WILEY Bruckner's Way: The Adagio of the Ninth Symphony Author(s): Derrick Puffett and Kathryn Bailey Source: Music Analysis, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Mar.. 1999). pp. 5-99 Published by: Wiley Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/854351 Accessed: 16-02-2020 04:19 UTC REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article https://www. jstor.org/stable/854351?seq=1 &cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship, For more information about JSTOR, please contact support®jstor.org, Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available st hittps://about jstor-org/terms ae Wiley is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Music Analysis JSTOR “This content dowloaded from 166.106.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 04:19:39 UTC ‘ll use subjest ops /aboutjstor orgiesDERRICK PUFFETT BRUCKNER’s Way: THE ADAGIO OF THE NINTH SYMPHONY At the time of his death in November 1996 my husband was much occupied with an analysis of the Adagio of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony. He had begun the project in January of 1995, and it was very near completion zwhen he died, though unfortu- nately he had written litale of the text. (It was his habit to do the writing quickly at the end.) He claimed to have written it up ‘a couple of times? and then destroyed it be- cause it ‘wasn’t right? and he didn’t want it to be used in that form after his death. What I found later was the beginning of an article on the computer (seven single- spaced pages), tapes of a lecture he had given to graduate students on the subject, his music examples, a ‘period outline’ of the Adagio, notes for a ‘chronological journey’ through the movement, several short outlines of the projected paper, notes and ideas scattered throughout his diary, and all his (handwritten) graphs and reductions. I ‘cannot be certain that these laxter are complete, but from the way he talked about them T think that essentially they are. Notes he had written to himself in brackets on the graphs made it clear that he intended to include one or two additional things: these I have added in notation, I have also added the tempo indications from the score. Oth- ‘erwise the graphsireductions are as he left them. In addition we had talked about ‘various aspects of the analysis on many occasions. I have tried to piece together the materials he left with a minimum of intervention, though I have changed the notes for his ‘chronological journey” into prose. I have used only a small portion of the lecture. What I have used I have left in its original (spoken) form; thus itis not in the style in ‘which he would have written it had he got that far. All the text that I have written ‘myself is either in italic typeface or enclosed in square brackets, and the author of notes is identified as my husband, myself or William Drabkin. I wish to express my deepest ratitude to Anthony Pople and William Drabkin for their advice concerning the best ‘way of arranging the materials, and especially to the latter for his very careful reading of both the original materials and my edited version, for his invaluable help in ana- Iytical matters and for sharing with me his knowledge of original sources. Kathryn Bailey Preamble For a long time, in what might be called the dark ages of Bruckner reception — when the symphonies were little performed outside Austria, when the state of editions and manuscript sources constituted the next best thing to musicologi- cal chaos and when, apart from the fact that emulating Schubert in his final Music Analysis, 18/i (1999) 5 © Blackwell Publishers Led 1999. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Rosd, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK This content downloaded from 186 104.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:19:39 UTC ‘Alluse subject to hips: /about ster argterms6 DERRICK PUFFETT year Bruckner once sought the instruction of Simon Sechter, little was known about Bruckner’s music-theoretical attitudes (this was at a time when not even Sechter’s writing was widely known) — knowledge of these attitudes was con- fined to two remarks, remarks which, though there was no reason to doubt their veracity, were of a highly informal nature and were presented in a way which might seem to make them even more questionable than was actually the case. One was the remark quoted by Schenker in his Harmonielehre of 1906, a remark which has been discussed at length by Edward Laufer in his study of two movements of the Ninth Symphony.! The other was the footnote in Schoenberg’s Structural Functions of Harmony (1954) in which what mattered to Schoenberg — and to Bruckner ~ about the rules of voice-leading was, summed up in six words: ‘the law of the shortest way’. (Schoenberg devotes only two paragraphs, in his 203-page book, to the rules of voice-leading. Evi- dently these were not quite as important to him as they were to Schenker.)? ‘Schoenberg took his quotation from Anton Bruckner: Vorlesungen tiber Har- monielehre und Kontrapunkt an der Universitat Wien, a published version of the composer's lectures which had appeared somewhat belatedly in 1950.? Bruck- ner’s words appear near the start of the first main section of the book, the Harmonielehre, in a subsection called Die Verbindung der Dreikldnge (Connection of Triads). Here the essential rules are reduced to two. 1, Common tones should remain in the same voice. 2, Other voices follow the law of the shortest way (folgen dem Gesetze des niichsten Weges). Bruckner adds waggishly that his tailor, who owes him money, doesn’t follow the shortest way but avoids him whenever they meet. So much for the rules of voice-leading. At this point alarm bells start ringing in the reader’s head. The author's strat- egy becomes apparent: we are about to be treated to a list of passages in which Bruckner ignores the conventional rules of voice-leading, preferring to go ‘his own way’. (From this perspective standards of sophistication apart ~ Bruck- ner’s way is not so very different from Frank Sinatra’s.) And, in truth, such @ list would not be difficult to compile. To stay with the Ninth Symphony ~ though broadening the discussion to include all three finished movements ~ I can think of at least three passages where Bruckner applies his ‘rules’ with unprecedented elasticity. Towards the end of the first-movement exposition, for instance, the cadence formula evolved so decorously by strings and first horn is challenged, to use no stronger word for it, by the pizzicato Bés of violin 2 (Ex. 1a). Second example (Ex. 1b): shortly afterwards, the development sec- tion begins to get going with an F minor version of the first theme. Flute 1 adds its comment to such strivings: a three-note semiquaver motive whose upper pitch, e?, is left unresolved (unless octave equivalence has become a principle (© Blackwell Publishers Ld, 1999 Music Analysis, 18/i (1999) This content downloaded from 186 104.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:19:39 UTC ‘Alluse subject to hips: /about ster argtermsBruckNeRr’s WAY: THE ADAGIO OF THE NINTH SYMPHONY 7 Ex. 1 Bruckner’s way (a) First movement, bars 219-23 (some details omitted) oO (©) Trio, bars 16-24 ete — * apt gy fot gr of voice-leading). My third example (Ex. 1c) is from the mercurial Trio. Here not even the most cursory regard is expended on the ‘rules of voice-leading’: each strand of the accompaniment ‘goes its own way’, linearly speaking, not to mention the melody, which hops from strand to strand without privileging any single one of them Music Analysis, 181i (1999) ‘© Blackwell Pablishers Lid, 1999 ‘This conten downloaded from 166, 108,182.28 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 0:19:59 UTC “Alluse subject o hips bout tor orptemms8 DERRICK PUFFETT What do they mean, these striking (but by no means exceptional) infractions of the rules? Obviously Bruckner could have written the ‘correct’ note had he wanted to. The attitude of mild cynicism that informs Bruckner’s emendations towards the end of his life really will not do. After all, Mahler instituted the most staggering changes in his musical style, changes that could not possibly have been foreseen from the standpoint of his earliest works. I see no inconsist- ency whatever in the idea of a composer teaching by means of the strictest possible criteria species counterpoint, say - while at the same time practising an uncompromising modernism in his original compositions. So the question that needs to be asked is, not ‘Why the dichotomy?’, but ‘What modifications need to be made in our presuppositions — presuppositions gleaned inevitably from the early works — in order to make any kind of meaningful statement about the late ones?” Bruckner, Laufer and Schenker When the history of music theory in the twentieth century comes to be written, the 1980s will surely stand out as a decade of special importance. Not least because it was a decade in which Schenkerian theory finally established itself, in the Anglo-American domain, as the dominating mode of analysis where tonal music was concerned - to such an extent that a young Hong Kong scholar, reporting on a conference devoted to other analytical approaches, could write Acceptance of the Schenkerian theoretical framework as the codification of common-practice tonality is not uncommon among theorists today. Many, indeed, are tempted to interpret Schenker’s system as tonality made incar- nate, As a result, an analysis which involves a departure from Schenker’s models is often regarded as demonstrating a problem in the music rather than a problem in the theory.” This was also a time when scholars sought, more adventurously and to a large extent more efficaciously than before, to ‘apply’ Schenker’s methods to works outside the common-practice repertoire that was Schenker’s main concern. ‘The motivation for such experiments varied greatly. I myself have argued that Schenker’s methods might be used as @ criterion or index of common practice, allowing what is unusual or distinctive in the music ~ ‘Musorgsky’ as opposed to ‘Rimsky-Korsakov’ ~ to stand out in relief.