theme, a closing theme, which enablesus to

proposea

placefor the musical event we

arehearingin a particularseries of events, andhence to interpretthe context around hat event

accordingly?Do beginning strategies or transi-tional strategiesdiffer n rondos andsonatas?

To return for a moment to Levi-Strauss,clearly the proper analogies to his structuralcharts of Theban myths are not polyphonicscores (ashe would have it) but the formal dia-

grams in music appreciationtext books, withtheirseries of functional events.'7Butthese for-mal diagramsnever question how we identify a

particularstretch of music as having a particu-

lar function in a particular series. For them theseries is given. They do not ask which begin-

ning, or transitional, or closing strategies are ap-

propriate to, and hence signal, certain places incertain kinds of structures. A careful formula-

tion of narrative paradigms in music wouldhave to do this. The result would define an im-

portant component of our listening to at leastnineteenth- andearlytwentieth-centurymusic,where the structures aremixed, orhybrid.This,incidentally, would provide a set of structural

topoi analogous to the referential or semanticones that Constantin Floros has been workingout in his extensive study of Mahler.'8

The thrust of this abstract-theoretical ntro-duction has been that in instrumental musicone can see musical events as tracing,orimply-ing at any given moment, aparadigmaticplot-in the sense of a conventional succession offunctional events. The question then becomes:how does the composer handle this narrative;what is the nature of the interaction between

paradigmatic plot and succession of events inthe individual movement orpiece?This issue is

not purelyformal-structural. tmight be seen asgoing to the very heart of musical meaning,which lies in modes of continuation. Inasmuchasmusic may be(and s by many listeners)heardas a mimetic andreferentialmetaphor,the mi-mesis involved is of modes of continuation, of

changeandpotential.19And modes of continua-tion lie at the veryheart of narrativity,whetherverbal or musical.

II

Analysis along narratological ines can helpilluminate broad distinctions between eigh-teenth- and nineteenth-century music. RobertSchumann was an especially earlyand influen-tial proponent of a shift in musical narrative

strategies. He also offers a specific historicalcase of the interdependenceof verbalnarrativeandnarrativeelements in textless instrumentalmusic. It has long been known that Schumannloved andimmersed himself in the novels of the

early German Romantics, especially those of

Novalis, E. T. A. Hoffmann, and, first and fore-

most, JeanPaul. The response to this, on the

part of both musicologists and literary histo-

rians,has almost

alwaysbeen to assess the

po-tential influence of the early German Roman-

tics on Schumann by studying what they had to


17Powersn. 7 above), 16-28, makes a similarpoint.

'8ConstantinFloros, Gustav Mahler, 3 vols. (Wiesbaden,1977-85), esp.vol. 2 (1977).'9Cf.Newcomb, "SoundandFeeling" cited n n. 2 above).

167



say about music (which was plenty). I am pro-

posing that we turn the tables and consider how

they practiced their own art, in order to see

what influence this may have had on Schu-

mann. After all, Schumann referred often and

admiringly not to their theories about music

but to their novels. Presumably he was in-trigued by some aspect of how they made these

things, how they told a story (or avoided doing

so), how they connected incident to incident,how they put event together with event to form

a larger whole. He was, in short, intrigued bywhat we would now call their poetics.

One can in fact make a documentary case

that Schumann recognized as applicable to mu-

sic certain narrative strategies in novels of his

time, for he constantly described the music he

liked best in terms of novels, and he explicitly

acknowledged the inspiration that he took for

his own compositions from the technique of hisfavorite novelists. A famous instance is the par-allel he drew between Papillons and passagesfrom Jean Paul's novel Flegeljahre.20A few quo-tations from Schumann's diaries and letters

provide further illustration:

Wenn ich Sch[ubert] piele, so ist mir's, als lds' icheinen komponirten Roman JeanPaul's.... Es gibtiiberhaupt,ausserderSchubert'schen,keine Musik,die so psychologisch merkwiirdig ware in dem

Ideengang-undVerbindungund in denscheinbarlo-

gischen Sprtingen"letterof November 1829).21

Die SchubertschenVariationensind dasvollendetsteromantischeGemalde,ein vollkomnerTonroman-

T6ne sind h6hereWorte. .. Die SchubertschenVa-riationen sind fiberhaupt ein componirter Roman

G6the's,den er noch schreibenwollte. ... WennichBeethovensche Musick h6re, so ists, als lase mir je-mandJeanPaulvor; Schubertgleicht mehr Novalis,Spohr s der leibhaftige Ernst Schulze oder der CarlDolci derMusick (extractsfromdiary,July1828).22

Schumann was not always consistent on which

composers reminded him of which novelists.

