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Performer And Analyst In Dialogue: Edward T. Cone On 'attacking A Brahms Puzzle'

An analysis of how academia can be used to enhance performance

Date : 05/02/2015

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Niklas

Uploaded by : Niklas
Uploaded on : 05/02/2015
Subject : Music

M = Motif beginning with triplet upbeat to bar 1 A = Lyrical theme which can be seen in upper register, bars 1-4 B = Upper melodic line which can be seen bars 10-14 Mx = Melodic extension of motif M which can be seen upbeat to bar 33 C = Theme beginning upbeat into bar 37

Producing a structure which makes sense as a cohesive whole, in which events unfold based on logical processes, has been a primary goal of musical composers in the common practice era, and, in parallel to this, it is hopefully a performer's goal to produce something which represents this to audiences in a lucid and compelling manner. Edward T. Cone's essay on Brahm's Intermezzo Op. 116/4, Attacking a Brahms Puzzle, seems to me to be especially useful in helping a performer to achieve this: it is written in a way which appears to the practical musician as an exploration and dissection of structures which seem directly relevant to the world of sensual musical experience rather than a sterile handling of seemingly abstract academic forms: the subtitle states that Cone 'searches for the ideal interpretation of Brahms Op. 116 no. 4'. It becomes unequivocally clear that Cone wishes to clarify issues on performance in his conclusion: 'The test of the foregoing analysis lies, of course, in performance'. This seems to lie in contrast to many other essays dealing with Brahms' compositional techniques. Walter Frisch, for example, in his essay The shifting bar line: metrical displacement in Brahms seems to bypass altogether the role of performer in presenting the music while discussing audience perception. One example is his analysis of a passage in the first movement of Brahms' Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34. He states that the 'piano virtually creates its own independent 9/8 metre', and indeed the beamings and slur marks suggest just that. For Frisch, this constitutes a disorientating experience for audiences, who, he feels, have no way of discerning the notated bar line through these figurations. However, a performer who has been playing the last 80 bars or so in a 4/4 metre will no doubt, consciously or subconsiously, perceive the downbeat on the bar line - the tension between the figurations and metre is a device which Brahms uses at moments of formal significance, but without performers feeling the regular division against this anomaly the effect is lost and audiences will indeed feel completely disorientated and lose interest! Cone, by contrast, treats the material as subject to a performer's intent, and what's more, treats pianistic devices as integral to perception of form, or rhetoric. A problem he deals with is the lack of consummation of thematic material; his answer lies in interpretation of dynamic markings - or lack of them. He writes: 'in the the final fifteen bars all strands coalesce and acheive resolution' - and, for him, this 'final summation' must coincide with an appropriately momentous instrumental effect, which is at odds with the pp and una corda markings preceding the passage (which are not negated) and which belong to previous passages which have remained unresolved. His answer lies in the brilliance and textural expansion of the pianistic writing following these markings: 'the pianissimo una corda must apply to bar 58 alone... What follows it, however, returns to the line and pianistic layout of bar 57, which completing a cresendo, has arrived at forte. Does the return in bar 59 not require a similar or even higher level? That supposition is supported by the full right-hand chords of bar 60...' This leads onto a more overarching point: Cone, defining material in relation to, or against, other passages in the piece, and assessing the nature of cadences, sets up a model for how a pianist might develop a paradigmatic picture of the piece, creating a framework which offers the 'ambiguity resolved or successfully delimited' for which Cone is searching, making it more comprehensible to an audience. As well as the obvious radical innovation in terms of dynamic his analysis points to, one can use his techniques to achieve clear characterisations of lines and motifs on a small and large scale. Cone writes of Op. 116/4, 'the harmonic-tonal shape and the thematic design are puzzling'. As an instrumental player in the western classical tradition, it seems reasonable to assume that one attempts to generate a sense of direction in performance. For this purpose, it is essential to know what one is moving towards. A relevant idea was expressed by Robert Frost discussing the 'sound of sense' - the audible structure of a sentence conveys some kind of sense even if the meaning of individual words cannot be discerned. A sentence is, like a clothes washing line, strung