® But I imagine that in most cases, the motivation stemmed from a combination of sheer love of the music - the motivation that makes us all want to analyse music, after all (and without which the analysis is worthless) — with the intellectual fascination that is Schenker’s greatest appeal. This combination of interests has led to some mildly schizophrenic results. Who could have guessed that Edward Laufer, for instance, the author of what (© Blactorell Publishers Ld, 1999 Music Analysis, 181i (1999) This content downloaded from 186 104.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:19:39 UTC ‘Alluse subject to hips: /about ster argtermsBRUuckNer’s Way: THE ADAGIO oF THE NINTH SYMPHONY 9 was, and remains after fifteen years, the most devastating critique of attempts to apply Schenker’s methods to twentieth-century music,’ would have spent so much time recently producing ‘Schenkerian’ analyses of twelve-note Schoen- berg (the Piano Piece Op. 33a), Webern, Dallapiccola, Sibelius and other com- posers not exactly central to the Schenkerian canon? Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony is not of course a twelve-note composition, But it is a work that so far surpasses the tonal canon addressed by Schenkerian analysis - in the complexity of its musical language, in the nature and extent of its chromaticism and in its avoidance, for long stretches, of anything resem- bling conventional harmonic progression — that to take it on, from this particu lar perspective, seems either monumentally wrong-headed or monumentally heroic (perhaps both). I certainly thought so when I began to analyse this piece two years ago. It was not long before I decided that a Schenkerian analysis of the piece simply would not work. The enormous time-spans (the Adagio lasts twenty-six minutes in Furtwingler’s famous 1944 recording); the rugged and angular melodic lines, which make late Mahler look like Mantovani; above all, the determinedly non-functional (dysfunctional?) harmony ~ all these made the idea of doing a Schenkerian analysis seem foolhardy, if not a sheer waste of time. If it wouldn’t work for the whole movement, though, it might work for short stretches ~ just as Schenkerian analysis can work for short stretches of Wagner (ot of Schoenberg, Mahler and Richard Strauss, come to that). To that end I divided the Adagio into a number of short sections, or periods (the exact number is not important — it began with 34 or 35 and finally settled at 33), copied out the music in a form which would make harmonic analysis easier (the value of harmonic reduction, and of piano reductions in general, is not always understood today) and started on the analysis. And then Laufer published his Schenkerian version!*To say I was intrigued is putting it mildly: single-handedly (at least I imagine it was single-handedly) this man has reduced his Everest ~ losing none of the detail in the process but rather accounting for it, finding a place in the scheme for every pebble, every blade of grass, every crystalline and unique droplet of snow. Never again will one be able to say that a piece was too difficult for Schenkerian analysis. And now I have to respond, in the only way I can: by writing an analy- sis of the analysis. Obviously I cannot retrace every step my predecessor has taken, demolishing his achievement along the way; nor would I wish to ~ for the achievement still seems to me heroic, something worthy of huge admir tion almost regardless of the result. It also seems to me fundamentally mis- guided. It seems to me misguided because, even if one could reconstruct Everest in microscopic detail, it would still be a one-dimensional reconstruction, What I mean by this will have to wait till later. But first I want to fault Laufer’s analysis on its detail. I decided I couldn’t analyse the Adagio from a Schenkerian per- Music Analysis, 181i (1999) © Blackwell Publishers 24.1998 This content downloaded from 186 104.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:19:39 UTC ‘Alluse subject to hips: /about ster argterms10 DERRICK PUFFETT spective because I couldn't analyse the first eight bars. (Terrible confession! But it seems to me axiomatic that if a principle is going to work for a piece as a whole it ought to work for the first eight bars ~ and I am obviously not talking about pieces with eight-bar introductions, introductions related only obscurely to the rest of the movement.) Laufer’s analysis of bars 1-8 (my Period 1) makes up the first part of his Ex. 23. This is transcribed as my Ex. 2. Note the importance of the melodic succes- sion E-F}-G#, both as a ‘third-progression’ (Schenker’s term for a linear se quence of three notes which may have greater structural weight) and as a motive. Laufer’s Ex. 23, in fact, is largely devoted to showing the presence of this motive within the first theme. One possible problem in Laufer’s handling of this passage is that there is as yet no sign of the G¢ that is to act as the primary note of the movement's Fundamental Line (Urlinie) ~ or would do, if this were a straightforward Schenkerian analysis. In fact the analysis has no Fundamental Line. Or perhaps it would be truer to say that some of the func- tions of a Fundamental Line are assumed by the structural ascent (Anstieg) that normally prepares for it. This means, in practice, that the descending line that carries a large part of the weight of the work’s structure is replaced by an ascending one: E-F#-Gé rather than G#-F}-E.° (Another problem here is the sheer number of notes in parentheses, which include the bass E supporting the very first chord. Notes in parentheses, according to Schenker, are notes that are not stated but only implied.!°The bass E happens to be of particular struc- tural importance in Laufer’s analysis. It is a pity, then, that it is not heard but has to be imagined.) Still keeping with (my) Ex. 2, E proves to be the melodic goal of the section. Itis part of Laufer’s ‘narrative’ for the structure of this movement that Gt is consistently evaded: only at bar 199, after evasions at bars 45, [272]! and 172,'2 do we reach the goal. Ex. 3 (Laufer’s Ex. 82) offers an overview. And the goal is also the beginning of the climax. In the final, ‘shattering’ chord, Gt is given a multiplicity of roles to play that Laufer’s analysis can hardly begin to Ex. 2 Bars 1-8: from Laufer’s Ex. 23 ro — (© Blachrll Publishers Lx. 1999 Music Analysis, 18/1 (1999) This content downloaded from 186 104.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:19:39 UTC ‘Alluse subject to hips: /about ster argtermsBRUCKNeER’s Way: THE ADAGIO oF THE NINTH SYMPHONY itt Ex. 3 Overview: Laufer’s Ex. 82 Ee - bee ‘eo ee) indicate.!? (The weakness, however, is in the method of analysis, not in the analyst.) Obviously I cannot discuss the rest of Laufer’s analysis in equal detail. But one further example may be quoted here (Laufer’s Ex. 86 = my Ex. 4). It shows the climactic chord gradually being cleansed of its dissonant elements, losing them note by note as it reaches its final, pure E major, goal. Achieving this cleansing, this purgation ~ whatever metaphor one wants to use ~ means by- passing the dominant that, according to Schenker, is an essential part of the cadential process. This does not invalidate the analysis, but it certainly makes it questionable. Whether Laufer has succeeded in facing up to the questions - or ‘even posing them ~ is something I prefer to leave open. What I will say is that at no point does he make things easy for himself. He is almost painfully honest instead of offering a single reading of the development section, he offers three). He is imaginative. And he always has his eye on the long view: one sees the movement as a whole, something so difficult to achieve when dealing with music of such complexity, at every stage. This is of course the outstanding (and pethaps unique) merit of Schenkerian analysis, especially in the hands of an outstanding practitioner. One sees the piece laid out in all its idiosyncratic glory. Period analysis What follows is not ~ repeat, nor ~ a comprehensive analysis of the sort I had attempted and, indeed, completed before Laufer’s magnum opus fell into my Music Analysis, 181i (1999) (© Blackwell Pblsher Lid, 1999 This content downloaded from 186 104.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:19:39 UTC ‘Alluse subject to hips: /about ster argterms12 DERRICK PUFFETT Ex.4 Laufer’s Ex. 86 hands. There is no need for one. In fact the wonderful thing about a Schen- kerian analysis is that, if well executed, except for purposes other than compari- son, etc., the piece need never be done again. But whereas there can only be one Schenkerian analysis of a piece as complicated as the Bruckner, there can be many analyses of it from other perspectives ~ all of which may complement the Schenkerian approach in different ways. Which is not to say that I don’t call upon Schenkerian methods when it suits me. This applies particularly, as I mentioned above, to the analysis of short sec- tions. Another influence that persuaded me to organise the analysis in this way was the analysis by Hugo Leichtentritt, in his book Musical Form, of the Adagio of Bruckner’s Eighth. As I remembered ~ falsely, as it turns out - he divides the piece into 30 or 40 short chunks, which he then goes on to analyse separately. (Actually the divisions he makes are the conventional ones of sonata form, with subdivisions, but it is often the case that something one remembers wrongly is more interesting in its distorted state, or at least has more interesting creative possibilities, than the boring actuality.)!" And of course Bruckner’s music lends itself well to this ‘sectional’ approach. Not only are his movements fa. mously ‘episodic’ - to the extent that whole passages could be omitted by cel- ebrated conductors, not to mention editors — but the language with which we tend to discuss them (‘cathedral’ metaphors, etc.) recognises the block-like, spatially-dependent nature of his creations. Here then is my period structure for the Adagio of the Ninth:! (6 Blackwell Publisher Lid, 1999 Music Analysis, 18/i (1999) This content downloaded from 186 104.