On 15 August 1828, he noted a "Fantasie a la

Schubert" (presumably improvised), going on to

say "Schubert ist Jean Paul, Novalis, und Hoff-

mann in Tonen ausgedruckt."23The tendency to describe his favorite music

in terms of his favorite novelists did not disap-

pear as he grew older. In 1840, in the now fa-mous review of Schubert's recently discovered

C-Major Symphony, Schumann wrote:

And then the heavenly length of the symphony,likea thick novel in fourvolumes, perhapsby JeanPaul,who also never wanted to end,and for the best of rea-sons-in order o allow the reader o continue creat-

ing for himself. .... At first, we may feel a little un-

easy because of the ... charming variety of vital

feeling... but in the end a delightful impression re-mains. Wefeel that the composer s the master of his

tale, and that, in time, its connections will becomeclear.... It would not give us orothers anypleasure

to analyze the separatemovements; for to give anidea of the novelistic character hat pervadesthe en-tire symphony, one would have to reproduce itwhole.24

Although the concern of this paper is with

large-scale formal successions, Schumann's

equally famous review of Berlioz's Symphonie

fantastique (1835) can remind us of another im-

portant point, namely that musical narrativity

operates at the level of phrase and small section

as well:

Something still remains to be said about the struc-

ture of the individualphrases.The music of our daycan offerno examplein which meter andrhythmaremore freely set to work in symmetrical and asym-metrical combinations than in this one. Hardlyeverdoes consequent correspond o antecedent,or answerto question.

Schumann goes on to compare this irregular

style of phrase succession to JeanPaul's prose.25As soon as one takes Schumann seriously

about his debt to the narrative poetics of the

early Romantic novelists, especially Jean Paul,

2"SeeEdwardA. Lippman,"Theoryand Practice in Schu-mann'sAesthetics," Journalof the AmericanMusicologicalSociety 17(1964),310-45, esp.314-20.21Letter f 6 November 1829 to FriedrichWieck, in RobertSchumann,Jugendbriefe on RobertSchumann.Nach den

originalenmitgetheilt von ClaraSchumann(Leipzig,1885),pp.82-83.22Robert chumann, Tagebiicher,Band I, 1827-1838, ed.

GeorgEismann(Leipzig,1971),pp.96-97.

23Ibid., . 111.24Quoted rom Robert Schumann, Gesammelte Schrifteniiber Musik und Musiker. Eine Auswahl, ed. HerbertSchulze(Wiesbaden,n.d.),pp. 177- 79 (translationmine).25The riginalreview was revisedby Schumann orhis col-lected essays of 1854. The abovepassage s quotedfrom thetranslation of the originalreview given in Hector Berlioz,Fantastic Symphony,ed. E.T. Cone (New York, 1971),pp.231-32.

168



the similarities between the narrativestrategiesof novelist and composer leap to the mind. Onecaneasily draw rom the secondary iteratureon

JeanPaulwell over apageof one-sentence char-acterizations of his narrative habits that could

equally well be applied to Schumann.26Most

characteristically, Schumann, like Jean Paul,avoids clear linear narrativethrougha stress on

interruption, embedding, digression, and will-ful reinterpretationof the apparent unction ofan event (what one might call functional pun-ning). He does so in such a way as to keep us

wondering where we are in what sort of pat-tern-in such a way as to stress the process ofnarrative interpretation (the listener's part inwhat Ricoeur calls "following a story").

JanetLevyhas pointed out in a recent articlethat we often implicitly assume teleologicalvalues as seats of aesthetic worth and unthink-

ingly applythem to all music.27Forsome musicthe metaphor of organic-teleological growthworks well-for example, for the Beethovenmovement discussed on p. 5 of Levy's article.But it will lead us to call other kinds of music

uninteresting and even clumsy. If in the vast

majority of instances our unexamined criticalcriteria for excellence are,as Levy claims (p. 4),"goal-directedprocesses" (towhich areopposed"additive," "episodic," or "non-developmen-tal" ones), and if one section must "leadimper-ceptiblyto" the next across"concealedseams,"then we shall have to reject much Schumann

out of hand. If the purpose of criticism is tomakethe bestpossible argumentfor apiece-tohelp us to see where the interest andexcellenceof a piece lies-then it is not so much analy-sis that is failingus here, but the critical values

underlying it.

