Posts Tagged ‘hypermeter’

Mahler, Symphony No. 9, movement 3

Friday, December 17th, 2010

This “Rondo-Burleske” is yet another intriguing, tightly-wrought movement that reveals its secrets somewhat reluctantly but in fullness.  A six-measure introduction reveals most of the motivic material for the movement, beginning with a three-note figure announced by the trumpet.  This is answered by a five-note, arch-shaped cell played in octaves by the strings.  The three-note motive returns in the horns, with a three-note rising response in the low winds and woodwinds.  After a measure’s silence (m. 5), the introduction ends with a repetition of the final motive in the winds and brass.

What has really happened in the first six measures is a halting, hesitant version of the rondo theme for this movement.  The material presented appears again and again throughout the movement, beginning with the first presentation of the melodic idea for the movement in full, confident form.  The melody of the first six bars becomes a full-fledged Mahlerian rondo theme, rollicking and surging forward in two-measure segments until the end of the phrase in m. 22.  The initial three-note motive is the primary melodic material.  The next passage, mm. 23-43, is somewhat more conventional in nature, but Mahler’s scoring renders it a contrapuntal wonder, with the melody shared between first and second violins.  This segment is essentially developmental in function and leads to a return of the first phrase, now varied in rhythm and texture, in m. 44.

At m. 51ff, the melody is again divided between first and second violins, and I have to wonder at the implications for the seating of these sections–are the violins to be separated for a stereophonic effect, or placed together for a unified sound?   The overriding segmentation into two-bar ideas is maintained through this pertion of music as well.

A passage of fantastic string writing follows beginning in m. 66.  A sequential passage breaks the two-bar hypermeter, in preparation for an imitative passage between strings and horns.  The section breaks down to a notated key change (to D minor) preceded by conventional material presented in single-bar segments.  The material continues to be halting, lurching forward from statement to statement.  In m. 97, a fascinating coloration of the melody in the violins occurs as the flutes play off-beats.  This leads to a transition to the first episode of the rondo form.

The episode, beginning in m. 109, begins in F major, and subsitutes 2/4 for cut time, with the instruction “L’istesso tempo.”  The mood is significantly more relaxed than the refrain, with the lurching  feel left behind.  This material has an emphasis on root motion by thirds, initially descending, but later ascending.  It is somewhat ironic, that in a harmonic system based on thirds, Mahler’s root motion by thirds seems to undermine the tonal system.  The hypermeter here seems to suggest four-bar measures rather than the two-bar measures of the refrain, although with less regularity than before, with some three-bar measures making their appearance.  This episode ends with no transition in m. 180 when the refrain again bursts forth.

This second appearance of the refrain is rhythmically modified, in that triplets are substituted for the eighth-note figures of the opening.  The overall melodic structure is similar, as the hypermetric structure with its two-bar cells.

At m. 209, a motive I will refer to as the “chorale” makes its first appearance (it will later be presented by the brass in chorale style, but for now, it is more or less a countersubject in a fugato treatment of the refrain melody).  The first downbeat of the refrain melody is also the first beat of the chorale, as in m. 209, where it appears in the trombones, which continue the refrain while the clarinets enter with the remainder of the chorale.

After this fugato version of the refrain, the first episode reappears in m. 262.  In a Classical seven-part rondo, the first episode wouldn’t reappear until the end of the movement, as the next-to-last part of the form.  Instead of the original F major, the episode is now in A major.

Another interesting aspect of this movement is Mahler’s extensive use of enharmonicism, particularly in this repeated episode.  This allows rapid changes of harmony between remote areas, of course, but also conflicts with the nature of the orchestral instruments, which do not treat enharmonic pitches equivalently in the way that the piano does.

The next statement of the refrain begins in m. 311 and lasts 35 measures, in a typical truncation of refrain material.  Less typical, however, is the manner in which the chorale melody begins to dominate this section, even in its determination of the medium-scale formal structure, which appears in nine-bar phrases.

In m. 347, a written key change to D major sets up the culminating presentation of the chorale, in the brass, which introduces a third episode.  This is based on new motivic material, resembling a simple turn.  This “slow” episode continues to build until m. 421.  Which leads to a transitional section with a very interesting alternation of material from the refrain and the “slow” episode.  The refrain returns in m. 522 with the melody appearing in the trombones.

In m. 617, at the marking “Piu stretto,” the first of two codas begins, in the Romantic tendency to extend after-the-ending material.  The first coda, and the second, which begins in m. 641, both are restatements of the refrain melody at faster tempi.  The movement lurches to its conclusion.

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Mahler–Symphony No. 3, 5th movement

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

After the premiere of my Five Rhythmic Etudes for orchestra in 2007, a person whose opinion I trust came up to me and told me that the first movement was a tiny masterpiece.  I don’t know whether the rest of the world would agree, but it certainly felt good to hear it.  This movement feels much the same.  One reason I’ve chosen to study Mahler’s symphonies is because of their sprawling, rambling scope, similar to novels by Tolstoy.  This movement, though, is focused and concentrated in the manner of a tiny masterpiece.

Mahler’s text is from the venerable Des Knaben Wunderhorn, and as I mentioned in my previous post on the fourth movement, it seems to balance Nietzsche’s text.  The resources are somewhat different–children’s and women’s choruses and an orchestra without violins.  The music is wholly different in mood.  Where the fourth movement is solemn and seems to suggest a deliberate mode of expression, this fifth movement is joyful and exuberant.  The folk poetry of Wunderhorn recieves an simple, folk-like setting, as though we should know this song already.