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:19:39 UTC ‘Alluse subject to hips: /about ster argtermsBRUCKNER’s Way: THE ADAGIO OF THE NINTH SYMPHONY 13 Print ban hoe formal easy sm ofbor ' EXPOSITION FinsrGrour = Themele 8G & 2 5 fanfare: base on Ph then on F Teme IY 12 (@)"" 4 bass EES Taser 16) : a Steowo Grour Theme2a 4 ‘ ‘Themead 4 7 a ‘Theme2e 4 5 q ‘Theme2 5 x ‘ 10 Woe F (Transition) : n e DEVELOPMENT. ‘Tremeln 8 2 Tike 8 a dio atone higher 5 ry 4 5 16 16 fanfare on G (climes 1) ‘Theme 19" 8 a a ‘Theme2d 4 1» [RECAPITULATION?| Theme ln 4 2» 6 2 4 2 Be 5 6 2 tes 0 24 173.180 1B) [REVERSED RECAPITULATION?] Theme2a. 8 25 Iai-iae 6 25 ler-198 5 38 199-206 fanfare on GI (tinax 2) [cus ‘Theme tot 29° 207-218 (ike Peed?) Tans noG yo 219.28 CODA (Miserere quotation) ° 6 a 25-230 6G 32 mata (quotation from Symphony No.8) 6 33 Bra au (quotation fom Symphony No.7) 17 Charts are always subject to explanation. Here the formal designations (in- cluding that most rigorous of concepts, ‘climax’) will become clear as we go along; the only sign that demands immediate explanation is the asterisk that accompanies each of the appearances of Theme 1b, and this is really just for emphasis.'® Obviously there is room for disagreement in the exact divisions ~ I had, for example, originally divided both Periods 3 and 4 into two adjacent periods ~ but for the most part the segmentation above seems justified. All this fits in with the stereotyped — but in this case not unjustified ~ image of the composer. Bruckner’s movements (unlike, say, Mahler’s) lend them- selves well to being broken down into short sections in this way. The move- ments themselves are of course enormous, especially those of the last five symphonies. The forms he uses tend to be conventional ones — in some respects they are almost pedantically conventional in their adherence to traditional for- mal types ~ but, even within these, the sections are very clearly articulated. It is well known that Bruckner had an obsession with four-bar phrases, balancing Music Analysis, 181i (1999) (© Blackwell Publishers Lid, 1999 This content downloaded from 186 104.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:19:39 UTC ‘Alluse subject to hips: /about ster argterms14 DERRICK PUFFETT. short blocks against each other to create vast structures. These blocks are dis- tinguished from each other by thematic material, musical texture and, above all, orchestration. The sections jump out at the listener from the printed score. Some- times they are articulated by cadences, even if they are Bruckner’s characteris tically idiosyncratic ones. Then again, something will often happen at the end ofa section to markt off from the one that came before. So breaking the music down into periods is not the wholly arbitrary exercise it may seem to be. As for the overall formal design, more will be said as the movement pro- gresses. The combination of sonata form and double-variation form is typical of late Bruckner. Further possibilities of ambiguity will also be considered later. This introduction is all that got written. From this point on I am relying on the other materials my husband left and my own reading of his period analysis. Unfortunately the order in which things are discussed probably does not reflect the form his essay would have taken (his various outlines are contradictory), and certainly the language is not that which he would have used. Sadly the promises of things to be revealed in the course of the essay must remain unfulfilled, except perhaps by extrapolation. [KB] Bruckner’s ways: the Adagio as ‘narrative”* In contrast to Schoenberg's ‘law of the shortest way’, Bruckner’s way seems to be to take the longest route possible from point to point (or, on occasion, to take the shortest route by cutting every corner imaginable). His choice of the longest possible way usually appears to arise from a desire to avoid the obvious. ‘Whatever the reason for this, it reflects a real oddity in Bruckner’s character — an eccentricity, a disturbed mind. Like the man himself, the notes in his works behave in a manner unlike anything else — certainly unlike Wagner, though one can see superficial resemblances between his style and Wagner's and it is obvi- ous that he was deeply influenced by Wagner, whose music he loved. Fora long time Bruckner was held in rather low regard; Brahms became the model for Schoenberg, and most twentieth-century composers of a conserva- tive leaning would claim Brahms as a background somewhere. Brahms is a composer who more than almost anyone else gets it all together. Brahms is really tightly constructed: looking at many of the late works (intermezzos, ete.) is almost like looking at a bit of early twelve-note music. Every note means something: the motivic detail, the middleground structure and the large-scale organisation are perfectly in harmony. Everything fits. When you look at any Bruckner first movement and compare it with Brahms, it looks ramshackle and * The following paragraphs are taken from the transcription of tapes of a lecture given in January 1995, [KB] (© Blackwell Pblchers Ld. 1999 Music Analysis, 181i (1999) This content downloaded from 186 104.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:19:39 UTC ‘Alluse subject to hips: /about ster argtermsBRUCKNER's Way: THE ADAGIO OF THE NINTH SYMPHONY 15 motivically chaotic; it doesn’t seem to hang together at all. Huge climaxes seem to come from nowhere, the music starts and stops all the time. When Bruckner gets a bit of contrapuntal imitation going — as he often does, of course - it is all screwy. The intervals are the wrong ones; the most perverse bits of nonexact, imitation occur where one would expect real imitation or at least concentrated motivic working, and compared to Brahms it looks undercomposed, or badly ‘composed, This is why Bruckner symphonies have had such a bad press: one goes to them with all the wrong expectations, and one gets negative results. I think this is why I found it so difficult to do an analysis of this movement, because when one analyses a movement one wants it to hang together, to show the same sort of unity that one expects from Brahms. Nevertheless, Bruckner analysis does work — his movements do work in their own way, partly as a con- catenation of different sections, a chain-like succession of events, many of whi work individually, in isolation. This does not explain the cumulative effect of the whole or why the sections are placed in the order that they are, or why the whole thing works, but one can begin to make some progress that way. Bruckner seems to be trying to avoid the obvious, to be cutting corners, cliding and compressing things rather than composing progressions out at length (like so many second-rate composers ~ Raff, for example, who would compose a sequence out mechanically and there it would be, in all its eight-bar phrases, tiresomely symmetrical). In Bruckner one gets the appearance of such ‘mechanical composition and block-like sequences of events, but within indi- vidual phrases he hasn’t bothered to compose the progressions out in the logi- cal way. He assumes the listener knows how the music is going to go and then he does something else. Or else he manages to compress two or three continua- tions into one. He is playing around with one’s expectations all of the time. And in all sorts of ways. In the following period analysis he will be seen to be avoiding the obvious in three different areas: in his treatment of motives, in voice-leading, and in harmonic progressions. In most cases what is going on is compression: things are being shortened and elided. Although Bruckner is composing on a massive scale, when one looks at what is happening on a local, bar-to-bar level, very complicated things are often being squeezed into a very small space. The Adagio is a Processional, like the first movements of Mahler’s Ninth and Tenth Symphonies, though less explicitly so.!° The narrative trajectory is defined by the three Fanfare-Climaxes (Theme 1b: in Periods 3, 16 and 28), on Ft (and F), G and Gf, a semitone higher at each appearance. These are increasingly tragic (minor, dissonant) in tone. Because of the importance of ‘Theme 1b in defining the shape of the movement I have put an asterisk beside it on the Period table whenever it occurs. Though the articulation of sections Gc. the segmentation of the movement) is fairly clear, the interpretation of the sections and of their relationships to each other and to the overall structure is Music Analysis, 181i (1999) © Blackwell Publishers Lx, 1999 This content downloaded from 186 104.