Literarycritics have long since recognizedanother kind of poetics, anotherideal of narra-tive in some late eighteenth-century fiction,different from the linear or teleological. Suchnarratives delight in questioning (or defami-

liarizing,to use the term of the Russian formal-

ist critics)paradigmaticplots by standing theirconventional situations on their heads.28 Iwould maintain that Schumann often delightsin doingthe same thing.

IIIA narrative device beloved of JeanPaul and

Schlegel, which is also prominent in both theSchumanncycles of small forms andhis contin-uous largerforms, involves what the Romanticnovelists called Witz-the faculty by whichsubtle underlying connections are discovered

(or revealed)in a surface of apparentincoher-

ence and extreme discontinuity.29The youngSchumann, in his phase of strongestinfatuationwith JeanPaul, seems to have practicedsurface

discontinuity as a primaryprinciple. He madehis larger wholes by juxtaposing highly con-

trasting smaller units, at least some of which,forvariousreasons,could not be considered au-tonomous andhad to be heardas fragments.Hethen often-for example in Carnaval-ar-

ranged hese small units in successions that im-

plied some sort of larger narrative. His trulyoriginal idea-one that made this structuralmethod more than just titillating-was to in-

terconnectthese seemingly disparate ragmentsby almost subliminal pitch connections, themusical equivalent of Witz. Thus a single littlecell of pitches was used to build up melodies


26See,orexample, Eric A. Blackall,The Novels of the Ger-man Romantics(Ithaca,N. Y., 1983),esp.ch. 4; and NorbertMiller, Der empfindsame Erziihler (Munich, 1968). AsMillerpoints out, the model for the Germanstyle of whichJeanPaul was an example was a certain kind of Englishnovel best exemplified by Steme's TristramShandy,which

was translated nto German n 1774andfound ts most last-ing followers in Germany.An excellent summaryof the En-glish tradition andof its French ollowers, in particularDi-derot, is Robert Alter's Partial Magic: The Novel as aSelf-ConsciousGenre BerkeleyandLosAngeles, 1975),esp.chs. 1-3. Alter does not discuss the Germanderivatives.27See anetM. Levy, "Covert and Casual Values in RecentWritingsaboutMusic,"Journalof Musicology 5 (1987),3-27.

28"See,or example, Eugenio Donato, "Divine Agonies: OfRepresentationandNarrative n RomanticPoets,"Glyph6(1979),90-122. Donatotraces n some works of German it-erature from the 1790s onward what he calls the "proble-matizing" of the "telos" of a particularparadigmaticplot:the eschatologicalone also treatedbyFrankKermode n TheSense of an Ending (Oxford,1966).Donato's earliest exam-ples are H61derlinand Jean Paul. JeanPaul is quoted at

lengthwith the assertion that he playswith the topoiofthisparadigmaticplot (Donatouses the phrase"privilegednar-rative") n such a way as to "denya privilegedTelos to his-tory, and hence to problematize the very nature of narra-tive" (p.93).29Afterhis paperwas written, I was able to read the type-script of the article by JohnDaverio that appears n this is-sue. Daveriogives anadmirable xposition of the conceptofWitzas developedby the earlyRomantictheorists.

169



that were superficially different in rhythm,overallmelodic contour, character,tempo, andso on. A piece like Carnavalapplies this tech-

nique to the musical analogy to the Romantic

fragment.A series of musical fragmentsis held

togetherbynarrative ramingdevicesandbythe

buried nterconnections of Witz.Carnaval evenuses the self-reflexive narrative device, oftenfound in JeanPaul, of introducing a characterfrom another of his novels, in this case fromSchumann's earliercycle Papillons.