between two points, the words are the clothes which hang from it. The ambiguity which Cone is seeking to resolve arises because it is not clear between which points one might string lines. In his introductory passage, Cone points out the strongly implied, unresolved turn towards the dominant at bar 49 as a primary source of confusion - not just for the analyst: playing or listening to the piece there is a sense of being left hanging in the air. Although Brahms references motif M (that beginning on the third beat of bar 49) with chromatic motion in the tenor register of the preceding bars, to prepare us for its return, it seems an interruption - one which 'aborts any chance of further development of theme C'. This is one of several instances where expected progress appears to be negated - rather than constructive elements building on each other, Cone sees thematic materials fighting each other for space, with interesting results: 'The encroachment of the reprise on the central section, together with that section's revenge by insisting on its own reprise, results in a work of unusual proportions.' Expectations are remoulded and disappointed: '...if the demands of theme A are so urgent as to justify its unexpected reprise, why is a dynamic culmination thwarted?' For a practical musician unused to analysing form, these might not appear as problems to be resolved, but, perhaps like a Stanley Kubrik movie, part of a series which is designed to leave audiences asking questions and find their own, perhaps more Romantically poetic, explanation. However, to Cone the analyst, this would clearly not be satisfactory, and his attempt to find the 'rhetorical form' of this intermezzo is a puzzle which will perhaps lead a performer to present a series of relations which resembles the cohesive whole for which Brahms is so renowned. Cone begins to 'make sense of these anomalies' by exploring the cadence concluding on iii almost precisely half way through the piece, ending the first section - strange, he observes, especially in a piece exhibiting tripartite strucure. Cone's observations in parentheses here on phrase strucure suggests an alternative organisation of characterisations to one which might be derived from the the antecedent + consequent + extending phrase structure which can readily be seen in the first part (as well as the helpful stratification his division of the first theme into its component parts, M and A, suggests). He groups the phrases of the first half using mid-point lines of symmetry, which immediately can be seen as a logical alternative, and convincing in terms of large-scale continuity. The first 18 bars are divided into phrases of 4, 5, 5, and 4 bars, the outer phrases in I, the inner two in V - a corresponding symmetry of characterisation is then called for. The next phrase of 18 bars to the mid-point can be characterised as an answer to the previous passage of corresponding length, modulating away from primary key areas, to the more adventurous territory of iii. Cone observes that the second half could also be bisected owing to shifts in tonal orientation, and 'If we allow the closing fermata to represent an 18th bar, the result is a quadripartite division of strict exactitude'. What would this mean for a performer? On a basic level, it enables one to break the piece into what is essentially an antecedent and consequent half, the first 'leaving home' i.e. tonic, the second returning to it. However, this would provide a rather basic picture of the piece as a full circle, and one which glosses over the apparent lack of thematic consummation Cone attempts to come to terms with. (But, using this interpretation, one can perhaps detect an element in the first part of the way material seems to assert its hold in the 'wrong' place later in the piece as for example theme A at bar 52, in the way the third phrase might be seen to assert its ownership of the second, rather than the second phrase acting as consequent to the first.) The feauture of Brahms' writing Cone explores next reminds us of the contradictions between different organisational patterns of Brahms' writing here: tonic pedals which are 'sometimes supportive of the one [tonal structure] just outlined, sometimes at odds with it'. Walter Frisch in his essay on metrical displacement quotes the art historian E. H. Gombrich: 'we cannot experience alternative readings at the same time'. However it seems a shame to dismiss one reading which yields some interesting ideas because another which seems more valid in some ways has come to light. Would it be possible to use Cone's observations to reconcile two different readings in performance? His comment that it is possible to hear 'tension between harmony implied by the motionless bass, and those outlined by the moving voices and chords above it' suggests a view that it is in fact possible to experience two different readings at the same time, yet his comment that 'discriminating performance' brings across either one or the other reading of bars 37-54 would appear to contradict