A first for Mahler (at least in the symphonies) is the use of voices as a timbral resource rather than as pure textual exposition.  Throughout, the words “bimm, bamm,” to be performed “as the sound of a bell,” work in this fashion, but at other moments, the the voices perform similar roles, most strikingly in the highest women’s voices in mm. 96-99, where a melisma on the word “Stadt” contributes to the overall texture.

To break up the folk-like, sing-song approach to the text, Mahler frequently avoids strict hypermeter, with many three-bar phrases, and often constructing four-bar phrases in a 3+1 kind of structure (as in mm.13-16 and 96-99).  Another common hypermetrical structure here is groups of four bars plus two bars.  These asymmetries seem to break up the piece, giving it the same sophistication as other of Mahler’s movements.

Beyond the wonderful use of treble voices, the orchestration is fantastic.  The absence of violins (Brahms did this before, of course) immediately shifts the emphasis to the winds, with wonderful effects.  The bassoons and contrabassoons are featured in a way that hasn’t happened earlier in the piece, and is quite refreshing–by this time, it is necessary to exploit the orchestral palette a little bit to help maintain interest.  Measures 65-83 are an essentially instrumental treatment (the voices are treated timbrally) of the material, and work in the kind of developmental way that vocal writing doesn’t always permit.  While the shape of the movement is relatively small, the scoring isn’t.

The placement of this movement within the symphony is important.  Does the five-movement second part balance the gigantic single-movement first part?  We seem to contrast unity with variety, relatively organic form with a more sectional group of forms–a minuet, a scherzo, a recitative and a chorus, followed by the sixth movement.  Mahler’s world is fully articulated, as rich and as full as the natural world, compunded by the depth and variety of the creative world.

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Mahler, Symphony No. 2, Movements 3 & 4

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

It’s been a busy time here, but I’m squeezing my thoughts on these pieces in so that I can keep on schedule.

Third movement–The name of the game here is “hypermeter,” in this case, every bar of music feeling like a beat in its own right.  The meter is 3/8, but Mahler could have written in 12/8, and the piece would have made (mostly) perfect sense.

And that “mostly” is the rub.  Because while the hypermeter generally dominates the piece and is fairly strict much of the time, there are places where Mahler steps out of the mold.  If he had chosen 12/8, in other words, there would be a few loose measures in 6/8 or 9/8 scattered through the piece.  These hypermetrical shifts tend to occur at boundary points within the piece, and are slightly more prevalent at the beginning of the movement than in the end.

The first six measures suggest, to me, a complete hyperbar, drawn out for dramatic effect.  After two “correct” hyperbars, Mahler introduces a moto perpetuo-type theme in the violins.  This is echoed in the clarinets in a six-measure hyperbar, clearly a “correct” bar with a two measure extension.  The flutes take this up for four bars, following which, at rehearsal 29, Mahler gives a two-bar “make-up” by restating some of the introductory material, and in m. 33, the initial theme returns.  In this section, uneven hyperbars seem to appear just before the return of the moto perpetuo theme. 

Measure 98 begins a long (seven measures) hyperbar, and is also a modulatory passage, albeit a strange one, to F major.  The modulation is effected by descending chromatic scales in major thirds, but is accompanied by bass notes Gb and B, suggesting a key quite remote from the goal.  Mahler approaches the F major (local) tonic again in a strange way prior to m. 125, falling to it from an A minor chord.  This is presumably because F is not the ultimate goal, only a way-station.

The use at m. 68 and m. 149 of lines that appear to quote the second movement of Mahler’s First Symphony is notable.

As we proceed through the movement, Mahler passes through Eb, then D, often repeating material heard before, usually fleshed out with countermelodies.  At m. 257, the descent ends, and Mahler moves the tonal center up to E major.  There is great music here, but not time enough to discuss it in full.  The scoring is flawless, and often seems to reinforce the hypermetrical concept of the piece.  It is difficult to understand how Mahler was able to work so masterfully with the orchestra in an age before recording, but I suppose that countless hours on the podium had acquainted him with the sounds implied by a score.

Toward the end of this movement, the hypermeter seems to become more strict, i.e., there are fewer exceptions to the rule of four-bar hyperbars.  In the final 200 bars, there is only one shift of hypermeter.

Fourth movement–Just a few observations.  In many ways, this brief setting speaks for itself.  Would it have been more appropriate to partner this movement with the last movement?  Perhaps.

The brass chorale beginning in measure 3 is stunning.  I’m fairly sure that the bassoon and contrabassoon, however, would not be able to play a true pianissimo there, although they are scored in powerful ranges.  The low Db in the contrabassoon in m. 13 is a positively religious effect that I will be listening for from now on.

My Theory III students will be studying the enharmonicism found at rehearsal 1.  The key of the pieces is Db major, and to avoid a key signature of eight flats, Mahler chooses to write in C# minor.  As far as I can telll, this is the key reason for enharmonic writing–mere convenience.  There is no surprise in this chord progression–it moves precisely as it would if the key had remained Db major.

At rehearsal 3, the music moves to the other obvious choice for a contrasting minor key.  In fact, as the relative minor, Bb minor is a more likely candidate than C# minor.  The shift, acknowledged in the key signature, to A major is a bit trickier… Bb minor would be enharmonic to A# minor, which would have a relative major of C#.  The dominant of C# is F#.  The relative major of F# minor is A.   Mahler employs a monophonic technique in the solo violin part rather than try to navigate this convoluted path in such a short movement.  He returns to Db major through C# major in a convenient enharmonic move.

My thoughts on the giant, transcendant final movement will appear at the end of the month.

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