In the Carnaval-style composition Schu-mann experimented with the interaction be-tween the ideal of riddling discontinuity andthe requirementsof largercontinuity, as posedin the cycle of small characterpieces. Equally,perhaps even more interesting are his experi-ments with continuous largerforms in piecessuch as the first movement of the Fantasy, op.17. Here the series of events of a movement insonata-allegro orm-the paradigmaticplot in-voked-is interrupted by an embeddeddigres-sion, a slow dream-likevision (eventhe headingof the section, "ImLegendenton," nvokes this

character).This embedded tale is subtly-inJeanPaul's sense wittily-connected to a frag-ment of transitional theme from earlierin the

movement, but even after a number of listen-

ings we may not consciously realize that the"ImLegendenton"refers to mm. 33ff. earlier nthe movement.30

Moreimportant

than the connection is thenarrativedigression itself (and here my inter-

pretation of the formal situation differs fromthat of JohnDaverioin his articlein the presentissue). Up to this point in the movement one

might think one knew where one was in whatkind of series orstory.A passionate,active firsttheme had been succeeded by an unstable tran-

sition, by a stable lyric second theme, and by a

slowing of harmonic motion leading to a re-

peated cadential sentence in a new key. Afterthis large articulation came a sudden eruptionof unstable material, with incomplete refer-

ences to the first theme. Sofarthe succession ofevents is that of the mid-nineteenth-centuryso-nata form up to andincluding the beginning ofthe development.

So is the relative size and weight of events.Thus measure 97 is too early in the develop-

ment section of a movement of these dimen-sions (the development begins in m. 82) to rep-resent arecapitulation,asDaverioproposes.Tothe listener who has recognized Schumann's

paradigmaticplot, the arrivalof the "ImLegen-denton" sounds like an interruptionor digres-sion within the development, since no clear re-transition and recapitulation has been heardbefore t. Yet my main point doesnot dependonthis particular nterpretation.Whetherthe "Im

Legendenton" s heardas coming in the devel-

opment or the recapitulation, in either case itdeflects one's progress through the standard

succession of events and raises a sudden ques-tion as to what kind of form-even what genreofpiece-one is in. (Asis well known, the piecewas originallycalled a Sonata,which was later

changed to Fantasy.)Fora moment at least, forthe duration of this dreamvision, ritual logic is

replacedbyriddle.After1840 Schumann turnedto writingmore

traditionalgenres,forvarious reasonsthat neednot be rehearsedhere. But the narrativehabitsthat he had developed in the 1830s remainedwith him, affecting these more convention-in-fluencedgenres.31A compactillustrationof thisthesis is offered by the last movement of the

StringQuartet n A, op.41, no.3 (1842).Thenar-rative game here is the gradual realization-fromthe point of view of the listener--of rever-sal of formalfunction in the units of a workthatseems to declare ts plot type extremely clearly,and one whose sectional articulations are un-

ambiguous.The case is particularlystrikingbe-cause thematic manipulation plays almost norole in this movement. There is no thematictransformation or "developing variation." In-

stead, the movement depends for its effect al-

30Inhis excellent bookon the Germannovelistic traditionofwhich JeanPaul forms part, Norbert Miller writes of the

"geheimeFAden"hatbindJeanPaul'sdistinctive landscapeanddreamvisions to the narrative ontext in which they areembedded as seemingly separate things. (See Miller, Der

empfindsameErzaihler, p.303-25, esp. p.323.)

311Ina separatearticle I have developedat some length the

way in which these narrativehabits transform ven what is

perhapshis most classicizing, that is, his most durcher-zihlte work-the C-MajorSymphony,op. 61. SeeAnthonyNewcomb, "Once More 'Between Absolute and ProgramMusic': Schumann's Second Symphony," this journal 7

(1984),233-50.

170



most exclusively on transformation of the func-

tions of events in a paradigmatic plot.Before discussing this movement, it is neces-

sary to back up a bit in order to pick up the nar-

rative thread. When we come upon the move-

ment, we are moving from the third to the

fourth movement in a four-movement sonata-cycle in A major. In terms of the large-scale par-

adigmatic plots for such cycles, this situation

suggests that we are about to hear perhaps a var-

iation set, more likely a movement in sonata

form or a rondo. As the movement begins, its

opening theme presents itself with the rhyth-mic vigor, the straightforward homophony, and

the chunky phrase-structure of a rondo tune.

These signals as to plot paradigm seem con-

firmed by the move without transition to a

sharply contrasting second thematic unit. At

this point the listener may well say: fine, a

rondo finale--apparently a rather straightfor-

wardly sectional one.