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:19:39 UTC ‘Alluse subject to hips: /about ster argterms16 DERRICK PUFFETT not without ambiguity. The structure of the Exposition is straightforward: two theme groups, each with its own pair of themes. The Exposition takes 76 bars. At the end of the movement the Transition and Coda take 38 bars, exactly half this number. The Exposition is followed by a Development. The beginning of the Development, at Period 11, sounds like the beginning of an Exposition repeat, because this period is a restatement of the opening one at the correct, level. However, it is immediately sequenced a tone higher, and development begins straight away. ‘The rest of the movement can be seen in two ways. In the first, the Develop- ment section runs from Period 11 to Period 18, with the Recapitulation begin- ning in Period 19, where the main theme returns once again at the original pitch, and development continues through the Recapitulation. But the form of the movement can also be seen to correspond to Timothy Jackson’s “Tragic Reversed Sonata Form’ (as in Bruckner’s Seventh, fourth movement, and Brahms’s Tragic Overture) with the second theme recapitulated first. (The first movement is in this form as well ~ cf. Redlich’s ‘telescoped’ Sonata Devel- opment and Recapitualtion”! — and also has a ‘tragic’ climax, in F minor.) It is, only at Period 24, with the return of the second theme, that things begin to sound like a real Recapitulation (despite the ambiguous tonality). [Develop- ment continues through the Recapitulation in this reading of the form as well.) Then the movement comes to a close, though only after an enormous climax using Theme Ib. In support of this second view the Reversed Recapitulation and Coda together take 72 bars, thus closely balancing the 76-bar Exposition. ‘Chronological journey’ through Periods 1-33" Exposrrion Period 1 is the most interesting as well as the most difficult to analyse: the relationships between the chords are very hard to understand. The key to the whole thing seems to be the Dresden Amen (which is, of course, also the Grail motive from Parsifal). The figure in bars 6-7 is very close to this motive. But this is not the only look towards Wagner in these few bars: both Triscan and ‘Tannhduser are in the background as well (the most obvious source materials are shown in Ex. 5). {The opening four notes of the movement are the first allusion to Wagner: the opening of Tristan stretched and dotted so as to become more dissonant, both harmonically and rhythmically. And compare the boxed portion of bar 3 on the graph with bar 3 of Tristan.) * The following period analysis is pieced together from the lecrure, the period outline, the ‘chronological journey’ outline, handwritten notes and conversations. Graphs of the periods can be found on pp. 51-99. (KB) (© Blactorell Publihers Ld. 1999 Music Analysis, 181i (1999) This content downloaded from 186 104.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:19:39 UTC ‘Alluse subject to hips: /about ster argtermsBRUCKNER’s Way: THE Apacio oF THE NINTH SYMPHONY 7 Ex.5 Source mat ‘Tristan und Isolde, Prelude, bars 1-3 =, 5 ‘Tristan und Isolde, Prelude, bars 16-17 Tannhauser, Act III scene 3 (Schirmer vocal score, p. 310) Parsifal, vocal score, bars 39-41 ea ‘The C major chord in the lower strings in bar 2 is dissonant, unprepared and thematically significant. It is played against an already-sounding Af, thereby creating, as the first chord in the movement, an augmented sixth chord, a chord which is traditionally thought to need both preparation and resolution. This is to be a very important chord in this movement, Though there is no chord in the first bar, we might have expected an E major chord, as the piece is, Music Analysis, 181i (1999) (© Blackwell Publenes Lid. 1999 This content downloaded from 186 104.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:19:39 UTC ‘Alluse subject to hips: /about ster argterms18 DERRICK PUFFETT in E major. The C on the third beat therefore seems at first to imply a dominant rather than a tonic chord, perhaps a dominant ninth, but this C turns out to be an appoggiatura; in retrospect the harmony in bar 1 is B major going to the augmented sixth in the next bar. [Compare this with Wagner's opening, which can be interpreted in nearly the same way.] The progression begun here by the implied chord V followed by the augmented sixth in bar 2 (first implied, then stated) seems to be abandoned in bar 3, when instead of resolving the aug- mented sixth back onto chord V of E the harmony moves onto [D, F, C, G], a chord which has no place in E major. ‘This new chord makes a certain amount of sense as a chord in C major, though it doesn’t act as a chord in C major would. To start with, the G goes up to Ab, a note which has no place in C major. But perhaps more importantly, the note of the first chord that one would expect to move is the C, not the G, because the C is dissonant against the D in the bass: it is the seventh, and one expects it to resolve downwards to B. If the C major chord in bar 2 had behaved as an augmented sixth should have done and resolved onto a B major chord (as shown in continuation 1 of Ex. 6), then the Ff at the end of bar 2 would have been an anticipation of the F¥ in the next bar, and it would have become the Dresden Amen. This hypotheti- cal version appears in a box at the bottom of the graph. The end of the fourth bar is similar to the end of the second but this time with a French rather than a German sixth. The resolution that one might have expected here, onto an F# major chord, is shown in a second box at the bottom of the graph, again producing the Dresden Amen (by treating the C# in the upper voice as an anticipation rather than a passing note). These four bars, then, make a sequence. Despite their differences, their similarity becomes clear when you see the underlying model of the Dresden Amen. ‘The spelling of the second chord in bar 4 ~ [C#, Ed, G, B] ~ suggests that it is the altered dominant of Ff. However, after bar 4 the harmony avoids F# and goes to D major in root position, producing an interrupted cadence (V-4V1). ‘The D major chord then moves to one in B minor in bar 6: these are the first two chords of the Dresden Amen. (They are boxed at the bottom of the reduc- tion.) And at the end of the phrase there is of course the expanded Dresden Amen itself. ‘The role of the Amen in this phrase is unclear. It is not a quotation, nor is it an allusion; Bruckner may not even have been aware of it in a theoretical way. But its repeated near-presence shows how an underlying diatonic model can serve as a background for something chromatic when the chromatic version doesn’t seem to imply an explanation on its own terms.?? Going back to bar 3, the second chord of this bar—[A, E}, Db, At] ~is a really awkward one; no conventional explanation is implied. (Incidentally, when this, chord returns{, in bar 141), Bruckner writes Df rather than E}. (The violin 1 (© Blachorll Publishers Lx. 1999 Music Analysis, 18/i (1999) This content downloaded from 186 104.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:19:39 UTC ‘Alluse subject to hips: /about ster argtermsBRUCKNER's Way: THE ADAGIO OF THE NiwtH SYMPHONY 19 Ex. 6 Notional continuations, bars 2-3 ates th int amr o w Tey lomo ce * sey Fea) 1 suena melody in this bar is also spelt differently than it was in bars 3 and 4: the Bb in bars 3-4 is an Af in bars 141-2.] Notation - the way chords are spelt - seems not to have been important to Bruckner as it was to Wagner.) Looking again at the notional continuations offered in Ex. 6, we see that if the C of this chord were a suspension (rather than the G), it would resolve V-I in C major (see Music Analysis, 181i (1999) (© Blackwell Publishers Led, 1999 ‘This conten downloaded from 166, 108,182.28 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 0:19:59 UTC “Alluse subject o hips bout tor orptemms20 DERRICK PUFFETT. notional continuation 2). This however is not the case: both C and G are sus- pended against the lower notes. The G moves up to Gé (spelt AS); given that, ‘one might expect the alto to move down to B, resolving then on an A minor chord (as in notional continuation 3).With part-crossing the inverted chord V is arrived at in the next bar. What Bruckner does is in fact quite close to this. ‘The D in the bass easily falls to A, though the other notes warrant explanation. If the Eb in the tenor were an Ei, then it would become an A minor chord in the second half of the bar, moving to a first inversion dominant, which could move to the French sixth cadencing on the dominant of F# major in the way de- scribed (see notional continuation 4). A changing-note figure in the tenor part, in bars 3-4 (E+-F#-E#) is reflected in the alto in the same spot, beginning one beat later and ending one beat earlier (C-E}-Dy), in a kind of contrapuntal heterophony. This is by no means the only thing Bruckner could have written here because the Ab has C minor implications as well. In fact there are many conceivable versions in flat keys, since the chromatic notes can be read as ther flats or sharps. This suggests a sort of three-dimensional harmonic think- ing which is most disorienting. Think of those complex canonic things that occur in the Art of Fugue or the Goldberg Variations, or the three-part inven- tions, where all the voices are inverting each other; and then try to imagine what it would be like if not only individual parts but the whole three-part tex- ture were turned with every inversion, so that the whole harmony was inverted. every time, prismatically. Or the Webern Concerto, where there are so many relationships at any given point that the mind just can’t take them in. You can mark them off on the page, you can understand them in a sense, but you can, never take them in when you heat them, because there are just too many. They are not even particularly complex ones in the case of the Webern Concerto, but there are just so many of them and they reflect in so many different directions at the same time that to represent this satisfactorily you would have to have a three-dimensional computer model that would do Roman numeral analyses taking off in all sorts of different directions. These comparisons may seem ex- aggerated, but I think this multi-faceted quality of the harmony may account for some of its incredible richness and intensity. It is not just that these are chromatic and moving chords. Each one of them could go in any one of four- teen different directions: hypothetically this could have been composed in a thousand different ways. (It is like a ‘parallel universe’: somewhere there are symphonies in which all of these Bruckner continuations are followed up.) ‘When the harmony is so multi-dimensional and expressive in so many different ‘ways at once, the information needs to be contained in some way in order to make any sense. The notional continuation 4 in Example 6 illustrates the com- pression that has taken place in bars 3 and 4. In Period 2, as in Period 1, Bruckner is avoiding the obviow: terms of (© Blackwell Publishers Ld, 1999 Music Analysis, 181i (1999) This content downloaded from 186 104.