this... First of all, Cone's observation that the total length of the tonic pedals comes to 36 bars, exactly the same length as the bisections, warrants consideration. Cone construes the ratio of the pedal lengths as 1:1:2:4. This reveals that the final tonic pedal, reinforcing a sense of 'home run', equals the length of the first three put together. This invites comparison with the idea of two bisections - one leading away from, the other returning to, home. The first two tonic pedals, bars 1-5, and bars 19-15, do in fact delimit the area of tonic, and the ending of this marks the point of symmetry discussed earlier. A consciousness on the part of the performer of the purpose of this returning E bass would certainly help delineate a structure. So far so good, but the complications Cone explores next, following bar 41, clearly do not admit such easy resolution. The tonic pedal here creates a harmonic base which could be construed as I or IV6/4, in a section we would like to be able to identify as in the dominant key! Cone chooses to read the passage as IV6/4 - how does this work, then, in relation to the function of V? (It is worth noting here that Cone partly justifies his interpretation of IV6/4 as independent of the tonic pedal through careful observation of performance markings: the distinction between legato and portamento in the left hand line.) Cone writes 'IV can be heard as functional, eventually leading through its relatives. to the brief restatement of V in bar 54.' A performer might choose, then, to place bars 41-54 in parentheses, as an insertion which displaces V from its rightful place. Again, we can see the way in which material seems to take a function which reaches beyond what one might expect in the parameters of this music - and like with the story of Faustus, the correct order must eventually be restored by some immanent will, even if without great ceremony! Cone goes on to show how this kind of interaction plays its role with the thematic elements. First of all he demonstrates that themes B and C are essentially variations of A. As mentioned previously, Cone notes the more explicit references to A and M which are injected into the theme C section (bars 44-48 and 64-66) which will clearly help the pianist establish a sense of continuity with the following material. Again, themes escape a strictly defined place: 'themes spill over into one another'. Cone's next observation can be seen again as an example of material interrupting: he identifies bar 58 as a reference to theme C, breaking up the expansion of motif M. Here, however, is an instance which clearly defines a process central to the conception of the piece: this kind of 'interruption' or interpolation as at bar 58, which I have previously described as leaving a sense of halted progress, is in fact an element which can be construed as central to constructive progress, forming a bridge over the gap separating materials which are naturally attracted to one another - in this case the theme C 'aborted' by the chromaticism of bars 44-48, and its reprise at bar bar 61. So what more superficially appears as conflict can in fact be identified as parallel processes of development in various layers of material: the triplet formation of theme B lets it be seen as an elaboration of motif M, so bar 67 feels connected to 59 notwithstanding the insertion of theme C in between. Cone goes into more detail on how one might project continuity onto a design which often seems broken up. To return to bar 58, he writes that 'The interpolated bar, however, is more than just a bridge between the two statements', but takes the place of a feminine cadence which should have occurred in bar 44. This reading would place bars 44-58 in parentheses, which conflicts with, and perhaps seems more convincing than, the reading based on a rather generalized tonal structure discussed earlier. Cone goes on to show how theme A is developed in parallel to theme C by indentifying bars 64-67 as a continuation of theme A. He writes that the audible result is 'a unified peroration interlocking the two themes in a single melodic-harmonic line'. He then demonstrates the 'ubiquitous triple phrasing', how each theme can be found in three sections, mutually dividing each other, woven together and developing in parallel. In this approach can be found the ideal solution to creating a paradigmatic design of characterizations in performance: themes A, B, Mx and C unfold alongside each other like four differently coloured pieces of cord, culminating in the elaborate knot which is bars 60-71 (hence the necessity for Cone that there should be found here a 'dynamic culmination'. Hopefully this essay demonstrates how Cone's analysis enhances a performer's perception and presentation of this piece, and while giving alternative and contrasting ideas, enhances the definition of Brahms' compositional techniques in the pianist's eyes. The dialogue between performer and analyst here indeed proves to be 'interesting and fruitful'!

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