A typical late eighteenth-century example of

this musical plot paradigm would be the last

movement of Beethoven's String Quartet in C

Minor, op. 18, no. 4. The individual sections are

tuneful, clearly formed, and clearly articulated

one from the other. The principal theme is a

closed, rounded-binary tune whose first section

is an antecedent-consequent phrase pair, and

whose structurally unaltered recurrences in the

tonic dominate the movement. The first epi-sode is similarly structured, if slightly larger.The second episode is smaller and less clearlystructured than either of these, with two re-

peated sections of only six and eight measures

respectively. The principal theme begins and

ends in the tonic; the episodes are in other keys.As we hear the beginning of Schumann's last

movement, its above-mentioned elements

seem to signal that we are entering into a simi-

lar paradigmatic plot.32

But alreadythere is something wrong.Let usreturn to the temporal situation at the begin-

ning of the movement-to our place in a series

of musical events.

We have come from a sizeable, weighty, late

Beethoven-likemovement in D major(orperhapsaMendelssohnian imitation of late Beethoven, as inthe Quartets,ops. 12 and 13).Accordingto conven-

tion, the principaltheme of a rondo s supposedto es-tablishthe key of the movement (and, n the case of a

finale, reconfirm the key of the piece). Schumann's

principaltheme doesapretty poor job(ex. 1).Itsprob-lems are in both tonal andmetrical construction.Al-

thoughit beginsin A major, t endsby returning o D

major,the key of the previous movement, inevitablysounding more like V-I in D than I-IV in the new

key. And, thoughits phrasingmaybestraightforwardin one sense-it is clearly articulated in two-mea-sure chunks-the chunks areput togetherstrangely.They are seven in number, and they do not cohere

into a normal periodicor harmonic structure.Theyareadditive, paratactic.33 heygive the impressionofa patchwork quilt rather than of a firmly stitchedtonal fabric, even of a quilt with a minimum of

stitching between the patches. In numerous repeti-tions of the theme, the patches-that is, the two-measure chunks-remain inviolate, and all but thesecond of them is alwaysrepeated f it is statedat all,which emphasizes the self-contained natureof each

patch.But the succession and number ofthe patches,and the pitch relations between them at points of

juncture- these things changeoften.Such is the principal theme, orrefrain.In a sense

one might interpretthis curious refrainas embody-ing in riddling(orpunning)ways the traditional,or-

ganic idea that a movement is, or should be, con-

tained in its premise. For the movement, like therefrain, s goingto be made of separate,clearlyarticu-lated chunks, which, though bound to each other

(andto other movements of the piece) by geheimeFdden,34will on the surfacebe juxtaposed n additivefashion with a minimum of linking transition.

Against this clarity of articulation is placed a puz-zling perversityin the handling of the paradigmaticplot to which appealis made at the outset (i.e., the

rondo).Hereagainthe refrainmay be seen as reflect-

ing the whole, since its components are standard othe point of banality, but their relationship to each

ANTHONEWCONarrativStrategiin Schum

32Hans Kohlhase (Die Kammermusik Robert Schumanns[Hamburg,1979]vol. 1, pp. 156ff.)quotes Schumann's dis-satisfaction in variousreviews with the lack of seriousnessand the looseness of the normalrondo.To give but a singleinstance (from 1838, concerning a string quartetof W.H.Veit):

Der letzte Satzm6chte mich am wenigsten befriedi-

gen. Ich weiss, auch die besten Meister schliessen

ihnlich, ich meine in lustigerRondoweise.Hatte ich

aber ein Werk mit Kraft und Ernst angefasst, sowiinschte ich es auch m ihnlichen Sinngeschlossen.The last movement of op. 41, no. 3, togetherwith those

of the Piano Quartetand Quintet and of the Second Sym-phony, show Schumannworkingtowardaweightier, moreseriousrondofinale.33Cf.Miller, Der empfindsameErziihler,pp. 320ff., on thischaracteristic n JeanPaul'sprose.34The hrase s Miller's (seen. 30 above).

171





177 >>

,W

f--- :.

th.

F: 211

af I I,

n: -91. • rt. ].rr~

r~rr{ -'

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Example 2

ANTHONEWCNarratiStrategin Schu

indeed have the double-drone rustic sound and the

tonally stable, periodically balanced structure of

many a trio in classical symphonies. In fact, thisQuasi Trio is a sizeable, tonally stable, rounded bi-

nary form in eight-measurephrases, both of whosesections are repeatedand end in the same key, andwhose second (ba') section strongly articulates thereturnto the local tonic at a' by preceding t with an

eight-measure dominant pedal. The whole QuasiTrio is thirty-twomeasureslong (not counting repe-titions), over twice the length of any previous sec-tion.