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:19:39 UTC ‘Alluse subject to hips: /about ster argtermsBRUCKNER’ Way: THE ADAGIO OF THE NINTH SYMPHONY ai harmonic progressions, playing around with ellipsis and compression. The chord in the tremolando strings in the first two bars, a C major chord with a Bb in the violas, is approached without any preparation: the C, which, in the E major context of the bars directly preceding, is of course dissonant, is unpre- pared. The chord itself looks like a dominant seventh of F, but that doesn’t make any sense here. When the Bb is interpreted as an Af, however, the chord becomes a German sixth, which should resolve onto a chord of B major or a § ‘on B, as happens in the next bar (see the second system of the Period 2 graph). On the reduction of these bars the Ci is resolved onto a B written in smaller notations the B is not in fact there but is implied by the harmony, which is an E major chord. The Cé looks like a passing note coming from the C in the top voice on the way up to D and Eb and so on through the section: one hears @ chromatically rising scale in the violins throughout the section, an important source of the intensification. But the harmony belies this interpretation. The Dj in the upper line in bar 10 is better explained as a passing note from a hypothetical E at the beginning of the bar (this E isn’t there, just as the B isn’t, there), down to Cé (spelt Di) in the next bar, forming part of an augmented sixth, (See the third system on the graph.] The sequence is then reproduced a minor third higher, producing the same chain of events all over again: a series of suspensions (or appoggiaturas) which resolve by descent: C-B, DD}, but to notes of resolution that are not there (at least not in the same voice) and the upper voice actually rises, which is against all harmonic teaching. We are left only with the problem of where the Ci in bar 9 comes from in the first place. Again, see the second system on the graph, bar 10.The Ci goes to Gt (because both are in the oboe), and the Cf in bar 10 is a neighbour note (the chord note, if you like to think of it that way). The C in bar 9 resolves onto By in the next bar, but this is taken down to Gf for the sake of the melody, thus taking the long, way round, In fact Bruckner seems to avoid going the shortest way from place to place throughout this period. Period 3 is the second part of the First Theme, Theme 1b. Here it is the voice-leading that is idiosyncratic. The period begins with a repeating short fanfare in the trumpets in bars 17-19; [this returns in bar 21, continuing until bar 25, where its liquidation begins, as it loses its accented initial note in the bar and becomes progressively quieter.] Against this both times is an accented line on the horns (also in the nature of a fanfare and repeating, but in longer note values and clearly derived from the violin in bars 1 and 2], which goes from a low Fé up to G# a ninth higher (imitating the opening interval of the movement), then down through Cf to the initial F. This is a neighbour-note figure of a rather conventional kind made unconventional by octave displace~ ‘ment. At the end of both fanfares the harmony moves to a German sixth chord: [G,B, D, EA] in bar 20 and [G} (F#), Bb (Ag), E] on the fourth beat of bar 24.23 Music Analysis, 181i (1999) (© Blackwell Pblshers Lid. 1999 This content downloaded from 186 104.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:19:39 UTC ‘Alluse subject to hips: /about ster argterms22 DERRICK PUFFETT. Period 4 (‘the farewell to life’) is another example of compression. This is the Transition, and one of the most conventional-sounding sections. The most striking feature is the movement of the outer voices in parallel octaves through- out. This motion has begun in Period 3, where, except for one bar (bar 20) the outer voices play F$ in bars 17-24, then move down together to F3 for bars 25— 8. This Fy continues for the first four bars of Period 4 before slipping down, another semitone to E. [This parallel descent in the outer parts is reinforced by a series of triads in first inversion in the horns and Wagner tubas which descend through an octave twice, first in Bh minor in bars 29-32, then in A major in bars 33-6.] The { at the start of the phrase implies a j resoution; the Bb should resolve to an A. There is, however, no Ai anywhere in this four-bar phrase. The first A is at bar 33, where it is at the top of the A major chord that begins the second descent of first-inversion triads played by horns and Wagner tubas. The By in bar 29 falls instead to At, and the { is never resolved; but by the time the phrase has descended an octave to the chord at the end of bar 32 the dominant harmony on F has been established nevertheless. This dominant seventh then resolves as an augmented sixth (with a Df rather than an E}) onto the next $ (A, or E) [though the upper note of the sixth (EWD#) does not resolve: there are Es in five octaves in bar 33, but none in this one). Schubert of course does this all the time, but here things are confused by the absence of the A, the crucial note, which is withheld for its climactic appearance in bar 33. (It is missing not only when expected in bar 29, but in the pivotal ‘V’/aug. sixth’ in bar 32 as well. The underlying harmony [of the phrase] is clearly the augmented sixth nonetheless. A subtly altered version of the same procedure occurs in the next four bars, 33-6, Again there is no third in the chord at the end of the phrase. Here the destination is E major [as V of A}, and there is no Gt, though, unlike the A. which was withheld for the entirety of the first phrase, the G# has been heard twice in the course of this phrase ~ at the top of the second chord and again mid-phrase, in bar 34 — as one outcome of the descent’s being in a major key on this occasion as compared with a minor key the first time. Another result of this change of mode is that the chord at bar 35 has a major sixth degree (F#) in it, as opposed to the minor sixth of bar 31 (which was enharmonically the same note, Gi). This F# in bar 35 (and again in bar 36) opens up a new expressive possibility in the penultimate chord: rather than moving directly from D major to B minor Bruckner incorporates an A# appoggiatura, thereby creating an aug- mented triad, a sonority which was not possible in this position in the earlier, minor, version. The penultimate chords of both phrases are appoggiatura chords — the first, in bar 32, is a minor ninth chord with a 6-5 downward resolution while the second, in bar 36, is the augmented chord with the appoggiatura resolving upwards. Both are expressive chords, and in both cases by the end of the phrase there is a sense that the initial § has resolved onto the dominant. ‘© Blackwell Publishers Ld, 1959 Music Analysis, 18/i (1999) This content downloaded from 186 104.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:19:39 UTC ‘Alluse subject to hips: /about ster argtermsBRUCKNER’S Way: THE ADAGIO OF THE NINTH SYMPHONY 23, ‘There is no { in bar 37, so the resolution here is not parallel to that in bar 33, but there is nonetheless an augmented-sixth relationship, very similar to the progression in Tristan before the Love Duet in Act II Gust before ‘O sink her- nieder’, which is also in Ab major). In Tristan the augmented sixth is on the flattened supertonic resolving to the tonic, here on the flattened submediant resolving to the dominant (i.e. 1I’-I, sVI"-V). [This chord of resolution, a V’, is the first chord of an interrupted cadence, resolving in bar 38 (and repeating exactly two bars later) to bVI with double appoggiaturas (another progression familiar from Tristan). Thus we are taken back enharmonically to the E major chord of bar 36, now reinterpreted as a chord of resolution (Fb major). A stretto begins at bar 37: following the four-bar sequential repetition in bars 33-6, the music repeats (without changing tonal level) after two bars, then after one. The single repeated bar is the Grail motive, and the period ends with a third statement of this motive, now in augmentation.] In bar 41 the long G that begins the first Grail motive combines with a Nea- politan chord on Bly in the first inversion to create a German sixth chord [Bi D3, Fh G]. At the same time the note E}, used both as a pedal at the top of the texture and as the last note of the Grail motive, is an anticipation of the fifth of the Ab chord at the beginning of the next period (bar 45). This Eb also creates a French sixth (Bi, Db, Eb, G] over the German sixth, thus combining two differ- ‘ent augmented sixths in the same chord (bars 41-4). [Thus in a period built of four units, the third of which is stationary, the first two and the last all end with complicated augmented sixths: the first two incomplete and thus to a certain extent implied (until their resolutions, which leave no doubt of the intention), the third a compression of two ‘nationalities’.] The main point of Period 4 is that, although the transition seems very slow, a great deal is happening and quite a lot has been left out: Bruckner is cutting corners and eliding things which would normally be stated in full. In Period 5 the first of the Second Themes, Theme 2a, is introduced, in Ab. ‘The first four notes are almost immediately given sequential treatment (in bars 47 and 48). These notes describe a contracting wedge: perfect fourth, nor third, semitone. The accompaniment figure in the viola and violin 2 is more traditionally motivic here than elsewhere in the movement. The upper voice (violin 1) of the reduction of bars 47-8 describes a changing-note figure like that noted above in the inner voices of Period 1 (here A}-C)-BI). Period 6 is a more conventional period. It is the continuation of the Second ‘Theme (Theme 2b) and descends harmonically through chords I-4VII-4VI-V in Ab. Bruckner solves the inevitable problem of fifths with 7-6 suspensions in bars 49 and 50 and a voice exchange in bar 51 that is reminiscent of Tristan. (The two halves of the period are dissimilar: the first two bars are a falling sequence on two melodic figures (one in flute! and oboe 1, the other in clari- net 1), both of which are derived from the viola accompaniment to Theme 2a; Music Analysis, 181i (1999) © Blackwell Publishers Lid, 1999 This content downloaded from 186 104.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:19:39 UTC ‘Alluse subject to hips: /about ster argterms24 DERRICK PUFFETT the last two bars are in chorale style.] Here the horns play the Grail motive, which is now harmonised and resolves onto the first chord of Period 7. Period 7 [begins with a repeat of the first two bars of Period 5 (Theme 2a) plus the additional material shown on the graph (bassoon and flute). The sec- ond half of this period is also similar to the rest of the earlier period, consisting again of a chromatically ascending sequence, based on the same changing-note figure as before (this time played by the horns). This sequence is harmonically more complex and interesting than the earlier one, however, incorporating augmented sixths and providing another example of compression. Chord I in 1D} moves to the German sixth in the same key, and this chord then resolves as, chord’ in D. The same thing happens again in D, but instead of the expected resolution to Bb the third of chord V" in Eh is flattened (on the fourth beat of bar 56) so that this chord becomes V (with a passing seventh in the melody) in Gb, to which key it then resolves at the beginning of Period 8. Thus, by flatten- ing one note - the D in bar 56 ~ this sequence has been compressed and three steps omitted] Period 8 [is a continuation of Theme 2b. There are no augmented sixths in Period 8, and no chromatic sequences. Overall there is a scalar rise of a third (enharmonic), Gi-Ab-A, the latter key being reached at the beginning of Period 9 through an interrupted cadence. The opening figure of Theme 2a returns in this period as well; it is in fact here that the diminution of this four- note motive, which is going to be very important at later points in the move- ment, makes its first appearance, in the sequence in bars 61-2.] ‘There are several unexpected notes in the second violins’ figuration in bars 60-62. The first is the Ek in bar 60, for which the violins reach down, briefly into the octave where the second horn and violas are playing the third and fifth of a Bb major chord, chord V of the Eb minor on the following beat. (The four-note figure that contains this dissonant and perplexing Eis shaped differently from the figures that surround it in the second violins, in all of which the two middle notes are either a chord note preceded by its lower neighbour or, less often, two chord notes.] In this case the E, which is quite out, of context, stands alone in this register. It ought to go to F as an appoggiatura, since there is a clear Bb major context, but violin 2 has no F in this octave. The note of resolution occurs only later in the bar, when both violin 2 and viola play F (in the case of violin 2 in the wrong register), as the downward resolution of an appoggiatura on Gi. A similar figure occurs twice more, on the second and fourth beats of bar 61 (in parallel positions within a small sequence); here again the lowest note of each figure, first Ci then Ds, is out of context. In the first instance the Ct is foreign to the D} minor chord outlined by the rest of the notes played on that beat: it should be a Cs (and, as the seventh of the chord, resolve downwards. The Cy can be explained as the seventh degree of Di, raised 80 as £0 act as a leading note approached from the dominant on the first beat of (Blackwell Polishers Ld, 1999 Music Analysis, 181i (1999) This content downloaded from 186 104.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:19:39 UTC ‘Alluse subject to hips: /about ster argtermsBruckwer’s Way: THE ADAGIO OF THE NINTH SYMPHONY 25 the bar and moving to Db in the same octave on the following beat, though the Dh, having been reached, is itself almost immediately out of context: the chord on the third beat of the bar is C minor (to which the D} resolves downwards as it should). The last out-of-context note resulting from this anomalous figure, Dj on the fourth beat of the bar, occurs in a position parallel to the Ck two beats earlier, and, like that note, has no place in the prevailing harmony: the chord outlined by all the other notes occurring within this beat is F minor. If, however, we consider again the leading note C in the figure on the second beat and its resolution to D} on the following beat, we can see this harmonically out-of-context Dj as a continuation of a chromatically rising line that comes to its completion when the Dy moves up an octave and resolves to Eb at the top of the texture on the first beat of bar 62. ‘There are other puzzling notes in this sequence. Violin 2 plays a Gand a By in parallel positions on the third beat of bar 61 and the first beat of bar 62.The first of these is a chord note (the fifth of a chord of C minor) and thus not a dissonance; the second of these notes, Bi, is completely foreign to the Es major chord on the first beat of bar 62 and coincides moreover with a Bb played by the violas an octave lower. Both Gi and B§ are approached in a most unlikely way, from a flattened note an augmented second below (a movement which will not be found in the voice-leading manuals), and the By compounds the infraction by proceeding to the note a diminished third above. For any number of reasons this Bg should be a Bb. There are two further sources of dissonance: the Theme 1a figure played by violin I produces as its third note a leading-note appoggiatura, and when the seventh is added to each of these chords at the end of the beat, cross relations result: BY) on the third beat of bar 61, DD} on. the first beat of bar 62. In fact a seventh is added at the last moment to three chords in this sequence in parallel positions ~ the first, third and fifth chords, on the first and third beats of bar 61 and the first beat of bar 62), but they are subtly different and resolve in different ways. The first, which should be a minor seventh, since the chord is chord resolving to chord I in D} minor, is instead a major seventh; its upward resolution to the fifth of the following chord is therefore the natural one. The note in the parallel situation on the third beat of the same bar however is the expected minor seventh; thus when it progresses upwards in the same manner, continuing the melodic sequence, this subverts its normal resolution, and in fact this seventh resolves in a very roundabout fashion. After moving upwards to the fifth of the chord of resolution it then drops down to the wrong octave momentarily for the anomalous Dj discussed above, immediately re- turning to the correct register, where it reaches the proper note of resolution only after a passing note (B)-C-{D§]-BL-Al). This replicates what violin 2 did in the previous two bars, the first step of the sequence. The third of the sev- enths, again minor and this time creating a V’ (on the first beat of bar 62), Music Analysis, 18/1 (1999) © Blackwell Publisher Lid, 1999 This content downloaded from 186 104.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:19:39 UTC ‘Alluse subject to hips: /about ster argterms26 DERRICK PUFFETT proceeds upwards like the previous two, but this one stops there, neither dip- ping down to the lower octave nor going on to reach its proper note of resolu- tion. Finally, before leaving this section, we must consider the peculiarities of the chords themselves. The underlying harmony would appear at first glance to be a sequence of three V§ to minor I® cadences (and, indeed, the chords are so labelled on the reduction), but in fact none of them is quite exactly this. As noted earlier, the chord that should be V’ of D} has a major instead of a minor seventh. The chord that should be V? of F has a minor seventh but is a minor triad (the violas play Eb instead of E:). And in the final cadence, in which the V7 is at last as it should be, the chord of resolution itself has a seventh: [Ab, Cb, Eb, Gi]. The effect of all these deviations from what is expected is that the harmony remains on Ab, major then minor (a possible explanation of the second violins’ strange Bk at the beginning of bar 62 being that it is an anomalous spelling of Ch and thus a passing note in Ab minor). In essence the little three-step se- quence in bars 61-2 is a chromatic embellishment of the first-inversion chord of Ab that occurs on the first beat of bar 61 and again on the last beat of bar 62 before going to the dominant on the downbeat of 63, an embellishment in which several harmonic ideas are combined and overlapped in a very short space of time,] this compression serving to maintain a high level of dissonance. Period 9. Theme 2a is developed in this period; imitation is exact to the point of being pedantic. [The period is in two two-bar segments, the second a fourth higher than the first and very similar to it. Violin 2 plays two anomalous Gts in the second half of the period, both unresolved appoggiaturas, and both marked on the reduction. The first, in bar 67, ought to resolve upwards to a, the second, in the following bar, should fall to ff!, but neither of these notes occurs in this register until the end of the bar: both are resolved by violin 1 an octave too high (a? on the fourth beat of bar 67 and f¥? on the fourth beat of bar 68).] This period, which begins in A major, ends on a first inversion chord of Ff major, which then behaves as flattened II (the Neapolitan, Gi§) in F minor, going directly to the dominant of that key for Period 10, which is all over a dominant pedal in F minor. (Cf. the end of Period 4 and the beginning of Period 5.) Period 10 is the end of the Exposition. The use of pizzicato strings and horns recalls the end of the Exposition in the first movement. And here, as there, everything is over a pedal, in this case C as the dominant of F minor, played in the first four bars by pizzicato cellos and basses, in the last four by the fourth Wagner tuba. In spite of the C pedal throughout this section there is an underlying F# as V of V as we approach the end of the Exposition. [The Nea- politan harmony that ended Period 9 (now spelt G3) returns for the first half of bar 70; here the C pedal disappears for half a bar, allowing this chord to sound clearly, though briefly, before the resumption of F minor. In bar 73 these two (© Blackwell Publishers Lid. 1999 Music Analysis, 18/i (1999) This content downloaded from 186 104.