In size and in metrical and harmonic structure,this is much the strongest, weightiest, andmost sta-

ble thematic presenceso far.Yet in the succession offunctionalevents, it is just the thirdepisode.And it isin Fmajor(Ihesitate to say the key of bVI,since thetonic key of the movement can scarcelybe said to bewell stabilized as yet). After the Quasi Trio comes a

complete refrain,which, because of an unobtrusive

change at the joint between its fifth and sixth

phrases, for the first time ends in the same key inwhich it began.The key is still F.

At this point (m. 127) the initial series beginsagain, startingfrom the first episode, as before mov-

ing up a fifth (Cmajorto Gmajor), ollowed as before

bythe refrain,moving down a fifth (G major o C ma-

jor),then by the second episode (m. 161), as beforestable in one key (Aminor).The refrain then beginsagain(m. 177),buthere,forthe first time in the entire

movement, the initial two-measurechunk is not re-peated. It is instead immediately sequenced up.Then, againfor the first time in the movement, thechunkis brokenupand varied nternallyinsteadof atits point of juncturewith others. The music drivestoahalf cadencein E(m. 183),which arrival s given ex-

traordinary rominenceby these simple andstrikingdepartures rompreviousuniformprocedure ex. 2).

What does this importantarticulativegesturean-nounce? A return of the Quasi Trio episode, begin-ning in E major.The b section of the Quasi Trio isthen changed (mm. 208ff.) in order to place the bigdominant pedal on V of A, instead of V of E. Thisdominantpedalis reinforcedeven beyond ts first oc-

currence,providingthe strongestdominantprepara-tion of the piece, which announces the emphaticar-rival on A majorand the confirmation of the tonicboth of the movement and of the entire four-move-ment cycle. Yet thematically this crucial structuralmoment coincides with the return o the a' section ofthe aba' Quasi Trio. The refrain then begins again,but is once again brokenup into motives to make a

scamperingcoda(mm.234ff.).

In sum, although we soon identify the move-

ment as a rondo-by convention it should be,and by signal it seems to be at the outset-we

must dealwith agrowing paradoxaswe proceedthroughthe movement. That the refrain s addi-tive in structure and tonally open-ended,andthat it recurs in constantly different forms andon different degreescompletely alters the nor-mal relation between function and successionof events in a rondo. The returns of the refrainare here not the center and locus of stability.

They areinstead the intermediaries,the transi-tions between the episodes,which reveal them-selves increasinglyclearly as the islands of sta-

bility between the recurrences of a forward-

pushing, unstable, transitional refrain. We

finally realize where we will come out only af-ter that emphatic return to A majorwithin the

173



third episode, the Quasi Trio. In the process of

reinterpretation,we areforced to accepta com-

plete reversalof function within what is super-ficially anormal,extremely clearlyarticulated,rondo-like succession of events.

In some sense, the extreme clarity with

which the paradigmaticplot of the rondotypeisannounced at the outset of the movement cannow be understood as part of Schumann's

point-as the laying bare of the conventions ofthe rondo scheme in order to turn them upsidedown. One of the earliest theorists of narrative

poetics, the Russian Formalist critic Victor

Shklovsky, held Laurence Sterne's Tristram

Shandy to be the touchstone of the novelists'art.He did so because Sterne laid bare conven-tional narrativeschemes in order o mock themand turn them on their heads. In so doing,Sterne not only called attention to the artful,nonrealistic side of narrative,he also "defami-liarized" (to use Shklovsky's word) narrativeconventions and thereby gave them back some

of their original power. In this curious finale,Schumann has donesomething of the kindwiththe paradigmaticrondo. The attentive listeneris forced to move beyond static recognition offormalschemata to dynamic questioning of for-mal procedures.

The problematization of Classical form atthe hands of late Beethoven, Schumann, Liszt,Wagner,Mahler,and the like marks one of the

deepest differences between eighteenth- and

nineteenth-century music. This problematiza-tion is in turn one of the principalcauses of the

increasingly importantnarrativeaspectin nine-

teenth-century instrumental music. It forcesthe listener to engagein the fundamentalnarra-tive activity that Ricoeur calls "following a

story,"matching successions of musical events

againstknown configurations,in orderboth to

forge an understanding of what one has heardandto make predictionsof

possible continuations.

174

Documents

Schumann and 18th C Narrative Strategies