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:19:39 UTC ‘Alluse subject to hips: /about ster argtermsBRUuckNeR’s Way: THE ADAGIO OF THE NINTH SYMPHONY 27 harmonies, which have to this point alternated - V" of F and V/V of E ~ are superimposed: the lower two notes and the seventh of each of these two chords ~[C,E, Bi) and (F¥, Af, E] - combine to produce a French sixth (C, E, Ff, Af], which resolves naturally to the B (the dominant of E) at the beginning of Pe- riod 11. In bar 73 both French and German sixths are present: (C, E, Fé, Ag] and (C, E, G, Af}; when the G resolves to an Ff an octave lower in bar 75 the German gives way to the French, which is also an altered chord V’/V in E. (Because of the double identity of this chord, B is more strongly implied by the French sixth than it is by the German, and the placing of this very important melodic motion in the upper voice makes the implication even stronger.) The French sixth and its alter-ego, the Vij of the dominant, form a symmetrical tritonal axis: C is b2 of V and 5 of bII, while FH is $ of V and (enharmonic) 63 of bIL]?5 Devevopment Period 11 is the beginning of the Development. This period is in the tonic key and is identical to Period 1 except for the last four notes, which are changed so as to lead to C$ rather than to Gi. In Period 12 we hear all of Period 11 (and therefore, of course, Period 1 as well) up a tone, But here a descant is added, which is in the main a mirror inversion of the original melody, beginning at the same time on the note two octaves higher. [The descant mirrors the original theme exactly for the first five notes. This means an anticipation of the chromatic lower neighbour note Bg; at the opening of the movement the parallel note, Af, came only in bar 2, where it was held over to become part of an augmented sixth. Now the early appearance of the BY coincides with the chromatic upper neighbour of the original, Dt, and the augmented sixth is thus suggested one bar earlier. These two notes of course return on the downbeat of bar 86, as the result of a voice exchange (or, more to the point, as a result of the mirror inversion), thus changing the harmonic situation in the first half of this bar when itis compared with the original. In the earlier statements of this Period the first chord to sound, on the third beat of the second bar, was unexpected and dissonant with the melody, but in this instance, though the chord is the same as in the earlier instances of this bar (a D major chord in first inversion, paralleling the first- inversion C major chords in bars 2 and 78), its not unprepared, since the D is already present in the inverted melody. Now the descant is altered (although its contour continues to mirror the original melody, the intervals are changed) so that all the notes of the inversion are in harmony with the supporting chords, with the exception of the Bk, which is diatonic in D major. (This note comes directly after Bf, which occurs in both the original and its inversion, and might have been expected to take that inflection: this is noted on the reduc- tion.)] The interrupted resolution in bar 89 is this time onto an E major chord, Music Analysis, 181i (1999) (© Blackwell Publishes Lid. 1999 This content downloaded from 186 104.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:19:39 UTC ‘Alluse subject to hips: /about ster argterms28 DERRICK PUFFETT which is the tonic as well as a pitch-specific reference to the end of the previous period. [The diatonic descent in bar 86, labelled x on the reduction, occurs twice ‘more in this period: in bar 89, where it is exact and extended, and accompa- nied by its (inexact) inversion, and in bar 91, where it is itself inverted, thus taking on the general contour of the Grail motive (which has been heard in its original form in bar 90). The ascending version in bar 91, over the repeated Ft and G in the bass, produces an F# major chord but at the same time an incom- plete French sixth resolving onto F¥ as V (or §) of B, the key of Period 13.7] Period 13 is almost redundant, just a lead-in to Period 14. (Here the idea of mirror inversion introduced in Period 12 is compounded. Now we hear noth- ing but overlapping statements of the inversion of the opening two bars of the piece ~ every second one slightly altered — with a statement beginning on every bar. The first, third, fifth and seventh of these are accompanied by a figure that, closely approximates its mirror inversion (thus a slightly altered version of the original). The whole sequence rises, by progressively smaller intervals (minor third, whole tone, semitone) and at an increasing rate of speed (four bars, two bars, one and one). The dotted figure, which is a prominent part of both ‘Theme 1a and Theme 1b, appears in its 1a form throughout; in the last bar of the period it is diminished, in horns 1 and 2, to become the version heard in 1b. It continues to be heard in both forms in Period 14.] Period 14 is altogether very odd. There are Eb and F¥ (enharmonic Gi) ped- als throughout the four bars, in the top register. [There is also a C held through the first two bars. Over this are two further statements of the inverted Theme 1 opening, one beginning on Ab (over what sounds like a dominant seventh chord of Df but is spelt as a German sixth in C minor) and one a tone higher (over a seventh chord on the supertonic of Ds) which moves in the next bar to a chord of B major: (Ch, Eb, Fé]. The first of these inverted subjects is answered too hastily by a quasi-inversion which uses the rhythm of the theme but begins on the third beat of the bar and simply falls an octave and rises again, all on Eh. This is the beginning of a liquidation of the First Theme opening: the dotted figure, which in the quasi-inversion occurs all on the same note, is heard again in bar 103, in diminution, still on E} but an octave higher and without the surrounding octave leaps. (This was anticipated in bar 100 of Period 13 and is, related to the doubly dotted fanfare figure, Theme 1, which is going to return, in Period 16.) The scalar bass of Period 13 is retained for bars 101 and 102, in which the bass descends from c#? to ct! through what would be the scale of Db major both times if it weren’t for the (passing) Ag in bar 102. In bars 103 and 104 this scalar pattern begins to behave erratically and break up, with registral transfers and chromatic fillings-in. The lowest note moves from C4 to Ch, enharmonically preparing the third of the key of the next Period. Both the F# and the Ab of the German sixth chord in bar 101 should resolve (© Blackwell Publishers Ld, 1999 Music Analysis, 18/1 (1999) This content downloaded from 186 104.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:19:39 UTC ‘Alluse subject to hips: /about ster argtermsBruckwer’s Way: THE ADAGIO OF THE NINTH SYMPHONY 29 onto G, but the Ff, which is one of the pedal notes, remains fixed and the Ab rises to At, as part of a semitonal linear ascent that began on g! (a lower appog- giatura to Ab) in bar 101 and continues, with registral transfers, to ch? (which is followed immediately by a leap up to ch? and then to ch! by way of an unpre- pared appoggiatura on db!) in bar 104. The movement of Ab to Ag in bar 102 produces a diminished seventh chord on F#—a second chord which (spelt as it here) should resolve onto a chord on G, but this resolution does not occur here either. Again the Ff remains where it is, and the A, after making itself known in four octaves on successive beats (a!, a®, a and A), continues its up- ward journey, to bi?. The C, which ought to fall to B, also rises, to Db. The result of these combined motions is a dominant seventh chord on E (without a third) in bar 103, at first glance a far cry from the chord on G that has been implied up to this point, but a chord whose alter ego is in fact the German sixth in G. Bar 104 hints tantalisingly at this latter reading without however produc- ing a resolution: the Ds (C#) moves (as it should if this were an augmented sixth) up to Dy, but only as a passing note on the way to join the flutes” pedal ES, and this, with the Ff, which, as before, remains fixed as a pedal note, sug- gests the progression German sixth toV on Ds but at the same time the By rises to C} (BI), as it would in a resolution to a § chord on D. There is no G, except incidentally, as a passing note in the clarinets. The harmony in bar 104 is in fact ‘a major chord on Cb (which és finally, a far cry from G except as the enhar- monic dominant of the relative minor, a key which is nowhere in evidence).] [After the detours and diversions of bars 102-4 the beginning of Period 15 seems to be the delayed resolution of the augmented sixth in bar 101, though to the key of G major rather than to G as the dominant of C. Period 15 is a long sequence of unresolved dominant seventh chords moving up in whole tones, from G major at its beginning back to G major in bar 119: thus both the lead- ing note and the seventh of each V? ascend a whole tone to the next chord rather than following the semitone motions that a normal resolution would entail. As in Period 13 the sequence speeds up as it progresses: it begins with four bars in G and four bars in A minor (each of these segments comprises one bar of chord I and one bar of the first-inversion dominant seventh, with these two bars then repeated); this is followed by two bars of V8 in B and the same in (Cs there is a further reduction to one bar each of Vf in Eb and then in F. Upon. the eventual arrival on V§ in G the harmony remains stable for two bars, in preparation for the dominant of C major that opens Period 16. ‘Throughout the first half of Period 15 the low strings play the first two bars of Theme 1a; violin 2 answers with a free inversion. The beginning of Theme 2b (cf. the first six notes of the upper violin line in bar 57 of Period 8), altered intervalically so that the last four notes are a diminution of Theme 2a (cf. Period 5), but in a new rhythm, is heard in violin 1. Alternate statements of this are answered by a descending figure in oboe 1 which is very nearly motive x Music Analysis, 181i (1999) © Blackwell Publishers Led, 1999, This content downloaded from 186 104.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:19:39 UTC ‘Alluse subject to hips: /about ster argterms30 DERRICK PUFFETT from Period 12. All these motives become progressively shorter from bar 115 onwards as the whole-tone ascent is compressed into less and less space.] Period 16 brings Theme Ib back, first in C major, then in C minor, [be- tween G pedals in the outer voices, as the original, in Period 4, was encom- passed by pedals on Ff, then F. There are no augmented sixths this time. This period, all over a dominant ninth chord in C (first with Af, then with AS), is at long last the expected and proper resolution of the augmented sixth chord in bar 101, at the beginning of Period 14. The route from IV? toV in C has been, a long and circuitous one indeed.) Period 17 is concerned with Theme 2b and represents the ‘fizzling out’ of the Development. The harmony descends a third, from Ab to F minor, with a T°V'-I3 cadence over two bars in each key. Period 18 is the last period before the recapitulation of Theme 1a. (Oddly, the central portion of this period (bars 135-9) is itself a small recapitulation of material that was heard in Period 8, including the sequence on the Theme 2a motive in diminution, at original pitch. In the first three bars of this period the motion from a chord in first inversion to one in root position, begun in Period 17, is continued but compressed into one bar so that the sixth chord is on the second and the root position on the fourth beat of each bar. The harmony moves ftom F to Bb, then Db, Gb and E} before settling on Ab for four bars (as in Period 8). ‘As shown on the reduction, the music from the second beat of bar 135 to the downbeat of bar 139 is a restatement of bars 59-62, except for bar 136, in which the lower string parts and the second violin figuration are quite different from those in the corresponding bar 60. Even two of violin 1’s melody notes have been changed in this bar (Aj and Bb replace G} and Ab of the earlier state- ment). But, with the exception of the first two viola notes in bar 137, bars 137 and 138 are again an exact repetition, of bars 61 and 62.] Recaprrutarion? In the first view of the piece suggested earlier Period 19 is the recapitulation of ‘Theme 1a. [The statement is at pitch but begins only with the last three notes of bar 2, omitting the very important opening motive; two bars are given as in Period 1, then instead of the earlier continuation these bars are repeated in sequence a major third higher. There is an additional part this time: the flutes answer the ascending figure of the melody in inversion, stopping one note short of completion (on Ds, which should resolve to C in bar 141, and on F, which should continue on to E in bar 143). The last note of each of the flute figures is an appoggiatura and is doubled by violin 2 an octave lower, where it is an accented upper neighbour and supplies, upon its resolution, the note wanting in the flute.) Period 20 is built on the same two bars of Theme 1a, but now in canon. All (© Blackwell Poblsher Lid, 1999 Music Analysis, 181i (1999) This content downloaded from 186 104.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:19:39 UTC ‘Alluse subject to hips: /about ster argtermsBruckNer’s Way: THE ADAGIO OF THE NINTH SYMPHONY 31 voices move up by semitones throughout this period, except for the trombones and tubas, whose parts are angular, moving mostly in sevenths and ninths. The result of this upward chromatic motion in the canonic voices is that with very few exceptions (three, marked x on the reduction) only two types of chords — the dominant seventh and the diminished seventh — alternate throughout. The last two notes of the canon’s comes are missing at the end of the period. Period 21 (begins with the same four-note ascending figure from Theme la that has been heard throughout the last two periods, but the syncopation is removed to another voice, and the melody continues instead as it did in bars 6 and 7 of Period 1.] This material is repeated in an ascending minor-third se- quence, C-E}-Gy, the third stage of which is lengthened in order to delay the arrival on A, the key in which the next period begins. (Bach step of the sequence comprises chords I° and VJ. The flutes enter over chord I with the sixth degree of the major scale, which is then flattened (thus giving a minor inflection, though the major third remains in the horns) as a passing note going to the root of chord V on the last beat of the bar. This means that the note in the upper voice at the end of each step of the sequence (the root of a dominant seventh), instead of remaining the same, which would be possible (and perhaps would have been seen by Schoenberg as preferable, though outer voices are allowed special privileges), resolves, in the flutes, up @ fourth to the root of the chord that should follow (though when it gets there the harmony has changed, and the expected chord never occurs) and, in the clari- nets, down a third to the root of the chord that does follow. At the same time the seventh of each chord V’ ascends to the following chord, thus subverting its natural tendency for a descending resolution (even though such a resolution would also have been possible within the new chord). The leading note, played by oboe 1, does not resolve in either the oboe or the right octave: it must be seen as being resolved by the flutes an octave higher, though to all intents and purposes it seems to be left hanging in mid-air.] Period 22 begins with a string chorale. The harmony is mainly a third- progression interrupted cadence based on a modal mixture. The bracket over bars 156-7 identifies a significant reference toTheme 2a, the theme which was first heard at the start of Period 5 and has been important in the Development (see Periods 9, 10, 15 and 18). The motive in bars 156-7 begins with the same fourth as Theme 2a, but the descending interval following is a sixth instead of a third, and where the direction originally changed after the third, converging onto a tone, here the interval is wider (a fourth) and continues the descent, creating a very odd counterpoint to the changing harmonies [and in no in- stance progressing to the nearest note of the next chord. In fact this four-note figure is unique: it would seem to be the first two notes of the original Theme 2a immediately followed by these two notes inverted, this being the first time that inversion of this motive has been suggested.] This theme will continue to Music Analysis, 18/i (1999) © Blacewell Publishers Lid, 1999 This content downloaded from 186 104.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:19:39 UTC ‘Alluse subject to hips: /about ster argterms32 DERRICK PUFFETT be important (see Periods 25, 26 and 30), and henceforth it will be developed in inversion as well as in its original form. This causes confusion later, because the inverted form happens to be the same as the Miserere theme from Bruck- ner’s own Mass in D Minor, [which is quoted in Period 30). After four bars the chorale is repeated, in By minor, with a similar version of the Theme 2a phrase in the horns in bars 160-1, this time rising a seventh, descending a fifth and then ascending a tone, this last over a § chord of Gb major. The Ab, which moves up to By, forms an appoggiatura against the chord; the resolution upwards makes this second motive a closer imitation of the original Theme 2a in Period 5 than the first one was, since it retains both the original shape and the pro- gressive contraction of intervals, but the resolution of the dissonant note is odder than it was in (either the original, where it was the second note of a double neighbour-note figure, or] the version in bars 156-7, [in which there was no dissonant note]. Here the dissonance is approached by a downward leap of a fifth and is an unprepared appoggiatura which resolves in the wrong direction. In bars 61-2 the flutes play essentially the same figure they played in bar 154] - ‘pitch-specific imitation’ ~ [but with registral displacement of the last two notes, and an extension which takes the form of a Grail motive further expanded from the form it took at the end of Period 1.7") Period 23, (forming the end of the Development if one takes the view that there is a Reversed Recapitulation (and the double bar in the score at the end of this period would seem to reinforce this view), consists of a sequence, with the third (and last) statement extended through repetition. This period (prepa- ration for the Recapitulation of the Second Theme) is devoted exclusively to the opening motive of the First Theme, which is heard over and over, in low strings imitated by flutes and clarinet 1. The beginning of the motive is altered. by both protagonists: the strings (viola and cello) begin a whole tone lower than they should, making the first interval a diminished tenth rather than the al minor ninth, and the woodwind, imitating one bar later and two oc taves higher, omit this first note altogether. The imitation occurs under and around an oboe pedal, which describes a sequence of thirds from F# up to C42") The French sixth sonority is the prevailing harmony throughout this period (the last six bars are a prolongation of this harmony), and full use is made of the transformational possibilities of this uniquely symmetrical and slippery chord, as well as modal mixture in the chords of resolution. In each of the first two stages of the sequence the harmony moves from chord I (which is, introduced only briefly in both instances by the oboe pedal, with the fifth com- ing late in the bar after the chord change, and no third, though I think these must be understood as minor keys) to the French sixth in the same key(, which is also of course V\j/V. The first of these, in F# - (D, F4, Gf, Bi] in bars 163-5? = resolves onto $VI of V (A), in an interrupted cadence. The second, in A — [F, ABB, Df] in bars 1654-7! - is normalised in bar 166 when the woodwind (© Blackwell Pubisher Lid. 1999 Music Analysis, 181i (1999) This content downloaded from 186 104.182.218 on Sun, 16 Feb 2020 06:19:39 UTC ‘Alluse subject to hips: /about ster argterms